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My Days of Adventure

E >> Ernest Alfred Vizetelly >> My Days of Adventure




The invader's objective with respect to central France was Bourges, the
old capital of Berry, renowned for its ordnance and ammunition works, and,
in the days when the troops of our Henry V overran France, the scene of
Charles VII's retirement, before he was inspirited either by Agnes Sorel
or by Joan of Arc. To enable an army coming from the direction of Paris to
seize Bourges, it is in the first instance necessary--as a reference to
any map of France will show--to secure possession of Orleans, which is
situated at the most northern point, the apex, so to say, of the course of
the Loire, and is only about sixty-eight miles from Paris. At the same
time it is advisable that any advance upon Orleans should be covered,
westward, by a corresponding advance on Chartres, and thence on
Châteaudun. This became the German plan, and whilst a force under General
von Wittich marched on Chartres, Von der Tann's men approached Orleans
through the Beauce region.

From the forest of Dourdan on the north to the Loire on the south, and
from the Chartres region on the west to the Gatinais on the east, this
great grain-growing plateau (the scene of Zola's famous novel "La Terre")
is almost level. Although its soil is very fertile there are few
watercourses in Beauce, none of them, moreover, being of a nature to
impede the march of an army. The roads are lined with stunted elms, and
here and there a small copse, a straggling farm, a little village, may be
seen, together with many a row of stacks, the whole forming in late autumn
and in winter--when hurricanes, rain, and snow-storms sweep across the
great expanse--as dreary a picture as the most melancholy-minded
individual could desire. Whilst there is no natural obstacle to impede the
advance of an invader, there is also no cover for purposes of defence. All
the way from Chartres to Orleans the high-road is not once intersected by
a river. Nearly all of the few streams which exist thereabouts run from
south to north, and they supply no means of defence against an army coming
from the direction of Paris. The region is one better suited for the
employment of cavalry and artillery than for that of foot-soldiers.

The Chartres country is better watered than Beaude. Westward, in both
of the districts of Perche, going either towards Mortagne or towards
Nogent-le-Rotrou, the country is more hilly and more wooded; and hedges,
ditches, and dingle paths abound there. In such districts infantry can
well be employed for defensive purposes. Beyond the Loir--not the Loire--
S.S.W. of Chartres, is the Pays Dunois, that is the district of
Châteaudun, a little town protected on the north and the west by the Loir
and the Conie, and by the hills between which those rivers flow, but open
to any attack on the east, from which direction, indeed, the Germans
naturally approached it.

Beyond the Loire, to the south-east of Beauce and Orleans, lies the
sheep-breeding region called Sologne, which the Germans would have had to
cross had they prosecuted their intended march on Bourges. Here cavalry
and artillery are of little use, the country abounding in streams, ponds,
and marshes. Quite apart, however, from natural obstacles, no advance on
Bourges could well be prosecuted so long as the French held Orleans; and
even when that city had fallen into the hands of the Germans, the presence
of large French forces on the west compelled the invaders to carry
hostilities in that direction and abandon their projected march southward.
Thus the campaign in which I became interested was carried on principally
in the departments of Eure-et-Loir, Loiret, Loir-et-Cher, and Sarthe, to
terminate, at last, in Mayenne.

Great indiscipline prevailed among the troops whom La Motte-Rouge had
under his orders. An attack by Von der Tann to the north of Orleans on
October 10, led to the retreat of a part of the French forces. On the
following day, when the French had from 12,000 to 13,000 men engaged, they
were badly defeated, some 1800 of their men being put _hors de combat_,
and as many being taken prisoners. This reverse, which was due partly to
some mistakes made by La Motte-Rouge, and partly to the inferior quality
of his troops, led to the immediate evacuation of Orleans. Now, it was
precisely at this moment that Gambetta appeared upon the scene. He had
left Paris, it will be remembered, on October 7; on the 8th he was at
Rouen, on the 9th he joined the other Government delegates at Tours, and
on the 10th--the eve of La Motte-Rouge's defeat--he became Minister of War
as well as Minister of the Interior.

Previously the portfolio for war had been held in the provinces by Admiral
Fourichon, with General Lefort as his assistant; but Fourichon had
resigned in connexion with a Communalist rising which had taken place at
Lyons towards the end of September, when the Prefect, Challemel-Lacour,
was momentarily made a prisoner by the insurgents, but was afterwards
released by some loyal National Guards. [See my book, "The Anarchists:
Their Faith and their Record," John Lane, 1911.] Complaining that General
Mazure, commander of the garrison, had not done his duty on this occasion,
Challemel-Lacour caused him to be arrested, and Fourichon, siding with the
general, thereupon resigned the War Ministry, Crémieux taking it over
until Gambetta's arrival. It may well be asked how one could expect the
military affairs of France to prosper when they were subordinated to such
wretched squabbles.

Among the men whom Gambetta found at Tours, was an engineer, who,
after the Revolution of September 4, had been appointed Prefect of
Tarn-et-Garonne, but who, coming into conflict with the extremists of
Montauban, much as Challemel-Lacour had come into conflict with those of
Lyons, had promptly resigned his functions. His name was Charles Louis de
Saulces de Freycinet, and, though he was born at Foix near the Pyrenees,
he belonged to an ancient family of Dauphiné. At this period (October,
1870), Freycinet had nearly completed his forty-second year. After
qualifying as an engineer at the Ecole Polytechnique, he had held various
posts at Mont-de-Marsan, Chartres, and Bordeaux, before securing in 1864
the position of traffic-manager to the Chemin de Fer du Midi. Subsequently
he was entrusted with various missions abroad, and in 1869 the Institute
of France crowned a little work of his on the employment of women and
children in English factories. Mining engineering was his speciality, but
he was extremely versatile and resourceful, and immediately attracted the
notice of Gambetta. Let it be said to the latter's credit that in that
hour of crisis he cast all prejudices aside. He cared nothing for the
antecedents of any man who was willing to cooperate in the defence of
France; and thus, although Freycinet came of an ancient-aristocratic
house, and had made his way under the Empire, which had created him first
a chevalier and then an officer of the Legion of Honour, Gambetta at once
selected him to act as his chef-de-cabinet, and delegate in military
affairs.

At this moment the National Defence had in or ready for the field only
40,000 regular infantry, a like number of Mobile Guards, from 5000 to 6000
cavalry, and about 100 guns, some of antiquated models and with very few
men to serve them. There were certainly a good many men at various
regimental dépôts, together with Mobile Guards and National Guards in all
the uninvaded provinces of France; but all these had to be drilled,
equipped, and armed. That was the first part of the great task which lay
before Gambetta and Freycinet. Within a month, however--leaving aside what
was done in other parts of the country--France had on the Loire alone an
army of 100,000 men, who for a moment, at all events, turned the tide of
war. At the same time I would add that, before Gambetta's arrival on the
scene, the National Defence Delegates had begun to concentrate some small
bodies of troops both in Normandy and in Picardy and Artois, the latter
forming the first nucleus of the Army of the North which Faidherbe
afterwards commanded. Further, in the east of France there was a force
under General Cambriels, whose object was to cut the German communications
in the Vosges.

Von der Tann, having defeated La Motte-Rouge, occupied Orleans, whilst the
French withdrew across the Loire to La Motte-Beuvron and Gien, south and
south-east of their former position. Gambetta had to take action
immediately. He did so by removing La Motte-Rouge from his command, which
he gave to D'Aurelle de Paladines. The latter, a general on the reserve
list, with a distinguished record, was in his sixty-sixth year, having
been born at Languedoc in 1804. He had abilities as an organiser, and was
known to be a disciplinarian, but he was growing old, and looked
confidence both in himself and in his men. At the moment of D'Aurelle's
appointment, Von der Tann wished to advance on Bourges, in accordance with
Moltke's instructions, and, in doing so, he proposed to evacuate Orleans;
but this was forbidden by King William and the Crown Prince, and in the
result the Bavarian general suffered a repulse at Salbris, which checked
his advance southward. Still covering Bourges and Vierzon, D'Aurelle soon
had 60,000 men under his orders, thanks to the efforts of Gambetta and
Freyeinet. But the enemy were now making progress to the west of Orleans,
in which direction the tragic affair of Châteaudun occurred on October 18.
The German column operating on that side under General von Wittich,
consisted of 6000 infantry, four batteries, and a cavalry regiment, which
advanced on Châteaudun from the east, and, on being resisted by the
villagers of Varize and Civry, shot them down without mercy, and set all
their houses (about 130 in number) on fire. Nevertheless, that punishment
did not deter the National Guards of Châteaudun, and the Francs-tireurs
who had joined them, from offering the most strenuous opposition to the
invaders, though the latter's numerical superiority alone was as seven
to one. The fierce fight was followed by terrible scenes. Most of the
Francs-tireurs, who had not fallen in the engagement, effected a retreat,
and on discovering this, the infuriated Germans, to whom the mere name of
Franc-tireur was as a red rag to a bull, did not scruple to shoot down a
number of non-combatants, including women and children.

I remember the excitement which the news of the Châteaudun affair
occasioned in besieged Paris; and when I left the capital a few weeks
later I heard it constantly spoken of. In vain did the Germans strive to
gloss over the truth. The proofs were too numerous and the reality was too
dreadful. Two hundred and thirty-five of the devoted little town's houses
were committed to the flames. For the first time in the whole course of
the war women were deliberately assaulted, and a couple of German Princes
disgraced their exalted station in a drunken and incendiary orgie.

Meantime, in the east of France, Cambriels had failed in his attempt to
cut the German communications, and had been compelled to beat a retreat.
It must be said for him that his troops were a very sorry lot, who could
not be depended upon. Not only were they badly disciplined and addicted to
drunkenness, but they took to marauding and pillage, and were in no degree
a match for the men whom the German General von Werder led against them.
Garibaldi, the Italian Liberator, had offered his sword to France, soon
after the fall of the Second Empire. On October 8--that is, a day before
Gambetta--he arrived at Tours, to arrange for a command, like that of
Cambriels, in the east of France. The little Army of the Vosges, which was
eventually constituted under his orders, was made up of very heterogeneous
elements. Italians, Switzers, Poles, Hungarians, Englishmen, as well as
Frenchmen, were to be found in its ranks. The general could not be called
a very old man, being indeed only sixty-three years of age, but he had led
an eventful and arduous life; and, as will be remembered, ever since the
affair of Aspromonte in 1862, he had been lame, and had gradually become
more and more infirm. He had with him, however, two of his sons, Menotti
and Ricoiotti (the second a more competent soldier than the first),
and several, able men, such as his compatriot Lobbia, and the Pole,
Bosak-Hauké. His chief of staff, Bordone, previously a navy doctor, was,
however, a very fussy individual who imagined himself to be a military
genius. Among the Englishmen with Garibaldi were Robert Middleton and my
brother Edward Vizetelly; and there was an Englishwoman, Jessie White
Mario, daughter of White the boat-builder of Cowes, and widow of Mario,
Garibaldi's companion in arms in the glorious Liberation days. My brother
often told me that Mme. Mario was equally at home in an ambulance or in a
charge, for she was an excellent nurse and an admirable horsewoman as well
as a good shot. She is one of the women of whom I think when I hear or
read that the members of the completing sex cannot fight. But that of
course is merely the opinion of some medical and newspaper men.

Mme. Mario contributed a certain number of articles to the _Daily News_.
So did my brother--it was indeed as _Daily News_ correspondent that he
first joined Garibaldi's forces--but he speedily became an orderly to the
general, and later a captain on the staff. He was at the battles of Dijon
and Autun, and served under Lobbia in the relief of Langres. Some French
historians of these later days have written so slightingly of the little
Army of the Vosges, that I am sorry my brother did not leave any permanent
record of his experiences. Garibaldi's task was no easy one. In the first
instance, the National Defence hesitated to employ him; secondly, they
wished to subordinate him to Cambriels, and he declined to take any such
position; not that he objected to serve under any superior commander
who would treat him fairly, but because he, Garibaldi, was a freethinker,
and knew that he was bitterly detested by the fervently Catholic generals,
such as Cambriels. As it happened, he secured an independent command. But
in exercising it he had to co-operate with Cambriels in various ways, and
in later years my brother told me how shamefully Cambriels acted more than
once towards the Garibaldian force. It was indeed a repetition of what had
occurred at the very outset of the war, when such intense jealousy had
existed among certain marshals and generals that one had preferred to let
another be defeated rather than march "at the sound of the guns" to his
assistance.

I also remember my brother telling me that when Langres (which is in the
Haute Marne, west of the Aube and the Côte d'Or) was relieved by Lobbia's
column, the commander of the garrison refused at first to let the
Garibaldians enter the town. He was prepared to surrender to the Germans,
if necessary; but the thought that he, a devout Catholic, should owe any
assistance to such a band of unbelieving brigands as the Garibaldian
enemies of the Pope was absolutely odious to him. Fortunately, this kind
of feeling did not show itself in western France. There was, at one
moment, some little difficulty respecting the position of Cathélineau, the
descendant of the famous Vendéen leader, but, on the whole, Catholics,
Royalists, and Republicans loyally supported one another, fired by a
common patriotism.

The failure of Cambriel's attempts to cut the German communications, and
the relatively small importance of the Garibaldian force, inspired
Gambetta with the idea of forming a large Army of the East which, with
Langres, Belfort, and Besançon as its bases, would vigorously assume the
offensive in that part of France. Moltke, however, had already sent
General von Werder orders to pursue the retreating Cambriels. Various
engagements, late in October, were followed by a German march on Dijon.
There were at this time 12,000 or 13,000 Mobile Guards in the Côte d'Or,
but no general in command of them. Authority was exercised by a civilian,
Dr. Lavalle. The forces assembled at Dijon and Beaune amounted, inclusive
of regulars and National Guards, to about 20,000 men, but they were very
badly equipped and armed, and their officers were few in number and of
very indifferent ability. Werder came down on Dijon in a somewhat
hesitating way, like a man who is not sure of his ground or of the
strength of the enemy in front of him. But the French were alarmed by his
approach, and on October 30 Dijon was evacuated, and soon afterwards
occupied by Werder with two brigades.

Three days previously Metz had surrendered, and France was reeling under
the unexpected blow in spite of all the ardent proclamations with which
Gambetta strove to impart hope and stimulate patriotism. Bazaine's
capitulation naturally implied the release of the forces under Prince
Frederick Charles, by which he had been invested, and their transfer to
other parts of France for a more vigorous prosecution of the invasion.
Werder, after occupying Dijon, was to have gone westward through the
Nivernais in order to assist other forces in the designs on Bourges. But
some days before Metz actually fell, Moltke sent him different
instructions, setting forth that he was to take no further account of
Bourges, but to hold Dijon, and concentrate at Vesoul, keeping a watch on
Langres and Besançon. For a moment, however, 3600 French under an officer
named Fauconnet suddenly recaptured Dijon, though there were more than
10,000 Badeners installed there under General von Beyer. Unfortunately
Fauconnet was killed in the affair, a fresh evacuation of the Burgundian
capital ensued, and the Germans then remained in possession of the city
for more than a couple of months.

In the west the army of the Loire was being steadily increased and
consolidated, thanks to the untiring efforts of Gambetta, Freycinet,
and D'Aurelle, the last of whom certainly contributed largely to the
organization of the force, though he was little inclined to quit his lines
and assume the offensive. It was undoubtedly on this army that Gambetta
based his principal hopes. The task assigned to it was greater than those
allotted to any of the other armies which were gradually assuming
shape--being, indeed, the relief of beleaguered Paris.

Trochu's own memoirs show that at the outset of the siege his one thought
was to remain on the defensive. In this connexion it is held, nowadays,
that he misjudged the German temperament, that remembering the vigorous
attempts of the Allies on Sebastopol--he was, as we know, in the Crimea,
at the time--he imagined that the Germans would make similarly vigorous
attempts on Paris. He did not expect a long and so to say passive siege, a
mere blockade during which the investing army would simply content itself
with repulsing the efforts of the besieged to break through its lines. He
knew that the Germans had behaved differently in the case of Strasbourg
and some other eastern strongholds, and anticipated a similar line of
action with respect to the French capital. But the Germans preferred to
follow a waiting policy towards both Metz and Paris. It has been said that
this was less the idea of Moltke than that of Bismarck, whose famous
phrase about letting the Parisians stew in their own juice will be
remembered. But one should also recollect that both Metz and Paris were
defended by great forces, and that there was little likelihood of any
_coup de main_ succeeding; whilst, as for bombardment, though it might
have some moral, it would probably have very little material effect. Metz
was not really bombarded, and the attempt to bombard Paris was deferred
for several months. When it at last took place a certain number of
buildings were damaged, 100 persons were killed and 200 persons wounded--a
material effect which can only be described as absolutely trivial in the
case of so great and so populous a city.

Trochu's idea to remain merely on the defensive did not appeal to his
coadjutor General Ducrot. The latter had wished to break through the
German lines on the day of Sedan, and he now wished to break through them
round Paris. Various schemes occurred to him. One was to make a sortie in
the direction of Le Bourget and the plain of Saint Denis, but it seemed
useless to attempt to break out on the north, as the Germans held Laon,
Soissons, La Fère, and Amiens. There was also an idea of making an attempt
on the south, in the direction of Villejuif, but everything seemed to
indicate that the Germans were extremely strong on this side of the city
and occupied no little of the surrounding country. The question of a
sortie on the east, across the Marne, was also mooted and dismissed for
various reasons; the idea finally adopted being to break out by way of
the Gennevilliers peninsula formed by the course of the Seine on the
north-west, and then (the heights of Cormeil having been secured) to cross
the Oise, and afterwards march on Rouen, where it would be possible to
victual the army. Moreover, instructions were to be sent into the
provinces in order that both the forces on the Loire and those in the
north might bear towards Normandy, and there join the army from Paris, in
such wise that there would be a quarter of a million men between Dieppe,
Rouen, and Caen. Trochu ended by agreeing to this scheme, and even
entertained a hope that he might be able to revictual Paris by way of the
Seine, for which purpose a flotilla of boats was prepared. Ducrot and he
expected to be ready by November 15 or 20, but it is said that they were
hampered in their preparations by the objections raised by Guiod and
Chabaud-Latour, the former an engineer, and the latter an artillery
general. Moreover, the course of events in the provinces suddenly caused a
complete reversal of Ducrot's plans.

On November 9, D'Aurelle de Paladines defeated Von der Tann at Coulmiers,
west of Orleans. The young French troops behaved extremely well, but the
victory not being followed up with sufficient vigour by D'Aurelle,
remained somewhat incomplete, though it constrained the Germans to
evacuate Orleans. On the whole this was the first considerable success
achieved by the French since the beginning of the war, and it did much to
revive the spirits which had been drooping since the fall of Metz. Another
of its results was to change Ducrot's plans respecting the Paris sortie.
He and Trochu had hitherto taken little account of the provincial armies,
and the success of Coulmiers came to them as a surprise and a revelation.
There really was an army of the Loire, then, and it was advancing on Paris
from Orleans. The Parisian forces must therefore break out on the
south-east and join hands with this army of relief in or near the forest
of Fontainebleau. Thus, all the preparations for a sortie by way of
Gennevilliers were abandoned, and followed by others for an attempt in the
direction of Champigny.

Such was roughly the position at the time when I reached Brittany and
conceived the idea of joining the French forces on the Loire and
forwarding some account of their operations to England. During my stay in
Paris with my father I had assisted him in preparing several articles, and
had written others on my own account. My eldest brother, Adrian Vizetelly,
was at this time assistant-secretary at the Institution of Naval
Architects. He had been a student at the Royal School of Naval
Architecture with the Whites, Elgars, Yarrows, Turnbulls, and other famous
shipbuilders, and on quitting it had taken the assistant-secretaryship in
question as an occupation pending some suitable vacancy in the Government
service or some large private yard. The famous naval constructor, E. J.
Reed, had started in life in precisely the same post, and it was, indeed,
at his personal suggestion that my brother took it. A year or two later he
and his friend Dr. Francis Elgar, subsequently Director of Dockyards and
one of the heads of the Fairfield Shipbuilding Company, were assisting
Reed to run his review _Naval Science_. At the time of the Franco-German
war, however, my brother, then in his twenty-sixth year, was writing on
naval subjects for the _Daily News_ and the _Pall Mall Gazette,_ edited
respectively by John Robinson and Frederick Greenwood. A few articles
written by me during my siege days were sent direct to the latter by
balloon-post, but I knew not what their fate might be. The _Pall Mall_
might be unable to use them, and there was no possibility of their being
returned to me in Paris. My father, whom I assisted in preparing a variety
of articles, suggested that everything of this kind--that is, work not
intended for the _Illustrated London News_--should be sent to my brother
for him to deal with as opportunity offered. He placed a few articles with
_The Times_--notably some rather long ones on the fortifications and
armament of Paris, whilst others went to the _Daily News_ and the _Pall
Mall_.

When, after coming out of Paris, I arrived in Brittany, I heard that
virtually everything sent from the capital by my father or myself had been
used in one or another paper, and was not a little pleased to receive a
draft on a Saint Malo banking-house for my share of the proceeds. This
money enabled me to proceed, in the first instance, in the direction of Le
Mans, which the Germans were already threatening. Before referring,
however, to my own experiences I must say something further respecting the
general position. The battle of Coulmiers (November 9) was followed by a
period of inaction on the part of the Loire Army. Had D'Aurelle pursued
Von der Tann he might have turned his barren victory to good account. But
he had not much confidence in his troops, and the weather was bad--sleet
and snow falling continually. Moreover, the French commander believed that
the Bavarian retreat concealed a trap. At a conference held between him,
Gambetta, Freyoinet, and the generals at the head of the various army
corps, only one of the latter---Chanzy--favoured an immediate march on
Paris. Borel, who was chief of D'Aurelle's staff, proposed to confine
operations to an advance on Chartres, which would certainly have been a
good position to occupy, for it would have brought the army nearer to the
capital, giving it two railway lines, those of Le Mans and Granville, for
revictualling purposes, and enabling it to retreat on Brittany in the
event of any serious reverse. But no advance at all was made. The Germans
were allowed all necessary time to increase their forces, the French
remaining inactive within D'Aurelle's lines, and their _morale_ steadily
declining by reason of the hardships to which they were subjected. The
general-in-chief refused to billet them in the villages--for fear, said
he, of indiscipline--and compelled them to bivouack, under canvas, in the
mud; seldom, moreover, allowing any fires to be kindled. For a score of
days did this state of affairs continue, and the effect of it was seen at
the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande.

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