The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.). J. Holland Rose

the growing power of Protestant Prussia. Würtemberg was Protestant, but far too democratic to wish for the control of the cast-iron bureaucrats of Berlin. The same was even more true of Saxony, where hostility to Prussia was a deep-rooted tradition; some of the Saxon troops on leaving their towns even shouted Napoleon soll leben[37]. It is therefore quite possible that, had France struck quickly at the valleys of the Neckar and Main, she might have reduced the South German States to neutrality. Alliance perhaps was out of the question save under overwhelming compulsion; for France had alienated the Bavarian and Hessian Governments by her claims in 1866, and the South German people by her recent offensive treatment of the Hohenzollern candidature. It is, however, safe to assert that if Napoleon I. had ordered French affairs he would have swept the South Germans into his net a month after the outbreak of war, as he had done in 1805. But Nature had not bestowed warlike gifts on the nephew, who took command of the French army at Metz at the close of July 1870. His feeble health, alternating with periods of severe pain, took from him all that buoyancy which lends life to an army and vigour to the headquarters; and his Chief of Staff, Leboeuf, did not make good the lack of these qualities in the nominal chief.

      All the initiative and vigour were on the east of the Rhine. The spread of the national principle to Central and South Germany had recently met with several checks; but the diplomatic blunders of the French Government, the threats of their Press that the Napoleonic troops would repeat the wonders of 1805; above all, admiration of the dignified conduct of King William under what were thought to be gratuitous insults from France, began to kindle the flame of German patriotism even in the particularists of the South. The news that the deservedly popular Crown Prince of Prussia, Frederick William, would command the army now mustering in the Palatinate, largely composed of South Germans, sent a thrill of joy through those States. Taught by the folly of her stay-at-home strategy in 1866, Bavaria readily sent her large contingent beyond the Rhine; and all danger of a French irruption into South Germany was ended by the speedy massing of the Third German Army, some 200,000 strong in all, on the north of Alsace. For the French to cross the Rhine at Speyer, or even at Kehl, in front of a greatly superior army (though as yet they knew not its actual strength) was clearly impossible; and in the closing hours of July the French headquarters fell back on other plans, which, speaking generally, were to defend the French frontier from the Moselle to the Rhine by striking at the advanced German troops. At least, that seems to be the most natural explanation of the sudden and rather flurried changes then made.

      It was wise to hide this change to a strategic defensive by assuming a tactical offensive; and on August 2 two divisions of Frossard's corps attacked and drove back the advanced troops of the Second German Army from Saarbrücken. The affair was unimportant: it could lead to nothing, unless the French had the means of following up the success. This they had not; and the advance of the First and Second German Armies, commanded by General Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles, was soon to deprive them of this position.

      Meanwhile the Germans were making ready a weighty enterprise. The muster of the huge Third Army to the north of Alsace enabled their General Staff to fix August 4 for a general advance against that frontier. It fell to this army, under the Crown Prince of Prussia, Frederick William, to strike the first great blow. Early on August 4 a strong Bavarian division advanced against the small fortified town of Weissenburg, which lies deep down in the valley of the Lauter, surrounded by lofty hills. There it surprised a weak French division, the vanguard of MacMahon's army, commanded by General Abel Douay, whose scouts had found no trace of the advancing enemy. About 10 A.m. Douay fell, mortally wounded; another German division, working round the town to the east, carried the strong position of the Geisberg; and these combined efforts, frontal and on the flank, forced the French hastily to retreat westwards over the hills to Wörth, after losing more than 2000 men.

      The news of this reverse and of the large German forces ready to pour into the north of Alsace led the Emperor to order the 7th French corps at Belfort, and the 5th in and around Bitsch, to send reinforcements to MacMahon, whose main force held the steep and wooded hills between the villages of Wörth, Fröschweiler, and Reichshofen. The line of railway between Strassburg and Bitsch touches Reichshofen; but, for some reason that has never been satisfactorily explained, MacMahon was able to draw up only one division from the side of Strassburg and Belfort, and not one from Bitsch, which was within an easy march. The fact seems to be that de Failly, in command at Bitsch, was a prey to conflicting orders from Metz, and therefore failed to bring up the 5th corps as he should have done. MacMahon's cavalry was also very defective in scouting, and he knew nothing as to the strength of the forces rapidly drawing near from Weissenburg and the east.

      Certainly his position at Wörth was very strong. The French lines were ranged along the steep wooded slope running north and south, with buttress-like projections, intersected by gullies, the whole leading up to a plateau on which stand the village

      

Plan of the Battle of Wörth.

      of Fröschweiler and the hamlet of Elsasshausen. Behind is the wood called the Grosser Wald, while the hamlet is flanked on the south and in front by an outlying wood, the Niederwald. Behind the Grosser Wald the ground sinks away to the valley in which runs the Bitsch-Reichshofen railway. In front of MacMahon's position lay the village of Wörth, deep in the valley of the Sauerbach. The invader would therefore have to carry this village or cross the stream, and press up the long open slopes on which were ranged the French troops and batteries with all the advantages of cover and elevation on their side. A poor general, having forces smaller than those of his enemy, might hope to hold such a position. But there was one great defect. Owing to de Failly's absence MacMahon had not enough men to hold the whole of the position marked out by Nature for defence.

Conscious of its strength, the Prussian Crown Prince ordered the leaders of his vanguard not to bring on a general engagement on August 6, when the invading army had not at hand its full striking strength[38]. But orders failed to hold in the ardour of the Germans under the attacks of the French. Affairs of outposts along the Sauerbach early on that morning brought on a serious fight, which up to noon went against the invaders. At that time the Crown Prince galloped to the front, and ordered an attack with all available forces. The fighting, hitherto fierce but spasmodic between division and division, was now fed by a steady stream of German reinforcements, until 87,000 of the invaders sought to wrest from MacMahon the heights, with their woods and villages, which he had but 54,000 to defend. The superiority of numbers soon made itself felt. Pursuant to the Crown Prince's orders, parts of two Bavarian corps began to work their way (but with one strangely long interval of inaction) through the wood to the north of the French left wing; on the Prussian 11th corps fell the severer task of winning their way up the slopes south of Wörth, and thence up to the Niederwald and Elsasshausen. When these woods were won, the 5th corps was to make its frontal attack from Wörth against Fröschweiler. Despite the desperate efforts of the French and their Turco regiments, and a splendid but hopeless charge of two regiments of Cuirassiers and one of Lancers against the German infantry, the Niederwald and Elsasshausen were won; and about four o'clock the sustained fire of fifteen German batteries against Fröschweiler enabled the 5th corps to struggle up that deadly glacis in spite of desperate charges by the defenders.

      Throughout the day the French showed their usual dash and devotion, some regiments being cut to pieces rather than retire. But by five o'clock the defence was outflanked on the two wings and crushed at the centre; human nature could stand no more after eight hours' fighting; and after a final despairing effort of the French Cuirassiers all their line gave way in a general rout down the slopes to Reichshofen and towards Saverne. Apart from the Würtembergers held in reserve, few of the Germans were in a condition to press the pursuit. Nevertheless the fruits of victory were very great: 10,000 Frenchmen lay dead or wounded; 6000 unwounded prisoners were taken, with 28 cannon and 5 mitrailleuses. Above all, MacMahon's fine army was utterly broken, and made no attempt to defend any of the positions on the north of the Vosges. Not even a tunnel was there blown up to delay the advance of the Germans. Hastily gathering up the 5th corps from Bitsch--the