The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-11-09
Of the government. The Prusrians would
very probably be in Paris to-day but for the
determination of Trochu and his coadjutors.
Tho encouragement at Net.

General Changarniers statement OF the
circumstances of ths surrender of Metz,
which he made in conversation with HERALD
correspondent at Brussels on Saturday leaves
no doubt that Bazaine's own vanity has cost
France her finest fortress and her best disci-
plined army For twenty eight days after he
entered Metz the way Of escape lay open and
he could have formed junction with Mac
Mahon. The force that no had with him
could have overcome any opposition from the
army which Steinmetz commanded, and there
would have been no Sedan. The secret seems
to have been, however, that Bazaine rather
preferred being coopcd up in Metz. The i'm
mense strength Of that fortress rendered him
apparently secure, while his isolation removed
him from the range of falling dynasies that
were about crushing all around him. With
his force of one hundred and fifty thousand
men, cut off from communica ton with his
superiors, he was himself q chief, and, with
the successful defence which he hoped to make
even till the end Of the war, he expected to
become the hero of France. He ''fussed
about" as General Grant expresses it, making
sham sorties, which really were no sorties at
all-merely promenades In force, intended to
convey to the minds of his soldiery the idea
that he was anxious to escape, TO get into the
field once more, and to take his portion of the
disaster that he already saw was threatening
France. 1t was not cowardice. It was van
ity-that soldierly vanity which so invariably
goes hand In hand with valor, but which in
this instance sacrificed the last regular army
of France to the mere hope Of hero worship.
''Bazaine held Metz after France had dropped
all her strongholds into the hands of the
enemy" was the praise he hoped to hear,
according to General Changarnier's view.
But "God disposed" and Bazaine gave up
Metz while Paris, all the west and south of
France, and even the insignificant fortress Of
Neuf Breisach, on the Rhine frontier, in the
heart of what ia in effect the enemy's coun-
try, still contest against the rule Of the Prus-
sian. Thus an army Of one hundred and fifty
thousand men and the strongest fortress Of
France are sacrificed to the vanity -wofully
unsatisied--of marshal of the empire.
1t is interesting in view Of General Chan
CARRIERS statement to recall the view taken
by General Grant on the same subject in his
conversation recently with our Washington
correspondent General Grant, it will be
remembered said that he thought Bazaine
could have got out of Metz. Il would have
fused around TIL cut my way through" said
the conqueror of Lee. He thought that
Bazaine should have kept himself from being
'sbottled up" in Metz at all but even after get
ting in with the fine army under his control he
should have forced his way out again. Cen
eral Changarnier's statement now fully ex-
plains why Bazaine did not cut his way out
and upholds the plain strategic view which
General Grant, three thousand miles away,
with his clear, experienced military head, takes
of the Encouragement at Metz. =