THE BATTLE OF SEDAN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 271, 16 April 1914, Page 8

THE BATTLE OF SEDAN.

THE GRAPHIC STORY OF FRANCE'S HUMILIATION.

A dense white mist fdled the valley of the Meusc on the morning of the Ist of September, 1870, that ''day of doom," which was to hurl the third Napoleon 'from his throne. The army of Chalons —120,000 dispirited and disorganised men under MacMahon's leadership—had been overtaken on its way to join hands with Bazainc, and was being driven into the valleys and ravines which surround Sedan. The Frenchmen had been brought to bay. , At four o'clock in the morning, Von der Tann's Bavarians, in two columns, were marching stealthily on the village of Baveilles, to the south-east of Sedan, which was held by the French. Under the shelter of a mist so thick that they could not see many steps ahead, they had readied the outskirts of the village before the wearied Frenchmen had any suspicion that the enemy was near, and had entered the principal street and gained possession of several houses before the warning notes of the bugle stirred the sleeping soldiers to life, "The Germans are on us!"

Thus began the fight for the possession of Bazeilles which raged for seven hours, "ebbing and flowing through and round the market-place, the church, the larger mansions, and pretty park at Monvillei-3, washed and beautified by the stream of the Givonne." Now the"Bavarians were swept back out of the village, now they returned, driving ; the Frenchmen in front of them. It was Pandemonium let loose—the ceaseless rattle of musketrv, the boom of cannon, the fierce shouts "of battle, the cries of the wounded, and over all the shrieks of shells scattering death everywhere. General Lebrun, who, with a group of officers, watched the fight from a neighbouring hill, says:—"The shells cut off one branch after another from the tree at the foot of which I stood holding my horse. In quick succession one of my officers was killed, two were mortally wounded, and two men who bore my fanion were hit." Between eight and nine the wave of battle flowed up the Givonne, which runs to east of Sedan, and from Bazeilles to the fringe of the forest of Ardennes the smoke of cannon floated in clouds.

FRENCH LEADERS AT VARIANCE. Meanwhile, inside the French lines the drama had deepened. MacMahon, riding on the scene of the fighting, was struck by a flying fragment of shell, and was carried to Sedan. The French army had thus early lost its leader; nhd General Duerot, who now tool; the reins in hand, at once ordered a retreat towards Mezieres. Scarcely, however, had the retreat begun when Wimpffen, who had in his pocket an order from Palikao, the War Minister, authorising him to succeed MacMahon, if the Marshal were disabled, took the command and countermanded the order to retire. "I will not have a movement on Mezieres!" the fiery, autocratic De Wimpffen exclaimed. "If the army is to retreat it shall be on Carignan, and not on Menzieres"; thus playing into the handi -of Von Moltke, who desired, above all things, that the French corps should remain on the Givonne. that he might surround it and compel a' surrender. Whilst the rival generals were thus wrangling and wasting valuable time, German reinforcements were pouring into Bazeilles; their batteries were deluging it with shells from every point of the compass; and bv eleven o'clock the last Frenchman was driven out at the point of the hayonet, and tho, village was in flames from end to end. Meanwhile the battle was raging more and more fiercely along the bank of the Givonne river to the north.

The Saxons poured resistlessly into Daigny. capturing the village, the bridge, and gaining a strong footing on the Sedan bank of the Givonne.

"General Lartigue's horse," we are told, "was killed by a shell, and he himself severely wounded. His chief of the staff. Colonel Dadigne. hit twice, dropped in a field of beetroot. Shells from his own side fell'near him, and ho was grateful to them because they. drove away a pig which came and sniffed at his wounds. Saxon soldiers gave him wine and lumps of sugar, but one of them stole bis watch and cross. In the end he was tenderly carried to an ambulance.

But the Chalons army, gallantly as it fought, was no match for the' better disciplined, better-led German armv, whose movements Von Moltke himself directed, and which fought under the eyes of the King of Prussia. One bv one the villages on the eastern bank of the Givonne were captured—Givonne Daigny, La Moncelle, and it was now only a question of a few hours before the Frenchmen were completely surrounded and driven back, defeated and disorganised into Sedan. Two German corps, under the Prussian Crown Prince had crossed the Meuse, and taken up a strong position on the Mezieres Road, cutting off the French from escape to the west; and already the "circle of steel was almost complete. On the north the German battalions were closing swiftly in. The villages of St. Menges and Floing were captured: other battalions were surging towards the steep slopes of the Calvaire d'lllyi strongly held by French cavalry. Seem" the infantry spread out below, General Marguerite gave the order for his horsemen to charge; and led by General <Jalifet, three regiments of Chasseurs d'Afrique and two squadrons of lancers poured like a torrent down the hillside.

AN ENEMY'S TRIBUTE. "With swords lifted on high, they dashed ou us," says a German officer, lure! rang out the word of command. Now a hail of lead rattled against the horsemen. Steadily aiming, calmly firing off shot after shot, and the horsemen recoil as from a wall. A few steps in front of us they fall wildly in a neap. .... But ever new squadrons press forward, those in the rear press'mg on those in front; the front ranks partly take to flight; as if seized bv a whirlwind the confused surge. The hail of shot strikes in upon the within" mass. Soon many hundreds of French horsemen cover the field, and still thov

do not give up the sanguinary game as lost; ever anew they start on the ride of death. All honour to whom honour is due, even to a foe!" Baffled and beaten back, Marguerittc's horsemen only "retired to leap better." An hour later their opportunity came again, when Duerot ordered them to charge the enemy at the foot of Cazal Hill. Moving out at the head of two fine regiments, the general was struck by a bullet in the head before he had advanced many paces, and De Galifet took command. For half an hour the gallant Frenchmen charged the enemy again and again—in front, in the. flanks, in the rear, 'sweeping them before them at one moment, driven back the next, spurring over the bodies of their fallen fellows in the race to death.

But again all their gallantry proved futile against the steady, pitiless hail of bullets which swept their ranks. They were dispersed, and they left behind heaps of dead and dying—one-half their strength resting on the scene of their daring. Three generals, Margueritte, Girard, and Tilliard, were killed, and Salignao-Feneion was wounded. When the cavalry had been driven hack in disorder, the last bodies of infantry, which had stood firm, broke and fled.' "Then on the right and left, with loud hunv.hs the Prussian lines advanced." The day was now won. The army of Chalons was enclosed within a ring fence of German guns and bayonets from Fleignoux on the north to Bazcilles in the south, and from Daigny in the east to, Donchery in the west. ' The shells from four hundred German guns were raining on Sedan itself, bursting in the garden of (he Sub-Perfecture, in the hospitals, the streets and among the houses, many of which were in flames. THE EMPEROR SURRENDERS.

For several hours Napoleon had watched the ebb and flow of the battle from the heights above La Moneelle, cheered by De Wimpffcu's boast, "we shall first pitch the Bavarians into the Mouse, and then, with all our forces, fall upon the new foe." But when he saw the tide of war rolling his soldiers resistlessly back, he had returned to Sedan, a crushed and hopeless man. In vnin T)e Wimpffen urged him to make an effort to break through the enemy's lines, 'let your Majesty," de Wimpffen said, "plac'e himself in the midst of his troops; tliey will hold themselves in honour to "force a passage." The appeal fell on deaf ears. Then the general made his last desperate effort. Gathering together the fragments of his broken armv, he fell fiercely on the Bavarians in Balan and drovr them out of the village. But he could do no more. The enemv poured back on him in orenvhelmini numbers: his armv was caught in a tornado of shells from a, hundred guns, and swept out of Bnlaii d'nst as the white flag of surrender floated over the gate of Redan. FUKTHER RESISTANCE WAS HOPELESS. The army of Chalons, "weary, wasted, -famished, and unnerved." was pouring in panic into Sedan. "The streets, the squares, the gates were choked up with carts, carriages, guns, the impedimenta and debris of a routed army." A few minutes later General" Reille tode out of the Torcy gate on his way to the Prussian King, to whom he presented Napoleon's note of surrender—"My brother,—Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops, it only remains to place my sword in the hands of your Majesty.—l am, your Majesty's good brother, Napoleon. ' After iv few minutes' conference with his son and his principal officers, King William wrote the following reply, "sitting on one chair, while the seat of the second was held up by Major von Alten. who knelt on one knee and supported the chair on the other"—"Regretting the circumstances jn which we meet, I accept vour Majesty's sword, and beg that voii will be good enough to name an officer furnished with full powers to treat for the capitulation of the armv which has fought so bravely under your orders. On my side, T have designated Genera! von Moltke for this purpose." Over the events which immediately followed this dramatic episode we must hasten—the wrangling and recriminations of the French generals and l)e Wimpffeu's brave struggle with Bismark and Von Moltke for better terms of eapitulattion. When thev were refused, and De Wimpffen threatened to break out, or at least defend Sedan. Von Moltke nointed out the folly of such a threat. "Your army is demoralised," he said. "To-day we have captured more than 20.000 wounded prisoners. You have only 80,000 men left. Mv troops and guns around the town would smash yours before thev could make a movement, and as to defending Sedan you have neither provisions nor ammunition for forty-eight hours. The truce," he concluded, "expires to-morrow morning at four o'clock; and at four precisely I shall open fire." THE IRON CHANCELLOR.

Equile futile was Napoleon's interview with Bismark in that little upper room, with its one deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs, in the weaver's cottage near Donchary. The Chancellor was adnmant: and the Emperor dispatched that historic telegram to his Empress: "The army is defeated and captive. T, myself, am a prisoner." Then came the last tragic scene, so graphically described by the painter. Bleibtreu. the marching out of Sedan of the prisoners of war. "What trains of prisoners! I stand at the gate of .Sedan and watch them march past by the hour together. There seems no end of them. I am all but overwhelmed bv the masses of men which crowd all the 'roads and march by without any guards to watch them. Here gloomv-looking officers who feel deeply the disgrace of their country; there "the picturesque dark forms of the African hordes, the unscrupulous, frivolous Zouaves, Chasseurs d'Afriquc, Spahis, etc. The privates fling their arms to the ground anyhow, and pass through the gate unharmed; onlv tile officers stii; wear their swords. On the bridge some of these gentlemen suddenly draw their swords and. rolling their eves heavenwards, break the blade and hurl the weapon over the railings into the water TBravo! Bravo!' shout the men leaniii" against the walls near the gate. In the courtyard there are. sitting and standing, a few high officers lost m gen-

nine deep gvi,i; Hi-, n. ;-.,her hear nor see anything ol v.h;:; i-, e;oing on „bout tlicni; they only think of the terrific rate that has overtaken th.-ir country."