HOW BISMARCK FORCED PEACE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3013, 26 February 1917, Page 8

HOW BISMARCK FORCED PEACE

SEIGE OF PARIS i870..-AND 1917! : (By 0.T.E., in the "Daily Mail.") • In the autumn of 1870 Bismarck found himself .face to face with a problem of tremendous difficulty. The Ger- ■ pian armies had. everywhere defeated the French, the French however, fought on. They refused to make peace; they put to hopeless confusion the,ideas of many : officers on. the German Staff—Moltke yftiong them—that France would hoist ; , the.white nag so soon as a German army'appeared bofoi'o Paris. Molke'a ]etters~now show'.that he expected to bo shootings in Silesia; by the end of ' October, 1870." J' 1 > , Bismarck, then, had to find some way <of forcing peace upon a high-spiritea and defiant nation. And he found . it quickly enough in the decision to re- ■ ' duce Paris, the very heart of France , ly blockade. , It waß a; slow method, tut it was-sure. In. September the •German armies began their movements to onvelop the city. ; The iron ring closed in upon a" population of two mil- . lion, souls. On September 16, 1870, . the last mail out left Paris. Two days ■ .later the gates were shut and from that hour no supplies entered the capital. No respect for neutrals, no consideration for humanity,' affected Bismarck. We may remind his countrymen of that interesting faoj; to-dav . when they protest against the British Tjlockade. One or, two timid remon- _ strances from neutrals were violently "Crushed asicjo or treated with cold scorn and savage jest. The man who ... : professed to love the scent of a burning -- 'Frenchman, who held that every gue-rilla-should be mercilessly shot and everydistrict where such troops showed themselves should he devastatedj was not likelyto bo affeoted by any tenderness. There were thousands of neutrals, United l States .citizens and British subjeots, in the invested area, but ... he/cared nothing for that. Vigour in War.

Noi havo his countrymen since felt the least compunction. On March 4, 1892, Count Caprivi, who succeeded Bismarck as Chancellor of the Empire, made this declaration 1 with regard to cutting off food during a naval blockade,:—

.. ~ War is a rough and terrible busi- ■ ness. This applies equally to war- • fare on land and at sea. Whoever . . is engaged in the war wishes to attain his objeot, and if'he be vigor- ■ <ous he will employ every, means to - .-v attain it. In a naval war the cut"ting off of the enemy's trade is one of those means. No one can forgo it. And really is it anything more than, is - done on land? / If during ~ the. siege of Parish someone had equipped a train with foodstuffs for -the Parisians, that train would i.i simply have been stepped.: . . . I jnusfc say that if/States act in this way tney use only* the means \ which war gives them. In such ~ conduct I should -see absolutely no barbarity, or any difference from . measures taken in a war on land: And I believe that, iiiasmuch as no naval war has been ... . "waged on a large scale since the days:of Nelson,'views about naval .war have. arisen which under-esti- \'- r ;/mate its force and power. ' Bismarck talked with intense sjjee of . leavmg the Parisians to ''stew in their 'juice." Vast, stores, of food had --been accumulated in Paris before the blockade began, but it was a .mathe:jnatioal certainty that they would be .. .exhausted after a definite period pro- .. v Yi.ded tho-relieving armies were not per- . knitted to break through and convoy fresh, supplies into the beleagured city. Iho German' operations were therefore . -directed simply to prevent the troops ■ in. the capital, who were: wretchedly commanded by the famous Trochu. from breaking out, and the various lievmg armies outside from breaking in.

At,.first matters went .cheerfully, enough in Paris, though no German . sentimentalists., were- found. in-, the be- 1 :-r sieging army to allow immense quanti- .- ties of food anfl other supplies to pass into. the place. On the twelfth "dav of • tho blockade the United States Minister, Mr. TVashburno, who/ -remained inside, notes that meat was becoming scarce. The want of milk and suitable food swiftly sent up the death-rate among the: children of the poor. The an-ed and sick died off. Forage 'became tery scarce,' and 1 all who' had horses irere compelled to get rid-of them be- , ■ cause"it was impossible to feed. them, jor trio purpose of slaughtering they xould be bought, at this date, for £1 or £2 apiece. Gradualty, very gradually, the misery increased. Fuel began to fail. When tho siego had lasted two months butter ( sold for 16s; ; a pound, and eveivthen was almost uneatable; turkeys went for ~£3 to £4 apiece; chickens for 245.; wretched rabbits for 165.; and eggs ... i l .JP. z ?. n v.-:. Bread still remained ■. cheap, however, as tlie price was fixed' - by Government order, and wine could ■ , also be bought at a reasonable figure. A cat fetched 6s. if lean, or 7s. 6d. if ■' ■ fat; a-rat Is. -6d.; a-fat dog .2s. a pound. t By Christmas Day prices had n'sen still.higher; a goose cost £5 and a chicken 295. All fresh meat except, horseflesh had vanished from the shops; epicures thought themselves fortunate eT could obtain a .few .ounces of ■■fearfully, salt, pork at exorbitant price. Victory.of Hunger. '... As the blockade continued doing its work—but doing it'very slowly—Bis- : march's patience began to fail. Not ' that lie ever for one moment thought \ of relaxing it in the smallest : degree, ' but he did wish to try other means of ' compulsion on tho enemy as well. He demanded of the. German Staff tho bombardment of tho city to intensify the effect of the'blockade. The Staff i .. opposed him (not from any humanitarian. ideas, as ho professed and pre.tended), for Moltke and the men round him were quito insensible to such ; emotiffns, and: held with the AmericanGeneral Sheridan that the enemy's people in war should be left, with only their eyes to weep over it. Their reason was that a blockade, though slow, is quito certain to succeed; while a bombardment demanded an immense Supply of guns and ammunition, and, as they know from their special knowledge of artillery and its power at that date, would produce little effect. Bismark, nowever, had his way. l'ho bombardment was tried, and was, as every soldier expected, a ridiculous fiasco. During nine days of it 350 ' buildings were struck, few of them at all severely, and about as much dam- ,, ago was caused in this whole period as .. is produced by a single Zeppelin raid. • What brought France down was the growing hunger of the capital and the fear that if the resistance of Paris were prolonged the two. million people in the invested area would perish by actual starvation. In any case, after terms were arranged, it would require a fortnight to revictual the eity, simply because its consumption of food was . so immense. On January 28, 1871, an armistice was signed which, was in effect the " surrender of Paris to famine, and the surrender of France with Paris. Bismarck and Moltke imposed their own terms. Any attempt by tho French ; to obtain more favourable conditions was answered implacably by the statement that Paris was short of food and at the mercy of tho German nrmv., . Bismarck nlavcd adroitly on the weakness of the French representative, 1 .Tnlcs Favrc, and compelled him to as- ". sociatc. France .with the surrender of: the French capital.