The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-01
Total prisoners, not reported as
includinQ wounded d

eStlmateQ as Wltnln the mark as 1olloWS:-
Men.
In the battles and retreat from Weissenburg
Tn tba .nS Soties aTonn nc1 S5GSU S1EVU
Around and at Sedan. an....................... 10000
Total killed and wounded. d................. $4,000
Add prisoners. 1885, SA
And we have grand total of...............23Os OF.
as the losses of the French army from Saar-
bruck to Sedan in killed, wounded, and pri-
soners. Add the prisoners taken at Laon,
Toul, and Strasburg, and this grand aggre-
gate is swelled to 259,000 men. The re-
mainder of the regular standing army of
100000 men, with which Napoleon entered
into this war, is made up of the column of
Bazaine, estimated at 10000 men, cooped up
in Metz; the detachment of Vinoy, escaping
from Sedan to Paris, and the fugitive detach-
ments, amounting to five or six thousand
men, escaping from Sedan into the neutral
territory of Belgium, where they were dis
armed. We may say that of the original
regular army of $780, 600 men which Napoleon
possessed when he opened this war at Saar-
bruck there are now Excluding Bazaines
army in Metz, which may be counted as pri-
soners), less than 80, 900 able-boiied men re-
naming in the service of France.
The losses in warlike materials to the
French are simply incalculable. They are
officially reported as including 10, 2SO horses,
to say nothing of the thousands of horses
killed; 102 mitrailleuses SS7 field and fortress
pieces of artillery, over 400 wagons and
trains, several pontoon trains, military maga-
zines, railway trains, with an incalculable
quantity of supplies in small arms, the CLEAN
ings of all the battle fields and fortresses cap
tured, ammunition, clothing, equipments,
forage, and provisions. The French losses
in the track of MacMahon's retreat from
Woerth to the Moselle are give nofficially as
embracing two magazines, 10000 woollen
blankets, 10000 cloths (bags, we suppose) of
rice, coffee, sugar, large quantities of wine,
rum, and tobacco, this latter article alone
amounting to half million of thalers, and
tobacco is one of the prime necessities of a
German army.
These are terrible losses, but still more
terrible are the losses of France laid waste
and of her suspended productive industry,
and the loss of that military discipline, supe-
riority, and prestige which made France the
arbiter and the French army the terror of the
Continent. All this is gone, with the re-
moval of that splendid standing army with
which Louis Napoleon had counted upon a
triumphant march to Berlin. The losses of
Germany in killed and wounded in this war
Che attacking party have been much heavier
than the French losses. King William has
probably thus lost, from Saarbruck to the
surrender of Strasburg, over 10000 men;
but he has still half million and more of
soldiers at his command of the same quality
as his soldiers lost In the outset the differ
ence between him and Napoleon was the diff
ference between French standing army of
100000 men, demoralized by luxurious
empire, and the vigorous armed nationality
of United Germany of 700, 900 soldiers, the
best disciplined, armed and equipped, with
out exception, and the best commanded of
any army in the world since the time of the
first Napoleon.
Napoleon the Third has brought upon
France all these heavy disasters, involving
the loss of his position as an arbiter OF
Europe and the loss to France of her military
fame and prestige, and what, worst of all, ap-
pears now to be inevitable, a humiliatine
confscation of her Rhine frontier. But
France, under the reviving inspiration of the
republic, will fight to ''the last ditch" This
is her heroic resolution; but of what avail
will be the fighting of her hastily collected
raw troops against the disciplined and swarm
ing German legions, widening their depreda
tions for forage and provisions every day anG
more destructive to the subsistence of the
country than cloud of locusts? 1t appears
to us that peace is the only way of safety tC
France from general devastation, famine anG
political and social chaos, and that peace is
the solemn first duty of the great neutra
powers in view of the general dangers threat
ened from prolongation of this terrible war
Peace is especially the duty and the policy oi
England, looking to the menacing prepara
tions of Russia for descent upon CONSTANT
nople, the gateway of the East, and at tn
manifestations of British public sentiment il
favor of a generous helping hand to tn
French republic in behalf of peace.