THE WAR BETWEEN PRUSSIA AND FRANCE.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 727, 15 September 1870, Page 4

THE WAR BETWEEN PRUSSIA AND FRANCE.

MAYENCE,

The Prussians, it is now stated, are falling back upon Coblentz and Mayence. . Both these fortresses are on»the left or Frenoh side of the Rhine, the former, *as we have already had occasion to state, beingi situated at the confluence of the oselle and that river, and the latter at the junction of the Maine and the Rhine. The towns aye 56 miles distant. Mayenc*, or Mainz, has been a frontier stronghold from the earliest times. Druses, son-in-law of Augustus, encamped here, and built the fortress. After his' death the body was brought here by the Roman army, B. C. 9. The town since then has been the scene of numerous sieges,- and all the miseries incidental to mediaeval war. It gave .birth to Gutemburg, the .invent©) 1 of irioyeable types, and now boasts of a statute by Thorwaldsen of that father of the printing. press to which the worW is ,so vastly indebted. The bown belougs ? to the Grand Duke of Hesse Darmstadt, and has, by virtue of the treaty of 1866, been garrisoned since that year by Prussian troops. Its population, including^ itsTnormai .garrison, numbers 42,000 inhabitants. The ancient place of the Electors of Mainz was occupied by Napoleon Bonaparte on, we believe, several occasions, and is now the residence of the governor of the fortress. A bridge of boats 1,660 ft long, oyer the Rhine, unites Mayence to Castel in -Nassau, on the opposite bank, a suburb also strongly fortified. There is also a railway bridge, 1,212 ft long connecting Mayence with the line to the town of Darmstadt. Mayence is close to the Hockheim, Rudesheim, and other notable Rhenish vineyards, and is the usual terminus of excursions up the Rhine. „ -•-' •., STRATEGICAL. OPERATIONS. '■ Little is to be gathered from the telegrams, which assign Metz as the point of concentration of the French armies. That fortress is, in the first place, their proper point to assemble, whether their ulterior " objective " is the Upper or Lower Rhine. In the next place, an army of great magnitude placed between two first class fortresses j'-BUch as. Metz and Thionville, with admirable ground for defence t behind the Moselle, could not be 'better posted. The lines of rail connect Metz with the Rhine at several points ; and, so long as those lines are maintained intact,

the French Emperor may throw the weight of his force on any one of several points. Now, all history proves that the French, in obedience to a national characteristic, are prone to adopt an offensive attitude in war. It eminently suits the genius of the French soldier ; and the Emperor knows better than any man, perhaps, how far the impulse, the springing valor, and active intelligence of his men will carry him. But, looking at matters in a strategic point of view, the aspect of tilings may make the bravest of French soldiers anxious. Putting Russia aside (for in the case of her intervention, it is difficult to imagine how the French could take and preserve the 9#j£n§iv§i)i there is amply sufficient to maftlreii'e Iroldest leader pause ere he commits an army to the invasion of Germany in the face of Prussia of to-day. The Rhine line is altogether in the hands of the enemy. The fortresses of Cologne, Coblentz, and Mayence preclude the possibility of an advance and after-passage of the river in their vicinity or between them. Imagine a French army crossing between Cologne and Coblentz, or between the latter fortress and Mayence ! CubJentz alone can hold a hundred thousand men ; arid how could any army 'afford to leave so" vast an entrenched camp in its rear 1 And yet a deliberate siege would occupy too many men and too much time. Therefore, an advance on the Rhine in that direction,, and its passage near that point, is not to be entertained for a moment. It seems improbable, then, that the French would move towards the Rhine on any point between Cologne and Mayence. If, then, they do not preserve the defensive, it follows that in crossing the Rhine they must pass between Mayence and Strasburg. It is possible that, with a view to the prestige Of the thing, the French might clear all the Rhine provinces, and then, dare Prussia to eject them; but afterwards what could they do? The acquisition of the Rhine provinces "is nearly valueless unless it brings with them one or more of the great Rhine fortresses, an end that would be much more easily achieved through negotiations following on, signal success obtained by the French elsewhere; It is likely then that the French (in the absence of Russian intervention) meditate an irruption in imposing force into Germany on some point south of the Maine. The French fortresses r of Metz and Thionville, and the country connecting and in rear of them, may 1 be «afely trusted to a part of the great force ; and the bulk, of the army, with the Emperor hi command, will probably cross the Rhine somewhere between Mayence and Mannheim. To pass the river at this point, would more effectually separate the Prussians from the South German States, than to pass between- Mannheim and Stiasburg. From a military point of view the Prussian alliance with these states is, in spite of the accession of resources, a drawback ; ' for the weight of a French advance between Mayence and Mannheim would necessitate the march of a strong Prussian army south of the Maine, and the strength of the Prussian position lies in the defiles opening on the valley of the Saal, viz. — Baireuth-Hof, KronachSchleitz, Coburg-Saalfield, with the line of the Thuringian forest. Of course the real strength of Prussia against an attack from France lies finally in the line of the Elbe; but that is beyond our present purpose. Looking at affairs from a Prussian stand-point it may be urged that the Prussians, knowing the safety of the Lower Rhine to be well assured by the possession of great fortresses, will mass the bulk of their forces near Wurtzburg, the centre of many great roads of communication, where they are sufficiently near to hold out a hand to the Bavarians, and where they cover their own frontier ; for the French, having no base on the Rhine nearer than Strasburg, would inevitably compromise their communications by an advance across the Maine. Under these circumstauces, what advantage would the French gain by passing the Rhine between Mayence and Mannheim? This difficult question, we doubt not, the French Emperor and his councillors, appreciating to a nicety the strategic disadvantages under which they must labor in invading Germany by any route, have it in their mind to trust to the issue of great battles, ' in which the certainly superior equipment of the men, and their probably superior discipline, will offer better chances of success than the pursuance of a war of manoeuvres. THE MITKAULEtTB. France introduced the. rifled field gun into the campaign of 1859 against Austria, the Austrians having no weapons of that nature in the field. The Prussians were all armed with breech-loaders in the war of 1866, the Anstrians being entirely armed with muzzle-loaders. The French are about to introduce the mitrailleut into the war of 1870. As far as is at present known the Prussians have not yet adopted an arm of the kind, though it has been no secret for a long time that, in various countries, the arm has been constructed in various patterns. The Montigny weapon is an assemblage of barrels contained in a wrought-iron tube, mounted much on the same principle as an ordinary , field-gun, which it resembles somewhat in form. To this a massive breech- action is attached, sliding between heavy iron i plates. This is controlled by a jointed lever, and contains a simple contrivance for the separate and successive ignition of the cartridges. The cartridges are carried ; in steel plates, perforated with holes, corresponding in number and positiOu to the chambers of the barrels, of which, indeed, when in position, these holes form portions, being bored and finished with the same tools, and at the same time as the chambers themselves. When the cartridges are dropped into the plates they stand out at right angles in the proper position for introduction into the chambers of the qua. Grooves formed on . the face of the breech-block receive the plate, which being dropped into them now advances, or is retired with the breech-block itself. When the weapon is set at full-cock, ready for firing, a second of time is sufficient to give -a complete revolution of the firing handle, and to discharge the whole of the 37 barrels of which the weapon consists. When the one set of 37 cartridges has been fired, the gunner raises the loaded lever, thereby opening the breach, and withdraws the empty cases, by means of the pleite, which now performs the part of extractor of 37 cartridges in one. The plate is lifted from its grooves, carrying with it the empty cases, and can immeiately be replaced by a plate filled with loaded cartridges, and the operation is repeated. This weapon has been fired 12 times in a minute, throwing thereby 444

rifle shots in that time. The waggon and limber-boxes at present carry 3,034 rounds of cartridge, but could readily carry more. A year ago the French mitraillcur batteries were already numerous. They consists of eight guns each, each gun served "by three men only," chosen from the non-commissioned officers of the Horse Artillery of the Imperial Guard. With this complement of men the woapon should throw about "300 shots per minute for five or six conscutive minutes, to very considerable ranges, and with . an admirable trajectory. In the experiments at Wiolwich with" the Montigny mitraifleur, 3G shots out of 37 (one wag a miss fire) were placed in a target 18ft by 15ft, at 800 yards distance ; and the practice at 1,000 yards was nearly equally good. If then, as there is reason to believe, the French army has now taken the field liberally equiped with such terible destructive weapons, we may reasonably anticipate an effect at least as great as was the effect of the breach-loaders m ths war of 1866. Taking all circumstances into consideration, we are disposed, with a well-informed writer some short time ago to place the value of a single nvitrauleur rather above than below that of 120 infantry. Supposing this calculation to be correct, a French battery of eight mitmilleurs would equal in yalue^ an ordinary infantry regiment, whilst there would be this advantage, that only 24 men would be exposed to the enemy s fire instead of 960.