there M. Blondeau, chief of the intend- ing that he recognized the justice of my ance of the army, who spoke to me in a observations, and that he would attend to tone which proved how little he knew of them. Soon afterwards M. de la Valette the truth. He said, that if my impres- informed me that he too had written, but sions and those of General Ducrot were with no result; and he asked me to comcorrect, it followed that the minister of municate officially with General de Failly, war was the only person who was igno- who commanded the corps d'armée, saying rant of the facts of the case; for if they that he (La Valette) would do the same to really were as I supposed, the minister the ministry of war. This was done. I would certainly have spoken to him about got a reply stating that before wagons them. That was conclusive; there was could be sent to us it was necessary to see nothing more to be said. As I was leav- if we could provide shelter for them. ing M. Blondeau, he observed that I did There the matter remained until the war not seem to be satisfied. I answered broke out. I had spent five years in askthat, even if General Ducrot and I exag- ing uselessly for indispensable objects." gerated the dangers of the situation, it was painful for me to return to Strasburg without having obtained anything what

tend to be strictly exact; but as to the And the depots, which are put
main fact that the effective force of the
French army had been reduced to a very
low ebb indeed in the summer of 1870, no
doubt is possible; for General de Palikao,
who was minister of war from 10th Au-

gust to 4th September 1870, uses the following words in his book, "Un Ministère de Vingt-quatre Fours." In speaking of the plebiscite he says: "The result of this political act was to show Europe that the total number of men present in our To this original basis of 293,000 men army was only 250,000." This figure is, we have now to add the 107,000 who (to however, too low, and was used probably make up 400,000) must evidently have as expressing the number of fighting men, been on leave, and also the 165,000 of the after deducting the non-combatants. Still, reserve. The former were of course solreduced as the army was in fact, the theo-diers, but the same cannot possibly be retical number of disposable men stood, as we have said, at 565,000. Let us see what this produced in reality on the outbreak of war.

been at that date either at the depots of their regiments, or else on the roadsides all over France. Of course it is not possible to say how many of them had got to their depôts; but there is good reason for believing that the number who were wandering along the highways and round the railway-stations was enormous, for all the histories and reports are full of lamentations on the subject. The majority of these 226,000 men were utilized afterwards, that is evident; but there is no exaggeration in presuming that, during July and part of August, at least 100,000 of them were straying about the country living on public charity.

men had to go enormous distances to that the remaining 226,000 must have join; several regiments were more than 400 miles from their depots, to which all the men had to go in the first instance; and General Vinoy quotes, in his book, as a specimen of the organization which prevailed, the famous story of the Zouaves who were sent to Algeria to get their uniforms and then brought back to France to fight. He says: "In the war of 1870, reserve men belonging to the regiments of Zouaves, but residing in the northern departments, had to cross the whole of France and to embark at Marseilles in order to get themselves armed and equipped at Coleah, Oran, or Philippeville, and then come back to their corps at the point whence they had started. They travelled 1,300 miles by railway, and crossed the Mediterranean twice." Another tale, of exactly the same kind, was related by M. Blondeau in his evidence. He said that by far the greater part of the reserves of infirmiers and of workmen required for the army belonged to sections of those services which had their depots in Algeria; that when the war broke out he entreated that these men might be sent direct to the army of the Rhine, where they were most urgently required; that he was told in reply that such an arrangement would be "too complicated," and that the men must go according to rule; and that, in fact, a very large number of them (nearly 3,000 apparently, though, as the statement is rather confused, that figure may be incorrect) were embarked at Toulon and sent to Africa because routine required it.

Between the want of discipline of the men and the disorder of the management, the incorporation of the reserves went on with extraordinary slowness; indeed, we have just supplied evidence enough of that slowness by showing that the number of those who had joined the army of the Rhine on the 2d August, nineteen days after they were called out, could not probably have exceeded 44,000. Now, according to a document emanating from the minister of war, 163,000 reservists were started off to their regiments between the 18th and 28th of July; and we must necessarily suppose that the 107,000 men whom we imagine to have been on leave were also on their way to join, so making 270,000 men in all who were travelling to their destinations during the second fortnight of July. If, therefore, we are right in our computation, that only 44,000 of them had reached the army of the Rhine on the 2d of August, it follows

This is indeed a frightful story, and it would be impossible to believe it if it were not told, directly or indirectly, by the numerous French witnesses on the subject. It is so sad and strange that it is worth while to resume it in one sentence, and to repeat once more, that at the moment when the war broke out, the French army consisted nominally of 400,000 men, of whom about 107,000 appear, according to the probabilities of the case, to have been absent on leave, the remaining 293,000 being present with the colours; that when these 107,000 men, and also the 163,000 men of the reserve, were ordered to join, only 44,000 of the two classes (which numbered together 270,000) had reached the army of the Rhine in nineteen days; and that, of the remaining 226,000, one-half may be presumed to have got to their depots or their regiments elsewhere than in the Rhine army, while the other half continued to wander about France without any apparent intention of joining voluntarily at all.

We get next to the Garde Mobile. When war was declared it existed on paper only. It is true that, in 1869, a little drilling of the Parisians belonging to it had taken place; but the experiment had given the worst possible results; the men had behaved disgracefully, and the attempt had been abandoned. A slight commencement of organization had also been sketched out in the eastern departments; but when Maréchal le Boeuf became minister of war in 1869, he had suspended the further preparation and instruction of the men, on the ground that he did not believe there was the slightest use in it. It may therefore be observed, before we pass on, that Maréchal le Bœuf appears to have intended to fight Germany with nothing but the 565,000 men of the regular army and its reserve. The nominal effective of the

Garde Mobile stood originally at 500,000, as we have stated; in 1870 it was given officially at 420,000, but it does not appear that even 20,000 men thereof had been really utilized at the end of August. Such of its members as had been called up at that date were exclusively in the eastern fortresses; for it is not possible to count the Parisian battalions which conducted themselves at Chalons in such a fashion that they had to be recalled to Paris as being not only useless, but dangerous.

this reduced quantity could not be utilized, for the number of horses required for them was 51,548, with a corresponding supply of harness; so that, as only 31,904 horses were forthcoming, it was not possible to send more than 150 batteries (900 guns) to the army of the Rhine; and even this number included mitrailleuses, so cutting down the cannon, properly so called, to 850. As, however, we have shown that the army of the Rhine was limited to 244,ooo men, it follows, after all, that, in consequence of its numerical weakness, the theoretical number of four guns to each 1,000 men was really reached. It should be added that there was harness for 47,000 horses; it was therefore found possible, by making limbers and buying horses, to turn out eighty more batteries by the latter half of August, just in time to send them to Sedan to be taken by the Prussians.

From all these figures it results that the whole nominal force of the French army, regular troops, reserves, and Mobiles included, amounted to about 985,000 men; and Maréchal le Bouf has stated in his evidence that, out of this general total, 567.000 really serviceable men could be relied upon; but, if we allow for the sick and the non-combatant services, which would represent on this latter total 74,500 The story of the muskets is of the same men, and also for the gendarmerie and the nature. The official reports showed that troops absolutely required in the interior there were 3,350,000 of them in hand on and in Algeria, the number to be so de- 1st July 1870, and it was argued that, with ducted may be put altogether at 130,000. so vast a supply, an army of 900,000 men There would therefore remain only 437,000 would fight for several months. But it men to bring into line, from which again turned out that only one million of those we must deduct the number of the reserv-muskets were chassepots, that 1,750,000 of ists who did not join. So that, whichever them were percussion-guns, and that the way we turn the question, it seems indis- rest were modified Miniés (tabatières). As putable that the total forces of every kind which could be seriously employed against the enemy at the first commencement of the campaign could not have much exceded 300,000 fighting men, only five-sixths of whom were on the frontier. It should be repeated that these figures cannot be absolutely relied upon, for some of them are hypothetical and the rest are extracted from a mass of contradictory official evidence; they seem, however, to present a reasonable appearance of truth.

The matériel was in an even worse state than the men. General Suzanne, who, in 1870, was director of matériel at the ministry of war, informed the parliamentary commission that, when the war broke out, France possessed 21,000 cannons, of which 10,000 were field-pieces. So she did; but, unfortunately, these numbers included, as Duke d'Audiffret Pasquier observed in his speech to the commission on 13th June 1873, "cannons of the time of Louis XIV., and the artillery of Gribeauval;" all the old smooth-bore guns were also counted in it as forming part of the disposable armament. Furthermore, though there really were 4,000 rifled field-guns, only 2,376 of them possessed carriages and limbers; the others were all lying on the ground. And even

an example of the fashion in which these arsenal statements were made up, it may be mentioned that 57,000 of those very guns had been sold as old iron, for six shillings each, and were in process of delivery to the buyer; but they continued to be counted as available for service in the event of war! The result was that, after the first month, there were virtually no chassepots left, and that the contest had to be carried on with such inferior weapons of varied types as it was found possible to make or buy.

The stock of ammunition was so insufficient that only about 120 cartridges existed for each chassepot: in the very first battles of the campaign the supply was exhausted, and special manufactures had to be set up.

As for uniforms and kits, it was supposed that far more than enough were in store; but they ran short immediately, and contracts for every sort of article had to be made in all directions before the month of August was half over.

Of food it may be said that scarcely anything was ready. There were 38,500,000 of biscuit-rations for the army, but no stocks had been laid up in the fortresses; in Metz, for instance, according to the evidence, there was a quantity of corn and

flour, and some bacon, but neither rice, | society for helping the wounded, the men coffee, salt, nor wine.

would have been left to die where they The telegrams sent by the various com- dropped. But let it be remembered that, manders reveal the state of the supplies at while all this was happening in Alsace, the very commencement. On 19th July, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of hosGeneral de Failly telegraphed: "I have pital attendants and army-workmen were nothing not even money; we require at that very moment on their way to Africa, supplies of every kind." On the 24th the in obedience to routine. General Ducrot intendant of the 5th division telegraphed: says that, before his division quitted Stras"Metz, which supplies the 3d, 4th, and 5th burg, he applied for permission to leave corps, has no more biscuit or oats." The the shakos of the men in store there; that same day the intendant of the 3d corps the ministry of war had not dared to consays: "The 3d corps leaves Metz to-mor- sent to so bold a measure; and that, in row: I have no infirmiers, no workmen, consequence, as his men preferred to fight no ambulance-waggons, no field-ovens, no with their képis, they flung their shakos carts, and not one intendant in two divi- into the ditches to get rid of them, and sions." On the 25th July, the sous-in- that they "became the playthings of all tendant at Mézières sent word: "There the boys in Alsace," who picked them up is neither biscuit nor salt-meat to-day at on the roadsides. In many of the regiMézières or Sedan." On the 28th, Maré-ments the men had no spare needles for chal le Bœuf telegraphed: "We cannot their chassepots; "no one knew how to march for want of biscuit." On the 29th, fire a mitrailleuse, except one officer; a General Ducrot telegraphed to Strasburg, few shots, with powder, were fired from from Reichshoffen, where he was with his them before starting, so as to see how division: "The question of food is becom- 'these machines' were to be employed." ing more and more grave; the intendance The cavalry was organized on five differgives us absolutely nothing; everything is ent bases between 15th July and 15th Aueaten up around us." And all this, let it gust; it often happened that regiments be borne in mind, took place in France and even divisions of cavalry were anitself, with the bases of supplies close to nexed to divisions of infantry; the plans the army, and before one battle had been and projects varied every day, and somefought. times several times each day, as is proved by the orders and counter-orders which were telegraphed to Paris as to the supplies of food to be sent by rail to the army.

The same disorder existed in the fortresses; not one of them was in a state of defence. We have already described the state of Strasburg; the Bazaine trial has shown the condition of Metz; the construction of the outlying forts there was scarcely commenced; at Belfort nothing was done until two or three months after the declaration of war: Toul, a most important strategic point, was not armed. In Paris the state of things was almost worse; the forts contained one guardian each; not a gun was in battery in them.

Whichever way we look through this long, saddening testimony, the story is the same. M. Wolf, intendant of M'Mahon's corps, says that there were no orders and no plans; that, though the railway company could carry nearly all that was required, it could not, for want of men, unload the waggons when they arrived at their destination, and that the unloading had to be done by the troops; that it often happened that a mile of waggons stood for a week full of objects which were most urgently required, because it was impossible to discharge them. Everybody declares that there were no ambulances, no hospitals, and no nurses; and that if it had not been for private charity and for the

Such is, in all truth and fairness, with no exaggeration, and with no selection of exceptionally bad facts, the story told by the witnesses. Such was the state of the French army at the commencement of the campaign-such was the practical effect produced by the "system" of military management which was then in force in France.

This was the condition of things down to the 10th of August. On that day the Ollivier government was turned out and the Palikao ministry came in. The first stage of the story ends there. On the 10th of August the Germans were streaming across the Saar and through the Vosges and were close to Metz, where the larger part of the army of the Rhine was waiting to be shut up; the rest of it had been defeated and had fallen back on Chalons. A new army was required, with new arms and new stores. Then the second series of preparations commenced. General de Palikao says in his book that he provided "a reconstituted army of 140,000 men, at Chalons; that he got