3 DECEMBER 1870, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE CRISIS OF THE WAR IN FRANCE.

rigreat crisis of the War has come, and no cne can yet tell in which way it will be decided ; but it is quite certain that up to the time at which we write the French prospects are far brighter than they have yet been at any moment since the battle of Sedan, we might say since Grave- lotte. We are quite aware that before these lines meet our readers' eyes there may be news of the final repulse of General Trochu's great effort to break the Prussian lines before Paris, and that anything like a great disaster might lead to the fall of the capital. But, on the other hand, there is very little probability of any great defeat of the Army of the Loire, which, in spite of one very severe check, is advancing northwards steadily along an immense line, Prince Frederick Charles apparently retreating cautiously before it. But we will relate the events of this great week, so far as they are hitherto known to us, in the order in which they occurred.

The fighting began in the North on Sunday, the 27th, and began with a great success for the Germans. The French Army of the. North, under General Faidherbes, from the com- mand of which General Bourbaki had been only last week recalled, was attacked by one of General Manteuffel's corps, in its position beforeAmiens on Sunday, and was outmanoeuvred, the Prussians coming up in the rear, after what the French believed to have been a successful engagement in front. The commander with- drew into Amiens on Sunday evening, and after a council of war evacuated that place on Monday,—the citadel, however, holding out a day or two longer. The Prussians entered Amiens on Monday, and captured four guns, left by the French in the trenches they had abandoned. The defeated army retreated north towards Arras and Lille, leaving apparently the southern road towards Rouen open. At Rouen there is, however, still some sort of a French force, which, under General Briaud, has surprised and cut up a Prussian cavalry detachment at Estrepagny, between Rouen and Paris. The fighting in the north was, however, on the whole, very un- favourable to the French, and was a bad beginning of a great week.

On Monday, however, a greater engagement began. The Army of the Loire, over 200,000 strong, with posts along an immense line of country, some 130 to 140 miles long,— stretching all the way from Le Mans, right across the direct road to Paris at Toury, and reaching to Ladon (almost as far as Montargis) on the east, made a simultaneous attack at some six distinct points,—one of the heaviest being an attack on Beaune La Rolande, where Prince Frederick Charles was in command. In five out of six of these attacks the Army of the Loire succeeded, and recaptured Nogent le Retrou, some thirty miles north-east of Le Mans ; Brou a place again a little to the east of Nogent ; St. Calais and Besse, some twenty miles directly east of Le Mans, and Montoire and Mondoubleau, in the neighbourhood of Vendome,—we do not know at what cost. probably the Germans were not really in great strength at.any of these points, and were expelled with considerable ease. A German attempt to take Maizieres, in the neighbourhood of Vendome, and a German night attack on Chateau-Gaillard, near Toury, were also repulsed with loss. On the other hand, on the extreme east of the position at Ladon, where the fighting was certainly heaviest, the French troops, which were greatly superior in numbers to the Germans, but consisted, as the French assert, chiefly of raw recruits, failed in forcing the Prussian position of Beaune La Rolande, and left 1,000 dead on the field, and near 2,000 prisoners in the hands of the Prussians, but lost no guns ; indeed, they cap- tured one gun from the Germans, killing, as the German account expressly admits, all the artillerymen, and inflicted a severe loss on the Germans, though failing to take the position assailed. This part of the actions of Monday Prince Frederick Charles has magnified in his telegrams into a great victory over the whole Army of the Loire, whereas it was in reality only a sharp repulse of at most one-third, more probably one-quarter of it, while success attended the movement of the other two-thirds or three- quarters. How little of a German victory it was in its effects may be inferred from the result. Prince Frederick Charles had to abandon the position he had successfully defended. On the Tuesday he evacuated and burnt Beaune la Rolande, and also evacuated Montargis, which was immediately occupied by the French. We may be quite sure that German Generale do

not retreat after a great victory. The German line, it is now said, extends in a curve bending towards the north from Chateaudtur, which is on its extreme right, to very near the scene of the late battle at Beaune in Rolande, which is on its extreme left. Behind this is a second line extending from Chartres to Fon- tainebleau. It is obvious that this is a great falling back from its position of the beginning of the week, besides a great con- traction of the line on the Western side, when a few days age it extended west of Le Mans. Prince Frederick Charles i& quite outnumbered, and though not yet beaten, is compelled to fall back.

What has happened before Paris, it is at once far more important and far more difficult to say, for the telegraphic- reports, which are all we have at present, are exceedingly compressed and confused. All that we know is that on the 29th (Tuesday), after feints of sorties towards L'Hay and St. Cloud, which were easily repulsed, a very powerful sortie,. with something like 50,000 troops, was made on the south- east, under the command of General Ducrot, on the night between the 29th and 30th, when he successively occupied Mesly and Montmesly, places which any one may see on the south-east of Paris on the Fontainebleau road. What were his= subsequentoperations, it is, at the time we are writing, quite impossible to say. A telegram from Tours, evidently writtem without consulting a map, states that on the morning of the- 30th he was engaged in a battle from Champigny-sur-Marne towards Brie-sur-Marne, with his back to the Marne. In other- words, we conclude he had been shouldered off the Fontaine- bleau road, which he would wish to hold with a view to the ad- vance of the Army of the Loire towards the North ; but whether- he was driven round the great loop in the Marne to Chant-- pigny, or crossed it twice with his pontoon bridges, it is impos- sible to say. To make the confusion worse, we are told " the then crossed the Marne by eight bridges, and maintained the positions taken, after capturing two guns." Did Ducrot recross the Marne to get the shelter of Fort Nogent, or did he cross into the peninsula formed by the Marne and there- establish himself ? Mr. Russell, the Times' correspondent,. telegraphing as late as Thursday at noon from Versailles, and speaking, of course, on German authority, says " the French, suffered great loss, and now occupy Champigny." If they occupy Champigny, they are some three miles and a half out- side the enceinte, and had conquered a Wurtemburg position, but had still probably some of the German lines between, them and free movement outside Paris. On the 30th of November (Wednesday), we are also told that Vice- Admiral de la Ronciere advanced South of Paris on, Longjumeau, and " carried the entrenched position at Epernay." A further attack on the South was to be made on Thursday by General Vinoy, of which we have not yet heard the result. We may sum up all that is certainly known by saying that the French had made a great sortie, or series. of sorties, on the south-east side ; had carried positions pre- viously held by the enemy, and apparently held them still, but had not as yet succeeded, when we last heard, in effectually breaking the German lines. On Friday there was an armistice of some hours asked for by the French for the burial of their dead.

Of the result it would be absurdly premature to speak with any confidence. It is clear, however, that the Prussian despatches reporting the repulse of all the sorties, were not true, as we have the evidence of the Versailles, correspondent of the Times, Mr. Russell, to the contrary ; and that the efforts of the garrison of Paris were nob by any means exhausted. If the French only have the steadiness to keep up such efforts as these, even after- partial failures, for a few days, the siege of Paris must be raised, and an enormous success gained ; indeed, in all probability the heavy siege guns which the Prussians. have been so long in bringing up would fall into: the hands of the French. If, on the contrary, they are disheartened by partial failures, we might soon hear of the relapse of the garrison into hopelessness, and in that case the fall of the city would probably soon follow. But for the present, unquestionably, the situation is most favourable to. the French hopes. General Trochu has shown that he can make his garrison truly formidable to the besiegers. General D'Aurelles has shown that his army is more than a match for that of Prince Frederick Charles. The achievements of the Army of the Loire and that of Paris will reciprocally inspirit, each other. One thing is quite certain. Generals, Trochu and D'Aurelles and their troops are military powers of a completely different order from anything