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My Days of Adventure

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




The responsibility for the treatment of the troops rests on D'Aurelle's
memory and that of some of his fellow-generals. Meantime, Gambetta and
Freycinet were exerting themselves to improve the situation generally.
They realized that the release of Prince Frederick Charles's forces from
the investment of Metz necessitated the reinforcement of the Army of the
Loire, and they took steps accordingly. Cambriels had now been replaced in
eastern France by a certain General Michel, who lost his head and was
superseded by his comrade Crouzat. The last-named had with him 30,000 men
and 40 guns to contend against the 21,000 men and the 70 guns of Werder's
army. In order to strengthen the Loire forces, however, half of Crouzat's
men and he himself received orders to approach Orleans by way of Nevers
and Gien, the remainder of his army being instructed to retire on Lyons,
in order to quiet the agitation prevailing in that city, which regarded
itself as defenceless and complained bitterly thereof, although there was
no likelihood at all of a German attack for at least some time to come.

The new arrangements left Garibaldi chief commander in eastern France,
though the forces directly under his orders did not at this time exceed
5000 men, and included, moreover, no fewer than sixty petty free-corps,
who cared little for discipline. [There were women in several of these
companies, one of the latter including no fewer than eighteen amazons.]
A month or two previously the advent of from twenty to thirty thousand
Italian volunteers had been confidently prophesied, but very few of these
came forward. Nevertheless, Ricciotti Garibaldi (with whom was my brother
Edward) defeated a German force in a sharp engagement at Chatillon-sur-
Seine (November 19), and a week later the Garibaldians made a gallant
attempt to recapture the city of Dijon. Five thousand men, however, were
of no avail against an army corps; and thus, even if the Garibaldian
attack had momentarily succeeded, it would have been impossible to hold
Dijon against Werder's troops. The attempt having failed, the German
commander resolved to crush the Army of the Vosges, which fled and
scattered, swiftly pursued by a brigade under General von Keller. Great
jealousy prevailed at this moment among the French generals in command of
various corps which might have helped the Garibaldians. Bressolles,
Crevisier, and Cremer were at loggerheads. On November 30 the last-named
fought an indecisive action at Nuits, followed nearly three weeks later by
another in which he claimed the victory.

Meantime, Crouzat's force, now known as the 20th Army Corps, had been
moving on Nevers. To assist the Loire Army yet further, General Bourbaki
had been summoned from the north-west of France. At the fall of the Empire
the defence in that part of the country had been entrusted to Fririon,
whom Espinet de la Villeboisnet succeeded. The resources at the disposal
of both those generals were very limited, confined, indeed, to men of the
regimental dépôts and some Mobile Guards. There was a deficiency both of
officers and of weapons, and in the early skirmishes which took place with
the enemy, the principal combatants were armed peasants, rural firemen,
and the National Guards of various towns. It is true that for a while the
German force consisted only of a battalion of infantry and some Saxon
cavalry. Under Anatole de la Forge, Prefect of the Aisne, the open town of
Saint Quentin offered a gallant resistance to the invader, but although
this had some moral effect, its importance was not great. Bourbaki, who
succeeded La Villeboisnet in command of the region, was as diffident
respecting the value of his troops as was D'Aurelle on the Loire. He had
previously commanded the very pick of the French army, that is the
Imperial Guard, and the men now placed under his orders were by no means
of the same class. Bourbaki was at this time only fifty-four years of age,
and when, after being sent out of Metz on a mission to the Empress Eugénie
at Hastings, he had offered his services to the National Defence, the
latter had given him the best possible welcome. But he became one of the
great military failures of the period.

After the fall of Metz the Germans despatched larger forces under
Manteuffel into north-west France. Altogether there were 35,000 infantry
and 4000 cavalry, with 174 guns, against a French force of 22,000 men who
were distributed with 60 guns over a front of some thirty miles, their
object being to protect both Amiens and Rouen. When Bourbaki was summoned
to the Loire, he left Farre as chief commander in the north, with
Faidherbe and Lecointe as his principal lieutenants. There was bad
strategy on both sides, but La Fère capitulated to the Germans on November
26, and Amiens on the 29th.

Meantime, the position in beleaguered Paris was becoming very bad. Some
ten thousand men, either of the regular or the auxiliary forces, were laid
up in hospital, less on account of wounds than of disease. Charcoal--for
cooking purposes according to the orthodox French system--was being
strictly rationed, On November 20 only a certain number of milch cows and
a few hundred oxen, reserved for hospital and ambulance patients, remained
of all the bovine live stock collected together before the siege. At the
end of November, 500 horses were being slaughtered every day. On the other
hand, the bread allowance had been raised from 750 grammes to a kilogramme
per diem, and a great deal of bread was given to the horses as food.
Somewhat uncertain communications had been opened with the provinces by
means of pigeon-post, the first pigeon to bring despatches into the city
arriving there on November 15. The despatches, photographed on the
smallest possible scale, were usually enclosed in quills fastened under
one or another of the birds' wings. Each balloon that left the city now
took with it a certain number of carrier-pigeons for this service. Owing,
however, to the bitter cold which prevailed that winter, many of the birds
perished on the return journey, and thus the despatches they carried did
not reach Paris. Whenever any such communications arrived there, they had
to be enlarged by means of a magic-lantern contrivance, in order that they
might be deciphered. Meantime, the aeronauts leaving the city conveyed
Government despatches as well as private correspondence, and in this wise
Trochu was able to inform Gambetta that the army of Paris intended to make
a great effort on November 29.



X

WITH THE "ARMY OF BRITTANY"

The German Advance Westward--Gambetta at Le Mans--The "Army of Brittany"
and Count de Kératry--The Camp of Conlie--The Breton Marching Division--
Kératry resigns--The Champigny Sortie from Paris--The dilatory D'Aurelle--
The pitiable 20th Army Corps--Battles of Beaune-la-Rolande and Loigny--
Loss of Orleans--D'Aurelle superseded by Chanzy--Chanzy's Slow Retreat--
The 21st Corps summoned to the Front--I march with the Breton Division--
Marchenoir and Fréteval--Our Retreat--Our Rearguard Action at Droué--
Behaviour of the Inhabitants--We fight our Way from Fontenelle to Saint
Agil--Guns and Quagmires--Our Return to Le Mans--I proceed to Bennes and
Saint Malo.


After the Châteaudun affair the Germans secured possession of Chartres,
whence they proceeded to raid the department of the Eure. Going by way of
Nogent-le-Roi and Châteauneuf-en-Thimerais, they seized the old
ecclesiastical town of Evreux on November 19, whereupon the French hastily
retreated into the Orne. Some minor engagements followed, all to the
advantage of the Germans, who on the 22nd attacked and occupied the
ancient and strategically important town of Nogent-le-Rotrou--the lordship
of which, just prior to the great Revolution, belonged to the family of
the famous Count D'Orsay, the lover of Lady Blessington and the friend of
Napoleon III. The occupation of Nogent brought the Germans to a favourable
point on the direct railway-line between Paris and Le Mans, the capital of
Maine. The region had been occupied by a somewhat skeleton French army
corps--the 21st--commanded by a certain General Fiereck. On the loss of
Nogent, Gambetta immediately replaced him by one of the many naval
officers who were now with the French armies, that is Post-Captain (later
Admiral) Constant Jaurès, uncle of the famous Socialist leader of more
recent times. Jaurès at once decided to retreat on Le Mans, a distance of
rather more than a hundred miles, and this was effected within two days,
but under lamentable circumstances. Thousands of starving men deserted,
and others were only kept with the columns by the employment of cavalry
and the threat of turning the artillery upon them.

Directly Gambetta heard of the state of affairs, he hastened to Le Mans to
provide for the defence of that extremely important point, where no fewer
than five great railway lines converged, those of Paris, Alençon, Rennes,
Angers, and Tours. The troops commanded by Jaurès were in a very
deplorable condition, and it was absolutely necessary to strengthen them.
It so happened that a large body of men was assembled at Conlie, sixteen
or seventeen miles away. They formed what was called the "Army of
Brittany," and were commanded by Count Emile de Kératry, the son of a
distinguished politician and literary man who escaped the guillotine
during the Reign of Terror. The Count himself had sat in the Legislative
Body of the Second Empire, but had begun life as a soldier, serving both
in the Crimea and in Mexico, in which latter country he had acted as one
of Bazaine's orderly officers. At the Revolution Kératry was appointed
Prefect of Police, but on October 14 he left Paris by balloon, being
entrusted by Trochu and Jules Favre with a mission to Prim, in the hope
that he might secure Spanish support for France. Prim and his colleagues
refused to intervene, however, and Kératry then hastened to Tours, where
he placed himself at the disposal of Gambetta, with whom he was on terms
of close friendship. It was arranged between them that Kératry should
gather together all the available men who were left in Brittany, and train
and organize them, for which purposes a camp was established at Conlie,
north-west of Le Mans.

Conlie was the first place which I decided to visit on quitting Saint
Servan. The most appalling rumours were current throughout Brittany
respecting the new camp. It was said to be grossly mismanaged and to be a
hotbed of disease. I visited it, collected a quantity of information, and
prepared an article which was printed by the _Daily News_ and attracted
considerable attention, being quoted by several other London papers and
taken in two instances as the text for leading articles. So far as the
camp's defences and the arming of the men assembled within it were
concerned, my strictures were fully justified, but certain official
documents, subsequently published, indicate that I was in error on some
points. The whole question having given rise to a good deal of controversy
among writers on the Franco-German War--some of them regarding Conlie as a
flagrant proof of Gambetta's mismanagement of military affairs--I will
here set down what I believe to be strictly the truth respecting it.

The camp was established near the site of an old Roman one, located
between Conlie and Domfront, the principal part occupying some rising
ground in the centre of an extensive valley. It was intended to be a
training camp rather than an entrenched and fortified one, though a
redoubt was erected on the south, and some works were begun on the
northern and the north-eastern sides. When the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg
reached Conlie after the battle of Le Mans, he expressed his surprise that
the French had not fortified so good a position more seriously, and
defended it with vigour. Both the railway line and the high-road between
Laval and Le Mans were near at hand, and only a few miles away there was
the old town of Sillé-le-Guillaume, one of the chief grain and cattle
markets of the region. There was considerable forest-land in the vicinity,
and wood was abundant. But there was no watercourse, and the wells of the
various adjacent little farms yielded but a very inadequate supply of
water for a camp in which at one moment some 40,000 men were assembled.
Thus, at the outset, the camp lacked one great essential, and such was the
case when I visited it in November. But I am bound to add that a source
was soon afterwards found in the very centre of the camp, and tapped so
successfully by means of a steam-pumping arrangement that it ended by
yielding over 300,000 litres of water per diem. The critics of the camp
have said that the spot was very damp and muddy, and therefore necessarily
unhealthy, and there is truth in that assertion; but the same might be
remarked of all the camps of the period, notably that of D'Aurelle de
Paladines in front of Orleans. Moreover, when a week's snow was followed
by a fortnight's thaw, matters could scarcely be different. [From first to
last (November 12 to January 7) 1942 cases of illness were treated in the
five ambulances of the camp. Among them were 264 cases of small-pox. There
were a great many instances of bronchitis and kindred affections, but not
many of dysentery. Among the small-pox cases 88 proved fatal.]

I find on referring to documents of the period that on November 23, the
day before Gambetta visited the camp, as I shall presently relate, the
total effective was 665 officers with 23,881 men. By December 5 (although
a marching division of about 12,000 men had then left for the front) the
effective had risen to 1241 officers with about 40,000 men. [The rationing
of the men cost on an average about 7_d._ per diem.] There were 40 guns
for the defence of the camp, and some 50 field-pieces of various types,
often, however, without carriages and almost invariably without teams.
At no time, I find, were there more than 360 horses and fifty mules in the
camp. There was also a great scarcity of ammunition for the guns.
On November 23, the 24,000 men assembled in the camp had between them the
following firearms and ammunition:--

_Weapons_ _Cartridges_

Spencers (without bayonets) .. 5,000 912,080
Chassepots .. .. .. .. 2,080 100,000
Remingtons .. .. .. .. 2,000 218,000
Snyders .. .. .. .. 1,866 170,000
Muskets of various types .. .. 9,684 _Insufficient_
Revolvers .. .. .. .. 500 _Sufficient_
______
21,130

Such things as guns, gun-carriages, firearms, cartridges, bayonets, and so
forth formed the subject of innumerable telegrams and letters exchanged
between Kératry and the National Defence Delegation at Tours. The former
was constantly receiving promises from Gambetta, which were seldom kept,
supplies at first intended for him being at the last moment sent in other
directions, according to the more pressing requirements of the hour.
Moreover, a good many of the weapons which Kératry actually received were
defective. In the early days of the camp, many of the men were given
staves--broom-sticks in some instances--for use at drill.

When Gambetta arrived at Le Mans after Jaurès had retreated thither, he
learnt that action had become the more urgent as the Germans were steadily
prosecuting their advance. By orders of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg,
to whose army these forces belonged, the French were followed to La
Ferté-Bernard; and whilst one German column then went west towards Saint
Cosme, another advanced southward to Vibraye, thus seriously threatening
Le Mans. Such was the position on November 23. Fortunately, Freycinet was
able to send Jaurès reinforcements which brought his effective to about
35,000 men, and at the same time Gambetta urged Kératry to prepare a
marching division of the men at Conlie. Early on the 24th, Gambetta (who,
by the way, had travelled from Tours to Le Mans at full speed on a railway
engine) visited the camp, and expressed his approval of all he saw there.
I caught a glimpse of him, muffled in his fur coat, and looking, as well
he might, intensely cold. His orders to Kératry were to proceed to Saint
Calais, and thence to the forest of Vibraye, so as to cover Le Mans on the
east. It took fourteen hours and twenty-one trains to convey the marching
division to Yvré l'Evêque on the Huisne, just beyond Le Mans. The
effective of the division was roughly 12,000 men, nearly all of them being
Breton Mobilisés. The artillery consisted of one battery of 12's, and one
of 4's, with the necessary horses, two batteries of 4's dragged by naval
volunteers, and several Gatling guns, which had only just been delivered.
These Gatlings, which at that time were absolutely unknown in France, were
not mounted, but packed in sections in sealed zinc cases, which were
opened in the railway vans on the journey, the guns being there put
together by a young naval officer and a couple of civilian engineers. A
little later the artillery of the force was augmented.

After these troops had taken up position at Yvré, in order to prevent the
enemy from crossing the Huisne, various conferences were held between
Gambetta, Jaurès, and Kératry. General Le Bouëdec had been left in command
at Conlie, and General Trinité had been selected to command the marching
division of the Bretons. From the very outset, however, Kératry objected
to the plans of Gambetta and Jaurès, and, for the moment, the duties of
the Bretons were limited to participating in a reconnaissance on a
somewhat large scale--two columns of Jaurès' forces, under Generals Colin
and Rousseau, joining in this movement, which was directed chiefly on
Bouloire, midway between Le Mans and Saint Calais on the east. When
Bouloire was reached, however, the Germans who had momentarily occupied it
had retired, and the French thereupon withdrew to their former positions
near Le Mans.

Then came trouble. Gambetta placed Kératry under the orders of Jaurès, and
Kératry would not accept the position. Great jealousy prevailed between
these two men; Kératry, who had served ten years in the French Army,
claiming that he knew a good deal more about military matters than Jaurès,
who, as I previously mentioned, had hitherto been a naval officer. In the
end Kératry threw up his command. Le Bouëdec succeeded him at Conlie, and
Frigate-Captain Gougeard (afterwards Minister of Marine in Gambetta's
Great Ministry) took charge of the Bretons at Yvré, where he exerted
himself to bring them to a higher state of efficiency.

I must now refer to some other matters. Trochu had informed Gambetta of
his intention to make a sortie on the south-eastern side of Paris. The
plans adopted were mainly those of Ducrot, who took chief command. A
diversion made by Vinoy to the south of the city on November 29 gave the
Germans an inkling of what was intended, and proved a fruitless venture
which cost the French 1000 men. Another diversion attempted by General
Susbielle on November 30 led to a similar result, with a loss of 1200 men.
Ducrot, however, crossed the Marne, and very desperate fighting ensued at
Champigny and neighbouring localities. But Ducrot's force (less than
100,000 men) was insufficient for his purpose. The weather, moreover, was
extremely cold, the men had brought with them neither tents nor blankets,
and had to bivouac without fires. According to Trochu's memoirs there was
also an insufficiency of ammunition. Thus the Champigny sortie failed,
and the French retired to their former lines. [From November 30 to
December 3 the French lost 9482 men; and the Germans 5288 men.]

At the very moment when the Army of Paris was in full retreat, the second
battle of Orleans was beginning. Gambetta and Freyoinet wished D'Aurelle
to advance with the Loire Army in order to meet the Parisians, who, if
victorious, were expected to march on Fontainebleau by way of Melun. In
the latter days of November D'Aurelle was still covering Orleans on the
north with the 15th and 16th army corps (Generals Martin des Pallieres and
Chanzy). On his left was the 17th under Durrieu, who, a few days later,
was succeeded by a dashing cavalry officer, General de Sonis. Near at
hand, also, there was the 18th army corps, to command which Bourbaki had
been summoned from northern France, his place being taken temporarily by
young General Billot, who was appointed to be his chief of staff. The
former Army of the East under Crouzat [This had now become the 20th Army
Corps.] was on the southern side of the Loire, somewhere between Gien and
Nevers, and it was in a very deplorable condition. Boots were wanted for
10,000 men, tents for a like number, and knapsacks for 20,000. In some
battalions there were only sufficient knapsacks for a quarter of the men,
the others carrying their clothes, provisions, and cartridges all
higgledy-piggledy in canvas bags. I once heard an eyewitness relate that
many of Crouzat's soldiers marched with their biscuits (four days' supply)
strung together like chaplets, which hung from their necks or shoulders.

The Germans had heard of the removal of Crouzat's force to the Loire
country, and by way of creating a diversion the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg
was ordered to march on Beaugenoy, southwest of Orleans. Meantime,
Gambetta and Freyoinet were vainly imploring D'Aurelle to advance. He made
all sorts of excuses. At one moment he offered to consider their plans--
not to comply with them; at another he wished to wait for decisive news
from Trochu and Ducrot. Finally, instead of the five army corps resolutely
advancing in the direction of Paris, it was resolved just to open the way
with the 18th (Billot), the 20th (Crouzat), and some detachments of the
15th (Martin des Pallieres). The result was the sharp battle and serious
defeat of Beaune-la-Rolande (November 28), when the 18th corps behaved
extremely well, whilst the 20th, to whose deplorable condition I have just
referred, retreated after a little fighting; the men of the 15th on their
side doing little or nothing at all. In this engagement the French, whose
forces ought to have been more concentrated, lost 4000 men in killed and
wounded, and 1800 who were taken prisoners; the German loss not exceeding
1000 men. Four days later (December 2) came the very serious repulse of
Loigny-Poupry, in which the 15th, 16th, and 17th army corps were engaged.
The French then lost from 6000 to 7000 men (2500 of them being taken
prisoners), and though the German losses exceeded 4000, the engagement
ended by quite demoralising D'Aurelle's army.

Under those conditions came the battle of Orleans on December 3 and 4--the
Germans now being under the chief command of that able soldier, Prince
Frederick Charles of Prussia, father of the Duchess of Connaught. On this
occasion D'Aurelle ordered the corps engaged at Loigny to retreat on his
entrenched camp. The 18th and 20th could not cooperate in this movement,
however; and on the three others being driven back, D'Aurelle instructed
Chanzy to retire on Beaugency and Marchenoir, but sent no orders to
Bourbaki, who was now on the scene of action. Finally, the commander-in-
chief decided to abandon his entrenched camp, the troops disbanded and
scattered, and Orleans was evacuated, the flight being so precipitate that
two of the five bridges across the Loire were left intact, at the enemy's
disposal. Moreover, the French Army was now dislocated, Bourbaki, with the
18th, and Des Pallières, with the 15th corps, being on the south of the
river, whilst the other three corps were on the northern side. The former
retired in the direction of Bourges and Nevers, whilst Chanzy, who was now
placed in chief command of the others, D'Aurelle being removed from his
post, withdrew gradually towards the forest of Marchenoir. In that second
battle of Orleans the French lost 20,000 men, but 18,000 of them were
taken prisoners. On their side, the Germans (who captured 74 guns) lost
fewer than 1800 men.

For three days (December 8 to 10) Chanzy contested the German advance at
Villorceau, but on December 12 Blois had to be evacuated, and the army
withdrew to the line of the Loir in the neighbourhood of Vendôme.
Meantime, at the very moment when the fate of Orleans was being sealed,
orders reached Jaurès at Le Mans to advance to the support of the Loire
Army. I was lodging at an inn in the town, my means being too slender to
enable me to patronize any of the big hotels on the Place des Halles,
which, moreover, were crowded with officers, functionaries, and so forth.
I had become acquainted with some of the officers of the Breton division
under Gougeard, and on hearing that they were going to the front, I
managed to obtain from Colonel Bernard, Gougeard's chief of staff,
permission to accompany the column with one of the ambulance parties. Now
and again during the advance I rode in one of the vans, but for the most
part I marched with the men, this, moreover, being the preferable course,
as the weather was extremely cold. Even had I possessed the means (and at
most I had about £10 in my pocket), I could not have bought a horse at Le
Mans. I was stoutly clad, having a very warm overcoat of grey Irish
frieze, with good boots, and a pair of gaiters made for me by Nicholas,
the Saint Malo bootmaker, younger brother (so he himself asserted) of
Niccolini the tenor, sometime husband of Mme. Patti.

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