Frightened at being unable to discern this flooring which moved unseen below the water and gave way beneath their hooves at every step, the horses went forward with the utmost reluctance, their necks outstretched, their ears pricked up. The cuirassiers, upright in their stirrups, wrapped in their great white overcoats, passed over silently, as if walking on the water. Two fires lit on the riverbank at either end of the bridge cast their wan light over men and horses. Their flames were reflected strangely in the shiny helmets of these horsemen, and gave this spectacle an eerie quality.14
Finally, at 10.15 p.m., 7 Corps began to cross. Occasionally a caisson or terrified horse disappeared into the dark water, but by 2 a.m. the passage was well under way. It was then that Major de Bastard of MacMahon’s staff arrived with orders. Douay was to lead his men not south-east towards Montmédy, but north-west to Sedan. At 5 a.m. on 31 August the bedraggled, cold and hungry men of 7 Corps started arriving outside the walls of Sedan. Summoned by Douay, its governor opened the town’s gates to them.
The Retreat to Sedan
Shocked and bitterly disappointed at 5 Corps’ performance, MacMahon set it and 12 Corps in motion from Mouzon towards Sedan along the roads east of the Meuse. This disorderly night march of 30–31 August only exhausted and demoralized the men further. MacMahon sent Ducrot orders to act as rearguard and to ‘invite’ the Emperor to withdraw to Sedan.
Ducrot found Napoleon dining with his household in a brightly lit house in Carignan. Unaware of the significance of the day’s events, he had telegraphed the Empress at 5.40 p.m., ‘There has been another little engagement today, of no great importance. I stayed in the saddle quite a long time.’15 He was incredulous when told what had happened, repeating, ‘But that’s impossible!’ He was eventually prevailed upon, reluctantly, to take the train to Sedan, where he arrived at the Sub-Prefecture late at night, walking painfully and looking thoroughly ill. He rejected advice to continue to Mézières, refusing to abandon the army.16
Rouher had pointedly reminded Napoleon at Courcelles on 21 August that if the Army of Châlons were beaten, ‘Your Majesty would have but one course, to hurl yourself amidst the enemy and get yourself killed.’ His heroic death would do more for the dynasty than an abdication which many loyalists desired but none dared suggest.17 Napoleon had at least sent his son away from the army, quietly despatching the Prince Imperial northwards under escort for safety on 26 August. When the Empress heard of this she disapproved. Although her affections and hopes for the dynasty centred far more on her son than her chronically unfaithful husband, she wrote dramatically that she would rather weep for the prince’s death or wounding than see him in flight.18 On hearing of the retreat to Sedan she tried to bolster Napoleon’s resolve by wiring him on 31 August, ‘The news I have received from various quarters demonstrates conclusively that a vigorous effort towards Metz could give us success …’.19
The ‘enormous disorder’ of the army in and around Sedan that day20 made it difficult to share such purblind confidence. A moderately prosperous textile weaving centre of 15,000 inhabitants, Sedan had been notable hitherto only for its fine cloth and as the birthplace in 1611 of Marshal Turenne. Its narrow streets, overshadowed by the houses of successful drapers, now teemed with soldiers, many of whom crowded into bars or knocked on doors begging for bread while their officers dined in restaurants, little concerned with supervising their men. Traffic came almost to a standstill as empty wagons from units seeking rations headed into town, where artillery caissons and baggage trains added to the jam.
To the minority of republicans in the army, the Emperor with his escort and train of vehicles, his household of seventy including forty servants, messengers and cooks, was nothing more than a ‘golden ball and chain’.21 Legend would exaggerate the size of his retinue and the delays caused by its wagons.22 Yet even sympathizers had come to resent his presence as ‘more of an encumbrance than his baggage’.23 His proclamation that day had a dying fall. Admitting that ‘the start of the campaign has been unfortunate,’ and that so far success had not crowned the efforts of the marshals he had appointed, he appealed to the men’s courage, and to their sense of reputation and duty: ‘if there are any cowards, military law and public opinion will do them justice.’ Copies of the proclamation were placarded around the town. The few troops who read it felt ‘sadness and astonishment’.24
MacMahon initially deployed his most reliable troops to face a possible attack from the east by the pursuing Fourth Army. Lebrun’s 12 Corps would hold the village of Bazeilles, 4 kilometres south-east of Sedan, and the adjacent heights on the western side of the narrow Givonne valley. Ducrot would extend the line northwards up the Givonne, but his 1 Corps would arrive only after dark. Douay’s 7 Corps was to extend Ducrot’s line towards Illy, but his men were so shaken and exhausted that Douay asked for them to remain in the rear, on the Algeria plateau north of the town. The battered 5 Corps was placed in reserve at the site outside town called the Old Camp.
That afternoon 5 Corps got a new commander, General Emmanuel Félix de Wimpffen, who relieved a devastated Failly. Wimpffen was an ambitious man who bore a grudge against MacMahon, his former commander. In Algeria Wimpffen had courted popularity with French colonists impatient with government constraints on their expansion. He favoured ‘vigorous and direct’ repression of dissident southern tribes, and led an expedition in the spring of 1870 that acted ruthlessly and entered southern Morocco against orders. Wimpffen complained bitterly of having his ‘hands tied’ because MacMahon and the Emperor had tried to limit him to a protective rather than a punitive role and had reminded him of local treaty obligations. Wimpffen considered that he had been denied deserved recognition for a successful expedition. He did not know that MacMahon had interceded for him with the Emperor, who had wanted to recall and suspend Wimpffen for executing fifteen Arabs. He knew only that MacMahon had blocked his succession to the governorship of Algeria.25
When war broke out in July 1870 Wimpffen chafed with impatience in Oran as his letters requesting a command in the German war brought no result. However, Palikao needed to replace Failly after his failure to support MacMahon at Frœschwiller. On 22 August Wimpffen received orders to leave Algeria for Paris, where he reported on the 28th. Palikao invited him to lunch, and shared his views on the painfully slow and meandering march of MacMahon’s army and the pernicious effect of the Emperor’s presence with it. Both thought the army needed a stronger hand. When Wimpffen set off for the front on 29 August he took a letter from Palikao authorizing him to take command in the event of ‘any misfortune’ befalling MacMahon.26
When Wimpffen reached Soissons he showed that he was a soldier of a very different stripe from the marshal. He issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of his native region, invoking the example of 1814–15 and summoning them to resist the invader from behind every hedge, ditch and house. The dangers of that policy were shown that evening as he entered the war zone of burnt and pillaged villages and had his escort ambushed by locals who mistook them for uhlans. Next day Wimpffen reached the front in time to help rally fugitives from Beaumont. In Sedan MacMahon received him coldly, and Wimpffen for his part said nothing of the letter he carried.
In telegraphing Palikao that he had been ‘forced to withdraw his troops to Sedan’,27 MacMahon failed to elaborate either his reasons or his intentions. During the 31st he discussed various possibilities, but came to no decision. General Ducrot assumed that the intention must be to withdraw north-westwards to Mézières, where a division of General Vinoy’s newly formed 13 Corps awaited them. To that end, Ducrot initially directed his columns towards the high ground beyond Illy, which the map told him was a more defensible position than Sedan and was on the road to Mézières. But MacMahon wrote to him that ‘I gave orders for you to move from Carignan to Sedan, and by no means to Mézières, where I have no intention of going.’28
Even when, from the walls of the citadel that afternoon, MacMahon saw dust rising from German columns moving toward
s the Meuse crossing at Donchery west of Sedan, he was unperturbed. He seemed confident that the river gave him security. He did not yet know that his orders to destroy the bridge at Donchery had not been carried out. The demolition party had boarded a train in Sedan which had departed precipitately when the Germans started shelling the station and the station master panicked. The train halted briefly at Donchery to let the sappers off, but then steamed off to Mézières before they could unload their tools and explosives. The bridge remained intact.
Despite the experiences of Frœschwiller and the past week, MacMahon’s mind moved in a different time-frame from that of the German high command. He believed that he still had the option of moving on to Mézières, or he might return south-eastwards, to do battle with Fourth Army, beat it and then continue towards Montmédy and Bazaine, whose last message, dated the 27th, indicated that he still hoped to break out. When Douay reported that he intended to have entrenchments dug, MacMahon exclaimed, ‘Entrenchments! I don’t want to shut myself in, as at Metz; I want to manoeuvre.’29 To Lebrun he said after Beaumont, ‘the situation isn’t desperate. The German army facing us numbers 60 to 70,000 men at most. If it attacks us, so much the better; I hope that we shall throw them into the Meuse.’30
He did not grasp that he was facing thrice 70,000, and was outnumbered two to one. Although indications to the contrary were multiplying hourly, he believed he was facing just one German army – the Fourth – and that he could beat it and force his way through in either direction. He had no suspicion that the Germans were in sufficient force to block him in both directions, let alone to encircle him.31
MacMahon later said, ‘I had no intention of giving battle [at Sedan], but I wanted to rally the army and replenish it with food and ammunition.’ His orders for next day specified only that.32 Unfortunately, the same train that bolted from Sedan station with the demolition party aboard had also carried off 800,000 rations that had not been unloaded; but there were still two days’ rations, plentiful ammunition, and enough field guns to make up losses at Beaumont. MacMahon would await the result of cavalry reconnaissance on 1 September before deciding what to do. Physically exhausted, he had no conception that, after so many lost chances, his thin final hope of saving his army by retreat northwards was slipping away.
Two of his generals were uneasy. During the afternoon, watching the movement of Prussian columns and receiving a report that the enemy had ‘a whole army’ marching towards Donchery,33 Douay redeployed 7 Corps along the heights above Floing, to face a possible threat from the west. He shared his anxieties with MacMahon, who assigned units of 5 Corps to provide a link at the northern hinge between Douay’s right and Ducrot’s left. Thus by nightfall the French army was spread rather raggedly over a front of nearly 10 kilometres, but occupying a very confined position: 1 and 7 Corps were back-to-back, yet communication was hindered by woods and ravines. The army held two sides of a triangle, of which the River Meuse formed the base. At its apex, framed by two lime trees, was the Calvaire d’Illy, a wayside image of the dying Christ on a lonely hilltop looking down towards the village of Illy. To its north, just 8 kilometres away over the first wooded hills of the Ardennes forest, lay the Belgian frontier.
When MacMahon spoke to him of manoeuvring Douay expressed apprehension that tomorrow ‘the enemy will not give us time.’34 That night the commander of 7 Corps asked his chief engineer what he thought of the situation. ‘I think we are lost’ was the reply. ‘That is my opinion too,’ replied Douay, ‘It only remains for us to do our best before going under.’35
Ducrot was more graphic. He saw Sedan, with its outmoded fortifications, as merely a trap for artillery fire. When MacMahon ordered him to defend it rather than Illy he felt despair and rage.36 That night he pored over his maps, swearing as he marked them with red crayon. Dr Sarazin, his medical director, who knew him well, had never seen him so grim and troubled. Sarazin offered the hope that they would at last have a chance to fight the Prussians. After a pause, the burly Ducrot put a hand on his shoulder: ‘Why, my poor doctor, you don’t understand at all! We are in a chamber pot and they are about to shit on us!’37
The Pursuit
On the night of Beaumont, Moltke set out his strategy in orders to his two army commanders:
The enemy has retired or been beaten at all points. The advance will therefore be resumed at early dawn tomorrow and the enemy attacked wherever he may be in position on this side of the Meuse, and compressed into the smallest possible space between that river and the Belgian frontier.
The greater part of Fourth Army would cross the Meuse and follow the French, blocking their route eastward, while Third Army advanced against the enemy’s front and western flank, taking strong artillery positions on the right bank to harass the French and slow them down.38
Crown Prince Albert of Saxony accordingly had XII Corps and the Guard cross the Meuse early on the 31st, both at Mouzon and on pontoons laid upriver. Setting off in typical morning river fog, Fourth Army picked up French stragglers and abandoned supplies as it advanced, cut the railway to Montmédy and skirmished with the retreating enemy. Knowing that Third Army had further to march to get into position, Crown Prince Albert did not wish to press the French so hard that they might flee the trap that was in the making. With his left brushing the Meuse, he extended his right towards the Belgian frontier, barring any French attempt to resume the advance to the east. That afternoon he halted on a line a few kilometres short of the French positions. He would be ready to continue the advance next morning, 1 September, if necessary, but as his men were exhausted after their week of forced marches he would be glad to give them a day’s rest if Third Army needed more time to block the French route westwards.
That night Fourth Army saw campfires to the north, lit not by French but by Belgian troops who had been mobilized to protect their frontier. By 30 August Moltke anticipated that the French, hemmed in east and west, might attempt to escape into Belgium or even to manoeuvre through it. That day Bismarck telegraphed to Brussels that German forces would respect the border so long as all French detachments were disarmed there.39 Moltke’s order specified that ‘Should the enemy pass over into Belgium without being at once disarmed, he is to be pursued thither without delay.’40
For the Belgians, a contest between their two heavyweight neighbours on their very borders was cause for anxiety. Already French civilians pushing their belongings in carts had begun an exodus from the Sedan region into neutral territory. The Belgians were determined to protect their neutrality, guaranteed by the treaties of 1831 and 1839 and reaffirmed by France and Prussia only three weeks previously. Their observation corps, mobilized at the start of the war, received orders on 27 August to repel any foreign troops attempting to cross the frontier, and to disarm and intern any fugitive soldiers entering Belgium. The Belgians answered Bismarck that German intervention would be justifiable only if Belgium proved unable to enforce her rights as a neutral state. Meantime, Crown Prince Albert of Saxony, more sensitive than Moltke to the rights of small nations, passed on GHQ’s orders to his commanders with the judicious proviso that ‘otherwise any violation of the Belgian frontier is to be scrupulously avoided.’41
As Fourth Army advanced along the east bank of the Meuse, the Crown Prince of Prussia’s Third Army was marching towards the river from the west. William Howard Russell of The Times watched I Bavarian Corps marching through Raucourt. The village, stripped of supplies by the passage of the French army the previous day, had been sacked by the Bavarians.42 Russell saw campfires built with furniture still burning, and ‘women and children, terrified and sobbing … huddled together on the doorsteps’ bewailing the pillage. After seeing an officer arrest some men, Russell was glad to leave this scene where ‘everything was ruin’.43
Driving in some French skirmishers who were still on the west bank, the Bavarians reached the Meuse between Remilly and Bazeilles. They opened fire on French troops on the far bank, and an artillery duel across the river got under way
, the Germans as usual soon gaining the upper hand. To their left, downstream from Bazeilles, the Bavarians saw a railway viaduct spanning the Meuse, which was about 60 metres wide at this point. MacMahon had ordered the viaduct not to be destroyed, thinking his army might need it for subsequent operations, but at midday, seeing the imminent threat, the French sent a working party to blow it up. Observing the powder barrels being stacked, a company of Bavarian Jäger under Captain Slevogt dashed onto the viaduct under heavy but wild fire, chased off the French, threw the powder into the river and continued to the enemy side. As this fight took on a life of its own, more Bavarians crossed over. Soon they advanced across the meadow to Bazeilles, which until the previous day had been a quiet weaving village of 2,048 souls that had not known the ravages of war for over two centuries.
The Bavarians entered the village in battalion strength before the French mounted a counter-attack. On the hills west of the Meuse Russell had been admiring the view of the river and the sunlit parks, chateaux and walled gardens surrounding Bazeilles. Presently he heard rifle fire, then the roar of mitrailleuses from its streets, and saw the flash of French artillery among trees and thick clouds of smoke rising.44 General Lebrun had sent a brigade of Vassoigne’s Marine Division to clear the Germans out, which it did by 3.15 p.m. after a contest which cost the French over four hundred casualties. The outnumbered Bavarians retreated, having lost 142 men including Slevogt, who was killed. Their withdrawal to the riverbank was covered by a sixty-gun bombardment which left several houses in Bazeilles blazing far into the night. Though driven out of the village, the Bavarians kept control of the railway viaduct. At the same time, their engineers were building pontoons near Remilly undisturbed by the French. Learning that Fourth Army had halted and was not close enough to support him, General von der Tann suspended operations for the day, but his I Corps was well placed to renew its crossing when ordered.
Sedan 1870- The Eclipse of France Page 20