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Updated: June 7, 2025
In the evening papers the despatch announcing the defeat of Chanzy has been published, and a request from Trochu to General Schmitz to apply at once for an armistice of two days to bury the dead. "The fog," he adds, "is very dense," and certainly this fog appears to have got into the worthy man's brain. Almost all the wounded have already been picked up by the French and the Prussian ambulances.
The events followed fast, day after day. In rapid succession, they heard of the defeat of Chanzy at Le Mans, the retreat of Bourbaki; the terrible sufferings of the troops, as they fell back upon the Swiss frontier, for refuge.
They proved to be no accession of strength; they became, on the contrary, a source of weakness, and disaster, for it was their behaviour which eventually sealed the fate of the Second Loire Army. But Chanzy, whatever his ailments might be, was personally full of energy and determination. Then, with his reinforced army, he hoped to march once more in the direction of Paris.
Chanzy was therefore instructed to retreat on Laval, and did so; but as he had already issued orders for the other route, great confusion ensued, the new orders only reaching the subordinate commanders on the evening of the 12th. From January 6 to 12 the French had lost 6000 men in killed and wounded.
He was too tired and weak to ask any more questions, and it was not until next day that he heard of the obstinate battles which General Chanzy had fought on the 7th, 8th, and 10th near Beauguency. "Thank goodness," Ralph said, "we can't have been very badly beaten, if we were able to fight three drawn battles within about twenty miles of a first defeat."
Chanzy, however, belonged to a calmer, a more quietly resolute northern race. He was inclined to religion, and I remember that, in addition to the chaplains accompanying the Breton battalions, there was a chief chaplain attached to the general staff. This was Abbe de Beuvron, a member of an old noble family of central France.
In point of fact, as the revelations of more recent years have shown, Moltke was more anxious about the forces of Bourbaki than about those of Chanzy, and both Prince Frederick Charles and the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg had instructions to keep a strict watch on the movements of Bourbaki's corps.
But these words were sufficient to induce them to join willingly in the rush. They forgot their hunger; they forget Fox. As they were hurried on, they learned that there was a report of a complete defeat of the Prussians by Faidherbe near Amiens, of a still more decided one on the Loire by Chanzy.
One of the heavy shot whizzed so closely past the Caledonia, which was now between the two, that the passengers could plainly hear the howling noise of the shell as it cut through the air. The Frenchman, without returning the fire, slackened speed, to wait till the Chanzy came up.
Before Bazaine surrendered at Metz, eager hopes had been entertained that the army raised in the South by Chanzy and Gambetta might unite with his one hundred and seventy-two thousand soldiers in Metz, and march to the relief of Paris; but to this day no one knows precisely why Bazaine took no steps in furtherance of this plan, but, instead, surrendered ignominiously to the Germans.
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