Sedan 1870- The Eclipse of France

by Douglas Fermer

  West of Sedan, the advance guard of XI Corps reached Donchery that afternoon, meeting no resistance and finding the bridge over the Meuse still standing. Parties were able to cross and cut the railway between Sedan and Mézières while engineers began pontoons to supplement the bridge. Only to their far left did the Germans encounter opposition: as the Württemberg Division reached Flize it clashed with troops sent by Vinoy from nearby Mézières to hinder their crossing. As the columns of XI Corps marched onward they were encouraged by King Wilhelm, who knew how to act as commander-in-chief with his Prussians, bestowing friendly words on officers and men who had been decorated with the Iron Cross.

  Meanwhile at Chémery, Moltke met to concert plans with General von Blumenthal, chief of staff and indefatigable military brain of Third Army. Count Albrecht von Blumenthal was a dyspeptic who found relief from his hard toil in his diary. In it he complained about the weather, about his stomach chills and headaches, about being billeted on a Jew or about what he saw as Moltke’s too frequent changes of orders which kept him up late at night translating them into meticulously drafted marching orders. That afternoon, he noted, ‘Moltke came in rubbing his hands, with a sardonic smile on his face, and said, “Now we have them in a mousetrap.”’45

  The general plan was clear: XI and V Corps would cross the Meuse next morning at Donchery to cut the road between Sedan and Mézières. The Württembergers would cross to their west at Flize to support them. To thwart any French sally southwards across the river from Sedan itself, II Bavarian Corps would hold the hills overlooking the town, supported by the reserve artillery. I Bavarian Corps would stand ready at Remilly to support Fourth Army. Nevertheless, doubts lingered about what the French would do. Moltke thought a breakout westwards to Mézières their best option. Yet reports that morning had told of troops coming by rail from Mézières into Sedan, and of the wagons running back empty: perhaps indicating that the French were reinforcing for a breakout to the east.

  That evening Moltke received a reconnaissance report that caused him to modify the afternoon’s arrangements. From Remilly, French troops had been observed moving westwards. Probably these were Ducrot’s men filing into their positions above the Givonne, but the Germans misinterpreted it as evidence of a French retreat on Mézières. Fearing this might frustrate his plan, Moltke wrote to Blumenthal asking him to advance the operation by having XI Corps and the Württembergers cross the Meuse that night in order to advance towards the Mézières road by dawn and intercept the French withdrawal.46

  Blumenthal, who at 9 p.m. had just finished the earlier orders, complied. He also sent word to I Bavarian Corps to fix in place the French opposite him by attacking without waiting for Fourth Army. He let Crown Prince Albert of Saxony know what he was doing, and when Albert received this message at 1 a.m. on 1 September he promptly issued orders for Fourth Army to fall in and be ready to renew the offensive at 5 a.m. As ever, willing cooperation and flexibility were the watchword in the German camps, and they were about to bring an immense reward.

  Receiving Blumenthal’s orders about midnight, General von Kirchbach set his V Corps in motion towards the bridges at Donchery by 2.30 a.m. General Konstantin von Gersdorff, who had taken over XI Corps from the wounded Bose, had his men take coffee before setting off around 3 a.m. At first the Prussians tramped through the darkness, but as they neared the river towards dawn dense fog enveloped them. Riding along his columns at 4 a.m., Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia had trouble keeping his men from cheering, explaining to them the need for quiet if they were to outwit the French.47 Three hours later, the greater part of these two corps was north of the Meuse. The left pincer of the German encirclement was closing on the unsuspecting French.

  Chapter 11

  Battle

  Fighting Begins at Bazeilles

  General von der Tann, a massive, grey-haired man with a scarred face, had his Bavarians of I Corps aroused at 3 a.m. An hour later two columns began crossing the Meuse using the railway viaduct and the completed pontoons. Aided by darkness and thick fog, the leading companies of the left column advanced stealthily, hoping to take Bazeilles by surprise. Meeting no opposition at the riverbank, they crossed the meadow, crept into the village and started pushing up its long main street from the south. As they did so, they gave a cheer. It was about 4.15 a.m. when muzzle-flashes from Chassepots pierced the gloom as the first shots rang out.

  The French had not left heavy forces in Bazeilles, most of Lebrun’s 12 Corps being posted on hills north of the village, but the 3rd Marine Regiment garrisoning it had built barricades and loop-holed the walls of solidly built houses to make them more defensible, and went quickly into action. A struggle of fearful intensity began, with commanders on both sides throwing more battalions into the village ‘like coals onto a fire’.1

  Commanders could exercise limited control over the fighting. Even after daylight came, wreaths of smoke mingling with fog limited visibility and, with the two sides locked in close-quarter combat in narrow side-streets, it was at first hard for the Germans to bring artillery into play. Some Bavarians penetrated to the northern limits of the village, only to be shot or pinned down there by fire from the Villa Beurmann, which the French had turned into a small fortress. As a fresh Marine regiment came up the Bavarians were forced out of the western side of the village, then from the eastern. Major von Sauer, who had led the first wave, was cut off and forced to surrender after stubborn resistance. Eventually General de Vassoigne committed his entire Marine Division, but the Germans clung on to the southern end of Bazeilles.

  Marine Louis Rocheron recalled the sheer ferocity of the struggle: ‘The enemy was pursued in yards, in gardens, in outbuildings and in houses right up to the attics. It was hand-to-hand fighting: men butchered and killed each other without pity and with equal fury. I’ll never forget those terrible moments … The screams and heart-rending cries of our comrades wrenched our innards and brought tears to our eyes.’2 He saw maddened civilians running hither and thither, vainly seeking safety. Fires created intense heat and filled the village with suffocating smoke.

  General von der Tann now had a second brigade fighting in Bazeilles, and directed a third towards the north-east, both to try to flank the French out of the Villa Beurmann and to establish contact with the leftward units of Fourth Army, which he was assured was coming to his support. The ensuing struggle in the park of Monvillers chateau proved as savage as that in the village. Carl Tanera was a second lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of Bavarian Jäger which charged the park. His men vaulted a ditch and came to grips with the enemy: one crushed a Frenchman’s skull with his rifle-butt, a second used the bayonet, the third a knife, while a fourth, having his rifle snatched away by a Marine lieutenant, strangled him, ‘as if he were a wolf-hound and the Frenchman a fox’.3 Yet, despite local Bavarian successes, the French held on in the park.

  After catching their breath behind a wall, Tanera’s company was directed to take part in an attack around the village of La Moncelle to the north. They came under mitrailleuse fire which left ten men riddled with bullets. French artillery fire did them little harm, the shells bursting too high or not at all, but ‘The insignificant little pills from the Chassepot were another story: men hit by one heard no warning sound, they just suddenly felt as if their entrails were being torn out, and collapsed in terrible pain that told them clearly that they were mortally stricken. Others felt only a slight sting, but when they went to breathe blood filled their mouths: their lungs had been pierced … As for those who took the little bullet in the forehead or heart, they came crashing down as if they had been tripped and lay quite motionless.’4

  By degrees the battle spread northwards, up the mist-filled Givonne valley. The first guns of XII Corps of Fourth Army opened fire from the heights facing La Moncelle just before 6 a.m., but it was another two hours before the whole corps artillery was in action. All the while, German gunners suffered losses from Chassepot fire. With few infantry supports, some Saxon batteri
es were forced to move back by French sharpshooters; but a cavalry charge against the guns planned by General Lebrun miscarried because orders went astray.

  Saxon infantry, marching up from the east, came into action piecemeal opposite La Moncelle from about 6.15 a.m. As fighting extended northwards as far as his front, Ducrot sent a brigade of 1 Corps forward into Daigny in the Givonne valley with the aim of holding the bridge there and seizing the woods beyond to spoil any German flanking attack. The 3rd Zouaves, which had distinguished itself in the Niederwald at Frœschwiller, made several attacks against the Saxon right flank, but neither in numbers nor morale was the regiment what it had been three weeks previously, and it made little headway. Even so, the thinly stretched Germans facing them had available only the ammunition in their pouches, and were feeling the pressure.

  As the sun burned off the cold morning mist, fighting raged along a 4 kilometre front. At about 8.30 a.m. Bazeilles remained a maelstrom of bitter but indecisive fighting, and there was stalemate from thence to Daigny. However, further German supports were coming forward, the number of their guns in action was increasing, and as German gunners began to see their targets more clearly they asserted their superiority in range and accuracy. One by one French batteries found themselves overwhelmed or in severe difficulties and forced to change position. French infantry reserves behind Bazeilles and on the heights west of the Givonne also began taking heavy punishment. And, although they did not know it, German gunners had already thrown the French chain of command into turmoil.

  French Changes in Command

  MacMahon was awaiting reports from a reconnaissance to the west when he received a note from Lebrun telling him of the attack at Bazeilles. He mounted up to see for himself, galloping from Sedan to where he could observe Vassoigne’s men holding their ground. Riding on to find Lebrun, he had paused on the heights above La Moncelle to study enemy positions when a shell fragment tore into his left buttock. ‘I thought at first that it was only a contusion,’ he recalled, ‘but as the horse I was riding had a broken leg, I was obliged to dismount. This movement made me lose consciousness.’5 It was a little before 6 a.m.

  When MacMahon came to he was in great pain, but gave orders that his chief of staff, General Faure, should tell Ducrot that he was in command. Ducrot was junior in rank to both Wimpffen and Douay, but MacMahon believed him best placed to know the enemy’s movements. Unfortunately, Major de Bastard of his staff could not locate Faure, so went searching for Ducrot. En route Bastard was felled by a shot which tore away his nose and half his face, so another officer had to take the message. As a consequence, it may have been 7.45 a.m. before Ducrot learned of his unenviable new responsibility.

  Amid the din of battle, Ducrot threw up his arms in despair, shouting ‘Good God! What did he mean to do here!’6 Recovering himself, he came rapidly to a decision. He had received word that more German forces (the Guard Corps of Fourth Army) were advancing against the left of his 1 Corps, and thought he recognized the predictable German flanking manoeuvre. Surely they aimed to pin the French down along the lower Givonne while they turned their northern flank. Ducrot determined to do what he had intended the previous evening – to concentrate the army on the Illy plateau to the north-west, where he believed it could better defend itself than in the ‘shell trap’ of Sedan.

  After the war much ink and bile were spilled over whether the army could have escaped to Mézières at this point, so it is well to emphasize that Ducrot did not order a retreat on Mézières, only a regrouping that might precede it. Nor, at this point, did he know of the threat from the west posed by Third Army’s advance from Donchery. Ducrot’s chief of staff, Colonel Robert, tried to persuade him of the impracticability of conducting a withdrawal under fire, urging that it would be better to fight it out where they were, or at least to wait. Ducrot quoted himself as replying, ‘Wait for what? Until we’re completely surrounded? There isn’t a moment to lose. Enough debate: obey my orders!’ An eyewitness heard this as, ‘I don’t need your advice, f— it! Obey!’7

  General Lebrun’s concerns could not be so curtly overridden. Ducrot rode over and sought to convince him that the Germans were merely toying with them where they were, and extolled the supposed advantages of the Illy position. Lebrun pleaded against a retreat when the Marines were more than holding their own in Bazeilles. Besides, would not a retreat, especially one across broken, wooded country, demoralize the men and soon degenerate into rout? Lebrun asked for a little more time before taking such an extreme step. Ducrot allowed it, but returned half an hour later at 9 a.m. to insist that the retreat begin. Reluctantly, Lebrun gave instructions for the progressive withdrawal of his divisions, including the evacuation of Bazeilles.8

  Some of Ducrot’s own brigades which were not engaged had commenced their rearward movement when Ducrot received a startling note from General de Wimpffen. Claiming that the enemy was in retreat on Lebrun’s front, Wimpffen informed Ducrot of his authority and told him, ‘I think there should be no question of a retreat at this time … You are nearer the enemy than me: use all your vigour and skill to bring victory against an enemy who is at a disadvantage … Support Lebrun vigorously while watching over the line which you are charged with maintaining.’9

  According to Wimpffen, he had known of MacMahon’s wounding for some time but did not immediately produce his letter, naturally though mistakenly assuming that Ducrot was privy to MacMahon’s intentions. Wimpffen intervened only to prevent the retreat, which he considered a disastrous mistake. Ducrot galloped over to see him, not to dispute the command, to which Wimpffen’s seniority entitled him, but to plead with him to let the withdrawal continue to avoid being outflanked to the north. Wimpffen was in no mood to listen. Palikao had sent him to give the army some backbone, and he told Ducrot, ‘What we need is not a retreat but a victory!’ ‘Oh, you need a victory, do you?’ replied Ducrot. ‘Well, you’ll be very lucky, General, if you have even a retreat by this evening!’10

  Wimpffen ordered Ducrot to resume his positions then rode over to Lebrun, telling him to halt the withdrawal and promising him ‘the honours of the day’ if he would retake Bazeilles ‘at any cost’. If necessary, the army must force a bloody passage eastwards towards Carignan and Montmédy.11

  On his way to see Lebrun, at about 10 a.m., Wimpffen encountered the Emperor. Napoleon had set off from Sedan towards Bazeilles at dawn, pausing en route for a few words with the wounded MacMahon who was being carried back to Sedan. After staying awhile with General de Vassoigne, the Emperor sent away most of his household, which was attracting enemy fire, and betook himself with a few companions to a hillock where he lingered an hour on horseback amid shot and shell.

  Dr Sarazin could not help but draw a comparison with Napoleon I as he watched ‘this little man, a useless spectator on the battlefield, this Caesar who had become a hindrance and to whom we now paid only passing attention; and whom death itself seemed to disregard. This was the successor to the great winner of victories. This was the Napoleon III whom France had chosen as her master, whom it had acclaimed and sustained for twenty years. He had known exile and misery, then extraordinary good fortune during which Europe had always to reckon with him: and there he was, wandering around, ill, almost abandoned and seeking death on a battlefield where his crown and, more indeed, the destiny of the … country that had confided itself to him were at stake.’ Sarazin noted that Ducrot saluted but did not ride over to the Emperor: ‘Perhaps, like me, he was thinking of the man in the grey overcoat.’12 Ducrot expressed himself less poetically. When his chief of staff had suggested that Napoleon should be advised of the retreat, Ducrot snapped, ‘F— the Emperor. He’s the one who got us into this mess.’13

  It was a sign of the contempt in which the Paris government held Napoleon that Palikao had not bothered to inform him of Wimpffen’s designation as MacMahon’s successor, let alone to seek his consent. Now, when Napoleon met Wimpffen, he passed on a warning from an officer who knew the area that the Germans were
attempting a flanking movement. ‘Your Majesty need not worry,’ replied Wimpffen confidently, ‘in two hours I shall have thrown them into the Meuse!’ One of Napoleon’s companions muttered aside, ‘Please God it isn’t we who are thrown in it!’14

  The End in Bazeilles

  While the French commanders were arguing, issuing orders and counter-orders and riding back and forth behind the front line, the reinforced Saxons and Bavarians were taking the offensive along the lower Givonne. Fresh regiments turned the tide at Daigny, which was captured after a hard fight about 10 a.m. Paul Déroulède, serving in the 3rd Zouaves, recounted how his company was assigned to protect a battery and beat off assaults during what was at first an orderly withdrawal. Then through mist and dust they saw a long dark line of men emerging from a hollow to their left. They were taking aim when an artillery officer shouted not to fire: these men were not wearing spiked helmets and must be French. He was disputing the point with Déroulède’s captain when the advancing line got within three hundred metres and settled the argument with a devastating volley. They were Saxon Jäger. From this point, Déroulède confessed, ‘It was no longer retreat, it was flight.’15

  Caught between two fires, the 3rd Zouaves were driven westwards in disorder, half of them making their way to the Belgian border, whence they succeeded in reaching Paris on 5 September. As French gunners scurried back up the western side of the valley above Daigny they abandoned six guns and three mitrailleuses. The French division commander, General de Lartigue, was brought down by artillery fire together with his chief of staff.