THE GATHERING OF THE HOSTS.

German Mobilization.

The great contest, thus precipitated by the formal defiance which Baron Wimpfen bore from Paris to Berlin, excited deep emotion all over the world. The hour had at length struck which was to usher in the deadly struggle between France and Germany. 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 German plan of forming an Army was new in regard to the extent and completeness with which it had been carried out. How would it work when put to the ultimate test? Dating only from 1867, the French scheme of organization, a halting Gallic adaptation of Prussian principles, modified by French traditions, and still further by the political exigencies besetting an Imperial dynasty, having little root in the nation, besides being new and rickety, was in an early stage of development; it may be said to have been adolescent, not mature. No greater contrast was ever presented by two parallel series of human actions than that supplied by the irregular, confused, and uncertain working of the Imperial arrangement of forming an Army and setting it in motion for active service, and the smoothness, celerity, and punctuality which marked the German “mobilization.” The reason is—first, that the system on which the German Army was built up from the foundations was sound in every part, and that the plan which had been designed for the purpose of placing a maximum force under arms in a given time, originally comprehensive, had been corrected from day to day, and brought down to the last moment. For example, whenever a branch or section of a railway line was opened for traffic, the entire series of time-tables, if need be, were so altered as to include the new facility for transport. The labour and attention bestowed on this vital condition was also expended methodically upon all the others down to the most minute detail. Thus, the German staff maps of France, especially east of Paris, actually laid down roads which in July, 1870, had not yet been marked upon any map issued by the French War Office. The central departments, in Berlin, exercised a wide and searching supervision; but they did not meddle with the local military authorities who, having large discretionary powers, no sooner received a brief and simple order than they set to work and produced, at a fixed time, the result desired.

When King William arrived in Berlin, on the evening of July 15, the orders already prepared by General von Moltke received at once the royal sanction, and were transmitted without delay to the officers commanding the several Army Corps. Their special work, in case of need, had been accurately defined; and thus, by regular stages, the Corps gradually, but swiftly, was developed into its full proportions, and ready, as a finished product, to start for the frontier. The reserves and, if needed, the landwehr men filled out the battalions, squadrons, and batteries to the fixed strength; and as they found in the local depÔts arms, clothing, and equipments, no time was lost. Horses were bought, called in, or requisitioned, and transport was obtained. As all the wants of a complete Corps had been ascertained and provided beforehand, so they came when demanded. At the critical moment the supreme directing head, relieved altogether from the distracting duty of settling questions of detail, had ample time to consider the broad and absorbing business problems which should and did occupy the days and nights of a leader of armies. The composition of the North German troops, that is, those under the immediate control of King William, occasioned no anxiety; and there was only a brief period of doubt in Bavaria, where a strong minority had not so much French and Austrian sympathies, as inveterate Prussian antipathies. They were promptly suppressed by the popular voice and the loyalty of the King. Hesse, WÜrtemberg, and Baden responded so heartily to the calls of patriotism that in more than one locality the landwehr battalions far exceeded their normal numerical strength, that is, more men than were summoned presented themselves at the depÔts. The whole operation of bringing a great Army from a peace to a war footing, in absolute readiness, within the short period of eighteen days, to meet an adversary on his own soil, was conducted with unparalleled order and quickness. The business done included, of course, the transport of men, guns, horses, carriage, by railway chiefly, from all parts of the country to the Rhine and the Moselle; and the astonishing fact is that plans devised and adopted long beforehand should have been executed to the letter, and that more than three hundred thousand combatants—artillery, horse, infantry, in complete fighting trim, backed up by enormous trains—should have been brought to specified places on specified days, almost exactly in fulfilment of a scheme reasoned out and drawn up two years before. The French abruptly declared war; the challenge was accepted; the orders went forth, and “thereupon united Germany stood to arms,” to use the words of Marshal von Moltke. It is a proud boast, but one amply justified by indisputable facts.

French Mobilization.

How differently was the precious time employed on the other side of the Rhine. When the Imperial Government rushed headlong into war, they actually possessed only one formed Corps d’ArmÉe, the 2nd, stationed in the camp of Chalons, and commanded by General Frossard. Yet even this solitary body was, as he confesses, wanting in essential equipments when it was hurriedly transported to St. Avold, not far from Saarlouis, on the Rhenish Prussian frontier. Not only had all the other Corps to be made out of garrison troops, but the entire staff had to be provided in haste. Marshal Niel, an able soldier, and the Emperor, had studied, at least, some of Baron Stoffel’s famous reports on the German Army, and had endeavoured to profit by them; but the Marshal died, the Corps LÉgislatif was intractable, favouritism ruled in the Court, the Emperor suffered from a wearing internal disease, and the tone of the Army was one not instinct with the spirit of self-sacrificing obedience. In time it is possible that the glaring defects of the Imperial military mechanism might have been removed, and possible, also, that the moral and discipline of the officers and men might have been raised. Barely probable, since Marshal Leboeuf believed that the Army was in a state of perfect readiness, not merely to defend France, but to dash over the Rhine into South Germany. His illusion was only destroyed when the fatal test was applied. Nominally, the French Army was formidable in numbers; but not being based on the territorial system, which includes all the men liable to service in one Corps, whether they are with the colours or in the reserve, and also forms the supplementary landwehr into local divisions, the French War Office could not rapidly raise the regiments to the normal strength. For a sufficient reason. A peasant residing in Provence might be summoned to join a regiment quartered in Brittany, or a workman employed in Bordeaux called up to the Pas de Calais. When he arrived he might find that the regiment had marched to Alsace or Lorraine. During the first fortnight after the declaration of war thousands of reserve men were travelling to and fro over France in search of their comrades. Another evil was that some Corps in course of formation were split into fragments separated from each other by many score miles. Nearly the whole series of Corps, numbered from One to Seven, were imperfectly supplied with a soldier’s needments; and what is more astonishing, the frontier arsenals and depÔts were sadly deficient in supplies, so that constant applications were made to Paris for the commonest necessaries. There were no departmental or even provincial storehouses, but the materials essential for war were piled up in three or four places, such as Paris and Versailles, Vernon and Chateauroux. In short, the Minister of War, who said and believed that he was supremely ready, found that, in fact, he was compelled almost to improvise a fighting Army in the face of an enemy who, in perfect order, was advancing with the measured, compact, and irresistible force of a tidal wave.

The plan followed was exactly the reverse of the German method. East of the Rhine no Corps was moved to the frontier, until it was complete in every respect, except the second line of trains; and consequently, from the outset, it had a maximum force prepared for battle. There were some slight exceptions to the rule, but they were imposed by circumstances, served a real purpose, and disappeared when the momentary emergency they were adapted to meet had been satisfied. West of the Rhine, not one solitary Corps took its assigned place in a perfect state for action. All the battalions of infantry, and of course the regiments, were hundreds short of their proper strength. Before a shot had been fired, General de Failly, at Bitsche, was obliged to send a demand for coin to pay the troops, adding notes won’t pass—“les billets n’ont point cours.” General Frossard, at St. Avoid, reported that enormous packages of useless maps had been sent him—maps of Germany—and that he had not a single map of the French frontier. Neither Strasburg, Metz, Toul, Verdun, Thionville, nor MÉziÈres, possessed stores of articles—such as food, equipments, and carriage—which were imperatively required. The Intendants, recently appointed to special posts, besieged the War Office in Paris, to relieve them from their embarrassments—they had nothing on the spot. The complaints were not idle. As early as the 26th of July, the troops about Metz were living on the reserve of biscuits; there were sent only thirty-eight additional bakers to Metz for 120,000 men, and even these few practitioners were sadly in want of ovens. “I observe that the Army stands in need of biscuit and bread,” said the Emperor to the Minister of War at the same date. “Could not bread be made in Paris, and sent to Metz?” Marshal Leboeuf, a day later, took note of the fact that the detachments which came up to the front, sometimes reserve men, sometimes battalions, arrived without ammunition and camp equipments. Soldiers, functionaries, carts, ovens, provisions, horses, munitions, harness, all had to be sought at the eleventh hour. These facts are recorded in the despairing telegrams sent from the front to the War Office. The very Marshal who had described France as “archiprÊte,” in a transcendent state of readiness for war, announced by telegram, on the 28th of July, the lamentable fact that he could not move forward for want of biscuit—“Je manque de biscuit pour marcher en avant.” The 7th Corps was to have been formed at Belfort, but its divisions could never be assembled. General Michel, on the 21st of July, sent to Paris this characteristic telegram: “Have arrived at Belfort,” he wrote: “can’t find my brigade; can’t find the General of Division. What shall I do? Don’t know where my regiments are”—a document probably unique in military records. Hardly a week later, that is on the 27th, Marshal Leboeuf became anxious respecting the organization of this same Corps, and put, through Paris, some curious questions to General FÉlix Douay, its commander. “How far have you got on with your formations? Where are your divisions?” The next day General Douay arrived at Belfort, having been assured in Paris by his superiors that the place was “abundantly provided” with what he would require. After the War, Prince Georges Bibesco, a Roumanian in the French Army, attached to the 7th Corps, published an excellent volume on the campaign, and in its pages he describes the “cruel deception” which awaited Douay. He writes that, for the most part, the troops, had “neither tents, cooking pots, nor flannel belts; neither medical nor veterinary canteens, nor medicines, nor forges, nor pickets for the horses—they were without hospital attendants, workmen, and train. As to the magazines of Belfort—they were empty.” In the land of centralization General Douay was obliged to send a staff and several men to Paris, with instructions to explain matters at the War Office, and not leave the capital without bringing the articles demanded with them. Other examples are needless. It would be almost impossible to understand how it came to pass that the French were plunged into war, in July, 1870, did we not know that the military institutions had been neglected, that the rulers relied on old renown, the “glorious past” of the Duc de Gramont, and that the few men who forced the quarrel to a fatal head, knew nothing of the wants of an army, and still less of the necessities and risks of war.

War Methods Contrasted.

As the story is unfolded, it will be seen that the same marked contrast between the principles and methods adopted and practised by the great rivals prevailed throughout. The German Army rested on solid foundations; the work of mobilization was conducted in strict accordance with the rules of business; allowing for the constant presence of a certain amount of error, inseparable from human actions, it may be said that “nothing was left to chance.” The French Army was loosely put together; it contained uncertain elements; was not easily collected, and never in formed bodies; it was without large as well as small essentials; it “lacked finish.” And similar defects became rapidly manifest in the Imperial plan for the conduct of the war. Here the contrast is flagrant. The Emperor Napoleon, who had lived much with soldiers, who had been present at great military operations, and had studied many campaigns, could not be destitute of what the French call “le flair militaire.” He had, also, some inkling of the political side of warfare; and in July, 1870, he saw that much would depend upon his ability to make a dash into South Germany, because, if he were successful, even for a brief time, Prussia might be deprived of South German help, and Austria might enter the field. There was no certainty about the calculation, indeed, it was almost pure conjecture; seeing that Count von Beust and the Archduke Albert had both warned him that, “above all things,” they needed time, and that the former had become frightened at the prospect of Hungarian defection, and a Russian onfall. Yet it was on this shadowy basis that he moved to the frontier the largest available mass of incomplete and suddenly organized batteries, squadrons and battalions. He and his advisers were possessed with a feverish desire to be first in the field; and the Corps were assembled near Metz, Strasburg, and Belfort, with what was called a reserve at Chalons, on the chance that the left might be made to join the right in Alsace, and that the whole, except the reserve which was to move up from Chalons, could be pushed over the Rhine at Maxau, opposite Carlesruhe, and led with conquering speed into the country south of the Main. Before he joined the head-quarters at Metz, on the 28th of July, the Emperor may have suspected, but on his arrival he assuredly found that the plan, if ever feasible, had long passed out of the range of practical warfare. He reaped nothing but the disadvantages which spring from grossly defective preparation, and “raw haste half-sister to delay.” He knew that he was commander-in-chief of a relatively weak and ill-found Army, and he acquired the certainty at Metz, that, unless he were conspicuously victorious, neither Austria nor Italy would move a man.

His mighty antagonist, on the other hand, was advancing to the encounter with such large resources, and so thoroughly equipped, that no fewer than three Army Corps were left behind, because even the admirably man managed and numerous German railway lines were not able to carry them at once to the banks of the Rhine. Moreover, General von Moltke, the Chief of the Great Staff, had, in 1868–69, carefully reasoned out plans, which were designed to meet each probable contingency, either a march of the French through Belgium, an early irruption into the Rhenish provinces, or the identical scheme upon which the Emperor founded his hopes; while, if the French allowed the Germans to begin offensive operations on French soil, then the method of conducting the invasion, originally adopted, would come into play. The memorandum on this great subject, the essential portions of which have been published by its author, Von Moltke, is, for breadth, profundity, and insight, one of the most instructive to be found in the records of war. This is not the place to deal with its general or detailed arguments. For present purposes, it is sufficient to set forth the main operative idea. The contention was, that an army assembled on the Rhine between Rastadt and Mainz, and on the Moselle below Treves, would be able to operate successfully, either on the right bank of the main stream, against the flank of a French Army, which sought to invade South Germany; or, with equal facility, concentrate on the left bank, and march in three great masses through the country between the Rhine and Moselle, upon the French frontier. Should the French make a precipitate dash into the German country towards Mainz, then the Corps collected near that fortress would meet them in front, and those on the Moselle would threaten their communications or assail them in flank. The soundness of the reasoning is indisputable; its application would depend upon the prompt concentration of the Armies, and that had been rendered certain by careful and rigorously enforced preparations. The great Prussian strategist had calculated the move of troops and railway trains to a day; so that he knew exactly what number of men and guns, within a given area, he could count upon at successive periods of time; and, of course, he was well aware that the actual use to be made of them, after the moment of contact, could not be foreseen with precision, but must be adapted to circumstances. But he foresaw and prepared for the contingency which did arrive. “If,” he said, “the French desired to make the most of their railways, in order to hasten the assembly of all their forces,” they would be obliged to disembark, or as we now say, “detrain” them, “at Metz and Strasburg, that is, in two principal groups separated from each other by the Vosges.” And then he went on to point out how, assembled on the Rhine and Moselle, the German Army would occupy what is called the “interior lines” between them, and “could turn against the one or the other, or even attack both at once, if it were strong enough.”

The grounds for these conclusions, succinctly stated, were the conformation of the frontier, an angle flanked at each side by the neutral states of Switzerland and Luxemburg, restricting the space within which operations could be carried on; the possession of both banks of the Rhine below Lauterbourg; the superior facility of mobilization secured by the Germans, not only as regards the rapid transition of Corps from a peace to a war footing, but by the skilful use of six railway lines running to the Rhine and the Moselle; and, finally, the fact that, fronting south between those rivers, the advancing German Army would be directed against an adversary whose line of retreat, at least so far as railways were concerned, diverged, in each case, to a flank of any probable front of battle. The railway from Strasburg to Nancy traversed the Vosges at Saverne; the railway from Metz to Nancy on one side, and Thionville on the other, followed the valley of the Moselle; and as the important connecting branch from Metz to Verdun had not been constructed, it follows that the French Army in Lorraine had no direct railway line of retreat and supply. The railway from Metz to Strasburg, which crossed the Vosges by the defile of Bitsche and emerged in the Rhine valley at Hagenau, was, of course, nearly parallel to the German front, except for a short distance west of Bening. The frontier went eastward from Sierck, on the Moselle to Lauterbourg on the Rhine, and thence southerly to Basle. The hill range of the Vosges, starting from the Ballon d’Alsace, overlooking the Gap of Belfort, runs parallel to the river, and extends in a northerly direction beyond the French boundary, thrusting an irregular mass of uplands deep into the Palatinate, ending in the isolated Donnersberg. It follows that the main roads out of, as well as into, France were to the east and west of this chain, and it should be observed that the transverse passes were more numerous south than north of Bitsche, and that, practically, while detachments could move along the secluded valleys, there was no road available for large bodies and trains through the massive block of mountain and forest which occupies so considerable a space of the Palatinate. Thus, an army moving from Mainz upon Metz would turn the obstacle on the westward by Kaiserslautern and Landstuhl; while if Strasburg were the goal, it would march up the Rhine valley by Landau, and through the once famous Lines of the Lauter. If two armies, as really happened in 1870, advanced simultaneously on both roads, the connection between them is maintained by occupying Pirmasens, which is the central point on a country road running from Landau to Deux Ponts, and another going south-east to Wissembourg.

The influence of this mountain range upon the offensive and defensive operations of the rival armies will be readily understood. The French could only unite to meet their opponents in the Prussian provinces at or north of Kaiserslautern; while the Germans, assuming that their adversaries assembled forces in Alsace, as well as in Lorraine, would not be in direct communication until their left wing had moved through the hill-passes and had emerged in the country between the Sarre and Meurthe.

It has been seen that the available French troops, including several native and national regiments from Algeria, had been hurried to the frontier in an imperfect state of organization and equipment. There were nominally seven Corps d’ArmÉe and the Guard; but of these, two, the 6th and 7th, were never united in the face of the enemy. Marshal Canrobert, commanding the 6th, was only able to bring a portion of his Corps from Chalons to Metz; and General Douay, the chief of the 7th, had one division at Lyons, and another at Colmar, whence it was sent on to join the 1st Corps assembling under Marshal MacMahon near Strasburg. The principal body, consisting of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Corps, ultimately joined by the greater part of the 6th, and the Guard were posted near and north of Metz; while the 5th occupied positions on the Saar, and formed a sort of link, or weak centre, between the right and left wings. Nothing indicated cohesion in this array, which, as we have shown, was adopted on the vain hypothesis that there would be time to concentrate in Alsace for the purpose of anticipating the Germans and crossing the Rhine at Maxau.

No such error was made on the other side. The German troops were divided into three armies. The First Army, consisting of the 7th and 8th Corps, under the veteran General von Steinmetz, formed the right wing, and moved southward on both banks of the Moselle. The Second Army, composed of the Guard, the 3rd, 4th, and 10th Corps, commanded by Prince Frederick Charles, was the central body, having in rear the 9th and 12th Corps as a reserve. They were destined to march on the great roads leading from Manheim and Mainz upon Kaiserslautern. The Third Army, or left wing, under the Crown Prince, was made up of the 5th and 11th and the two Bavarian Corps, together with a WÜrtemberg and a Baden Division. Each Army had one or more divisions of cavalry, and, of course, the due proportion of guns. By the 31st of July, the whole of these troops, except the Baden and the WÜrtemberg Divisions, were on the west of the Rhine, with foreposts on the Saar, below SaarbrÜck, in the mountains at Pirmasens, and on the roads to the Lauter; the great mass of troops being close to the Rhine. The advantages, in point of concentration, were already secured by the German Staff; the First Army alone, one-half at Treves, and the other strung out between the Moselle and the Nahe, was in apparent danger; yet little apprehension was felt on that score, because the country through which it moved was highly defensible—its right was covered by neutral Luxemburg, and part of the Second Army was sufficiently forward to protect the left.

A week earlier, there had been, indeed, a slight perturbation in Berlin, where the head-quarters still remained. By unceasing observation, a careful collation of reports, a diligent use of French newspapers, the King’s Staff had arrived at a tolerably accurate estimate of the strength, positions, and internal state of the French Corps. They were cognizant of the prevailing disorder, and were well aware that not one Corps had received its full complement of reserve men. Arguing that the enemy would not have foregone the advantages of mobilization unless he had in view some considerable object, such as an irruption into the Palatinate, the Staff modified the original plan, as it affected the Second Army, and, on the 23rd of July, directed the Corps of which it was composed to quit the railway trains transporting them on, and not beyond, the Rhine. This was purely a measure of precaution, the contingency of which had been foreseen; yet one which was needless, as the French had already learned that they could not take the offensive in any direction. No other changes were made, and the only result of this modification was that the soldiers had to march further than they would have marched, and they probably benefited by the exercise. During this period, the bridge at Kehl had been broken, the boats and ferries removed from the Rhine from Lauterbourg to Basle, the railway pontoon bridge at Maxau protected, a measure suggested by the presence of river gunboats at Strasburg, and an unremitting watch had been kept on the land frontier by small detachments of horse and foot. Not the least surprising fact is that no attempt was made by the French to destroy the bridges over the Saar at SaarbrÜck, or penetrate far beyond that river on its upper course. On the other hand, parties of German horse and foot made several incursions between Sierck and Bitsche, and one small party rode as far as into Alsace at Niederbronn. It was not until the end of the month that large bodies of cavalry were sent to the front to begin a career demonstrating afresh, if a demonstration is needed, the inestimable services which can be performed by that indispensable arm. The German Army had been placed in the field in little more than a fortnight, although the 1st and 6th Corps were still en route from the far North. The Crown Prince reached Spires on the 30th, and the next day, the King, with the Great Staff, left Berlin for Mainz. He had restored the “Order of the Iron Cross,” and had warmly expressed his gratitude for the unexampled spirit manifested by the whole German nation, “reconciled and united as it had never been before.” Germany might find therein, he said, “a guarantee that the war would bring her a durable peace, and that the seed of blood would yield a blessed harvest of liberty and unity.”

Here it may be stated that a French squadron had appeared off the coast of Denmark on the 28th of July, but only to disappear with greater promptitude, thereby relieving the timid from any apprehension of a descent. Large German forces were set free to face westward, and in a brief space, not only the French marines and sailors, but the ship guns were vehemently required to fight in severe battles and defend the capital of France.