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Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4

W >> Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks >> Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4




More fortunate than his neighbor, the elector of Hesse-Cassel saved
his army, though not his territory, from the invader. His troops
retired toward the Maine, where they secured a communication with the
federal army at Frankfort. The elector remained in Hesse, and was sent
a state prisoner to the Prussian fortress of Stettin, on the Oder. The
Prussians overran his territory, declaring they were not at war
against "peoples, but against governments."

Two bodies of Prussian troops entered Saxony--the First Army and the
Army of the Elbe--and the Saxon army retired into Bohemia to effect a
junction with the Austrians. On the 20th, Leipzig was seized, and the
whole of Saxony was in undisturbed possession of the Prussians; Prince
Frederick Charles issuing a most stringent order that private property
should be respected, and every regard shown to the comfort of the
inhabitants. His order was strictly observed, and every measure taken
to prevent the miseries attendant on the occupation of a country by a
foreign army.

The invasion of Saxony brought immediately open war between Prussia
and Austria, and on the 23d the Prussian army crossed the Bohemian
frontier--only a week since it had entered Saxony. It is needless here
to detail the battles which immediately followed; suffice it to say,
the Prussians were victorious in all--at Podoll, where the needle-gun
did such terrible work; Munchengratz, which gave them the whole line
of the Iser; Trautenan, Gitschen, and others. On the 1st of July, the
king of Prussia arrived from Berlin and took the supreme command of
the army. The following day brought news from the crown prince that he
was hastening from Silesia with the Second Army, whereby the whole of
the Prussian forces would be concentrated. On the 3d of July was
fought the decisive battle of Koniggratz, or Sadowa, as it is
sometimes called, from the village of that name, a cluster of
pine-wood cottages, enclosed by orchards, with a wood-crowned hill at
the back, which was fiercely disputed by the contending parties.

On that day, General von Benedek had taken his position with the
Austrian army in front of the frontier fortress of Koniggratz, on the
right bank of the Elbe, about fifty-five miles east of Prague, to
oppose the passage of the crown prince from Silesia. In his front lay
the marshy stream of Bistritz, upon which Sadowa and a few other
villages are situated. At half-past seven in the morning the battle
began, and continued with great slaughter without any marked advantage
on either side till the arrival of the crown prince decided, like the
advance of Blücher at Waterloo, the fortune of the day. The Austrians
were completely routed, and fled across the Elbe to save the capital.
They lost 40,000 men in this sanguinary conflict, the Prussians
10,000. The forces in the field were 200,000 Austrians and Saxons, and
260,000 Prussians.

Immediately after her crushing defeat, Austria surrendered Venetia to
France, and the Emperor Napoleon at once accepted the gift and gave it
over to Victor Emmanuel.

On July 26, preliminaries of peace were signed at Nikolsburg, and
peace was finally concluded at Prague, August 23, between Prussia and
Austria, and about the same time with the South German states. The
Prussian House of Deputies voted the annexation of the conquered
states, and in October peace was concluded with Saxony. By these
arrangements, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Frankfort became provinces of
Prussia, as well as the long-disputed duchies of Denmark. All the
German states north of the Maine concluded a treaty, offensive and
defensive, for the maintenance of the security of their states.
Prussia increased her territory by 32,000 square miles and her
population 4,000,000; and in October, 1866, the whole of northern
Germany was united into a Confederation.

This Confederation, known as the North German, possessed a common
parliament elected by universal suffrage, in which each state was
represented according to its population. The first or constituent
parliament met early in 1867, and adopted, with a few modifications,
the constitution proposed by Count Bismarck. The new elections then
took place, and the first regular North German parliament met in
September, 1867. According to this constitution, there was to be a
common army and fleet, under the sole command of Prussia; a common
diplomatic representation abroad, of necessity little else than
Prussian; and to Prussia also was intrusted the management of the
posts and telegraphs in the Confederation.

The Southern German states which up to this point had not joined the
Bund, were Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and
Lichtenstein, with a joint area of 43,990 square miles, and a total
population (1866) of 8,524,460. But, though these states were not
formally members of the Bund, they were so practically, for they were
bound to Prussia by treaties of alliance offensive and defensive, so
that in the event of a war the king of Prussia would have at his
disposal an armed force of upward of 1,100,000 men.

During the next few years the North German Confederation was employed
in consolidating and strengthening itself, and in trying to induce the
southern states to join the league. The Zollverein was remodelled and
extended, until by the year 1868 every part of Germany was a member of
it, with the exception of the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, and a
small part of Baden. This paved the way for the formal entrance of the
southern states into the confederation; but they still hung back,
though the ideal of a united Germany was gradually growing in force
and favor.

Meanwhile the terms of the treaty of Prague, together with the
complete removal of alien powers from Italy, had wrought a radical
change in the political relations of the European States. Excluded
from Germany, the dominions of Austria still extended to the verge of
Venetia and the Lombard plains, but her future lay eastward and her
centre of gravity had been removed to Buda-Pesth. In the South German
courts, no doubt, there was a bias toward Vienna, and a dislike of
Prussia; yet both the leaning and the repugnance were counterbalanced
by a deeper dread of France rooted in the people by the vivid memories
of repeated and cruel invasions. Russia, somewhat alarmed by the rapid
success of King William, had been soothed by diplomatic reassurances,
the tenor of which is not positively known, although a series of
subsequent events more than justified the inference made at that time,
that promises, bearing on the czar's Eastern designs, were tendered
and accepted as a valuable consideration for the coveted boon of
benevolent neutrality, if not something more substantial. Like Russia,
France had lost nothing by the campaign of 1866; her territories were
intact; her ruler had mediated between Austria and Prussia; and he had
the honor of protecting the pope, who, as a spiritual and temporal
prince, was still in possession of Rome and restricted territorial
domains. But the Napoleonic court, and many who looked upon its head
as a usurper, experienced, on the morrow of Sadowa, and in a greater
degree after the preface to a peace had been signed at Nikolsburg, a
sensation of diminished magnitude, a consciousness of lessened
prestige, and a painful impression that their political, perhaps even
their military place in Europe, as the heirs of Richelieu, Louis XIV.,
and Napoleon, had been suddenly occupied by a power which they had
taught themselves to contemn as an inferior. Until the summer of 1866
the emperor Napoleon fancied that he was strong enough to play with
Bismarck a game of diplomatic chess.

In that he erred profoundly. As early as the first week in August,
1866, M. Benedetti, the French ambassador to the court of Berlin, was
instructed to claim the left bank of the Rhine as far as and including
Mainz. Bismarck replied that "the true interest of France is not to
obtain an insignificant increase of territory, but to aid Germany in
constituting herself after a fashion which will be most favorable to
all concerned." Delphos could not have been more oracular. But
Napoleon III. could not or would not heed. A week later Benedetti was
instructed to submit a regular scale of concessions--the frontiers of
1814 and the annexation of Belgium, or Luxemburg and Belgium,
Benedetti received the most courteous attention and nothing more. This
was irritating. The French had been accustomed for more than two
hundred years to meddle directly in Germany and find there allies,
either against Austria, Prussia, or England; and the habit of
centuries had been more than confirmed by the colossal raids,
victories, and annexations of Napoleon I. A Germany which should
escape from French control and reverse, by its own energetic action,
the policy of Henry IV., Richelieu, Louis XIV., his degenerate
grandson, Louis XV., and of the great Napoleon himself, was an affront
to French pride, and could not be patiently endured. The opposing
forces which had grown up were so strong that the wit of man was
unable to keep them asunder; and all the control over the issue left
to kings and statesmen was restricted to the fabrication of means
wherewith to deliver or sustain the shock, and the choice of the hour,
if such choice were allowed.

Then presently the opportunity occurred. On July 4, 1870, the throne
of Spain was offered to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. The fact
created the greatest excitement in France. Threatening speeches were
made. On July 18 Prince Leopold declined the offer. On the morrow
Benedetti was instructed to demand a guarantee that any future offer
of the kind would be refused. The king of Prussia would not listen to
the proposition. The French minister, through whom the demand had been
transmitted, then asked for his passports. War was imminent.

At the prospect Paris grew mad with enthusiasm. Crowds assembled in
the streets, shouting "Down with Prussia!" "Long live France!" "To the
Rhine!" "To Berlin!" The papers abounded with inflammatory appeals,
and, after the impulsive French fashion, glorified beforehand the easy
triumphs that were to be won over the Prussians. Men told one another
that they would be across the Rhine in a week, and at Berlin in a
fortnight. The excitement in Prussia was not less than that in France.
The people, with scarcely an exception, declared their readiness for
war, and seemed to find a pleasure in the opportunity now presented
for settling old quarrels. Like the people of Paris, the Prussians
shouted "To the Rhine!" The French cry of "To Berlin!" had its
counterpart in the German ejaculation of "To Paris!"

Perhaps a sentence spoken by M. Guyot Montpayroux best illustrates the
predominant feeling. "Prussia," he said, "has forgotten the France of
Jena, and the fact must be recalled to her memory." Thus was war
declared on the night of July 15. Thiers, who desired a war with
Prussia "at the proper time," has left on record his judgment that the
hour then selected was "detestably ill-chosen." Yet even he and
Gambetta were both anxious that "satisfaction" should be obtained for
Sadowa; while the thought which animated the court is admirably
expressed in the phrase imputed to the empress who, pointing to the
prince imperial, said, "This child will never reign unless we repair
the misfortunes of Sadowa." Such was the ceaseless refrain. The word
haunted French imaginations incessantly, and it was the pivot on which
the imperial policy revolved; it exercised a spell scarcely less
powerful and disastrous upon monarchists like Thiers and republicans
like Gambetta. Long foreseen, the dread shock, like all grave
calamities, came nevertheless as a surprise, even upon reflective
minds. Statesmen and soldiers who looked on, while they shared in the
natural feelings aroused by so tremendous a drama, were also the
privileged witnesses of two instructive experiments on a grand
scale--the processes whereby mighty armies are brought into the field,
and the methods by means of which they are conducted to defeat or
victory.

The French field army, called at the outset the "Army of the Rhine,"
consisted nominally of 336,000 men with 924 guns. It was considered
that of these, 300,000 would be available for the initial operations.
The infantry of the army was provided with a breech-loading weapon,
called after its inventor the Chassepot. The Chassepot was a weapon in
all respects superior to the famous needle-gun, which was still the
weapon of the Prussian army. Attached likewise to the divisional
artillery was a machine gun called the Mitrailleuse, from which great
things were expected. But this gun had been manufactured with a
secrecy which, while it prevented foreign inspection, had withheld
also the knowledge of its mechanism from the soldiers who were to work
it. In the field, therefore, it proved a failure.

Since the Crimean and Austrian wars, while the armies of the other
European states had advanced in efficiency, the French army had
deteriorated. The reason was that favoritism rather than merit had
been made the road to court favor. The officers who had pointed to the
training of the Prussian soldiers, as indicating the necessity for the
adoption of similar modes for the French army, had been laughed at and
left in the cold. The consequence was, that for ten years prior to the
war of 1870, the French army had received instruction only of the most
superficial character. It had been considered sufficient if the
soldiers were brought to the point of making a good show on the parade
ground. Little more had been required of them. Field training and
musketry training had been alike neglected. The officers had ceased to
study, and the government had taken no pains to instruct them. What
was more vicious still, the alienation between officers and men, which
had been noticed even in the war of 1859, had widened. The officers
generally had ceased to take the smallest interest in the comfort of
the men in camp or in quarters. These matters were left to the
non-commissioned officers. Needless to add, they were not always
properly attended to. It may be added that the system of drill was so
devised as to give no play to the reasoning powers of the officer. He
was a machine and nothing more.

Of the artillery of the French army it has to be said, that it was far
inferior to that of the Germans, and known to be so by the French war
department. In the matter of reserves, France had comparatively
nothing.

Far different were the composition and the state of preparation of the
Prussian army; far different, also, those of her German allies; far
higher the qualities of their general officers; far superior the
discipline and morale of their troops; far more ready, in every single
particular, to begin a war; far more thoroughly provided to carry that
war to a successful issue.

The German infantry had been thoroughly organized on a system which
gave to every officer the necessity of exercising independent action,
and to the men the faculty of understanding the object of the
manoeuvre directed. Its cavalry had been specially instructed in
duties of reconnoissance, of insuring repose for the infantry, of
collecting intelligence, of concealing the march of armies, of acting
as a completer of victory, or as a shield in case of defeat. It had
profited greatly by the lessons it had learned in the war of 1866.

The German artillery had likewise been greatly improved in efficiency
of manoeuvre since 1866. It was in all respects superior to that of
the French.

Of the Prussian and South German leaders, I will only say that we
shall meet again the men from whom we parted on the conclusion of the
armistice of Nikolsburg. What was their task and how they executed it
will be described in the pages that follow. In mere numbers, the king
of Prussia had a great advantage over his enemy. For, while without
any assistance from South Germany, and after allowing for three army
corps which might be necessary to watch Austria and Denmark, he could
begin the campaign with a force of 350,000 men, he was certain of the
assistance of Southern Germany, and confident that, unless the French
should obtain considerable successes at the outset, neither Austria
nor Denmark would stir a hand to aid them.

To counterbalance this superiority of numbers the French emperor had
cherished a vague hope that, in a war against Prussia, he might
possibly count upon the ancient friendship for France of Bavaria and
Saxony, and to a still greater extent upon Austria and Italy. With
regard to Bavaria and Saxony he was speedily undeceived. Moreover,
contrary to expectation, other German states decided to support
Prussia and placed their armies, which were eventually commanded by
the crown prince, at the disposal of King William. With regard to
Austria and Italy, Colonel Malleson in a work on this subject,[1] to
which we are much indebted, states that their co-operation was made
dependent on the initial successes of the French troops. Colonel
Malleson adds:

"It was not only understood, but was actually drafted in a treaty--the
signing of which, however, was prevented by the rapid course of the
war--that if, on the 15th of September, France should be holding her
own in Southern Germany, then Austria and Italy would jointly declare
war against Prussia."

These conditions made it clear that ultimate success in the struggle
about to commence would accrue to the power which should obtain the
first advantages.

That Germany--for it was Germany and not Prussia only which entered
upon this great struggle--would obtain these initial advantages seemed
almost certain. Count Moltke had for some time previous been engaged
in planning for a war with France. So far back as 1868 all his
arrangements for the formation of the armies to be employed, the
points to be occupied, the nature of the transport, had been clearly
laid down. These instructions had been carefully studied by the
several corps commanders and their staff. Not one matter, however
apparently trivial, had been neglected. When, then, on the 16th of
July, the king of Prussia gave the order for mobilization, it required
only to insert the day and the hour on which each body of troops
should march. With respect to the armies of the states of Southern
Germany, Moltke, anticipating that the French emperor would throw his
main army as rapidly as possible into Southern Germany, had
recommended that the contingents from that part of the country should
march northward to join those of Prussia on the middle Rhine, to
assume there a position which should menace the flank and rear of the
invading army. This position would be the more practical, as in the
event of the French not invading Southern Germany, the combined force,
stretching from Saarbrucken to Landau, would be ready to invade
France, and sever the communications with Paris of the French armies
on the frontier. Count Moltke had calculated that the German troops
intended to cross the French frontier would be in a position to make
their forward movement by the 4th of August. Pending the development
of the French strategy with respect to Southern Germany, therefore, he
thought it prudent to delay the march of the southern contingents, in
order that no part of the army might be suddenly overwhelmed by a
superior force. On the actual frontier he placed, then, only a few
light troops, for the purposes of reconnoitring, and for checking the
first advance of the enemy until supports should arrive.

The French emperor had, indeed, been keenly alive to the advantages
which would accrue to himself from a prompt invasion of Southern
Germany. He designed to concentrate one hundred and fifty thousand men
at Metz; one hundred thousand at Strasburg; to cross into Baden with
these armies; while a third, assembling at Chalons, should protect the
frontier against the German forces. The plan itself was an excellent
one had he only been able to execute it, for, as we have seen, early
success in Southern Germany would have meant the armed assistance of
Austria and Italy. But the French army was in a condition more
unready, one might truly say, of greater demoralization, thus early,
than its severest critics had imagined. Considerable forces were
indeed massed about Metz and Strasburg. But the commissariat and
transport departments were in a state of the most hopeless confusion.
The army could not move. To remedy these evils time was wanted, and
time was the commodity the generals could not command. Every day which
evoked some little order out of chaos brought the Germans nearer to
positions, the occupation of which would render impossible the
contemplated invasion. The emperor had quitted Paris for Metz,
accompanied by the prince imperial, on the 28th of July, and had
arrived there and taken the supreme command the same day. The day
following he met his generals at St. Avoid, and unfolded to them his
plans. Since war had been declared he had lost many illusions. It had
become clear to him that he was warring against the concentrated might
of Germany; that he could not make the inroad into Southern Germany
originally contemplated without exposing Paris to an attack from
forces already occupying the country between Treves and Mannheim: that
he was bound to hold that line. Anxious, however, to assume the
offensive, he dictated the following plan to his marshals. Bazaine,
with the Second, Third, and Fifth Army Corps, should cross the Saar at
Saarbrücken, covered on his left by the Fourth Corps, which should
make a show of advancing against Saarlouis, while MacMahon, pushing
forward from his position near Strasburg, should cover his right. The
emperor had some reason to believe that the Saar was weakly held.

But his own generals showed him that his plan was impossible. They
represented to him that instead of the three hundred thousand men
whom, in the delirium of the Paris enthusiasm, he believed he would
find available for his purposes, he had at the utmost one hundred and
eighty-six thousand; that in every requirement for moving the army was
deficient; that there was scarcely a department which was not
disorganized. He was compelled, therefore, to renounce his plan for
decisive offensive action. He came to that resolve most unwillingly,
for Paris was behind him, ready to rise unless he should make some
show of advancing. It was to reassure the excited spirits of the
capital, rather than to effect any military result, that on the 2d of
August, he moved with sixty thousand men in the direction of
Saarbrücken. The garrison of that place consisted of something less
than four thousand men with six guns. The emperor attacked it with the
corps of Frossard, eighteen battalions and four batteries. These
compelled the slender German garrison to evacuate the place, but
Frossard, though the bridges across the Saar were not defended, made
no attempt to cross that river. The soldierly manner in which the
Germans had covered their retreat had left on his mind the impression
that they were more numerous than they were, and that there was a
larger force behind them.

Still, for the only time in the war, the emperor was able to send a
reassuring telegram to Paris. The young prince, upon whom the hopes of
the nation would, he hoped, rest, had undergone the "baptism of fire."
French troops had made the first step in advance.

Soon, however, it became clear to him that the enemy had concentrated
along the line of the frontier, and were about to make their spring.
Moltke, in fact, from his headquarters at Mayence, was, by means of
solitary horsemen employed in profusion, keeping himself thoroughly
well acquainted not only with the movements of the French, but with
their vacillation, their irresolution, their want of plan. The sudden
appearance from unexpected quarters of these horsemen conveyed a
marked feeling of insecurity to the minds of the French soldiers, and
these feelings were soon shared by their chiefs. It was very clear to
them that an attack might at any moment come, though from what quarter
and in what force they were absolutely ignorant. This ignorance
increased their vacillations, their uncertainties. Orders and
counter-orders followed each other with startling rapidity. The
soldiers, harassed, began to lose confidence; the leaders became more
and more incapable of adopting a plan.

Suddenly, in the midst of their vacillations, of their marchings and
counter-marchings, the true report reached them, on the evening of the
3d of August, that a French division, the outpost of MacMahon's army,
had been surprised and defeated at Weissenburg by a far superior
force. Napoleon at once ordered the Fifth Corps to concentrate at
Bitsche, and despatched a division of the Third to Saarguemünd. These
orders were followed by others. Those of the 5th of August divided the
army of the Rhine into two portions, the troops in Alsace being placed
under MacMahon, those in Lorraine under Bazaine, the emperor retaining
the Guard. Those of the 7th directed the Second Corps to proceed to
Bitsche, the Third to Saarguemünd, the Fourth to Haut-Homburg, the
Guard to St. Avoid. These instructions plainly signified the making of
a flank movement in front of a superior enemy. With such an army as
the emperor had, inferior in numbers, many of the regiments as yet
incomplete, all his resources behind him, and these becoming daily
more unavailable, his one chance was to concentrate in a position
commanding the roads behind it, and yet adapted for attack if attack
should be necessary. As it was, without certain information as to the
movements of the Germans, anxious to move, yet dreading to do so,
until his regiments should be completed, the French emperor was
confused and helpless. He forgot even to transmit to the generals on
one flank the general directions he had issued to those on the other.
Bazaine, for instance, was left on the 5th in ignorance of the
emperor's intentions with respect to MacMahon; on the 6th none of the
subordinate generals knew that the flank march was contemplated.
Frossard, who had fallen back to Spicheren, considered his position so
insecure that he suggested to Leboeuf that he should be allowed to
retire from the Saarbrücken ridge. He was ordered in reply to fall
back on Forbach, but no instructions were given him as to the course
he should pursue in the event of his being attacked, nor were the
contemplated movements of the emperor communicated to him. In every
order that was issued there was apparent the confused mind of the
issuer.

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