The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-08
THE r NJ VTC7 DRIES.

THE GERMAN VICT DRIES.
Tasps are few or no instances in the whole
history of mankind in which a powerful
monarch arrogantly declaring oppressive war
fore has been badly whipped in an interval so
short ga that which has interviewed between
NapoIeon's defiance to Prussia and the close
OF the battles which terminated on Saturday
night. The celebrity, if not the decisiveness,
Of even the Prussian demonstration against
Austria at Sadowa has been surpassed, and a
piteous vail of agony and humiliation goes
Up from the camp that confidently expected
to resound with the rejoicings of vic
tory. There can be no mistake about
the significance of the recent demonstrations.
The accounts forwarded from Prussia. in-
Guiding old King Williams jubilation
over the triumph of sour Fritz"
ore confirmed in all essential par
ticuIars by the confessions reluctantly
egtorted from the Emperor. France, proud
France. may we'll be thrown into a state of
panic and semi-revolution when Napoleon
tells her that one of his generals has lost q
battle. that another has been obliged to re-
tire. that his communications with his own
ocmy have been interrupted, and when he
speaks of retreats to a people who in war wish
to hesr only of advances. And when the
very citadel of the nation is placed
ia O state Of siege, when the Ministers Off
cially volunteer assurances that Paris is still
safe. and that O heroic effo can yet rescue
the country which would fain be the arbiter
Of the Continent, and when the Empress. to
inspire dropping confidence, tells the nation
that it will see her First in danger to defend
the Gag of France" disheartening memories
of the DAYS Of Elba and of st. Helena must
be vividly recalled in the mind of every
o~uick.witted Frenchman. AS matters are
progressing now, Napoleon,s latest blunder
promises to be his last and most fatal one.
Hs hope to find Prussia unprepared, his
plans to secure effective alliances, and his
dependence upon his patent implements of
destruction, have all proved fallacious. Even
his feet is well nigh useless, and while they
ore talking in Paris of recalling its sailors to
help defend the Notifications of the capital,
We do not doubt that he f~ervently wishes
that the troops who form his expeditionary
corps we're in his frontier fortresses, to help
retrieve his desperate fortunes or to
strengthen his defensive lines, instead of
wasting their energies in wild schemes on
the Prusaian coast. Mistaken in all the cum
ming m~aneuvring that paved the way for this
humiliation, Napoleon's presence in the
French camp has helped to precipitate his
disgrace. A sick old man, who never
did understand very thoroughly
the art of war, but who is
too Jealous of rivalry and too much pulled
up with conceit to permit any important
operation to be undertaken without his per-
sonal consent, cannot fail to prove an awful
incubus in the French camp. We are told
that for several hours preceding the late
battles Mcmahon was closeted with the En-
peror, and the subsequent overthrow appears
to have been the fruit of their joint counsels.
And if the real heroes of the French army are
to be compelled in future to dance attendance
IN this marplot's chamber at criti-
cal iunctures, when every second
If pregnant with great events, the French have
no reason to expect better success in future.
In the eyes of the nation, Napoleon, unless
he speedily ~retrieves his fortunes, will figure
not only as q tyrannical blunderer on the
throne, but as a dead weight on the battle
field; and if this double odium does not crush
him, the past history of France affords no
presage of its future. Among the chances
still left him is the possibility of defeating an
advance corps of the Prussians if they are
too venturesome, and the conversion of the
prevailing indignation in his dominion into an
overpowering sentiment of a~ntagonism against
the inyaders. But both these chances, and espe-
ciaIy the latter, are desperate. Even the
first Napoleon did not venture to send back
to Paris any war bulletins except those which,
truthfully or falsely, reported splendid victo-
riss, and when his great disaster in Russia
came at Last, he was careful to hurry back to
the capital before a rumor of his enormous
Losses had preceded him.. And the nephew
Of his uncle ventures upon a fearful expert
ment when he trusts excited Paris to peace
fully submit, in his absence, to the double
load Of national disgrace and of the continued
DOMINATION of a master she hates and despises.