The Downfall | Page 6

separate northern and southern Germany
by a vigorous inroad, and by means of a brilliant victory or two compel
Austria and Italy to join hands immediately with France. Had there not
been a short-lived rumor that that 7th corps of which his regiment
formed a part was to be embarked at Brest and landed in Denmark,
where it would create a diversion that would serve to neutralize one of
the Prussian armies? They would be taken by surprise; the arrogant
nation would be overrun in every direction and crushed utterly within a
few brief weeks. It would be a military picnic, a holiday excursion from
Strasbourg to Berlin. While they were lying inactive at Belfort,
however, his former doubts and fears returned to him. To the 7th corps
had been assigned the duty of guarding the entrance to the Black Forest;
it had reached its position in a state of confusion that exceeded
imagination, deficient in men, material, everything. The 3d division
was in Italy; the 2d cavalry brigade had been halted at Lyons to check a
threatened rising among the people there, and three batteries had
straggled off in some direction--where, no one could say. Then their
destitution in the way of stores and supplies was something wonderful;
the depots at Belfort, which were to have furnished everything, were
empty; not a sign of a tent, no mess-kettles, no flannel belts, no hospital
supplies, no farriers' forges, not even a horse-shackle. The
quartermaster's and medical departments were without trained
assistants. At the very last moment it was discovered that thirty
thousand rifles were practically useless owing to the absence of some
small pin or other interchangeable mechanism about the breech-blocks,
and the officer who posted off in hot haste to Paris succeeded with the
greatest difficulty in securing five thousand of the missing implements.
Their inactivity, again, was another matter that kept him on pins and

needles; why did they idle away their time for two weeks? why did
they not advance? He saw clearly that each day of delay was a mistake
that could never be repaired, a chance of victory gone. And if the plan
of campaign that he had dreamed of was clear and precise, its manner
of execution was most lame and impotent, a fact of which he was to
learn a great deal more later on and of which he had then only a faint
and glimmering perception: the seven army corps dispersed along the
extended frontier line _en echelon_, from Metz to Bitche and from
Bitche to Belfort; the many regiments and squadrons that had been
recruited up to only half-strength or less, so that the four hundred and
thirty thousand men on paper melted away to two hundred and thirty
thousand at the outside; the jealousies among the generals, each of
whom thought only of securing for himself a marshal's baton, and gave
no care to supporting his neighbor; the frightful lack of foresight,
mobilization and concentration being carried on simultaneously in
order to gain time, a process that resulted in confusion worse
confounded; a system, in a word, of dry rot and slow paralysis, which,
commencing with the head, with the Emperor himself, shattered in
health and lacking in promptness of decision, could not fail ultimately
to communicate itself to the whole army, disorganizing it and
annihilating its efficiency, leading it into disaster from which it had not
the means of extricating itself. And yet, over and above the dull misery
of that period of waiting, in the intuitive, shuddering perception of what
must infallibly happen, his certainty that they must be victors in the end
remained unimpaired.
On the 3d of August the cheerful news had been given to the public of
the victory of Sarrebruck, fought and won the day before. It could
scarcely be called a great victory, but the columns of the newspapers
teemed with enthusiastic gush; the invasion of Germany was begun, it
was the first step in their glorious march to triumph, and the little
Prince Imperial, who had coolly stooped and picked up a bullet from
the battlefield, then commenced to be celebrated in legend. Two days
later, however, when intelligence came of the surprise and defeat at
Wissembourg, every mouth was opened to emit a cry of rage and
distress. That five thousand men, caught in a trap, had faced thirty-five
thousand Prussians all one long summer day, that was not a
circumstance to daunt the courage of anyone; it simply called for

vengeance. Yes, the leaders had doubtless been culpably lacking in
vigilance and were to be censured for their want of foresight, but that
would soon be mended; MacMahon had sent for the 1st division of the
7th corps, the 1st corps would be supported by the 5th, and the
Prussians must be