Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 20, 2025
He made his preparations quietly. He was never a flustered man, this nephew of the greatest genius the world has seen. Did he not sit three months later in front of a cottage at Donchery and impassively smoke cigarette after cigarette while waiting for Otto von Bismarck? He was a fatalist. "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on."
Not quite a mile from Donchery is a cluster of three or four cottages, and at the first of these the landau stopped to await, as we afterward ascertained, Count Bismarck, with whom the diplomatic negotiations were to be settled.
Accompanied by Count Bismarck, he stopped at a small and mean-looking laborer's inn on the road to Donchery, where, sitting down on a stone seat before the door, with Count Bismarck, he declared that he had not desired the war, but had been driven to it through the force of public opinion; and afterwards the two proceeded to the little castle of Bellevue, near Frenois, to join King William and the crown prince.
The conclusion of the treaty of capitulation was placed in the hands of Wimpffen, who, accompanied by General Castelnau, set out for Donchery to negotiate with Moltke and Bismarck.
The Bavarians, the right wing, at Bazeilles on the Meuse; next to the Bavarians the Saxons, at La Moncelle and Daigny; opposite Givonne, the Royal Guard; the 5th Corps at Saint Menges; the 2d at Flaigneux; the Wurtemburgers at the bend of the Meuse, between Saint Menges and Donchery; Count Stolberg and his cavalry at Donchery; in front, towards Sedan, the 2d Bavarian Army.
He drove in a droshki toward Donchery, preceded by General Reille, who, before six o'clock, awoke Bismarck from his slumbers, and warned him that the emperor desired to speak with him.
It having been definitely ascertained that the demoralized French were retiring to Sedan, on the evening of August 31 the German army began the work of hemming them in there, so disposing the different corps as to cover the ground from Donchery around by Raucourt to Carignan.
Over the Donchéry bridge and two pontoon bridges constructed below that village the Germans poured their troops before dawn of September 1, and as the morning fog of that day slowly lifted, their columns were seen working round the north of the deep loop of the Meuse, thus cutting off escape on the west and north-west.
Sedan lies in the most beautiful part of the valley of the Meuse, amid terraced heights, covered with trees, and, within close distance, the villages of Donchery, Iges, Villette, Glaire, Daigny, Bazeilles, and others. Along the Meuse, on the left bank, ran the main road from Donchery through Frenois, crossing the river at the suburb Torcy, and there traversing Sedan.
The next morning this line was to be drawn in closer on Sedan; and the Crown Prince of Saxony was therefore ordered to take up a position to the north of Bazeilles, beyond the right bank of the Meuse, while the Crown Prince of Prussia was to cross his right wing over the Meuse at Remilly, to move on Bazeilles, his centre meantime marching against a number of little hamlets still held by the French between there and Donchery.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking