Sedan 1870- The Eclipse of France

by Douglas Fermer

  As for Gandil’s infantry, Ducrot’s efforts to instil in them his own ‘ardour and rage’ proved vain. They had been bombarded and moved hither and thither all morning, and after brief exposure to heavy fire they retreated and disbanded.50

  The cavalry charge later became a patriotic legend, treasured as an affirmation of chivalric virtues in the face of hopeless odds, and boosted by an aristocratic officer corps which projected itself as guardian of those virtues. The discipline and bravery of Margueritte’s Division redeemed a humiliating defeat, and their feat was therefore precious to the honour of the post-war army. General Ducrot had more reason than most to emphasize the willingness of the cavalry to sacrifice themselves and their supposed insouciance in the face of death. Ten years after the battle he published words not included in his earlier accounts, but which became essential to the legend. Ducrot quoted himself as saying, on ordering the second charge, ‘One more effort, my dear general … If all is lost, let it be for the honour of our arms!’, to which Gallifet replied, ‘As many times as you like, general … So long as there is one of us left!’51

  From his vantage point, King Wilhelm expressed admiration for the charge.52 No German witness recorded his words, though Ducrot wrote that Crown Prince Friedrich subsequently told him that they were ‘Oh! The brave fellows!’ The Crown Prince had not been with his father at the time, though may have heard it from him afterwards. Of his conversation with Ducrot on 3 September Friedrich wrote only that he was ‘grateful for the tribute I paid to French bravery’.53 Whether the exact words were Wilhelm’s, Friedrich’s or Ducrot’s, ‘Les Braves Gens’ was fittingly carved on the Cavalry Memorial, dedicated in 1910, which stands atop the ridge as centrepiece of the military cemetery. Equally merited was the compliment Friedrich paid his own men for resisting the French cavalry onslaught. He and his staff watched the charge with bated breath, and when it failed there was ‘a prolonged buzz of satisfaction’. ‘That, indeed, was well done,’ declared Friedrich.54

  Once the French cavalry had been driven off, XI Corps resumed its advance up the ridge, their ‘Hurrahs!’ resounding above the firing.55 Much of 7 Corps was soon in disorderly retreat on Sedan, bearing Ducrot and Gallifet along with them. Liébert’s Division covered them by a fighting retreat in reasonable order. The Germans suffered significant casualties as they consolidated their hold on the ridge, took Cazal, and closed in on the western fringes of the Bois de la Garenne, where many of Douay’s men had taken refuge. By 4 p.m. the Germans were approaching the walls of Sedan from the north-west, but were held in check by the fortress guns.

  The French Collapse

  For all the compliments paid to it, the cavalry charge had proved futile and sounded the death-knell for massed horsemen in warfare. Artillery now dominated the battlefield, and the Germans were employing it as never before. On 18 August at Saint-Privat the Guard advanced in closed ranks against devastating rifle fire and had been shot down in droves. At Sedan they intended to avoid such losses by thorough artillery preparation. Prince Hohenlohe, commanding the Guard artillery, anticipated grid bombardment by detailing his ninety guns to target particular sections of the Bois de la Garenne. This methodical pulverization of French positions commenced at about 2 p.m. ‘At this phase of the battle,’ wrote Hohenlohe, ‘… our superiority over the enemy was so overwhelming that we [i.e. the artillery] suffered no loss at all. The batteries fired as if at practice.’56 They drew a crowd of spectators from Guards officers in the reserve line, among them a 22-year-old adjutant, Paul von Hindenburg.

  The effects of the fire were visible and audible. Quérimont, a farm in a clearing in the wood serving as a dressing station, was set ablaze. The wood became a confused ant-heap of French troops as units lost cohesion while, Hohenlohe testified, ‘the fearful cries of the victims of our shells reached as far as where we stood.’57 On the receiving end, Louis de Narcy described how ‘Cannon boomed everywhere. The earth was ploughed up, trees splintered. From clearings in the woods we could make out clouds of fire and smoke in an arc all around us … The most formidable cannonade that had ever been fell upon the semi-circular line that we held around Sedan. Never had such a quantity of iron been fired. From 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. more than 600 cannon thundered without respite against our positions from all points of the horizon.’58 The most telling statistics about the Battle of Sedan are that during the day the Germans used 606 guns to fire 33,134 rounds into a shrinking area of a few square kilometres.59 Well might the German official history state, ‘The fate of the battle was already to a certain extent decided by this deployment en masse of German artillery, even without the further advance of the infantry.’60

  Expecting death at any moment, Narcy and the dozen men with him headed, like so many others, towards the illusory shelter of Sedan, its slate roofs reflecting the afternoon sun: ‘for the walls of a town are an irresistible attraction for troops who are giving way.’61 From his position south-east of town General Lebrun witnessed the descent of an avalanche of men, horses and wagons from the Bois de la Garenne, ‘running as if crazed towards the defences of Sedan, seeking to enter the fortress’.62 He sent orders to raise the drawbridge to prevent men from taking refuge within the citadel, but nothing could keep them out.

  There was no escaping the shells under the walls of the fortress. With great difficulty, Ducrot pushed his way through the crowds of wounded men and fugitives as shells continued to fall, and entered the citadel through the postern gate. He tried to organize soldiers to man the walls, but neither pleas nor threats could sway these demoralized men. As soon as he was out of sight they disappeared. In the town, ‘the spectacle was indescribable. Its streets, squares and gates were jammed with wagons, carts, cannon, and all the equipment and debris of a routed army. Bands of soldiers without rifles or packs flocked in continuously, flinging themselves down in houses and churches. There was a crush at the town gates. Several poor men were trampled to death. Through this mob rode horsemen and caissons at breakneck speed, carving a path through these panicking masses.’ There were surly cries of ‘We’re betrayed!’ and ‘We’ve been sold by traitors and cowards!’63

  Watching the disintegration of the French army from across the Givonne, Hindenburg remarked to his companions, ‘Napoleon too is stewing in that cauldron.’ They laughed in disbelief. A talkative merchant in Carignan had told Hindenburg that the Emperor was with the army, but most German officers considered this an idle rumour.64 The question of ‘what, granting the Emperor Napoleon really and truly fell into our hands, was to be done with such a prisoner,’ was debated by the King and his advisers, ‘but hardly more than as a joke, an incredible possibility’.65 Bismarck assured Sheridan, ‘The old fox is too cunning to be caught in such a trap; he has doubtless slipped off to Paris.’66

  Napoleon had returned to Sedan at about 11.30 a.m., when it was already thronged with thousands of fugitives. The sound of shells passing overhead reminded one of his aides of a terrible wind whistling through a ship’s rigging during a storm. Shattered tiles and masonry were falling into the streets, and one shell burst just in front of the Emperor.67 Suffering greatly from his long ride, Napoleon entered the Sub-Prefecture. There, at about 2 p.m., he received a note from Wimpffen written at 1.15, announcing that he intended to break out to the east, ‘rather than be taken prisoner in the fortress of Sedan. Let Your Majesty come and place himself amid his troops, who will consider it an honour to open a passage for him.’68

  If Napoleon had been passively seeking death on the battlefield, the mood had passed. He and his advisers recognized that the battle was lost; that Wimpffen’s proposed breakout was impracticable and could only lead to useless sacrifice of life. Napoleon added that ‘he could not allow himself to be taken.’69 By his order, the white flag was raised over the citadel towards 3 p.m. The task fell to Arthur de Lauriston, who sobbed, ‘Me! Me! The grandson of a Marshal of France!’70 Amid the smoke from fires burning in the town and gun smoke, few at any distance noticed the flag.

 
; One by one Napoleon’s generals arrived: Margueritte was carried in, able to communicate only with a pencil. (He would die at a chateau in Belgium on 6 September.) Ducrot arrived, and noted that the Emperor’s usually impassive face betrayed deep melancholy. We may perhaps discount the speech that Ducrot put in his mouth, confessing that he should have paid more heed to the general’s pre-war warnings about Prussia. Napoleon rejected any notion of escaping by night and insisted, as shells fell in the courtyard and garden of the Sub-Prefecture, that a ceasefire was ‘absolutely necessary’. Ducrot refused his request to sign a ceasefire order to the army, pointing out that this was Wimpffen’s role. However, as Wimpffen’s whereabouts were unknown, they agreed that the army’s chief of staff should sign. When this message reached General Faure he angrily refused, adding that he had just had the white flag taken down.71

  Lebrun was more helpful, advising Napoleon that it was insufficient merely to raise a white flag: a formal request for an armistice must be sent to the enemy commander-in-chief. Lebrun too refused to act as a principal in seeking a ceasefire, but volunteered the services of his own chief of staff, provided that Wimpffen consented. Lebrun wrote out a request to the Germans for an armistice for Wimpffen to sign and set off to find him. Assuming that Lebrun himself was the Emperor’s envoy, the imperial staff had a cavalryman with a white serviette tied to his lance follow behind him.

  Death Throes

  By 1 p.m. Wimpffen had abandoned his hopes of the army holding out until nightfall and perhaps escaping under cover of darkness, but he remained intent on breaking out towards Carignan.72 His order to Douay to cover the army’s rear reached that general just as his line was breaking, and Douay responded that it was as much as he could do to manage an orderly retreat. Ducrot had reached Sedan when he received Wimpffen’s summons to come and help. His first reaction was that he had tried everything, but it was impossible: ‘I can do no more.’ Then he called on the generals around him for a last effort, but they replied that it was useless, their troops had melted away. It was then that Ducrot entered the citadel.73

  Wimpffen waited impatiently and in vain for Napoleon to join him. He gathered up five or six thousand men at the Old Camp outside Sedan, including some Marines and Abbatucci’s brigade from 5 Corps, and directed them against the Bavarians around Balan. The fighting in that village and its surrounding parkland, orchards and gardens had swayed back and forth during the middle of the day as one side or the other brought up reinforcements. By 2.30 p.m. the Bavarians controlled the village but were unable to break out of it.

  The new French charge pushed them back through the village until they held only a few houses on its southern fringe. The fighting was as intense as in Bazeilles, and similarly lethal for civilians. A 75-year-old Napoleonic veteran brought down several Germans with accurate fire until he was hit. At least three other men were killed by the Germans for doing the same thing. Five Balan residents were killed by random fire, but seven were massacred apparently for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, including Madame Matagne, who was ‘grossly outraged’ before being clubbed to death. In all, eighteen civilians died. The village priest was almost executed by the Germans after being denounced by one of his own parishioners for allegedly directing French artillery fire, and was kept prisoner for a month. On their part, French Marines shot down a group of Bavarians they surprised at an inn.74

  Men from many French units took part in the fighting, taking orders from whatever officers happened to be present. A lieutenant recalled their wild firing. He told a Marine to take care with his aim as there were French troops in front of them. A moment later he turned back and saw that the man had accidentally blown off the top of a French corporal’s head. When reproved, the Marine flung down his rifle and ran off, sobbing dementedly.75 Outside the village, the French retook the chateau park and woods and took prisoners after a ‘long and murderous fight’.76 But, though they drove back a counterattack, they were running low on ammunition and were pinned down by artillery fire. Their two supporting cannon were knocked out, and eventually they were forced back.

  Wimpffen meanwhile headed for Sedan to rally reinforcements. En route he met the Emperor’s orderly with a note requesting him to order a ceasefire and open negotiations with the enemy. Wimpffen indignantly refused, and when he encountered Lebrun was too incensed even to listen. ‘No, no, I won’t have a capitulation … I want to carry on the fight,’ he insisted, and one of his officers threw down the cavalryman’s white flag. When Lebrun presented him with the letter for him to sign requesting an armistice, he thought Wimpffen was going to tear it to pieces.77 Instead, Wimpffen rode into the town not, as requested, to see the Emperor, but to gather more men. Arriving about 4 p.m., he reached the Place Turenne and had his aides shout ‘Bazaine is coming!’ to galvanize the troops.78 Many refused to follow him, but he succeeded in mustering about 2,000 men including National Guardsmen and civilian volunteers, plus two cannon, and marched them back to Balan.

  As they marched, the perimeter held by the French was shrinking. The German operation at this juncture reminded Russell of a circle of beaters gradually closing in on their quarry, with the French at bay like ‘some wounded tiger’.79

  Having completed its deployment, the Prussian Guard advanced on the Bois de la Garenne at 3 p.m. Their artillery fire had been ‘so annihilating … that the French were scarcely capable of any organized resistance’.80 Nevertheless, there was sporadic resistance by clusters of French soldiers, and confusion as the Germans tried to deal with it whilst taking thousands of prisoners. Seeing groups of their comrades still firing, some Frenchmen had second thoughts about surrender and picked up their rifles again. The Germans were momentarily driven out of the Quérimont clearing, yet, as XI Corps entered the wood from north and west, the outcome was beyond doubt. Within the wood, Melchior de Vogüé remembered, small branches of the oak trees severed by firing rained upon the heads of the French and the bullets sounded ‘like a swarm of bees’. A line of German infantry appeared and fired at close range: ‘Their fire was extremely heavy. Our officers fell one after the other. Our sergeants made us withdraw under cover … There, converging shells skimmed the earth, sending up flurries of dead leaves. We felt ourselves surrounded, hunted down in this wood like rabbits. We looked for shelter to lay our wounded officers: we saw a large white wall, with a gendarme mashed to pulp by a shell against a doorpost. We went inside. This was La Garenne Farm, a dismal charnel-house where a few doctors were mopping their brows and swearing about the lack of water, scurrying between heaps of wounded who were imploring their aid. The Prussians were entering from all sides at the same time as us.’81

  Louis de Narcy, who had returned to the wood, found himself surrounded by a ‘terrified horde’ of Frenchmen. Some waved white handkerchiefs, some called for the shooting to stop, others shouted ‘Down with the Emperor!’ and grosser insults.82 If the moment of capture was tense, there was often a release of tension afterwards for both sides. The Bavarian Lieutenant Carl Tanera found himself fighting with Saxon units. His company surrounded seventy-five Frenchmen in a quarry so quickly that they had no chance to fire. With a circle of rifles pointing at them, they obeyed shouts to ‘Lay down your arms!’ Once the surrender was completed, Tanera exchanged cards with four captured officers, and he and his comrades shared a meal with them that evening.83

  By 5 p.m. the Germans had secured the wood, and the carnage within its shattered acres deeply impressed many of them. The ghastly spectacle of masses of men slaughtered by artillery fire foreshadowed the wars of the next century. ‘It was with the greatest difficulty that a man on horseback could move amongst the dead and wounded soldiers,’ recalled a staff officer.84 A veteran of Sadowa, Paul von Hindenburg, wrote simply that ‘The picture of destruction I beheld … [in] the Bois de la Garenne surpassed all the horrors that had ever met my gaze, even on the battlefield.’85

  The German High Command deployed units to ensure that there could be no French breakout at any point,
and still had plenty of fresh troops at its disposal. The Württemberg Division had crossed the Meuse west of Sedan that morning to support XI and V Corps, and was still intact after driving westwards French skirmishers from Vinoy’s forces at Mézières. Significant portions of V, IV and II Bavarian Corps and the Guard had not yet been engaged. Two small, desperate attempts to break through the German circle were crushed: one by about a hundred cuirassiers under Major d’Alincourt who rode hell for leather through German lines near Cazal until all were shot down or taken; the other by a few hundred men near Daigny led by General Wolff, one of Ducrot’s division commanders, who was severely wounded in the attempt. In the wake of this foray Colonel Christopher ‘Kit’Pemberton, a correspondent of the London Times accompanying Saxon headquarters, was shot dead as he rode towards a group of Frenchmen he thought had surrendered.

  There remained Wimpffen’s forlorn hope at Balan. By the time he returned to the village his 2,000 men had dwindled to 1,200 at most. Though Lebrun thought it a hopeless sacrifice of life, he joined Wimpffen for the last charge.86 The attack went through the village at the run, picking up survivors of previous attempts. It reached the church at the southern end of Balan and captured a large house. General von der Tann had some anxious moments, but made dispositions to deal with the attempted breakthrough. Before long, a barrage of German shells was battering the church tower and making Balan untenable. Finally Wimpffen had to admit that ‘nobody is following us, and there is nothing more to be done.’87 He ordered the retreat to be sounded, and returned to Sedan at about 5.30 p.m., leaving Lebrun to manage an orderly retreat towards the town. As the French withdrew, buglers sounded the retreat repeatedly to ensure that nobody had been left behind, ‘but no one appeared; there remained only the dead and the dying.’88