United States or Vietnam ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And if the plan of campaign that he had dreamed of was clear and precise, its manner of execution was most lame and impotent, a fact of which he was to learn a great deal more later on and of which he had then only a faint and glimmering perception: the seven army corps dispersed along the extended frontier line en echelon, from Metz to Bitche and from Bitche to Belfort; the many regiments and squadrons that had been recruited up to only half-strength or less, so that the four hundred and thirty thousand men on paper melted away to two hundred and thirty thousand at the outside; the jealousies among the generals, each of whom thought only of securing for himself a marshal's baton, and gave no care to supporting his neighbor; the frightful lack of foresight, mobilization and concentration being carried on simultaneously in order to gain time, a process that resulted in confusion worse confounded; a system, in a word, of dry rot and slow paralysis, which, commencing with the head, with the Emperor himself, shattered in health and lacking in promptness of decision, could not fail ultimately to communicate itself to the whole army, disorganizing it and annihilating its efficiency, leading it into disaster from which it had not the means of extricating itself.
When, after Froeschwiller and Spickeren, the 1st corps, routed and broken into fragments, had swept away with it the 5th, the other corps stationed along the frontier en echelon from Metz to Bitche, first wavering, then retreating in their consternation at those reverses, had ultimately concentrated before the intrenched camp on the right bank of the Moselle.
That same day we went as far as Bitche; the next, to Hornbach; then to Kaiserslautern. It began to snow again. How often during that long march did I sigh for the thick cloak of Monsieur Goulden, and his double-soled shoes. We passed through innumerable villages, sometimes on the mountains, sometimes in the plains.
I gazed at the brown rafters of the ceiling, the window-panes covered with frost, and asked myself where I was. Then my heart would grow cold, as I thought that I was at Bitche at Kaiserslautern that I was a conscript; and I had to dress fast as I could, catch up my knapsack, and answer the roll-call. "A good journey to you!" said the hostess, awakened so early in the morning.
Word Of The Day