The scheme, however, collapsed and Bazaine surrendered the Army of the Rhine, who became prisoners of war to the number of 180,000. This surrender is often explained by Bazaine's lack of motivation to defend a government that corresponded less and less to his political ideals and the best interests of France, as he saw it. A week's further resistance would have potentially enabled the levies of the National Defence government to crush the weak forces of the Germans on the Loire and to relieve Paris. But the army of Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia, set free from the siege of Metz by Bazaine's surrender, hurried up in time to check and to defeat the great effort at the Second Battle of Orléans.