The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-08 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MOND V MORNING, AUGUST 8, 1870.

Marshal MacMahon. It was, however, announced from
Metz that an engagement had taken place between
General Froissatd's corps and the enemy. The telegram
goes on to say :—" It appears to be confirmed that im-
portant concentrations of troops were effected on the
Baden bank of the Rhine, and were vigilantly watched
by the French authorities, particularly between Colmar
and Huningen. Most efficacious measures were taken
against all eventualities in this direction. The General
Douay killed at Weissenburg is not the commander of
the Seventh Army Corps, but General Abel Douay, com-
manding the second infantry division of Marshal
M`Mahon's Corps.

The following telee;rams are dated :

PARIS, AUGUST 7 (10 A.m.)

" Official and several other despatches from Metz,
dated up to half-past four o'clock this morning,
state that after a series of engagements, in
which the Prussians deployed considerable forces,
Marshal MaßMahon retired behind his first line.
The corps of General Froissard had to fight from
two o'clock in the afternoon against an entire army of the
enemy. After having held its position up to 6 p.m., it
effected a retreat in good order. Particulars of the lossos
are still wanting. Our troops are full of spirit, and the
situation is not compromised. But the enemy is on our
territory, and a serious effort is necessary. A battle is
imminent.

" PARIS, AUG. 7 (3.50 p.m.)

"The following despatch has been received from Metz,
dated 11.55 a.m. :--` The troops continue to concentrate
without difficulty. All hostilities appear to have ceased.
The infantry regiments engaged yesterday [at Saarbruck]
were the 32nd, 85th, 76th, 77th, Bth, 23rd, 66th, 67th,
69th, 2nd, 63rd, 24th, and 40th of the Line, with the 10th
and 12th battalions of Chasseurs.' "

[The regiments mentioned in this telegram belong to,
the three divisions of General Froissard's corps, the
Seeond ; with the exception of the 69th, belonging to the
second division of Marshal Bazaine's Third Corps, which,
according to the Emperor Napoleon's despatches, was at
least partly engaged at Saarbruck.]
The Cologne Gazette of last evening says : "Yesterday's
success at Saarbruck was greater than was expected. The
baggage and encampments of two French divisions remain
in our hands. Forbach is occupied by our troops ."
According to a despatch in the Etoile Beige of last eve-
ning, the corps commanded by Marshals MacMahon and
Bazaine have attempted to surround the corps of Prince
Frederick Charles. Marshal Bazaine crossed the frontier at
Saint Avoid. The Prussians having learned from a spy that
General Froissard's Corps had taken the direction of Saint
Avoid, they retired and re-entered Saarbruck. The
Prussians occupy Styring and Benning. , The Emperor
was about to proceed to Saint Avoid when he received a
despatch announcing that the lines had been cut. A
battle is imminent.

MOVEMENTS OF THE PRUSSIAN ARMY.,
Prince Frederick Charles proceeded yesterday from
Homburg to BliescasteL General Steinmetz is between
Sulzbach and Saarbruck. The chief head-quarters of the
Prussian army are now at Kaiserlautern.

GREAT EXCITEMENT IN PARIS.
PARIS, AUGUST 6.

Great effeverseence was manifest on the Boulevards
on Friday evening in consequence of the news of the
engagement at Wissembourg. Circulation was almost
impossible on the Boulevards des Italiens and Montmartre
from the immense crowd of people. About 6 p.m. the shop
of the money changer, M. Dreher, was assaulted by a
mob in consequence of it being asserted that he had pub-
licly expressed his satisfaction at the French defeat. A
similar manifestation was made before the shop of the
money-changer Hirsch. The energetic intervention of the
police alone prevented the door being driven in. About 10
p. m. the excitement on the boulevards somewhat abated upon
the announcement of the numerical superiority of the Prus-
sians at Wissembourg. M. Dreher wrote a letter to the
Gaulois on Saturday morning stating that the demonstra-
tion was caused by words of his which were misunder-
stood.

On Saturday, no news having been received in Paris in
confirmation of the reported capture of the fortress of
Landau, the city was in a state of the greatest excitement.
A great crowd assembled in the Place VendOme, shouting
for the Minister of Justice, and protesting against the
false news spread at the Bourse. They also deManded
to know the name of the author of these reports, and
whether he had been arrested. M. 011ivier
appeared on the balcony, and was very well
received. He harangued the crowd, telling them
that all news would be communicated as soon as it
arrived; excepting such as related to the movements of
troops, the knowledge of which would profit the enemy.
M. 011ivier assured the people that the author of the
false Bourse reports had been arrested, but he refused
t o give his name until his guilt had been proved,
and he concluded his speech with the appeal :—" In the
name of our country let us have patience. Let us dis-
perse amid cries of Long live our country.' " The crowd
then withdrew, shouting " Vive la patrie."
Later on the same evening the Council of Ministers
issued the following proclamation to the people of Paris :
" You have been justifigbly moved by an abominaltrick.
The culprit has been arrested, and the matter placed in the
hands of the law. The Government is taking the most ener-
getic measures to prevent the repetition of Buchan infamous
manoeuvre. In the name of your country, in the name of
your heroic army, we ask you to be calm and patient, and to
preserve order. Disturbances in Paris would be a victory
for the Prussians. As soon as any certain news, whether
good or bad, arrives it will be communicated to you imme-
diately. Let us be united. Let us at this hour have but
one thought, one desire, one idea—the triumph of our
arms."

The Proclamation was signed by all the Ministers.
Paris was placed in a state of siege, and the Chambers
were convoked for to-day.

PROCLAMATION BY THE EMPRESS.
• PARIS, AUGUST 7, 3.50 p.m.

The Council of Ministers is sitting en permanence.
Messrs. Rouher and Schneider have been summoned to
the Tuileries, where the Empress arrived at five o'clock
this mornin'. Her Majesty issued the following pro-
clamation :

"Frenchmen ! The opening of the war has not
been in our favour. Our armies have suffered a
check. Let us be firm under this reverse, and
let us hasten to repair it Let there be among us
but a single party, that of France—but a single
flag, the flag of our national honour. I come into
your midst. Faithful to my mission and to my duty,
you
will see me first where danger threatens, to defend
the flag of France. I call upon all good citizens to pre-
serve order ; to disturb it would be to conspire with our
enemies.

" EUGENIE.

"The Tuileries, August 7, 11 a.m."

A telegram despatched from Paris early yesterday
morning, but not received in London till the evening,
states that the young man who was arrested on the charge
of spreading false news had made a full confession of his
guilt, but declared he had been incited by another indi-
vidual, who has also been taken into custody. The pro-
clamation of the Ministers, promising to publish all news
from the seat of war, whether good or bad, has produced
a favourable impression.

iien;l:ty of death,-and therefore the reason for the
bullion secretly away will have to be fully explained. It
is said that one Franco-German house has despatched no
less than a million sterling abroad since the opening of the
war, but it is not stated whether or not they were legiti-
mate transactions.

EXPORTATION OF ARMS FROM
BELGIUM.

The Belgian Government has provisionally prohibited
the exportation and transport of arms, munitions of war,
and specie, excepting to neutral countries.

TELEGRAM FROM THE KING OF
PRUSSIA.

The following is the text of the telegram from the King
of Prussia to Queen Augusta, announcing the victory
gained at Weissenburg :—" Under Fritz's eyes, we to-
day gained brilliant but bloody victory by storming
Weissenburg and the Gaisburg behind it. Our sth
and 11th corps and the 2d Bavarian corps were engaged.
Enemy in flight ; 500 unwounded prisoners. One cannon
and their camp in our hands. The French General. of
Division, Douay dead. On our part General von Kirch-
bach slightly grazed. My regiment and the 58th had
heavy losses. God be thanked for this first glorious
achievement. May He help further."

NEUTRALITY OF THE UNITED STATES.
It is reported from Washington that the President will
soon issue a proclamation declaring neutrality on the part
of the United States during the present war between
France and Prussia.

Some surprise is felt at the fact that in the few encoun-
ters which have taken place between the French senti-
nels and the Prussian cavalry, or even between horsemen
and the Uhlans, the fire of the latter has been so in-
nocuous. A letter from Forbach explains the circum-
stance in remarking that King William's cavalry is armed
with pistols solely, while the French is furnished with
carbines, which although shorter than the Chassepot, have
nevertheless a longer range than pistols, and carry more
correctly.

A correspondent of the Independance Beige, writing from
St. Avoid on the 2d, immediately after the affair at Saar-
bruck, which he had witnessed, speaks of it as a very
small affair, une Comedic, and says that it was got up to
satisfy the public impatience, the Emperor having satis-
fied himself that it would not be well to undertake im-
portant operations for several days.
The North Eastern Correspondent publishes the follow-
ing :—" Herewith I send you an exact detailed statement
of the Prussian Landwehr of the first ban, which comprise
all the men from 25 to 35 years complete, 1,218 battalions
of infantry, consisting of 14,000 officer; and 140,000
Privates. 2. 16 Regiments of cavalry of reserve, having,
500 officers and nearly 10,090 men. 3. 10 regiments of
artillery, comprising 1,000 officers and 42,000 non-com-
missioned officers and soldiers Including the pioneers
and other troops, they number altogether 205,000 men.
Of these three armies the first is about the only one that
has a chance of entering on the campaign."

UNVI LLE and Co.,Belfast, are the largest holders
of whisky in the world. Their Old Irish Whisky is r ommended
by the medical profession in preference to French brand . Sup•
plied in.casks and cases for home use or exportation. Quotations
on application to Messrs DUNVILLE & oyal Irish Dis-
tilleries. Belfast; or at, thei London Offices, 4. Co.,'Beaufort Buildin tzs
Strand, "..C.

THE PRESS ON THE BATTLES.

THE FRENCH DEFEATS.

The Times notes that the Emperor's language in his
bulletins is by no means confident, and in any imme-
diate conflict, such as he announces as imminent,
he would find himself at the head of forces numeri-
cally 'inferior, and perhaps, also, somewhat dispirited.
It is questionable, however, whether an imme-
diate and decisive battle is any longer • a matter
of choice with him. Strategically and politically,
the Emperor's position at Metz has become exceed-
ingly precarious. The Crown Prince and Prince
Frederick Charles may indeed prefer to move respec-
tively on Nancy and Luneville, Thionville, and Verdun.
to joining in an attack upon the French position at Metz.
They may leave von Iteinmitz in observation of the
army there, and either steal a march on the Emperor on
the way to Paris, or intercept his retreat in that direction
by throwing themselves upon his line of communication.
Those of the South German Divisions which
have not yet emerged from the Black Forest
may cross the Rhine at Mulhouse or at some
other point, and advance by Belfort and Vessoul
either overrunning the centre of France, now almost de-
fenceless, or joining the other armies on some of the
lines converging upon Paris. This wish to stem the
Teutonic irruption setting in from so many quar-
ters may and, in our opinion, ought to induce
the Emperor to abandon his position at Metz, if
he be still in time, and to fall back upon those
battlefields of Champagne, where he may hope to renew
some of the strategical prodigies by which his uncle made
the year 1814 famous in history. But, besides these
considerations of what he owe' to his army, the Emperor
must also be influenced by the excitement which so ter-
rible a shower of evil tidings as has fallen upon Paris
for these last eight-and-forty hours could not
fail to create —an excitement of which we read
the ominous symptoms in the proclamation of the state
of siege and the convocation of the Chambers, and still
more in the appeal of the Ministers to the devotion
of the French people—an appeal in which the name of the
Emperor and all allusion to the Empire are carefully and,
as it is only too evident, purposely avoided. That the
Emperor is in a critical position is sufficiently
clear; and the question whether the state of his
health leaves him in possession of his ordinary
faculties becomes momentous. Hitherto he has
seemed to carry too far in war that hesitation which
has often proved disastrous to him in politics—a hesita-
tion to which, perhaps, more than to any other cause, may
be ascribed the random and objectless strategy, and the
puzzling inaction which have brought such sudden calamity
upon the Imperial forces.
The Standard must assume from the language of the
Emperor, and the course he has pursued, that the French
army is retreating along the whole line, and that the
Emperor and his generals feel thatithe nation must be
asked to make extraordinary efforts to repel the now-
triumphant invaders—that they contemplate, indeed, the
possibility of a march of those invaders up
to the fortifications of Paris. We imagine
that even those persons, perhaps the majority of
all venturing to express a decided opinion, who
predicted the ultimate success of Germany, will be startled
by these early and, in a sense, decisive victories. We
have no desire to attempt to account for the French
defeats by any such explanations as will doubtless be
given officially. And in plain truth it matters little,
if any army is defeated, how the defeat is
occasioned. But the fact of these signal defeats
upon a large scale coming immediately upon the
first French move to the frontiers certainly suggests the
conclusion that if, as M. Rouher says, France has been
for four years preparing for war, she has been making
all that time very serious blunders. We see the ex-
planation of these hurried reverses in the fact
that France was hurried into a war for which
she was unprepared, and upon which she had not calcu-
lated. These two battles supply a melancholy testimony
to the genuineness of the love of • peace and economy
Professed by the Cabinet on the 3rd January. There is
one thing more they seem to chew, and that is how- ill
France is served by her diplomatic agents. The French
Government evidently could not have expected this rapid
concentration of the German troops upon the frontier.
It must have calculated that it could move at its
own time, and in its own way, or it must have believed
that it had allies where it finds most bitter antagonists.
But, says the etandard, whatever injury those reverses
to the nation, these fearful dangers for which his policy
may, perhaps, be held responsible, may do to the
presttge of the Emperor, they are not likely to
break the spirit of France, but to force the whole
nation to' an effort against which the German
armies, if they would pursue a career of conquest,
will court defeat and disaster. It is not a war now to
extend French territory, to regain old frontiers, but to
drive from French soil an invading army, to maintain
the honour of France against her secular foe. It may be
that, as some writers suggest, these reverses will sober
France ; but the sobriety, if we must adopt the
word, will be a great deal more formidable and
terrible than the alleged intoxication. Frenchmen
may not have the old love of glory or the old taste for
soldiering, but they have not lost the patriotism or the
pride which has been wont to possess them ; and if the
French Government comes to the Chambers to-day to
admit its own short-sightedness, its ignorance of the con-
dition of the conflict, and to' ask for a levee en masse,
there can be, we expect, little doubt that it will obtain
all it asks.

—The Post says that if the Emperor is compelled to sign
a peace implying the humiliation of his country, the last
hour of the Napoleon Dynasty will have sounded ; and if
France be compelldd to accept terms dictated in, or
under the walls of, Paris, her glory as a great
nation will have departed. She may thenceforth bid fare-
well to protections of Popes, to interferences in Egypt,
to dictations in Italy or in Greece. Her voice in the
affairs of the world will be shrunkeu and impotent. She
will have dwindled from the first place in Europe
to the position of a mere second-rate Power. But it is
still " a far cry" to Paris, and we have yet to learn that
the French, attacked by one enemy only, are incapable of
repeating the feats of arms which they achieved against
united Europe•

The Telegraph observes that the collapse of the Empe-
ror's programme of campaign is grave to the last degree,
and a slight study of the map will explain even to non-
military eyes the extremely hazardous position in which
he now finds himself. The Crown Prince had hidden one
hundred thousand men in the thickets of Bieneu-wald,
at the point where the Lauter runs into the Rhine ;
and at the moment when he sprang forth upon Weis-
senburg and the Goat's Hill, MacMahon was sending
regiments away towards the centre. Snatching the first
great triumph of the war, the Prince has since brought
over forces enough from Mannheim and Mayence to
()rush the reinforced wing of the French ; and, as he
stood at Worth after his victory, he was master
of the Haguenau Railway ; while, by pushing on some
twenty miles to-Saverne on the other line, he could cut
off Strasburg from Nancy and Paris. But, whether or
not he essays that feat, his eyes must be turned towards
Saarbruck and Saarlouis, where—his own part of the
design of Moltke being so gloriously accomplished—
the King's army from Kreuznach, and that of Prince
Frederick Charles from Kaiserslautern, are ready
to take up their share in the advance. There is no need
to speculate upon the purpose of the battle of Worth ;
the entire line of the Emperor has acknowledged the
terrible blow by retiring, and " moral effect "
must have been entirely put on one side at the
French head-quarters, in favour of sheer safety,
when the scene of the • " baptism " of the Prince
Imperial was so ignominiously surrendered. Surprised by
enemies who were looked upon as slow in movement,
driven out of strong entrenchments, bayonet to Chas-
sepot, at the hill of Weissenburg, and forced to leave
mitrailleuses, artillery, and eagles in the valley of
\With, the Emperor now sees his right wing rolled
up ; and, as he himself says, in a proclamation dated
yesterday afternoon, he at this moment goes to place him-
self "at the centre of the position." At present he
stands in danger of being cut off from Metz by the
Germans approaching from Bliecastel and • Saar-
louis ; and even as it is, the position of Maplahon
at Bitsche must be one of great peril now
that Saarbruck is yielded. It appears, indeed,
doubtful whether Napoleon can safely reform his broken
line even under the walls of Metz, Nancy, and Thionville.
These conquering soldiers of the Prussian Heir Appa-
rent are wonderfully near success in their project of
approaching the road to Paris, while the news of
such wonderful victories against Chassepot, mitrail-
leuses, and Turco- will rouse a new zest and fire in the
hearts of the men of Prince Frederick Charles and King
William. A place, however, must be reserved in all
human affairs for " accident." It is " accident " which
has mainly overturned all the plans of the Em-
peror, and has, at the outset of his campaign, brought his
fortunes to a pass which can, perhaps, hardly be retrieved.
He told the truth when he said he was not ready for this
war—albeit that unreadiness lay hi a quarter compara-
tively unsuspected. It is the state of the French Com-
missariat which, amongst other things, has ruined the
chances of gepoleon. He • ought to have ad
vanced at once into - Germany. He intended and
desired to advance ; but, when the armies came

into position on the frontier, the condition of the stores
compelled him to halt. The meat was putrid, and the
bread musty, and it was simply impossible to' move
until new, supplies should be prepared and brought
to the front. The delay gave Germany time to mobilize
her vast forces. Night and day, day and night, she
poured her manhood to the Rhine ; and now her strength
in fighting men is much greater than that of the Em-
peror : while it has been proved that, man to man—
Chassepot and mitrailleuse notwithstanding-- the Ger-
mans are not inferior to the French as warriors.

The Daily News observes that• the French attack on
Saarbruck, which now appears in its true light, was a
Puerility to which the Emperor must now regret that
he lent his presence. It is proved that there
never was a moment when a Frenchman could
enter the town without being arrested, nor when
the German guns did not command its approaches.
It was the defeat of Froissard's Third Army Corps on
Saturday that opened the Emperor's eyes to the truth of his
position. He attributes his defeat, no doubt with good reason,
to the overwhelming numbers in which the Germans
present themselves, and he adds that " they have
mitrailleuses." The French, continues the Daily News,
must fall back on Metz. They have no other rallying
point, and if the Germans are in such force as they appear
to be, there is good reason to believe that even there they
will not be safe, as the . enemy may cut them off from
Paris. The German railway communications, interrupted for
four days at Saarbruck, are now restored and safe. " All
may yet be well," the Emperor says ; but if so, it
must be well soon. His Majesty must display a
fertility of resource such as he has not hitherto mani-
fested to extricate himself from his difficulties. A
great and victorious German army stands upon French
soil, two great armies are advancing to its side, and one
more blow such as those struck on Saturday would place
the united armies of Germany on the road to Paris.