Year: 1870

held Office only by his appointment. and had
no authority over the generals except such as
he chose TO give twas to blame for every
blunder. At Chalons he resolved to fall back
upop Paris and resume his civil functions,
while MacMahon and his army covered the
capital. Again the Ministry interfered, and
insisted that MacMahon should move upon
Metz to relieve Bazaine. at could not enter
"into tho views of the Emperor to oppose the
"advice of the Government and the Empress
"Regent, although he perceived that his
Gown influence was being completely null
Gifted, since he was acting neither az
"head of the Government nor as head of the
"army - so there was another change of plan;
MacMahon, against his own Judgment, began
his fatal march towards Metz, and Napoleon,
warned by the Empress not to risk the conse-
iueTccs Of returning to Paris on the morrow
after defeat went with the doomed army
which no was to have the dsgraceful office of
surrcndering at Sedan We forbear to follow
the subsequent narrative of change, irresolu-
ton, and disaster through which Napoleon at
tempts to show that he yielded in everything
to the authority Of the Ministry at Paris, re-
signing himself "tO submit to the fatality
(which attached itself to all their resolutions"
even to the extent of placing the army at Sc
dan i'm situation forbidden by the most
elementary principles of the art of war"
That an Emperor and BOnaparte should make
such excuses as these il the most pitiabe com
mentary which could be made upon his char
acter. His story of the capitulation, which diff
fers in some respects from that OF Gen.
Wimpffcn, is highly interesting; but we shall
only pause TO notice one statement: >" The
Emperor" says the pamphlet, convinced ac-
"cording to the assertions Of the press that tho
" King had declared that he made war not
"against France but against her sovereign, did
"not hesitate to constitute himself prisoner,
"hoping that, the object of the war being at
"taincd by the sacrifice of his liberty, the con-
"qucror would be less exacting towards France
"and tho army" In the first place Napoleon
must have known, or ought to have known,
that King William never made that dccara-
ton which the press ascribed to him; ana IN
the second place the pamphlet has just ex-
planned how the army was so placed that not
an avenue of escape remained. Poor Badln-
g,let was already prisoner, and his magnan-
inOus self-sacrilice was only an after-thought.


There are many other disclosures of military
incapacity in this remarkable publication.
The French army seems never to have known
where the enemy were massed,-except at
Sedan. Its action at the opening of the cam
paign "was paralyzed by the absolute ignor-
"anco in which we always remained concern
"ing the position and strength of the hostile
"armies.r 1T was never really known where
" the mass of their troops was.' AT Crave
l0tte no one imagined that the whole Prus-
" sian army had to be dealt with" After
MacMahon was wounded Wimpffen was
allowed to oyerrule the Emperor and take
precedence of DucrOt. to whom the command
had been entrusted. The fight for possession
of the nights of lily and Givonne, upon which
depended the escape of the whole French
army from Sedan, was lost in consequence of
divided c0unses which nobody had authority
to decide. And 40 on from act to act, until
the drop falls upon a beaten mob of soldiers
laying down their arms at Sedan, and an angry
populace overturning government at Paris
We lay down the painful history more salts
fed than ever before that France in casting
off Napoleon has rid herself of her worst
enemy ruler who took from her the power
of governing herself, and had not the strength
to use the rights of which he had robbed her