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FRANCKEN. Eleven painters of this family cultivated their art in Antwerp during the 16th and 17th centuries. Several of these were related to each other, whilst many bore the same Christian name in succession. Hence unavoidable confusion in the subsequent classification of paintings not widely differing in style or execution. When Franz Francken the first found a rival in Franz Francken the second, he described himself as the "elder," in contradistinction to his son, who signed himself the "younger." But when Franz the second was threatened with competition from Franz the third, he took the name of "the elder," whilst Franz the third adopted that of Franz "the younger."

Whether the plan was betrayed to Prussia is also uncertain, and almost immaterial, for Moltke's plans were based on an accurate estimate of the time it would take Austria to mobilize and on the effect of a series of victories on French soil. At any rate Moltke was not taken into Bismarck's confidence in the affair of Ems in July 1870, and it is to be presumed that the chancellor had already satisfied himself that the schemes of operations prepared by the chief of the General Staff fully provided against all eventualities. These schemes were founded on Clausewitz's view of the objects to be pursued in a war against France--in the first place the defeat of the French field armies and in the second the occupation of Paris. On these lines plans for the strategic deployment of the Prussian army were prepared by the General Staff and kept up to date year by year as fresh circumstances arose and new means of communication came into existence. The campaign was actually opened on a revise of 1868-1869, to which was added, on the 6th of May 1870, a secret memorandum for the General Staff.

Strategic deployment of the German armies.

Headquarters: The king of Prussia .

Total 85,000

Total 210,000

Positions of the French forces.

As these delays were exerting a most unfavourable effect on public opinion not only in France but throughout Europe, the emperor decided on the 1st of August to initiate a movement towards the Saar, chiefly as a guarantee of good faith to the Austrians and Italians.

On this day the French corps held the following positions from right to left:

Action of Saarbr?cken.

Moltke, Prince Frederick Charles and Steinmetz.

Battle of Spicheren.

The news of the German victory at Weissenburg on the 4th had in fact completely paralysed the French headquarters, and orders were issued by them during the course of the 5th to concentrate the whole army of the Rhine on the selected position of Cadenbronn. As a preliminary, Frossard's corps withdrew from Saarbr?cken and began to entrench a position on the Spicheren heights, 3000 yds. to the southward. Steinmetz, therefore, being quite unaware of the scheme for a great battle on the Saar about the 12th of August, felt that the situation would best be met, and the letter of his instructions strictly obeyed, by moving his whole command forward to the line of the Saar, and orders to this effect were issued on the evening of the 5th. In pursuance of these orders, the advance guard of the 14th division reached Saarbr?cken about 9 A.M. on the 6th, where the Germans found to their amazement that the bridges were intact. To secure this advantage was the obvious duty of the commander on the spot, and he at once ordered his troops to occupy a line of low heights beyond the town to serve as a bridge-head. As the leading troops deployed on the heights Frossard's guns on the Spicheren Plateau opened fire, and the advanced guard battery replied. The sound of these guns unchained the whole fighting instinct carefully developed by a long course of Prussian manoeuvre training. Everywhere, generals and troops hurried towards the cannon thunder. Kameke, even more in the dark than Steinmetz as to Moltke's intentions and the strength of his adversaries, attacked at once, precisely as he would have done at manoeuvres, and in half an hour his men were committed beyond recall. As each fresh unit reached the field it was hurried into action where its services were most needed, and each fresh general as he arrived took a new view of the combat and issued new orders. On the other side, Frossard, knowing the strength of his position, called on his neighbours for support, and determined to hold his ground. Victory seemed certain. There were sufficient troops within easy reach to have ensured a crushing numerical superiority. But the other generals had not been trained to mutual support, and thought only of their own immediate security, and their staffs were too inexperienced to act upon even good intentions; and, finding himself in the course of the afternoon left to his own devices, Frossard began gradually to withdraw, even before the pressure of the 13th German division on his left flank compelled his retirement. When darkness ended the battle the Prussians were scarcely aware of their victory. Steinmetz, who had reached the field about 6 P.M., rode back to his headquarters without issuing any orders, while the troops bivouacked where they stood, the units of three army corps being mixed up in almost inextricable confusion. But whereas out of 42,900 Prussians with 120 guns, who in the morning lay within striking distance of the enemy, no fewer than 27,000, with 78 guns were actually engaged; of the French, out of 64,000 with 210 guns only 24,000 with 90 guns took part in the action.

Action of Weissenburg.

Battle of W?rth.

Under cover of darkness the remnants of the French army escaped. When at length the 4th cavalry division had succeeded in forcing a way through the confusion of the battlefield, all touch with the enemy had been lost, and being without firearms the troopers were checked by the French stragglers in the woods and the villages, and thus failed to establish the true line of retreat of the French. Ultimately the latter, having gained the railway near Lun?ville, disappeared from the German front altogether, and all trace of them was lost until they were discovered, about the 26th of August, forming part of the army of Ch?lons, whither they had been conveyed by rail via Paris. This is a remarkable example of the strategical value of railways to an army operating in its own country.

Movements on the Saar.

Advance to the Moselle.

During the 9th the orders for the advance to the Moselle were issued. These were based, not on an exact knowledge of where the French army actually stood, but on the opinion Moltke had formed as to where it ought to have been on military grounds solely, overlooking the fact that the French staff were not free to form military decisions but were compelled to bow to political expediency.

Actually on the 7th of August the emperor had decided to attack the Germans on the 8th with the whole Rhine Army, but this decision was upset by alarmist reports from the beaten army of MacMahon. He then decided to retreat to the Moselle, as Moltke had foreseen, and there to draw to himself the remnants of MacMahon's army . At the same time he assigned the executive command over the whole Rhine Army to Marshal Bazaine. This retreat was begun during the course of the 8th and 9th of August; but on the night of the 9th urgent telegrams from Paris induced the emperor to suspend the movement, and during the 10th the whole army took up a strong position on the French Nied.

Battle of Colombey-Borny.

Still, though the fighting had been indecisive, the conviction of victory remained with the Germans, and the idea of a French retreat became an obsession. To this idea Moltke gave expression in his orders issued early on the 15th, in which he laid down that the "fruits of the victory" of the previous evening could only be reaped by a vigorous pursuit towards the passages of the Meuse, where it was hoped the French might yet be overtaken. This order, however, did not allow for the hopeless inability of the French staff to regulate the movement of congested masses of men, horses and vehicles, such as were now accumulated in the streets and environs of Metz. Whilst Bazaine had come to no definite decision whether to stand and fight or continue to retreat, and was merely drifting under the impressions of the moment, the Prussian leaders, in particular Prince Frederick Charles, saw in imagination the French columns in rapid orderly movement towards the west, and calculated that at best they could not be overtaken short of Verdun.

Battle of Vionville-Mars-la-Tour.

The 17th of August.

Battle of Gravelotte-Saint Privat.

Bazaine in Metz.

This seems a fitting place to discuss the much-disputed point of Bazaine's conduct in allowing himself to be driven back into Metz when fortune had thrown into his hands the great opportunity of the 16th and 17th of August. He had been appointed to command on the 10th, but the presence of the emperor, who only left the front early on the 16th, and their dislike of Bazaine, exercised a disturbing influence on the headquarters staff officers. During the retreat to Metz the marshal had satisfied himself as to the inability of his corps commanders to handle their troops, and also as to the ill-will of the staff. In the circumstances he felt that a battle in the open field could only end in disaster; and, since it was proved that the Germans could outmarch him, his army was sure to be overtaken and annihilated if he ventured beyond the shelter of the fortress. But near Metz he could at least inflict very severe punishment on his assailants, and in any case his presence in Metz would neutralize a far superior force of the enemy for weeks or months. What use the French government might choose to make of the breathing space thus secured was their business, not his; and subsequent events showed that, had they not forced MacMahon's hand, the existence of the latter's nucleus army of trained troops might have prevented the investment of Paris. Bazaine was condemned by court-martial after the war, but if the case were reheard to-day it is certain that no charge of treachery could be sustained.

On the German side the victory at St Privat was at once followed up by the headquarters. Early on the 19th the investment of Bazaine's army in Metz was commenced. A new army, the Army of the Meuse , was as soon as possible formed of all troops not required for the maintenance of the investment, and marched off under the command of the crown prince of Saxony to discover and destroy the remainder of the French field army, which at this moment was known to be at Ch?lons.

Campaign of Sedan.

The operations which led to the capture of MacMahon's army in Sedan call for little explanation. Given seven corps, each capable of averaging 15 m. a day for a week in succession, opposed to four corps only, shaken by defeat and unable as a whole to cover more than 5 m. a day, the result could hardly be doubtful. But Moltke's method of conducting operations left his opponent many openings which could only be closed by excessive demands on the marching power of the men. Trusting only to his cavalry screen to secure information, he was always without any definite fixed point about which to manoeuvre, for whilst the reports of the screen and orders based thereon were being transmitted, the enemy was free to move, and generally their movements were dictated by political expediency, not by calculable military motives.

Thus whilst the German army, on a front of nearly 50 m., was marching due west on Paris, MacMahon, under political pressure, was moving parallel to them, but on a northerly route, to attempt the relief of Metz.

Later operations.

The regular army, indeed, still contained more than 500,000 men , and 50,000 sailors, marines, douaniers, &c., were also available. But the Garde Mobile, framed by Marshal Niel in 1868, doubled this figure, and the addition of the Garde Nationale, called into existence on the 15th of September, and including all able-bodied men of from 31 to 60 years of age, more than trebled it. The German staff had of course to reckon on the Garde Mobile, and did so beforehand, but they wholly underestimated both its effective members and its willingness, while, possessing themselves a system in which all the military elements of the German nation stood close behind the troops of the active army, they ignored the potentialities of the Garde Nationale.

The "D?fense Nationale."

Then once again, instead of following up its success, the French army disappeared from view. The victory had emboldened the "fog of war" to make renewed efforts, and resistance to the pressure of the German cavalry grew day by day. The Bavarians were reinforced by two Prussian divisions and by all available cavalry commands, and constituted as an "army detachment" under the grand-duke Friedrich Franz of Mecklenburg-Schwerin to deal with the Army of the Loire, the strength of which was far from being accurately known. Meantime the capitulation of Metz on the 28th of October had set free the veterans of Prince Frederick Charles, the best troops in the German army, for field operations. The latter were at first misdirected to the upper Seine, and yet another opportunity arose for the French to raise the siege of Paris. But D'Aurelle utilized the time he had gained in strengthening the army and in imparting drill and discipline to the new units which gathered round the original nucleus of the 15th and 16th corps. All this was, however, unknown and even unsuspected at the German headquarters, and the invaders, feeling the approaching crisis, became more than uneasy as to their prospects of maintaining the siege of Paris.

The Orleans campaign.

During this, as during other halts, the French government and its generals occupied themselves with fresh plans of campaign, the former with an eager desire for results, the latter with many misgivings. Ultimately, and fatally, it was decided that Bourbaki, whom nothing could move towards Orleans, should depart for the south-east, with a view to relieving Belfort and striking perpendicularly against the long line of the Germans' communications. This movement, bold to the point of extreme rashness judged by any theoretical rules of strategy, seems to have been suggested by de Freycinet. As the execution of it fell actually into incapable hands, it is difficult to judge what would have been the result had a Chanzy or a Faidherbe been in command of the French. At any rate it was vicious in so far as immediate advantages were sacrificed to hopes of ultimate success which Gambetta and de Freycinet did wrong to base on Bourbaki's powers of generalship. Late in December, for good or evil, Bourbaki marched off into Franche-Comt? and ceased to be a factor in the Loire campaign. A mere calculation of time and space sufficed to show the German headquarters that the moment had arrived to demolish the stubborn Chanzy.

Le Mans.

Prince Frederick Charles resumed the interrupted offensive, pushing westward with four corps and four cavalry divisions which converged on Le Mans. There on the 10th, 11th and 12th of January 1871 a stubbornly contested battle ended with the retreat of the French, who owed their defeat solely to the misbehaviour of the Breton mobiles. These, after deserting their post on the battlefield at a mere threat of the enemy's infantry, fled in disorder and infected with their terrors the men in the reserve camps of instruction, which broke up in turn. But Chanzy, resolute as ever, drew off his field army intact towards Laval, where a freshly raised corps joined him. The prince's army was far too exhausted to deliver another effective blow, and the main body of it gradually drew back into better quarters, while the grand duke departed for the north to aid in opposing Faidherbe. Some idea of the strain to which the invaders had been subjected may be gathered from the fact that army corps, originally 30,000 strong, were in some cases reduced to 10,000 and even fewer bayonets. And at this moment Bourbaki was at the head of 120,000 men! Indeed, so threatening seemed the situation on the Loire, though the French south of that river between Gien and Blois were mere isolated brigades, that the prince hurried back from Le Mans to Orleans to take personal command. A fresh French corps, bearing the number 25, and being the twenty-first actually raised during the war, appeared in the field towards Blois. Chanzy was again at the head of 156,000 men. He was about to take the offensive against the 40,000 Germans left near Le Mans when to his bitter disappointment he received the news of the armistice. "We have still France," he had said to his staff, undeterred by the news of the capitulation of Paris, but now he had to submit, for even if his improvised army was still cheerful, there were many significant tokens that the people at large had sunk into apathy and hoped to avoid worse terms of peace by discontinuing the contest at once.

So ended the critical period of the "D?fense nationale." It may be taken to have lasted from the day of Coulmiers to the last day of Le Mans, and its central point was the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande. Its characteristics were, on the German side, inadequacy of the system of strategy practised, which became palpable as soon as the organs of reconnaissance met with serious resistance, misjudgment of and indeed contempt for the fighting powers of "new formations," and the rise of a spirit of ferocity in the man in the ranks, born of his resentment at the continuance of the war and the ceaseless sniping of the franc-tireur's rifle and the peasant's shot-gun. On the French side the continual efforts of the statesmen to stimulate the generals to decisive efforts, coupled with actual suggestions as to the plans of the campaign to be followed , and the professional soldiers' distrust of half-trained troops, acted and reacted upon one another in such a way as to neutralize the powerful, if disconnected and erratic, forces that the war and the Republic had unchained. As for the soldiers themselves, their most conspicuous qualities were their uncomplaining endurance of fatigues and wet bivouacs, and in action their capacity for a single great effort and no more. But they were unreliable in the hands of the veteran regular general, because they were heterogeneous in recruiting, and unequal in experience and military qualities, and the French staff in those days was wholly incapable of moving masses of troops with the rapidity demanded by the enemy's methods of war, so that on the whole it is difficult to know whether to wonder more at their missing success or at their so nearly achieving it.

The decision, as we have said, was fought out on the Loire and the Sarthe. Nevertheless the glorious story of the "D?fense nationale" includes two other important campaigns--that of Faidherbe in the north and that of Bourbaki in the east.

Faidherbe's campaign.

The campaign in the East.

Werder, the German commander, warned of the imposing concentration of the French, evacuated Dijon and D?le just in time to avoid the blow and rapidly drew together his forces behind the Ognon above Vesoul. A furious attack on one of his divisions at Villersexel cost him 2000 prisoners as well as his killed and wounded, and Bourbaki, heading for Belfort, was actually nearer to the fortress than the Germans. But at the crisis more time was wasted, Werder slipped in front of the French, and took up a long weak line of defence on the river Lisaine, almost within cannon shot of Belfort. The cumbrous French army moved up and attacked him there with 150,000 against 60,000 . It was at last repulsed, thanks chiefly to Bourbaki's inability to handle his forces, and, to the bitter disappointment of officers and men alike, he ordered a retreat, leaving Belfort to its fate.

The losses of the Germans during the whole war were 28,000 dead and 101,000 wounded and disabled, those of the French, 156,000 dead and 143,000 wounded and disabled. 720,000 men surrendered to the Germans or to the authorities of neutral states, and at the close of the war there were still 250,000 troops on foot, with further resources not immediately available to the number of 280,000 more. In this connexion, and as evidence of the respective numerical yields of the German system working normally and of the French improvised for the emergency, we quote from Berndt the following comparative figures:--

End of July French 250,000, Germans 384,000 under arms. Middle of November " 600,000 " 425,000 " After the surrender of Paris and the disarmament of Bourbaki's army " 534,000 " 835,000 "

The date of the armistice was the 28th of January, and that of the ratification of the treaty of Frankfurt the 23rd of May 1871.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The literature of the war is ever increasing in volume, and the following list only includes a very short selection made amongst the most important works.

The most useful bibliography is that of General Palat .

FOOTNOTES:

This was the celebrated "bapt?me de feu" of the prince imperial.

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