The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-03 00:00:00

OUR COTEMPORARIES—This Morning

THE BATTLES AT METZ AND SEDAN.
The Times considers that the result of the Duc de
Magenta's attempt to rescue his brother Marshal has
been to place him in a position analogous to that of
Bazaine position only different in this,
that Bazaine foUnd his position ready made for him
by the faults of his predecessors in command, and
has striven manfully and not ingloriously to repair
those faults, while MacMahon owes his misfortunes to
himself alone, and has aggravated a first mistake by a
series of errors which have ccmpromised the last chance
of retrieving the fortunes of France. At Metz Marshal
Bazaine, who had been quiescent ever since the great
battles of the 14th, 16th, and 18th, and from whom no
cottmunications whatever had reached the Imperial head-
quarters since the last-named date, attempted a sortie
on Friday, the 26th, at Courcelles, near Pange, but was
repulsed. This was the incident which was by the French
papers magnified into a great victory, and in which.
Bazaine was reported to have destroyed the whole
cavalry of Prince Frederick Charles. A. more deter-
mined effort was made by Bazaine on Wednesday, when
he sallied forth with his whole army, and gave
battle to the Prince all along the line, being ultimately
driven back at all points with tremendous loss, after a.
terrible contest of forty hours' duration. It would hardly
seem rational to attribute these two great simultaneous
actions to mere fortuitous coincidence. But if Bazaine
acted upon a hint from MacMahon, and MacMahon
reckoned on the confusion an attack in front
and rear might cause among the Germans, theymust have
strangely overlooked the fact that Metz and Sedan are
fully sixty miles asunder, and that the Germans had been
too long aware of MacMahon's scheme to venture in pur-
suit of him without leaving before Metz a force amply
sufficient to check Bazaine's attempt to escape.
Bazaine's repulse, in the meanwhile, adds one more
rivet to the chain which fastens him and his fine army in
their prison on the Moselle. Last Wednesday's sally
may not be the last, but it is not easy to conceive how
any future attempt of the same nature can ever lead to a
more fortunate result.

The Daily News remarks that the Prussian tactics have
evidently been not merely to inflict defeat on Mac-
Mahon and shut him up in a corner, but to annihilate
his army, either by driving him across the frontier
where the Belgians would be waiting to disarm him, or by
inflicting on him such enormous losses in successive defeats
that he would be utterly unable to rally. This is
probably the meaning of the successive days of
battle. Day by day the Prussians have followed
up their victory, and day by day the beaten General has
rallied his troops for another disastrous defence. It is
political even more than strategical reasons which cause
this tenacity. MacMahon is in such a position that suc-
cessful retreat is quite impossible, and he may well feel
that flight and submission are equally out of the ques-
tion. His army is like the boat which carried Caesar.
The fortunes of a dynasty are bound up with it. The ho-
nour and credit of the country are in its hands. Marshal
MacMahon is shewing on his larger field the same
tenacity which makes Uhrich prefer the ruin of
a great city to its surrender, and which urges
the Commandant of Phalsburg to fight even for its
ashes. He is the shield of France. The Germans must
march over him to Paris. In his army is the last hope
of the country. In his person France stands at
bay. Everything that supreme strategy can do,
everything that undaunted courage can attempt,
everything that an iron tenacity can hope for,
MacMahon is bringing to the service of France.
Whatever be the result of this struggle—and that result
has never for a moment been really doubtful to those who
understood the position—MacMahon and his army will
have deserved well of France. He and his army have done
all that brave men could do to retrieve a lost field, and
they have only failed because success was impossible
either to generalship or to courage.