Sedan 1870- The Eclipse of France

by Douglas Fermer

  Already in the last week of July German cavalry patrols had penetrated French territory, disrupting communications and spreading alarm. The first men died in skirmishes between German horsemen and French customs posts or cavalry outposts. What were the French main forces doing? Intelligence had pinpointed the location and strength of their units with fair accuracy, but their intentions remained inscrutable and their passivity unaccountable. The only certainty was that, much to Moltke’s surprise and relief, they had allowed him time to complete his concentration unhindered.

  French Mobilization

  On 6 July Marshal Le Bœuf advised the Emperor that field forces of 350,000 men could be assembled in fifteen days from the order to mobilize.4 The order to call up the reserves was given on the evening of 14 July. Yet by 2 August, the nineteenth day of mobilization, France had gathered only about 255,000 men on her frontier. Of the 173,500 reservists expected, scarcely half had reached the front even by 6 August. Thus the Germans began the campaign with a superiority of more than three to two. Moreover, the French arrived wretchedly supplied, and still had not completed their organization by that date.

  Yet the effort of the French railways was hardly inferior to their German counterparts. The Eastern and Northern railway companies performed prodigies of improvisation, running on average fifty-five trains a day to the front from 16 July. The scale of their achievement has sometimes been lost in descriptions of the general chaos associated with that second fortnight of July 1870 in France.

  The confusion of French mobilization had many layers, all due to poor planning. In France as a matter of policy regiments were not based on local districts. Troops were considered more reliable for keeping civil order if they served far from relatives and friends, and regular rotation of garrisons was intended to prevent regiments getting too close to communities, as well as to promote a national outlook. A consequence of this practice was that a regiment’s depot might be hundreds of miles from where it was stationed; and its reservists might come from anywhere in France. When war broke out, reservists reported to their local centre where they were formed into detachments and transported to their regimental depots. Regiments themselves meanwhile were sent straight to the front, despite being well below strength, on the promise that their reservists and equipment would be forwarded to them once they got there. On 19 July the Garde Mobile too was mobilized, though almost no preparation had been made to organize and equip it. The result of attempting general mobilization and concentration of the field army simultaneously was a bedlam of troops going to the front, reservists going to their depots or chasing after their regiments, and Gardes Mobiles going to their local mustering centre.

  Not everything went as spectacularly wrong as some accounts later suggested. Many regiments departed in an orderly fashion. There was logic in troops from north-eastern France being despatched to form the northern portion of the French line; those from Paris and central France going to form the centre; the Army of Africa, debarking from Marseilles, being sent to Alsace to join troops already in the area; and those from south-east France forming the southern end of the line, while troops from the west formed a second line at Châlons. Yet all was marred by the prevalence of confusion and disorder that wasted precious time as reservists criss-crossed France by rail in a way that beggared common sense. In an extreme case, reservists from northern France travelled to Marseilles then embarked for Oran in Algeria to reach their regimental depot. From there they sailed back to Marseilles to join their unit in Alsace, a round trip of 2,000 kilometres.

  Nor was the quality of many reservists reassuring. Many had received only minimal training thanks to budget cuts, and those who had done their service before 1867 were untrained in use of the Chassepot. Many resented being called away from their homes, and stations became crowded with men who either genuinely did not know where their units were or who were in no hurry to find out, and spent their travel allowance in getting uproariously drunk. Many junior officers seemed to think it the duty of their NCOs or railway officials to embark their men, and as a result bands of deserters took to pillage and begging in French cities for weeks without much attempt by the authorities to suppress the evil. In Strasbourg Rodolphe Reuss observed that the reservists were ‘all drunk, or nearly so; it was a disgusting spectacle to see them staggering in the streets’, and he complained that they were begging from house to house.5 Seventy-year-old Frédéric Piton, the city’s librarian, was old enough to draw a telling comparison with an earlier invasion: ‘I was astonished by our soldiers’ lack of enthusiasm; I can remember very well that in 1814 and 1815, despite the gravity of our situation, there were lusty cries of “Long Live the Emperor! Long Live the Emperor!” Nothing of the sort today. But then, what a difference between the spirit of Napoleon I and that of his nephew.’6 A general in Marseilles thought of shipping 9,000 rowdy reservists to Algeria just to be rid of them.7 As for the Garde Mobile, instead of taking on garrison duty to relieve the regular army, as the Landwehr did in Germany, its lack of training made it at first a huge distraction during mobilization. The Paris Garde Mobile mustered at Châlons Camp proved so hopelessly undisciplined and mutinous that nothing could be done with it.

  The mayhem of mobilization caused by lack of an efficient transportation plan was overlaid by the chaos of central planning. Though nobody seemed to be in command, plenty of people were giving orders, and those orders changed almost daily. Napoleon III brought to military affairs the same irresolute and vacillating approach that he practised in politics, with wretched results. We have seen that in 1868 he had drawn up with General Lebrun a plan for three armies, to be commanded by Marshals MacMahon, Canrobert and Bazaine, and the War Ministry had planned on that basis. But on 11 July Napoleon called in Le Bœuf to tell him that there would be but one field army, the Army of the Rhine, and that he would command it personally. Some ascribed the change to the Emperor’s desire to ensure unity in the first stages of the offensive. Others strongly suspected dynastic motives and Eugénie’s influence: a Napoleon needed to lead his army and reap the laurels of victory, which otherwise might be gleaned by his marshals. Whatever the motive, the War Ministry had to work night and day hastily to redraw the entire order of battle. It was also decided that the three marshals should as consolation each command an enlarged army corps of four infantry divisions rather than the corps of three divisions commanded by generals. Thus the army undertook a major reorganization even as it mobilized.

  Wartime appointments bore no relation to peacetime territorial commands, so commanders went to unfamiliar units and had to get used to staff officers they did not know. Le Bœuf himself was taken away from his functions as War Minister at a crucial time to act as chief of staff. On 23 July Napoleon sent him a lengthy and detailed list of services to be organized; in itself an admission of what had been left undone since 1866.8 Meanwhile, the War Ministry required every regiment, while mobilizing, to reorganize by creating a fourth battalion to receive reservists at the depot while other battalions left for the front. Yet supplies of equipment and orders specifying when and where reservists were to be despatched were frustratingly slow in arriving at regimental depots, all losing more time.

  When units reached the front there was frequent befuddlement about their designated concentration point and much plodding back and forth around the countryside as regiments, squads of reservists, and sometimes commanders went in search of their units. Worse still was the disorder of supplies. Essentials of all sorts were despatched in abundance from central depots to the marshalling yards of Metz, but because longer platforms planned there before the war had not been built and because of a labour shortage, unmarked goods wagons remained unloaded in sidings for days or even weeks, and then carts were lacking to carry supplies to units that needed them, when anybody knew their location. The army service corps, like the cavalry and artillery, was seriously short of horses. Most regiments were short of essential items, whether spare parts for their Chassepots or harness for much-needed transpor
t. Amidst these chronic difficulties, officials of the Intendance remained so wedded to bureaucratic routine that on 17 July an order had to be issued threatening them with exemplary punishment if they denied troops needful supplies on the pretext of regulations.

  Telegrams from harassed commanders to the War Ministry, which was expected to decide the most trifling details, tell their own story: 18 July, ‘There is no sugar, coffee, rice, brandy or salt in Metz, and little bacon or hard tack. Send at least a million rations to Thionville urgently’; 21 July, ‘The depot has sent enormous bundles of maps which are useless for the moment, we have not a single map of the French frontier’; 25 July, ‘I have neither hospital orderlies, labourers or administrators, nor hospital wagons or field-ovens …’; 27 July, ‘The detachments joining the army are still arriving without cartridges or camping equipment’; 29 July, ‘General de Failly urgently requests camping gear: shelter-tents, blankets, canteens and mess-tins are all in short supply. The men joining 5 Corps are arriving almost without camping equipment and cooking pots. He estimates that he needs equipment for 5,000 men.’9

  The troops had set off in high spirits, meeting the same enthusiastic reception and hospitality at stations seen in Germany. The Marseillaise was roared out everywhere. In the fields labourers waved hats and handkerchiefs at passing troop trains. The men remained confident that they were more than a match for the Germans. But shortages and the evident confusion and indecision among the high command soon caused grumbling. Overburdened troops began to throw away such items as shakos, heavy knapsacks, ammunition and even rifles in the hot sun. Nor were the troops cheered by the address Napoleon issued to them on 28 July.

  The Emperor, looking pale and ill, left his palace of Saint-Cloud by rail that oppressively overcast morning, departing without passing through Paris. He made the Empress Regent in his absence. On reaching Metz that evening he took up residence at the Prefecture, some distance from the fevered atmosphere of Army Headquarters at the Hôtel de l’Europe, which swarmed with gold braided officers all demanding information or orders and sharing rumours as they rubbed shoulders with civilians and reporters amid a total absence of security. In his proclamation, Napoleon assured the troops that they were defending liberty and civilization, and that ‘Whatever road we take beyond our frontiers, we shall be following in the glorious footsteps of our fathers. We shall show ourselves worthy of them.’ But he predicted a long, hard war against ‘one of the best armies in Europe’ in an area (South Germany) bristling with obstacles and fortresses. He also spoke of defending French soil – a necessity that had hardly dawned on anyone in the ranks.10

  Napoleon was disturbed to find how few men he had at his command, at their continuing unreadiness, and the disorder around him. The French high command still believed that it was ahead of the Germans, but seemed at a loss what plan to adopt. The Paris press was clamouring for an early offensive, and a reconnaissance in force across the German border was decided upon.

  On the morning of 2 August divisions from three French corps crossed the frontier to storm hills shielding the town of Saarbrücken. On the parade ground atop one of the hills, soldiers of the small German garrison were smoking and gossiping in the sun while their officers sipped Rhine wine under the shade of the trees, when they saw the glint of a long line of bayonets and dense lines of scarlet-legged infantry approaching their positions. Overwhelmed by a storm of Chassepot and mitrailleuse fire, the Germans withdrew as they had been ordered to do if attacked by a superior force, though not before inflicting nearly ninety casualties on the French, about the same number as they suffered themselves. The French fired some shells after them into the town, of which the Germans were to make much in justifying their own bombardment of French cities. A Breton soldier admitted, ‘It was a heart-rending spectacle to see the maddened inhabitants fleeing their blazing homes’, while a junior officer from Mulhouse was disgusted to see some of his men behaving like barbarians, pillaging houses and destroying what they could not use – acts for which he punished them.11

  For all that has been said of French deficiencies in numbers, supply and discipline, Napoleon had managed to launch an offensive before Moltke – but there was no follow-up. The French did not even attempt to hold Saarbrücken, let alone to press beyond it. Nor was Napoleon any wiser as to what the Germans were doing, French cavalry having proved unenterprising in reconnaissance.

  Saarbrücken at least made a splash in the newspapers across France and raised hopes of a quick victory. The war continued to command wide support, even if Paris republicans jeered at the exploits of the 14-year-old Prince Imperial, who had watched the action with his father, when Ollivier published a private telegram from Napoleon to the Empress: ‘Louis has just received his baptism of fire. He showed admirable coolness … Louis has kept a bullet that fell next to him. There were soldiers who wept at seeing him so calm.’12

  The French army remained strung out over 250 kilometres (155 miles) of territory, far too extended given its inferior numbers and reliance on a few railheads for supplies. The army deployed eight corps from northern Lorraine to southern Alsace, divided by the barrier of the Vosges. From north to south these formations were: 4 Corps under General Ladmirault around Thionville; 2 Corps under General Frossard around Forbach; 3 Corps under Marshal Bazaine around Boulay east of Metz; the Imperial Guard under General Bourbaki in Metz; 5 Corps under General de Failly around Bitche; 1 Corps under Marshal MacMahon around Strasbourg; 7 Corps under General Félix Douay around Belfort and Colmar, and finally 6 Corps under Marshal Canrobert to the rear at Châlons Camp.

  For all its problems, the French army might yet have held its own had it not been so dispersed, with major units trying to do the job of cavalry by covering all approaches, while remaining mostly too far from each other to provide support if one were attacked close to the frontier. A few days might make a difference as more reservists came up and the supply muddle was sorted out, but those few days were denied.

  Chapter 6

  The Invasion of Alsace

  Wissembourg

  Strasbourg, the ‘Queen City of Alsace’ was France’s great bulwark on the Rhine, dominated by the citadel built by Vauban after Louis XIV entered the city in triumph in 1681. In late July 1870 the city was again a hive of military activity. Dr Henri Beaunis, who taught at the university and the Army Medical School there, remembered the city’s squares overflowing in the evenings with ‘ladies all dressed up, officers of all ranks and arms in glittering uniforms, the cafés lit up and full of customers, lively discussions punctuated by jokes and laughter, the clank of sabres and glasses and, dominating all, military bands blaring out the national refrain like a challenge that was taken up by thousands of voices’.1 This was, after all, the city where the Marseillaise had been composed during the Revolutionary Wars. Amid all the drinking and excitement, one of Beaunis’s colleagues noted, ‘Everyone had his plan of campaign and his inside news, but above all the blindest confidence prevailed. Everyone had forgotten Sadowa and talked only of Jena … You can’t imagine how much nonsense was uttered.’2

  Marshal Maurice MacMahon arrived in the city on 23 July to take command of 1 Corps. With a commanding presence enhanced by his white hair and moustache, he was confident in his troops, who included a solid core from the Army of Africa. Second perhaps only to Canrobert as France’s most renowned warrior, MacMahon had won distinction in Algeria, the Crimea and Italy. He had been born at the chateau of Sully in 1808, a descendant of men who had fought for the Stuarts at the Boyne and Culloden. Although his family connections were royalist, he had served the Second Empire loyally, if with some diffidence. In 1858, after the Orsini bomb attempt on Napoleon III, MacMahon had been the only senator to vote against a stringent security law introduced by the government, believing it to be unconstitutional. His prestige was such that this did him little harm, and the Emperor turned to him in 1861 to represent France at the coronation of King Wilhelm I of Prussia, a role MacMahon fulfilled with aristocratic dignity an
d style. Now he had been recalled from the Governorship of Algeria for what the Emperor assured him on 21 July would be only a short campaign.3

  At Strasbourg, the centre of the southern portion of the French line, MacMahon found himself beset by the same difficulties as his fellow corps commanders, with men and supplies agonizingly slow in arriving. To his south, at Belfort, General Félix Douay commanding 7 Corps had even greater problems. Some 7 Corps units were still back in Lyon and one brigade was still in Rome. Meantime, persistent reports of German troop movements east of the Rhine made Douay hesitant about sending any of his units northwards to MacMahon in preparation for the offensive that the Emperor supposedly was preparing.

  Pending the development of that offensive, MacMahon followed his orders from Le Bœuf to watch the Rhine crossings and the passes through the Vosges, as well as the River Lauter, which separated French from German territory at the northern frontier of Alsace. As soon as they were ready, MacMahon started funnelling his forces into northern Alsace but, like the French army as a whole, they were widely dispersed: MacMahon did not suspect any imminent German threat. When Edgar Hepp, Deputy Prefect based at the frontier town of Wissembourg, wired nervous reports of a large enemy build-up north of the Lauter, MacMahon directed his 2nd Division to move up there, and planned to go and see the situation there himself on 4 August. Meantime that division was put under the orders of his second-in-command, General Ducrot, who commanded his 1st Division and knew the country well.