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In the prospect of a siege two measures would have seemed unavoidable; the one was to regulate the food of the civil population by an arrangement with the municipality, which that body were quite ready to enter into. Whatever partial measures were taken in that sense were suggested by them, and not by the Commander-in-Chief. The other was to reduce the very abundant rations of the army. This was not done until the middle of September, when the ration of bread was reduced from 750 to 500 grammes (equal to 1 lb.), and that of meat augmented from 300 to 400 grammes. This was found so amply sufficient that Marshal LE BŒUF remarks in his report of the 9th of October:-"Up to this "time the soldier has suffered no privation; he has been even better "fed than in garrison." General RIVIERE estimates that twelve days provisions would have been saved for the army had that reduction been made on the 20th of August, instead of the 18th of September. But when that reduction did take place, little or nothing was in fact saved for the whole, as it was then the soldiers took to buying bread for themselves in the town, which was allowed to go on, in the face of complaints and partial attempts to prevent it. Such a state of things could not have arisen had not every measure usually employed in besieged places been intermitted. Provisions were sold and consumed in Metz for a long period just as if no besieging army and lines of circumvallation had existed. The soldiers at the same time were largely supplied with money by way of compensation for the reduced rations. They were thus invited to do exactly what they did; buy white bread to eat, instead of the ration loaf, which they were often seen to throw away!

We have not yet come to the end of the measures for starving the camp and town of Metz. For a whole month, from the 7th of September to the 7th of October, the horses were fed on corn by the orders of the Marshal.

On the 8th of October he forbade it by circulars, and in doing so said it was contrary to the recommendations of his letter of the 15th of September, which is not true, as that letter forbids only the giving of bread to the horses, and does not mention corn. This measure was rendered possible by keeping before the eyes of the army the idea that it was to leave Metz some time or other and would want its horses. It was not, as it was afterwards represented to be, a farsighted plan for converting corn into horse-flesh, which might be done in the case of a superabundance of corn and the want of meat. For in that case only the number of horses that could have been so used would have been preserved. Thirteen days bread, at the lowest calculation, was thus consumed. Eight or nine more were wasted in another fashion, which was by a distribution of provisions for the march in view of attempting a sortie, which never took place. This was repeated on various occasions, and the result was that the reserve rations seldom re-entered the magazines, but were consumed in addition to the others.

We have dwelt upon this part of the subject at length, because it is one in itself so simple that any one can understand it: no strate

gical knowledge or military science is required. The first step to be taken in prospect of a siege was to lay in a stock of provisions; the next to make regulations to prevent that stock from being squandered. Not to have done so, and to have done the contrary, is not explicable on the hypothesis of the Marshal having failed in his duty, because he was made a dupe of BISMARCK. His conduct was not that of a man of vacillating purpose, or of one who had lost his head. It was consistent throughout, in the one sense, of preparing the army and the town of Metz for falling into the hands of the Prussians. No doubt he was also made a dupe of. He expected to have been rewarded for his treachery by a position in France having been created for him, and was treated as traitors have often been treated before, by those in whose behalf the treachery is perpetrated.

But we must now turn to the Marshal's own interrogatory, without which the case would be very incomplete.

The President of the Court Martial approached the subject of the defence of Metz by recalling to the Marshal the military regulations by which he became responsible for that place, because it was within the same arrondissement as his army. He then asked him whether he had seen that the different measures prescribed by the service in the event of a siege had been executed: to which he replied that he had not occupied himself about them between the 13th and the 18th, but had done so after the 20th, because before that the army was on the march to leave Metz.

The President then said:

"As you thought you saw the difficulty of leaving Metz increase, 46 as you became convinced, whether rightly or wrongly, that it was "desirable for the country that the army should remain under the "walls of Metz, you must have attached more importance to those "regulations which are so wise and so simple, and the duty to see "that they were carried into effect became more imperative for "you."

To this he replied in the affirmative, and immediately after, having had to confess that no "Council of Defence" had been formed, he excused himself by saying: "General COFFINIERE ought to have "formed it. To a general of division of his experience I could not prescribe his duty in detail, and the more so, as the regulations of "the service obliged him to do it."

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It then comes out that this Council was not formed until the 13th of October, and that measures to send out of Metz "dangerous 66 strangers belonging to the nation with whom we were at war” (words of the President) were not ordered. Questions are then put to the Marshal in various shapes, with the view of drawing from him an account of what he had done in reference to provisions.

"Q. I ask you whether you made such a calculation, whether you "rendered an account to yourself of the prejudice which might result "to the defence of the place, from the resolution you had come to "keep the army under the walls of Metz; whether, in a word, you "had calculated that the presence of 150,000 mouths diminished "day by day so much of the stores of food, and of necessity hastened

"the moment when Metz must fall into the hands of the enemy, "from want of food?"

The line of defence taken by Marshal BAZAINE at this point is so incredible, that we will give several questions and answers verbatim. As will be seen, he attempts to make out that the presence of the army did not diminish the resources of the town!

"A. In all this there is a mistake, for the different corps provided for themselves separately: they did not draw their supplies from Metz, except towards the end. But at the beginning each corps d'armée was provisioned by its own intendants, who bought what was necessary for its supply. We only did the grinding at Metz.

Q. But from the moment that the place was completely invested, and all communication with the exterior cut off, the army subsisted upon the stock of provisions in the place?

"A. The intendants purchased in the town for their respective corps. I always adopted the idea that the town should not be impoverished.

"Q. But whatever was bought for the army, was equally taken from the town; because those provisions would have contributed to feed it, had they not been absorbed by the army.

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"A. They bought in the villages.

Q. But the villages were within the lines. Their resources formed part of those of the town, and the army used them.

"A. The resources of the town were not accurately known. There were many merchants who hid a portion of their stock, and who afterwards sold it to the commissariat. But I repeat that my line of conduct was to allow to each corps its separate action; and it was the intendants attached to each who provided for it in the adjoining country. As for me, I always recommended that the interests of the town should be separated from those of the army.

"Q. But I asked you whether you had considered the consequences of the presence of 150,000 mouths, provided for, no doubt, by means of arrangements made by the intendants; arrangements, which besides you could have controlled, as it is prescribed by the rules of the service; I asked you in fact whether you had calculated how much the presence of 150,000 additional mouths within the space to which you were confined by the enemy, reduced the stock of provisions. It is simply information that I ask of you. I call your attention to a simple consideration.

"A. No. I did not make that calculation."

Again he is asked :

86 Did you take measures to reduce the amount of provisions consumed in the town, and by the army, that is to say, did you order all to be put upon rations ?"

"A. Yes, for the army. As to the town, I left that to General CorFINIÈRE. I repeat that I always separated the fate of the army from that of the town. As to the measures proposed by General COFFINIÈRE, I did not wish to meddle with them, for fear of weakening his authority."

Always an evasion; the point was that no measures were taken; that nothing was done. The President afterwards remarks:-" You contented yourself with giving him orders without seeing that they were executed."

Pressed as to whether he might not have prevented the injury which the presence of the army inflicted on the town, by employing a part of his army and his numerous cavalry, during the 19th of August and

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the following days, to bring in provisions from the neighbourhood, he first answers by raising difficulties, and then by saying, that, from the date of the 23rd, orders to do so had been given. He then reads a general order, dated the 28th, the time specified by the President as propitious being between the 19th and 23rd. The value of his own circular, which the Marshal reads, is in the following passage, asserting all that the witnesses are afterwards called to prove against him :

"The information which I receive from all sides gives me the as66 surance that the villages around our position contain important "resources in the way of provisions. It is absolutely necessary to prevent these from falling into the hands of the Prussians, or from being destroyed by them at a moment when they would be so useful

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The question of provisions is again brought up during that part of the interrogatory which dealt with the communications between the Marshal and the Government of the defence. It may be remembered that a great effort was made by that government to put within the reach of the besieged army of Metz a supply of food. Having denied that he had been acquainted with the efforts made by Government to revictual Metz, the President informed him that it had been proved that a convoy of 1,300,000 rations had arrived at Thionville towards the end of September, and that some of the numerous messengers despatched to Metz with that information, had reached their destination. He replied that he had no recollection of such a circumstance, and when one of the emissaries from Thionville, whose arrival at Metz was proved by his having afterwards joined the army at Metz as a volunteer, asserted that he had put the despatch, of which he was the bearer, into the Marshal's, own hands, he again denied ever having seen the

man.

No attempt ever was made to reach Thionville. But it appeared that the Marshal had spoken to several persons of his intention to make such attempt, and this he acknowledges, while denying that there was any connexion between such intention and the arrival there of the convoy of provisions.

With the following remarkable question and answer we will close this part of the subject.

"Q. How can you reconcile the intention of putting the army in march, not only with the definition which you have given of the situation of an army exposed to concentric fires, but also with the assertion which you have so often repeated, at least, it constantly appears in the evidence, or in the account of what passed at certain councils; namely, that after the capitulation of Sedan you had judged that any general sortie had become impossible, and the army would disband itself on the first or second day's march?

"A. It is that hunger drives the wolf from the wood, as people say. I foresaw the moment when the want of food would arrive, and when it would become necessary to leave rather than to remain under the walls of Metz, there to capitulate. As to the general theory, it was afterwards put forth, in a report drawn up by myself, but it did not tie my hands; it did not prevent me from doing something. That which I desired was, above all, to avoid a capitulation.'

COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN MARSHAL BAZAINE AND THE ENEMY.

According to the Marshal, his first communication with the Prussians was the letter which he addressed to Prince FREDERIC CHARLES, of which he preserved no copy, and the answer to which is dated the 16th of September, and concludes with this phrase: "Your Excellency will always find me ready and authorised to make to you any communication that you may desire." From which the prosecution naturally inferred that the Marshal had expressed some desire to open communications. His avowed object was to obtain authentic information of what was happening in France; authentic information from the enemy! When questioned as to the propriety of such a step, which was an infraction of a special article of the service, he replied that he considered himself justified, "so much the more because I was not a mere commandant of a fortress shut up within walls. On account of the change of government all the ordinary conditions were changed."

According to the evidence this was not, however, by any means his first communication with the Prussian camp. There are four persons who more particularly bear testimony to the effect, that there was a constant arrival of flags of truce (parlementaires), who were generally conducted by superior orders to head-quarters, instead of being kept at the advanced posts according to the regulations. One, at least, of these had arrived before the Marshal's first ostensible communication. The persons in question are, General BOYER, the Marshal's aide-de-camp, who was the bearer of his letter to Prince FREDERIC-CHARLES, & M. ARNOUS-RIVIÈRE, a mysterious personage, whose antecedents are not known, who himself states that he had served under Marshal BAZAINE in Africa and in the Crimea, who had been authorised by him at the beginning of the campaign to form a corps of Francs-tireurs, and who had then been entrusted with the advanced post of Moulins-les-Metz, the point at which it was ordered that flags of truce should be allowed to enter; the commandant GARÇIN, who conducted flags of truce to head-quarters; a M. DE MALHERBE, proprietor at Moulins-les-Metz, in whose house M. ARNOUS-RIVIÈRE lodged; and a M. GARRIGUES, who let out carriages on hire at Metz. The constant passage of flags of truce is put beyond all doubt by the united testimony of these witnesses. The Marshal, when questioned, declared he could not "remember" any other communication with Prince FREDERIC-CHARLES than the letters produced, except a request for leave for the widow of a Prussian officer to leave Metz. The reception of a despatch on the 11th of September is mentioned by M. ARNOUS-RIVIÈRE, and that of another between the date of Prince FREDERIC-CHARLES's letter (received the 17th) and the entrance of the famous REGNIER, which took place on the 23rd, is spoken to by General BOYER and Commandant GARÇIN. No trace of these communications is to be found in the military archives, or of the many others subsequently received.* M. DE MALHERBE gives a most curious account of the manner of life of his lodger, the captain of Francs-tireurs, mentioning the great amount of money he seemed always to have at command, and the number of flags of truce received by him. The carriage proprietor states that he was asked towards the end of September, by a

*The prosecution enunciates thirteen despatches proved to have existed, some sent by the Marshal to Prince Frederic Charles or his aide-de-camp, some received by him from them, all of which had disappeared.

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