TOPICS OF TT-TE DAY.
THE DEFEAT OF MACMAHON.
IT is too much. The bitterest enemy of France—and in England France has no enemies, though the Empire has so many—could not read the record of this week's events without a sense of personal pain, without sad sympathy for the misfortunes of a great people, and a sadder reflection that although Germany was justified in invasion, her invasion, had it been unjustified, would have been equally successful. The German giant has found in Von Moltke's brain an enchanted weapon, and before it virtue would be as powerless as valour. The one hope for France of a success other than through a war of years, lay in the design attributed to MacMahon of marching with his newly-organized army swiftly to the relief of Metz, releasing Bazaine, and fighting such a battle as should hay* enabled France either to re-form herself or to conclude peace without unendurable humiliation. We still, in spite of some plausible argument to the contrary, believe that this was his intention when on 22nd August he broke up the camp at Chalons and started for the North-East. The Germans evi- dently believed so, for they risked a movement almost as adventurous as his own in order to intercept his plan. There lay around Metz and Bazaine's entrenchment there, according to the official War Record of Berlin, whose statement is endorsed by the Diarist of the Standard, no less than nine corps d 'armee, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 12th Corps, besides the Royal Guard, or in all, if the corps are full, 300,000 men, or allowing an unsupplied loss of 30,000 sick, 270,000 men. From this vast body, Von Moltke detached the 4th and 12th Corps and the Guard, or rather more than 90,000 men, the Guard being equal to a corps and a quarter, under the Crown Prince of Saxony—a sound soldier, honoured by Prussians, because in his last command in Bohemia he cut them up so well—and sent him to Montmedy, to arrest MacMahon. On his departure —we are now quoting a Belgian account which looks to us pro- bable—Bazaine's cavalry attempted a sortie to the eastward, and reached Courcelles, but was driven back into the entrenchments, where Bazaine, whether from inability to break through the German lines, or from want of food, or as we see reason to believe, from the most fatal of all wants, want of cartridges, has since remained quiescent, taking no part in the operations for his own relief. The Saxon Prince, marching rapidly, reached Stenay or thereabouts on the 29th, and there encoun- tered MacMahon's outposts. That Marshal, who left Rheims on the 22nd, ought to have been in front of Metz by the 29th, but was impeded by some cause of which we have as yet no trustworthy account. Whether the railway to Paris had proved unequal to his demands on it—which is a mere suggestion—or his means of transport were insufficient—which is unlikely— or he waited for the 13th Corps, which left Paris on the 29th, or he himself had caught some of the Emperor's indecision, the fact remains that he did not advance until it was too late; until, with the Saxon Prince across his front, the Crown Prince upon his flank, and his own army cut in two by the Meuse, all hope of a victory had disappeared. The Bavarians with the Crown Prince had joined the Saxon Prince, and in two days of fighting, the details of which we cannot yet attempt to unravel, the Marshal was flying back to Sedan, where, on the 31st, he was again believed to be fighting desperately, probably to protect the retreat of the bulk of his army, but possibly because he cannot retreat without beating back his assailants. He has no road of escape to the North without violating Belgian territory. Fresh advices will probably modify every detail ; but the German official account, the Belgium accounts, and the strangely-worded telegram from Paris which announces that MacMahon, for prudential reasons, has sought the shelter of the fortifications, all indicate that during the 30th and 31st MacMahon was beaten, losing 25 cannon, 11 mitrailleuses, thousands of prisoners—doubtless taken in the old way, after they had wasted their cartridges—his camp stores, and all hope of relieving Bazaine. Even if MacMahon can escape with 100,000 men, and by terrific marches—marches which will cost him a regiment of foot-sore men per hour—can place his army in momentary safety, an awful blow has been struck at the military strength of France. The Army of the Rhine in Metz is the very core of the military system. It includes the Imperial Guard which fought and manoeuvred so splendidly at Gravelotte, and its surrender on any terms would be an event of which its enemies could hardly think without a shudder. Nothing in the faintest degree approaching such Et humiliation has happened to France since Pavia, and yet if the information received is correct, what can Marshal Bazaine, be his genius or his courage what it may, do against such odds. His army is living on horseflesh, the rations of bread, say the prisoners turned out of Metz, being reduced to one small loaf of bread daily for each six soldiers ; and two attempts to throw cartridges into the town have failed. Around him, occupying splendid positions, with siege guns moving on an improvised railway, and protected by rifle-pits, woods, and slopes, lies an army which even now, by the lowest computation of its numbers, must be at least. double his enfeebled force. That he should, at frightful loss, force his way to Verdun, is of course just possible, but that he should again be important in the war is past all. hope.
The facts, or something like them, must be well known to. the French Government, and we are bound to say that, over- solicitous as it is for the dynasty, and terribly mendacious as.
its reassuring accounts may be, the Ministry makes gallant head against a torrent of misfortunes. It is evidently strain- ing every nerve to put Paris in such a position that a " scratch " army before its walls shall be able to make one last effort to arrest the torrent of invasion. All accounts, hostile and friendly, combine to affirm that Count Palikao, man hitherto disliked even in his own army, is displaying an iron will ; that he works incessantly ; that he keeps.
effective control of the springs of administration ; and that, though he cannot remedy the exhaustion of the arsenals, he can and does collect men. There is an army in Paris still, sheltered by all the Marine Artillery obtainable in the ports of France ; another army forming at Lyons, and, we fear, held there by dynastic considerations ; and a third organizing behind the Loire. The plan, we imagine, is to make up what of an army is possible, an army to be fed by Paris and sheltered by- its fortifications ; and then, if fortune fails again, to transfer the seat of Government. It is a bold and manly plan, and if the Germans give time, if the hurriedly-raised levies display the courage such levies sometimes exhibit, if Paris will bear all—a siege excepted—rather than yield, and if the Government has a man to place in command competent to con- tend against men like Von Moltke and Von Blumenthal, there may yet be a hope of safety for France. All now depends on Paris, and we do not believe the man lives who can say with thorough belief what course the great city will pursue. She is capable of surrendering and dancing over her surrender, or of dying hopeless but resolved under a cannonade such as that which is grinding Strasburg into dust ; and her ultimate mood will probably be decided by a chance. The worst sign even now in France is the absence of any man who could lead the "people,"—whom the Imperialist Government, in its, supreme hour, still dreads too much to arm.
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