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Updated: May 15, 2025
Perhaps we ought to say that he did not reason, but was haunted by one fixed notion; and the history of war from the time of the Roman Varro down to the age of the Austrian Mack and the French de Wimpffen shows that men whose brains work in grooves and take no account of what is on the right hand and the left, are not fit to command armies; they only yield easy triumphs to the great masters of warfare Hannibal, Napoleon the Great, and von Moltke.
Between 4 and 5 o'clock Colonel von Bronsart returned from his mission to Sedan, bringing word to the King that the commanding officer there General Wimpffen, wished to know, in order that the further effusion of blood might be spared, upon what terms he might surrender. The Colonel brought the intelligence also that the French Emperor was in the town.
The emperor had no voice in the matter, for, while the regency of the empress existed, he no longer represented the government. The two generals met, and, after a somewhat lively discussion, Ducrot was forced to acknowledge the authority of the minister. Wimpffen then assumed command.
Then Wimpffen declared the conference ended; rather than this they would continue the battle; he asked that his horses might be brought.
A body of mounted men dashed up the street and General de Wimpffen appeared among them, and raising himself erect on his stirrups, with flashing eyes, he shouted, in ringing tones: "Friends, we cannot retreat; it would be ruin to us all. And if we do have to retreat, it shall be on Carignan, and not on Mezieres. But we shall be victorious!
Opposite to Von Moltke sat De Wimpffen alone; while in rear, 'almost in the shade, were General Faure, Count Castelnau, and other Frenchmen, among whom was a cuirassier, Captain d'Orcet, who had observant eyes and a retentive memory.
The emperor, who had courted death in vain, recognized the truth, and, desirous to spare the sacrifice of life produced by the continued cannonade, ordered, on his own responsibility, the hoisting of a white flag on the highest point of the defences, as a signal of surrender. But the firing still continued, and Wimpffen, still bent on breaking through, would not hear of surrender.
Ducrot at once yielded to the ministerial ukase; the Emperor sought to intervene in favour of Ducrot, only to be waved aside by the confident de Wimpffen; and thus the long conflict between MacMahon and the Palikao Ministry ended in victory for the latter and disaster for France .
The surrender of Sedan was a military event, and the conditions had to be arranged between Moltke and Wimpffen, who had succeeded MacMahon in command, but Bismarck was present at the conference, which was held in his quarters, in case political questions arose.
Meanwhile de Wimpffen and other French generals, in conference with von Moltke, Bismarck, and Blumenthal, at the village of Donchéry, sought to gain easy terms by appealing to their generosity and by arguing that this would end the war and earn the gratitude of France.
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