Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/16

6 there M. Blondeau, chief of the intendance of the army, who spoke to me in a tone which proved how little he knew of the truth. He said, that if my impressions and those of General Ducrot were correct, it followed that the minister of war was the only person who was ignorant of the facts of the case; for if they really were as I supposed, the minister would certainly have spoken to him about them. That was conclusive; there was nothing more to be said. As I was leaving M. Blondeau, he observed that I did not seem to be satisfied. I answered that, even if General Ducrot and I exaggerated the dangers of the situation, it was painful for me to return to Strasburg without having obtained anything what ever."

Then appeared General Ducrot, who gave the commission the following information: — "I commanded the Strasburg division for five years. When I first arrived there I wished to know what was in store, for there were large magazines full of objects. I found 2,000 cannon, of which about 400 or 500 were fit for use. All the others were old bronze. There were stone cannon-balls of the time of Louis XIV., and an enormous quantity of flint-muskets. I wrote at once (in 1865) to the minister of war, calling his attention to the fact that all this was very much out of place in a frontier fortress, and asking that the useless objects should be transported into the interior of France, that they should be replaced by serviceable stores, and that the cannon should be put on carriages. I found that we had cooking-pots for 2000 men and water-flasks for 15,000, and so on with everything else. Many absolutely indispensable articles were altogether wanting. There were no halters or picket-ropes for horses; but there was black cloth enough to dress more than 100,000 men.

"I wrote to the minister that all this was inadmissible, and I insisted on the necessity of relieving us of our useless stock and of sending us what we needed. I talked about it all to M. de la Valette, who was then my intendant. He drew up a statement of what was wanted for a corps of 30,000 men, with a reserve of10,000, showing exactly what we had in excess and what we had not got at all. We verified this statement together, and I sent a copy of it to M. Blondeau. I remember particularly that we required 144 wagons, and that we had only 18; and I begged M. Blondeau to remedy this at once. He replied by a polite letter, saying that he recognized the justice of my observations, and that he would attend to them. Soon afterwards M. de la Valette informed me that he too had written, but with no result; and he asked me to communicate officially with General de Failly, who commanded the corps d'armée, saying that he (La Valette) would do the same to the ministry of war. This was done. I got a reply stating that before wagons could he sent to us it was necessary to see if we could provide shelter for them. There the matter remained until the war broke out. I had spent five years in asking uselessly for indispensable objects."

These two stories supply good illustrations of what was manifestly the general condition of the French army. The ministry was convinced that its management was excellent; it would listen to no complaints, it would follow no advice; it calmly continued its habits and traditions, the essential principle of which was to leave things as they were.

After this indication of the situation during the period which preceded the war, we will now give details of what occurred at the moment when the war began.

As regards the numerical force of the army, which is naturally the first question to consider, no absolutely exact data are obtainable. The various official statements which have been published are not only incomplete, but disagree frequently with each other. It is, however, quite possible to group the figures according to the seeming probabilities of the case, and so arrive at an approximative result. The nominal peace footing was 400,000 men, and the reserve of the active army stood at 165,000; so that, on this showing, there ought to have been 565,000 men immediately disposable. But the very first thing we discover is, that the 400,000 men who were counted in the budget were not under the colours; and, though it is not possible to determine with precision the number who really were there, we shall find good reason for presuming that, on 15th July 1870, it could not have exceeded 300,000 altogether — the other 100,000 having evidently been sent away on leave, so as to economize their pay and rations. It is true that, at the plebiscite of the 8th of May, 330,000 soldiers had apparently voted in France and Algeria; but it will be seen directly that we cannot find that number in July. It is therefore probable that, directly after the plebiscite, 30,000 more men were sent home, in addition to the 70,000 who were already evidently absent in May. These figures do not 