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hotly-contested fight, from the battle-field. The losses of the French were as heavy as their resistance had been obstinate. Closely pressed by the pursuing cavalry of the Germans, they were forced to retreat during the night of January 3d, from Arras to Douai. On January 4th General von Bentheim succeeded more easily in scattering the "Army of Havre," which, under General Roye, was drawn up on the left bank of the Seine, opposite Rouen. On the Loire, there was no fighting until January 6th. Not until Gambetta went from Bordeaux into the camp of Chanzy did the latter risk a new offensive movement. But one corps of the army of Frederick Charles at once marched through Vendôme against him, repulsed him, not far from Azay, and on January 7th advanced as far as Nogent, Le Rotrou, Sargé, Savigny, and La Chartre, that is to say, to the eastern boundary of the department of the Sarthe.

More important combinations were in the mean while preparing in the east, where General Bressolles, with a considerable force, was advancing from Lyons along the frontier of Switzerland, in order to join the corps of Bourbaki, near Montbéliard, and to raise con- jointly with it the siege of Belfort. General Werder therefore evacuated, on December 27th and 28th, Dijon and the vicinity, and concentrated his troops near Vesoul, where he summoned to his reënforcement the troops watching Langres, in order to oppose a sufficient force to the advancing enemy. The French, nevertheless, considerably outnumbered the Germans. According to French accounts, their total force consisted of about 120,000 men, three army corps being under the command of Bourbaki, twenty-four battalions under Bressolles, ten under Cremer, and twenty under Garibaldi. In the German headquarters at Versailles the position of Werder was regarded as so critical that the Second (Pomeranian) Corps of the besieging army of Paris and the Seventh (Westphalian) Corps of the First Army were sent to his aid. These troops, in connection with those of General Werder, were to constitute the Fifth German army, or the Army of the South, which was placed under the command of Manteuffel. But, before the reënforcements of Manteuffel had arrived, Werder learned that the French were advancing on Belfort, and he therefore ordered his troops to march in three columns into the valley of the Lisaine. At Villersexel, the right wing of the Germans encountered the French, and, notwithstanding the violent fire from the French batteries on the heights, the villages of Marat and Moimay were taken and held. As this position was, however, unfit for the defence, Werder, during the night, withdrew his troops to Héricourt, and thus concentrated his whole force on the line extending from Champigny through Chenebier and Chagey to Béthoncourt. The position was strong by nature, and Werder still more

strengthened it by means of intrenchments, while Bourbaki was advancing through Arcy to Montbéliard, and through Beverne to Chenebier, where he took up a position covered by a wood. On January 15th he made a violent attack on the line Chagey-Montbéliard, in order to force the road from Héricourt to Belfort. The battle lasted for nine hours, but ended without result. The next day Bourbaki renewed the attack with equal energy, but also without any result. He, therefore, changed his plan of operation, and during the night the front of attack was pushed forward northward through Louthenans upon the line ChageyChenebier. At the same time an attack was made upon Béthoncourt, in order to prevent the troops posted there from taking part in the battle on the right wing. But Werder had already received sufficient reënforcements, not only to repulse the attack, but to drive the French back beyond Chenebier. The loss of the Germans in the three-days' fight amounted to 1,200 men; the loss of the French, exclusive of those captured, was at least as large again. On January 18th Bourbaki began to retreat in a southwesterly direction, partly because he had to abandon the hope of breaking with his discouraged troops through the German lines, partly in order to turn his front against the troops of Manteuffel, which were advancing from Gray, and, if possible, to reach the road to Besançon. Manteuffel had arrived as early as January 13th in Chatillon-sur-Seine, and on January 16th had marched from there, with the troops hastily collected, toward Gray, in order to thrust his force, like a wedge, between the army of Bourbaki at Vesoul and the Garibaldians at Dijon. On January 18th the headquarters of Manteuffel were established at Gray, and on January 21st his right wing, the Second Corps, under Fransecky, encountered the Garibaldians and the Division Pelissier. On the same day Dôle was occupied, and thus the connection between Bourbaki and Garibaldi interrupted. As in the mean while the troops of Werder had likewise resumed the pursuit, Bourbaki found himself obstructed on three sides. The garrison of Belfort had made no effort to support the operations of Bourbaki. The beseiging army, on the other hand, had continued its operations against the outworks of the French; and in the night of January 20th had taken the last of them, the village of Perouse. Thus the French were confined to the fortress and the forts, and the Germans were enabled to open the trenches.

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In the mean while the fate of the Army of the Loire had been decided. The army of Prince Frederick Charles, with which the corps thus far commanded by the Grand-duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin had been embodied, was marching on three roads, from Chartres, from Orleans, and from Blois, upon Le Mans. The Tenth and Third Corps had severe encounters at Ardenay and Parigué l'Evêque, and on January 11th at Changé, but on January 12th

occupied Le Mans. In the preceding battles the French had made a desperate and partly even a successful resistance; the bloody battle of Ardenay was only decided by an attack during the night upon the southern heights which were held by Gardes Mobile. The left wing of the French army, on which Chanzy had concentrated his best troops, also displayed great bravery, but finally had to abandon their position on l'Huisne. While the German troops were occupying Le Mans, Chanzy was driven from Montfort through Saint-Corneille and Savigne l'Évêque toward the Sarthe. Altogether the Second Army had lost, in the battles from January 6th to January 12th, 177 officers and 3,203 killed and wounded; but, on the other hand, 22,000 unwounded soldiers, two banners, 19 pieces of ordnance, and a large quantity of war material of every kind, had fallen into the hands of the victorious Germans. The army of Chanzy was too demoralized to continue the war; Chanzy himself admitted that it needed a reorganization, which was to be effected in Brittany in the region of Rennes. One part of the French army marched westward from Le Mans toward Laval, whither it was followed by the main force of Frederick Charles, which, on January 14th, took, almost without resistance, the camp of Coulie. The other half of the army of Chanzy turned northward toward Alençon, and was pursued by the German troops, which had beaten the Army of Havre on the Lower Seine. During the night from January 16th to January 17th, these troops, after a slight skirmish, took Alençon, where the Thirteenth Army Corps, under the Grand-duke of Mecklenburg, joined them, in order to advance from here, through Mayenne, toward Rennes.

The plan of the French, to withdraw so many detachments from the two main armies of the Germans as to enable them to make, with a better prospect of success, a new effort for raising the siege of Paris, now proved to be unsuccessful. It was to fail in each of its parts. General Faidherbe, who had reorganized his army and received large reënforcements by sea from Southern France, suffered likewise a decisive defeat: in his march upon Amiens, he had advanced as far as Corbie when the severe frost compelled him to make a halt. On January 14th, his main force was concentrated at Albert. General Goeben, who had succeeded Manteuffel in the command of the Army of the North, had thus far watched the movements of the enemy from the left bank of the Somme; he now crossed the river, and on January 18th defeated the vanguard of Faidherbe at Beauvois, one mile west from St. Quentin. On January 19th, a bloody battle was fought at St. Quentin, which lasted seven hours, and ended in a crushing defeat of Faidherbe, who in great haste had to retreat beyond Cambray as far as Lille and Douai; more than 10,000 unwounded soldiers fell into the hands of the Germans, who on their part had

suffered a loss of 94 officers and 3,000 men killed and wounded.

On the same day on which the battle of St. Quentin was fought, the army besieging Paris had to resist the formidable sortie which was attempted by Trochu. The bombardment of the city had for some time been continued with great energy and considerable success. Even the barracks of the forts Issy and Vanvres had begun to suffer, and in that part of the city which lies on the left bank of the Seine the German artillery began to cause terrible devastation. Trochu, therefore, resolved to make once more a desperate attempt to break through the besieging line. The sortie was chiefly made, on January 10th, from Fort Valerien. On the side of the French nearly 100,000 took part in the movement, while on the German side the Fifth and parts of the Fourth Corps were chiefly involved. The hottest fighting was near St.-Cloud and Bougival. The French during the whole day fought with great bravery, and their artillery, in particular, made the utmost efforts to dislodge the Germans; but, when night put an end to the fighting, the Germans maintained all the positions which they had held in the morning. The Germans lost 39 officers and 616 men killed and wounded; while the French loss was estimated at 5,000 men. On January 21st the siege-train which had been brought on from Mézières, and which consisted of 75 pieces of heavy ordnance, opened fire on St. Denis and the neighboring forts to the north of Paris, and thus deprived the French of the hope of continuing important sorties on this side, as they could no longer as before rally under the fire of these forts. In Paris, the Reds had, in the mean while, become so troublesome that Trochu, who already had transferred the Ministry of War for Paris to General Leflô, expressed a wish to resign also as commander-in-chief and as President of the Provisional Government. On January 22d the office of commander-in-chief was conferred upon General Vinoy, but, at the request of his colleagues, General Trochu continued to exercise his functions as President of the Provisional Government. The latter circumstance on the next day led to a rising of the Reds, which, in turn, induced the Government to enter into negotiations concerning capitulation. Even on the same day (January 23d), Jules Favre made his appearance in Versailles. On January 26th the negotiations had so far advanced that firing ceased on both sides. On January 28th a capitulation and an armistice of three weeks was concluded. The armies in the field were to retain their mutual positions, and to leave a neutral space between them. A line of demarcation was agreed upon, which cut through the departments of Calvados and Orne, and left to the Germans the departments of Sarthe, Indre-et-Loire, Loire-et-Cher, Loiret, Yonne, and all the territory north of them, with the exception of the departments of Pas de Calais

and Nord. The decision, on the beginning of the armistice, in the departments of Côte-d'Or, Doubs, and Jura, was reserved, and until then the operations of war, inclusive of the siege of Belfort, were to continue. A National Assembly was within two weeks to be convoked in Bordeaux. For the purpose of maintaining order in Paris, the resident National Guard were to keep their arms; the soldiers of the line and the Gardes Mobile were to be made prisoners of war and to be kept in Paris: all the forts, with the exception of Vincennes, were to be occupied by the German troops, and the arms of the prisoners of war, consisting of about 200,000 chassepots and 1,400 bronze pieces of ordnance, and a considerable number of iron cannon, were to be delivered up; after this condition had been complied with, provisions were allowed to pass through the German lines to Paris. The city had to pay a war-tax of 200,000,000 francs; the corps of Franc-tireurs were to be dissolved; the German prisoners of war and the captains of vessels to be exchanged; and the walls of the city to be disarmed. The occupation of the forts began in the morning of January 29th. The Saxons took possession of Romainville, Noissy, Rosny, and Nogent; the Bavarians of Montrouge, Charenton, and Vanvres; the Wurtembergers of Gravelle and Faisanderie; the Prussians of Issy and Bicêtre. On the next day St. Denis and the other forts were occupied without disturbance. On other seats of the war the position of the French had, in the mean while, also become more desperate. The German Army of the West had from strategical reasons not followed up the pursuit of the enemy in the direction of Brittany, and the forces which had advanced the farthest had been called back. But, on the other hand, one part of the army of Prince Frederick Charles had advanced in a southwesterly direction on the road from Le Mans to Angers. The Grandduke of Mecklenburg had marched from Alençon upon Rouen, in order to operate conjointly with the other parts of the First Army. Farther to the north the German troops appeared now here, now there, in order to leave the French at a loss as to the points against which their operations were directed. From Cambrai, which they had surrounded, they withdrew and appeared at Arras. Not far from Valenciennes, uhlans suddenly made their appearance, while other divisions made demonstrations against Douai, and raids even as far as Maubeuge. Thus the whole of the north regarded itself as threatened and became thoroughly discouraged. In some places the National Guard refused to march, and laid down their arms.

Still more depressing was the condition of the French in the east, which had not been included in the armistice of January 28th. After the battles at Belfort, the army of Bourbaki, leaving behind their wounded and sick, had retired in disorder, and in a most wretched

condition. Bourbaki had so fully lost all hope, that he attempted to commit suicide. The wreck of the army for eight days wandered about between Besançon and St. Hippolyte, and subsequently between the latter place and Pontarlier. Finally a concentration in the direction of Pontarlier was attempted, in order to reestablish a connection with the south by way of Champagnole and Lons-le-Saunier. But it was already too late. As early as January 25th German troops had reached Arbois and Poligny; the circle around the French army was more and more contracted, and the danger that it might be pushed across the frontier of Switzerland daily increased. On January 29th the first encounter took place near Pontarlier, on the roads leading from Salins and from Arnans through Pontarlier to the frontier of Switzerland. The villages of Sombacourt and Chassois, which are situated about six miles from the frontier, were stormed by the Fourteenth Division. The French lost in this fight 3,000 men and six pieces of ordnance. This immense loss indicates the terrible condition in which the army must have found itself, which was now commanded by General Clinchamp. On January 30th and 31st new encounters took place, in particular near Pelouse, between the German van-troops and the French rear-guard. The French lost in these fights two eagles, 19 cannon and mitrailleuses, two generals, nearly 15,000 prisoners, many hundred wagons of ammunition, and a large quantity of war-material, and they were driven more and more into the mountains; the total loss of the Germans amounted to 600. The French now began to cross the frontier in large masses. Up to February 3d, about 56,000 men had laid down their arms on the soil of Switzerland; but, on the whole, 80,000 men had crossed the frontier. The French Army of the South had ceased to exist. Garibaldi succeeded, by a hasty retreat, in escaping with his little force from the danger of being surrounded by the Germans, who after a small skirmish occupied Dijon. Soon after, Garibaldi resigned as commander of the Army of the Vosges, on the ground that his mission was fulfilled. In the mean while, Longwy, the only fortress of Lorraine, with the exception of Bitche, which was still held by the French, had surrendered on January 25th. The bombardment of Belfort, temporarily interrupted on the Lisaine, had also been renewed with greater vigor. An attack made, January 26th, on the forts of Basse and Haute Perche, failed, and the storming battallion of landwehr suffered severe losses; but, on February 8th, both forts were taken. Then the commander of the fortress asked for an armistice, and began to negotiate concerning the surrender; on February 16th, an agreement was arrived at. On February 18th, the fortress was occupied by the German troops. The garrison, consisting of 12,000 men, was allowed to march off with military honors; it was the only one from the captured fortresses

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which was not held as prisoners. In return for the surrender, which was not yet absolutely necessary, from military reasons, the Germans prolonged the armistice for five days, and extended it to Southeastern France. On the other hand, however, the line of demarcation had to be drawn further south, in consequence of the protracted resistance of the fortress, than would have been the case if the French Government at the beginning of the armistice had consented to the capitulation. The departments of Côte-d'Or and Doubs were abandoned wholly, the department of the Jura almost wholly, to the Germans. The possession of the latter was of special importance, because, in case of a continuation of the war, it opened to the German troops a way into the valley of the Rhone, since, south of the Jura, the obstructions, which still would have arrested a march of the German troops upon Lyons, had been removed. These important concessions, in exchange for a prolongation of the armistice of five days, indicated that the French Government had renounced all idea of resuming the

war.

On February 21st the negotiations concerning the preliminaries of peace were begun at Versailles, between Bismarck and Thiers, the latter being assisted by fifteen commissioners of peace, appointed by the National Assembly of Bordeaux. At the expiration of the armistice, a full understanding had not been arrived at, but there was no doubt that it would be reached, and consequently the armistice was once more prolonged from February 24th to the evening of February 26th. In fact, on February 25th, all the conditions were agreed upon, and on the 26th the preliminaries of peace were signed. Two days later, they were laid by Thiers before the National Assembly of Bordeaux, which, on March 1st, ratified them by 546 against 107 votes. The ten articles of the preliminaries contained substantially the following conditions: France abandons, in favor of the German Empire, German Lorraine, inclusive of the fortress of Metz, and nearly the whole of Alsace. France pays to the Emperor of Germany five milliards of francs; one milliard, at least, has to be paid during the year 1871; the remainder in the course of three years. Paris, as well as all the territory occupied by the Germans on the left bank of the Seine, must be evacuated immediately after the ratification of the preliminaries by the National Assembly of Bordeaux. The French troops withdraw behind the Loire, which they are not allowed to cross before the signing of the definitive treaty. The garrison of Paris, which is not to exceed 40,000 men, and the garrisons indispensable for the safety of the fortresses, are excepted from this condition. The evacuation of the departments between the right bank of the Seine and the eastern frontier, by the German troops, will gradually take place after the ratification of the definitive treaty and the payment

of the first half milliard, the beginning being made with the departments next to Paris, and will be continued in proportion as the subsequent payments of the contributions may be made. After the payment of two milliards, the German occupation will be confined to the departments of the Marne, the Ardennes, the Upper Marne, the Meuse, the Vosges, and the Meurthe, and to the fortress of Belfort and its territory, which together shall serve as surety for the remaining three milliards, and where the number of the German troops shall not exceed 50,000 men. No obstacle will be put in the way of the voluntary emigration of inhabitants of the ceded territory by the German Government. The prisoners of war shall be exchanged immediately after the ratification of the preliminaries. The opening of the negotiations concerning the definitive treaty will take place at Brussels immediately after the mutual_ratification of the preliminaries. In accordance with these provisions, the German troops, which had entered Paris on March 1st, left the city and the forts on the left bank of the Seine on the next day, and the march homeward was begun. On March 4th the partial demobilization of the German army was ordered; on the next day the general governments at Versailles, Rheims, and Nancy, were dissolved; and, on March 9th, the fleet was ordered to be reduced to a peace footing. On March 12th Versailles was evacuated; on the next day the German Emperor left the castle of Ferrières, in order to return to Germany. At Nancy, the Emperor, on March 15th, took leave, by an army order, of the armies; on the same day, at 11 o'clock A. M., he arrived on German soil, at Saarbrück, when he was presented, by delegations from 3,000 communities of the German Rhine provinces, with an address of welcome, and a golden laurel crown of surpassing splendor. The line of return from Saarbrück to Berlin, where the Emperor arrived on March 17th, was an uninterrupted chain of grand ovations. When, on March 18th, a revolution broke out in Paris, General de Fabrici informed by telegraph Jules Favre and General Schlottheim, the revolutionary government in Paris, what steps had been taken for the defence of the German interests. On March 26th the fortress of Bitche was occupied by the German troops.

On March 28th the conference of peace was opened at Brussels. After the conclusion of the preliminaries, the Government of France had made the utmost efforts to obtain a modification of the conditions of peace. With regard to the payment of indemnification, in particular, propositions had been made, so surprising to the Germans that they began to suspect the honesty of the designs of France. It was believed that Thiers was relying on foreign intervention. Prince Bismarck, therefore, gave the French to understand that, only if the definitive treaty was soon agreed upon, a further consideration of the wants of the French Gov

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