A WELLINGTON MAN AT

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1014, 2 January 1911, Page 6

A WELLINGTON MAN AT

MARS-LA-TOUR. STARK DAY" IN 1870. WORLD'S GEEATEST OAVALHY CHARGE. [Mars-la-Tour, fought on August 16, IMJ, is probably the most remarkable battle in the world's history, it was at onco a murderous struggle and a (lawless exhibition of the art of handl- ■ ing the three arms combined. Few other battles approach it tor tho ferocity with which fought, and none for skill. It is still a model of tactics n English lest books and; with a few modifications, as to range, etc., is probably a very good indication of how tho German would fight to-day. The action was fought by 25,000 Brandenburgers for the purpose of detaining Uazaine's army (about 170,000) until tho rest of. the German armies could reach the battlefield. .Tho result led to Bazaino. being shut up in Itctz, where he afterwaras surrendered. A nurabor of the particulars in tho article which follows were - obtained by a, DOMlNlONrepresentative from Mr. H. Wollerman, of Wellington, who fought in it and others from tho official history. No good popular account- of the battle has ever been published in English/! That Beautiful Summer, Here a calvary with' relics, there avenues of poplars, and vineyards in dusters, clear rivers babbling on to join the Rhine, long. white roads stretching out interminably over . flat meadows—something ■ like that is how Mr. AVollerraan remembers Lorraine as it was in the intensely hot summq- of 1870. And over all this, and among the beautiful violet hazes which softened the evenings, grfcat. blue blocks of men were slogging forward. Each block was an. army corps, 25,000 strong, each a little army complete in itself, with horse, foot, and guns. Each, .too, was strictly' territorial. The Bavarians, marched in one, Poseners in another,. Hessians, Hanoverians, Saxons, Wurtemburgers, and so on, each had their corps. All fought with distinction, but it was particularly to .tho,Third Corps, tho Brandenburg men, that the bridegroom Opportunity came, and,. like the wise virgins in the parable, it. had its lamps trimmed to meet him. . Further, these corps were arranged into armies. To the north was the army of Steenmetz, the south the great army of the Crown Prince, while .between them ; march, the huge host of Prince Frederick Charles. The general direction of march was due west, and in front of all there scouted tho . formidable German cavalry covering the heads of the columns like a screen. Sometimes two .'or three army corps'marched close together, and.sometimes all were miles apart—it depended on the nature of tho country.

At Mars-la-Tour the Brandenburg men were marching fairly wide from other corps, and they-'stumbled on the whole of Bazaine's army, 170,000 strong, quite unawares. Luckily for them their commander, Von Alvensleben, was one of the best tacticians in-the army, but probably no commander has ever had to make up his mind so swiftly as Von Alvensleben was obliged' to do that morning. The position was this: One French army, commanded by M'Mahon, had been beaten at AVcissenhurg, and in the exhausting Battle of Woerth, and had retired to reorganise, no one knew, whither at the time. Bazaino had been roughly handled at Spickeren and' other; places. Ho -was known to ■ be hovering somewhere in the neighbourhood of Metz, and the object of the German commanders was to prevent him from uniting with M'Mahoif'so .that, if possible, the two French" armies. riiiclit bo overwhelmed' separately.' So; when ,?6n Alvensleben fell almost, into Baznjne's camp by surprise, tho importance of tho in hand was very great.

Formed Line Like Lightning. 1 l}ut Von Alvenslcben's case, as it seemed at the moment, was' desperate. If, at 8 o'clock in the morning of August ■10, 1870, lie engaged., .Jlazainels. 170,000 men,-he knew that it' would- at least be 3 o'clock in tho afternoon before the next corps to his could reach tho battlefield. In the meantime it was fairly probable that his own Brandenburgcrs would bo shot down' to 'the last mail,' long before mid-day, and, if so, there would only occur a 'useless loss of life, and Bazainc would get away after all. It was an exceedingly difficult position, and it'is.not iasy to act when one puts on the thick, blue goggles of responsibility. But he was. probably less than .five minutes in making .up his mind. Mr. Wollerman states that the two divisions of the Third Corps deployed from column to line of battle like lightning,, but, fast as they had been,-the. horse artillery had been beforo them,, and were throwing shells into the French - camp, which stretched for. miles, .along; the ; ... Verdun, road. More slowly the field artillery got a position on' a little rise' at .Flavigny, and presently: hundreds of French, cannon .were turned on them; There were more dead men and horses.on' that little rise next day than Mr. Wollerman and his comrades wero able to' bury. • As for Frenchmen that morning, there, seamed to b® no end of'them—even.on that.flat country they stretched further than tho eye could see. ■ '

At 9 o'clock, the whole plain of Mars-la-Tour was blotted out in smoke. Mr. Wollerman states that their own officers could- be dimly seen marching up and down, but, except for them, and, their own regimental • battle-flag, little else was visible. Tho' noise of tho firing' • must have been audible many r miles away, and the French shells, striking'short, covered tho poor Brandenburgers with dust ag.d shingle. Even at that early stage they hardly knew whether they could hang on or not. - -

The heat, Mr. Wollefman states, was blistering, and the endurance of the, men must have been tried to the bitter extreme. It was one of the hottest days of a torrid summor. At 11 o'clock the copses where the Brandenburgers lay, were growing. a little more silent—the volumo of rifle fire coming from them was perceptibly less. It was then a matter for the commander to consider how to maintain,' or break it' oil. Unparalleled Use of Engineers. Von Alvonslebcn then made his second stroke in tactics. :In front of his line, and midway between it and tho French, lay a pretty little village—Vionville by name. • He resolved to carry Vionville with the bayonet; and did so. There was nothing much in that per se, but when the Prussian' infantry' got; into tho village, the sagacious general, sent in with them a company of engineers, with two wagon-loads of tools, and, under a storm of fire, the engineers, in less than half an hour, strengthened the village, and placed it in. a-state of defence. It was an unparalleled use of engineers on a battle-field, this building of an impromptu fort in' the face of the' enemy, but it formed pointd'appin on -which- the Prussians rested their centre. As-for the wings, tho French steadily forced -then,' back until Von Alveiislcbeii's line formed a sharp angle with the apex at Vionville. How the rest of the morning dragged on Mr. Wollerman hardly remembers, but at. one o'clock in the afternoon it was plainly time for Von Alvcnsleben to do something, or be annihilated altogether. So far he had used three arms—infantry, artillery, and engineers with wonderful, skill, but numbers will tell, and ■ there' were signs that the French were now contemplating ail assault all along the line. Tho German fire was becoming noticeably quieter, the copses were smoking less and less, and the artillery on. tho littlp rise at Fiavigny was -almost done with. It "was imperative to gain an hour's timo for tho next corps, the Tenth, was now approaching the struggle, marching, or rather running, at the ratoof nearly five miles an hour. How to gain that hour ? The Great Charge. Von Alvcnsleben _ now made his third stroke. Somewhat to tho rear of tho infantry some GOO cavalry (about . the' faine strength as tho justly-celebrated Light Brigade at Balaclava) was drawn up, and it was now decided to use them, or, in tho cold language of. the German official account, "to substitute one target for another." Thcro has never been any such "substitution" in history-as this heroic movement. Coldly, and very briefly, it was explained to tho commander'' of the cavalry, Von Brcdow, that it was required of him to charge an army of 170,000 men to gain an hour's time. To the intelligent German mind it required no explanation to-point out to him what ho was going' to.. The Germans, to this day, still refer to it - as "Totes ritt"—the death ride.

Von Bredow's three squadrons .of lancers, and three of Cuirassiers, were led nut at a walk towards the ilanlc to savo tho horses as much as possible for tho work before them, down a road fringed with poplars, and gaining; the meadows, wheeled out of column into line, at a trot. Then, increasing the pace to a gallop, they swept right in among the astonished Frenchmen. The charge continued until tho horses were blown, when the French cavalry, issuing from behind woods lining an old Koman road which traversed the field, cut them down almost to the last man. "Wild cheers aroso along the French front, helmets and shalcos were lifted and waved on bayonets in frantic exultation, and the English anil American war cor-, respondents who were with-tho French at once sent out a number of fantastic telegrams—"Tremendous French victory," "Prussian cavalry cut to pieces"—and all that sort of thing. Mr. Wolli-rnian did not sec the charge, although it passed across in front of the infantry position, so dense was the. smoke on the plain but lie remembers that, when' the French cheering died awav, the thunder of the cannon of tho Tenth Corps, which had arrived, was beginning, and other corps were also coming up. . The-Brandenburgers could do no more. The battlo wrestled 'on into the afternoon and evening, but they were out ot it. They lay on the grass and in tho dust Dhysieally worn out. ' Next day, when the cold German commanders saw them they could hardly conceal their emotion. But Baraiue was tranned. The battle of Mars-la-Tour made "tho great battlo of Gravelotte nossible two days later, end this, in turn "resulted in Bazaino being, shut up in Metz. Sometimes when the rolo of cavalry in modern war is discussed, some very fatuous views to the efFecf that its day is done, are heard. It may serve as a very good indication of the German theory of war to state that, to-day, they would, on a suitable occasion,, use cavalry almost exactly as they did in 1870.