THE DEFENCE OF THE EAST
General Joffre’s Instruction of September 1 had prescribed that the
whole offensive should pivot upon the right. The defence of the eastern
front, as a wall protecting the western and central armies, and the
pivot of their recoil——essential condition of the general success——was
assigned to Generals de Castelnau and Dubail. The 2nd and 1st Armies
had been severely punished at the outset of the campaign; and,
evidently, a heavy task now lay before them. The second of the German
princes, Ruprecht of Bavaria, with the last corps of the Bavarian
Army, could not be given other than a principal rôle; and Heeringen,
chief of the 7th Army, Prussian War Minister during a critical part
of the period of preparation, was also a veteran of the Grand Staff,
with which he had worked for more than thirty years. On September 6,
the Grand Quartier General specified that Castlenau and Dubail should
remain on their positions defensively till the end of the battle of
the Marne. We have seen that, after the failure of the offensives of
Morhange–Sarrebourg and Mulhouse, the two armies retreated rapidly,
but in such a way that, taking up an angular formation from the Grand
Couronné of Nancy southward to the Gap of Charmes, and thence eastward
to the Donon, they were able, on August 25, to fall upon the two
flanks of the advancing enemy with instant effect. There was then a
pause, due in part to heavy fogs, for several days, in which either
side prepared for a new encounter.
The circumstances differed considerably from those in the west. For
their abortive offensives, the two armies had been given a distinct
superiority of force on the eastern frontier; but, after the successful
defence of the Gap of Charmes, this superiority had been drawn upon
repeatedly by the Generalissimo to feed his main design. Thus,
Castlenau had sent from the 2nd Army: on August 15, the 18th Corps, to
Lanrezac, for the advance to the Sambre; on August 18 and September 4,
the 9th Corps, to the 4th Army, from which it was detached to Foch’s
Army of the centre; on September 3, the 15th Corps, to Sarrail; and on
September 1, the greater part of the 2nd Cavalry Corps, to the space
between the British and French 5th Armies. At the same time, Dubail,
while absorbing gradually the body of Pau’s “Army of Alsace,” sent the
21st Corps, on September 4, to Langle’s left, and the 13th Corps, on
September 9, to the region of Compiègne for the battle of the Aisne;
after which, in the middle of September, when the great victory had
been won, the 1st Army took over the whole of the Nancy front from
the 2nd Army. These deplacements were necessary, and remarkably timed
and executed; but they represent a not inconsiderable diminution of
effective strength at a grave juncture. To compensate for their losses,
the High Command could only send to the Lorraine Armies divisions
of reserves. Their performance surpassed all French, and rather
justified German, anticipations. It is, however, to be remarked that
the opposed forces of the Bavarian Crown Prince and Heeringen underwent
a similar transformation. In addition to their reserve divisions,
they received between them, at the end of August and the beginning of
September, something like 100,000 men of the Ersatz and Landwehr. An
Ersatz Division of the Guard was engaged near Lunéville, and Bavarian
and Saxon Ersatz Divisions appeared on the Upper Meurthe. A large
part of the Bavarian and Rhenish Landwehr was also used in Lorraine.
Heeringen’s Army, itself constituted in Alsace, moved northward after
Dubail, and, when arrested on the Upper Mortagne and the Northern
Vosges, detached two of its corps to the Bavarian Army for the crucial
attack on the Grand Couronné. Metz, Strasbourg, and the garrison towns
of Alsace were used as reservoirs on the German side, just as were
Toul, Epinal, and Belfort on the French, until both antagonists had
drawn their last possible reinforcement, and the invasion failed by
exhaustion.
For the actions now to be followed, the opposed forces, from north to
south, were as follows:
2nd ARMY (General de CASTELNAU). VI ARMY (CROWN PRINCE OF
BAVARIA).
_73rd Division Reserve_ (General
Chatelain). _33rd Division Reserve._
From Toul. In the Moselle valley, From Metz, for the
south of Pont-à-Mousson. movement in the
Woevre. South of
_2nd Group of Divisions of Reserve_ Pont-à-Mousson.
(General Leon Durand).
_2 or 3 Landwehr
59th, 68th (General Aubignose), Divisions_, south of
70th (General Fayolle). From Ste. Nomeny.
Geneviève to near Réméréville, the
centre of the Nancy front. _II Bavarian Corps_
(General von Martini).
_64th Division Reserve_ (General
Compagnon). Supporting the 70th Between the Sanon and
before Nancy. the Vezouse.
_20th Corps_ (General Balfourier, _Guard Ersatz Division._
succeeding General Foch).
_III Bavarian Corps_
39th and 11th Divisions, with a (General von
Colonial brigade attached. Across Gebsattel).
the Sanon, from Haraucourt to near
Vitrimont. Between the Seille and
the Sanon.
_74th Division Reserve_ (General
Bigot). _XXI Corps._
Astride the Mortagne, from Mont to Between the Meurthe and
Xermamenil. the Mortagne.
_16th Corps_ (General Taverna). _I Bavarian Corps_
(General von Xylander).
32nd and 31st Divisions. On the
Mortagne, between Einvaux and _I Bavarian Corps
Gerbéviller. Reserve_ (General von
Fasbender).
1st ARMY (General DUBAIL). VII ARMY (General von
HEERINGEN, till the
_8th Corps_ (General de Castelli), night of September 6).
with 8 groups of Alpinist reserves
added. From Gerbéviller southward. _XIV Corps_ (General von
Hoeningen).
_6th Cavalry Division._
West of Baccarat.
Till September 8.
_XIV Corps Reserve._
_18th Corps_ (General Alix).
Both the above were
At the centre, till September 10. transferred to the VI
Army on September 6.
_58th Division Reserve._
_XV Corps_ (General von
_57th Division Reserve_ (General Deimling).
Bernard).
Detached, September 7,
_71st Division Reserve._ with Heeringen, to the
Aisne.
In support, south of Bruyères.
_XV Corps Reserve._
_14th Corps._
At first only the 30th
West of the St. Dié valley. Division Reserve;
later the 39th
_44th Division_ (General Soyer). Division Reserve
arrived. In the St.
From the Army of Alsace. Dié valley.
_41st Division._ _Ersatz and Landwehr
Brigades._
South of St. Dié and east of the
Meurthe.
Uncertainty as to some German units, and the continual transfer on
both sides, make an accurate comparison of strength impossible. M.
Hanotaux[73] estimates the French forces at their maximum at 532,000,
and the German at 530,000 men. This was during the battle of the Gap
of Charmes, and at the end of August. On September 4, Castlenau had
lost 70,000 men or more, and the 1st Army was similarly reduced in
the following days. On the other hand, Heeringen took the 15th Corps
with him to the Aisne on September 7. It is probable that, during the
crucial struggle before the Grand Couronné, Castlenau was considerably
outnumbered; and the French were markedly inferior in artillery, even
when the heavy fortress guns had been brought into the field.
So long as they stood on the defensive, however, the French had
the great advantage of a range of positions naturally formidable,
and improved by some passable field-works. General de Curières
de Castlenau, a particular star of the old aristocratic-military
school, was unorthodox in one vital matter. In a study written in the
spring of 1914,[74] he had concluded that the French concentration
would be completed as soon as, or a little sooner than, the German.
Nevertheless, he had declared for the strategical defensive; and,
foreseeing a decisive battle on the Grand Couronné, the heights
bordering the Gap of Charmes, and the west bank of the Mortagne, he
had planned, for when the German attack should be worn down, the
reaction north and south of the Forest of Vitremont which he was
actually to conduct some months later. In this, Castlenau was one
of the far-sighted few. The defensive idea favoured in the period
when the military inferiority of France was most acutely felt had
sunk into disrepute. “The system of offensive strategy, of ‘striking
out,’ gained adepts, especially among the young officers,” says M.
Hanotaux. “Certainly the system of a waiting strategy had not lost
all its partisans: General de Castlenau represented a strong and
reasoned doctrine when he advocated, for the east in particular, the
offensive-defensive, and the preparation of a stand on the Meurthe at
the outset, then on the Mortagne.” He was overborne in favour of the
daring and gifted lieutenant and teacher who, in 1900, had insisted
that “movement is the law of strategy,” that the shock must be sought,
not waited for, and that, “in a war with Germany, we must go to Berlin
by way of Mayence.”[75] Instead of leading to Mayence and Berlin, the
French march upon Morhange and Sarrebourg had led back to the Gap of
Charmes and the Grand Couronné. Tragically justified, Castlenau now had
his chance. For the first time, the invaders found themselves faced by
entrenchments, wire-fields, gun-pits, and observatories prepared as
well as the time available had allowed.
Such a line, extending 60 miles from near Pont-à-Mousson to the
north-western spurs of the Vosges, might well have followed straightly
the high western banks of the Moselle, Meurthe, and Mortagne, having
the fortresses of Toul and Epinal close behind. The abandonment of
the beautiful city of Nancy——a garrison town, but in no sense a
fortress——had usually been contemplated in the event of war: that is,
perhaps, why the Kaiser so ostentatiously prepared for his ceremonial
entry. Castelnau was resolved against this sacrifice. No positions,
he thought, could be better defended than the crescent of hills
called the Grand Couronné, of which the two horns point north-east
from Nancy and the Meurthe, as though in anticipation, the northern
horn ending in the twin mounts of Amance (410 and 370 metres), and
the southern in a ridge extending from the Rambétant (330 m.) to the
Bois de Crevic (251 m.); while the space between the tips is covered
by the forest-plateau of Champenoux. On the north, the Nancy crescent
is supported by the Moselle Heights, from La Rochette (406 m.), above
Bouxières, to Sainte Geneviève (382 m.); and the river is closed in by
sharp and thickly-wooded slopes on both banks. On the south, beyond
the River Sanon, the crescent is extended by the hills of Flainval and
Anthelupt, and, within a wide loop of the Meurthe, by the great bulk of
Vitrimont Forest, reaching near to the large town of Lunéville. Farther
south, Dubail’s divisions stretched along the high western bank of the
Mortagne, and then, at an obtuse angle from Rambervillers, into the
passes of the Vosges giving upon Raon-l’Etape and St. Dié.
We will follow the attack as it came up from this southern region,
beginning with what must be regarded as a heavy demonstration
preparatory and secondary to the chief affair, that of the Grand
Couronné. After the failure to penetrate the Gap of Charmes, Heeringen
had been charged to break through, or to make a feint of breaking
through, the French 1st Army toward Epinal. Reinforced by the 41st
and 44th Divisions and four divisions of reserves, Dubail was well
resisting this pressure when, on September 4, he was required to give
up his 21st Corps. At the same time, Heeringen’s XIV Corps and other
troops, from the valley of the Upper Meurthe, made a desperate effort
to force the two mountain ways by which alone large bodies of men could
reach the Moselle valley from the northern Vosges, namely, the road
from Raon-l’Etape across the Col de la Chipote to Rambervillers, and
thence to Charmes or Epinal by easy routes; and the road from St. Dié,
through the mountain Forest of the Mortagne, to Bruyères, and thence to
Epinal. Sharp fighting, in which the French lost heavily, especially
in officers, took place on September 4 and 5 at the Chipote——a bare
red hump barring the pass, surrounded by fir-clad cliffs——on the twin
hills by Nompatelize, and on the lesser passes south of St. Dié. The
real intention of the German Command was probably no more than to pin
down Dubail’s forces; it could hardly hope to pierce such a depth of
mountain fastnesses in time to affect the general issue.
On the left of the 1st Army, on September 5, the German XXI Corps
drove Castelnau’s 16th and Dubail’s 8th Corps out of Gerbéviller and
Moyen, and passed on to the west bank of the Mortagne; but the French
recovered most of this ground the same evening. On the right, the 14th
Corps had to abandon the Passé du Renard and several neighbouring hills
south of Nompatelize; and the 41st Division was driven up the St.
Dié valley to the crest above Mandray, and beyond. On the following
day, these positions also were won back in a reaction that began to
threaten the German line of communications in the St. Dié valley. From
this moment, the combats of the Upper Meurthe slackened and gradually
expired. The battle had been definitely deplaced to the north.
Heeringen, with one of his active corps, was ordered to the Chemin des
Dames, where he was to stop the threatening progress of the British
Army——a most significant move; two remaining corps were about to be
transferred to the Bavarian Command for the struggle before Nancy, the
last and greatest effort on the east. On the night of September 7, the
8th Corps repassed the poisoned waters of the Mortagne at Magnières
and St. Pierremont; and everything pointed to a sweeping advance, when
Dubail was summoned by the General Staff to surrender another of his
best units, the 13th Corps, to re-form his whole line, and to stand
still with what remained. The danger-point now lay elsewhere.
Castelnau had hardly filled the spaces left by the removal of his 15th
and 9th Corps when, in the early afternoon of September 4, a cannonade
of a violence hitherto unknown broke over the positions of the 2nd Army
before Mont Amance, across the eastern side of Champenoux Forest, by
Réméréville, Courbessaux, Drouville, and Maixe, to the east edge of
the Forest of Vitrimont. The first attack came upon the right of this
front, waves of Bavarian infantry flooding upon the barricaded farms
and hamlets and the trenched hillsides. Behind Serres and in advance of
Maixe, the 39th Division was pressed back; but, as a whole, the front
of the 20th Corps was little changed; and, on its right, the 16th Corps
was not yet disturbed. While this hell-fire was being lit, Kluck was
racing southward across the Marne and a regiment of Cuirassiers, in
full array, was marching through the streets of Metz, under the eyes of
the Emperor, who, after visiting the Verdun front, was waiting for the
hour of his triumphal entry into Nancy.
At nightfall the conflict waxed more furious. The German plan, as it
was presently revealed, was to burst through the opening of the Grand
Couronné, and, while maintaining a strong pressure upon the southern
horn of the crescent, to envelop the northern horn by a rapid push from
Pont-à-Mousson up the Moselle valley, this move by fresh troops from
Metz furnishing the precious element of surprise.[76]
Throughout the night of the 4th, the storm raged about the rampart
of Nancy. Doubtless the German Command had chosen the way between
the Champenoux Forest and the Rambétant as the least difficult for
the first phase of its last effort; and, although night attacks are
manifestly dangerous, the calculation in this case that the defenders
would suffer most from confusion appears to have been justified. Boldly
adventuring by dark forest paths and misty vales, the Bavarian Corps
of Martini ejected the fore-posts of the 20th Corps from the hills
near Lunéville, from Einville Wood, and the ridges between Serres and
Drouville. Maixe and Réméréville were lost, retaken, and lost again.
Erbéviller, Courbessaux, lesser hamlets, and farmsteads flamed across
the countryside, a fantastic spectacle that deepened the terror of the
remaining inhabitants, who had taken refuge in their cellars or the
fields. General Fayolle’s reservists of the 70th Division stood bravely
on the east edge of Saint Paul Forest and at Courbessaux. On their left
the 68th lost Champenoux village at dawn, but recaptured it a few hours
later; while, behind it, the 64th busied itself in completing another
line of resistance from the important point of the Amezule gorge (on
the highroad from Nancy to Château-Salins, midway between Laneuvelotte
and Champenoux), by Velaine and Cerceuil, to the Rambétant.
[Illustration: Battle of the Grand Couronné of NANCY
Positions on Sept. 6, night]
At midnight on the 4th, Prince Ruprecht endeavoured to broaden his
attack southward by striking from Lunéville across the loop of the
Meurthe. Here, the 74th Reserve Division was prepared, having dug
three successive lines of trenches between Blainville and Mont. At
Rehainviller and Xermamenil, the right bank of the Mortagne became
untenable by reason of enfilade fire. The 16th Corps, therefore,
withdrew to the west bank. Just before dawn on September 5, the XXI
Corps succeeded in getting a small body of men across the river below
Gerbéviller. During the afternoon, these were thrown back by a combined
push of the 16th Corps from the north and the Dubail’s 8th Corps from
the south. This success was confirmed and extended on September 6,
when the 16th Corps passed the Mortagne, and drove the enemy out of
Gerbéviller, and through the woods above the ruined town. Thus the line
of the Mortagne, so essential to the French defence, was restored, and
in such solid fashion that it might become the base of a thrust against
the German flank about Lunéville.
None so happy was the outlook at Castelnau’s centre. During the
morning of September 5, the Bavarians worked round the north
end of Champenoux Forest as far as the foot of Mount Amance,
where, after making five desperate assaults, they were stopped.
In the evening, the 20th Corps was driven back to the line
Vitrimont–Flainval–Crevic–Haraucourt–Buissoncourt: that is to say, half
of the south horn of the crescent was overrun. The morrow witnessed a
rally, the 70th Reserve Division touching Réméréville, the 39th Active
carrying the village of Crevic and progressing toward Drouville, and
the 11th reoccupying Vitrimont Forest. But the grey tide still beat
upon the foot of Amance.
At this juncture, when it seemed that the plateau of Champenoux must
be turned on both sides, and Castelnau’s centre pierced, a no less
alarming threat appeared in the attempt to turn the whole Nancy
system by the north. Two French reserve divisions had been set facing
Metz on either side of the Moselle——the 73rd on the west, between
Pont-à-Mousson and Dieulouard, the 59th before the Seille, from Loisy,
by the sharp rise of Ste. Geneviève, to Meivrons, where it joined the
68th. A single battalion (of the 314th Regiment, 59 D.R.), and a single
battery (of the 33rd, 9th Corps) were posted on the extremity, at Loisy
and Ste. Geneviève, of this outer buttress of the Grand Couronné, when,
at noon on September 5, amid a thunder of guns, columns of the German
XXXIII Reserve Division were observed traversing Pont-à-Mousson, and
marching south. The cannonade and the deployment occupied the rest of
the day; and next morning the invasion seemed to have passed westward.
In fact, it had made rapid way, although at material cost, on the left
bank of the Moselle, passing Dieulouard and reaching Marbache, which
is only 6 miles north of Nancy, and Saizerais, 8 miles from Toul. Few
as they numbered, the guns and well-entrenched riflemen on the Ste.
Geneviève spur, now an acute salient, were a thorn in the side of this
success——a very troublesome thorn. At 7 p.m. a German force of about
seven battalions debouched from the wooded lowland and began to mount
the hillside. Hundreds of them had been mown down ere Captain Langlade
and his eight remaining gunners would shift their hot pieces to a safer
place behind. Commandant de Montlebert’s battalion conducted throughout
the night a more than Spartan defence. Time after time, urged on by
fife and drum, the grey ranks rose, only to break like spume in the
moonlight before the trenches could be reached. It was one of the
occasions when the deadly power of the “75’s” was shown to the full.
At one o’clock in the morning the combat ceased: the assailants had
withdrawn in a state of panic. They are said to have left 1200 dead
behind them. The French battalion had lost 80 men.
A rare episode this: in general, the battle becomes more confused as
the culmination is reached. Indeed, it is difficult to find an exact
time or place of the climax. Each side saw its own trouble, but could
hardly guess at the condition of the other. The last reserves of
the 2nd Army were in play. Castelnau had warned the G.Q.G. that he
might have to abandon Nancy, in order to cover Toul. The reply was an
injunction to keep touch with Sarrail’s right in the direction of St.
Mihiel, whither——failing Epinal, failing Charmes, failing Nancy——the
enemy now seemed to be turning. On September 7, the German host
gathered itself together for its last and greatest effort. The Emperor,
escorted by his guard of Cuirassiers, left Metz by the Nancy highroad,
crossed the frontier, and took his stand on a sunny hill near Moncel
(probably by St. Jean Farm, at the corner of Morel Wood), to watch
the bombardment of Mount Amance, which was to prepare the way for the
breach of the French centre by way of the Amezule defile.[77] The gap
was duly rushed at the first attempt, made by about ten battalions of
infantry, in the morning. The left of the 68th Division fell back to
the foot of Mount Amance, the right to Velaine, and the 70th Division
to Cerceuil. The 20th Corps, ordered to move north and menace the
German flank, was pushed aside; and by noon, the Bavarians had full
possession of Champenoux Forest. This bulwark gone, everything depended
upon Amance. Most of the artillery on the Grand Couronné (which
included twenty 5-inch cannon, and eight 6-inch mortars) hashed upon
its approaches; and here the momentary triumph expired. The authority
of the Crown Prince, the presence of the Emperor, could effect no more.
Old Castelnau began to hope; hearing that the Metz troops had further
advanced toward Toul as far as Rozières, he unhesitatingly took the 2nd
Cavalry Division out of the line, and sent it off to the neighbourhood
of St. Mihiel, whither it was to be followed next day by the 73rd
Reserve Division.
The struggle dragged on with an increasing appearance of exhaustion and
deadlock. On September 8, the Bavarians tried twice to break through
the front of the 20th Corps, without success. Again they bent to the
slopes of Mount Amance; the poilus let them approach, then staggered
out of their holes, and, in a spasm of battle-madness, swept them back.
La Bouzule Farm, dominating the narrowest part of the Amezule defile,
and other strong points, changed hands repeatedly. On the right, in
face of Lunéville, the 74th Reserve Division carried Rehainviller by
assault, and the 32nd and 31st Divisions pressed from Gerbéviller
nearly to the Meurthe——a severe pin-prick in the German left flank.
On September 9 there were obscure fragmentary combats in the glades
of Champenoux and St. Paul which we cannot attempt to follow. It
will be safe to suppose that the German Command was now governed by
the news from the west. Whether the Nancy front could have held
without that aid, it is impossible to say. Though Castelnau ordered a
counter-offensive all along the line, his men could respond only feebly.
In the evening an armistice of four hours was arranged for the
collection of wounded and the burial of dead. The French claimed to
have found 40,000 German dead on the ground; the total losses will
probably never be known. The Kaiser had left his observatory; the rebel
heart of Metz leaped to see his disillusioned return. The defenders of
Nancy could not know this; but there was a visible sign of failure,
now easy to interpret: at midnight on September 8, amid a heavy
thunderstorm, a German battery, told off for the purpose, threw eighty
shells into Nancy——67 explosive shells and 14 shrapnel, to be precise,
according to the diary of the officer responsible[78]——a silly outrage
like the first bombardments of Rheims.
The “smashing blow” was failing at the same moment on the Ourcq, on the
Marne, at Fère Champènoise, and here before the hill-bastion of the
eastern marches. News ran slowly through the armies in those days; but
some invigorating breeze of victory must soon have reached the trenches
in Lorraine. For Prince Ruprecht it remained only to guard his main
lines of retreat, in particular the roads from Nancy, Dombasle, and
Lunéville to the frontier; and, as his troops had dug themselves well
in, this was not difficult. Three French columns of assault, composed
of relatively fresh troops, and supported by the 64th and 68th Reserve
Divisions, after a powerful artillery preparation, advanced on the
morning of September 10 against the Amezule and neighbouring positions;
but they could not make much headway. On the morrow the order was
repeated, to better effect, especially on the wings. That night the
German retreat in Lorraine began. Castelnau’s men gazed incredulous
into spaces suddenly calm and empty. “Our soldiers,” says one of them,
“hungry, harassed, haggard, could hardly stand upright. They marched
like spectres. Visibly, we were at our last breath. We could hold out
only a few hours more. And then, O prodigy, calm fell, on the 12th,
upon the whole of the stricken field. The enemy gave up, retreated
for good, abandoned everything, Champenoux, so frantically contested,
and the entire front he had occupied. He fell back in dense columns,
without even a pretence of further resistance.” The grand adventure was
finished.
Pont-à-Mousson, Nomeny, Réméréville, Lunéville, Baccarat, Raon-l’Etape,
and St. Dié were evacuated in rapid succession. Before the war fell
into the entrenched lines which were to hold with little change for
four years, most of Lorraine up to the old frontier and a long slice
of Alsace had been recovered. But with what wounds may be read, for
instance, in the report of the French Commission of Inquiry into the
devastation wrought by the enemy in the department of Meurthe and
Moselle. As though the destruction of farmsteads and villages in course
of the fighting were not sufficient, the Bavarian infantry had been
guilty at many places of almost incredible acts of ferocity. At Nomeny,
the 2nd and 3rd Bavarian regiments, after sacking the village, set
it on fire, and then, as the villagers fled from their cellars, shot
them down——old men, women, and children——50 being killed and many more
wounded. At Lunéville, during the three weeks’ occupation, the Hôtel
de Ville, the Synagogue, and about seventy houses were burned down with
torches, petrol, and other incendiary apparatus; and 17 men and women
were shot in cold blood in the streets. Under dire threats, signed
shamelessly by General Von Fosbender, a “contribution” of 650,000
francs was paid by the inhabitants. On August 24, practically the whole
of the small town of Gerbéviller was destroyed by fire (more than 400
houses), and at least 36 civilians, men and women, were slaughtered.
At Baccarat, 112 houses were burned down, after the whole place had
been pillaged under the supervision of General Fabricius, commanding
the artillery of the XIV Baden Corps, and other officers. This feature
of the campaign cannot be ignored in our chronicle. Good men had
supposed war itself to be the uttermost barbarism; it was left to the
disciplined armies of the Hohenzollern Empire to prove that educated
hands may lower it to depths of wickedness unimagined by the Apache and
the Bashi-Bazouk.
On September 18, General Curières de Castlenau was made Grand Officer
of the Legion of Honour on the ground that, “since the beginning of the
war, his army has fought without cessation, and he has obtained from
his troops sustained efforts and important results. General Castlenau
has had, since the beginning of the campaign, two sons killed and a
third wounded; nevertheless, he continued to exercise his command with
energy.”