THE CAUSES OF THE FRENCH DEFEATS.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2549, 19 April 1871, Page 2

THE CAUSES OF THE FRENCH DEFEATS.

Now that the Franco-German war is ended, it will be interesting to investigate the causes which led to the colossal reverses experienced by French arms. In this search we are much aided by the intelligent correspondents of the English and American press at the front; but in the main we have preferred to lot the Empire speak for itself. The Imperial correspondence ascribes them to “ excessive organisation ” —the cxEmperor’s own words (vide his pamphlet published after Sedan)—to this he attributed his defeats. The army, like every thing else hi France, was over administered, with i con ts which are but too well known Tn thi ■> issue the investigation is carried up to within a short period before the fall of M.-tz ; on a future occasion wo may ciKpiire whether the Committee of Defence was able to inaugurate a bettor state of thing*. It it placed beyond ((iieMioo that the fatal movement of M-'M-ikon was urged upon him from Paris in opposition to his own clear judgment, and against the first insciiicb of the "Emperor. On the 17th of August the Minister of War in the capital appeals to the Emperor to renounce the idaa he had expressed of wilhd awing the Army of Chalons on Paris, and suggests “a powerful diversion on the Prussian Corps, already exhausted by several cn agements.” The next day the Emncror replies that he yields to the Minister’s opinion, and on the 20th M'Mahon announces his departure for Rhcims. On the 27th, however, M’Mahon had satisfiel himself that it was impossible to carry out the plan prescribed to him, and he predicts almost the very fa'e which overtook his army;—“ Since the 2nd I have no news of Bazaine ; if I attempt to meet him I should be attacked in the front by a part of the first and second armies, which, favored by the woods, can-deal with a force superior to the Crown Prince’s army, cutting off all line of retreat.” He added, “ I approach Mezieres to-morrow, whence 1 shall continue my retreat.” The reply of the Minister not only sealed the doom of M‘.Mahon’s army, hut will be held to justify the bitt nest accusations brought by the Republicans against the Imperial Government. It comm meed with the fatal sentence:—“ If you abandon Bazaine the revolution is in Paris.” Count Palikao assured the Marshal that the Crown Prince was not at Chalons; ho observed that the Marshal had at least thirty-six hours’ start of his enemy, and he bogged him, first in his own name, and a day or two afterwards in the name of the Conned of Ministers and of the Privy Council, to succour Bazaine Even up to the 31st of August Count Palikao seems to have cherished the delusion that the French had the start of the Crown Prince, but on that very day M'Mahon had to announce his disastrous retreat on Sedan, adding the curt statement, “Up to the Slat of An: list the Emperor still commands.” From these despatches it is clear that M‘Mahon, from the first, acted with hesitation, and that Count Palikao, to whoso urgency he yielded, had a very imperfect knowledge of tiie enemy’s movements ; while it would seem that the Emperor, even after Bazaine had nominally been appointed to the command-in-chief, exerted, both at Metz and on the march to Sedan, a distinct influence on the course of the campaign. Between gcmrals on the spot who did not know their own minds, and generals at a distance who did not know the facts of the position, it would have been a miracle if the French Army had escaped the destruction which befel it.

This kind of confusion, however, has been seen before in baffled Generals and defeated armies. But there is evidence of strange disorder even in the staff arrangements before defeat was dreamt of. On the 21st of July General Michel telegraphs to the Minister of ■\Y ar: —“I have arrived at Belfort. I have not found my brigade. Have not found the General of Division. What must I do? Do not know where are my regimontV’ At that moment every soldier in Germany knew perfectly where to find his place in the vast masses which were moving on the Rhino. But oven this is surpassed by the helpless muddle of the subsidiary services. On the IStb of July De Eailly, at the head of 17 battalions of infantry, telegraphs from Bitschc for “ money to enable our troops to live. “No money in the public treasuries. No money in the military chests.” The reader may remember that in a letter p bblislicd in our columns some time ago a French officer narrated bow, while bo was in full retreat on Chalons, lie received a parcel which bad been forwarded with great care, and -which contained plans of fortresses in the Palatinate. This was no exceptional case. On the 21st of July a General complains that “ the depot is sending ns great heaps of maps which are useless for the moment. We have not a map of the frontier of France.” At this moment, again, every Prussian lieutenant was in possession of the information the French General wanted. That the Army of the Rhine should so long have lain inactive around Meta ceases to be surprising that on the. 20th of July it was in want of the commonest fond. On that day the Inte«(la»(-tn-Olisf, or Chief Officer of Control, complains that the numerous troops outside Metz aro obliged, in order to exist, to consume the biscuit which would serve as a reserve, and which, moreover, pomes in inadequate quua-

titles.” On'the Bth of August the same officer makes a demand on the camp of Oha* lons for 490,000 rations of biscuit and campaign provisions, and his at the camp has to tolegi aph to Paris for instruclions, as he has “not a ration of biscuit nor held provisions, with the exception of sugar and coffee.” At the same moment the General at Verdun sends word to Metz that there are wanting in the town as siege provisions, “wine, brandy, sugar, coffee, bacon, vegetables, and fresh meat.” It seems necessary to stop and reflect that the places thin left destitute were not in the heart of an enemy’s conn! ry which had been suddenly occupied, but were the chief strongholds of the French army, in the most accessible districts of France. If food was deficient, material supplies were nob likely to bo plcntful. Marshal L-bceuf himself, announcing his presence with General de Failly’s corps on the 2hth of July, stat's that “ t.ho organisation in respect of accessories is very incomplete.” The Minister of War writes from Paris that there are no revolvers in the arsenals, and fl:e officers must buy them from private traders. The General of the 4,h Corps, at Thionville on the 21th of July, had neither hi/irmiers, nor civil assistants, nor ambulance waggons, nor field ovens, nor train, -'■imlarly, at the important fortress of Belfort, on the 4th of Aucust, the 7th Corps was without train, or infiniuem, or artisans. The intendaut ab Strasbourg on the 28tli of July had not receive I a single soldier of the Train Corps nor a single workman. At Chalons twenty batteries had but a single farrier between them. On the 19th of August, at the same great depot, Marshal Canrobert “ continued ” to have neither cooking pots nor platters, and the soldiers were “ unprovided with anything.” They had neither bedding nor enough shirts and boots. Even at Metz, on the 29th of July, soldiers arrived “ in almost all cages’’ without carapiug material or cooking vessels. It is said that at a time when our army in the Peninsula were in great need of hew boots, a large snpply arrived, but they proved to be all for the right foot. Wo used to think such blunders were essentially British ; but the st )iy may be matched by two of these despatches. On the 2Sth of July the Minister of War is informed that, of 890 collars in the magazines at St. Omer, 59 ) have been found too small. A fortnight later it is again announced from. St. Cmar that “ 1299 sets of harness have, it is true, been sent to the fortress, but the complement of this harness has been omitted, without which the companies cannot be provided. The preparations have, therefore, been stopped from to-day.” In short, the French forces were everywhere at a standstill for want of food and munitions of war. This extraordinary collapse has an interest for us, apart from the light it throws on French defeats. The supply services of the English army have been organised in the French system ; our control department is an avowed imitation of their Intendan’e; which a short time before the war was deemed perfect. But it utterly gave way on the first pre-'sure. Oar readers will remember the great sortee from Paris on the 4th December. It is actually true that one of the reasons for the retirement of General Ducrot’s a’-my from the position they had won at such a cost, was that the Intendance had omitted to provide them with the warm clothing they so much needed. Their rugs and sheepskins were only five miles off in Paiis, hub it was too late to fetch them. The lamentable experience of France has had one result —it has caused John Bull to look to his own “ fixings.”