In July 1873 occupying German troops marched out of Sedan, and in September evacuated French territory altogether. That autumn the military failures of the war were publicly dissected at the court martial of Marshal Bazaine. The inquiry scrutinized Bazaine’s curious passivity at Metz, including his communications with MacMahon. In finding Bazaine guilty of failing to do all that duty and honour required to avoid capitulation, the court felt that he had ‘waited for support from Marshal MacMahon’s army that, on the contrary, he should have provided to it’.48 MacMahon, now French President, let it be known that he would not execute his former colleague, and the death sentence was commuted to twenty years’ imprisonment. The contrast between the situations of the two men was striking. Bazaine, the scapegoat for failure, was generally reviled. MacMahon had been no more successful, but was still widely trusted as a chivalrous man who had tried his best against daunting odds. His wound had saved him from signing a capitulation, and so helped preserve his reputation. In 1876 he opened a new Paris Exhibition which symbolized French recovery from the war.
All the controversies over the Battle of Sedan itself had by then come to a head. In August 1874 Paul de Cassagnac, the fanatically Bonapartist editor of Le Pays who had fought as a Zouave at Sedan, published articles accusing Wimpffen of incompetence, of betraying of the Emperor, and of bearing the main responsibility for loss of the battle. Wimpffen brought a libel case, heard in Paris in February 1875, in which Ducrot, Lebrun, Douay and other generals who resented his accusations queued up to testify for Cassagnac, who was acquitted.49
Wimpffen’s loss of the case only fuelled his rancour. During the political crisis of 1877 the Left feared that President MacMahon might follow his dismissal of the National Assembly with a military coup. Gambetta made plans for a rival republican government, with Wimpffen as War Minister. Wimpffen drew up a contingency plan which provided for MacMahon’s arrest, indictment for treason and punishment ‘according to the rigour of the law’.50 But the crisis passed, disappointing Wimpffen’s dreams of shooting his old rival. MacMahon resigned the presidency in 1879. Ducrot died in 1882, lamenting that he had failed to restore the monarchy. An apoplectic stroke killed Wimpffen in 1884.
Beyond the feuding of the generals, France struggled to come to terms with the memory of Sedan which, for contemporaries, remained ‘after more than twenty years, still as poignant as on the day after the disaster’.51 An initial public tendency to condemn as cowards those who had surrendered and to treat those who had fled the battlefield as heroes who had ‘broken through’ proved transient. That the army had been defeated only by superior numbers and the failures of Napoleon III, ‘The Man of Sedan’, became widely accepted as an article of faith. Popular literature and images emphasized feats of individual valour by French soldiers in the face of hopeless odds. Most popular of all was Alphonse de Neuville’s The Last Cartridges (1873), which became the abiding French image of Sedan and the war. Although Bazeilles had been defended by blue-clad Marines, for artistic and symbolic effect the painter represented all French infantry by including men in varied uniforms. The image, widely distributed as a print, soothed and nurtured injured patriotism. There is no white flag, no scene of submission, no indiscipline or panic, only stoic resistance and courage which transfigure military defeat. Such was the picture’s emotive power that stage representations of the scene remained popular into the early twentieth century. Bazeilles itself became a focus of patriotic commemoration, particularly for the Marines who had suffered nearly 2,700 casualties during the battle.
In contrast, the greatest literary evocation of Sedan was permeated by fin desiècle anxieties about the supposed degeneracy of the French in comparison with the Germans and the need for regeneration. Émile Zola’s La Débâcle (1892) was based on extensive research, including interviews with veterans and inhabitants conducted during a visit to the locality in April 1891. Conservative critics took umbrage at Zola’s portrayal of French mismanagement and indiscipline, accusing him of attacking the army. Nevertheless, the novel sold better than any of his others, and continues to be the best-known depiction of the battle.
Sedan became a battlefield again on 25–26 August 1914, when its surrounding villages were largely destroyed, then endured four years of harsh and ruinous German occupation. With victory in November 1918 the ghosts of 1870 seemed finally to have been laid, only to be violently resurrected in May 1940 when the invading Germans forced a passage of the Meuse at Sedan, breaking the French line. Once again heavy fighting there was the prelude to the fall of France. Defeat at Sedan presaged the death of the Third Republic, just as it had heralded its birth seventy years earlier. The town suffered great destruction during the 1940 battle, then underwent its fourth German occupation since 1815. The tide of war ebbed back in 1944. A German column retreating through Bazeilles was attacked by Allied aircraft on 29 August. After further fighting, American tanks liberated Sedan on 6 September. Thus the ill-fated town bears a tragic distinction in the history of the Franco-German conflict. On the hills above Floing the graves from 1940 greatly outnumber those of 1870, and the earlier conflict is submerged by the horrors of the world wars.
After 1945 Frenchmen and Germans sought to break the cycle of conflict, moving towards cooperation then, gradually, reconciliation. In this process the emotions once aroused by the memory of Sedan on both sides have no place. In Sedan today traces of the war of 1870 are unobtrusive. Ye visitors to the citadel may well pause to contemplate an inscription over an archway: ‘Let us wipe away hatreds, but preserve the memory of events.’
Conclusion
By the victory of Sedan Germany eclipsed France as the foremost military power of Europe. At dinner at his headquarters on 3 September King Wilhelm raised a toast to his victorious army: ‘You, General von Roon, have sharpened the sword; you, General von Moltke, have wielded it; you, Count Bismarck, have conducted my policy in such an able manner that, in thanking my army, I think of you three in particular.’1
While this trio were the architects of victory, Moltke had not directed the battle at tactical level, apparently confident that his generals knew their trade. If at Sedan the Germans closed the jaws of their trap around their enemy more completely than at Königgrätz, it was the achievement of the army commanders: of Crown Princes Friedrich of Prussia and Albert of Saxony, with their respective chiefs of staff, Blumenthal and Schlotheim, and particularly of their corps commanders, who had seized tactical opportunities on the day to seal the pocket.
High standards of professionalism among German officers, combined with good organization and an unfaltering common instinct to seek and destroy the enemy, had brought an historic reward. The Germans had made superior use of their cavalry during the campaign to observe and harass the enemy. Except at Bazeilles, they had learned from the Metz battles to spare their infantry, and the employment of open tactical formation served them well in a battle in which their artillery played the decisive role. The power of that artillery and the shock it inflicted had been the real surprise of 1870; yet the bold tactical use the Germans made of it was quite as important as the superior numbers and technical qualities of their breech-loaders. The credit for this was largely General von Hindersin’s.
Yet when all is said of the marching abilities of their troops and the skill and intelligence with which they were led, the Germans were exceptionally favoured by the cumulative errors of their opponents. Disorganized and unready, the French lost the initiative in the crucial opening phase of the campaign. By poor deployment they exposed themselves to defeat in detail by an enemy superior in numbers and artillery, consistently making poor strategic decisions. In retrospect it is evident that MacMahon should have avoided fighting Third Army in Alsace until he had united his Corps with those of Failly and Douay. The defeat of Frœschwiller and the subsequent retreat led directly to the disaster of Sedan, draining the strength and confidence of the troops who would form the majority of the Army of Châlons.
Though numerically formidable,
that unhappy army came to grief in just a fortnight. The blame was widely shared. Perhaps any French government would have felt political pressure to send a force to relieve Bazaine after his encirclement in Metz, just as after Sedan the new republican government would sacrifice strategic sense to the political priority of relieving Paris. But Palikao, and behind him the Empress, insisted on a plan that took little account of German strength and mobility. Their persistence in it when MacMahon faced encirclement by overwhelming numbers was insensate. Palikao’s indiscretions to the press and his peremptory order to MacMahon on the evening of 27 August all but sealed the army’s fate.
Bazaine too was culpable, allowing himself to be trapped in Metz, then failing either to give MacMahon clear instructions and information or to attempt a breakout in earnest while one remained feasible.
Napoleon III must bear ultimate responsibility for the ill-preparation of his army on entering a war which France declared. Contemporaries also blamed him for the military decisions which led to the trap of Sedan, but by that stage he had devolved command to MacMahon. His presence with the army was merely a nuisance. Yet Napoleon’s lack of dynamic leadership had terrible consequences. A Napoleonic system without a Napoleon worthy of the name to exercise coherent political and military command invited the divided counsels that led to disaster. Admirable as was Napoleon’s wish to spare his men’s lives on the afternoon of the battle, he might have saved more, and possibly even his army and his Empire, by having the will to overrule the Empress and Palikao earlier. In recent years Napoleon has been viewed more sympathetically, though contemporaries would no doubt have objected that indulgent judgements are the prerogative of generations that have not known invasion.
The heaviest responsibility for the loss of the Army of Châlons rested with its commander. Marshal MacMahon’s indecision, combined with supply failures and wretched weather, cost irreplaceable time. Having finally resolved on a junction with Bazaine, his procrastination and misuse of cavalry invited discovery. His resolve to cross the Meuse without fighting a battle seemed justifiable, but from 26 August onwards he sacrificed successive opportunities to fall on advance units of the German army and damage the claws that were seeking to close on him. A partial defeat might have made German commanders more cautious, while restoring the morale of his own men. Since he underestimated the numbers facing him, it is curious that he did not bring his superior numbers to bear while he had a fleeting chance.
His obedience to Palikao’s order of 27 August, when his better judgement dictated withdrawal northwards, was much condemned, though even then the loss of his army was not inevitable. Failly could certainly have avoided the inexcusable surprise at Beaumont on 30 August. Had Douay marched swiftly to his aid, a more orderly withdrawal across the Meuse might have been possible. On 31 August the Germans could have been delayed by a more effective defence of the line of the Chiers and the destruction of key bridges over the Meuse, notably at Bazeilles and Donchery. MacMahon might then have got his troops to Mézières and thence by rail to Paris, where opportunities existed to damage and delay the enemy, with a safer line of retreat.
As it was, MacMahon lingered in Sedan, oblivious to his peril. His men, shaken by defeat and hungry and exhausted after a week of ill-managed and unnecessary night marches, were neither set in motion for Mézières nor placed in well-considered defensive positions. The performance of Lebrun’s men at Bazeilles, and the value of even light earthworks on Douay’s front, suggest that entrenchments and the fortification of all the villages along the Givonne to the east, and of Saint-Albert and Saint-Menges to the west, might have delayed the Germans, inhibiting their ability to bring a devastating cross-fire to bear. Doubtless the French would still have lost, but holding a wider perimeter until after dark might have enabled more men to escape into Belgium. In the event, the French army fought disjointedly and without cohesion in a fatally confined position. General Sheridan observed large masses of French infantry lying idle under fire.2 Many who did fight did so with bravery and tactical skill at small unit level, but too many never got to fire a shot through faulty dispositions. Wimpffen’s blinkered conduct of the battle merely pushed his army further into the wolf’s mouth, though by that time victory was beyond his reach or anybody else’s.
Thus Moltke won a battle that ranks as a modern Cannae – and, unlike Hannibal, he would not fail to march on the enemy’s capital. Sedan made German might feared. From it, reflected a German officer, dated ‘a new era in world history, in which my Fatherland will see itself raised far above other nations, and give the world a Germanic character’.3 The victory exalted the status of the General Staff and of the military generally in German society higher than ever before.
Yet, though tactically as decisive as any general could wish, Sedan did not end the war. France had received a body blow, and could not replace the regular troops it had lost, but neither its resources nor its will to resist were yet exhausted. Even in the decade following final military victory in February 1871, Germany’s pride in her triumph was troubled by insecurity, even paranoia, at the spectre of a revived France. For if the war settled the immediate issue of power in Germany’s favour, it only intensified the national fears and hatreds that had given rise to war in the first place, and made military and political tension between the two countries an ever-present poison in European politics. In the spring of 1870 Bismarck had prophesied, ‘We could now fight France and beat her too, but that war would give rise to five or six others; and while we can gain our ends by peaceful means it would be foolish, if not criminal, to take such a course.’4 His words came home to roost, and he spent the rest of his long career working to keep France isolated.
Germany’s post-war military planners understood that the diplomatic and military circumstances that had favoured their victory at Sedan were unlikely to recur. Yet the very scale of that victory encouraged them to contemplate an exclusively military solution to the threats they perceived to German security: a super-Sedan that would achieve the rapid destruction of the enemy’s entire army and spare Germany a protracted war. Some of them dreamed of a preemptive strike to win a new war that they considered inevitable. Such circular thinking among the elite of Europe’s strongest power was manifested in the war scare of 1875. It would prove dangerous under the unstable and arrogant Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had neither his grandfather’s sense of European realities nor his professional military understanding.
As for France, Sedan and its aftermath demoted her to the second rank among European powers more completely than Waterloo had done. This was illustrated within three weeks of Sedan when Italian troops marched into Rome. The French garrison had been withdrawn in August, and Napoleon III’s pretensions as arbiter of the Italian peninsula disappeared with it. And, humiliatingly, the German army immediately displaced the French as the most admired and studied armed force in the world.
For the next generation, France had to adjust herself to a German neighbour whose population and industrial growth far outstripped hers. The financial and social costs of maintaining a larger army based on universal conscription that she had been so reluctant to accept after Sadowa had to be borne in the years following Sedan. Though a noisy minority called for a war of revenge, successive French governments were more concerned with protecting the country against future invasion, and with seeking diplomatic support against renewed German aggression. Thus while the German War Academy taught its officers how to win a new Sedan, French officers studied how to avoid one. Like Prussians after Jena, they studied in the shadow of defeat, with bitter knowledge of the price France had paid in 1870 for ‘the culpable forgetfulness into which we had fallen of the true principles of warfare’.5
Those lessons were relearnt, sometimes imperfectly. Obsessed with avoiding the passive defensive tactics that had ruined them in 1870, the French would suffer staggering losses in frontal attacks in August 1914. Yet at least they went to war that month with unified command, a professional staff, an effective mobilization plan a
nd a superb field gun – and this time the Germans did not break through. French determination to resist and commitment to victory owed much to the impact of 1870. That determination was personified by President Raymond Poincaré, who as a boy in August 1870 had fled from Lorraine with his family before the advancing Germans, and by General Joseph Gallieni, Military Governor of Paris. It was both symbolic and entirely fitting that the defence of Paris during the Battle of the Marne which saved the capital from the advancing Germans in September 1914 was inspired by the fighting spirit of that former Marine who had fought at Bazeilles.
Appendix
Order of Battle
(k = killed; mw = mortally wounded, w = wounded)
Part One: French
Note: strengths shown are those at Châlons Camp at the commencement of the Sedan campaign.
Army Of Châlons
Commander-in-Chief: Marshal de MacMahon
Chief of Staff: General Faure
Commanding Artillery: General Forgeot
1 Corps
General Ducrot
1st Division: General Wolff (w. 1.9.70)
1st Brigade: Colonel Bréger
18th & 96th Line Regiments, 13th Rifle Battalion
2nd Brigade: General Postis du Houlbec
45th Line Regiment, 1st Zouaves
2nd Division: General Pellé
1st Brigade: General Pelletier de Montmarie (w. 1.9.70)
50th & 74th Line Regiments, 16th Rifle Battalion
2nd Brigade: General Gandil (w. 1.9.70)
78th Line, 1st Algerian Sharpshooters
3rd Division: General L’Hériller (w. 1.9.70)
1st Brigade: General Carteret-Trécourt (w. 1.9.70)
Sedan 1870- The Eclipse of France Page 27