Sedan 1870- The Eclipse of France

by Douglas Fermer

  To the south, the Germans assaulted the La Moncelle heights and renewed their efforts in Monvillers park. The Saxons and Bavarians were supported by units of the Prussian IV Corps, which had been brought across the Meuse to bolster Tann’s men. Against vigorous resistance by French rearguards, the Germans established themselves on the heights by 11 a.m. Troops used their bayonets to hack down hedges in Monvillers park to get at the Villa Beurmann, which was also under renewed attack from within Bazeilles. Finally, the French were forced to evacuate the villa. After nearly seven hours of struggle, most of Bazeilles had fallen to the Bavarians.

  Renewed German pressure had coincided with Lebrun’s execution of Ducrot’s order to withdraw. General de Vassoigne, whose men were hungry and low on ammunition, received that order about 10 a.m. Seeing the losses they were inflicting on the Bavarians, one of his brigadiers was still ‘full of hope’ for the outcome of the battle when the order came,16 but his disciplined Marines managed the pull-out skilfully. Vassoigne’s men reformed north of Bazeilles and marched north-west with the rest of 12 Corps. On receiving Wimpffen’s order to halt the retreat, Lebrun rallied what remained of his corps on the hills above Balan, close to Sedan. Murderous German artillery fire and the advance of enemy infantry made Wimpffen’s injunction to retake Bazeilles ‘at all costs’ a dead letter.

  Isolated groups of Marines continued resistance in Bazeilles, defending houses as long as they could. Second Lieutenant Joseph Gallieni described how, after their commander was wounded, his group held out until artillery fire and flames forced them out. They reluctantly decided to surrender rather than leave their twenty-three wounded to burn to death.17 Similarly, Captain Jean-Baptiste Bourgey with about fifty officers and men barricaded themselves in the modest Bourgerie Tavern at the northern end of the village. They beat off successive attacks for about four hours, inflicting heavy casualties on the Bavarians despite a hail of rifle fire directed at them. From midday, however, the Germans brought up artillery to pound the house, which was now full of acrid smoke and plaster dust. After the pouches of their eighteen casualties had been scoured for any remaining ammunition, the last cartridge was fired by Captain Georges Aubert, whose conduct throughout had been exemplary.18 Present in the house with an injured foot was Vassoigne’s deputy chief of staff, Major Arsène Lambert, a Gascon whose storytelling talents would inspire an acquaintance, the artist Alphonse de Neuville, to immortalize this episode in his striking painting The Last Cartridges (1873).

  When the survivors emerged from the house under a white flag, a massacre was prevented by a Bavarian officer, Captain Lissignolo, and they were later congratulated on their determined stand by the Bavarian division commander. Gallieni’s group too had been spared by the intervention of an officer. Elsewhere, Second Lieutenant Lavenue was agreeably surprised when a Bavarian officer he had just wounded with his revolver stepped in to prevent him being massacred by his captors. Not all groups were so fortunate. Lieutenant Watrin, Second Lieutenant Chevalier and sixteen men of the 1st Marine Regiment were killed after they had surrendered.19

  Reports of German atrocities against civilians appeared in the British and Belgian press. A passionate ‘cry of indignation’ penned by the Duc de Fitz-James, a French descendant of the Stuarts and delegate of the French Red Cross, appeared in the London Times of 15 September. When the Bavarians entered Bazeilles, he charged, there occurred ‘scenes of unspeakable horror and excess which will forever stain those who committed them. To punish the inhabitants for defending themselves, the Bavarians and Prussians set fire to the village … The inhabitants had taken refuge in their cellars; women, children, all were burned. Of two thousand inhabitants, scarcely three hundred remain, who relate that they saw Bavarians push whole families into the flames and shoot women who tried to escape. I have seen with my own eyes the smoking ruins of this unfortunate village: there remains not a single house standing. An odour of burnt human flesh catches your throat. I have seen the charred remains of inhabitants at their doorsteps.’ He accused the Germans of killing for the sake of killing: ‘you behaved like savages, not soldiers.’ Bismarck’s counterblast, communicated to the English press, accused the French government of ‘systematic lying’, and the people of Bazeilles, including women, of joining in the fighting and of atrocities against ‘whole batches’ of German wounded. Such acts, he asserted, would have ‘fully excused’ the burning of the village, but he denied that this had been intentional.20

  In a public letter of June 1871, General von der Tann defended his men, noting that French figures showed that thirty-nine civilians had been killed in Bazeilles and claiming that fires had been started by the artillery of both sides and as a result of close street fighting.21 The German official history stressed that ‘the inhabitants of the village took an active part in the struggle,’ shooting at the Bavarians, sometimes from cellars, and sparing neither the wounded nor stretcher-bearers. Therefore, ‘the Bavarians found themselves eventually compelled to cut down all inhabitants found with arms in their hands. In consequence of these circumstances the bitterness on both sides rose to extremes in the long stubborn struggle round the village which was already in flames at several points.’22

  What lay behind these rival versions? Notwithstanding indignant denials by some French writers, local people admitted to a French army chaplain that some civilians did join in firing at Germans.23 The number of civilians fighting undoubtedly was magnified by German fears, fuelled by stories of French ‘peasants’ torturing and killing their wounded.24 In the heat of a ferocious battle in which they were being shot at from all directions and taking heavy losses, it was hardly surprising that German soldiers fired into cellars where they heard movement or French voices. Every man was fighting for his life, and French Marines were launching bayonet charges with cries of ‘No quarter!’ Nevertheless, French testimony is consistent that the Bavarians perpetrated excesses that went beyond the justification of self-defence, and that their disproportionate retribution was rough justice when it was justice at all.

  The Mayor of Bazeilles accounted for forty-two civilian deaths directly caused by the fighting. Ten were victims of artillery bombardment on 31 August or 1 September, and died in their homes of asphyxiation, burns or shellfire. These included four children and two women aged 75 and 76. Of the remaining victims, only one was female: Uranie Moreau, aged 54, who died of maltreatment and shock a week after the battle, in which she had seen her husband beaten and threatened with death.

  The other thirty-one victims were males aged between 25 and 89. A few may have fallen to random fire, possibly including Baptiste Henry, described as a ‘poor idiot’ who was seen wandering wounded before being killed by a shell. Several bodies were never recovered. Jean-Baptiste Lhuire was seen to have been killed by a sabre-blow as he brought wine from his cellar, but his body was among those consumed by fire. Saint-Jean Jacquet, a wheelwright, was shot as he attempted to flee. Jean Henry, a weaver, may have been killed because he kept ornamental weapons in his house. Monsieur Cuvillier, a deaf Belgian, was among those never found. Others disappeared after being seen as prisoners of the Germans after the battle, and almost certainly were executed.

  Several of the bodies found had multiple gunshot or stab wounds or clubbed skulls. Some had their wrists tied, including the one citizen who was fighting as a National Guardsman. The dead included a cooper named Remy, shot three times by a Bavarian officer as he lay ill in bed despite his wife’s pleas, and Lambert Herbulot, a farrier cut down by sabre-blows when Bavarians entered the cellar where he and his wife were sheltering. Like many villagers, Ferdinand Pochet, a gardener, had fled to Belgium during the battle but returned on 2 September thinking it safe. He was among those shot following the battle.

  The Germans took at least thirty civilian prisoners, male and female, who suffered threats and brutal treatment as they were marched to the railway station with their hands bound. In detention, Jean-François Tavenaux noted that he and other civilians were treated contemptuously b
y their captors, while French soldiers were shown humanity and even given bread and tobacco. Once tempers had cooled and German officers attempted to establish facts, most of these civilians were released either before or after courts martial.25

  As for the burning of Bazeilles, the mayor affirmed that four hundred houses were destroyed, leaving only twenty-three standing on the periphery. In thirty-seven instances fires were started by shells: the rest were deliberately burned.26 In the heat of action houses were torched to smoke out stubborn enemies ‘like wasps’,27 and flames spread; but soldiers also systematically set fire to houses under orders from officers. French witnesses insisted that this went on long after fighting had ceased, allegations corroborated by a doctor of the Anglo-American Ambulance. Betraying the self-righteous fury of his countrymen against resistance which they considered illegitimate, the German police commissioner of Sedan referred on 29 September to ‘the sentence executed against [Bazeilles] under the rights of war’.28 Lieutenant Tanera viewed this and the execution of French civilians as inevitable punishment for ‘fanaticism’, reflecting that ‘perhaps in the next war French civilians will be more reasonable: they know what awaits them!’29

  If these grim facts suggest that French claims of a deliberate massacre of women and children were exaggerated by rumour and overstated for propaganda, it is equally clear that the German official history sought to palliate some ugly deeds. What is beyond dispute is that, for soldiers on both sides and French civilians, the inferno of Bazeilles that day was a man-made hell on earth.

  The Battle Spreads Northwards

  While Bavarians and Saxons were fighting on the lower Givonne, the Guard Corps under Prince August of Württemberg was coming into line on their right. The guardsmen marched via Francheval and Villers-Cernay along difficult roads cut by ravines, but they hastened their pace as firing ahead grew heavier and they received appeals for support from the embattled Saxons around Daigny. The arrival of infantry and artillery of the Guard’s left division helped in the closing stages of the struggle around that village.

  Nevertheless, the Crown Prince of Saxony, commanding Fourth Army, did not want the Guard sucked into the fighting on the lower Givonne. His priority was to drive westwards to join with Third Army, and he assumed that the unexpectedly stubborn fighting on his sector was merely a French rearguard action to cover their retreat. The bulk of the Guard therefore pushed ahead, leaving Daigny to their south, driving in French outposts as they went. As the Guard batteries arrived on the heights east of the upper Givonne a terrific artillery duel commenced with the guns of Ducrot’s 1 Corps responding from the western side. French gunners found themselves overlooked by their enemies, and before long their pieces were being dismounted or forced back by accurate fire. Opposing infantry skirmished heavily in the valley, the guardsmen seeking to protect their gun-line, the French trying without success to get close enough to drive off the German artillerists. German infantry took the village of Givonne soon after 10 a.m., but it was 11.30 before they forced their way into Haybes, midway between there and Daigny. Shortly afterwards, French skirmishers attempted to recover Givonne. When two French batteries careered into the village they were overpowered before they could even unlimber, the Germans capturing seven cannon, three mitrailleuses and 273 men.

  Meanwhile, on its northern flank the Guard was hindered by French possession of the village of La Chapelle. Here, as elsewhere that morning, the French might have exploited opportunities to obstruct and delay Fourth Army’s approach. But La Chapelle was held only by an isolated battalion of Parisian francs-tireurs, who were driven out at 11 a.m. after half an hour of bombardment and assault. Many of the survivors fled into Belgium.

  While fighting continued in the Givonne valley, most of 1 Corps remained on the heights west of the stream being pummelled by artillery fire. Louis de Narcy described the ordeal. He had woken up cold and hungry, but his company was called to arms before he could eat the breakfast he had cooked. Although the volume of firing from the south made it evident that a major battle had begun, a mixture of mist and smoke in the valleys hid the action beneath a white shroud. Yet, despite being unable to see their targets properly, he saw French gunners firing ‘so hastily that you would have believed that they were trying to get it all over with as quickly as possible’.30

  His regiment, the 1st Algerian Sharpshooters, was placed 150 metres behind French batteries on the heights above the village of Givonne. On this open plateau infantry served little useful purpose save to make a target for German gunners once the fog cleared. Narcy observed that his unit could have been spared casualties had it moved 200 metres to its left, but ‘none of our generals thought of it, nobody gave us the order; we stayed …’. They were at least ordered to lie down. Shells exploded at irregular intervals at first, then continuously, with no respite. For three hours they lay there, wondering at the whistle of each approaching shell, ‘Who is this one for?’ Then came the detonation and the cloud of dust, leaving maybe two, three or four mangled corpses or wounded men crying for help. His men became agitated as this went on and on, demanding why they were not given the order to advance. Despite Narcy’s efforts to maintain his composure, his heart was racing, he burned with thirst, and he saw his hand shaking involuntarily. One by one he saw good comrades hit; here with a broken leg, there with a smashed thigh. Five paces away Lieutenant Bourdoncle lay face down in a pool of blood, the top of his skull blown off. Next to Narcy his native lieutenant, Salem ben Guibi, a ‘civilized and intelligent negro’ who had survived the Mexican campaign, was killed by the same shell as two sergeants. Spattered with earth, blood and brains, Narcy turned away so as not to have to look. Time seemed to crawl as shells rained all around them and men tried to make themselves as small as possible. Narcy was struck by how several comrades, normally carefree, hardened soldiers, had experienced a presentiment of death before the battle, and how often such feelings were fulfilled in the brutal lottery of bombardment.

  Without firing a shot, his regiment suffered over two hundred casualties while they lay exposed in this way. The regiment in front was suffering as badly: its men too had been ordered to lie down, but the sun glinting on their neatly stacked rifles pinpointed their position to the Germans.31

  Much of 1 Corps had suffered similarly and began to lose cohesion before it had struck a blow. Eventually most of its units, approaching the limits of endurance under such attrition, pulled back south-west into the Bois de la Garenne (literally ‘Rabbit-Warren Wood’) which seemed to offer cover, only to find that the Germans could still inflict significant damage at ranges of nearly 4,000 metres. Thus by midday the Germans had thoroughly shaken Ducrot’s men and were in control of the crossings of the Givonne. Once the Guard had cleared La Chapelle, its cavalry probed north-west to try to establish contact with Third Army. For, looking westwards from his headquarters atop a hill near Villers-Cernay, Prince August had for some while been able to see that a second front had opened against the French.

  The Trap Closes

  The German high commanders, in contrast to the French, remained at observation points where they could receive information from the front and despatch orders. Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia had his headquarters on a hill south of Donchery, from which he could observe the progress of his left wing. The early morning fog hid the crossing of the Meuse by his V and XI Corps from the French yet, frustratingly, also prevented him from seeing what either they or the French were doing. It was only when the sun began to disperse the mist after 7 a.m. that the Prince could discern, through a tripod telescope, what was unfolding in the landscape spread spectacularly beneath him.

  The mission of V and XI Corps had been to advance northwards beyond the Meuse to reach the road from Sedan to Mézières and to attack the French who supposedly were retreating westwards along it, but Prussian cavalry reported that the road was clear, with no trace that the French had passed that way. To their east, the Crown Prince and the staff of Third Army could hear, but not see, heavy f
ighting at Bazeilles. Evidently the French were holding their position at Sedan or attempting to break out to the east, or even into Belgium. Either way, V and XI Corps must turn eastwards to support Fourth Army. At 7.30 a.m. the Crown Prince gave the order that sealed the fate of the French army.

  When they received the order, the heads of columns of those corps had already reached Vrigne-aux-Bois and the Mézières road. Unfortunately for postwar French fantasies of an escape westwards, by Moltke’s later testimony32 the Germans had 52,000 infantry and 249 guns within striking distance of the road even before Ducrot ordered a withdrawal to Illy – quite sufficient to bar any French retreat as effectively as outnumbered Germans had barred Bazaine’s road from Metz to Verdun on 16 August.

  Nevertheless, the Germans were vulnerable as they swung eastwards towards Saint-Albert and Saint-Menges, around the top of the long loop that the Meuse makes at this point. They had to pass along a single road overlooked by the steep wooded hills of the Bois de la Falizette, a place made for ambush. Earlier, Douay had withdrawn two battalions he had posted at the mouth of this defile, fearing that their isolation made them vulnerable. Despite some delays and confusion among their marching columns, the Germans passed along the road unopposed save for scattered shots from French civilians and cavalry patrols around Saint-Albert. By 9 a.m. the Germans had seized Saint-Menges against light opposition, and two infantry companies boldly headed south into Floing, where they skirmished in the streets before ensconcing themselves in houses where they could hold out until help arrived.

  The Germans took risks in running their artillery forward close behind light skirmish lines of cavalry and infantry. At first only three batteries of XI Corps opened fire from high ground south-east of Saint-Menges against eight French batteries posted east of Floing, and took punishment. By 10 a.m., however, the Germans had seventy-two guns in action in this sector, and after another half hour had established clear superiority, with more guns and their infantry supports continually arriving. Already Blumenthal could assure the anxious Crown Prince that ‘This evening will end with the hoisting of the white flag.’33