United States or Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Life seemed to me beautiful again, for I had great confidence in the issue of the war. I pitied the Germans for having embarked on such an adventure. But, alas! the fine, glorious progress which my brain had been so active in imagining was cut short by the atrocious news from Saint-Privat. The political news was posted up every day in the little garden of the Casino at Eaux-Bonnes.
The division of which it was a part was sent beyond Montigny and it camped there as follows: The 9th Chasseurs and 4th Regiment of the Line, ahead of the Thionville railroad, the right on the Moselle, the left on the Pont-a-Mousson highway; the 10th Regiment of the Line, the right supported at the branch of the Thionville and Nancy lines, the left in the direction of Saint-Privat, in front of the Montigny repair shops of the Eastern Railroad lines.
And on the 18th, after their retirement to the intrenched camp, Saint-Privat was fought, the culmination of the gigantic struggle, where the line of battle extended more than eight miles in length, two hundred thousand Germans with seven hundred guns arrayed against a hundred and twenty thousand French with but five hundred guns, the Germans facing toward Germany, the French toward France, as if invaders and invaded had inverted their roles in the singular tactical movements that had been going on; after two o'clock the conflict was most sanguinary, the Prussian Guard being repulsed with tremendous slaughter and Bazaine, with a left wing that withstood the onsets of the enemy like a wall of adamant, for a long time victorious, up to the moment, at the approach of evening, when the weaker right wing was compelled by the terrific losses it had sustained to abandon Saint-Privat, involving in its rout the remainder of the army, which, defeated and driven back under the walls of Metz, was thenceforth to be imprisoned in a circle of flame and iron.
He had heard the story of the battle of Saint-Privat a dozen times already, but he was quite willing to let Siegenthal tell it again. The warder, however, wandered to another point. "By the way, I heard you were promoted sergeant out in the Transvaal: is that so?" and as Gurn nodded assent, he went on: "I never rose above the rank of corporal, but at any rate I have always led an honest life."
My sleep was full of nightmares, and I had a relapse. The news was worse every day. After Saint-Privat came Gravelotte, where 36,000 men, French and German, were cut down in a few hours. Then came the sublime but powerless efforts of MacMahon, who was driven back as far as Sedan; and finally Sedan. Sedan! Ah, the horrible awakening!
I knew Canrobert, and was very fond of him. Later on he became one of my faithful friends, and I shall always remember the exquisite hours spent in listening to his accounts of the bravery of others never of his own. And what an abundance of anecdotes, what wit, what charm! This news of the battle of Saint-Privat caused my feverishness to return.
"My word!" the old fellow panted, "anybody could tell you had been in the infantry. Well, so have I; though that wasn't yesterday, nor yet the day before; but we never marched as fast as you do. We made a fine march once though at Saint-Privat." Out of pity for the decent old fellow Gurn slackened his pace.
The public went there to get information. Detesting, as I did, tranquillity, I used to send my man-servant to copy the telegrams. Oh, how grievous was that terrible telegram from Saint-Privat, informing us laconically of the frightful butchery; of the heroic defence of Marshal Canrobert; and of Bazaine's first treachery in not going to the rescue of his comrade.
In three splendid armies the tide of invasion set in; the Red Prince tearing a bloody path to Metz, the Crown Prince riding west by south, resting in Nancy, snubbing Toul, spreading out into the valley of the Marne to build three monuments of bloody bones Saint-Marie, Amanvilliers, Saint-Privat.
The regiment was thus placed in the rear of a redoubt under construction. The company of engineers was placed at the left of the 10th near the earth-works on which it was to work. Along the ridge of the plateau, toward the Seille, was the 2d Brigade, which rested its left on the river and its right perpendicular to the Saint-Privat road, in rear of the field-work of this name.
Word Of The Day