United States or Bangladesh ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On the right was the First Army, under command of General Von Steinmetz, the victors, August 6, of Spicheren, near Saar, and, eight days later, of Colombey, to the east of Metz; while the centre and left were composed of the several corps of the Second Army, commanded by Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, a part of whose troops had just been engaged in the sanguinary battle of Mars-la-Tour, by which Bazaine was cut off from the Verdun road, and forced back toward Metz.
When Bazaine, at three o'clock, received word that the Germans were extending the line to enclose his right wing, he ordered Picard's Division of the Grenadier Guards, posted at Plappeville, to advance to the scene of action.
"Alas, how easily things go wrong!" says Dr. George MacDonald. And all the world over, when things do go wrong, the natural and instinctive desire of the human animal is to find a scapegoat. When the great French nation in the lump embarks its capital in a hopeless scheme for cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Panama, and then finds out too late that Nature has imposed insuperable barriers to its completion on the projected scale what does the great French nation do, in its collective wisdom, but turn round at once to rend the directors? It cries, "A Mazas!" just as in '71 it cried "Bazaine
After that, on the 16th, was the battle of Rezonville; all our corps were at last across the stream, although, owing to the confusion that prevailed at the junction of the Mars-la-Tour and Etain roads, which the Prussians had gained possession of early in the morning by a brilliant movement of their cavalry and artillery, the 3d and 4th corps were hindered in their march and unable to get up; a slow, dragging, confused battle, which, up to two o'clock, Bazaine, with only a handful of men opposed to him, should have won, but which he wound up by losing, thanks to his inexplicable fear of being cut off from Metz; a battle of immense extent, spreading over leagues of hill and plain, where the French, attacked in front and flank, seemed willing to do almost anything except advance, affording the enemy time to concentrate and to all appearances co-operating with them to ensure the success of the Prussian plan, which was to force their withdrawal to the other side of the river.
The marshal's household supplied the principal stars of the improvised dramatic company, the leader of the orchestra, a young Belgian officer, and the prima donna, an "American girl from Paris," as the Mexican papers had it, being brought in only as necessary adjuncts. Another important female part was taken by Albert Bazaine, who was turned into a superb soubrette.
It was pathetic to see the little girl, night and day, bent over her map of Germany, sticking in pins with little flags on them, and trying hard to invent to the last detail a successful campaign: Bazaine advancing on Berlin, Frossard penetrating Bavaria, and Mac Mahon reaching the Baltic. To work this all out she needed help, and I helped her as much as I could.
What inclines them to submit to conditions now, is not so much the capitulation of Bazaine, as the dread that by remaining much longer isolated they will entirely lose their hold on the Provincials. That these Helots should venture to express their opinions, or to act except in obedience to orders from the capital, fills them with indignation. November 2nd.
Then, reverting to facts of history, he described in brief but vigorous terms the principal events of that month of terror: how Paris, recovering her sanity in a measure after the madness into which the disasters of Wissembourg and Froeschwiller had driven her, had comforted herself with hopes of future victories, had cheered herself with fresh illusions, such as lying stories of the army's successes, the appointment of Bazaine to the chief command, the levee en masse, bogus dispatches, which the ministers themselves read from the tribune, telling of hecatombs of slaughtered Prussians.
And so it was that a fallen marshal of France passed from a state prison into exile, where he ended a life in which fame and romance had an equal share. The difficult task intrusted to General Bazaine had been triumphantly performed. The adhesion of the main part of Mexico to the empire was secured.
It was the failure to make this point which, in August 1870, led von Moltke repeatedly into the very jaws of defeat, from which only the lethargy of Bazaine on the one hand and the initiative of his subordinates, notably of von Alvensleben, rescued him. This is the essence of the new Strategic Doctrine of the French General Staff. We have still another conclusion to examine.
Word Of The Day