The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-28 00:00:00

THE LAST GREAT SORTIE.

The sortie from Paris on the 21st was nothing more
than an artillery battle, a preliminary, as it were, for
future operations. Large numbers of field batteries were
sent out in all directions in the east, north-east, and
north, and they pounded away, French and Germans,
until night fell. In the evening the French bivouacked
outside their forts so as to be ready for any enterprise the
next day. The Daily News correspondent says of this
affair :—What is the raison d'etre of this great powder-
burning demonstration of to-day. It could hardly
have been intended as an attempt to break through.
Speculations in the early part of the day were
various. It might be a reconnaissance in force to
discover by drawing their fire whether the
besiegers had and heavy artillery mounted on the works
between Sevran awl Pont lbion, with future intentions
towards the forts. It might have been that, in the
knowledge of the railways being in use as far as Gon-
nesse and Sevran, the speculation might have been ven-
tured that to these termini were centering the siege guns
and that under a heavy artillery fire the
infantry might get the chance of making a
dash on an exploring and destroying expedition. But
in my humble opinion the cue was given to the motive of
the day's work in the terms of a communication made

by General von Montbe, at his hospitable dinner table.
All day long heavy columns of French infantry massed on
and about the slope of Avron, and as far forward as
Neuilly, had been threatening the gap of Chelles. I
believe I have already referred to this alluvial tract as
the likely area of a sortie, It presents several obvious
advantages. It is quite flat, is open in the physical sense
all the way to Lagny—all the way to Chalons for that
matter—and the French holding Neuilly as they do,
already sit astride of the flat country, and can make their
dispositions without annoyance or exposure on the same
level as their succeeding operations. Then there
is no river to cross. But for that somewhat sturdy
obstacle the Saxons there would be a straight run home
unobstructed by water or broken ground all the way, as I
have said to Lagny ; and behind a sallying force there
stands up the formidable Avron, a most judicious bottle
holder, and something more. No doubt there are disad-
vantages to set against all these advantages. This world
is a vale of crosses, and nobody can expect to have it all
his own way, The bluff of Montermeil enfilades
a force coming up the flat toward Chelles as soon 'as
it chews out from Neuilly. The height behind
Chelles looks direct in the face of any such force ;
and owing to circumstances attributable to the Germans
any contemplation of a hostile force on the part of the
heights of Chelles would not be so harmless as normally
is the case. These heights, too, narrow the fair way
considerably, and from the onset it is the reverse
of too large. Still I have wondered that the
French, who have essayed far less eligible ground
for a sortie in a physical sense, should not have
tried this. It was clear that I was not alone in my
opinion, for Chelles was the line taken by the 24th
Division Artillery this morning from Le Pin. The
French columns—a whole division it was known—sheaved
opposite the gap, ready to throw themselves into it. But
they knew of old results of a concentration at any point
of the deadly field artillery of the Germans. Had they
come on directly, and with no diversion, what would
have hindered it, but that the Saxon batteries from the
Marne to the inundations, the Guards batteries from
Livry to Gonnese, should have been waiting .there
for them across the throat of the gap at Chelles
and on the crest of Montfermeil ? Wherefore was
made a great artillery , demonstration, supported
with infantry, to look in earnest on the north-eastern face
in the hopes to draw off the Artillery from the Chelles
positions, and leave the coast comparatively clear forsan
attack. The plan might have succeeded with a weaker
artillery than that possessed by the Germans—that it did
not; as it was partially successful, I am not quite prepared
to assert. Any how, the French division about two
o'clock thought itself justified in advancing to
the attack up the northern bank of the Marne,
What happened is to me as yet involved in
obscurity. The sequence of General Montbe's
communication was that after a good deal of fighting up
till about half- past four the French had not succeeded
in gaining any ground, and had then slowly fallen back
into their old position behind Neuilly. Now, however,
when I come to headquarters here, I find no conceal-
ment made of what seems to be an assured fact, that
Ville Evrart and Le Maison Blanche, the two keys to the
Prussian outpost line athwart the alluvial plain, were
taken this afternoon by the French, and are now held by
them ; and there is a design of retaking them to-night
under cover of the darkness.

On the fifteenth of December, a party of twenty Arab
horsemen passed through Lyons. They were said to be
the advanced guard of a great troop of Bedouins, who
were to be sent in campaign against the I,Thlans. Some
Arab horsemen already form part of the Loire Army.
At Metz the other day a Prussian sentinel was killed
by a shot from a gun. Several persons have been
arrested, and if the assassin is not discovered the town
will have to pay a fine of £2,000. In many of the private
dwelling-houses discoveries of hidden Chassepots and
cartridges have been made.

Trustworthy information records that the Prussian
corps operating about the Loire have been raised to their
full strength within the last ten days by the levies of
1870 ; " but at the rate they are losing men by battle and
small-pox (which is raging fearfully in their army) they
will require another draught in another fortnight."
The losses of the Saxon troops before Paris amounted,
up to the 2nd inst., to 2,194 killed, wounded, and missing.
On that day alone the Schutzen regiment lost 567 men, or
about a third of its effective force. "In common with
the whole country," says a letter from Dresden, " our
King has been afresh painfully affected by the largeness
of these losses." The writer adds that the entire Saxon
fortress artillery has been despatched to Paris.

A Bavarian. soldier before Paris has written to his
friends to say that the French are not at all inclined to
open the gates of their town, and he is quite undeceived
as to the notion of the winter being mild in Paris, for
during the last few days the cold has been most intense.
There had been no time to get their horses rough-shod,
which, in the everit of a sortie, would be awkward. The
other day a column of troops had to stop in the middle of
the street. and the horses fell at every step. The artillery
horses suffer terribly, as they are at the outposts exposed
to the air night and day. Their shelters, composed of
branches, afford them very little protection. The men,
however, have succeeded in making good huts of earth.
There was abundance of food, and the outposts had fur
cloaks to wear.

Three Francs-Tireurs having been hung by Baden sol
diers ; Colonel Bourras wrote to General Werder, at
Dijon :—" I am informed that three of my Francs-Tireurs
who were captured by your soldiers have been hung. I
beg to ask you whether this was an isolated case which
will not be repeated. If this manner of treating prisoners
becomes the rule, I shall be obliged to resort to reprisals
on the seventy prisoners who are at present in my hands."
General Werder replied : —" I have given orders to inves-
tigate the case of which you apprise me. Whatever the
result, I hasten to announce that similar cases will not
occur, and that I shall never permit a prisoner o f war to
be sent to the gallows."
THE NEw PHASE OF THE WAR.—The Frank-
fbrt Gazette publishes a letter from a Hessian officer
which gives a gloomy picture of the way in which the war
is now carried on in the French provinces. It mentions
the burning clown of the village of Coulours, near Ville-
neuve, where a Hessian foraging expedition had been sur-
prised, with the help of the inhabitants, and a portion of
them destroyed. After the enemy had been driven off, the
bodies of three German soldiers were discovered with their
heads cut off and carried away. The village of Auxon,
near Troyes, has also been plundered and burnt as a pun.
ishment for the barbarous massacre of an etappen troop,
whose noses and ears were cut off. In the region of the
Loire sons of the nobility are to be found among the
Francs-Tireurs. Fanatical priests persuade the people
that the war is no longer directed against their country,
but against' their religion, and that the object of the in-
vaders is to force the people to become Protestants.

We understand that the Rev. W. Busfield, M.A.,
on account of the state of his health, has resigned the
rectory of Keighley, Yorkshire, to which he was ap-
painted in 1840. The resignation will take effect on the
20th of March next. The value of the living, of which
the Duke of Devonshire is patron, is estimated at 2428 a
year.

LITERAL.—Among the Sunday-school children of
a certain church was a poor little fellow, who could not
tell the number of the house in which he lived, and was
charged when he next came to school to bring it. The
next time he appeared he was asked if he had brought the
number. " No, sir," said he ; "it was nailed on the door
so tight that I couldn't get it off."
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