The fall of Napoleon had no sooner reopened the passage by sea than

the tide of emigration again turned toward North America. These

emigrants, the majority of whom consisted of political malcontents,

preferred the land of liberty to the steppes of Russia, whither

sectarians and those whom the demoralization and irreligion of the

Gallomanic period had filled with disgust had chiefly resorted. The

Russo-Teuto colonies are proverbial for purity and strictness of

morals. One Wurtemberg sectarian alone, the celebrated Rapp, succeeded

during the period of the triumph of France in emigrating to

Pennsylvania, where he founded the Harmony, a petty religious

community. An inconsiderable number of Swiss, dissatisfied with

Napoleon's supremacy, also emigrated in 1805 and built New Vevay. But

it was not until after the wars, more particularly during the famine

in 1816 and 1817, that emigration across the sea was again carried on

to a considerable extent. In 1817, thirty thousand Swiss,

Wurtembergers, Hessians, and inhabitants of the Palatinate emigrated,

and about an equal number were compelled to retrace their steps from

the seacoast in a state of extreme destitution on account of their

inability to pay their passage and of the complete want of interest in

their behalf displayed by the governments. Political discontent

increased in 1818 and 1819, and each succeeding spring thirty thousand

Germans sailed down the Rhine to the land of liberty in the far west.

In 1820, a society was set on foot at Berne for the protection of the

Swiss emigrants from the frauds practiced upon the unwary. The union

of the Archduchess Leopoldine, daughter to the emperor Francis, with

Dom Pedro, the emperor of the Brazils, had, since 1817, attracted

public attention to South America. Dom Pedro took German mercenaries

into his service for the purpose of keeping his wild subjects within

bounds, and the fruitful land offered infinite advantages to the

German agriculturist; but colonization was rendered impracticable by

the revolutionary disorders and by the ill-will of the natives toward

the settlers, and the Germans who had been induced to emigrate either

enlisted as soldiers or perished. Several among them, who have

published their adventures in the Brazils, bitterly complained of the

conduct of Major Schäfer, who had been engaged in collecting recruits

at Hamburg for the Brazils. They even accused him of having allowed

numbers of their fellow-countrymen to starve to death from motives of

gain, so much a head being paid to him on his arrival in the Brazils

for the men shipped from Europe whether they arrived dead or alive.

The publication of these circumstances completely checked the

emigration to the Brazils, and North America was again annually,

particularly in 1827 and after the July revolution, overrun with

Germans, and they have even begun to take part in the polity of the

United States. The peasants, who have been settled for a considerable

period, and who have insensibly acquired great wealth and have

retained the language and customs of their native country, form the

flower of the German colonists in the West.[4]

In the Cape colonies, the Dutch peasants, the boors, feeling

themselves oppressed by the English government, emigrated _en masse_,

in 1837, to the north, where they settled with the Caffres, and, under

their captain, Prætorius, founded an independent society, in 1839, at

Port Natal, where they again suffered a violent aggression on the part

of the British.

Thus are Germans fruitlessly scattered far and wide over the face of

the globe, while on the very frontiers of Germany nature has

designated the Danube as the near and broad path for emigration and

colonization to her overplus population, which, by settling in her

vicinity, would at once increase her external strength and extend her

influence.

[Footnote 1: The abolition of negro slavery was first mooted by

Germans in 1688, at the great Quaker meeting in North America.]

[Footnote 2: Account of the United States by Eggerling.]

[Footnote 3: One of the most distinguished Germans in America was a

person named John Jacob Astor, the son of a bailiff at Walldorf near

Heidelberg, who was brought up as a furrier, emigrated to America,

where he gradually became the wealthiest of all furriers, founded at

his own expense the colony of Astoria, on the northwestern coast of

North America, so interestingly described by Washington Irving, and

the Astor fund, intended as a protection to German emigrants to

America from the frauds practiced on the unwary. He resided at New

York. He possessed an immense fortune and was highly and deservedly

esteemed for his extraordinary philanthropy.]

[Footnote 4: The Allgemeine Zeitung of September, 1837, reports that

there were at that time one hundred and fifty-seven thousand Germans

in North America who were still unnaturalized, consequently had

emigrated thither within the last two or three years. In Philadelphia

alone there were seventy-five thousand Germans. Grund says in his

work, "The Americans in 1837," "The peaceable disposition of the

Germans prevents their interfering with politics, although their

number is already considerable enough for the formation of a powerful

party. They possess, notwithstanding, great weight in the government

of Pennsylvania, in which State the governors have since the

revolution always been Germans. This is in fact so well understood on

all sides that even during the last election, when two democrats and a

Whig candidate contended for the dignity of governor, they were all

three Germans by birth and no other would have had the slightest

chance of success. In the State of Ohio there are at the present date,

although that province was first colonized by New-English, no fewer

than forty-five thousand Germans possessed of the right of voting. The

State of New York, although originally colonized by Dutch, contains a

numerous German population in several of its provinces, particularly

in that of Columbia, the birthplace of Martin Van Buren, the present

Vice-President and future President of the republic. The State of

Maryland numbers twenty-five thousand Germans possessed of votes;

almost one-third of the population of Illinois is German, and

thousands of fresh emigrants are settling in the valley of the

Mississippi. I believe that the number of German voters or of voters

of German descent may, without exaggeration, be reckoned on an average

annually at four hundred thousand, and certainly in less than twenty

years hence at a million. In the city of New York, the Germans greatly

influence the election of the burgomaster and other city authorities

by holding no fewer than three thousand five hundred votes. These

circumstances naturally render the German vote an object of zealous

contention for politicians of every party, and there is accordingly no

dearth of German newspapers in any of the German settlements. In

Pennsylvania, upward of thirty German (principally weekly) papers are

in circulation, and about an equal number are printed and published in

the State of Ohio. A scarcely lower number are also in circulation in

Maryland."]

Supplementary Chapter

From The Fall of Napoleon to the Present Day

The Confederation of the Rhine, wounded to the death by the campaign

of 1812, was killed by the fall of Napoleon. From that event to the

present time the accompanying pages must be restricted to a

consideration of those matters which have been of capital importance

to the German people. These matters may be summarized as consisting in

the formation of the German Confederation, the Danish war, the

Austro-Prussian war, the Franco-Prussian war, and the refounding of

the empire.

As the fall of Sennacherib was sung by the Hebrews, so was the fall of

Napoleon sung by the Germans. They had been at his mercy. He had

deposed their sovereigns, dismembered their states, crippled their

trade, and exhausted their resources. Yet in 1814, by the Peace of

Paris, they had restored to them all they had possessed in 1792, but

as a reconstruction of the former empire was impracticable, those

states which still maintained their sovereignty coalesced.

This was in 1815. At the time there remained of the three hundred

states into which the empire had originally been divided but

thirty-nine, a number afterward reduced, through the extinction of

four minor dynasties, to thirty-five. A diet, recognized as the

legislative and executive organ of the Confederation, was instituted

at Frankfort. Instead, however, of satisfying the expectations of the

nation, it degenerated into a political tool, which princes

manipulated, which they made subservient to their inherent

conservatism, and with which they oppressed their subjects. The French

revolution of 1830 influenced to a certain extent their attitude, and

a few of them were induced to accord constitutions to their people,

but the effect was transient. Reforms which had been stipulated they

managed to ignore. It took the insurrectionary movements of 1848 to

shake them on their thrones. Forced then to admit the inefficiency of

the diet, and attempting by hasty concessions to check the progress of

republican principles, they consented to the convocation of a national

assembly. Over this body the Archduke John of Austria was elected to

preside. The choice was not happy. Measures which he failed to

facilitate he succeeded in frustrating. As a consequence, matters went

from bad to worse, until, after the refusal of the king of Prussia to

accept the imperial crown which was offered to him in 1849 and the

election of a provisional regency which ensued, the assembly lapsed

into a condition of impotence which terminated in its dissolution.

Meanwhile republican demonstrations having been forcibly suppressed,

there arose between Prussia and Austria a feeling of jealousy, if not

of ill-will, which more than once indicated war, and which, though

resulting in the restoration of the diet and temporarily diverted by a

joint attack on Denmark, culminated in the battle of Sadowa.

Into the details of this attack it is unnecessary to enter. The casus

belli was apparently an entirely virtuous endeavor to settle the

respective claims of the king of Denmark and the duke of Augustenburg

to the sovereignty of Schleswig-Holstein. The fashion in which the

claims were settled consisted in wiping them out. The direction not

merely of Schleswig-Holstein but of Lauenberg was assumed by Austria

and Prussia, who, by virtue of a treaty signed October 30, 1864, took

upon themselves their civil and military administration.

The administration which then ensued was announced as being but a

temporary trusteeship, and throughout Europe was generally so

regarded. But Prussia had other views. In the chambers Bismarck

declared that the crown had no intention of resigning the booty, that,

come what might, never would it give up Kiel. Bismarck was seldom

wrong. In this instance he was right. In the month of August following

the treaty the Emperor Francis of Austria and King William of Prussia

met at Gastein and concluded a convention by which it was agreed that

Schleswig should belong to Prussia, Holstein to Austria, with Kiel as

a free port under Prussian rule.

These proceedings, as might have been expected, created the greatest

indignation in England, France, and among the minor states. Earl

Russell declared that all rights, old and new, had been trodden under

by the Gastein Convention, and that violence and force had been the

only bases on which this convention had been established, while utter

disregard of all public laws had been shown throughout all these

transactions. On the part of France, her minister said that the

Austrian and Prussian governments were guilty in the eyes of Europe of

dividing between themselves territories they were bound to give up to

the claimants who seemed to have the best title, and that modern

Europe was not accustomed to deeds fit only for the dark ages; such

principles, he added, can only overthrow the past without building up

anything new. The Frankfort Diet declared the two powers to have

violated all principles of right, especially that of the duchies to

direct their own affairs as they pleased, provided they did not

interfere with the general interests of the German nation.

Nevertheless, a Prussian governor was appointed over Schleswig, and an

Austrian over Holstein, both assuming these duchies to be parts of

their respective empires.

Early in 1866, it was evident that no real friendship could long

continue between Prussia and Austria, and that these two great robbers

would surely fall out over the division of the plunder; making it the

ostensible cause for dispute, which was in reality their rivalry for

the leadership in Germany. In June, the Prussians crossed the Eyder,

and took possession of Holstein, appointed a supreme president over

the two duchies which passed under Prussian rule, and settled, after a

summary fashion, the vexed question. There were also other causes

which tended to war. The weak side of Austria, weaker far than

Hungary, was her Italian province of Venetia, one, indeed, that few

can say she had any real or natural right to hold, beyond having

acquired it by the treaty of 1813. To recover this from German rule

had been the incessant desire of Italy, and grievous was her

disappointment when the emperor of the French thought fit to stop

immediately after the battle of Magenta and Solferino, instead of

pushing on, as it was hoped he would have done, to the conquest of

Venetia.

In the spring of 1866, Italy was making active preparations for war,

and Austria, on the other hand, increased largely the number of her

troops, Prussia choosing, in defiance of all fair dealing, to assume

that all these armaments were directed against herself; and, on this

supposition, sent a circular to the minor states to tell them they

must decide which side to take in the impending struggle. A secret

treaty was made between Prussia and Italy: that Italy should be ready

to take up arms the moment Prussia gave the signal, and that Prussia

should go on with the war until Venetia was ceded to Italy. Angry

discussions took place in the diet between Austria and Prussia, which

ended in Prussia declaring the Germanic Confederation to be broken up,

and both sides preparing for war.

Austria began early to arm, for she required longer time to mobilize

her army. Prussia, on the contrary, was in readiness for action. Every

Prussian who is twenty years old, without distinction of rank, has to

serve in the army, three years with the colors, five more in the

reserve, after which he is placed for eleven years in the Landwehr,

and liable to be called out when occasion requires. In peace

everything is kept ready for the mobilization of its army. In a

wonderfully short time the organization was complete, and 260,000 men

brought into the field in Bohemia. In arms, they had the advantage of

the needle-gun. The Prussian forces were in three divisions, the

"First Army" under the command of Prince Frederick Charles; the

"Second Army" under that of the crown prince; and the "Army of the

Elbe," under General Herwarth. The supreme command of the Austrian

army of the north was given to Feldzeugmeister von Benedek, that of

the south to the Archduke Albert.

On June 14, Prussia sent a telegraphic summons to Hanover,

Hesse-Cassel, and Saxony, demanding them to reduce their armies to the

peace establishment, and to concur with Prussia respecting the

Germanic confederation; and that if they did not send their consent

within twelve hours, war would be declared. The states did not reply,

Prussia declared war, and on the 16th invaded their territories. The

occupation and disarmament of Hanover and Hesse were necessary to

Prussia for a free communication with her Rhenish provinces, and she

effected her purpose by means of well-planned combinations, so that in

the course of a few days these states were overrun by Prussian troops,

and their sovereigns expelled.

The rapid progress of events, and the Prussian declaration of war, had

taken Hanover by surprise. Her army was not yet mobilized; Austria had

evacuated Holstein, or she could have looked to her for support. To

attempt to defend the capital was hopeless; so King George, suffering

from blindness, moved with his army to Gottingen, with a view of

joining the Bavarians. Prussia entered by the north, and, assisted by

her navy on the Elbe, was by the 22d in possession of the whole of

Hanover. Closed round on all sides by the Prussians, unassisted by

Prince Charles of Bavaria, Gotha having declared for Prussia, the king

of Hanover, with his little army, crossed the frontier of his kingdom,

and at Langensalza, fifteen miles north of Gotha, encountered the

Prussians, and remained master of the battlefield. But victory was of

little avail; surrounded by 40,000 Prussians, the king was forced to

capitulate. The arms and military stores were handed over to the

enemy, and the king and his soldiers allowed to depart. Thus, through

the supineness of Prince Charles of Bavaria, a whole army was made

captive, and Hanover erased from the roll of independent states.

More fortunate than his neighbor, the elector of Hesse-Cassel saved

his army, though not his territory, from the invader. His troops

retired toward the Maine, where they secured a communication with the

federal army at Frankfort. The elector remained in Hesse, and was sent

a state prisoner to the Prussian fortress of Stettin, on the Oder. The

Prussians overran his territory, declaring they were not at war

against "peoples, but against governments."

Two bodies of Prussian troops entered Saxony--the First Army and the

Army of the Elbe--and the Saxon army retired into Bohemia to effect a

junction with the Austrians. On the 20th, Leipzig was seized, and the

whole of Saxony was in undisturbed possession of the Prussians; Prince

Frederick Charles issuing a most stringent order that private property

should be respected, and every regard shown to the comfort of the

inhabitants. His order was strictly observed, and every measure taken

to prevent the miseries attendant on the occupation of a country by a

foreign army.

The invasion of Saxony brought immediately open war between Prussia

and Austria, and on the 23d the Prussian army crossed the Bohemian

frontier--only a week since it had entered Saxony. It is needless here

to detail the battles which immediately followed; suffice it to say,

the Prussians were victorious in all--at Podoll, where the needle-gun

did such terrible work; Munchengratz, which gave them the whole line

of the Iser; Trautenan, Gitschen, and others. On the 1st of July, the

king of Prussia arrived from Berlin and took the supreme command of

the army. The following day brought news from the crown prince that he

was hastening from Silesia with the Second Army, whereby the whole of

the Prussian forces would be concentrated. On the 3d of July was

fought the decisive battle of Koniggratz, or Sadowa, as it is

sometimes called, from the village of that name, a cluster of

pine-wood cottages, enclosed by orchards, with a wood-crowned hill at

the back, which was fiercely disputed by the contending parties.

On that day, General von Benedek had taken his position with the

Austrian army in front of the frontier fortress of Koniggratz, on the

right bank of the Elbe, about fifty-five miles east of Prague, to

oppose the passage of the crown prince from Silesia. In his front lay

the marshy stream of Bistritz, upon which Sadowa and a few other

villages are situated. At half-past seven in the morning the battle

began, and continued with great slaughter without any marked advantage

on either side till the arrival of the crown prince decided, like the

advance of Blücher at Waterloo, the fortune of the day. The Austrians

were completely routed, and fled across the Elbe to save the capital.

They lost 40,000 men in this sanguinary conflict, the Prussians

10,000. The forces in the field were 200,000 Austrians and Saxons, and

260,000 Prussians.

Immediately after her crushing defeat, Austria surrendered Venetia to

France, and the Emperor Napoleon at once accepted the gift and gave it

over to Victor Emmanuel.

On July 26, preliminaries of peace were signed at Nikolsburg, and

peace was finally concluded at Prague, August 23, between Prussia and

Austria, and about the same time with the South German states. The

Prussian House of Deputies voted the annexation of the conquered

states, and in October peace was concluded with Saxony. By these

arrangements, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Frankfort became provinces of

Prussia, as well as the long-disputed duchies of Denmark. All the

German states north of the Maine concluded a treaty, offensive and

defensive, for the maintenance of the security of their states.

Prussia increased her territory by 32,000 square miles and her

population 4,000,000; and in October, 1866, the whole of northern

Germany was united into a Confederation.

This Confederation, known as the North German, possessed a common

parliament elected by universal suffrage, in which each state was

represented according to its population. The first or constituent

parliament met early in 1867, and adopted, with a few modifications,

the constitution proposed by Count Bismarck. The new elections then

took place, and the first regular North German parliament met in

September, 1867. According to this constitution, there was to be a

common army and fleet, under the sole command of Prussia; a common

diplomatic representation abroad, of necessity little else than

Prussian; and to Prussia also was intrusted the management of the

posts and telegraphs in the Confederation.

The Southern German states which up to this point had not joined the

Bund, were Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and

Lichtenstein, with a joint area of 43,990 square miles, and a total

population (1866) of 8,524,460. But, though these states were not

formally members of the Bund, they were so practically, for they were

bound to Prussia by treaties of alliance offensive and defensive, so

that in the event of a war the king of Prussia would have at his

disposal an armed force of upward of 1,100,000 men.

During the next few years the North German Confederation was employed

in consolidating and strengthening itself, and in trying to induce the

southern states to join the league. The Zollverein was remodelled and

extended, until by the year 1868 every part of Germany was a member of

it, with the exception of the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, and a

small part of Baden. This paved the way for the formal entrance of the

southern states into the confederation; but they still hung back,

though the ideal of a united Germany was gradually growing in force

and favor.

Meanwhile the terms of the treaty of Prague, together with the

complete removal of alien powers from Italy, had wrought a radical

change in the political relations of the European States. Excluded

from Germany, the dominions of Austria still extended to the verge of

Venetia and the Lombard plains, but her future lay eastward and her

centre of gravity had been removed to Buda-Pesth. In the South German

courts, no doubt, there was a bias toward Vienna, and a dislike of

Prussia; yet both the leaning and the repugnance were counterbalanced

by a deeper dread of France rooted in the people by the vivid memories

of repeated and cruel invasions. Russia, somewhat alarmed by the rapid

success of King William, had been soothed by diplomatic reassurances,

the tenor of which is not positively known, although a series of

subsequent events more than justified the inference made at that time,

that promises, bearing on the czar's Eastern designs, were tendered

and accepted as a valuable consideration for the coveted boon of

benevolent neutrality, if not something more substantial. Like Russia,

France had lost nothing by the campaign of 1866; her territories were

intact; her ruler had mediated between Austria and Prussia; and he had

the honor of protecting the pope, who, as a spiritual and temporal

prince, was still in possession of Rome and restricted territorial

domains. But the Napoleonic court, and many who looked upon its head

as a usurper, experienced, on the morrow of Sadowa, and in a greater

degree after the preface to a peace had been signed at Nikolsburg, a

sensation of diminished magnitude, a consciousness of lessened

prestige, and a painful impression that their political, perhaps even

their military place in Europe, as the heirs of Richelieu, Louis XIV.,

and Napoleon, had been suddenly occupied by a power which they had

taught themselves to contemn as an inferior. Until the summer of 1866

the emperor Napoleon fancied that he was strong enough to play with

Bismarck a game of diplomatic chess.

In that he erred profoundly. As early as the first week in August,

1866, M. Benedetti, the French ambassador to the court of Berlin, was

instructed to claim the left bank of the Rhine as far as and including

Mainz. Bismarck replied that "the true interest of France is not to

obtain an insignificant increase of territory, but to aid Germany in

constituting herself after a fashion which will be most favorable to

all concerned." Delphos could not have been more oracular. But

Napoleon III. could not or would not heed. A week later Benedetti was

instructed to submit a regular scale of concessions--the frontiers of

1814 and the annexation of Belgium, or Luxemburg and Belgium,

Benedetti received the most courteous attention and nothing more. This

was irritating. The French had been accustomed for more than two

hundred years to meddle directly in Germany and find there allies,

either against Austria, Prussia, or England; and the habit of

centuries had been more than confirmed by the colossal raids,

victories, and annexations of Napoleon I. A Germany which should

escape from French control and reverse, by its own energetic action,

the policy of Henry IV., Richelieu, Louis XIV., his degenerate

grandson, Louis XV., and of the great Napoleon himself, was an affront

to French pride, and could not be patiently endured. The opposing

forces which had grown up were so strong that the wit of man was

unable to keep them asunder; and all the control over the issue left

to kings and statesmen was restricted to the fabrication of means

wherewith to deliver or sustain the shock, and the choice of the hour,

if such choice were allowed.

Then presently the opportunity occurred. On July 4, 1870, the throne

of Spain was offered to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. The fact

created the greatest excitement in France. Threatening speeches were

made. On July 18 Prince Leopold declined the offer. On the morrow

Benedetti was instructed to demand a guarantee that any future offer

of the kind would be refused. The king of Prussia would not listen to

the proposition. The French minister, through whom the demand had been

transmitted, then asked for his passports. War was imminent.

At the prospect Paris grew mad with enthusiasm. Crowds assembled in

the streets, shouting "Down with Prussia!" "Long live France!" "To the

Rhine!" "To Berlin!" The papers abounded with inflammatory appeals,

and, after the impulsive French fashion, glorified beforehand the easy

triumphs that were to be won over the Prussians. Men told one another

that they would be across the Rhine in a week, and at Berlin in a

fortnight. The excitement in Prussia was not less than that in France.

The people, with scarcely an exception, declared their readiness for

war, and seemed to find a pleasure in the opportunity now presented

for settling old quarrels. Like the people of Paris, the Prussians

shouted "To the Rhine!" The French cry of "To Berlin!" had its

counterpart in the German ejaculation of "To Paris!"

Perhaps a sentence spoken by M. Guyot Montpayroux best illustrates the

predominant feeling. "Prussia," he said, "has forgotten the France of

Jena, and the fact must be recalled to her memory." Thus was war

declared on the night of July 15. Thiers, who desired a war with

Prussia "at the proper time," has left on record his judgment that the

hour then selected was "detestably ill-chosen." Yet even he and

Gambetta were both anxious that "satisfaction" should be obtained for

Sadowa; while the thought which animated the court is admirably

expressed in the phrase imputed to the empress who, pointing to the

prince imperial, said, "This child will never reign unless we repair

the misfortunes of Sadowa." Such was the ceaseless refrain. The word

haunted French imaginations incessantly, and it was the pivot on which

the imperial policy revolved; it exercised a spell scarcely less

powerful and disastrous upon monarchists like Thiers and republicans

like Gambetta. Long foreseen, the dread shock, like all grave

calamities, came nevertheless as a surprise, even upon reflective

minds. Statesmen and soldiers who looked on, while they shared in the

natural feelings aroused by so tremendous a drama, were also the

privileged witnesses of two instructive experiments on a grand

scale--the processes whereby mighty armies are brought into the field,

and the methods by means of which they are conducted to defeat or

victory.

The French field army, called at the outset the "Army of the Rhine,"

consisted nominally of 336,000 men with 924 guns. It was considered

that of these, 300,000 would be available for the initial operations.

The infantry of the army was provided with a breech-loading weapon,

called after its inventor the Chassepot. The Chassepot was a weapon in

all respects superior to the famous needle-gun, which was still the

weapon of the Prussian army. Attached likewise to the divisional

artillery was a machine gun called the Mitrailleuse, from which great

things were expected. But this gun had been manufactured with a

secrecy which, while it prevented foreign inspection, had withheld

also the knowledge of its mechanism from the soldiers who were to work

it. In the field, therefore, it proved a failure.

Since the Crimean and Austrian wars, while the armies of the other

European states had advanced in efficiency, the French army had

deteriorated. The reason was that favoritism rather than merit had

been made the road to court favor. The officers who had pointed to the

training of the Prussian soldiers, as indicating the necessity for the

adoption of similar modes for the French army, had been laughed at and

left in the cold. The consequence was, that for ten years prior to the

war of 1870, the French army had received instruction only of the most

superficial character. It had been considered sufficient if the

soldiers were brought to the point of making a good show on the parade

ground. Little more had been required of them. Field training and

musketry training had been alike neglected. The officers had ceased to

study, and the government had taken no pains to instruct them. What

was more vicious still, the alienation between officers and men, which

had been noticed even in the war of 1859, had widened. The officers

generally had ceased to take the smallest interest in the comfort of

the men in camp or in quarters. These matters were left to the

non-commissioned officers. Needless to add, they were not always

properly attended to. It may be added that the system of drill was so

devised as to give no play to the reasoning powers of the officer. He

was a machine and nothing more.

Of the artillery of the French army it has to be said, that it was far

inferior to that of the Germans, and known to be so by the French war

department. In the matter of reserves, France had comparatively

nothing.

Far different were the composition and the state of preparation of the

Prussian army; far different, also, those of her German allies; far

higher the qualities of their general officers; far superior the

discipline and morale of their troops; far more ready, in every single

particular, to begin a war; far more thoroughly provided to carry that

war to a successful issue.

The German infantry had been thoroughly organized on a system which

gave to every officer the necessity of exercising independent action,

and to the men the faculty of understanding the object of the

manoeuvre directed. Its cavalry had been specially instructed in

duties of reconnoissance, of insuring repose for the infantry, of

collecting intelligence, of concealing the march of armies, of acting

as a completer of victory, or as a shield in case of defeat. It had

profited greatly by the lessons it had learned in the war of 1866.

The German artillery had likewise been greatly improved in efficiency

of manoeuvre since 1866. It was in all respects superior to that of

the French.

Of the Prussian and South German leaders, I will only say that we

shall meet again the men from whom we parted on the conclusion of the

armistice of Nikolsburg. What was their task and how they executed it

will be described in the pages that follow. In mere numbers, the king

of Prussia had a great advantage over his enemy. For, while without

any assistance from South Germany, and after allowing for three army

corps which might be necessary to watch Austria and Denmark, he could

begin the campaign with a force of 350,000 men, he was certain of the

assistance of Southern Germany, and confident that, unless the French

should obtain considerable successes at the outset, neither Austria

nor Denmark would stir a hand to aid them.

To counterbalance this superiority of numbers the French emperor had

cherished a vague hope that, in a war against Prussia, he might

possibly count upon the ancient friendship for France of Bavaria and

Saxony, and to a still greater extent upon Austria and Italy. With

regard to Bavaria and Saxony he was speedily undeceived. Moreover,

contrary to expectation, other German states decided to support

Prussia and placed their armies, which were eventually commanded by

the crown prince, at the disposal of King William. With regard to

Austria and Italy, Colonel Malleson in a work on this subject,[1] to

which we are much indebted, states that their co-operation was made

dependent on the initial successes of the French troops. Colonel

Malleson adds:

"It was not only understood, but was actually drafted in a treaty--the

signing of which, however, was prevented by the rapid course of the

war--that if, on the 15th of September, France should be holding her

own in Southern Germany, then Austria and Italy would jointly declare

war against Prussia."

These conditions made it clear that ultimate success in the struggle

about to commence would accrue to the power which should obtain the

first advantages.

That Germany--for it was Germany and not Prussia only which entered

upon this great struggle--would obtain these initial advantages seemed

almost certain. Count Moltke had for some time previous been engaged

in planning for a war with France. So far back as 1868 all his

arrangements for the formation of the armies to be employed, the

points to be occupied, the nature of the transport, had been clearly

laid down. These instructions had been carefully studied by the

several corps commanders and their staff. Not one matter, however

apparently trivial, had been neglected. When, then, on the 16th of

July, the king of Prussia gave the order for mobilization, it required

only to insert the day and the hour on which each body of troops

should march. With respect to the armies of the states of Southern

Germany, Moltke, anticipating that the French emperor would throw his

main army as rapidly as possible into Southern Germany, had

recommended that the contingents from that part of the country should

march northward to join those of Prussia on the middle Rhine, to

assume there a position which should menace the flank and rear of the

invading army. This position would be the more practical, as in the

event of the French not invading Southern Germany, the combined force,

stretching from Saarbrucken to Landau, would be ready to invade

France, and sever the communications with Paris of the French armies

on the frontier. Count Moltke had calculated that the German troops

intended to cross the French frontier would be in a position to make

their forward movement by the 4th of August. Pending the development

of the French strategy with respect to Southern Germany, therefore, he

thought it prudent to delay the march of the southern contingents, in

order that no part of the army might be suddenly overwhelmed by a

superior force. On the actual frontier he placed, then, only a few

light troops, for the purposes of reconnoitring, and for checking the

first advance of the enemy until supports should arrive.

The French emperor had, indeed, been keenly alive to the advantages

which would accrue to himself from a prompt invasion of Southern

Germany. He designed to concentrate one hundred and fifty thousand men

at Metz; one hundred thousand at Strasburg; to cross into Baden with

these armies; while a third, assembling at Chalons, should protect the

frontier against the German forces. The plan itself was an excellent

one had he only been able to execute it, for, as we have seen, early

success in Southern Germany would have meant the armed assistance of

Austria and Italy. But the French army was in a condition more

unready, one might truly say, of greater demoralization, thus early,

than its severest critics had imagined. Considerable forces were

indeed massed about Metz and Strasburg. But the commissariat and

transport departments were in a state of the most hopeless confusion.

The army could not move. To remedy these evils time was wanted, and

time was the commodity the generals could not command. Every day which

evoked some little order out of chaos brought the Germans nearer to

positions, the occupation of which would render impossible the

contemplated invasion. The emperor had quitted Paris for Metz,

accompanied by the prince imperial, on the 28th of July, and had

arrived there and taken the supreme command the same day. The day

following he met his generals at St. Avoid, and unfolded to them his

plans. Since war had been declared he had lost many illusions. It had

become clear to him that he was warring against the concentrated might

of Germany; that he could not make the inroad into Southern Germany

originally contemplated without exposing Paris to an attack from

forces already occupying the country between Treves and Mannheim: that

he was bound to hold that line. Anxious, however, to assume the

offensive, he dictated the following plan to his marshals. Bazaine,

with the Second, Third, and Fifth Army Corps, should cross the Saar at

Saarbrücken, covered on his left by the Fourth Corps, which should

make a show of advancing against Saarlouis, while MacMahon, pushing

forward from his position near Strasburg, should cover his right. The

emperor had some reason to believe that the Saar was weakly held.

But his own generals showed him that his plan was impossible. They

represented to him that instead of the three hundred thousand men

whom, in the delirium of the Paris enthusiasm, he believed he would

find available for his purposes, he had at the utmost one hundred and

eighty-six thousand; that in every requirement for moving the army was

deficient; that there was scarcely a department which was not

disorganized. He was compelled, therefore, to renounce his plan for

decisive offensive action. He came to that resolve most unwillingly,

for Paris was behind him, ready to rise unless he should make some

show of advancing. It was to reassure the excited spirits of the

capital, rather than to effect any military result, that on the 2d of

August, he moved with sixty thousand men in the direction of

Saarbrücken. The garrison of that place consisted of something less

than four thousand men with six guns. The emperor attacked it with the

corps of Frossard, eighteen battalions and four batteries. These

compelled the slender German garrison to evacuate the place, but

Frossard, though the bridges across the Saar were not defended, made

no attempt to cross that river. The soldierly manner in which the

Germans had covered their retreat had left on his mind the impression

that they were more numerous than they were, and that there was a

larger force behind them.

Still, for the only time in the war, the emperor was able to send a

reassuring telegram to Paris. The young prince, upon whom the hopes of

the nation would, he hoped, rest, had undergone the "baptism of fire."

French troops had made the first step in advance.

Soon, however, it became clear to him that the enemy had concentrated

along the line of the frontier, and were about to make their spring.

Moltke, in fact, from his headquarters at Mayence, was, by means of

solitary horsemen employed in profusion, keeping himself thoroughly

well acquainted not only with the movements of the French, but with

their vacillation, their irresolution, their want of plan. The sudden

appearance from unexpected quarters of these horsemen conveyed a

marked feeling of insecurity to the minds of the French soldiers, and

these feelings were soon shared by their chiefs. It was very clear to

them that an attack might at any moment come, though from what quarter

and in what force they were absolutely ignorant. This ignorance

increased their vacillations, their uncertainties. Orders and

counter-orders followed each other with startling rapidity. The

soldiers, harassed, began to lose confidence; the leaders became more

and more incapable of adopting a plan.

Suddenly, in the midst of their vacillations, of their marchings and

counter-marchings, the true report reached them, on the evening of the

3d of August, that a French division, the outpost of MacMahon's army,

had been surprised and defeated at Weissenburg by a far superior

force. Napoleon at once ordered the Fifth Corps to concentrate at

Bitsche, and despatched a division of the Third to Saarguemünd. These

orders were followed by others. Those of the 5th of August divided the

army of the Rhine into two portions, the troops in Alsace being placed

under MacMahon, those in Lorraine under Bazaine, the emperor retaining

the Guard. Those of the 7th directed the Second Corps to proceed to

Bitsche, the Third to Saarguemünd, the Fourth to Haut-Homburg, the

Guard to St. Avoid. These instructions plainly signified the making of

a flank movement in front of a superior enemy. With such an army as

the emperor had, inferior in numbers, many of the regiments as yet

incomplete, all his resources behind him, and these becoming daily

more unavailable, his one chance was to concentrate in a position

commanding the roads behind it, and yet adapted for attack if attack

should be necessary. As it was, without certain information as to the

movements of the Germans, anxious to move, yet dreading to do so,

until his regiments should be completed, the French emperor was

confused and helpless. He forgot even to transmit to the generals on

one flank the general directions he had issued to those on the other.

Bazaine, for instance, was left on the 5th in ignorance of the

emperor's intentions with respect to MacMahon; on the 6th none of the

subordinate generals knew that the flank march was contemplated.

Frossard, who had fallen back to Spicheren, considered his position so

insecure that he suggested to Leboeuf that he should be allowed to

retire from the Saarbrücken ridge. He was ordered in reply to fall

back on Forbach, but no instructions were given him as to the course

he should pursue in the event of his being attacked, nor were the

contemplated movements of the emperor communicated to him. In every

order that was issued there was apparent the confused mind of the

issuer.

Turn we now to MacMahon and the movements of himself and his generals.

When the war broke out MacMahon was in the vicinity of Strasburg with

forty-five thousand men; General Douay with twelve thousand men at

Weissenburg. The same confusion prevailed here as at Metz. The orders

given to MacMahon were of the vaguest description: Douay had no

instructions at all. Yet, in front of him, the German hosts had been

gathering. The commander of the left wing of the German army, the

crown prince of Prussia, had, in obedience to the instructions he had

received, crossed the frontier river, the Lauter, on the 4th of

August, with an army composed of the Second Bavarian and Fifth

Prussian army, numbering about forty thousand men, and marched on

Weissenburg. As his advanced guard approached the town, it was met by

a heavy fire from the French garrison. The crown prince resolved at

once to storm the place. Douay had placed his troops in a strong

position, a portion of his men occupying the town defended by a simple

wall; the bulk, formed on the Gaisberg, a hill two miles to the south

of it. Against this position the crown prince directed his chief

attack. The contest which ensued was most severe, the assailants and

the defenders vying with one another in determination and courage. But

the odds in favor of the former were too great to permit Douay to hope

for ultimate success. After a resistance of five hours' duration the

Germans carried the Gaisberg. Douay himself was killed; but his

surviving troops, though beaten, were not discouraged. They

successfully foiled an attempt made by the Germans to cut off their

retreat, and fell back on the corps of MacMahon, which lay about ten

miles to the south of Weissenburg.

The same day on which the crown prince had attacked and carried

Weissenburg, another German army corps, that of Baden-Würtemberg, a

part of the Third Army, under the command of the crown prince, had

advanced on and occupied Lauterburg. That evening the entire Third

Army, consisting of one hundred and thirty thousand men, bivouacked on

French ground. Meanwhile MacMahon, on hearing of Douay's defeat, had

marched to Reichshofen, received there the shattered remnants of

Douay's division, and, with the emperor's orders under no

circumstances to decline a battle, took up a position on the hills of

which Worth, Fröschweiler and Elsasshausen form the central points. He

had with him forty-seven thousand men, but the Fifth Corps, commanded

by De Failly, was at Bitsche, seventeen miles from Reichshofen, and

MacMahon had despatched the most pressing instructions to that officer

to join him. These orders, however, De Failly did not obey.

The ground on which MacMahon had retired offered many capabilities for

defence. The central point was the village of Worth on the rivulet

Sauerbach, which covered the entire front of the position. To the

right rear of Worth, on the road from Gundershofen, was the village of

Elsasshausen, covered on its right by the Niederwald, having the

village of Eberbach on its further side, and the extreme right of the

position, the village of Morsbronn, to its southeast. Behind Wörth,

again, distant a little more than two miles on the road to

Reichshofen, was the key to the position, the village of Fröschweiler.

From this point the French left was thrown back to a mound, covered by

a wood, in front of Reichshofen.

On the 5th of August the crown prince had set his army in motion, and

had rested for the night at Sulz. There information reached him

regarding the position taken by MacMahon. He immediately issued orders

for the concentration of his army, and for its march the following

morning toward the French position, the village of Preuschdorf, on the

direct road to Wörth, to be the central point of the movement. But the

previous evening General von Walther, with the Fifth Prussian Corps,

had reached Görsdorf, a point whence it was easy for him to cross the

Sauerbach, and take Worth in flank. Marching at four o'clock in the

morning Walther tried this manoeuvre, and at seven o'clock succeeded

in driving the French from Wörth. MacMahon then changed his front,

recovered Wörth, and repulsed likewise an attack which had in the

meanwhile been directed against Fröschweiler by the Eleventh Prussian

and Fifth Bavarian Corps.

For a moment it seemed as though he might hold his position. But

between eleven and twelve the enemy renewed his attack. While one

corps again attacked and carried Wörth, the Eleventh Prussian Corps,

aided by sixty guns placed upon the heights of Gunstett, assailed his

right. They met here a most stubborn resistance, the French

cuirassiers charging the advancing infantry with the greatest

resolution. So thoroughly did they devote themselves that they left

three-fourths of their number dead or dying on the field. But all was

in vain. The Prussians steadily advanced, forced their way through the

Niederwald, and threatened Elsasshausen. While the French were thus

progressing badly on their right, they were faring still worse in the

centre.

The Germans, having seized Wörth, stormed the hilly slopes between

that place and Froschweiler, and made a furious assault upon the

latter, now more than ever the key of the French position. For while

Froschweiler was their objective centre, their right was thrown back

toward Elsasshausen and the Niederwald, their left to Reichshofen.

While the Eleventh Prussians were penetrating the Niederwald,

preparatory to attacking Elsasshausen on the further side of it, the

Fifth Prussian Corps with the Second Bavarians were moving against

Froschweiler. It was clear then to MacMahon that further resistance

was impossible. Still holding Froschweiler, he evacuated Elsasshausen,

and drew back his right to Reichshofen. The safety of his army

depended now upon the tenacity with which Froschweiler might be held.

It must be admitted, in justice to the French, that they held it with

a stubborn valor not surpassed during the war. Attacked by

overwhelming numbers, they defended the place, house by house. At

length, however, they were overpowered. Then, for the first time, the

bonds of discipline loosened, and the French, struck by panic, fled,

in wild disorder, in the direction of Saverne. They reached that place

by a march across the hills the following evening. On their way they

fell in with one of the divisions of the corps of de Failly, and this

served to cover the retreat.

Though their defeat, considering the enormous superiority of their

assailants, might be glorious, it was doubly disastrous, inasmuch that

it followed those perturbations of spirit alluded to in a previous

page, which had done so much to discourage the French soldier. A

victory at Worth might have done much to redeem past mistakes. A

defeat emphasized them enormously. It was calculated that, inclusive

of the nine thousand prisoners taken by the Germans, the French lost

twenty-four thousand men. The loss of the victors amounted to ten

thousand. They captured thirty-three guns, two eagles, and six

mitrailleuses.

The emperor was deeply pained by the result of the battle. To keep up,

if possible, the spirits of his partisans, he wired on the evening of

the 7th to Paris, with the news of the defeat, the words, "tout se

peut retablir." He was mistaken. While the crown prince was crushing

MacMahon at Wörth, the imperial troops were being beaten at Spicheren

as well.

Thereafter the German advance was hardly checked for a moment, though

the losses on both sides were heavy. On the 18th of August was fought

the battle of Gravelotte, in which King William commanded in person,

and though his troops suffered immense loss, they were again

victorious, and forced Bazaine to shut himself up in Metz, which he

subsequently surrendered. In this battle, one of the most decisive of

the war, it is worth noting that the Germans outnumbered the French by

more than two to one. The exact figures are uncertain, but we shall

probably be correct in accepting 230,000 as the strength of the

Germans, and in estimating the French outside of Metz at 110,000.

We now come to Sedan. With the army of Bazaine beleaguered, there

remained, in the opinion of the German chiefs--an opinion not

justified by events--only the army of MacMahon. To remove that army

from the path which led to Paris was the task intrusted to the crown

prince. MacMahon, meanwhile, after his defeat at Wörth, had fallen

back with the disordered remnants of his army on Chalons, there to

reorganize and strengthen it. Much progress had been made in both

respects, when, after the result of the battle of Gravelotte had been

known in Paris, he received instructions from the Count of Palikao to

march with the four army corps at his disposal northward toward the

Meuse, and to give a hand to the beleaguered Bazaine.

MacMahon prepared to obey. But circumstances ordered otherwise. On the

night of August 31st, accompanied by the emperor--who, having

transferred his authority to the Empress Eugenie and his command to

Bazaine, followed the army as mere spectator--MacMahon reached Sedan,

and there ranged his troops so as to meet an attack which he foresaw

inevitable, and fatal too. Placing his strongest force to the east,

his right wing was at Bazeilles and the left at Illy. The ground in

front of his main defence was naturally strong, the entire front being

covered by the Givonne rivulet, and the slopes to that rivulet, on the

French side of it.

The possibility that the French marshal would accept battle at Sedan

had been considered at the German headquarters on the night of the

31st, and arrangements had been made to meet his wishes. The army of

the crown prince of Saxony (the Fourth Army) occupied the right of the

German forces, the Bavarian Corps formed the centre, and the Prussians

the left wing. The advanced troops of the army were ranged in the

following order. On the right stood the Twelfth Corps, then the Fourth

Prussian Corps, the Prussian Guards, and finally the Fourth Cavalry

Division, their backs to Remilly. From this point they were linked to

the First and Second Bavarian Corps, opposite Bazeilles; they, in

turn, to the Eleventh and Fifth Corps; and they, at Dom-le-Mesnil, to

the Würtembergers. The Sixth Prussian Corps was placed in reserve

between Attigny and Le Chene.

A word now as to the nature of the ground on which the impending

battle was to be fought. Sedan lies in the most beautiful part of the

valley of the Meuse, amid terraced heights, covered with trees, and,

within close distance, the villages of Donchery, Iges, Villette,

Glaire, Daigny, Bazeilles, and others. Along the Meuse, on the left

bank, ran the main road from Donchery through Frenois, crossing the

river at the suburb Torcy, and there traversing Sedan. The character

of the locality may best be described as a ground covered with fruit

gardens and vineyards, narrow streets shut in by stone walls, the

roads overhung by forests, the egress from which was in many places

steep and abrupt. Such was the ground. One word now as to the troops.

The German army before Sedan counted, all told, 240,000 men; the

French 180,000. But the disparity in numbers was the least of the

differences between the two armies. The one was flushed with victory,

the other dispirited by defeat. The one had absolute confidence in

their generals and their officers, the other had the most supreme

contempt for theirs. The one had marched from Metz on a settled plan,

to be modified according to circumstances, the drift of which was

apparent to the meanest soldier; the other had been marched hither and

thither, now toward Montmedy, now toward Paris, then again back toward

Montmedy, losing much time; the men eager for a pitched battle, then

suddenly surprised through the carelessness of their commanders, and

compelled at last to take refuge in a town from which there was no

issue. There was hardly an officer of rank who knew aught about the

country in which he found himself. The men were longing to fight to

the death, but they, one and all, distrusted their leaders. It did not

tend, moreover, to the encouragement of the army to see the now

phantom emperor, without authority to command even a corporal's guard,

dragged about the country, more as a pageant than a sovereign. He,

poor man, was much to be pitied. He keenly felt his position, and

longed for the day when he might, in a great battle, meet the glorious

death which France might accept as an atonement for his misfortunes.

The battle began at daybreak on the morning of the 1st of September.

Under cover of a brisk artillery fire, the Bavarians advanced, and

opened, at six o'clock, a very heavy musketry fire on Bazeilles. The

masonry buildings of this village were all armed and occupied, and

they were defended very valiantly. The defenders drove back the enemy

as they advanced and kept them at bay for two hours. Then the Saxons

came up to the aid of the Bavarians, and forced the first position.

Still the defence continued, and the clocks were striking ten when the

Bavarians succeeded in entering the place. Even then a house-to-house

defence prolonged the battle, and it was not until every house but

one[2] had been either stormed or burned that the Germans could call

the village, or the ruins which remained of it, their own. Meanwhile,

on the other points of their defensive position; at Floing, St.

Menges, Fleigneux, Illy, and, on the extreme left, at Iges, where a

sharp bend of the Meuse forms a peninsula of the ground round which it

slowly rolls; the French had been making a gallant struggle. In their

ranks, even in advance of them, attended finally by a single

aide-de-camp, all the others having been killed, was the emperor,

cool, calm, and full of sorrow, earnestly longing for the shell or the

bullet which should give a soldier's finish to his career. MacMahon,

too, was there, doing all that a general could do to encourage his

men. The enemy were, however, gradually but surely making way. To

hedge the French within the narrowest compass, the Fifth and Eleventh

Corps of the Third Army had crossed the Meuse to the left of Sedan,

and were marching now to roll up the French left. But before their

attack had been felt, an event had occurred full of significance for

the French army.

Early in the day, while yet the Bavarians were fighting to get

possession of Bazeilles, Marshal MacMahon was so severely wounded that

he had to be carried from the field into Sedan. He made over the

command of the army to General Ducrot. That general had even before

recognized the impossibility of maintaining the position before Sedan

against the superior numbers of the German army, and had seen that the

one chance of saving his army was to fall back on Mezieres. He at

once, then, on assuming command, issued orders to that effect. But it

was already too late. The march by the defile of St. Albert had been

indeed possible at any time during the night or in the very early

morning. But it was now no longer so. The German troops swarmed in the

plains of Donchery, and the route by Carignan could only be gained by

passing over the bodies of a more numerous and still living foe. Still

Ducrot had given the order, and the staff officers did their utmost to

cause it to be obeyed. The crowded streets of Sedan were being

vacated, when suddenly the orders were countermanded. General Wimpffen

had arrived from Paris the previous day to replace the incapable De

Failly in command of the Fifth Corps, carrying in his pocket an order

from the Minister of War to assume the command-in-chief in the event

of any accident to MacMahon. The emperor had no voice in the matter,

for, while the regency of the empress existed, he no longer

represented the government. The two generals met, and, after a

somewhat lively discussion, Ducrot was forced to acknowledge the

authority of the minister. Wimpffen then assumed command. His first

act was to countermand the order to retreat on Mezieres, and to direct

the troops to reassume the positions they had occupied when MacMahon

had been wounded. This order was carried out as far as was possible.

Meanwhile the Germans were pressing more and more those positions.

About midday the Guards, having made their way step by step, each one

bravely contested, gave their hand to the left wing of the Third Army.

Then Illy and Floing, which had been defended with extraordinary

tenacity, as the keys of the advanced French position, were stormed.

The conquest of those heights completed the investment of Sedan. There

was now no possible egress for the French. Their soldiers retreated

into the town and the suburbs, while five hundred German guns hurled

their missiles, their round shot and their shells, against the walls

and the crowded masses behind them.

Vainly then did Wimpffen direct an assembly in mass of his men to

break through the serried columns of the enemy. In the disordered

state of the French army the thing was impossible. The emperor, who

had courted death in vain, recognized the truth, and, desirous to

spare the sacrifice of life produced by the continued cannonade,

ordered, on his own responsibility, the hoisting of a white flag on

the highest point of the defences, as a signal of surrender. But the

firing still continued, and Wimpffen, still bent on breaking through,

would not hear of surrender. Then Napoleon despatched his chief

aide-de-camp, General Keille, with a letter to the king of Prussia.

King William early that day had taken his stand on an eminence which

commanded an extensive view and which rises a little south of Frenois.

There, his staff about him, he watched the progress of the fight.

Toward this eminence Reille rode. Walking his horse up the steep, he

dismounted, and raising his cap presented the letter. King William,

breaking the imperial seal, read these phrases, which, if somewhat

dramatic, are striking in their brevity:[3]

"MONSIEUR MON FRÈRE--N'ayant pu mourir au milieu

de mes troupes, il ne me reste qu' à remettre mon epée entre

les mains de Votre Majeste.

"Je suis de Votre Majeste,

"le bon Frere,

"NAPOLÉON.

"Sédan, le 1er Septembre, 1870."

"Only one half hour earlier," writes Mr. George Hooper in his

"Campaign of Sedan," "had the information been brought that the

emperor was in Sedan." Mr. Hooper adds:

"The king conferred with his son, who had been hastily summoned, and

with others of his trusty servants, all deeply moved by complex

emotions at the grandeur of their victory. What should be done? The

emperor spoke for himself only, and his surrender would not settle the

great issue. It was necessary to obtain something definite, and the

result of a short conference was that Count Hatzfeldt, instructed by

the chancellor, retired to draft a reply. 'After some minutes he

brought it,' writes Dr. Busch, 'and the king wrote it out, sitting on

one chair, while the seat of a second was held up by Major von Alten,

who knelt on one knee and supported the chair on the other.' The

king's letter, brief and business-like, began and ended with the

customary royal forms, and ran as follows:

"'Regretting the circumstances in which we meet, I accept your

Majesty's sword, and beg that you will be good enough to name an

officer furnished with full powers to treat for the capitulation of

the army which has fought so bravely under your orders. On my side I

have designated General von Moltke for that purpose.'

"General Reille returned to his master, and as he rode down the hill

the astounding purport of his visit flew from lip to lip through the

exulting army which now hoped that, after this colossal success, the

days of ceaseless marching and fighting would soon end. As a contrast

to this natural outburst of joy and hope we may note the provident

Moltke, who was always resolved to 'mak siker.' His general order,

issued at once, suspending hostilities during the night, declared that

they would begin again in the morning should the negotiations produce

no result. In that case, he said, the signal for battle would be the

reopening of fire by the batteries on the heights east of Frenois.

"The signal was not given. Late on the evening of September 1st a

momentous session was held in Donchery, the little town which commands

a bridge over the Meuse below Sedan. On one side of a square table

covered with red baize sat General von Moltke, having on his right

hand the quartermaster-general Von Podbielski, according to one

account, and Von Blumenthal according to another, and behind them

several officers, while Count von Nostitz stood near the hearth to

take notes. Opposite to Von Moltke sat De Wimpffen alone; while in

rear, 'almost in the shade,' were General Faure, Count Castelnau, and

other Frenchmen, among whom was a cuirassier, Captain d'Orcet, who had

observant eyes and a retentive memory. Then there ensued a brief

silence, for Von Moltke looked straight before him and said nothing,

while De Wimpffen, oppressed by the number present, hesitated to

engage in a debate 'with the two men admitted to be the most capable

of our age, each in his kind.' But he soon plucked up courage, and

frankly accepted the conditions of the combat. What terms, he asked,

would the king of Prussia grant to a valiant army which, could he have

had his will, would have continued to fight? 'They are very simple,'

answered Von Moltke. 'The entire army, with arms and baggage, must

surrender as prisoners of war.' 'Very hard,' replied the Frenchman.

'We merit better treatment. Could you not be satisfied with the

fortress and the artillery, and allow the army to retire with arms,

flags and baggage, on condition of serving no more against Germany

during the war?' No. 'Moltke,' said Bismarck, recounting the

interview, 'coldly persisted in his demand,' or as the attentive

d'Orcet puts it, 'Von Moltke was pitiless.' Then De Wimpffen tried to

soften his grim adversary by painting his own position. He had just

come from the depths of the African desert; he had an irreproachable

military reputation; he had taken command in the midst of a battle,

and found himself obliged to set his name to a disastrous

capitulation. 'Can you not,' he said, 'sympathize with an officer in

such a plight, and soften, for me, the bitterness of my situation by

granting more honorable conditions?' He painted in moving terms his

own sad case, and described what he might have done; but seeing that

his personal pleadings were unheeded, he took a tone of defiance, less

likely to prevail. 'If you will not give better terms,' he went on, 'I

shall appeal to the honor of the army, and break out, or, at least,

defend Sedan.' Then the German general struck in with emphasis, 'I

regret that I cannot do what you ask,' he said; 'but as to making a

sortie, that is just as impossible as the defence of Sedan. You have

some excellent troops, but the greater part of your infantry is

demoralized. To-day, during the battle, we captured more than twenty

thousand unwounded prisoners. You have only eighty thousand men left.

My troops and guns around the town would smash yours before they could

make a movement; and as to defending Sedan, you have not provisions

for eight-and-forty hours, nor ammunition which would suffice for that

period.' Then, says De Wimpffen, he entered into details respecting

our situation, which, 'unfortunately, were too true,' and he offered

to permit an officer to verify his statements, an offer which the

Frenchman did not then accept.

"Beaten off the military ground, De Wimpffen sought refuge in

politics. 'It is your interest, from a political standpoint, to grant

us honorable conditions,' he said. 'France is generous and chivalric,

responsive to generosity, and grateful for consideration. A peace,

based on conditions which would flatter the amour-propre of the army,

and diminish the bitterness of defeat, would be durable; whereas

rigorous measures would awaken bad passions, and, perhaps, bring on an

endless war between France and Prussia.' The new ground broken called

up Bismarck, 'because the matter seemed to belong to my province,' he

observed when telling the story; and he was very outspoken as usual.

'I said to him that we might build on the gratitude of a prince, but

certainly not on the gratitude of a people--least of all on the

gratitude of the French. That in France neither institutions nor

circumstances were enduring; that governments and dynasties were

constantly changing, and the one need not carry out what the other had

bound itself to do. That if the emperor had been firm on his throne,

his gratitude for our granting good conditions might have been counted

upon; but as things stood it would be folly if we did not make full

use of our success. That the French were a nation full of envy and

jealousy, that they had been much mortified by our success at

Koniggratz, and could not forgive it, though it in nowise damaged

them. How, then, should any magnanimity on our side move them not to

bear us a grudge for Sedan.' This Wimpffen would not admit. 'France,'

he said, 'had much changed latterly; it had learned under the empire

to think more of the interests of peace than of the glory of war.

France was ready to proclaim the fraternity of nations;' and more of

the same kind. Captain d'Orcet reports that, in addition, Bismarck

denied that France had changed, and that to curb her mania for glory,

to punish her pride, her aggressive and ambitious character, it was

imperative that there should be a glacis between France and Germany.

'We must have territory, fortresses and frontiers which will shelter

us forever from an attack on her part.' Further remonstrances from De

Wimpffen only drew down fresh showers of rough speech very trying to

bear, and when Bismarck said, 'We cannot change our conditions,' De

Wimpffen exclaimed, 'Very well; it is equally impossible for me to

sign such a capitulation, and we shall renew the battle.'

"Here Count Castelnau interposed meekly to say, on behalf of the

emperor, that he had surrendered, personally, in the hope that his

self-sacrifice would induce the king to grant the army honorable

terms. 'Is that all?' Bismarck inquired. 'Yes,' said the Frenchman.

'But what is the sword surrendered,' asked the chancellor; 'is it his

own sword, or the sword of France?' 'It is only the sword of the

emperor,' was Castelnau's reply. 'Well, there is no use talking about

other conditions,' said Von Moltke, sharply, while a look of

contentment and gratification passed over his face, according to

Bismarck; one 'almost joyful,' writes the keen Captain d'Orcet. 'After

the last words of Von Moltke,' he continues, 'De Wimpffen exclaimed,

"We shall renew the battle." "The truce," retorted the German general,

"expires to-morrow morning at four o'clock. At four, precisely, I

shall open fire." We were all standing. After Von Moltke's words no

one spoke a syllable. The silence was icy.' But then Bismarck

intervened to soothe excited feelings, and called on his soldier-

comrade to show, once more, how impossible resistance had become. The

group sat down again at the red baize-covered table, and Von Moltke

began his demonstration afresh. 'Ah,' said De Wimpffen, 'your

positions are not so strong as you would have us believe them to be.'

'You do not know the topography of the country about Sedan,' was Von

Moltke's true and crushing answer. 'Here is a bizarre detail which

illustrates the presumptuous and inconsequent character of your

people,' he went on, now thoroughly aroused. 'When the war began you

supplied your officers with maps of Germany at a time when they could

not study the geography of their own country for want of French maps.

I tell you that our positions are not only very strong, they are

inexpugnable.' It was then that De Wimpffen, unable to reply, wished

to accept the offer made but not accepted at an earlier period, and to

send an officer to verify these assertions. 'You will send nobody,'

exclaimed the iron general. 'It is useless, and you can believe my

word. Besides, you have not long to reflect. It is now midnight; the

truce ends at four o'clock, and I will grant no delay.' Driven to his

last ditch, De Wimpffen pleaded that he must consult his fellow-

generals, and he could not obtain their opinions by four o'clock. Once

more the diplomatic peacemaker intervened, and Von Moltke agreed to

fix the final limit at nine. 'He gave way at last,' says Bismarck,

'when I showed him that it could do no harm.' The conference so

dramatic broke up, and each one went his way; but, says the German

official narrative, 'as it was not doubtful that the hostile army,

completely beaten and nearly surrounded, would be obliged to submit to

the clauses already indicated, the great headquarter staff was

occupied, that very night, in drawing up the text of the

capitulation,' a significant and practical comment, showing what stuff

there was behind the severe language which, at the midnight meeting,

fell from the Chief of that able and sleepless body of chosen men.

"From this conference General de Wimpffen went straight to the wearied

emperor, who had gone to bed. But he received his visitor, who told

him that the proposed conditions were hard, and that the sole chance

of mitigation lay in the efforts of his Majesty. 'General,' said the

emperor, 'I shall start at five o'clock for the German headquarters,

and I shall see whether the king will be more favorable;' for he seems

to have become possessed of an idea that King William would personally

treat with him. The emperor kept his word. Believing that he would be

permitted to return to Sedan, he drove forth without bidding farewell

to any of his troops; but, as the drawbridge of Torcy was lowered and

he passed over, the Zouaves on duty shouted 'Vive l'Empereur!' This

cry was 'the last adieu which fell on his ears' as we read in the

narrative given to the world on his behalf. He drove in a droshki

toward Donchery, preceded by General Reille, who, before six o'clock,

awoke Bismarck from his slumbers, and warned him that the emperor

desired to speak with him. 'I went with him directly,' said Bismarck,

in a conversation reported by Busch; 'and got on my horse, all dusty

and dirty as I was, in an old cap and my great waterproof boots, to

ride to Sedan, where I supposed him to be.' But he met him on the

highroad near Frenois, 'sitting in a two-horse carriage.' Beside him

was the Prince de la Moskowa, and on horseback Castelnau and Reille.

'I gave the military salute,' says Bismarck. 'He took his cap off and

the officers did the same; whereupon I took off mine, although it was

contrary to rule. He said, "Couvrez-vous, done." I behaved to him just

as if in St. Cloud, and asked his commands.' Naturally, he wanted to

see the king, but that could not be allowed. Then Bismarck placed his

quarters in Donchery at the emperor's disposal, but he declined the

courtesy, and preferred to rest in a house by the wayside. The cottage

of a Belgian weaver unexpectedly became famous; a one-storied house,

painted yellow, with white shutters and Venetian blinds. He and the

chancellor entered the house, and went up to the first floor where

there was 'a little room with one window. It was the best in the

house, but had only one deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs.' In

that lowly abode they talked together of many things for three-

quarters of an hour, among others about the origin of the war--which,

it seems, neither desired--the emperor asserting, Bismarck reports,

that 'he had been driven into it by the pressure of public opinion,' a

very inadequate representation of the curious incidents which preceded

the fatal decision. But when the emperor began to ask for more

favorable terms, he was told that, on a military question, Von Moltke

alone could speak. On the other hand, Bismarck's request to know who

now had authority to make peace was met by a reference to 'the

Government in Paris'; so that no progress was made. Then 'we must

stand to our demands with regard to the Army of Sedan,' said Bismarck.

General von Moltke was summoned, and 'Napoleon III. demanded that

nothing should be decided before he had seen the king, for he hoped to

obtain from his Majesty some favorable concessions for the army.' The

German official narrative of the war states that the emperor expressed

a wish that the army might be permitted to enter Belgium, but that, of

course, the chief of the staff could not accept the proposal. General

von Moltke forthwith set out for Vendresse, where the king was, to

report progress. He met his Majesty on the road, and there 'the king

fully approved the proposed conditions of capitulation, and declared

that he would not see the emperor until the terms prescribed had been

accepted'; a decision which gratified the chancellor as well as the

chief of the staff. 'I did not wish them to come together,' observed

the count, 'until we had settled the matter of the capitulation';

sparing the feelings of both and leaving the business to the hard

military men.

"The emperor lingered about in the garden of the weaver's cottage; he

seems to have desired fresh air after his unpleasant talk with the

chancellor. Dr. Moritz Busch, who had hurried to the spot, has left a

characteristic description of the emperor. He saw there 'a little

thick-set man,' wearing jauntily a red cap with a gold border, a black

paletôt lined with red, red trousers, and white kid gloves. 'The look

in his light gray eyes was somewhat soft and dreamy, like that of

people who have lived hard. His whole appearance,' says the irreverent

Busch, 'was a little unsoldierlike. The man looked too soft, I might

say too shabby, for the uniform he wore.' While one scene in the

stupendous drama was performed at the weaver's cottage, another was

acted or endured in Sedan, where De Wimpffen had summoned the generals

to consider the terms of capitulation. He has given his own account of

the incident; but the fullest report is supplied by Lebrun. There were

present at this council of war more than thirty generals. With tearful

eyes and a voice broken by sobs, the unhappy and most ill-starred De

Wimpffen described his interview and conflict with Von Moltke and

Bismarck, and its dire result--the army to surrender as prisoners of

war, the officers alone to retain their arms, and by way of mitigating

the rigor of these conditions, full permission to return home would be

given to any officer, provided he would engage in writing and on honor

not to serve again during the war. The generals, save one or two, and

these finally acquiesced, felt that the conditions could not be

refused; but they were indignant at the clause suggesting that the

officers might escape the captivity which would befall their soldiers,

provided they would engage to become mere spectators of the invasion

of their country. In the midst of these mournful deliberations Captain

von Zingler, a messenger from Von Moltke, entered, and the scene

became still more exciting. 'I am instructed,' he said, 'to remind you

how urgent it is that you should come to a decision. At ten o'clock,

precisely, if you have not come to a resolution, the German batteries

will fire on Sedan. It is now nine, and I shall have barely time to

carry your answer to headquarters.' To this sharp summons De Wimpffen

answered that he could not decide until he knew the result of the

interview between the emperor and the king.' 'That interview,' said

the stern captain, 'will not in any way affect the military

operations, which can only he determined by the generals who have full

power to resume or stop the strife.' It was, indeed, as Lebrun

remarked, useless to argue with a captain charged to state a fact; and

at the general's suggestion De Wimpffen agreed to accompany Captain

von Zingler to the German headquarters.

"These were, for the occasion, the Château de Bellevue, where the

emperor himself had been induced to take up his abode, and about

eleven o'clock, in a room under the imperial chamber, De Wimpffen put

his name at the foot of the document drawn up, during the night, by

the German staff. Then he sought out the emperor, and, greatly moved,

told him that 'all was finished.' His majesty, he writes, 'with tears

in his eyes, approached me, pressed my hand, and embraced me,' and 'my

sad and painful duty having been accomplished, I remounted my horse

and road back to Sedan, '"la mort dans l'âme."'

"So soon as the convention was signed, the king arrived, accompanied

by the crown prince. Three years before, as the emperor reminds us in

the writing attributed to him, the king had been his guest in Paris,

where all the sovereigns of Europe had come to behold the marvels of

the famous Exhibition. 'Now,' so runs the lamentation, 'betrayed by

fortune, Napoleon III. had lost all, and had placed in the hands of

his conqueror the sole thing left him--his liberty.' And he goes on to

say, in general terms, that the king deeply sympathized with his

misfortunes, but nevertheless could not grant better conditions to the

army. 'He told the emperor that the castle of Wilhelmshohe had been

selected as his residence; the crown prince then entered and cordially

shook hands with Napoleon; and at the end of a quarter of an hour the

king withdrew. The emperor was permitted to send a telegram in cipher

to the empress, to tell her what had happened, and urge her to

negotiate a peace.' Such is the bald record of this impressive event.

The telegram, which reached the empress at four o'clock on the

afternoon of the 3d, was in these words: 'The army is defeated and

captive; I myself am a prisoner.'

"For one day more the fallen sovereign rested at Bellevue to meditate

on the caprices of fortune or the decrees of fate. But that day, at

the head of a splendid company of princes and generals, King William,

crossing the bridge of Donchery, rode throughout the whole vast extent

of the German lines, to greet his hardy warriors and be greeted by

them on the very scene of their victories. And well they deserved

regal gratitude, for together with their comrades who surrounded Metz,

by dint of long swift marches and steadfast valor, they had overcome

two great armies in thirty days.

"During the battle of Sedan, the Germans lost in killed and wounded

8,924 officers and men. On the other hand, the French lost 3,000

killed, 14,000 wounded, and 21,000 captured in the battle. The number

of prisoners by capitulation was 83,000, while 3,000 were disarmed in

Belgium, and a few hundreds, more or less, made their way by devious

routes near and over the frontier, to Mezières, Rocroi, and other

places in France. In addition, were taken one eagle and two flags, 419

field guns and mitrailleuses, 139 garrison guns, many wagons, muskets,

and horses. On the day after the surrender, the French soldiers,

having stacked their arms in Sedan, marched into the peninsula formed

by the deep loop of the Meuse--'le Camp de Misère' as they called

it--and were sent thence in successive batches, numbered by thousands,

to Germany. Such was the astonishing end of the Army of Chalons, which

had been impelled to its woful doom by the Comte de Palikao and the

Paris politicians."

Here closes the first and most dramatic phase of the war. Thereafter

the enemy was smitten hip and thigh. At once hurry orders were given

to open the line which led from Nancy to Paris. What followed must be

briefly told.

On the 5th of September the king of Prussia entered Rheims. On the 8th

Laon surrendered. On the 15th advanced troops halted within three

hours of the capital of France, making a half circle round its

defences. This investment Ducrot--who had escaped from Sedan--

attempted to prevent. His resources consisted in the Thirteenth Corps

under General Vinoy, and the Fourteenth under General Renault, and

18,000 marines, excellent soldiers, a total of 88,000 regular troops.

He had also in the camps of Vincennes and St. Maur 100,000

Garde-Mobiles, only very imperfectly disciplined; 10,000 volunteers

from the provinces, resolute men, prepared to give their lives for

their country; the National Guard, composed of sixty old and a hundred

and ninety-four new battalions which, with other miscellaneous

volunteers of Paris, numbered perhaps 200,000 men, not, however,

thoroughly to be depended upon. Altogether the defenders numbered

about 400,000, but of these only the 88,000 regular troops and the

10,000 volunteers from the provinces could be reckoned as trustworthy.

Nevertheless, the Third German Army had no difficulty in establishing

itself in a position embracing the southern and southeastern front of

the city, from Sèvres to the Marne; the Fourth Army faced the

northeast and northern front, the cavalry the west front, so far as

the windings of the Seine would permit it. On the 5th of October the

crown prince took up his headquarters at Versailles, those of the king

being at Ferrières, the seat of the Paris Rothschilds. Here took

place, on the 19th October, the famous interview between the French

foreign minister, Jules Favre, and Bismarck, in which the former made

his declaration that France would surrender neither one inch of her

territories nor one stone of her fortresses. The interview remained

without result.

Meanwhile the fortress of Toul had surrendered. Strasburg, after a

siege of six weeks, also surrendered, and, on October 27, Bazaine

handed over Metz and an army consisting of three marshals of France,

6,000 officers, and 173,000 soldiers--an act for which after the

conclusion of the war he was court-martialled, declared guilty of

treason, and sentenced to death and degradation. The then president of

the republic, Marshal MacMahon, commuted the death sentence into one

of imprisonment for twenty years. Confined in the fort of the island

St. Marguerite, near Cannes, Bazaine escaped, and lived in Spain till

his death.

Bazaine's surrender made the Germans masters of one of the strongest

fortresses in Europe, with 800 heavy guns, 102 mitrailleuses, 300,000

Chassepots, and placed at the disposal of the king an entire

blockading army.

It was at this juncture that Gambetta astonished the world. Reaching

Tours in a balloon from Paris, and there assuming the ministry of war,

he became practically dictator of France. Thence he issued a

proclamation to the people of France, urging them to continue their

resistance to the bitter end, and directed that all men, capable of

bearing arms, should lend their hands to the work, and should join the

troops of the line at Tours. In this way he formed an Army of the

North, and an Army of the Loire, and, later, an Army of the East. In

all respects he displayed a fertility of resource which astounded. He

obtained arms, uniforms, munitions, and other necessaries from foreign

countries, especially from England. He bestowed the greatest pains in

selecting as generals of the new levies men who should be real

soldiers. Under his inspiring influence the war in the provinces

assumed a very serious complexion. France had responded nobly to the

call he had made upon her people. Early reverses gave vigor to the new

levies, and they fought with energy against the Bavarians under Von

der Than at Arthenay and Orleans, and against the division of Wittich

at Châteaudun and Chartres. But they were fighting against increasing

odds. Every day brought reinforcements to the Germans.

With the exception of a momentary gleam of success on the Loire,

France met with nothing but disaster. In Paris matters were critical.

Every one of the different sorties made by her defenders had been

repulsed; the hope by which the spirits of her defenders had been

buoyed was vanishing fast: famine was approaching with giant strides;

the strong places outside the circle of her defences were falling one

after another; the fire of the enemy was, by the nearer approach of

their troops, becoming more concentrated and more severe. Peace must

be had. On January 28th, then, there was concluded at Versailles an

armistice for three weeks. Then a national assembly was summoned to

Bordeaux to consider how peace might be restored. In that assembly

Thiers received full administrative powers, including the power of

nominating his own ministers. He himself, with Jules Favre, undertook

the negotiations with Bismarck. To insure the success of those

negotiations the armistice was twice prolonged. This was done at the

instance of Thiers, for the conditions insisted upon by Bismarck were

hard, and the French statesman struggled with all his energies to

induce him to abate his demands. Especially did he strive to save

Metz, or, at least, to receive Luxemburg in compensation.

But his endeavors were fruitless. The utmost that Bismarck would do

was not to insist upon securing the still unconquered Belfort.

Despairing of moving him further, Thiers and Favre gave way on the

24th of February, and signed the preliminaries of peace. They were,

first, the transfer to Germany of the northeast portion of Lorraine,

with Metz and Diedenhofen, and of Alsace, Belfort excepted; second,

the payment to Germany by France of one milliard of francs in 1871,

and four milliards in the three years following; third, the Germans to

begin to evacuate French territory immediately after the ratification

of the treaty; Paris and its forts on the left bank of the Seine and

certain departments at once; the forts on the right bank after the

ratification and the payment of the first half milliard. After the

payment of two milliards the German occupation of the departments

Marne, Ardennes, Upper Marne, Meuae, the Vosges, and Meurthe, and the

fortress of Belfort should cease. Interest at five per cent to be

charged on the milliards remaining unpaid from the date of

ratification; fourth, the German troops remaining in France to make no

requisitions on the departments in which they were located, but to be

fed at the cost of France; fifth, the inhabitants of the sequestered

provinces to be allowed a certain fixed time in which to make their

choice between the two countries; sixth, all prisoners to be at once

restored; seventh, a treaty embodying all these terms to be settled at

Brussels. It was further arranged that the German army should not

occupy Paris, but should content itself with marching through the

city.

Meanwhile, negotiations between the statesmen and governments of

Germany resulted in a proposal to King William that, as head of the

confederation, he should assume the title of German emperor. A

resolution to that effect was passed by the North German Reichstag on

the 9th of December, and a deputation proceeded to the royal

headquarters at Versailles, where, on the 18th of December, the

imperial crown was offered to the brother of the king who had once

refused it. Deeply touched, King William accepted, and in the palace

of Louis XIV., surrounded by a brilliant assembly of princes,

officers, and ministers of state, the venerable monarch was proclaimed

Deutscher Kaiser.

Then at last was the dream of centuries realized. At last was the

empire restored. Not the Holy Roman Empire, not the empire of the

Middle Ages, but the empire as a national state.

Under the leadership of Bismarck, to whom the restoration of the

empire was directly due, the new Reich began its organization as a

united federation. Among its earliest difficulties was an

ecclesiastical contest with the Church of Rome. Known as the

Kulturkampf, this struggle was an effort to vindicate the right of the

state to interfere in the affairs of all German religious societies.

Another difficulty which demanded government interference was the

Judenhetze, or persecution of the Jews, which reached a climax in

1881. A further difficulty was encountered in the quick growth of

socialism. Two attempts on the life of the kaiser were attributed to

it, and a plot being discovered, which had for object the elimination

of the emperor and other German rulers, repressive measures resulted.

Meanwhile an alliance offensive and defensive between Germany and

Austria had been formed, into which Italy subsequently entered.

On March 9, 1888, the Emperor William I. died. His son, Frederick, at

that time suffering from a cancerous affection of the throat, became

kaiser. Three months later he also died, and William II. succeeded

him.

The latter's first step of any importance was to get in front of half

a million bayonets. Coincidently he declared that those bayonets and

he--or rather he and those bayonets--were born for one another.

Incidentally he announced that he was a monarch, specially conceived,

specially created, specially ordained by the Almighty.

The step and the remarks were tantamount to a call to quarters. It

would be dramatic to state that the circumjacent territories trembled,

but it is exact to affirm that there was a war scare at once, one

which by no means diminished when a little later he showed Bismarck

the door.

As already noted, the refounding of the empire was Bismarck's work. To

achieve his purpose he had--to again quote Colonel Malleson--defied

parliaments and people. He had led his master and his country over

abysses, in the traversing of which one false step would have been

fatal. Aided a great deal by the wretched diplomacy of Austria, by the

deterioration of the powers of the French emperor, and by his sublime

audacity, he had compelled to his will all the moral difficulties of

the undertaking. Von Boon and Moltke had done the rest. No longer,

however, was he allowed to put forth his hand to sustain the work

which he had created. For him it had been better to die, like Von

Boon, like Moltke, keeping to the end the confidence of his sovereign,

than to feel himself impelled, dismissed from office, to pour out his

grievances to every passing listener, to speak in terms not far

removed from treason of the sovereign who had declined to be his

pupil. Was it for this, he must have muttered, that I forced on the

war which gave Prussia Schleswig and Holstein in 1864; that I

compelled unwilling Austria to declare war in 1866; that, by the

freest circulation of exaggerated statements, I roused a bitter

feeling in Germany against France, and excited the statesmen, and,

above all, the mob, of Paris in 1870?--for this, that, the work

accomplished, an empire given to the Hohenzollerns, I might be cast

aside like a squeezed-out orange? Well might these be his thoughts,

for it was he who made possible the task of German unity, though in a

manner which will commend itself only to those who argue that the end

justifies the means.

A journalist wrote a pamphlet on the subject. In it he compared the

kaiser to Caligula. For his pains he was sent to jail. He might better

have been sent to school. Caligula was a poet in love with the moon.

The kaiser is a poseur in love with himself. One of Caligula's many

diversions was killing his people. Such slaughter as the kaiser has

effected consists in twenty-five thousand head of game. The career of

Caligula is horrible, yet in the horrible is sometimes the sublime.

The career of the kaiser has been theatrical, and in the theatrical is

always the absurd. The single parallel between the two lies in the

fact that all young emperors stand on a peak so lofty that, do they

look below, vertigo rises, while from above delirium comes. There is

nothing astonishing in that. It would be astonishing were it

otherwise. What does astonish is the equilibrium which the kaiser, in

spite of his words, his threats and actions, has managed to maintain.

Regarded as a firebrand and a menace to the peace of Europe, with the

exception of two big blunders--an invitation to King Humbert to

promenade with him through Strasburg, and the message which he sent to

President Kruger of the Transvaal after the failure of the Jameson

raid--with these exceptions he has exhibited a regard for

international etiquette entirely immaculate, and not always returned.

In recompense for overtures to France he has been snubbed. In

recompense for others to Russia he has been ignored. Neither Austria

nor Italy love him. He has weakened the Triple Alliance, alienated

England, and lost his place. When he ascended the throne Germany's

position on the continent was preponderant. That position is Russia's

to-day.

Had he had the power--which he has always denied--to return to France

the keys of Metz and Strasburg, and had he had the ability--which

others have denied for him--to coalesce with France and Russia he

would have been warlord indeed. As it is, failing in an effort to

realize the dream of Napoleon I., he has at present writing subsided

into a martinet.

What the future holds for Germany and for him the future will tell.

But into the future it is not given to any one, even to an emperor, to

look.

[Footnote 1: G. B. Malleson: The Refounding of the German Empire.]

[Footnote 2: The house is called "A la derniere Cartouche," and is the

subject of De Neuville's splendid painting.]

[Footnote 3: "Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops,

nothing remains for me but to place my sword in the hands of your

Majesty."]

THE END