The policy of the new French government was defined by Jules Favre on
the 6th of September. "It is for the king of Prussia, who has declared
that he is making war on the Empire and not on France, to stay his hand;
we shall not cede an inch of our territory or a stone of our
fortresses." These proud words, so often ridiculed as empty bombast,
were the prelude of a national effort which re-established France in the
eyes of Europe as a great power, even though provinces and fortresses
were ceded in the peace that that effort proved unable to avert. They
were translated into action by Leon Gambetta, who escaped from Paris in
a balloon on the 7th of October, and established the headquarters of the
defence at Tours, where already the "Delegation" of the central
government--which had decided to remain in Paris--had concentrated the
machinery of government. Thenceforward Gambetta and his principal
assistant de Freycinet directed the whole war in the open country,
co-ordinating it, as best they could with the precarious means of
communication at their disposal, with Trochu's military operations in
and round the capital. His critics--Gambetta's personality was such as
to ensure him numerous enemies among the higher civil and military
officials, over whom, in the interests of _La Patrie_, he rode
rough-shod--have acknowledged the fact, which is patent enough in any
case, that nothing but Gambetta's driving energy enabled France in a few
weeks to create and to equip twelve army corps, representing thirty-six
divisions (600,000 rifles and 1400 guns), after all her organized
regular field troops had been destroyed or neutralized. But it is
claimed that by undue interference with the generals at the front, by
presuming to dictate their plans of campaign, and by forcing them to act
when the troops were unready, Gambetta and de Freycinet nullified the
efforts of themselves and the rest of the nation and subjected France
to a humiliating treaty of peace. We cannot here discuss the justice or
injustice of such a general condemnation, or even whether in individual
instances Gambetta trespassed too far into the special domain of the
soldier. But even the brief narrative given below must at least suggest
to the reader the existence amongst the generals and higher officials of
a dead weight of passive resistance to the Delegation's orders, of
unnecessary distrust of the qualities of the improvised troops, and
above all of the utter fear of responsibility that twenty years of
literal obedience had bred. The closest study of the war cannot lead to
any other conclusion than this, that whether or not Gambetta as a
strategist took the right course in general or in particular cases, no
one else would have taken any course whatever.
On the approach of the enemy Paris hastened its preparations for defence
to the utmost, while in the provinces, out of reach of the German
cavalry, new army corps were rapidly organized out of the few
constituted regular units not involved in the previous catastrophes, the
depot troops and the mobile national guard. The first-fruits of these
efforts were seen in Beauce, where early in October important masses of
French troops prepared not only to bar the further progress of the
invader but actually to relieve Paris. The so-called "fog of war"--the
armed inhabitants, francs-tireurs, sedentary national guard and
volunteers--prevented the German cavalry from venturing far out from the
infantry camps around Paris, and behind this screen the new 15th army
corps assembled on the Loire. But an untimely demonstration of force
alarmed the Germans, all of whom, from Moltke downwards, had hitherto
disbelieved in the existence of the French new formations, and the still
unready 15th corps found itself the target of an expedition of the I.
Bavarian corps, which drove the defenders out of Orleans after a sharp
struggle, while at the same time another expedition swept the western
part of Beauce, sacked Chateaudun as a punishment for its brave defence,
and returned via Chartres, which was occupied.
After these events the French forces disappeared from German eyes for
some weeks. D'Aurelle de Paladines, the commander of the "Army of the
Loire" (15th and 16th corps), improvised a camp of instruction at
Salbris in Sologne, several marches out of reach, and subjected his raw
troops to a stern regime of drill and discipline. At the same time an
"Army of the West" began to gather on the side of Le Mans. This army was
almost imaginary, yet rumours of its existence and numbers led the
German commanders into the gravest errors, for they soon came to suspect
that the main army lay on that side and not on the Loire, and this
mistaken impression governed the German dispositions up to the very eve
of the decisive events around Orleans in December. Thus when at last
D'Aurelle took the offensive from Tours (whither he had transported his
forces, now 100,000 strong) against the position of the I. Bavarian
corps near Orleans, he found his task easy. The Bavarians, outnumbered
and unsupported, were defeated with heavy losses in the battle of
Coulmiers (November 9), and, had it not been for the inexperience, want
of combination, and other technical weaknesses of the French, they would
have been annihilated. What the results of such a victory as Coulmiers
might have been, had it been won by a fully organized, smoothly working
army of the same strength, it is difficult to overestimate. As it was,
the retirement of the Bavarians rang the alarm bell all along the line
of the German positions, and that was all.
Then once again, instead of following up its success, the French army
disappeared from view. The victory had emboldened the "fog of war" to
make renewed efforts, and resistance to the pressure of the German
cavalry grew day by day. The Bavarians were reinforced by two Prussian
divisions and by all available cavalry commands, and constituted as an
"army detachment" under the grand-duke Friedrich Franz of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin to deal with the Army of the Loire, the strength of
which was far from being accurately known. Meantime the capitulation of
Metz on the 28th of October had set free the veterans of Prince
Frederick Charles, the best troops in the German army, for field
operations. The latter were at first misdirected to the upper Seine, and
yet another opportunity arose for the French to raise the siege of
Paris. But D'Aurelle utilized the time he had gained in strengthening
the army and in imparting drill and discipline to the new units which
gathered round the original nucleus of the 15th and 16th corps. All this
was, however, unknown and even unsuspected at the German headquarters,
and the invaders, feeling the approaching crisis, became more than
uneasy as to their prospects of maintaining the siege of Paris.
The Orleans campaign.
At this moment, in the middle of November, the general situation was as
follows: the German III. and Meuse armies, investing Paris, had had to
throw off important detachments to protect the enterprise, which they
had undertaken on the assumption that no further field armies of the
enemy were to be encountered. The maintenance of their communications
with Germany, relatively unimportant when the struggle took place in the
circumstances of field warfare, had become supremely necessary, now that
the army had come to a standstill and undertaken a great siege, which
required heavy guns and constant replenishment of ammunition and stores.
The rapidity of the German invasion had left no time for the proper
organization and full garrisoning of these communications, which were
now threatened, not merely by the Army of the Loire, but by other forces
assembling on the area protected by Langres and Belfort. The latter,
under General Cambriels, were held in check and no more by the Baden
troops and reserve units (XIV. German corps) under General Werder, and
eventually without arousing attention they were able to send 40,000 men
to the Army of the Loire. This army, still around Orleans, thus came to
number perhaps 150,000 men, and opposed to it, about the 14th of
November, the Germans had only the Army Detachment of about 40,000, the
II. army being still distant. It was under these conditions that the
famous Orleans campaign took place. After many vicissitudes of fortune,
and with many misunderstandings between Prince Frederick Charles, Moltke
and the grand-duke, the Germans were ultimately victorious, thanks
principally to the brilliant fighting of the X. corps at
Beaune-la-Rolande (28th of November), which was followed by the battle
of Loigny-Poupry on the 2nd of December and the second capture of
Orleans after heavy fighting on the 4th of December.
The result of the capture of Orleans was the severance of the two wings
of the French army, henceforward commanded respectively by Chanzy and
Bourbaki. The latter fell back at once and hastily, though not closely
pursued, to Bourges. But Chanzy, opposing the Detachment between
Beaugency and the Forest of Marchenoir, was of sterner metal, and in the
five days' general engagement around Beaugency (December 7-11) the
Germans gained little or no real advantage. Indeed their solitary
material success, the capture of Beaugency, was due chiefly to the fact
that the French there were subjected to conflicting orders from the
military and the governmental authorities. Chanzy then abandoned little
but the field of battle, and on the grand-duke's representations Prince
Frederick Charles, leaving a mere screen to impose upon Bourbaki (who
allowed himself to be deceived and remained inactive), hurried thither
with the II. army. After that Chanzy was rapidly driven north-westward,
though always presenting a stubborn front. The Delegation left Tours and
betook itself to Bordeaux, whence it directed the government for the
rest of the war. But all this continuous marching and fighting, and the
growing severity of the weather, compelled Prince Frederick Charles to
call a halt for a few days. About the 19th of December, therefore, the
Germans (II. army and Detachment) were closed up in the region of
Chartres, Orleans, Auxerre and Fontainebleau, Chanzy along the river
Sarthe about Le Mans and Bourbaki still passive towards Bourges.
During this, as during other halts, the French government and its
generals occupied themselves with fresh plans of campaign, the former
with an eager desire for results, the latter (Chanzy excepted) with many
misgivings. Ultimately, and fatally, it was decided that Bourbaki, whom
nothing could move towards Orleans, should depart for the south-east,
with a view to relieving Belfort and striking perpendicularly against
the long line of the Germans' communications. This movement, bold to the
point of extreme rashness judged by any theoretical rules of strategy,
seems to have been suggested by de Freycinet. As the execution of it
fell actually into incapable hands, it is difficult to judge what would
have been the result had a Chanzy or a Faidherbe been in command of the
French. At any rate it was vicious in so far as immediate advantages
were sacrificed to hopes of ultimate success which Gambetta and de
Freycinet did wrong to base on Bourbaki's powers of generalship. Late in
December, for good or evil, Bourbaki marched off into Franche-Comte and
ceased to be a factor in the Loire campaign. A mere calculation of time
and space sufficed to show the German headquarters that the moment had
arrived to demolish the stubborn Chanzy.
Le Mans.
Prince Frederick Charles resumed the interrupted offensive, pushing
westward with four corps and four cavalry divisions which converged on
Le Mans. There on the 10th, 11th and 12th of January 1871 a stubbornly
contested battle ended with the retreat of the French, who owed their
defeat solely to the misbehaviour of the Breton mobiles. These, after
deserting their post on the battlefield at a mere threat of the enemy's
infantry, fled in disorder and infected with their terrors the men in
the reserve camps of instruction, which broke up in turn. But Chanzy,
resolute as ever, drew off his field army intact towards Laval, where a
freshly raised corps joined him. The prince's army was far too exhausted
to deliver another effective blow, and the main body of it gradually
drew back into better quarters, while the grand duke departed for the
north to aid in opposing Faidherbe. Some idea of the strain to which the
invaders had been subjected may be gathered from the fact that army
corps, originally 30,000 strong, were in some cases reduced to 10,000
and even fewer bayonets. And at this moment Bourbaki was at the head of
120,000 men! Indeed, so threatening seemed the situation on the Loire,
though the French south of that river between Gien and Blois were mere
isolated brigades, that the prince hurried back from Le Mans to Orleans
to take personal command. A fresh French corps, bearing the number 25,
and being the twenty-first actually raised during the war, appeared in
the field towards Blois. Chanzy was again at the head of 156,000 men. He
was about to take the offensive against the 40,000 Germans left near Le
Mans when to his bitter disappointment he received the news of the
armistice. "We have still France," he had said to his staff, undeterred
by the news of the capitulation of Paris, but now he had to submit, for
even if his improvised army was still cheerful, there were many
significant tokens that the people at large had sunk into apathy and
hoped to avoid worse terms of peace by discontinuing the contest at
once.
So ended the critical period of the "Defense nationale." It may be taken
to have lasted from the day of Coulmiers to the last day of Le Mans, and
its central point was the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande. Its
characteristics were, on the German side, inadequacy of the system of
strategy practised, which became palpable as soon as the organs of
reconnaissance met with serious resistance, misjudgment of and indeed
contempt for the fighting powers of "new formations," and the rise of a
spirit of ferocity in the man in the ranks, born of his resentment at
the continuance of the war and the ceaseless sniping of the
franc-tireur's rifle and the peasant's shot-gun. On the French side the
continual efforts of the statesmen to stimulate the generals to decisive
efforts, coupled with actual suggestions as to the plans of the campaign
to be followed (in default, be it said, of the generals themselves
producing such plans), and the professional soldiers' distrust of
half-trained troops, acted and reacted upon one another in such a way as
to neutralize the powerful, if disconnected and erratic, forces that the
war and the Republic had unchained. As for the soldiers themselves,
their most conspicuous qualities were their uncomplaining endurance of
fatigues and wet bivouacs, and in action their capacity for a single
great effort and no more. But they were unreliable in the hands of the
veteran regular general, because they were heterogeneous in recruiting,
and unequal in experience and military qualities, and the French staff
in those days was wholly incapable of moving masses of troops with the
rapidity demanded by the enemy's methods of war, so that on the whole it
is difficult to know whether to wonder more at their missing success or
at their so nearly achieving it.
The decision, as we have said, was fought out on the Loire and the
Sarthe. Nevertheless the glorious story of the "Defense nationale"
includes two other important campaigns--that of Faidherbe in the north
and that of Bourbaki in the east.
Faidherbe's campaign.
In the north the organization of the new formations was begun by Dr
Testelin and General Farre. Bourbaki held the command for a short time
in November before proceeding to Tours, but the active command in field
operations came into the hands of Faidherbe, a general whose natural
powers, so far from being cramped by years of peace routine and court
repression, had been developed by a career of pioneer warfare and
colonial administration. General Farre was his capable chief of staff.
Troops were raised from fugitives from Metz and Sedan, as well as from
depot troops and the Garde Mobile, and several minor successes were won
by the national troops in the Seine valley, for here, as on the side of
the Loire, mere detachments of the investing army round Paris were
almost powerless. But the capitulation of Metz came too soon for the
full development of these sources of military strength, and the German
I. army under Manteuffel, released from duty at Metz, marched
north-eastward, capturing the minor fortresses on its way. Before
Faidherbe assumed command, Farre had fought several severe actions near
Amiens, but, greatly outnumbered, had been defeated and forced to retire
behind the Somme. Another French general, Briand, had also engaged the
enemy without success near Rouen. Faidherbe assumed the command on the
3rd of December, and promptly moved forward. A general engagement on the
little river Hallue (December 23), east-north-east of Amiens, was fought
with no decisive results, but Faidherbe, feeling that his troops were
only capable of winning victories in the first rush, drew them off on
the 24th. His next effort, at Bapaume (January 2-3, 1871), was more
successful, but its effects were counterbalanced by the surrender of the
fortress of Peronne (January 9) and the consequent establishment of the
Germans on the line of the Somme. Meanwhile the Rouen troops had been
contained by a strong German detachment, and there was no further chance
of succouring Paris from the north. But Faidherbe, like Chanzy, was far
from despair, and in spite of the deficiencies of his troops in
equipment (50,000 pairs of shoes, supplied by English contractors,
proved to have paper soles), he risked a third great battle at St
Quentin (January 19). This time he was severely defeated, though his
loss in killed and wounded was about equal to that of the Germans, who
were commanded by Goeben. Still the attempt of the Germans to surround
him failed and he drew off his forces with his artillery and trains
unharmed. The Germans, who had been greatly impressed by the solidity of
his army, did not pursue him far, and Faidherbe was preparing for a
fresh effort when he received orders to suspend hostilities.
The last episode is Bourbaki's campaign in the east, with its mournful
close at Pontarlier. Before the crisis of the last week of November, the
French forces under General Cremer, Cambriels' successor, had been so
far successful in minor enterprises that, as mentioned above, the right
wing of the Loire army, severed from the left by the battle of Orleans
and subsequently held inactive at Bourges and Nevers, was ordered to
Franche Comte to take the offensive against the XIV. corps and other
German troops there, to relieve Belfort and to strike a blow across the
invaders' line of communications. But there were many delays in
execution. The staff work, which was at no time satisfactory in the
French armies of 1870, was complicated by the snow, the bad state of the
roads, and the mountainous nature of the country, and Bourbaki, a brave
general of division in action, but irresolute and pretentious as a
commander in chief, was not the man to cope with the situation. Only the
furious courage and patient endurance of hardships of the rank and file,
and the good qualities of some of the generals, such as Clinchant,
Cremer and Billot, and junior staff officers such as Major Brugere
(afterwards generalissimo of the French army), secured what success was
attained.
The campaign in the East.
Werder, the German commander, warned of the imposing concentration of
the French, evacuated Dijon and Dole just in time to avoid the blow and
rapidly drew together his forces behind the Ognon above Vesoul. A
furious attack on one of his divisions at Villersexel (January 9) cost
him 2000 prisoners as well as his killed and wounded, and Bourbaki,
heading for Belfort, was actually nearer to the fortress than the
Germans. But at the crisis more time was wasted, Werder (who had almost
lost hope of maintaining himself and had received both encouragement and
stringent instructions to do so) slipped in front of the French, and
took up a long weak line of defence on the river Lisaine, almost within
cannon shot of Belfort. The cumbrous French army moved up and attacked
him there with 150,000 against 60,000 (January 15-17, 1871). It was at
last repulsed, thanks chiefly to Bourbaki's inability to handle his
forces, and, to the bitter disappointment of officers and men alike, he
ordered a retreat, leaving Belfort to its fate.
Ere this, so urgent was the necessity of assisting Werder, Manteuffel
had been placed at the head of a new Army of the South. Bringing two
corps from the I. army opposing Faidherbe and calling up a third from
the armies around Paris, and a fourth from the II. army, Manteuffel
hurried southward by Langres to the Saone. Then, hearing of Werder's
victory on the Lisaine, he deflected the march so as to cut off
Bourbaki's retreat, drawing off the left flank guard of the latter
(commanded with much _eclat_ and little real effect by Garibaldi) by a
sharp feint attack on Dijon. The pressure of Werder in front and
Manteuffel in flank gradually forced the now thoroughly disheartened
French forces towards the Swiss frontier, and Bourbaki, realizing at
once the ruin of his army and his own incapacity to re-establish its
efficiency, shot himself, though not fatally, on the 26th of January.
Clinchant, his successor, acted promptly enough to remove the immediate
danger, but on the 29th he was informed of the armistice without at the
same time being told that Belfort and the eastern theatre of war had
been on Jules Favre's demand expressly excepted from its operation.[5]
Thus the French, the leaders distracted by doubts and the worn-out
soldiers fully aware that the war was practically over, stood still,
while Manteuffel completed his preparations for hemming them in. On the
1st of February General Clinchant led his troops into Switzerland, where
they were disarmed, interned and well cared for by the authorities of
the neutral state. The rearguard fought a last action with the advancing
Germans before passing the frontier. On the 16th, by order of the French
government, Belfort capitulated, but it was not until the 11th of March
that the Germans took possession of Bitche, the little fortress on the
Vosges, where in the early days of the war de Failly had illustrated so
signally the want of concerted action and the neglect of opportunities
which had throughout proved the bane of the French armies.
The losses of the Germans during the whole war were 28,000 dead and
101,000 wounded and disabled, those of the French, 156,000 dead (17,000
of whom died, of sickness and wounds, as prisoners in German hands) and
143,000 wounded and disabled. 720,000 men surrendered to the Germans or
to the authorities of neutral states, and at the close of the war there
were still 250,000 troops on foot, with further resources not
immediately available to the number of 280,000 more. In this connexion,
and as evidence of the respective numerical yields of the German system
working normally and of the French improvised for the emergency, we
quote from Berndt (_Zahl im Kriege_) the following comparative
figures:--
End of July French 250,000, Germans 384,000 under arms.
Middle of November " 600,000 " 425,000 "
After the surrender
of Paris and the
disarmament of
Bourbaki's army " 534,000 " 835,000 "
The date of the armistice was the 28th of January, and that of the
ratification of the treaty of Frankfurt the 23rd of May 1871.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The literature of the war is ever increasing in volume,
and the following list only includes a very short selection made
amongst the most important works.
_General._--German official history, _Der deutsch-franzoesische Krieg_
(Berlin, 1872-1881; English and French translations); monographs of
the German general staff (_Kriegsgesch. Einzelschriften_); Moltke,
_Gesch. des deutsch-franzoes. Krieges_ (Berlin, 1891; English
translation) and _Gesammelte Schriften des G. F. M. Grafen v. Moltke_
(Berlin, 1900- ); French official history, _La Guerre de 1870-1871_
(Paris, 1902- ) (the fullest and most accurate account); P.
Lehautcourt (General Palat), _Hist. de la guerre de 1870-1871_ (Paris,
1901-1907); v. Verdy du Vernois, _Studien ueber den Krieg ... auf
Grundlage_ 1870-1871 (Berlin, 1892-1896); G. Cardinal von Widdern,
_Kritische Tage 1870-1871_ (French translation, _Journees critiques_).
Events preceding the war are dealt with in v. Bernhardi, _Zwischen
zwei Kriegen_; Baron Stoffel, _Rapports militaires_ 1866-1870 (Paris,
1871; English translation); G. Lehmann, _Die Mobilmachung_ 1870-1871
(Berlin, 1905).
For the war in Lorraine: Prince Kraft of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen,
_Briefe ueber Strategie_ (English translation, _Letters on Strategy_);
F. Foch, _Conduite de la guerre_, pt. ii.; H. Bonnal, _Manoeuvre de
Saint Privat_ (Paris, 1904-1906); Maistre, _Spicheren_ (Paris, 1908);
v. Schell, _Die Operationen der I. Armee unter Gen. von Steinmetz_
(Berlin, 1872; English translation); F. Hoenig, _Taktik der Zukunft_
(English translation), and _24 Stunden Moltke'schen Strategie_
(Berlin, 1892; English and French translations).
For the war in Alsace and Champagne: H. Kunz, _Schlacht von Woerth_
(Berlin, 1891), and later works by the same author; H. Bonnal,
_Froeschweiler_ (Paris, 1899); Hahnke, _Die Operationen des III. Armee
bis Sedan_ (Berlin, 1873; French translation).
For the war in the Provinces: v. der Goltz, _Leon Gambetta und seine
Armeen_ (Berlin, 1877); _Die Operationen der II. Armee an die Loire_
(Berlin, 1875); _Die sieben Tage von Le Mans_ (Berlin, 1873); Kunz,
_Die Zusammensetzung der franzoes. Provinzialheeren_; de Freycinet, _La
Guerre en province_ (Paris, 1871); L. A. Hale, _The People's War_
(London, 1904); Hoenig, _Volkskrieg an die Loire_ (Berlin, 1892);
Blume, _Operationen v. Sedan bis zum Ende d. Kriegs_ (Berlin, 1872;
English translation); v. Schell, _Die Operationen der I. Armee unter
Gen. v. Goeben_ (Berlin, 1873; English translation); Count
Wartensleben, _Feldzug der Nordarmee unter Gen. v. Manteuffel_
(Berlin, 1872), _Operationen der Sudarmee_ (Berlin, 1872; English
translation); Faidherbe, _Campagne de l'armee du nord_ (Paris, 1872).
For the sieges: Frobenius, _Kriegsgesch. Beispiele d. Festungskriegs
aus d. deutsch.-franz. Kg._ (Berlin, 1899-1900); Goetze, _Taetigkeit
der deutschen Ingenieuren_ (Berlin, 1871; English translation).
The most useful bibliography is that of General Palat ("P.
Lehautcourt"). (C. F. A.)