It was a very pretty sight. About forty officers were present,

grouped picturesquely around the tables. Military servants circulated

everywhere, serving the company with glasses of beer. The outside

of the bough-enclosed circle was lined with the men of the various

battalions, who crowded to the spot, under the attraction of the music.

More hearty good fellowship could not be imagined. The colonel and

the youngster who won his silver shoulder straps but the day before

were on the most equal footing. In an interval of the music a young

officer came into the circle who had just returned from the hospital

at Düsseldorf, whither a bullet through the foot in the battle of the

31st August had sent him. Then he had been only a Feldwebel, but he

had got his lieutenancy when lying on his back, and this was his first

appearance among his comrades since his promotion. As he came forward

the colonel rose and called for a bumper to the health of his gallant

young friend. The young fellow bowed and blushed as all obeyed the

chief’s order, following the draught with a cheer that must have been

heard at St. Julien. Then the colonel was good enough to disarrange the

programme for the introduction of “Rule Britannia” as a special token

of consideration to the Englander present. By this time the darkness

had begun to fall, and the bonfire was formally set fire to, the circle

breaking up from the tables, and re-forming around its cheerful blaze.

The band exhausted the programme, and took to playing song tunes, the

officers chiming in lustily with their voices, and the men on the

outskirts taking up the chorus. The scene was one in which a painter

would have delighted—the bright wood-fire lighting up the faces of

the circle around it, and ever and anon, as it shot up more brightly,

dissipating the thick darkness beyond, and flashing on the faces of

the men through the boughs. But no painter could give effect to what

was to me the most weird phase of the affair—the measured thud of the

cannonading sounding between every pause in the music or lull in the

din of the conversation; and it was strange, too, to reflect that,

as we sat here cheerily, we were still within the range of the great

guns of St. Julien. I could not help thinking of the effect which a

forty-two pound shell would have had had it fallen and exploded right

in the heart of the bonfire. The good fellows of the 4th, however,

troubled themselves with no such speculations. It was sufficient for

them that St. Julien was quiet, and that the fire was cheery, the

company good, and the beer reasonably plentiful, and palatable. In

the course of the evening one of the captains gave a toast, which was

received with intense enthusiasm—the health of the gallant comrades

who had won the decoration of the Iron Cross. It was on the breast

of at least half those who sat round the fire. When the cheering had

subsided the band struck up the “Paris” march, a _souvenir_ of 1813,

in remembrance of which campaign the Iron Cross was first instituted.

About half-past eight the colonel gave the toast of “Our Comrades of

the Artillery,” in honour of some gentlemen of that service who were

present, and then, after the band had played “God Save the King,” said

good night, and went away to his supper. I followed him in a very short

time, but when I came outside to smoke my cigar in the moonlight,

before turning in among the straw, I could still hear the merry chorus

down in the meadow by the camp-fire. It was then about eleven o’clock,

and how long after the last of the roisterers may have kept it up I

have not the slightest idea.

The foggy morning of the 7th October ushered in what turned out to be

the most important and determined sortie made by Bazaine since the

failure of the 31st of August. I know not whether the French gave to

the affair a name; the Germans recognized it as the “Schlacht bei

Maizières.” Battles there were in plenty in this bloody campaign

that showed a larger total of killed and wounded; but the “Schlacht

bei Maizières” made widows and orphans in the Fatherland far beyond

proportion; for the men who bore the brunt of it were husbands and

fathers,—the stout Landwehrmen of the Division Kummer. I had quitted

Retonfay early in the grey morning with the intention of making the

complete circuit of the environment of Metz before my return. The

morning was extremely misty. As I reached the eminence at Poix I could

barely see Mount St. Quentin above the fog in the valley, the sun’s

rays striking upon its warm grey peak. It seemed as if a general

armistice had been declared; even the forepost fire had dropped.

Crossing the Moselle at Argancey, I made first for the Château of

Amelange, and afterwards in a direction due Metz-ward, until I reached

the furthest _Feldwache_ at Maxe. Then I struck across the valley,

inclining rather to the rear, first to Grandes and then to Petites

Tapes, in both of which there lay only an under-officer’s guard of

nine men; and avoiding Ladonchamps, by advice, I reached St. Rémy,

where I found on duty the 59th Landwehr Regiment. Thence my journey

lay still athwart the remotest foreposts to Norroy and Plesnois, the

latter village being in the heart of the Bois de Saulny, and my road

then lay straight southward on St. Hubert, on the south-west of Mount

St. Quentin. I detail the different stages of this ride as it was right

across the theatre of the afternoon’s fight, and because the quietude

everywhere in the morning formed so strong a contrast to the sudden

hurly-burly of the afternoon.

Near Plesnois my horse cast a shoe, and as the road was rugged I was

rather in a fix, when there rode past a staff officer attached to

the head-quarters of Baron Schüler von Senden, commanding the 2nd

Division of the Landwehr. This gentleman was quartered in Maizières,

and he most courteously invited me to return with him thither and be

his guest for the night. On the return journey this gentleman gave me

some information which contributed materially to an understanding of

the events which followed. In the bombardment of the two previous days

the position occupied by the batteries of German heavy guns had been

at Frenecourt, near the commencement of the rise of the hills some

distance to the south-west of Maizières. To speak more precisely, they

were stationed on the low heights of Le Horiment, on the rising ground

behind which there stood an observatory commanding the whole plain.

But the Germans had batteries considerably to the front of Frenecourt.

Six field batteries stood mid-way between it and Sennecourt, and on

the 6th they had pushed forward a second battery as far as Sennecourt

itself. From these several positions the bombardment of St. Eloy had

been going forward intermittingly, and also a shell-fire into the

village of Ladonchamps, some little distance nearer Metz than St. Rémy,

on the line of railway. Till lately this village had been reckoned

neutral territory, but on the 2nd October the French had seized it, and

established a battery in front of it. The village itself had been burnt

the same night by German shells, but still the French had retained

the position, and the German fire in the intervening days had been

partly directed to the dislodgment of the enemy from a position which

was important, as the occupants of it could enfilade the whole front

across the valley. On the 6th nearly a thousand shells had been thrown

into Ladonchamps and the neighbourhood, and late in the evening the

French had evacuated the shattered fragments of a once smiling village.

The Germans had at once thrown forward troops in its direction,

establishing their _replis_ in its rear, and sending forward sergeants’

parties to occupy it and Grandes and Petites Tapes villages, to which

its possession was the key. St. Rémy constituted the chief support,

and here lay the 59th Regiment of the Landwehr. Maxe, close to the

river, and considerably in advance, was occupied, as I already knew,

by outposts detailed by the 10th Army Corps, from the other side of

the Moselle. The two divisions of the Landwehr stretched right athwart

the valley from the bridge at Argancey, where they touched the 10th

Army Corps, to near Marange, where they met the 3rd Corps, and to the

Landwehrmen was thus confided the duty of keeping the flat alluvial

tract on the western bank of the Moselle. This was the substance of the

information which my friend of the staff communicated to me on our ride

to Maizières. Here I found the head-quarters of General von Kummer.

About one o’clock I was sitting at lunch with two staff officers in

an arbour in his garden, when the guns of the German batteries by

Sennecourt began to give tongue. “Only a few Frenchmen loafing round

Ladonchamps,” observed one of the officers. “There will be nothing

serious to-day; there is too much mist in the valley.” Certainly it

seemed as if he must be right. When I had been on the heights at

Sennecourt I could not see the villages in the valley below, nor the

Cathedral of Metz. Fort St. Quentin, our constant landmark, had been

utterly invisible. But the roar of the guns grew louder and louder,

and then came first one great boom, and then another, from the big guns

lying behind at Frenecourt. The officers fidgeted, but still would not

own that anything was the matter. But their _nonchalance_ gave way when

an aide-de-camp came up at the gallop, spreading the alarm everywhere

as he went, and dashing on to the general’s quarters for instructions

to guide the front. In five minutes more we were all in the saddle,

and, after a short gallop, were looking out on the scene of action

from the fringe of the wood in front of the Châteaux of Brieux and

Amelange. That the reader may understand the tactics of Bazaine and

the manner in which they were foiled, it will be necessary to give a

brief description of the ground. From Metz to Maizières there is a long

trough, with a flat bottom—the alluvial margin of the Moselle. This

tract is about four English miles wide. On the west it is bounded by

the heights I have already named, and nearer Metz by those of Norroy

and Saulny. On the east it is bounded by a lower series of bluffs,

on which stand the villages of Olgy and Malroy; but between them and

the flat bottom runs the Moselle, infringing considerably on the flat

expanse just opposite Olgy. Across this bottom, at the narrowest part

thus formed, lies a series of villages—the two Tapes and St. Rémy, with

Maxe and Ladonchamps respectively slightly to the east and west front.

More or less, there were German troops in all those. The dispositions

detailed to me by the staff officer had been substantially maintained.

Bazaine had laid his scheme with great art. Covered by the dense fog,

he had made his dispositions with such adroitness that when it lifted,

a little past one, his arrangements were already all but complete. In

the first instance, he directed a strong assault on Ladonchamps. The

Landwehr outpost held the place as if they were 10,000 instead of 100

men, and the French sent their infantry swarming into it, while their

artillery played upon it. “Only an attempt to re-occupy Ladonchamps,”

quoth my friend of the staff, as he lit a fresh cigar; “the guns will

teach them the folly of that, and we can go back to our arbour.” It

seemed, truly, if any argument could be convincing, that the German

artillery must be so. The white spurts of smoke were visible all round

the valley. On the right front the batteries at Sennecourt were hard at

work, and also others nearer us on the flat, while the great guns at

Frenecourt were sending shells at a long range right over Ladonchamps

in among the advancing French. Then, on our left, before Amelange,

two other batteries were maintaining a semi-cross fire; and from the

bluffs, on the other side of the Moselle, between Olgy and Malroy,

the Prussian field artillery were also roaring. But my friend of the

staff was not, for an hour or two at all events, to see the arbour.

The attack on Ladonchamps was a diversion. Suddenly the villages of

Grandes and Petites Tapes, of St. Rémy and Maxe were overwhelmed by

a cataract of Frenchmen. The battalion of the 59th Landwehr which

held St. Rémy would not fall back, as it should have done in common

prudence, but stood up there in the street till the French having

played upon it with their artillery, and rained on it chassepot and

mitrailleuse bullets, finally pushed backwards the shattered remnant

on to the chaussée by dint of sheer numbers. The Fusilier battalion of

the 58th occupied Grandes Tapes, and it occupied Grandes Tapes when

the fight was done, but the occupation consisted of the dead and the

wounded. The battalion would not give ground, and may be said to have

been annihilated as it stood, the men with their backs to the wall and

their faces to the foe. It afterwards transpired that 300 men of this

battalion were made prisoners, after a desperate resistance, and sent

into Metz. The other battalions of the same regiment suffered terribly.

So far, then, Bazaine had succeeded. He had re-occupied the chain of

villages athwart the valley, and had got a few batteries of artillery

out to their front to reply to the German fire. But the status quo he

neither wished to, nor could retain. The German artillery, throwing

its projectiles from three sides of the parallelogram, interfered with

the realization of the latter conception. As regarded the former, it

seemed clear that Bazaine would not have done what he had if he did

not contemplate something more. That something, I have not the remotest

doubt, was a sortie to establish connections with Thionville. His

tactics were well conceived. From St. Rémy and the two Tapes he kept

the German fire engrossed, both musketry and artillery. He sent forward

from Grandes Tapes great swarms of tirailleurs, who fared extremely

ill at the hands of Landwehr men. But, besides this, he massed in the

rear what was, beyond all question, a very large force. There must have

been nearly 20,000 in all on the bank of the Moselle, and under cover

of the houses of Maxe. The head of this force he hurled forward to cut

through the German cincture where it was weakest, close to the river.

The moment was a critical one. Those regiments of the Landwehr which

had not already been sent forward against the villages were too far

to the westward to be in time to meet this attack as it ought to be

met—directly face to face. But the 10th Army Corps had been crossing

the pontoon bridge, and massing between the river and Amelange. Their

general, Voight Rhetz, was in nominal command of the days operations,

and he gave the order for several regiments to advance. It was a sight

never to be forgotten. First came the Fusiliers, extending at a rapid

run into skirmishing order, and covering the whole plain with their

long thin lines. Then the dense columns of companies of the Grenadiers,

the bands playing and the colours unfurled—unwonted sight. But all the

work was not left wholly for the infantry to do. The artillery, for the

moment, left the villages alone, and concentrated their fire on the

advancing columns of the French by the Moselle. There was but little

response from the French field artillery, but the sullen sides of St.

Julien flashed out smoke and fire, and from the earthworks of St.

Eloy came missiles at the shorter ranges. The mitrailleuse venomously

sounded its angry whirr, making the skirmishers recoil nervously as

they crossed the line of its fire, and tearing chasms in the fronts

of the solid masses of which they were the forerunners. The artillery

and the skirmishers were enough for the French. The dense columns

staggered and then broke. Through my glass I could see a continuous

_sauve qui peut_ into the village of Maxe. But when they had once got

stone and lime between them and the Germans, the French were obstinate

and would go no further. In vain the German artillery pounded into the

villages, advancing closer and closer in alternate order of batteries

with a precision and rapidity that could not have been exceeded on

Woolwich-common. That obstinate battery in front of Grandes Tapes

would not cease, and the French tirailleurs still lined the chaussée

in its front. By this time it was nearly four o’clock, and there was a

lull on our side that seemed ominous. As we stood in this suspense a

staff officer galloped along the front line with orders for a general

advance to take the villages by storm. The attack he hurriedly told me

was to consist of the four brigades of the Landwehr, with a division of

the 10th Army Corps on the left and supporting. In a few minutes more

the command came sounding along the line, and the men sprang from their

cover and went forward with that steady quick step so characteristic of

the German marching. The shells from the battery in front of Grandes

Tapes tore through the line, the mitrailleuse and chassepot bullets

poured against it their leaden hail, but still the Landwehr, silent and

stern, went steadily to the front. The oldest veteran in the field was

never in a more furious fire than that to which the centre of this line

was exposed. General von Brandenstein, commanding the third brigade

of the Landwehr, was shot down close to me, and several of his staff

were wounded. At length the entrenchments were reached, behind which

were lying the shattered remnants of the 59th and 58th Landwehr. The

fraternisation consisted in the cry of “Hurrah Preussen!” and then

“Vorwärts—immer vorwärts!” and the line threw itself to its front at a

run. The gunners from the battery, brave men and stubborn, had barely

time to run round the corner before the Landwehrmen were upon them. The

guns they left perforce. In the villages the French made a last stand,

but it had been better for them that they had run away at first. The

Landwehrmen, with less of the conventional warrior in them than the

Line, were not so much inclined to give quarter as are the professional

soldiers. With many a Frenchman this afternoon the shrift consisted of

a bayonet thrust. They fought like devils in the narrow ways of the

villages, and used the mitrailleuses with rare judgment and effect. But

then there came the steady inexorable stride forward of the Landwehr

men, the bayonet lent force with that huge thigh and back power which

is the leading characteristic in an athletic sense of the German

physique, and the villages were cleared of all save victors, dead, and

wounded.

To the Landwehr must be conceded the honour of the fray. They it was

who checked the rush of the French advance by holding the villages

till they had not a man that could stand upright and fire the needle

gun. To them also was entrusted the grand final advance which swept

the French out of the villages. I had seen the German Line soldiers

fight before this day. I had learned to believe that they could do

aught any soldiers in the world could do. But it was not till now that

I gauged the calibre of the Landwehr, how that in all things they were

the equals of their brethren of the Line. Cool in the intrenchments,

when they lay calmly in position, picking up the bullets that fell

among them—resolute, indomitable, in their steady quick march forward,

and then irresistible in the final rush with which they carried

the villages—they were troops to delight the heart of a man with a

soldierly instinct. Nothing was more observable than the cool manner

in which the wounded went to the rear in the general advance—every man

depending on himself if he could walk at all, declining the services

of assistants to help him out of the fray. Nor were they slight wounds

with which these gallant fellows struggled unaided to the rear. One,

for instance, to whom I spoke, was shot right through the lungs, and at

every step his breath came panting through the bullet-hole. It might be

that he struggled on till he reached the straw in the court-yard of the

Château of Amelange, where the doctors were toiling up to their elbows

in blood; but I fear his was one of the many bodies that checkered the

green fields behind the advance. Gallant fellows as they were, it went

to one’s heart to see the Landwehr fight and die. Not like a linesman

could they take their life in their hand and go down into the fray

conscious that nobody would hunger because they fell. For every second

Landwehrman that fell at Maizières there was a widow in the Fatherland,

and, with children of my own around my hearth, my heart swelled to

think of the number of unconscious orphans made that sunshiny autumn

afternoon in the pleasant villages and the quiet plains of Deutchland.

Pray God that, fight who may, there may be no more deadly battles in

which the Landwehr shall have to take part. Not that, as it seemed to

me, they dwelt upon the thought of Frau and Kinder. The hairy Kerl,

with the grey in his beard, and who knew how many young birds were in

his nest, went straight to the front as boldly as the sprightly young

volunteer who had only a girl to weep for him if he fell. But they

are a prayerful people those Germans, and I fancied, when the word

“Vorwärts” came sounding through the ranks, that many a man bent his

head for a moment into his hand, as if he were entering a church.

On my way to the rear, after the brunt of the fight was over, I looked

into the court-yard of the Château of Amelange, where the doctors

were hard at work. The men lay all around waiting for their turn,

and smoking like so many lime-kilns. Here already by five o’clock

there were quite two hundred wounded, and those in Amelange were

but a handful compared to the gross number that had been wounded.

The doctors, with shirt sleeves up and coat off, were toiling with

blood-smeared hands with cool but nimble dexterity. One of them seemed

something between a cannibal and a butcher as he looked up for a moment

from a case with a bloody knife-blade between his teeth.

In the evening, postal celerity being an object, I left Maizières to

ride to Courcelles. Immediately after crossing the pontoon bridge at

Argancey, a detour became necessary. The German artillery was still

firing in the moonlight from the heights above Olgy, and St. Julien

was sluggishly throwing projectiles on to the tableland, seemingly to

shut up their fire. All the ground in the rear of Charly and toward

Fany was pitted with shells that had fallen and burst during the day.

A brisk musketry fire was still going on in front of Chieulles and

l’Orme, so quiet when I had ridden through them in the morning. The

French, pouring down out of the Bois de Grimont, had made a feigned

attack in considerable force up this valley, and the old women and

children in Chieulles must have had their equanimity not a little

disturbed. All I could hear as I rode through the villages was, that

a good many had been killed and wounded; and I met a large ambulance

train coming forward into the fire from out the village of Vremy.

Poix had been shelled during the day, but all was now quiet there. A

little further on I came to the rear of Servigny and Noisseville, from

which I met my friends of the 4th returning singing triumphantly. The

French from Mey and the slope in front of St. Julien had sent three

battalions into Nouilly, and thence had attempted to storm the _repli_

in front of Noisseville, but had been repulsed with considerable loss,

the German artillery driving them out of Nouilly into the wood. I was

in time to accompany a tentative advance of the German artillery along

the chaussée right under the earthworks of Little Belle Croix, which

was chiefly remarkable from the circumstance that St. Julien made no

effort to arrest the operation. I afterwards learnt that there was

further fighting in the early part of the night in front of St. Rémy,

and that a battalion of the 81st had been forced to retake Ladonchamps

at the bayonet point, losing in the task five officers and over one

hundred men.

It is not difficult, I think, to form a tolerably correct opinion

as to the plan of Bazaine’s tactics of the 7th. I am aware that the

importance of this sortie has been belittled by testimony from the

interior of Metz, but I have a habit of believing in what I see, and

the evidence of eyesight was corroborated as well by prisoners taken

in the affair as by conversations with responsible and well-informed

men on the other side, after the capitulation of Metz. At the lowest

estimate Bazaine must have had 100,000 men, who, so far as the defence

of Metz was concerned, were superfluous, and, therefore, detrimental. A

hundred thousand men will sooner consume a given quantity of provisions

than will twenty thousand; and when the larger number reach starvation

point, the surrender of everything—field troops, garrison, fortress,

and town—must occur. But for their appreciation of this eventuality,

nothing would have pleased the Germans better than to have opened a

fair passage to Bazaine any hour in the twenty-four. He might have come

outside the cordon and welcome with 100,000 men, and in the course of

the following day, when he was holding a council of war, and debating,

_more Gallico_, whether to march on Sedan or strike southward and cut

the German communications, a hundred thousand Teutons and more would

have fallen upon him from all points of the compass and smitten him

hip and thigh. But if his field army had been chopped into fragments,

the fortress of Metz, with its garrison left inside, would still have

confronted the besiegers, and its reduction would have been postponed

in proportion to the procrastination of the starvation point effected

by the fewer mouths to feed. Of all this Bazaine, a capable man, whose

merits, within certain limits, the Germans acknowledged frankly, could

not have failed to be aware. He objected to capitulation simpliciter

in the fortress, or to the alternative of capitulation or annihilation

in the open field. But there lay the Moselle, beckoning him on to the

half-way house of Thionville, and beyond Thionville, at the distance

of a single forced march, lay the frontier. Oh! if he could only dash

out through that vexatious cordon. True, across the broad plain lay

the divisions of the Landwehr. A regular soldier himself, Bazaine had

probably learned to despise the Garde Mobile with all the contempt

of a veteran used to command veteran troops; and nothing was more

natural than for a Frenchman to reason from a false analogy that, as

the Garde Mobile, so were the Landwehr. The result gave him to digest

his misconception as best he might. But the conception of Bazaine’s

effort was creditable to his knowledge of the military art. While he

made his grand effort against the Landwehr in the valley, he did his

best to keep the other sections of the environing circle from finding

leisure to concentrate in support of them. The attack on Vany, L’Orme,

and Chieulles was well calculated to engross the 10th Army Corps; that

from Mey on Noisseville and Servigny might well perform the same office

with regard to the 1st Army Corps; the 7th Army Corps might be supposed

to have their hands pretty well full with the sortie against Peltre,

Mercy-le-Haut, and Ars-Laquenexy, and with luck this sortie, too, might

get through as far as the depôt at Courcelles, and bring back of its

abundance to the Gardes Nationaux, who were plying the big guns on the

ramparts, and to the hungry citizens. The well-conceived feint against

Ladonchamps was intended to keep the 3rd Army Corps in play, occupying

as it did the slopes between the valley and the fort of Plappeville.

And then—there was but the Landwehr to cope with, and surely 40,000

veteran French troops might crash through the lines of these citizen

soldiers, weakened as those lines were by elongation across the whole

plateau. Then, hey for Thionville! only ten miles off, where a secure

lair might be had under the guns of that fortress while the columns

caught their wind; and then, picking up by the way what superfluous

troops there might be in its garrison, who could say what next for an

army with no impedimenta? Had the design succeeded Metz would have been

a tougher nut for the Germans to crack than ever, for their policy of

starvation would have been seriously compromised.

The two grand blunders which defeated the scheme were the misconception

on Bazaine’s part of the strength, prowess, and effective dispositions

of the Landwehr, and the mistaken idea that his feints to the right and

left would so engross the 10th and 3rd Army Corps as to prevent them

from aiding the Landwehr to give him check on the plateau. His error

on the former point must have come to him when he saw his regulars

recoiling pell-mell from the Landwehrmen in the villages; the salvoes

of artillery sent by the 10th Army Corps from Malroy, Olgy, and other

heights on the east side of the Moselle, and by the 3rd Army Corps from

Frenecourt, Sennecourt, and the heights above St. Rémy, all coigns of

vantage on the bluffs on the western fringe of the valley, must have

made him comprehend that a feigned attack, even if inconsiderable, was

not capable of engrossing the full attention of a German Army Corps.

The batteries on the positions I have named enfiladed him ruinously.

Down the valley there tore a fierce direct fire from the batteries at

Amelange and those in front of Brieux, which advanced by alternate

batteries with as much coolness and precision as I have seen the troops

of a cavalry regiment working in the Phœnix Park; while from the

heights on either side came such a cross-fire that I was filled with

respect for the troops of Bazaine, when I realised the fact that they

waited for the infantry assault to dislodge them from their position.

Add to Bazaine’s disadvantages that he was miserably short of field

artillery, and the conclusion is obvious that he could not but have

failed under the circumstances, while the deduction was no less patent

that the frustration of any future attempt was equally inevitable.

On the morning of the 8th, the aspect of affairs was still threatening.

It seemed as if the turn had come round of the 1st Army Corps on the

east side of the environment. When the sun rose the French were seen

accumulated in dense masses between Fort St. Julien and the village of

Mey. Both St. Julien and les Bottes maintained a continuous if somewhat

discursive cannonade, making the stones fly all about the village of

Noisseville, whither I had hurried on the first alarm. From 7 A.M. till

early in the forenoon, there came the din of warm artillery fire from

the direction of Peltre and Mercy-le-Haut. At daylight the whole of our

first and second lines were drawn forward in support of the first line,

and the advance posts had fallen back. At nine a battery of German

field-artillery opened on the French infantry from the angle of the

church of Noisseville, and located in a cunning overbank emplacement,

was not to be dislodged by all that St. Julien and les Bottes could do

with that intent. About mid-day, however, a furious pelt of rain came

down and washed the heart out of the French, if there had been any in

them from the first. Gradually the forts, as the infantry retreated

into their rear, gave up firing, after having thrown in the course

of the morning over 100 shells into the fragments of the village of

Noisseville. The fire gradually died away to the south, and about 2

P.M. came the order for the reserves and the artillery to return to

quarters, and for the outposts to be reinstated in their old positions.

The rain which quenched the ardour of the French lasted with scarcely

any intermission for forty-eight hours, and made its impression on

the health of the besieging army. Bronchitis and diarrhœa were the

chief complaints engendered; typhus, which soon after became almost

an epidemic, now first gained serious head. One saw waggon load

after waggon load of sick men going down to Courcelles. Much might

have been done, that was not done, both by German organisation and

by those other organisations set on foot through the liberality of

nations sympathising with human suffering, to ease the hardships of

those poor fellows. It would not have been difficult to have organised

a cheap and serviceable ambulance service to have accommodated both

sick and wounded. Around Metz, in the third line, there are everywhere

practicable roads. District depôts might easily have been established,

one, say, at Ste. Barbe, another at Olgy, a third somewhere behind

Sennecourt, and a fourth at Gravelotte. To these depôts might have

been consigned the sick and wounded Germans from the several regiments

and brigades—the poor fellows whom I saw making long weary journeys to

Courcelles, in springless country carts or on foot. Between each of

these depôts there might have been a continuous service of vehicles

resembling elongated Irish jaunting cars. Such vehicles are the true

pattern of an ambulance. They would hold a man on either foot rest

slightly broadened, two more on the seats, and one above the well in

the centre. Four poles at each corner, with a tarpaulin, would make

an efficient protection from the weather. Thus, by easy stages, and

resting at intervals in the depôts, the sick and wounded might have

been brought down in ease and comfort to Courcelles, whence the trains

were ready to convey them to Germany. These hospital trains were the

most complete things of the kind I had ever seen. The carriages were

built on the American model, with entrance at either end. There were

two tiers of beds down each side, three in each tier, and the beds

had every appliance calculated to give comfort to the occupants. One

carriage was devoted to the purposes of a laboratory, another formed a

living and sleeping room for the volunteer attendants, and a third was

a kitchen. To a callousness for suffering, which must be characterised

as general, there were two exceptions which must be named. One was

the German depôt at Courcelles, of which Baron Von Kramm was the life

and soul, and which did an immensity of good without pretension. The

Baron himself was one of the most energetic men I have ever met,

and wrought day and night with the supremest contempt for the good

things of this life. The other exception was the branch of the English

ambulance, which had its head-quarters in Remilly, under the control

of Mr. Austin Lee, a young gentleman endowed with unquestionable

administrative talent and great energy; he was ably supported by his

assistant, Captain Norman, and within the sphere of my own observation

accomplished much really good work.

On the 11th, a French deserter from Metz was brought into Retonfay;

he belonged to the 59th of the Line, and to the Army Corps of which

Marshal Lebœuf had the command. His regiment, along with two others,

was lying, he reported, on the slope on which stands the village of

Vantoux, a little behind Mey. He told us that his desertion was a

matter of arrangement with a large body of the soldiery. Lots had

been drawn who should make the first attempt, and if the experiment

succeeded, the others were to desert likewise. He dodged along the

verge of the Bois de Grimont, and then came sneaking through the

vine-bergs till he reached the German _Feldwache_ behind Nouilly. Many

Frenchmen were observed apparently watching his career. The man was

an Alsatian, as, he said, were most of the men of his regiment, and he

spoke German well. He said the French soldiers lying around Metz were

tired of their lives. Nominally, the force to which he belonged lived

under canvas, but the stench in the tents was so strong, by reason of

cutaneous diseases among the men, that almost all slept in the open

air. This for several days before must have been tantamount to sleeping

in a water-butt. The skin disease was chiefly of a scorbutic character,

caused by the want of vegetables, the absence of salt, and the almost

exclusive living on horse-flesh. The poor fellow’s mouth and face were

in a very bad state from scurvy. He stated that numbers of his fellows

were similarly affected. The spirit of disaffection was, he reported,

almost universal; even the Guards were tainted with it. Since the

defeat of the 7th the troops had positively refused to make any more

sorties, and it was with difficulty that the officers could prevail on

the men to go upon outpost duty. Of bread, the deserter said, there

was considerable scarcity, and the quality was bad; the quantity of

rice served out was a tea-cup full per day between two men. This, with

the bread, was all the food besides horseflesh the men had. They had

eaten the horses of several cavalry regiments, and were now masticating

battery horses.

Confined to quarters for several days, by an accident which befel me

on the 10th October, I had leisure to note that inattention to sanitary

conditions, which was the weak point in the otherwise almost perfect

organisation of the German army. The French inhabitants around Metz

were outer barbarians in this respect. The hamlet of Tully Veolan, as

described in _Waverley_, was an elysium of cleanliness compared with

the little French villages which everywhere dot the territory around

the city, and in which were quartered the bulk of the besieging army.

Before every door a large and venerable dunghill reeked; in the back

cellars, and in the sties immediately behind the houses, dwelt colonies

of swine, whose lairs, apparently, had not been purified within the

memory of the oldest inhabitant. In dry, warm weather, these dunghills

and pigsties impregnated the air with the pungent fumes of ammonia; in

wet weather, their ooze percolated everywhere, and was indescribably

fœtid. Thus the Germans were the inheritors of nuisances not of their

own engendering. But they were by no means behindhand in the race of

nuisance manufacturing. The entrails of slaughtered cattle, instead

of being collected into one deep receptacle, and there buried deeply

after having been strewed with quicklime, were strewed at random around

the villages and in the gardens, with a little loose earth thrown

over them, through the interstices of which a piece of paunch was

often visible; and no disinfectants were used. Then the establishment

of, and the enforcement of resort to, latrines, placed in suitable

localities and assiduously disinfected, seemed to be almost wholly

neglected, and the consequences were, a state of filth in the immediate

vicinity of the houses, to allude to which further would compel the

use of plainer phraseology than the reader might stomach. It is quite

an erroneous belief that it is important only in warm weather to study

sanitary conditions. Cold, raw weather, with fog, opens the pores of

the human animal nearly as much as the most relaxing tropical climate,

and is far more depressing to the spirits. Open pores, and dulled

spirits, are the conditions exactly fitting a man for the reception

of malarious particles floating in the air; and a heavy fog, when

the ground sweats again, and the air is almost stagnant, is just the

atmosphere in which one can hardly move without coming in contact with

such particles.

Living as I did, with regimental, as contradistinguished from staff

officers, I enjoyed considerable opportunities for estimating the

thoroughness of the German system of military training and education.

A German general ought to be a good despatch-writer, considering the

training in this line which he must have undergone. He began to write

despatches as soon as he acquired a separate command, were it only of

half a company. The despatch system of the German army is perfect, and

the compilation of an accurate and detailed narrative of each campaign

ought to be very easy. Take an instance. From Retonfay, on the morning

of the 12th October were transmitted to divisional head-quarters,

the despatches from the 4th Regiment, recounting the doings of that

contingent in the action of Noisseville, on the 31st of August and

1st of September. The colonel sent in his summary of the manœuvres of

the three battalions under his command. The major of each battalion

likewise made his report of the proceedings of his own battalion,

and every captain or officer in command of a company, also sent

forward a succinct statement of his company’s doings. These reports

were accompanied by a chart on a large scale, showing the positions

of the regiment at various periods of the battle, and drawn in this

instance by a young lieutenant of our mess, the most accurate and rapid

military topographist I have ever known. To be a practical draughtsman

is imperative with every German officer. The puzzle with me was to

find out what accomplishment is not imperative. The prickles which

surround the rose of a commission are many and sharp, and, after all,

the rose (at least in a nursery-gardening sense) is no great thing.

Take the case, for instance, of my own especial comrade in the 4th,

which presented no exceptional features. He came to the regiment from

the gymnasium, in the capacity of avantageur. An avantageur is neither

more nor less than a private soldier who aspires to a commission.

On joining he had to pass an examination to demonstrate his general

scholarship. For twelve months he served in the ranks, rising meanwhile

to the non-commissioned rank of Vicefeldwebel, and then he went for

a year to the military school. On leaving this, he had to pass an

examination on everything relating to the art military, and then he

came back to the regiment as a Degen fähnrich, that is to say, as the

wearer of a sword without commissioned rank, for six months longer. The

officers of the regiment then voted him eligible for a commission, and

expressed their readiness, by the same vote, to accept him as a comrade

and a credit to the service; this step being an indispensable prelude

to a commission. Whereupon the King was graciously pleased to sign his

commission as second lieutenant, a rank which he had contentedly held

for six years, and may hold still, for aught I know to the contrary. He

wore the medals for 1866; he had commanded the company for the last two

months, because his seniors had been killed off; he was looking forward

with hope to be a premier lieutenant in the course of another year, and

a captain in perhaps ten more. His pay in war-time was about 11_l._

10_s._ a month, in peace he had not much more than about half as much.

And he was a thoroughly contented, even-minded, German gentleman, proud

of the service, proud that he bore a commission in it, very hungry for

the Iron Cross, fond of fun, and fonder still of work and fighting. I

have simply cited him as a typical example; his fellows were as like

him as peas. Who would not like to see a few peas of such a pod in the

British army?

Reluctantly obliged to quit the front, as the result of the accident

already alluded to, I spent the time from the 14th to the morning

of the 18th invalided in Saarbrück. Having partially recovered, and

reaching Remilly early in the forenoon of the 18th, I found ready

to start five fourgons belonging to the English Ambulance Company.

These were about to start for a journey round Metz, and I had the

opportunity afforded me of a seat in one of the carriages. Our journey

to Corny lay behind the foreposts through a chain of villages in the

rear of the great bulk of the Prussian regiments in the south of Metz.

As we passed Pontoy we emerged on the upland plateau lying to the

south of Forts Queleu and St. Privat, and before us to the north lay

those sulky-looking fortresses which refused to be enlivened even by

the rays of the afternoon sun which fell full on their sullen sides.

St. Privat was speaking with its great guns, firing in the direction

of the Moselle, but close to us lay a German field battery in utter

quiescence, sure token that nothing of importance was going on. At

dusk we reached Corny, and applied to the Etappen Commandant for

quarters. His answer was an imperative suggestion of the same character

as that which the Gardes Mobiles made to Mr. Malet on his way from

Paris to Meaux. We had no resource but to sleep under the beautiful

stars. They were fortunately in our case visible, and we bivouacked

not uncomfortably in an orchard outside the town, which was greatly

preferable to finding harbour in any of the houses of Corny, infected

as they were to the very ceiling with malignant typhus. A visit for

purposes of information to the fine old château occupied by Prince

Frederick Charles resulted in my being told that the parlementaire

which came out a day or two previous had returned into Metz without

any definite result, and that it was believed that Metz would now hold

out to the bitter end. Further, that there was to be no change in the

Prussian tactics. Still “masterly inactivity” was to be the policy,

and the intelligence received from Metz of a reliable character was of

a nature to indicate that this policy could not possibly, ere long,

fail to effect the desired results. Prince Frederick Charles had been

suffering seriously from dysentery, and was still far from fully

recovered, but he was able to sit his horse, and he had never devolved

his functions of commander-in-chief on any substitute.

Corny lies in a trough on the edge of the Moselle, shut out from even

a distant view of Metz by two curious conical hills, which are part of

the series of which the hill of Mousson and the range of St. Quentin

and Plappeville are also summits. The peak nearest the river and

also nearest Metz is known as the Mont St. Blaise. Its elevation is

considerable, and its position renders it highly eligible as a look-out

station. On its summit there was an observatory, and this observatory

I visited on the morning of the 19th, notwithstanding the black looks

of those in authority in Corny. The whole hilltop is honeycombed with

artificial caves, formed, I suppose, in the old days, when the ruin

on the summit was a castle inhabited by some magnate of Lorraine, who

from his eyrie here dominated the beautiful plain before him, and

the valley of the Moselle. Alongside of this ruin, and at an equal

elevation, stands a lonely farmhouse, and in front of it the Germans

had erected a wooden look-out post, open toward Metz, and mounted with

a very powerful telescope. Not a man could move within the scope of

vision that the action was not noted by the officer who constantly

sat with his eye at this instrument. A series of telegraph wires from

the several head-quarters of the different army corps converged into

a little office in the rear of this look-out post, and the intentions

of the French were thus known as soon as they proceeded to manifest

them by action. The post was occupied by two officers belonging to

the Second Army Corps—and they had at their disposal a detachment of

soldiers to act as orderlies, messengers, &c. What a glorious view

opened out before me as I stood on the little plateau in front of the

ruin of the Castle of St. Blaise, and looked Metz-ward! On the left

lay the narrow valley of the Moselle, with the slope of the vinebergs

in front of Gorze rising beyond. At our feet, to the left, lay

Ars-sur-Moselle, skirted by the railway, with the old Roman aqueduct

spanning the Moselle with its antique arches, and the new road-bridge

nearer Montigny, where is the junction of the railway lines from Nancy

and from Saarbrück. A locomotive was dodging about the junction as

I looked down upon it, and right before me stretched the rich and

beautiful plain, variegated with green and brown and yellow, according

to the tint of the crops and the foliage, and with the great twin tower

of the Cathedral of Metz standing up defiantly in its centre. The river

wound through the flat in three great stretches: one close under the

frowning bulk of Mont St. Quentin, that sulked blackly across at us

on the left front; the other twisting in a long half-loop far away to

the right. As it seemed immediately under us, Fort St. Privat peeped

spitefully out over the poplars surrounding the pretty village and

château of Cuvry, and further to my right the grim earthwork front of

Fort Queleu showed itself over the plain like a huge beaver-dam. The

prospect was vast. Carrying the eye over the spires of the cathedral,

I could see to the north of Metz the long link of the Moselle trending

eastward toward Olgy and Malroy, and with the powerful telescope in

position I could even discern St. Eloy and beyond it the blackened

ruins of St. Rémy, Ladonchamps, and Grandes and Petites Tapes, where

on the 7th I had seen the Landwehrmen die in their tracks rather than

yield the post they held, although bidden thereto by an overwhelming

number of enemies. It may be interesting to give the positions of the

hostile forces as seen from this summit, since the status quo then

visible was unaltered when the capitulation took place.

To begin at the now well-known Mercy-le-Haut. Opposite this point the

French were in force in front of Grigy, from which position they, on

the previous night, had burnt the remaining houses of Peltre. Working

westward, the French foreposts were in Bevoye, Magny, in front of

Montigny, and thence across the Moselle, at Moulins-les-Metz, which

had been burnt about a fortnight previously. From Moulins the forepost

line ran up toward St. Hubert, between St. Ruffine and Chazelles, hence

in front of Scy through the valley close under Mont St. Quentin to

Lessy, and thence northward with a slight sweep allowed by Plappeville

to Lorry, and thence to Vigneulles and Woippy. The completion of the

circle I have already detailed. The German foreposts, commencing

from the right, stood at Peltre, and thence westward in front of St.

Thiebauldt, and in la Papeterie (opposite Magny). Then there was a

sweep comparatively close to Metz, as the Moselle was neared, and the

Teuton foreposts stood impudently at Frescaty, whence the sentries must

have been able almost to discern the complexions of the gunners in St.

Privat. The line crossed the Moselle to Vaux, considerably in front of

Ars-sur-Moselle, and then made a dart forward to Jussy, right under the

guns of St. Quentin. Longeau, where there was a battery of 12-pounders,

continued the chain to Chatel St. Germain. Across the plateau and the

wood of Chatel ran the links of the strong forepost chain, giving a

wide berth to the big guns of Plappeville, behind Lorry, through the

Bois de Vigneulles to Saulny, from Saulny, still further north-east, to

Villers-le-Plesnois, and so by Norroy to the bloodstained Ladonchamps,

and the villages whose names are known in connection with the combat of

the 7th, to the Moselle at Maxe.

So much for the positions of the two hostile armies in this portion

of the investiture. A few words now as to the position of the French

inside their outposts yet outside the town of Metz, the gates of which

were sealed to Bazaine’s army as rigorously as was the road to liberty.

The French had in all, in the environed space and outside Metz, four

great lagers or camps. The first and probably the largest was on the

slope of Mont St. Quentin, looking toward Mont St. Blaise. I could

see the rows of tents athwart and athwart the slope, past the village

of Scy, and stretching almost down to Chazelles. Another great camp

almost joined the first at Longeville, a village on the west bank of

the Moselle, and this lager straggled up the river margin first to

Ban St. Martin, where Bazaine had his head-quarters, and so on to the

north as far as Devant-les-Ponts. A third camp was in front of St.

Julien, toward Vantoux, Vallieres, &c., concerning which detailed

information has already been given. The fourth camp was around Borny

and Grigy. Besides those camps of soldiers there seemed two great

collections of sick, so far as I could discern through the telescope of

the observatory. One of those was placed on the esplanade of the town

of Metz, and along the river brink. I saw the sick being carried about

on stretchers, and the curtains of the tents looped up to give air to

the inmates. Another great sick camp seemed to be on the Island of

Sauley, where it was believed the cases of typhus fever were as much as

possible isolated.

After quitting Corny on the 19th, our way lay across the river by

Noveant, the means of transit being a pontoon bridge. Just outside

Corny we came on a graveyard, which the Germans had improvised for

the bodies of those who had died in the hospitals there, whether from

sickness or wounds. They were burying the dead now in deal coffins, but

the coffins were put in the ground with very scant ceremony. I saw a

fatigue party putting a couple into a hole, the coffins lying on the

grass while the men dug their receptacle.

Gorze was very much changed for the better since the last time I had

visited it in the days of blood. From the summit of the great convent

on the hill there still was flying the hospital flag; but under it lay

few or no wounded men. The hotel was tenanted by the cheery officers of

the staff of Prince Louis of Hesse, who commanded the troops lying in

the town, consisting of several regiments of Hessian men, with the lion

instead of the eagle on their helmets. The inhabitants had all come

back to their houses, and lived not alone on amicable, but seemingly

on cordial terms with the stalwart Hessians billeted upon them. Madame

of the hotel, who in August had moved about in a stolid apathy of

despair, utterly disregarding any questions that might be put to her,

and with hardly energy enough to wring her hands, was now blithe and

sprightly, moving about briskly in response to the requirements of

her numerous guests. The stains that blood had made on the floors

were still visible—indelible probably while the boarding lasts, but

Madame’s despair was much more evanescent, and with her return to good

spirits the landlady’s instinct of charging stiff prices had returned.

In August, when I asked her whether I should pay her anything for the

quasi shelter I had had for the night under her roof, she only stared

blankly in my face, and I could not get an answer from her. Now, when I

asked her whether she could give me a bottle of good wine, she eagerly

replied in the affirmative, and placed before me a really good bottle

of Muscat, for which she put on, with a smiling face, the fancy price

of twelve francs.

The road from Gorze to Rezonville consists, first of an ascent through

a narrow gorge into a corner of the Bois de Vionville, and then it

traverses the plain in a line with the close of the battle of Vionville

on the 16th of August. On the bleak October forenoon all that we saw

in the way of traces of the fights of August were the many graves and

occasional heaps of the _débris_ of the battle-field. But another

sense than that of sight bore testimony to tokens of carnage. Every

grave-heap had beside it an eccentric tombstone in the shape of a

barrel of chloride of lime; yet, notwithstanding this disinfectant,

the taint in the air was unmistakable and indescribably fœtid. In the

village of Rezonville were still some of the more severely wounded,

and the doctors were heartily glad to see the stores which the English

ambulance fourgons contained. At Rezonville the troops were Hessians,

belonging to the 7th Army Corps. After a short halt, to enable Mr. Lee

to distribute his stores judiciously, we pressed on to Gravelotte,

where we were most cordially received by the officers of a battery of

artillery quartered there. Afterwards we were permitted to go on to

the foreposts in front of Chatel St. Germain, looking over to Fort

St. Julien. The chain of sentries stood just where it had done on

the morning of the 20th of August, looking down into the intervening

valley. The French had a large cavalry forepost in the bottom of the

valley. On the slope around the pretty village of Scy lay the white

tents of the French camp which I had seen on the previous day from

the top of Mont St. Blaise. Walking some half a mile in the direction

of the Moselle, we came presently on a promontory that juts out into

the valley, and commands a view of the whole country. It seemed that

at our very feet lay the huge pile of the Cathedral; the tin on its

spires flashing up in a watery ray of the morning sun, and the great

mass casting a dark shadow across the Place d’Armes. On the Isle of

Sauley we could see the “isolated” crawling about the river’s edge, and

between the ramparts and the great southern camp a locomotive was at

work on the railway.

As we walked back from the extreme foreposts we passed many rifle-pits

on the crest of the rising ground forming the sentry-line, and also a

regularly-constructed battery, with earthworks in front and casemates

and magazine in the rear. On the platform were mounted six 12-pounders,

and in the rear, near Chatel, were several batteries of field

artillery. The 12-pounders looked across at Fort St. Julien in the most

impudent manner imaginable, as if to say, “Your fortress exists only on

our sufferance; we could blow you to little pieces with a round or two

if we chose, but we prefer leaving you alone, out of our tender mercy.”

And St. Quentin, on its part, seemed to look across at the 12-pounders

with something of a risus sardonicus on its grim grey features.

Returning to Gravelotte, we set out for the completion of our design

to make the circuit of the Prussian position. Our road lay past the

blackened ruins of Malmaison, in which, on the afternoon of the 18th

of August, 200 French wounded were burnt, by shells fired from French

guns. The smell in the shell, which was all that remained of a once

large mansion, was horrible. The tiles had fallen in and hidden the

charred corpses of the miserables who perished in the conflagration;

but here and there projected a ghastly blackened hand, or a gartered

leg swathed in discoloured red cloth. The place was one vast horrible

grave, never to be thought of without a shudder. In a lonely upland

valley we came upon the forlorn and ruined hamlet of Champenoise,

utterly burnt out, smashed and pounded in all directions with shells,

pitted all over with the dents of chassepot bullets, and its precincts

full of mounds, below which lay, side by side, defenders and captors.

Further to the north, in the rear of Amanvilliers, was a twin battery

to the one at Gravelotte, very daintily constructed, and fenced round

with _chevaux de frise_, and I rather think some pleasant little

surprises in the shape of mines. From Amanvilliers the road trended

away to the left to avoid the entrenchments in the vicinity of the

foreposts at Saulny, and presently reached the village of Jerusalem.

Lying in a sequestered and somewhat isolated tract, few students of

war literature have heard much about this tiny namesake of the great

Hebrew city of antiquity. Nevertheless, it was the scene of a terrible

conflict on the evening of the 18th of August. It had its Titus in

General von Pape, but there was no Josephus to chronicle the episodes

of the fray. Yet as eloquently as any pen could have described them

were they indicated now by the silent yet expressive grave-tokens sown

thickly all round the little spot, whose ruin was so utter that it

might, to complete the parallel with its namesake of old, have been

sown with salt.

Quitting the plateau lying to the north-west of Fort Plappeville,

we drove through a great wood, chiefly of underbrush, and suddenly

came out on a bluff overhanging the valley of the Moselle. Our point

was just before Feves, and the view was glorious. Moy before us in

the valley, one could easily trace the line of the German foreposts

stretching across to the river; nearer to Metz again was the French

line, and behind it the white tents of the camps, with columns of

troops moving about in the interval. We could see the zig-zags of Fort

Moselle, and of the enceinte surrounding the town. At Feves, just below

us, and in a splendid position, was a battery of 12-pounders, the same

that I had seen speaking to such good purpose on the afternoon of the

7th. Getting down into the valley, we crossed the Thionville road, and

struck for the temporary wooden barracks erected on the railway to the

right front of Maizières, in which was quartered the Fusilier battalion

of the 81st Regiment, which had distinguished itself in Ladonchamps on

the night of the 7th. In front of the Baracken was another battery of

12-pounders, and on the other side of Maizières, before the Chateau of

Amelange, stood yet another. We crossed the river at Hautconcourt, and

came down to Charly in the gloaming. Next morning I quitted my good

friends of the fourgons, and struck across for my old comrades of the

4th Regiment, whom I found quartered in Château Gras, a little village

some half-mile to the north rear of Retonfay.

Among the “kent faces” that greeted me after my absence I missed

one or two whom I had learnt to reckon friends. The adjutant of the

battalion, a joyous lad fresh from the schools, a youngster of eighteen

summers, had succumbed to the hardships of the situation. The marrow

was not “set” in the growing boy’s bones, and where seasoned men

found it not an easy matter to keep sickness from assailing them with

success, the dart had penetrated through his green frame, and he had

been compelled to go back to the Fatherland, a shattered veteran ere

he had attained his full stature. I missed, too, another face, that

of a lieutenant, whose determination to consider himself well while as

yet the fever had not left him, I had respected in one sense, while in

another I had deprecated. Wounded in the fight by Noisseville on the

1st of September, he had been sent back to St. Wendel, where in the

lazarette fever had laid hold of him. His wound healed, and the fever

in part abated, the soldier lusted to be again with his comrades in the

forefront of the battle, and he had quitted the lazarette while as yet

the dregs of the fever had not been eliminated from his frame. On the

day of his arrival he lay beside me on the straw, with the alternate

cold and hot fits working their will of him, and then I told him that

his return had been premature. My words were made good by the fact that

two days after the doctor had peremptorily insisted on his return to

St. Wendel, and so he had gained nothing by his enterprise save another

strain on his constitution.

A friend had kindly kept for me a little diary of the siege events on

this face which had occurred since my retirement to Saarbruck, but

they were of so little importance as not to call for reproduction.

The only actual sortie made by the French troops, and that in

comparatively small numbers, had been on the 16th, in the direction of

the Brewery. Of course they were driven back. They could have hoped

for nothing else. All the damage they did was to shoot through the

chest the Feldwebel of the 6th Company. King Wilhelm had no better

non-commissioned officer in all his vast army. Strauss smoked his

cigar while the doctor cut the bullet out of his back, the lieutenant

beside whom he was shot holding him up while the operation was being

performed. Then he quietly squared up his company-book, and counting

the money in his hands (the Feldwebel is the pay-sergeant of the

company), handed everything over to his successor in right trim, and

went away philosophically in the waggon to a lazarette. Deserters had

become so numerous as to engender a suspicion that there was a design

for depleting the garrison by this device, and so eking out the stores

of food. A few deserters are useful, and not to be discouraged. Assume

that none of them speak the truth; King David tells us that “all men

are liars,” and yet from our fellow-men’s utterances we contrive to

extract some grains of truth. In like manner a little wheat can be

winnowed out of the chaff of a deserter’s farragos, and one or two are

acceptable. But now that their name was legion, the order had been

issued to receive no more bodies of deserters into the lines, but

to send them back whence they came by the powerful argument of the

needle-gun. How was it that so many of the deserters were drunk when

they came in? Was strong drink on tap in the outposts round Metz, or

were the men dosed for the attempt? The latter hypothesis might seem

to be borne out by the fact, of which I was assured, not by French

prisoners alone, but by German doctors who had administered to the

French wounded, that the French tirailleurs who pushed so boldly to

the front at Maizières on the 7th were all full of brandy. Ichabod!

Ichabod! How had the glory departed from the French arms when the

leaders were compelled to infuse Dutch courage into their soldiers! The

French were the readiest to scorn the Russian serf-soldier because,

when he came up through the fog wreaths on the morning of Inkermann,

his sluggish pulses had been quickened by corn-schnaps. Now, it seemed

that they found the same unsoldier-like stimulant requisite in their

own case.

I have heard Count Bismarck compared to an elephant’s trunk, as one for

whom nothing was too great or too small. But Bismarck was not the only

German in this war who looked after all little matters as well as the

great. I was much amused by an item in one of the orders of the day

from Prince Frederick Charles’s head-quarters. It was to the effect

that whereas an unprincipled rascal of a Hamburg cigar merchant had

been selling boxes of cigars to the troops, the upper tier of which

consisted of good weeds while the lower ones were unmitigated trash,

the military authorities of any place where this astute gentleman

should present himself, were enjoined to lay hold of him and transmit

him to the head-quarters at Corny. At such an entry one may smile,

but I defy him to refrain from respecting the all-pervading care and

watchfulness which took cognisance of such a matter as this. In such

care and watchfulness lay the root of much of the Prussian success. A

campaign is not made victorious by dint of fighting alone; success more

than half depends on efficient organisation, even as regards seeming

trifles.

Château Gras must have been a beautiful village before the tide of war

came and strewed sand and shingle over its charms. A fine old chateau

is the principal building in it, the noble garden of which had been

very little injured, while the furniture had also suffered very little.

In a room on the ground floor the books still stood on the long ranges

of shelves upon the wail. So careful were the Germans to prevent injury

to property that on the door of every room occupied by them was pasted

an inventory of its contents, for which the successive occupants were

held responsible, just as in a barrack at home. The chateau till lately

had been a large Feldlazarette, occupied by the wounded of the fights

before Noisseville of the 31st of August and 1st of September. The

smell of the chloride of lime was still so powerful in the beautiful

rooms that some of the officers preferred more modest quarters in the

houses of the village. When the owner of the chateau came back he must

have shuddered at the legacy the war had left him. Of the wounded in

the great lazarette, not a few had succumbed before the grim king of

terrors. In a quiet corner of the garden, looking out through the trees

on to St. Julien, St. Quentin, les Bottes, and the great towers of the

cathedral in the centre of the plain, is a graveyard, where lie those

who died of their wounds in the lazarette. It is prettily enclosed with

a wooden paling. The one great grave, over 100 yards in length, is

banked up with green sods, and the surface trimly raked. It is flanked

up by a great wooden cross bearing the simple inscription:—“Hier ruhen

285 Preussische und 5 Französische tapfere Krieger.” There are besides

several graves of officers, which are adorned with box-wood crosses

planted in the soil and with wreaths of immortelles.

By the 25th of October the symptoms grew more and more pronounced of

a speedy ending to the siege, apart altogether from the accounts of

negociations which we had from line to head-quarters. On the night

of the 24th I had a conversation with a deserter whose information

seemed of considerable exactitude and apparent truthfulness. He spoke

of a rapid and continuous diminution in the rations served out to the

troops, and of increasing irregularity in the supply. Eight days back

the bread ration had been half a pound a day for each man; now it was

reduced to four ounces, and there was difficulty in procuring this

morsel. The man understood that the Imperial Guards who lay around

Bazaine at Ban St. Martin, received rather more food than the other

troops, and they were used by reason of their superior discipline and

their greater contentment as a means of keeping in some semblance of

order the line regiments. To each peloton a live horse was given per

day, but the man described the brutes as consisting of little else than

bones and hide. There can be little wonder that the number of sick was

greatly on the increase under such circumstances. Out of 800 men of

which this man’s battalion consisted, 200 were sick and unfit for duty.

Those who were nominally able men were, he said, in a state of great

weakness, and certainly his own appearance corroborated this statement.

Various statements appeared to have been made within the last day or

two by the French generals to their troops, to keep them from falling

into utter despondency. Another deserter brought out a cock and bull

story about a general order, to the effect that the Empress was to

arrive in Metz on the 25th, and to assume the supreme power, and that

then on the next day the whole army was to march away to the north

by permission of the Germans. The authorities seemed to interpret

these and kindred statements as giving intimation of a sortie in

force towards the north on the 26th. The line to the north of Metz

on both sides of the river was accordingly greatly strengthened,

and the troops in the third line all round were called out at five

o’clock in the morning of that day, in positions enabling them to act

efficiently as reserves and supports for the first and second lines.

These precautions were no doubt wise, yet on the face of things it

seemed that a sortie was physically impossible. It had rained with

hardly any intermission for three days, and was still raining. Except

where the macadam of the chaussées afforded a hard bottom under the

mud, it was impossible to traverse the country on foot. One floundered

helplessly in the slippery stuff till he got to a deeper place than

usual, and then had to struggle vehemently to prevent himself from

sticking outright. No regiment could have kept its formation in ground

so holding; and to move artillery or train, except on the macadamised

roads, must have been utterly impossible. Following the caution of the

Germans, I rode round early to Malroy to be on the ground, if anything,

contrary to my belief, should take place; but the alarm, as I had

anticipated, turned out to be false.

The 26th October was a great day with us in Château-Gras. Metz had not

quite capitulated. There had been no sortie. The rain was coming down

unceasingly, and the country was one huge slush. But nevertheless, I

repeat, it was a great day with us. It was our doctor’s birthday, and

there was no reason why we should not keep it, while the generals were

finishing the more serious business. Our doctor was a man unknown to

fame, but he deserved it more than many a man who has earned it. He was

of the fighting jolly style of medico; although his business was to

cure wounds, he had no objection, but the contrary, to cut out work for

himself. If you had met him in Cork, you would unhesitatingly have set

him down as a native, with his merry black eyes, wide laughing mouth,

and—how shall I put it delicately?—his nose with the Hibernian bend.

And it was the birthday of this excellent fellow.

I could not make out in the morning why _appel_ was hurried over so

rapidly; but I was soon to learn. The adjutant tucked my arm under

his, and marched me off into the chateau. Of the _salle_ the officers

had made a mess-room, and it was into this fine apartment that the

adjutant guided me about ten o’clock in the morning. We were one and

all, it seemed, the guests of the doctor on this the anniversary of his

natal morn. Nor was the doctor hospitable without the means. A certain

good lady, calling him husband, and dwelling in Königsberg, had not

forgotten the day, and, as a birthday present, had sent her good man

a great chest. The sum total of the contents of that chest, the world

through me can never know. The enumeration I heard indeed, but I lost

the tally when the doctor was about half through with it. Suffice it

to say that the table groaned under a load of delicacies. I had seen a

telegram from Berlin, to the effect that the troops before Metz were

living on mutton. The telegraphist would have opened his eyes had he

dropped in this morning. There was Schinken and boiled ham, there was

a German sausage, as big as the good heart of the doctor’s wife, there

was a snug little barrel of sardellen, pickled with bay leaves; there

was German gingerbread and rusks; there was fresh butter, and there was

compot of plums, and I don’t know what all else. Then, for drink, there

was the choice of Malaga and claret, rum, brandy, Hamburg bitters, and

absinthe, and a hearty welcome to season all. We had a curious way of

eating in the foreposts, what may be styled, a miscellaneous manner of

feeding. Sausage, gingerbread, sardines, and compot, were seen on one

plate at once, and served to season one another in a very impartial

way. I don’t think the doctor could reasonably have complained of the

appetites which were brought to his feast. He had one appetite of

which he could have had no anticipation. Just as we were in the middle

of the feast, a miserable devil of a French deserter was brought in

from the foreposts. I never before saw the wolfish glare of absolute

hunger darting from a man’s eyes. Wet, dirty, half-rotten, seemingly

from scurvy, with puffed lips, and hollow cheeks, this gaunt spectacle

of a man devoured the food with his great staring eyes. He could not

reply to any questions, so concentrated was he upon his gaze at the

meaty ham-bone, and when the Hauptmann threw it to him, it positively

made one shudder to see the dog-like style in which he fell a-worrying

of it. When all, including, I hope, the poor wretch in the lobby, had

eaten their fill, the senior Hauptmann called for full glasses, and in

a neat speech proposed the doctor’s health. The doctor was very waggish

in his reply. He suggested we should dedicate a bumper to St. Julien

and les Bottes, because they had been courteous enough not to intervene

to the detriment of the crockeryware, and expressed, further, a fervent

wish that Bazaine were making one of the company. By twelve o’clock

the doctor was drunk out—that is, his stores were—but a happy thought

struck a lieutenant concerning a barrel of beer which he had in his

room. This was fetched, and its contents went the way of the doctor’s

stores.

As we broke up, I heard the word go round that there would be a

“picnic” in the evening. One is apt to associate the idea of a picnic

with leafy glades, blue muslin, bad champagne, and lobster salad. None

of these _agréments_ had we in Château Gras. The rain was falling fast,

the winter wind was blowing bitterly, and the idea of a picnic seemed

about as wild as would have been the suggestion of an oratory. But

nevertheless the “picnic” came off, although not quite according to my

preconceived notions of this institution. It was an indoor picnic; in

point of fact, it took place in the hall where the doctor gave his

breakfast. It was on the mutual co-operation principle—everybody was

expected to bring something. My contribution was a box of sardines, a

lump of butter, and a bottle of rum. I am afraid this was not quite

up to the general mark; but what I had I gave—I could no more. I

stood in the lobby awhile, watching the arrivals and their several

contributions. One Hauptmann was accompanied by his servant carrying

half-a-dozen of red wine, a lieutenant had a leg of mutton and a bag

full of sugar under his cloak. The hall looked quite civilised. On the

great round table in the centre stood an actual moderator lamp, with a

painted shade atop of it, its pedestal resting on a mat. Talk of war

times, here was refinement with a vengeance. A great wood fire blazed

cheerfully on the hearth, and the glasses—somewhat nondescript in

shape and size, it is true—sparkled on the board. After a brief pause,

the first service of tipple was brought in, contained in a white soup

tureen and an antique china vase. The drink was very good. I regret

being unable to furnish the recipe for its composition. I may state,

however, that among the ingredients were red wine, white wine, rum,

cognac, schnapps, cloves, and cinnamon; of the proportions of each I

could learn nothing. I incline to the opinion that a “stock” pot with

the red wine was put on, and, as contributions came in, that they were

emptied into the pot promiscuously.

For about two hours conversation, alternated with story-telling, was

the order of the evening. The talk fell once upon the causes of the

French defeats, and after various explanations had been started, a

sententious premier lieutenant, who had not previously opened his

mouth, struck in with this original illustration and very sound

theory:—“The chief rabbi of the Dantzic Jews had taken a new house, and

his flock determined to stock his wine butt for him. An evening was set

apart for the affair, and one after another the Jews went down into the

cellar, and emptied each his bottle into the big vat. When the rabbi

came next day to draw off his dinner wine, he found there was nothing

in the cask but water. Each and every Jew had said to himself, that one

bottle of water could never be noticed in so great a quantity of wine,

and all acting up to this, the rabbi had not got a drop of wine in his

butt. Now it was just the same with the French army. One soldier said

to himself that it would not matter a copper if he sneaked away—in so

great a multitude he would not be missed. But the devil of it was, that

one and all took this line of reasoning, and the result was that nobody

was left to look our battalions in the face.” Everybody laughed at the

premier lieutenant’s quaint illustration, and then we had a stand-up

supper at the sideboard. That finished, singing was the order of the

evening. It surprised me not a little when one of the officers struck

up “My hearts in the Highlands,” and almost all were able to chime,

not alone with the tune, but the words. The doctor treated us to a

composition of his own, composed to illustrate passing events, for the

burden of it was—“The Bois de Grimont oh!” The Bois de Grimont was the

wood out of which the French sharp-shooters so persistently peppered

away at our foreposts. Encouraged by the success of this effort, he

gave us another song _pour l’occasion_, the chorus of which mixed up

“Mercy-le-Haut,” and “Ter Teufel,” in some mysterious manner. It may

interest the British music-hall patrons to know that a translation of

“The Captain with the whiskers” is one of the chiefest favourites with

the German officers. They rattle away at its lively chorus with great

delight. We had it to-night over and over again. At ten o’clock the

“stock” pot being empty, we broke up with great joviality, and betook

ourselves each unto his respective straw.

CHAPTER II.

PUCELLA RAPTA.

After all our long waiting from day to day in anticipation of

the capitulation of Metz, that event came upon us with a strange

suddenness. It had only been a few days previously that it was

mentioned in the general orders from head-quarters that the

negotiations had been definitively broken off; and when men heard this

they set their teeth hard, and prepared for another spell of waiting,

variegated with fighting. But there had been symptoms of the end being

imminent in the haggard deserters who came among us from day to day,

with their longing looks at our black bread and flesh. Orders had been

issued to the railway people in Saarbrück to have material in readiness

for repairing the railway communication direct into Metz; and this was

another symptom. But still, when the report ran round the regiment,

on the afternoon of the 27th, that the capitulation had actually been

negotiated, some found it difficult to realise the fact—confirmation

was wanting. It was true that the day before the generals commanding

the several army corps had been summoned to Frescaty by an order of

Prince Frederick Charles, and that some of us had the “straight tip”

under promise of the profoundest secrecy; but everything looked so much

in the ordinary way, that people could not realise the fact of the

capitulation. Men went on the field watch as usual, and the confronting

foreposts still continued to exchange shots. No white flag was visible,

and the unbelieving Thomases of the 4th shrugged their shoulders, and

would have none of the tidings. But general orders are convincing

arguments, and even the unbelieving Thomases took to clapping their

hands and capering, when the news came under the sign manual of the

chief of the staff.

At twelve o’clock on the forenoon of the 28th each of the outlying

fortresses was taken possession of by two battalions of German

infantry, a squadron of cavalry, one heavy battery without tumbrils,

100 artillerymen with the complement of officers, and an engineer

detachment. The following is the apportionment of the force of

occupation. The troops occupying

St. Quentin were found by 18th Infantry Division.

Plappeville ” ” 3rd Army Corps.

St. Julien ” ” 1st Army Corps.

Queleu ” ” 8th Army Corps.

St. Privat ” ” Hessian Division.

At the same hour a battalion of the 7th Army Corps marched forward, and

took possession of the Porte Serpenoise, one of the gates of Metz,

and another battalion from the same corps occupied the Porte Moselle.

Two hours before the occupation of the forts, I should observe, there

were sent forward from each of the occupying detachments an artillery

officer and a small body of under officers, accompanied by engineers,

to take over the powder magazines and the respective forts, and they

sent out the report to the effect that all was in order before the

troops were allowed to march in. This precaution was no doubt dictated

by a recollection of the catastrophe at Laon.

It was in orders that at one o’clock on the 28th the French army

should formally lay down its arms. By reason of the confusion which

reigned everywhere this disarmament was protracted and piecemeal, a

large proportion of the force not disburdening themselves of the now

useless arms till the following morning. There was no set ceremony,

yet the affair was imposing from its very simplicity. It was conducted

in detail, each corps laying down its arms in the neighbourhood of its

own station. I saw several regiments of the 3rd Corps d’Armée—that of

Lebœuf—disarm themselves. In straggling masses the men defiled past,

piling their arms in great heaps at the word of command from their own

officers, who laid down their swords as the men did their chassepots,

building quite a little heap of them to the right of the great stacks

of rifles. The disarmed French troops then returned into their

bivouacs, which they occupied for one night more, before quitting for

other bivouacs round which should stand German sentries. For this last

night they preserved a semblance of freedom. The Germans left them to

themselves. Except in the forts and at the two gates I have mentioned,

not a spiked helmet was to be seen nearer Metz than had been seen a

week before. The _Feldwachen_ were mounted as usual, the _replis_ were

established, and the troops stood fast as ever in their long and weary

watch around Metz. Indeed, in the course of the night there was a

slight skirmish somewhere between Vautoux and Mey, conducted on their

own account, as I afterwards learned, by a few men who thought proper

to repudiate the capitulation. So late as when I passed Little Belle

Croix on the forenoon of the 29th, I heard a few dropping shots on the

slope to the right, but whether they were fired in anger I never was

able to learn.

On the morning of the 29th October—sombre day for the French arms—the

Frenchmen came forth and rendered themselves to their captors—corps

by corps, and under the command of their own officers. The 6th Corps

(Canrobert’s) came from its bivouac by Woippy to Ladonchamps, where

on the 7th so many of its members had stained the soil with their

blood. Their prison-bivouac was on the plain in the rear of the wrecked

and burnt village. The 7th Corps, that of Ladmirault, came out over

the ridge between St. Quentin and Plappeville, and found quarters,

inhospitable enough I fear, on the bleak plateau of St. Maurice. The

Imperial Guard marched down to Longeville, crossed the railway bridge

at Tournebride, passed on to Frescaty to the left, and found their

bivouac in the plain between Orly and Augny. The garrison of Metz

itself, consisting of about 20,000 men, chiefly of Mobile Guards,

marched by Le Sablon, past the ruined village of Magny, and so forward

to the outskirts of St. Thiebauldt. The 2nd Corps (Frossard’s), with

Laveauconfied’s division, and the 4th brigade came out past La Posette

on the great Strasburg chaussée, and found their bivouac behind the

village of Ars Laquenexy. The 3rd Corps (that of Lebœuf) came out among

us of the 1st German Army Corps along the chaussée leading to Saarlouis.

Each corps, as it marched out, was received by the German troops

covering the respective section of the environment. They were led

by their own officers, who formally handed over their men to the

German officers, and then they were at liberty to quit their ranks

and return to Metz, there to wait the trains which should convey them

into captivity across the German Rhine. It should be mentioned that

their parole was accepted from none of the officers of the army of

Metz, a stringency adopted in consequence of the numerous defaults of

honour perpetrated by officers released on parole after having been

made prisoners. The men under the command of their under-officers were

then marched out to the bivouac places, which had previously been

partly prepared, wood for fires having been collected and a supply of

provisions being ready for distribution.

I was with the 1st Army Corps when it took up its position to receive

the corps of Lebœuf. From all the villages around, the villages

inhabited for so many weary weeks, the villages made memorable by

fights, by burnings, by graves, by sickness, and by deaths, streamed

the regiments on to the chaussée. There had been much rain during the

night, and although the sun broke out about ten o’clock, the watery

haze hung about the bottoms of the valleys and the mud splashed as

the troops strode through it. Mud! why we had had nothing but mud for

weeks, and should we mind it now, looking at the errand on which we

are bound? No. The “Wacht am Rhein” rises lustily from the pioneers in

the front, and the regiments as they come down the side roads catch

up the strain. On we go past the Brewery, with the grenade pits, the

graves, and the entrenchments around it—itself a mere heap of shattered

bricks—on to the gentle slope behind the village of Lauvallière. Then

right and left wheeled the heavy columns, leaving the chaussée open,

and a parallelogram of about 100 feet in width on each side of it. In

front of the Brewery stood the artillery, before the artillery the

serried ranks of brass-spiked helmets all the way down the gentle

slope, almost to Lauvallière. Arms were piled, and there the Germans

waited for the advent of the men with which it almost seemed, through

the length of time that the armies had confronted each other, that

they could claim a kind of personal acquaintance. While the troops

waited I pushed forward towards Metz to meet the Frenchmen. Already,

it is true, we had plenty of Frenchmen, but they were all civilians,

and there were Frenchwomen too, and French children. The road had been

opened in the morning, and they came crowding out, the poor creatures

who had abandoned their village homes and crowded into the town when

the pennons of the Uhlans had shown themselves on the fringes of the

villages. On they came, waggon load after waggon load, with their

trumpery household goods and their agricultural implements piled on

the waggons behind the women and children. They knew not what it was

that they had come out for to see. Perhaps they expected to find their

cottage homes as they had left them—not roofless, wrecked, utterly

ruined, as was the grim reality. Lauvallière seemed to give the first

shock to their cheerfulness. Gaunt and grim stood its houses, burnt

to the shell, the graves lying all around, the holes in the fields

where the shells had burst, the breastworks behind which had stood

the German foreposts. As each waggon and each knot of peasants came

into Lauvallière there was a halt, and full many a “Mon Dieu!” In

Lauvallière there was a large tannery, which must have employed many

workmen, and been an important and profitable concern. It was now a

mere shell—not a fragment of the woodwork is left. I chanced upon its

owner standing on the bluff over against his property, and gazing upon

it in moody silence. Twenty paces farther on I came on a little group,

the extreme pathos of which made my heart swell. It was a family, and

they sat in front of what had once been their home. That home was

now roofless. The stones of the walls were all that was left. The

garden was a wreck, and the whole scene was concentrated desolation.

The husband leant against the wall, his arms folded, and his head on

his chest. The wife sat on the wet ground, weeping over the babe at

her breast. Two elder children stared around them with wonder and

unconcern—too young to realise the misfortune which had overtaken all

the family. The silence of the grief-stricken group was more eloquent

than any words. No home, no food, a waggon, and a couple of starved

horses, a field with four graves in it. This is the brief summary of

the belongings and condition of the family. All were alike; although

this family was the one I happened to see, because their home lay on

my road in Lauvallière, some similar piteous sight must soon have been

visible by every house in every village all around Metz. What need for

me to occupy space by writing of what every one with a grain of human

sympathy in his composition can picture and mourn for himself?

The stream of _émigrés_ continued as I came up the slope on to the

flat, on the edge of which lay the improvised fortification of the

village of Belle Croix. Belle Croix was ghastly in its utter solitude.

Burnt and shattered by German shells, it must nevertheless have been a

very strong position. All round the entrenchment across the road, was

a moat of some depth. The angles were stockaded, the walls loopholed,

and there still stood in position a couple of field guns, which, as the

Germans had known to their cost many a time, were located with great

skill. Owing to the block caused by the entrenchment the road had been

diverted. It had been little enough used before this morning. The grass

grew thickly on the chaussée between Lauvallière and Belle Croix. As

the peasant waggons came crowding out, they stuck in the heavy mire of

this détour, and many were the _sacrés_ before they were started again,

the lean horses being too weak to pull them through the heavy ground.

When I had passed Belle Croix I could not help owning to myself that

I had never till then succeeded in forming a proper conception of the

real strength of the natural position of Metz. On the right, with a

valley intervening like a deep trench, lay the blunt-topped mountain,

crowned by Fort St. Julien. On its slope were the bivouac fires of

the troops of Lebœuf. Nothing could venture on this slope—a great

natural glacis—so long as Fort St. Julien thought proper to forbid the

passage. On my left, also on an eminence, although from the positions

whence I had previously seen it, it appeared to be on a flat, lay Fort

Queleu, square and massive, dominating the plateau to the left of the

chaussée. But this plateau is closed in Metz-ward by a fortification

all to itself—the great earthwork of les Bottes, whose grenades had so

often burst in disagreeable proximity, and which now stood solitary

and empty, with not even a sentry on its earthen summit. Over the top

of Fort les Bottes were visible the towers of the cathedral, and the

picture was framed in by the background of that great elevated ridge

of which the two chief peaks are crowned by Forts St. Quentin and

Plappeville.

It was just beyond les Bottes that I met the first French soldier—a

cavalryman of the line. The fellow was as drunk as he well could be to

be able to move at all. He staggered forward in tacks, dropping his

kit piecemeal as he came. At a bend in the road behind Four-à-Chaux,

I came upon the head of the prisoner column, marching onward to their

reception at the Brewery. The men were in a very miserable state,

covered with mud, wet, sodden seemingly, indeed, through and through

with wet, many of their faces blotched and scabbed with scurvy, and

quite one-third in a state of drunkenness. Not a few were in a state of

bestial drunkenness, their clothes disarranged, and decency utterly

disregarded. A little farther on, and right and left, lay the great

bivouac before Fort Belle Croix. The troops were being collected by

their officers in pelotons previously to being marched out, and several

columns were already converging on the great chaussée. As each body got

the order to go forward a cheer came from the slovenly and dislocated

ranks, and from the columns on the march there broke out at intervals

a fitful chorus of some lively marching song. Most of the officers

were grave, taciturn, and downcast. Surely they must have despised the

reckless throng which they nominally commanded. The men obeyed their

officers and regarded the sound of the bugle after a fashion, but it

was evident that they were utterly unaffected by the catastrophe which

had befallen the arms of their country, and were eager only to get

somewhere where a full meal of victuals awaited them. Poor wretches,

after all it is not fair to be too severe on their disorganisation.

How near actual starvation they had come to before their leader would

give up the game, their faces pale through the dirt of days, their lean

frames with the rags hanging about them, told far more powerfully than

protestations, and were the most convincing reply to the easy untruths

of those who would have had Europe believe that Metz was betrayed.

Passing the columns of prisoners at a canter, I was back again

before the Brewery ere the front of that column had reached the place

where stood the Germans waiting for them. The dismounted cavalry

came first, followed by the artillery; last of all came the infantry

of the line. The cavalry seemed to have lost all self-respect; they

greeted the Germans with cheering, and several men broke from the

ranks and slouched forward through the mud with intent to salute with

a spirituous kiss the German officers standing in front of their

companies. It was curious to notice the opposite idiosyncrasies of the

two nationalities. Grave and stern stood the German victors, with,

as it seemed, a silent pity rather than contempt for the demented

tatterdemalions who proffered them the undesirable greeting; while the

Frenchmen chattered and gesticulated, “sacréd” and spluttered, sang

and laughed, as they slouched through the gauntlet of humiliation.

The officers quitted their commands as each reached the alley fringed

by the German battalions, and returned to Metz or the vicinity. The

prisoners, comprising the whole of the 3rd Corps, till the day before

under the command of Lebœuf, and numbering about 23,000 men, were

escorted to a position between Château Gras and Retonfay, where was

fixed the site for their bivouac. The guards for the French prisoners

were contributed in rotation by the several divisions. The daily quota

for the bivouac at Château Gras was four battalions of infantry, one

battery of artillery, and one squadron of cavalry. In command of it

had been placed Colonel von Deitzen Hennig, of the 4th regiment, his

adjutant being Lieutenant von Verzin. Food had been collected for the

supply of the prisoners, who had, of course, to bivouac in the open

air. From the 30th daily drafts, each 3000 strong, were despatched

toward Germany _viâ_ Saarbrück and Saarlouis. In all the capture

consisted of 173,000 men, including three marshals, forty-seven general

officers, and 6000 regimental officers. General Kummer, the general

in chief command of the Landwehr, was appointed interim Commandant

of Metz. General von Kastrow took the control of all arrangements

connected with the transport of the prisoners and the quartermastership

generally of the district around Metz and as far as Thionville. The

German troops which had formed the besieging army were not, it was

arranged, to enter the town, except when marching through. Metz was,

with the forts, in the meantime, to be garrisoned by the Division

Kummer and the 7th Army Corps. The circle of environment was, however,

greatly reduced in size from the day after the surrender. The 2nd

Army Corps drew inward to Montigny. The 8th came on to Magny, the

10th to Woippy. The 18th infantry division, charged with the custody

of the Imperial Guard, lay now at Longeville, Moulins les Metz, St.

Ruffine, and Longeau. The 1st Army Corps came forward closer under the

wing of St. Julien. The foreposts were still to be maintained, the

chain of communications being kept up just as in the old days. It was

anticipated that by seven days all the prisoners would have been sent

away.