Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 3, 2025
One of the most interesting things I saw in 1873, just before my marriage, was the court-martial of Marshal Bazaine for treachery at Metz giving up his army and the city without any attempt to break through the enemy's lines, or in fact any resistance of any kind.
And that monarch who no longer had a throne, for he had delegated all his functions to the Empress regent, that chief without an army, since he had turned over the supreme command to Marshal Bazaine, now felt that he must once more take the reins in his hand and be the master.
With all the resources of rich France to draw upon, I cannot conceive that this excuse was sincere; on the contrary, I think that the movement of Bazaine must have been inspired by Napoleon with a view to the maintenance of his dynasty rather than for the good of France. As previously stated, Bismarck did not approve of the German army's moving on Paris after the battle of Sedan.
MacMahon had some design of turning back, uniting with another army corps, and attacking the Prussians in the rear, thus hemming in part of their army between himself and the troops of Bazaine in Metz; but he seems to have been really in the position of a pawn driven about a chess-board by an experienced player.
The result of these disjointed movements was that both Frossard and Bazaine hurriedly retired towards Metz, while the First and Second German Armies now gathered up all their strength with the aim of shutting up the French in that fortress.
It had seen troops in motion towards Metz, hut did not know whether these formed the rear-guard of the French army or its vanguard in its march towards Verdun. In fact, Bazaine had not yet got away with his army. All the roads from Metz were blocked with heavy baggage, and it was impossible to move so large an army with expedition.
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.
"And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my nose: 'You are not a man. Now you are going to run away and surrender your place! Go, then, Bazaine! "I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled out a bream: Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then my wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see her tricks.
France no longer had an army. "In God's name!" Jean ejaculated in a deep, low voice. He had not fully understood it all, but until then Bazaine had always been for him the great captain, the one man to whom they were to look for salvation. "What is left us to do now? What will become of them at Paris?" The doctor was just coming to the news from Paris, which was of a disastrous character.
It was on the 23rd of September when the Royal headquarters was at Ferrieres, Baron Rothschild's chateau on the east of Paris, that there either presented himself to Bismarck an intriguant, or that the Chancellor evoked for himself an instrument for whom the way was made open to penetrate the beleaguerment of Metz and submit to Bazaine certain considerations.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking