The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-10 00:00:00

THE POLICY OF BAZAINE.

In a letter dated November 6th, the Metz corres-
pondent of the Daily News writes :—As I was strolling on
the esplanade this morning I met a comfortable-looking
old gentleman, in gaiters and woollen gloves. A remark
as to the scenery served as a mutual introduction,
and he told me he was an old officer of artil-
lery, who, during the greater part of the
siege, had held the position of Commandant of
Fort Qealeu, and who, when capitulation seemed
mminent, had returned to the civil life, out of which the
siege had temporarily called him, so as to escape expatria-
tion as a prisoner of war. The good old gentleman
spoke very frankly as to the events of the
siege, and had no hesitation in speaking his mind
as to Marshal Bazaine, and the motives by which,
from first to last, lie had been actuated. When the
army of the Rhine first fell back around the
fortifications of Metz after the battle of the 18th of
August, instead of making efforts which undoubtedly
would have been successful to push onward for a junction
with the rest of the French forces. Bazaine's explanation
to his principal officers for his policy was to the
effect that the forts of Metz were in a defensive con-
dition so backward that he dared not, consistently with
his duty to France and his impression as to the im-
portance of Metz as the premier fortress of the Empire,
abandon it in its then inchoate condition to a defence to
be carried on solely by its garrison. In this view the
commander of Fort Queleu declared that he completely
coincided. Comparatively trivial efforts would, he
believed, have sufficed to reduce Metz, immediately
after the 18th of August, had there been
no army to supnort the garrison, and to
strengthen the fortifications, and had the Prus-
sians taken immediate advantage of the state
of weakness. Bazaine, .he continued, with a zeal
and industry beyond all praise, put the forts into
a state of efficient defence by the end of the month.
It was then according to my informant, that his
presence for the first time became de trop in Metz,
and then it was that he ought, with all the vigour
he could exert, to have burst through the Prussian
cordon and get at large. That he could have done this,
whether in prosecution of the temporarily energetic
sortie which lasted over two days-31st August
and Ist September—in the direction of Noisse-
ville, Savigny, and St. Barbo, or in the better
line down the valley of the Moselle, my in-
formant had no doubt ; and I presume there are
few, even of the Prussians themselves, who will venture
to differ from this view. After the middle of September,
however, Bazaine's position, in view of breaking-out
tactics, became hopeless. Sickness decimated his ranks ;
his troops had already eaten deep into the means for
transporting artillery and train. I asked the old com-
mandant how, in his opinion, it was that Bazaine did not
strike a decisive blow for extrication after his presence in
Metz for good had ceased. The reply, to my thinking,
was very pregnant. Bazaine, a capable general,
a gallant man, and a sincere patriot, hung balanced
between two stools. Instead of looking with a
single eye to his duties as a military commander,
he became distracted with political complications.
In the early days he was studying the interests of
the Emperor, and the moans of conserving for Impe-
rialistic uses the army under his command. Later on, the
poison of personal ambition impregnated the system of
the hitherto straightforward soldier. He nourished dreams
of seeing himself Regent of France, and made ducks
and drakes of his reputation without attaining the
personal quid pro quo he lusted after. On the subject
of provisions, the old commandant of Fort Queleu could
speak with exactitude. In the fort he had commanded
there existed at the time of the capitulation rations
which, witn care and eking out, would have fed
its proper garrison for six weeks, And there were
stores to the same extent in the other forts. These had
been husbanded to the last in the belief that the incubus
of the outside army might somehow be removed, and that
the fortress proper might still be in a position to preserve
La Pucelle from violation.