THE FRENCH DEPRESSION.
THE week has been one of great depression for the friends of France, depression not unreasonable, although, as we trust and believe, exaggerated. One of those strange vibra-
tions which so often precede catastrophes has passed through the political air, and it has become an article of City faith that Paris will speedily capitulate. In the City of course the origin of the belief must be some statement let fall by some French financier, possibly the gentleman who, according to the Lon- don correspondent of the New York Tribune, affirmed after the first defeat on the Loire that M. Gambetta had resolved to apply for an armistice with the view of accepting terms. Outside the City, however, the theory appears to be based mainly on three facts,—the silence of the Eastern forts in reply to the German fire, the commencement of the bombardment of the forts on the South, and the general elation which has suddenly manifested itself within the German camp. General Trochu's failure to make sorties, too, tells heavily among a people who have very vague notions of a besieging army's lines, and very strong beliefs that if Englishmen were inside Paris they would get out somehow ; and there is dis- couragement in the suspension of movements both from Le Mans and Bourges, discouragement not dissipated by the partial ill- success of the gallant advance made by General Faidherbe. There is an idea, moreover, abroad, that Mount Avron was not very obstinately defended, that there is demoralization among the regular troops under General Vinoy's command, and that the heart of the population of Paris is yielding to the long- continued pressure of privation, now aggravated by the bitter cold, and by the increasing price of wine, which has not as yet been rationed. Add to these reasons for depression a fixed theory, derived no one knows whence, that Paris is only pro- visioned up to February, and our readers will be at no loss to understand the melancholy forebodings expressed by all friends of European freedom.
The forebodings appear to us to have considerably outrun the facts. There can be no doubt that the week has been a bad one for France, that the fall of Mount Avron was a loss, that the advance of Faidherbe has proved no certain gain, that the Armies of the West and South have remained nearly motionless, thereby losing what may prove to have been pre- cious time. But five-sixths of all these annoying circumstances are evidently attributable to accident, to the terrible frost which
has compelled General Trochu to keep his men under cover—
the sentries being frozen alive—which arrests General Chanzy's movements, and which must of necessity depress a people who have but a small stock of coal, and scarcely the means of pro- curing sufficient firewood. Firewood, as we predicted four months ago, has been the first thing to fail ; and although General Trochu has ordered all trees, including those of the Boulevards and of the Tuileries Gardens, to be cut down, that order in itself is a proof that the failure is very serious. The mere demand for the purpose of cooking food for two millions of people must be very heavy, and fires of some sort must be maintained to keep the soldiers in the heart of which scanty rations, frost, and inaction might otherwise deprive them. But the weather is breaking at last, or Faidherbe could scarcely have moved ; and apart from the results of the cold, there is little more ground for discourage- ment than there was last week. There is little evidence of any value to show that the forts either Eastward or Southward have suffered from the enemy's fire, or that the silence of Nogent and Rosny is anything but deliberate. There is no evidence whatever that Paris is in despair, much in the tone of Trochu's orders that it is calm, patient, and even hopeful. The angry Englishmen who, in their hatred of Republicanism, almost wish for the fall of Paris, are not the only correspondents within the city, and the more impartial bear their emphatic testimony to the endurance of the most suffering sections among the population. The original calculation as to food, that it would hold out till March, is as sound as it ever was, and the talk of the Press at Bordeaux, which is supposed to imply M. Gambetta's forebodings for Paris, probably means just this, that the energetic dictator wishes Trochu would rely a little more on audacity and a little less on a prudence which, however commendable in most wars, is in a city which day by day eats up a fiftieth of its sustenance apparently misplaced. Englishmen agree, we believe, on this point with M. Gambetta, but the very excess of prudence which they 'attribute to General Trochu is proof that he will adopt no hasty or premature suggestion to give way. He may only wait, but he will wait to the end.
Outside Paris the situation, apart from the cold, is rather better than worse than it was last week. When the telegraph is employed, as the Germans are now employing it, as a strategical device to deceive the world about the course of events, and as it is often employed by the French, to prevent depression, certainty becomes almost hopeless ; but on the very worst theories General Faidherbe did advance southward to Bapaume, did fight for two days without disaster, receiving and inflicting heavy losses, and has not retired, except for a slight space, to renew his supply of provisions. He gained nothing, but he lost nothing. The Germans keep on making statements about prisoners, but they never mention their own losses, and General Faidherbe, whose statements have hitherto been moderate and truthful, acknowledges that he has bad soldiers within his ranks. Water always spills as it goes, and the defect of the French armies is that they are fluid, that they require some external pressure, such as victory would afford, to make their weight irresistible. But Faidherbe-will fight again, and every time he advances, his men, by the testimony of all witnesses, fight better than the time before, show more tena- city, and only retreat to obtain the food which their commander, it would seem, cannot carry with them. In the West, Chanzy,— who has had three weeks to reform and re-shoe his battalions, — is again in motion, ready, we may presume, for another eighteen days of combat ; and the Dictator himself, whose fiery energy seems to send new blood through every regiment he addresses, has proceeded to head-quarters, to share his best commander's fate. There is nothing whatever at this moment to prevent General Chanzy from raising the siege of Paris except the in- ability of his soldiers to do their work ; and upon that point we see no reason whatever to change our opinion, namely, that the Republican soldiers are better than those of the Empire, but that they labour under some moral paralysis which, being as it is intermittent, unaccountable, and at variance with their history through centuries, must be temporary, and may, for aught any human being can tell, disappear at any hour. If it lasts, the cause of France, which is now that of human freedom, is for the present hopeless. Nothing can be done against an army like that which General von Moltke directs except by men as tenacious on the field as his own ; and the French, though they are developing a moral tenacity as " dour " as that of Scotchmen, as yet do not display their old " staying power " in battle, do not improve success, very often retreat a great deal too soon. Something is wanting in them, and we believe that something to be confidence in their ability to do more than fight on gallantly, in their ability to conquer, a confidence which has been destroyed by the surrender of the Army, by four months of persistent ill-success, and by the retreat from before Orleans,—a moral disaster of the highest magnitude. Even without this confi- dence Chanzy's men fight on day after day, but with it their imperfect successes or partial defeats would become unmis- takable victories. It was four years before the men who fled at Bull Run in disgraceful rout entered Richmond as conquerors.
Previous page
