It has long been a well-authenticated fact that MacMahon’s march eastward from Reims took the German head-quarter staff by surprise. The reason was that they could not believe in the probability of a movement which, from their point of view, had no defence on military grounds. So that Marshal MacMahon with a fair, and General von Moltke with full knowledge of the facts, really arrived at identical conclusions when they surveyed the situation with what we may call cold scientific eyes. The influences which governed the Marshal’s decision could not be known at Bar le Duc on the 25th of August; but it was none the less apparent to the cautious Von Moltke that his adversary had committed a great error. The German was surprised, he was even somewhat embarrassed, but he never lost his presence of mind, and he was not unprepared.

Indeed, the subject had been discussed already by himself and his colleagues. As early as the 23rd, Prince Frederick Charles intercepted a letter from an officer of high rank belonging to the Metz Army. The writer expressed a confident hope that succour would soon arrive from Chalons. Thereupon the Saxon Prince was directed to keep a sharp look-out towards Reims, and break the [p 245] railway between Thionville and Longuyon in more places than one. The next day, at Ligny, the Great Staff met and conferred with the Crown Prince. It was then that Quartermaster-General von Podbielski was the first to suggest that if a march from Reims towards Bazaine was barely admissible on military grounds, it might be explained by political considerations, and consequently, the General thought, the German Armies should close to their right. The reason was not deemed sufficient, and the Armies went on as pre-arranged. Not until eleven in the evening of the 24th did the wary Von Moltke consider that he had accumulated information sufficient to justify a tentative change of plans. He learned from his own cavalry patrols that Chalons had been deserted; from a Paris newspaper, captured on the 24th, that MacMahon was at Reims with 150,000 men; and finally he got a telegram, dated Paris, the 23rd, and received at Bar le Duc via London. “The Army of MacMahon,” it said, “is concentrated at Reims. With it are the Emperor Napoleon and the Prince. MacMahon seeks to effect a junction with Bazaine.” Still Von Moltke doubted. The straight line to Metz was barred, would the enemy venture to face the risks involved in a circuitous march close to the Belgian frontier? If he did the German Armies must plunge into the Argonne; but at present the General decided that enough would be done were the Army turned to the north-west, and were a keen watch kept upon its own right by sending the cavalry, if possible, as far as Vouziers and Buzancy. Such were the morning orders. Here it may be noted that Von Moltke spent the afternoon in framing a plan, solely for himself, based on the shrewd assumption that MacMahon might have quitted Reims on the 23rd, and might be over the Aisne already. If he moved on continuously he could not be caught on the left bank of [p 246] the Meuse. Therefore Von Moltke drew out tables of marches which, had they all been performed, as they easily might have been, would have concentrated, in full time, 150,000 men at Damvillers, east of the Meuse, and within easy reach of the Army blockading Metz. Two corps, from that force, were also called on to co-operate. They did move out as far as Etain and Briey, but not being wanted they soon returned to their cantonments on the Orne and the Yron. Thus the plan was not carried out, but it was prepared, indeed, served as a basis, during the next two days, and was ready for execution; and it reveals, once more, the astonishing foresight and solid ingenuity which watched with sleepless eyes over the conduct of the German Armies.

After he had finished the scheme by means of which he intended to thwart MacMahon, in any case, fresh intelligence arrived—newspaper articles and speeches in the Chamber which declared that the French people would be covered with shame were the Army of the Rhine not relieved; and above all a telegram from London, based on a paragraph in “Le Temps,” of August 23rd, stating that MacMahon, although by such a movement he would uncover the road to Paris, had suddenly determined to help Bazaine, and that he had already quitted Reims, but that the news from Montmédy did not mention the arrival of French troops, meaning troops from Metz, in that region. Von Moltke was not deeply impressed by the articles and speeches, although he begun to give some weight to Podbielski’s shrewd remark; but the positive statement in the telegram did move him, and he and the Quartermaster-General hastened to lay the matter before the King. The result was that those definite orders were issued which produced the great right wheel and sent the whole force towards the north. Nevertheless, the strategist still insists [p 247] that, on the evening of the 25th, he had no information which gave sure indications of the enemy’s whereabouts.
The Cavalry Discover the Enemy.

These were soon forthcoming. The cavalry, set in motion at dawn, over a wide space and far in advance of the new direction, were not long in regaining touch of MacMahon’s Army. For the horsemen rode out quickly, and speedily searched the country side from Dun on the Meuse to the heart of the camp at Chalons, accumulating in their excursions information almost sufficient to convince the circumspect Von Moltke. This sudden display of activity and daring is a splendid spectacle. The wind howled through the woods and swept the bare tracks, and heavy storms of rain deluged the country from Bar le Duc to Rhetel, but the swift march of these superb reiters was neither stayed by the blast, the dripping woods, nor the saturated cross-roads. No hardships, no obstacles slackened their speed, and large were the fruits of their energy, endurance, and astuteness. Here we may observe, and it is a remarkable fact, that hitherto the Saxon leader’s cavalry had been directed only towards the west. The horsemen of the Third Army had ridden within sight of Reims and on the south, or left flank, had approached closely to the Aube. Those attached to the Saxon Prince’s command had felt out to their immediate front and towards the Prussian Crown Prince’s left, but had not examined the districts to their right front. A cavalry regiment had made a tiring forced march towards Stenay, but not a trooper was directed on Grand Pré, or on Varennes, until the 25th. Yet there were French horse on Grand Pré on the 24th, and it is evident that had only one division been despatched towards and through Varennes immediately [p 248] after the Saxon Prince’s troops had crossed the Meuse, above and below Verdun, the presence of MacMahon’s Army on the Aisne must have been discovered, and the report handed in at head-quarters on the morning, or at latest the afternoon, of the 25th. That would have been done had General von Schlotheim, the chief of the staff with the Meuse Army, been as careful to reconnoitre the country on his right as Von Blumenthal was to send out horsemen to the flank as well as the front of the westward moving host. It was not done, and the error of judgment involved the loss of four-and-twenty hours.

The error was promptly and amply repaired. While each corps in the mighty Army, having wheeled to the right, was tramping north in the driving rain through the muddy forest roads to gain the distant bivouacs assigned them, the cavalry divisions had come up with, watched, touched, astonished, and bewildered the French, making the 26th of August a memorable day in their camps.

Near the Meuse the ubiquitous patrols discovered troops at Buzancy; upon the central road which runs beside the Aire, the foremost squadron saw infantry and cavalry in Grand Pré; upon the Aisne, two adventurous parties pressing up close to the flank and rear of Vouziers, were able to observe and report the presence of large bodies of all arms encamped to the east of the town, and to specify the positions which they held. No attempt was made to attack, and there was no firing except a sputter of carbine-shots discharged by a French at a German patrol which had approached the left bank of the Aire near Grand Pré. The whole line of horsemen, from the Meuse to the Aisne, was in constant communication, and their scouting parties, eager to see and not be seen, found their designs favoured by the abounding woods and the undulations of the land. Thus, in one day, a thick fringe of lynx-eyed cavalry was [p 249] thrust in close proximity to the adversary many miles in front of the German Corps, plodding their arduous way along the plashy tracks and by-ways of the Argonne.
Movements of the French.

No such bold and prudent use was made of the French cavalry by Marshal MacMahon, whom we left with his Army still lingering near the Aisne. The misgivings which oppressed him at Reims did not diminish during his halt at Rhetel; and they deepened as he moved towards the Meuse. But no doubts, based on the absence of intelligence from or concerning Bazaine and the difficulty of supplying the Army, will account for the misuse which he made of his cavalry. The danger he had to dread lurked in the region to the south, yet after the 24th the duty of covering the exposed right flank and of gleaning exact information was imposed upon the brigade attached to the 7th Corps. For Margueritte’s division of Chasseurs d’Afrique was, on the 25th, suddenly drawn from the right and sent forward to Le Chesne in front of the centre pointing towards Sedan or Stenay; while Bonnemain’s division of heavy cavalry moved slowly close in rear of the 1st Corps, where it was useless. The incidents of the memorable 26th, when even minutes were priceless, quickly demonstrated the gravity of the error. On that day, at the close of a brief march, the 12th Corps stood at Tourteron, the 5th at Le Chesne, the 1st at Semuy, and the 7th a little east of Vouziers. Margueritte moved on to Oches, and Bonnemain’s was at Attigny, on the left bank of the Aisne.

Now Douay, who commanded the 7th Corps, had become anxious, for he was on the outward flank. He sought some security by sending a brigade, under General Bordas, to Buzancy and Grand Pré, and his strongest regiment of [p 250] Hussars to scout along the two rivers which unite at Senuc. The Hussar patrols came in contact with the German, and it was one of them which emptied its carbines at the hostile and inquisitive dragoons of the 5th Cavalry Division. Retiring hastily on Grand Pré the French Hussars handed in reports which so impressed General Bordas that he at once contemplated a retreat on Buzancy, and forwarded the alarming message to his Corps Commander. General Douay instantly inferred that the dreaded German Army was not distant, and, ordering Bordas to retreat on Vouziers, he sent the baggage and provisions to the rear, and drew up his divisions in line of battle, at the junction of the roads from Grand Pré and Buzancy. Just before sunset a horseman rode up with a message that, after all, Bordas had not retired from the village which he occupied, though he believed the road to Vouziers was intercepted, and that the enemy might be upon him at any moment. The remedy applied was to send forth General Dumont with a brigade to bring him in. While Dumont marched in the darkness Douay and his staff passed the night at a bivouac fire listening eagerly to every sound, and starting up when the step of a wayfarer or the clink of a horseshoe fell on their ears. About three in the morning of the 27th Dumont brought in Bordas and his brigade, together with a few Germans who, pressing too far forward at eventide, had been captured. Nor did the effect produced by the enterprising German cavalry end here. General Douay had sent in to MacMahon a report of the exciting incidents; and with the morning light came the information that the Marshal had directed the whole Army to draw near and support the 7th Corps. So it fell out that the mere appearance of the German cavalry had arrested the French. But at the same time their leaders were also told by fugitive country folk—nothing definite could be extracted from the [p 251] prisoners taken at Grand Pré—that the Prussian Crown Prince was at Sainte-Menehould, and that another army—whence derived, in what strength, or by whom commanded they could not imagine—was advancing from Varennes.
The Marshal Resolves, Hesitates, and Yields.

We now touch on the moment when the decision was adopted which impelled the French Army on its final marches towards defeat and captivity; a decision mainly due to the extreme pressure exerted by the Comte de Palikao and the Regency. Marshal MacMahon had transferred his head-quarters to Le Chesne-Populeux, a village on the canal which connects the Aisne and the Meuse. The 12th Corps was there, with the 5th in its front at Brieulles sur Bar; the 7th, as before, at Vouziers, and the 1st in its rear at Yoncq; Margueritte’s horse at Beaumont, and Bonnemain’s still about Attigny. The information placed before the Marshal by the inhabitants and his own officers seemed to justify those apprehensions which he had so strongly expressed at Reims, and he began to feel again that he was marching towards that “disaster which he wished to avoid.” In the midst of a prolonged survey of the position, he was summoned by the Emperor who, having received some authentic information, declared that the Prussian Crown Prince had turned from the road to Paris and was then advancing northwards. With Napoleon III. MacMahon remained for a long time, and came back to his head-quarters resolved to retreat upon Mézières. Indeed, he issued orders on the spot, directing all the Corps to retire behind the canal the next day, and take post at Chagny, Vendresse, and Poix. Then, at half-past eight in the evening of the 27th, he dictated to Colonel Stoffel a telegram designed for the Minister, in which he said that there was [p 252] one hostile Army on the right bank of the Meuse and another marching upon the Ardennes. “I have no news of Bazaine,” he went on. “If I advance to meet him I shall be attacked in front by a part of the First and Second German Armies, which, favoured by the woods, can conceal a force superior to mine, and at the same time attacked by the Prussian Crown Prince cutting off my line of retreat. I approach Mézières to-morrow, whence I shall continue my retreat, guided by events, towards the west.” Colonel Stoffel relates that, just as he was about to carry the telegram to Colonel d’Abzac, with orders to forward it at once, General Faure, chief of the staff, came in; and MacMahon, seizing the telegram, said, “Here is a despatch which I have written to the Minister.” Faure read, and begged the Marshal not to send it, for, said he, “You will get an answer from Paris, which, perhaps, will prevent you from carrying out your new plans. You can transmit it to-morrow, when we are already on the road to Mézières.” The Marshal answered, “Send it,” and it was sent.

The reply, so shrewdly foreseen by General Faure, was handed to the Marshal about half-past one on the morning of the 28th. It was dated, “Paris, August 27, 11 p.m.,” addressed to “the Emperor,” and began with these tell-tale words, “If you abandon Bazaine,” wrote the Comte de Palikao, “‘la revolution est dans Paris,’ or Paris will revolt, and you will be attacked yourself by all the enemy’s forces.” He asserted that Paris could defend herself, that the Army must reach Bazaine; that the Prussian Crown Prince, aware of the danger to which his Army and that which blockaded Metz, was exposed by MacMahon’s turning movement, had changed front to the north. “You are at least six-and-thirty, perhaps eight-and-forty, hours in advance of him,” the Minister continued. “You have before you only a part of the forces blockading Metz, which, seeing [p 253] you retire from Chalons to Reims, stretched out towards the Argonne. Your movement on Reims deceived them. Everybody here feels the necessity of extricating Bazaine, and the anxiety with which your course is followed is extreme.” The Marshal’s will broke down under this strain. He could not bear the thought that men might in future point to him as one who deserted a brother Marshal. Against his better judgment he revoked the orders already issued, enjoining a retreat upon Mézières, and put all his Corps in motion for the banks of the Meuse. To complete the narrative of this decisive event, it may here be said that, on the 28th, at Stonne, as the Marshal himself has admitted, the Emperor made a last desperate appeal against the change of plan. Another despatch from Palikao, dated half-past one in the morning of the 28th, this time addressed to the Marshal, had come to hand at Stonne. “In the name of the Council of Ministers and the Privy Council,” it said, “I request you [‘je vous demande’] to succour Bazaine—profiting by the thirty hours’ advance which you have over the Crown Prince of Prussia. I direct Vinoy’s Corps on Reims.”

It is probable that the purport, or a copy of this telegram, was sent to the Emperor, for he twice, through his own officers, reminded the Marshal that the despatches of a Minister were not orders, and that he was free to act as he thought expedient, and implored him to reflect maturely before he gave up his intention to retreat. So much must be said for Napoleon III.—that, at Metz, on the morrow of Woerth and Spicheren, and at Stonne, when the toils were fast closing round him, his military judgment was prompt and correct. But the Marshal had decided; and the prayers of an Emperor did not avail against the gloomy forecasts, the impassioned language, and the formal request or demand of a Minister of War whose telegrams exhibit the depth of [p 254] his ignorance concerning the actual situation. It is not surprising that he was ill-informed, seeing how difficult it was for officers on the spot, German as well as French, to obtain exact knowledge; but it is amazing that an experienced soldier and Minister of War should not be aware of his own incompetence to direct, from his closet in Paris, an army in the field. Palikao combined the qualities of the Dutch Deputy with those of the Aulic Councillor; and the troops of Marshal MacMahon tramped on to meet their approaching ruin. The positions they attained on the 28th will be more conveniently specified later on; for it is time to follow, once more, the footsteps of the hardy and far-marching Germans, who were now across the direct path of MacMahon’s Army.
Movements of the Germans.

How, by long and laborious marches, the tough foot soldiers, almost treading on the heels of their mounted comrades, gained ground on the adversary must now be succinctly narrated. On the 26th, the 12th Corps reached Varennes, and the Saxon Prince established his head-quarters at Clermont in Argonne. The Guard went on to Dombasle, and the 4th Corps to a point beyond Fleury. Such were the marches of the Army of the Meuse. In the Third Army, the Bavarians made a wet and weary night march in the wake of the 4th Corps, attaining Triaucourt and Erize la Petite; but for the moment, the 5th, the 6th, and the Würtembergers stood fast. The reason for this apparent hesitation was that Von Moltke was not yet quite convinced. King William remained at Bar le Duc all the forenoon. Thither came the Crown Prince and General von Blumenthal from Ligny, and, at a council held in the great head-quarters, both of them declared [p 255] unequivocally in favour of the northern march, urging that it would be wiser to delay the movement on Paris than run the risks of a battle in the north unless it could be fought by all the forces which could be got together. These opinions prevailed, and it was decided that the Bavarians should start at once, and that the next day the other Corps of the Third Army should proceed to Sainte-Menehould and Vavray. General von Blumenthal, indeed, had formed a strong judgment on the situation. A few hours after the consultation at head-quarters, writes Dr. William Russell in his “Diary,” “taking me into a room in which was a table covered with a large map on a scale of an inch to a mile, he (Blumenthal) said, ‘These French are lost, you see. We know they are there, and there, and there—and Mahon’s whole Army. Where can they go to? Poor foolish fellows! They must go to Belgium, or fight there and be lost;’ and he put his finger on the map between Mézières and Carignan.” It is a remarkable fact that General Longstreet judging only from the telegrams which reached the United States about this time, arrived at the same conclusion.

King William, during the afternoon, journeyed to Clermont; while the Crown Prince drove to Revigny les Vaches, which he made his head-quarters until the 28th. Before losing sight of Bar le Duc, we may quote from Dr. Russell’s pages one other sentence, which affords a brief glimpse of the great political leader in this war. In the forenoon on the 26th, the graphic Diarist “saw Count Bismarck standing in a doorway out of the rain whiffing a prodigious cigar, seemingly intent on watching the bubbles which passed along the watercourse by the side of the street;” but probably with his thoughts far away from the evanescent symbols of men’s lives. He had entered the town with the King on the 24th, and feared that the royal staff [p 256] would linger there for several days, “as in Capua;” yet, in a few hours, this playful censor of delay was speeding North, like the Armies, to play a conspicuous part in a sublime tragedy at Sedan.

In his quarters at Clermont, General von Moltke still disposed of the Meuse Army and the Bavarians in a manner which would enable him to effect, if necessary, that concentration at Damvillers which we saw him meditating and devising on the afternoon of the 25th, at Bar le Duc. Thus, on the 27th, the Guard, which came up to Monfaucon, and the 4th Corps to Germonville, were each directed to throw bridges over the Meuse, so that there should be four points of passage in case of need. The Bavarians followed from the rear as far as Dombasle and Nixéville, and the other Corps of the Third Army turned frankly northward, the 5th pushing its advance-guard to Sainte-Menehould. At the same time the Saxon Corps had crossed the Meuse at Dun and established a brigade firmly in Stenay. The cavalry had been as active and as useful as ever. They had covered the march of the Saxon Corps by occupying Grand Pré, Nouart, and Buzancy, coming into contact with the French at the last-named village. General de Failly, who, early in the morning, had moved to Bar, observed hostile cavaliers beyond the stream, and sent Brahaut’s brigade to drive them off and seize prisoners. That brought on a smart skirmish, during which De Failly received orders to retreat on Brieulles; but Brahaut was driven from Buzancy by the fire of a horse battery; and the unlucky French General made no prisoners. There was no other rencontre during the day, but the German cavalry on all sides rode up close to the enemy’s posts and kept the leaders well informed. From the reports sent in, Von Moltke inferred that there had been a pause in the French movements; at all events, that none of their troops [p 257] had crossed the Meuse; and, as he knew that the Saxons were in Dun and Stenay, he thought himself, at length, justified in believing it possible that he might strike MacMahon on the left bank. Consequently, he abandoned the Damvillers plan, and sent back to Metz the two Corps which had been detached from the blockading army. Therefore, while the Saxons stood fast, for one day, the Bavarians were directed to march, on the 28th, upon Varennes and Vienne le Chateau; the Guard upon Banthéville; and the 4th Corps on Montfaucon—the general direction for all the Corps being Vouziers, Buzancy, and Beaumont. During that day these orders were fulfilled, each Corps duly attaining its specified destination; the Guard and 4th Corps, before they started, taking up the bridges thrown over the Meuse. Four divisions of cavalry were out prying, through the mist, into every movement of the 5th and 7th French Corps, whose left flank, it was ascertained, was absolutely unguarded, so that the German horse looked on, and, in some cases, were misled by the astonishing confusion displayed by the enemy’s vacillating motions.
Effects of MacMahon’s Counter-Orders.

The fatal decision adopted at Le Chesne on the night of the 27th brought disorder and disaster upon the French Army. The wise resolve to retreat on Mézières, strangely as the statement may sound, had rekindled the fading spirits of the French soldiers. As soon as the fact was communicated to them they sprung with alacrity to perform the task of preparation. The officer who bore the order to the 7th Corps started from Le Chesne at six o’clock, and by nine at night the baggage, the provision transport, the engineers’ park, were actually in motion for Chagny, [p 258] through the long defile which leads to Le Chesne. The cavalry were despatched to watch the flanks, and the infantry in silence and darkness glided towards their first halting place, Quatre Champs. “Everyman,” says Prince Bibesco, who was an eye-witness, “marched with a firm step. All seemed to have forgotten the cold, the rain, and the anxiety of the preceding days.” They drank in hope with the refreshing air, and then their hopes were suddenly extinguished; for as they were near Quatre Champs, at half-past five in the morning, an aide-de-camp from MacMahon rode up to General Douay and told him the latest decision—the Army was to move upon the Meuse.

The orders brought by the ill-omened messenger were that the 7th Corps, that very day, should move to Nouart, which it was not destined to reach; the 5th Beauclair, which it could not attain; that the 12th should gain La Besace, and the 1st Le Chesne, both of which marches were duly performed. Bonnemains’ heavy brigade of horse was sent to Les Grands Armoises, and Margueritte’s towards Mouzon, but afterwards to Sommauthe. The 7th Corps, fearing greatly for its baggage train, already far away, set out again and only reached Boult-aux-Bois, the men on short rations, the horses without a feed of oats. The same troubles beset the other corps which had despatched their trains northward. But the largest share of ill-fortune befell De Failly. He was ordered to march by way of Buzancy upon Nouart and Beauclair—indeed, to get as far forward as he could on the road to Stenay. The Marshal knew it was occupied, for he told De Failly to expect a sharp resistance before he could carry it. But when within sight of Harricourt and Bar his adventures began. He discerned hostile cavalry in his path; they were vigilant Uhlans of the Guard. De Failly halted; the cavalry increased, became enterprising, and some shots [p 259] were exchanged; but in the end the French General, finding that he could not rely upon the support of Douay, who was resting his wearied men at Boult-aux-Bois, and believing that the direct road to Nouart was commanded by the enemy, he turned aside and, through narrow muddy lanes, made his way by Sommauthe to Belval and Bois les Dames, the last division not arriving at the camp until eight in the evening. Nevertheless, his appearance at and south of Bois les Dames so imposed on the German cavalry scouts that they retired from Nouart in the afternoon. The movements and halts of both French corps had been observed, and when night fell the Germans at Bayonville saw the French bivouac fires beyond Buzancy and in the direction of Stenay. At this time there were no hostile German infantry west of the Meuse nearer than Banthéville; for the troops on the flank of the French, from Vouziers to Dun, were wholly horsemen. No more valuable demonstration of the priceless value of cavalry was ever made than that afforded by the Teutons during this campaign. They were more than the “eyes and ears of the Army;” they were an impenetrable screen concealing from view the force and the movements of the adversary, who was still engaged in pushing up his troops in the hope of compelling the French to fight a decisive battle on the 30th. That h............