CHAPTER III. STAGE THUNDER.

The Combat at Saarbrück.

King William did not reach Mainz until the forenoon of the 2nd of August; and it is characteristically remarked in the official history of the War, that the journey from Berlin had been relatively slow, because it was necessary to fit the six supplementary trains bearing the great head-quarters into the series of military trains in such a way as would not retard the transport of troops. It is a small fact, but an apt illustration of the preference uniformly given to essentials in the Prussian arrangements for war. Soon after the Staff had arrived in the “Deutsche Haus,” lent by the Grand Duke, whose son, Prince Louis, the husband of the British Princess Alice, commanded the Hessian Division, unexpected information greeted them. Telegrams reported first that a serious action was in progress at Saarbrück, and later that the Prussian troops had withdrawn from the town.

This was the famous combat, known at the time as the Baptême de feu of the unfortunate Prince Imperial. The Emperor Napoleon entered Metz on the 28th of July, and took the command of the “Army of the Rhine.” Until that moment, the seven corps d’armée in the field were under the orders of Marshal Bazaine, who received his [p 73] instructions from Paris through Marshal Leb?uf. They were to act strictly on the defensive, advice which may be said to have been needless, since, as we have shown, not one of the corps was in a condition to march and fight. When the Emperor appeared on the scene, no great change for the better had taken place, and there was still a dearth of real information respecting the strength and position of the enemy, while the reports brought in contained an enormous percentage of error. Nevertheless, there was a vague feeling at head-quarters that something must be done to satisfy a public opinion which thought that the French armies should have been already beyond the Rhine; and on the 30th of July Marshal Bazaine received orders to cross the Saar and occupy Saarbrück. The task was to be intrusted to General Frossard, supported by troops on the right and left, drawn from the Corps of De Failly and Bazaine. Yet this modest operation dwindled down, when discussed in a sort of Council of War held the next day at Forbach, into a simple cannonade, and the occupation of the heights on the left bank! The Emperor was told that his project could not be executed, and resigning himself, as he always did, to the inevitable, he warned MacMahon that no movement should be made on his side before the lapse of eight days. The ostentatious movement on Saarbrück was to be made on the 2nd of August. Now, at that date, the place was occupied by fractions of the 8th German Corps, posted on both banks of the river above and below the town. They consisted of four battalions of foot, several squadrons of horse, and one battery, and the nearest immediate support was some miles to the rear, near Lebach. Colonel von Pestel had held the position from the outset of the war, and was allowed to remain, at his own request, although a considerable army stood in his front at no great distance, [p 74] that is, the three leading corps of the Army of the Rhine. But on the 2nd Count von Gneisenau was in command of the German outposts, and had orders, if pressed, to retire upon Lebach, but he stood fast, and even assumed the offensive, in order to ascertain exactly what the pressure might be, and test the intentions of the adversary. Against him, in the forenoon, advanced Frossard in the centre, Bazaine on the right, and De Failly, who had crossed the river at Saareguemines, on his left. It was a wonderful spectacle. The Emperor and the Prince Imperial were present on the hills to behold so vast an array moving out in parade order, to fight a sham battle with real shot and shell, against a dozen companies and six guns. It is not necessary to enter into a detail of this combat; it is sufficient to say that the Prussians held on to the left bank until they were obliged, after an hour’s fighting, to retire before the development of several brigades. Finally, when a French battery on the Reppertsberg had opened fire on the bridges and the town, Count von Gneisenau withdrew his troops, first to a place near the town, and afterwards to a position further in the rear. At other points on the river the French had failed to pass, but in the evening they sent parties into Saarbrück, then unoccupied. The French in this skirmish lost eighty-six, and the Prussians, eighty-three officers and men killed and wounded. It was the first occasion on which the soldiers of Napoleon III. had an opportunity of testing the qualities of the German Army, and they found that their secular adversaries, disciplined on a different model, and broken to new tactics, were as hardy, active, and formidable as those of Frederick the Great.

After this striking example of stage thunder, there was a pause—the French did not pursue the retreating companies of the 40th and 69th, hold the town, or even destroy the bridges. Indeed, General Frossard, in his [p 75] pamphlet, explains that although so few were visible, there must have been large numbers of the 8th Prussian Corps near at hand, and insists that they were held back because the adversary did not wish to show his strength; so that the result actually had an unfavourable influence on the French—it inspired in them a feeling of apprehension. They dreaded the unknown. Without exact, and with what was worse, misleading information, the Marshals and Generals were bewildered by every adverse strong patrol, which boldly marched up and even looked into their camps; and out of these scouting parties they constructed full corps ready to pounce upon them. No master mind at head-quarters filled them with confidence, or gave a firm direction to their soldiers. At a very early period, even in the highest ranks, arose a querulous dread of “Prussian spies,” and a belief that the hills and woods concealed countless foes. The apprehensions had no solid foundation, since the First Army was not nearer the Saar than Losheim and Wadern, and the only troops in the immediate front of General Frossard were those composing Gneisenau’s weak detachment, which retired some miles on the road to Lebach. Yet the feeble operation of August the 2nd induced the Great Staff to concentrate the First Army at Tholey, that is nearer to the main line of march of the Second Army, and on the left flank of the probable French advance. None took place, and thenceforward the swift and measured development of the German movement southwards went steadily onwards.
Preparing to go forward.

After reviewing the general position of the opposing armies, the German head-quarters fixed on the 4th of August as the day on which offensive operations should be [p 76] begun. It was known in a sufficiently authentic way, that there were between Metz and the Saar, four French Corps and the Guard, the Left being at Bouzonville, south of Saarlouis, and the Right at Bitsche; that the 1st Corps was south of Hagenau, in Alsace, and that the two remaining Corps were still incomplete, one being at Chalons, the other at Belfort. It was, therefore, determined that the Prussian Crown Prince should cross the Lauter on the 4th, while Prince Charles and General von Steinmetz, at a later date, should move upon Saarbrück, and grapple with the main Imperial Army as soon as they could bring the foe to battle. Practically, the skirmish on the 2nd put everyone on the alert. Acting, as was usual in the German Army on their own discretion, yet still in the spirit of their instructions, the divisional and Corps commanders at once sprang forward to support Gneisenau; so that on the 3rd, the front lines of the First Army were nearer to the enemy than had been prescribed, and General von Steinmetz came up from Treves to Losheim.

During this period, the Second Army had continued its movement upon Kaiserslautern, and its cavalry had already established a connection with the First Army. It was not the intention of General von Moltke, who really spoke with the voice of His Majesty, that the Saar should be crossed until a later day. He seems to have been under the impression that the French might still assume the offensive; he therefore held back the somewhat impetuous Steinmetz, and so ordered the movements that both armies should take up positions between Tholey and Kaiserslautern, which would enable them to act in concert. Thus, on the 3rd, the vast array between the Rhine and the Moselle, was in motion, left in front, in other words, the Prussian Crown Prince was the most forward, while the centre and right were drawn together, preparatory to an advance in a [p 77] compact form. The French, it was noted with surprise, had not only refrained from breaking the substantial bridges over the Saar, but had left untouched the telegraph wires and stations on both banks of the stream, so that, says the official narrative, the Staff at Mainz were kept constantly informed by telegrams of the enemy’s doings and bearing near Saarbrück. Such negligence would not be credited were it not thus authentically recorded by the General who found it so profitable.

By the 4th of August, the entire front of the Armies advancing towards the Saar was covered by several regiments of cavalry, actively engaged on and near the river, especially at Saarbrück, in closely watching the French, and sending information to the rear. There was not a point between Pirmasens and Saarlouis which escaped the notice of these vigilant and tireless horsemen. Behind them came the masses of the First and Second Armies, which latter, on the 4th, had passed “the wooded zone of Kaiserslautern,” and had approached so closely to the First, that a species of controversy for precedence arose between Prince Charles and General von Steinmetz. Fearful of being thrust into the second line, the eager old soldier wanted to push forward on Saarbrück, and reap the laurels of the first battle, or, at all events, keep his place at the head of the advance. General von Moltke, who had his own plans of ulterior action, which were not those of Steinmetz, in order to settle the dispute, drew what he supposed would be an effective line of demarcation between the two Armies. He also added the 1st Corps, which had come up from Pomerania, to the First Army; the 2nd, 10th and 12th to the Second, and the 6th to the Third Army. While directing the Crown Prince to cross the Lauter on the 4th, General von Moltke did not intend to pass the Saar until the 9th, and then to act with the whole force [p 78] assembled on that side. In fact, rapidly as the business of mobilization, the transit by railway, and the collection of trains for so vast a body of men, horses, and guns, had been performed, the work was not in all respects quite complete, nor had the soldiers been able, good marchers as they were, to cover the ground between them and the adversary, before the date assigned.

Yet Von Moltke proposed, and Von Steinmetz disposed, although he is acquitted by his chief of any deliberate intention to act prematurely. The latter, obliged to make room for Prince Charles, gave directions which brought his two leading Corps within reach of the Saar and his advanced guards close to V?lkingen and Saarbrück in actual contact with the French outposts; and that disposition led to a considerable battle on the 6th, a collision not anticipated at the head-quarters in Mainz. It is, however, pointedly declared that at the moment when he thrust himself forward Steinmetz did not know what were the plans which had been formed in that exalted region, to be carried out or modified according to events, and therefore withheld from him. The broad scheme was that the Third Army should, after crossing the Vosges, march on Haney, and that the First should form the pivot on which the Second Army would wheel in turning the French position on the line of the Moselle. Practically that was done in the end, and it was facilitated, perhaps, by the two battles fought on the 6th of August, which shattered the French, and obliged them to act, not as they might have wished, but as they were compelled.
Positions on August 4.

For the sake of clearness, the positions occupied by the rival Armies on the morning of the 4th may be succinctly [p 79] described. The French stood thus: On the right, two divisions of the 5th Corps, one at Saareguemines, the other at Grossbliedersdorf; in what may be called the centre, three divisions of the 2nd Corps, on and over the frontier immediately south of Saarbrück; three divisions of the 3rd Corps echelonned on the high-road from Forbach to St. Avold, with one division at Boucheporn; on the left, three divisions of the 4th Corps, one at Ham, a second at Teterchen, and a third at Bouzonville. The guard were in rear of the left at Les Etangs. The position of the cavalry it is difficult to determine, but they were not where they should have been—feeling for and watching the enemy. Nor is it easy to ascertain the numerical strength of the French Army at any given moment, because the reserves and battalions, as they could be spared from garrisons, were constantly arriving; but on the 4th there were about 150,000 men and 500 guns in front of Metz. That fortress, however, like all the other strong places on or near the frontier, such as Toul, Verdun, Thionville, and Belfort, had no garrison proper, or one quite inadequate to its requirements.

The German Armies on the 4th were posted in this order: The Crown Prince’s was behind the Klingbach, south of Landau, assembled at dawn for the march which carried it over the frontier; the Second, or Central Army, under Prince Charles, was in line of march through the Haardt Wald by Kaiserslautern, the advanced guard of the 4th Corps being at Homburg, and that of the 3rd at Neunkirchen; while the Guard, the 10th, 12th, and 9th were still north or east of Kaiserslautern, which they passed the next day. The First Army, held back by orders from the Great Staff, was cantonned between Neunkirchen, Tholey, and Lebach. In front of the whole line, from Saarlouis to Saareguemines, were several [p 80] brigades of cavalry, from which parties, both strong and weak, were sent out constantly to discover and report on the positions and doings of the enemy. The three Armies, as far as can be estimated from the official figures, brought into the field at the outset of the campaign, say the 4th of August, the First, 83,000 men and 270 guns; the Second, 200,000 men and 630 guns; and the Third, 170,000 men and 576 guns, an overwhelming array compared with that mustered by the adversary. These totals include only the active Army. The aggregate from which they were drawn amounted to the enormous sum of 1,183,389 men and 250,373 horses, which, of course, includes garrisons, dep?ts, and landwehr in course of formation. It has been laid down on indisputable authority that the number available for active operations, namely, that which can be put into the field, is, in all cases, as it was in this, less than half the nominal effective. The proportion of mobilized, to what may be called immobilized, troops in the French Army was for the moment, at all events, necessarily somewhat lower than in the German, because the Imperial military system, as we have already explained, was so clumsy, as well as so incomplete.
The Moral and Political Forces.

One other fact may be usefully noticed, because it had a considerable influence on the campaign. It is this—the moral force, represented by public opinion in politics, and in the Armies by what the French call the moral, which has nothing to do with morals, but means cheerfulness, good will, confidence—had passed wholly over to the German side. Public opinion, which ran in a strong and steady current, condemned the declaration of war, although a certain superstitious belief in the invincibility of French [p 81] soldiers, at least when opposed to Germans, still prevailed, even among military men who ought to have been better informed and less under the sway of prejudice. While Germany was united and hearty, and willingly obeyed an executive which no one questioned, while Saxony and Hanover, Würtemberg and Bavaria vied in patriotic ardour with Pomerania and Brandenburg; there was no such complete and consentaneous feeling in France; and there was, on the one hand, a powerful, ambitious, and indignant group of Imperialists, who thirsted for the possession of office, which they strove to snatch from Emile Ollivier and his semi-Liberal colleagues, and on the other, outside all the Imperialist sections, the repressed, enraged, and sturdy republicans of Paris who, it is not too much to say, waited for the first decisive defeat of the Imperial Armies to overturn an arbitrary system of government which they detested on account of its treacherous origin, and dreaded, as well as despised, while they writhed beneath its power. Jér?me David and Clement Duvernois were resolved to expel the so-called constitutionalists; and Gambetta, Favre, and their friends were equally determined, if an opportunity occurred, to destroy the Empire, root and branch. There were no such elements of weakness beyond the Rhine.

Nor, as we shall see, did the conduct of the Empress Eugénie, in her capacity as Regent, supply strength to the Government or impart wisdom to its councils. She had one dominant idea—the preservation of the dynasty—and aided by a willing instrument, the Comte de Palikao, she was the prime agent in the work of depriving the French nation of the best and last chance of saving Paris from investment and capitulation. If the political conditions were adverse to the Imperialists in respect of unity and moral force, they were not less so when estimated from a military [p 82] standpoint. The French Army we will not say lost courage, but confidence, from the moment when it was brought to a standstill. The soldiers knew quite as well as the generals why, on the 4th of August, the larger host, under an Emperor Napoleon, was pottering to and fro, driven hither and thither by orders and counter-orders, in the country north of Metz, and why the smaller, commanded by Marshal the Duke of Magenta, was still south of the Lauter. They knew also, from daily experience, how imperfect the Armies were, because the weakness of the battalions, the scarcity of provisions, the defects of equipment, the lack of camp utensils were things which could not be hidden. They were also inactive and unable to develop the power which springs up in a French Army when engaged in successful offensive operations; they deteriorated hourly in morale. The Germans gained confidence at every step they took towards the frontier, not only because they were animated by a formidable patriotic spirit and were eager for battle with their ancient foes, but because each battery, squadron, and battalion had its full complement of men, because they put trust in their royal chief and his illustrious assistant, and because they were intensely proud of an almost perfect war-apparatus, in which each officer and soldier was able, so solid yet elastic was the system of training, to harmonize obedience to orders with, when the need arose, discretionary independent action. So that as the huge but perfectly articulated masses of the German Armies moved swiftly and steadily to the frontier behind which the adversary awaited them, they bore along in their breasts that priceless belief in themselves and their cause which had so often carried troops to victory, even when they were few and their foes were many. The contrast is painfully distressing; but it is also profoundly instructive, because when closely scrutinized [p 83] it reveals the open secrets which show, not only how empires are lost and won, but what severe duties a great self-respecting people must perform to obtain securities for the right of cementing and preserving National Independence.