Part 22

The situation is inexplicable. The foe is at the gates. The outposts have been driven in, and it said that two of the forts have been surrendered. All day long a great stream of vehicles, laden with every imaginable article of furniture, and accompanied by crowds of disconsolate citizens, has been pouring into Paris over every available bridge. The Bois de Boulogne is a huge camp, and every tree along the Boulevards serves as shelter to a suburban family. Yet the absence of excitement is extraordinary. There has been a good deal of murmuring at the interference of the Government with the Generals. Divided counsels, it is said, and a refusal to give General de Saussier a free hand, led to the defeats in Belgium. As usual, a mob assembled this morning in front of the Tuileries, crying out for the deposition of the President; and it is reported that a couple of Government clerks were somewhat maltreated. But the demonstration was insignificant, probably the work of German _provocateurs_, and the crowd of roughs and pickpockets dispersed with the utmost rapidity when two squadrons of Gardes Républiques were seen trotting down the Boulevard.

The execution of the seven Anarchist leaders three days ago has had a very salutary effect. I have just had an interview with M. de Freycinet’s private secretary. He has become positively bland at the sound of the German cannon, distinctly heard beyond the river. To my reflections on the gravity of the situation he replied, with a smile and a bow, that although New York and Philadelphia were once occupied by the enemy, yet the American Revolution was _un fait accompli_. As we were speaking the President’s carriage passed at a trot, and I had a good view of the cool-headed citizen who holds the anxious position of First Magistrate of the Republic. He certainly displayed no symptoms of anxiety, and I fancy the crowd that witnessed his progress found something magnetic in his easy smile. Never in the piping times of peace have I heard such plaudits as followed his equipage.

The same air of quiet confidence characterises all the members of the Government whom I have met to-day. Whether it is justified or not, only the future can reveal; but I may say that, notwithstanding the defeat at Machault, the rapid advance of the Germans on the capital, and the occupation of Rheims, the spirit of the French nation is untamed. My military friends own frankly that at Machault they were fairly beaten by superior numbers. The movement into Belgium, they say, was intended merely as a demonstration, and the commander exceeded his orders in fighting a pitched battle against great odds. As to the capture of Rheims, they preserve a discreet silence; and the report of the annihilation of two divisions near Bar-le-Duc is received with an incredulous smile. Even whilst admitting the fact that many wounded men have been abandoned to the care of the enemy, one of General de Saussier’s aides-de-camp shrugged his shoulders, and remarked that they would be none the worse for a short visit to the Rhine. _Nous verrons ce que nous verrons!_

_June 29_, 6 P.M.

The President’s smile seems to have had some reason. The rescue of Paris has been accomplished in as dramatic a fashion as that of Andromeda. General de Negrier is the Perseus. At 2 A.M. the quiet of the summer night was suddenly broken. Above the ceaseless rumble of the carts along the Boulevards were heard the unmistakable sounds of battle, and the eastern horizon was lit up as if by the northern lights. The weird streamers of the electric lanterns in the forts struck quivering through the darkness; and away beyond, the long rattle of musketry rose and fell. Mounting in hot haste, I rode down to the Porte St. Mandé, but could get no further. Very wisely, the road was kept clear for the troops, should they be compelled to retreat, and in any case the long train of ammunition tumbrils and ambulances left but little room for enterprising civilians. The high parapet of the old _enceinte_ was thronged with anxious crowds, a black, silent mass, gazing intently into the darkness out beyond. At one time the roar of battle appeared to be coming nearer. It may have been due perhaps to a change in the wind; but the suppressed exclamations and the sudden impulsive movement showed the pent-up excitement of the people. Then there was a lull; and then the muffled roar was heard again, but distinctly further away, and even as we listened, receding in the distance. It was at this moment that a faint echo of trumpets and rolling drums was borne upon the breeze, followed by the far-off sound of a mighty cry, the long shout of triumph of a victorious onset; and a deep sigh of relief burst from the close-packed thousands on the wall. It was not till day had dawned that a staff-officer was seen galloping towards the Porte St. Mandé from the battlefield; and we learned that the garrison of Paris had inflicted a decisive defeat on their over-confident foe, and that last year’s experiments in offensive operations by night around the capital had borne their full fruit. As I write, ambulance after ambulance full of wounded, and long columns of German prisoners, dirty, footsore, and begrimed with powder, attest the severity of the fighting and the completeness of the victory.

LATER.

I have had the opportunity of speaking to some of the German prisoners. One of them, a gentleman whom I have often met in Washington and Boston, says the troops were exhausted by the hard work of the previous days, and believing the French were thoroughly cowed, were utterly disconcerted by De Negrier’s sudden offensive. He blames the rashness of the leaders in pushing on to Paris with large armies still in the field on either flank of their communications. It appears that before the attack took place news had been received of a great disaster to the covering force of three Corps near Bar-le-Duc, and this was the Medusa’s head which paralysed the German power of resistance. ‘Oh, for one hour of Von Moltke,’ is the universal sentiment amongst the prisoners. Another officer, a Bavarian, was much surprised at the reports of great German successes in the East which have appeared in the English newspapers. He declares that the French movements were merely reconnaissances in force, in two instances pushed too far, and that the Germans suffered very heavily. The number of prisoners taken by the Germans has been very greatly exaggerated; the majority were severely wounded men, and are a great source of trouble to their captors. This officer appears to have little love for the Emperor, scoffs at his ‘divine mission,’ and hints that Bavaria, at least, is very weary of the Prussian hegemony.

4 P.M.

The Germans are in full retreat. The force that last night threatened the capital from the west has been heavily defeated by De Negrier. Paris is itself again. A member of the Government tells me that General de Saussier, acting on De Miribel’s advice, had resolved from the first to allow the rash offensive of the enemy to have free play; believing that the traditions of 1870 and the terrible strain of a double war on their meagre resources would impel them to make a rush on Paris, in the hope of finishing the war at a single blow. The Emperor seems to have expected much from internal dissensions in France. ‘But,’ says the Minister, ‘when the aristocrats condescended to become Republicans, France became once more a nation. In 1870 we had our Federals and Confederates, our Imperialists and our Radicals. To-day, political differences mean as little as in America.’

ADVANCE OF GENERAL DE GALLIFFET.

SIGHTING THE ENEMY.

(_From an American Correspondent with the French Army._)

CHAUMONT, _June 29_, 10 P.M.

At length the embargo placed on all letters since the 30th of May has been removed, and the correspondents are free to telegraph without restriction as to matter or quantity. Since May the 25th, until ten days ago, General de Galliffet’s magnificent army has been quiescent under shelter of the strong camps of Langres, Epinal, and Belfort. Even our cavalry has had little to do beyond sending out numerous officers’ patrols, north, east, and west. The General preferred trusting to a strong screen of infantry outposts; and on their side the Germans, though reported to be very strong in the neighbourhood of Bar-le-Duc, have remained inactive.

It is surprising with what patience the French soldiery endured this weary time of waiting; but the men have supreme confidence in the hero of Sedan, and their intelligence is of a very high order. However, your Frenchman is a restless being, and discipline was put to a severe test when rumour of a German advance on Paris filtered through the camps. But General de Galliffet, by most judicious orders of the day, exposing the errors of the Germans in advancing without first securing their communications, and enlarging on the strength of the fortifications of the capital, appealed to the soldierly intelligence of the army, and not in vain. Still, the fierce desire of the troops to meet their detested enemies had been curbed almost beyond bounds by the 20th of June, and I scarcely think, strong as the General is, that he would have dared to delay movement for another day.

Long before day had broken on the 20th the march began; and for nine days, over the magnificent roads which run through the rich pastoral country west of the Moselle, the long columns moved past in the blazing summer weather, their faces set northward, and their hearts longing for the battle so long deferred. The splendid marching powers of the French Infantry of to-day, as well as the high-training and experience of the Staff, make the movement of 200,000 men and more than 700 guns a matter of child’s play. The marches are long, and the dust stifling; but still order and regularity are the characteristics of the great exodus from the fortresses. The ambulances are empty, and, heavily weighted as they are, the little linesmen in their long blue capotes and wide red trousers swing steadily along, laughing and singing as the sun nears his setting even more cheerily than when the fields on either hand were fresh with the morning dew. Loud are the cheers that greeted the General, active as the youngest subaltern of Hussars in spite of his sixty odd years, as magnificently mounted, he rides slowly past the regiments, with cheery word of greeting and encouragement to his sturdy _fantassins_.

On the morning of yesterday reports came in from the cavalry, riding more than twenty miles to the front, that the Prussians were also advancing; and the same evening came the first presage of the storm: two or three ambulances—full this time—and half-a-dozen captured Uhlans. This sight stilled song and jest: a grim silence fell upon the columns, and an air of fierce determination took the place of the eager excitement which had hitherto lit up those mobile faces. The bivouacs that night were very quiet; the men gathered in little groups round the camp kettles, or sat apart in their shirt-sleeves, assiduously cleaning their rifles.

Late last night, as I was turning into my humble billet, shared by two officers of the Staff, in the Curé’s cottage at Maison d’Or, I received a message from the Major commanding a Chasseur battalion, who had for the past three days been moving forward with the cavalry, that he had obtained permission for me to accompany him on the morrow. It was unlikely, so my friends on the Staff informed me, that the armies would come into collision, and if I joined _les petites vitriers_ I would have an opportunity of seeing something of the cavalry fighting.

Before daybreak, therefore, I found myself in a tiny village consisting of a church and half-a-dozen farm-houses, with substantial granaries and gardens, and a single cabaret, in company with one of those battalions _d’elité_ of the army, the _Chasseurs à pied_, who boast that the cavalry can neither leave them behind nor do without them.

The village stands in the centre of a rolling valley nearly three miles broad, running east and west, with a long ridge to the south and another to the north, dotted with vineyards and potato-patches; but without hedge, or wall, or ditch.

In the tower of the church, where I found a convenient loft and a narrow window, I could see, through the morning mist, little bodies of cavalry well to the front; and behind the village three regiments of Dragoons were standing, dismounted beside their horses. Away to the north one would hear at long intervals a shot or two, and messengers came riding rapidly back to the brigade in rear. One thing struck me as curious; although I was in the midst of the village, scarcely a Chasseur was to be seen; and it was not for some time that I descried blue uniforms lying behind the orchard walls, and now and then a _kepi_ was to be seen at the windows looking on to the single broad street.

BRISK CAVALRY ENGAGEMENT.

As the sunbeams gained more power, I saw that the open slopes of the opposite ridge, more than a mile and a half away, were covered with little groups of horsemen, moving steadily forward, and apparently pressing back our scouts. Even the isolated squadrons to the front began to give back at a walk, when by the corner of a wood on the sky-line, a sudden appearance of dark groups of men and horses, with white electric-looking flashes, betokened the advent of a battery. The explosion of the first shells awakes our cavalry brigade to action. A couple of batteries disengage themselves from the mass of horsemen in rear, and from a knoll to the left of the village our guns are soon replying to the enemy’s challenge. Shrilly the trumpets sound. The dragoons mount, and with jingling scabbards and tossing plumes trot away to where a deep fold in the ground affords them better cover. This movement is not unobserved by the German scouts; I can see them racing back over the hill, and in a few moments, it seems, a dark mass of horsemen appears against the northern horizon, the serried lances standing out clearly against the cloudless sky. Again the shrill blast of the trumpet, and our eighteen hundred dragoons are moving out to meet the foe. With a rush and rattle the rear regiments take ground to either flank, and the long sabres flash from their scabbards. The hussars are retiring rapidly, away to the left of the guns, and the field is left clear for the shock of the opposing masses. My blood tingles with excitement. The sun glints bravely on the brass helmets of the Frenchmen; the dark blue mass a mile away is gathering pace like the mighty breaker of a stormy sea. The lances drop as if by magic, the long line changes its direction, and then wheels inward. I can see the officers turning in their saddles, far in front of their squadrons, signalling with gleaming swords; a hundred seconds will bring them together, when suddenly, to my horror and disappointment, the French slacken speed, and, before I can realise the fact, have turned rein and are riding past the village as if for their lives. Squadrons to the right, squadrons to the left, and a troop or so clattering madly down the ill-paved street. Far above the crash of iron hoofs and the rush of flying squadrons I can hear the hoarse cry of triumph of the foe. Down they come, heads and lances low, racing in pursuit. A last salvo, which sends a score of horses stumbling in their tracks, breaks for a moment the symmetry of that magnificent line, and hurls an officer helpless beneath the thundering hoofs, and our batteries have limbered up and dash frantically, with gunners plying whip and spur, across the plain.

They are lost, they are lost, so fast follows the foe, riding in furious haste to gather the trophies of the fight. A great cloud of dust rises before them, but I can see the faces of the men as the squadrons diverge to pass the village, and note the laughter and the shouts of those fair-haired troopers with the scales upon their shoulders. Suddenly the leader, riding like Scarlett at Balaclava, twenty lengths in front, leans back in his stirrups, checks his charger in his headlong career, and throws his hand high above his head. The trumpeter beside him raises the trumpet to his lips, but ere the notes ring out they are drowned in a loud roar of musketry. I had forgotten the Chasseurs in the orchards; the Germans had never suspected their presence. The surprise is complete; the disaster overwhelming. Magazine after magazine is unloaded, and thousands of bullets find an easy target in the seething, struggling mass, just now advancing so magnificently in all the pride of order and victory. Round the village the scene is indescribable. The slaughter is terrible, and in a few moments the squadrons that had passed unscathed on either side come flying back in the utmost disorder, pursued on one side by dragoons, on the other by hussars. The valley is covered to right and left with a dense crowd of horsemen, galloping in all the excitement of the flight and the pursuit, whilst the German batteries on the bridge pour shell after shell into the surging crowd, regardless whether their mark is friend or foe. I have little time to reflect on the skill with which the trap had been set and baited. My friend the Commandant calls me from my eyrie, and before I had time even to note the trace of the stirring events I had seen passing before me, the Chasseurs are retreating from the village at a pace which puts my Rosinante to the trot. Very soon we hear the jingle of the cavalry in rear. The dragoons are retiring also, and as I look back across the valley I can see the long screen of scouts falling back slowly across the valley, so still and peaceful but an hour agone, and now strewn with the awful _débris_ of the conflict. Such was the first phase of the battle of the 29th of June. ‘_C’est un apéritif_,’ remarks the Commandant.

GREAT VICTORY OF THE FRENCH.

FULL DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLE.

The curtain is not long in drawing up for the second act, and on our side at least the actors are ready for their cue. From the crest of the ridge which we have now reached a brilliant scene is visible. A broad expanse of verdant pasture stretches away to the placid river which runs between the willows, past the white houses of the little town. Here and there is a patch of woodland, a few stately poplars, and here and there a vineyard. The white high road, with its leafy avenue of spreading trees, now turned into telegraph poles, runs direct to the bridge. On either side, in squares and oblongs, bright with blue and crimson, with flashing bayonet and brazen helmet, rests an enormous army, and still the never-ending columns of men and guns and waggons are forming up for battle for miles away on every side. On the ridge which hides this huge array from the advancing enemy are three batteries, filling the air with uproar, and attracting volley after volley of Prussian shells. One can hear the shrill whizz of the shrapnel, and turning again to the front, we see that on the slopes below us the cavalry skirmishers, kneeling amongst the climbing vines, are in action all along the line. The Chasseurs have scattered along the crest, but there are no other infantry visible. I cannot believe De Galliffet is napping. Above the town rises a great yellow globe, swaying gracefully with every breath of air, and I know that the General has a penchant for observing his enemy from the vantage-point of the balloon. If he is really poised up there, in the bright morning air, he must see those long sombre lines of skirmishers moving slowly across the plain; those heavier masses doubling rapidly over the opposite crest and moving down the slopes. He must know that there are at least six batteries in action against us, and that there are men bleeding to death beneath the tendrils of the vines.

Still not a sign. A couple of Staff officers stand near those three poplars on the hill; one of our batteries falls back, leaving a gun behind. The cavalry begin to creep further up the hill, but not an infantryman moves. The enemy has halted more than 1200 yards away. They are lying in long rows athwart the valley, and the incessant movement of the rifles, even more than the deafening rattle, tell us that they are pouring in a heavy fusillade. Another battery to the rear, and yet another; horses falling wounded in the traces: and then, as if at a given signal, the long German lines press forward. Their heaviest masses are away over yonder on our left, where that thick wood, with scarped, quarried slopes below, terminates the ridge whereon we stand; and over to the right, where a marshy brook, its stunted willows still shrouded in mist, breaks through the ridge to join the river, we can see shadowy columns moving in the far distance.

Another ten minutes, perhaps five, if the Chasseurs give way, and the enemy will overlook the valley, the town, and the bridges—the bridges, the most important of all. But even as apprehension gathers it is dispelled. Turn your back for a moment and look to the south. The earth is in motion. Long lines of guns are dashing forward at a gallop, breasting the gentle slope, and driving the dust behind them in swirling clouds.

Long lines of Infantry are already near the crest, and heavy columns are rapidly moving up in rear. The unsuspecting Germans are little more than a thousand paces distant when all along the brow, bare and solitary just now, two hundred field-pieces come into action almost at the same moment.

In a moment more the air is literally shaken by the rush and scream of a hurtling storm of heavy metal; and, lying down in the intervals between the groups of guns, the infantry sweeps the plain with volley after volley. The cavalry has retired behind the hill; the vineyards are no longer tenanted, and the vine leaves, cut by the sheet of bullets, fly in the air as if blown upwards by the wind.