The Romance of Modern Sieges

The houses on the left bank of the Seine were so damaged that the citizens had to be transferred to the right bank. In a few days the terrible battery of Meudon opened fire upon the city. The shells now fell near to the centre of Paris; day and night without rest or stay the pitiless hail fell, and this went on for twelve days and nights. Meanwhile the cold increased and the fuel failed; diseases spread, and discontent with the Government arose. Women waiting in the streets for their rations would fall from exhaustion; others were mangled by shells. The daily ration for which the poor creatures struggled consisted now of 10 ounces of bread, 1 ounce of horse-flesh, and a quarter litre of bad wine.

One more effort the starving Parisians made to break through on the 19th of January. Early that morning people were reading the latest proclamation on the walls: “Citizens, the enemy kills our wives and children, bombards us night and day, covers with shells our hospitals. Those who can shed their life’s blood on the field of battle will march against the enemy – suffer and die, if necessary, but conquer!”

Three corps d’armée, more than 100,000 men, were taking up their positions under cover of Mont Valérien; but a dense fog prevailed, and several hours were lost in wandering aimlessly about, so that the French became worn out with fatigue, whereas the Germans had passed a quiet night, with good food to sustain their strength. Yet for many hours the French obstinately held their ground; then stragglers began to fall away, and officers tried in vain to rally their companies. Night fell on a beaten army hurrying back through the city gates.

Meanwhile the bombardment went on with increasing violence, until early on the night of the 26th there was a sudden lull; just before midnight a volley of fire came from all points of the circle round Paris, then a weird silence. Then it was known that the terms of surrender had been signed – not too soon, for all were at starvation point, and only six days’ rations remained. Paris had been very patient under great sufferings through the cold winter. It is pleasant to remember that supplies of food sent from England were then waiting admission outside the northern gates.

An English doctor residing in Paris during the siege writes thus:

“One lady to whom I carried a fowl was prostrate in bed, her physical powers reduced by starvation to an extremely low ebb. When I told her that she was simply dying from want of food, her reply was that she really had no appetite; she could not eat anything. Yet when I gave her some savoury morsel to be taken at once, and then the fowl to be cooked later on, her face brightened; she half raised herself in bed, and pressed the little articles I had brought to her as a child presses a doll. I was told also that the nurses in an ambulance which I had aided with the British supplies danced round the tables, and invoked blessings on our heads. As regards myself, what I most craved for was fried fat, bacon, and fruit, and, above all, apples.”

Besides the wild animals of the French Zoological Gardens, most of the domestic pets had been eaten. A story is told of one French lady who carefully guarded her little dog Fido, feeding him from her own plate with great self-sacrifice. One day the family had the rare treat of a hot joint, and in the middle of dinner the lady took up a small bone to carry to Fido in the next room. She returned in trouble, saying:

“Fido is not in the house; he would so have enjoyed this bone. I hope he has not got out. They will kill him – the brutes! – and eat him.”

The members of that starving family exchanged uneasy glances; they were even now engaged upon a salmi, or hash, formed from a portion of the lady’s pet!

“From Memoirs of Dr. Gordon.” By kind permission of Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and Co.

CHAPTER XIX

METZ (1870)

Metz surrounded – Taken for a spy – Work with an ambulance – Fierce Prussians rob an old woman – Attempt to leave Metz – Refusing an honour – The cantinière’s horse – The grey pet of the regiment – Deserters abound – A village fired for punishment – Sad scenes at the end.

One Englishman, the Special Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, contrived to enter Metz shortly before it was besieged. But he had not been there long before a disagreeable experience befell him. He was riding quietly outside the city towards the French camps which were pitched all round it, when suddenly a soldier stepped across the road, and cried, “Halt!”

Two men seized his reins, asking, “Have you any papers?”

“Yes; here is my passport,” he replied confidently.

The passport puzzled them; it was taken to a superior officer, who knew that it was English, but looked suspiciously at the German visé which it bears.

The Englishman was taken to a General across the road, who shook his head and remanded him to another officer of the staff, a mile back towards Metz. It begins to look serious; this man may be shot as a spy.

Two gendarmes were called up to guard him; soldiers came up to stare with savage scowls – he was a spy undoubtedly; but cigarettes were offered by the spy, and things began to look less cloudy. Then up came General Bourbaki, and fresh questions were put and answered; then a mounted messenger was sent to Metz to find out if the prisoner’s statements were correct. On his return with a satisfactory account, the prisoner was told to mount and ride with escort to the head-quarters of the Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Bazaine. As he rode soldiers jeered and prophesied a speedy death in a ditch, which made him feel ill at ease.

A ride of a mile brought him to a pretty château, where he was received with courtesy and kindness. At a long common deal table in a wooden pavilion in the garden sat the Marshal and some twenty officers of the staff. Dispatches were being written, signed, and sent off by mounted messengers. In the corner was an electric telegraph, ticking off reports from distant points.

When the conference broke up, Marshal Bazaine motioned the suspect to a seat, and questioned him, made him show on a map where he had been riding, found he understood no German and was a fool at maps (perhaps a little stupidity was put on), then he left him to his secretary.

The latter said, with a sly glance: “We have so many spies that we are bound to be careful, but the arrest in this case is a stupid thing (une bêtise). I will give you a laissez-passer for the day, monsieur.”

So he went off, relieved at not being shot for a spy, but somewhat mortified.

There was hard fighting going on in the country round Metz. Our countryman managed to get attached to an ambulance, and went on to a battle-field at night.

“We lit our lanterns,” he says, “and went cautiously into the valley. There were Prussian sharpshooters in the wood beyond, and I confess I was very nervous at first: the still night, the errand we were on, all awed one. But so soon as we reached the outskirts of the battle-field all personal feelings gave way to others. Here at every turn we found our aid was wanted. Thousands of dead and wounded were around us, and we, a few strangers sent by the International Society of London, were all that were present to help them. Plugging and bandaging such wounds as were hopeful of cure, giving a life-saving drink here and there, moving a broken limb into a more easy position, and speaking a word of encouragement where the heart was failing – this was all we could do. But all that night each worked his utmost, and when our water failed two of us walked back four miles to Gravelotte and brought a bucketful. We can dress, but not remove, the wounded now. Often have I been tempted to put a poor fellow out of his pain; it seems kinder, wiser, and more Christian to blow out the flickering lamp than let it smoulder away in hours of anguish. Daylight begins to dawn, and we seek carriages – that is, jolting unhung carts – to convey some of the wounded. Now, as we raise them up and torture their poor wounds by moving them, for the first time we hear a cry. The groans of the dying, the shrieks of the wounded, are absent from the battle-field, but far more dreadful and awe-inspiring is the awful stillness of that battle-field at night. There is a low, quivering moan floats over it – nothing more; it is a sound almost too deep for utterance, and it thrills through one with a strange horror. Hardly a word is uttered, save only a half-wailed-out cry of ‘Ohé! ma pauvre mère!’ Nothing is more touching, nothing fills one’s eyes with tears more, than this plaintive refrain chanted out as a death-chant by so many sons who never more on this side the grave will see again that longed-for mother – ‘Ohé! ma mère, ma pauvre mère!’

“We select sixty or seventy of those whose wounds will bear removal, and turn our faces towards Metz. Slowly and sadly we creep out of the death-valley. The quaint hooded forms of the sentinels who challenge us cut out strangely against the green and gold of the morning sky. Not a walking-stick, not a pipe is left us: they were cut up into tourniquet-keys. I am ashamed to say I regretted my pipe; but it came back to me after many weeks, being brought to me by the man whose life it had saved. Very grateful he was. As we toil upwards, musing on life and death, bang! right in our very faces spits out a cannon. Good heavens! they surely are not going to begin this devil’s work again! Yes; there goes a battery to the crest of the hill. We must take care of ourselves and those we have so far rescued from slaughter. On we tramp, but there is no food, not a crust of bread, not a drop of water for our wounded. It is nine miles more back to Metz, and tired as we are, we must walk it. Very tired and hungry and cross we enter Metz, and there see the French ambulances waiting with waggon-loads of appliances and well-groomed horses. They had stopped to breakfast, and many hundreds have died because they did so. Well, we have earned ours, at any rate.”

It was now the 28th of August. Metz was blockaded. No letters could be sent, for the German hosts were holding the heights all round. Ruthless rough-riders were riding into every French village. In one of these, the story goes, a poor old woman was washing her little store of linen. She was very old, and her grey hair sprouted in silver tufts from her yellow skin. All the rest had fled in panic; she alone was left busy at her tub, when up rode some score of huge Dragoons. They pulled up in front of her, speaking their barbarous tongue. One Dragoon dismounts and draws his sword. Poor old woman! she falls upon her knees and lifts up wrinkled hands and cries feebly for mercy. It is in vain! Neither age nor ugliness protects her. Raising his sword with one hand, he stretches out the other towards her – the Prussian monster! – and grasps her soap. He quietly cuts it in two, pockets the one half and replaces the other on the well wall, growling out, “Madame, pardon!”

The reaction was too great. When they rode away laughing, the old woman forgot to be thankful that they had not hurt her, and swore at them for hairy thieves.

On the 15th of September there were around Metz 138,000 men fit to take the field, 6,000 cavalry and artillery. The Prussians had not anything like that number. They were dying fast of dysentery and fever, and yet Bazaine did nothing. Yet, though Metz was not strongly held, it was very difficult to get through the lines, and many a man, tempted by the bribe of 1,000 francs, lost his life in the attempt.

The English journalist tried to be his own courier and carry his own letters. He presented himself at the Prussian outposts in daylight, showed his passport, and demanded permission to “pass freely without let or hindrance.” In vain. The German soldiers treated him to beer and cigars, and suggested he should return to Metz. Next time he dressed himself up as a peasant, with blouse, and sabots on his feet, and when it was growing dusk tried to slip through the posts. “Halte là!” rang out, and a sound of a rifle’s click brought him up sharp. He was a prisoner, taken to the guard-house, and questioned severely. He pretended to be very weak-headed, almost an idiot.

“How many soldiers be there in Metz, master? I dunno. Maybe 300. There’s a power of men walking about the streets, sir.”

They smiled a superior smile, and offered the poor idiot some dark rye-bread, cheese, and beer, and some clean straw to lie down upon. Officers came to stare at him, asked him what village he was bound for. One of them knew the village he named, and recognized his description of it, for luckily he had got up this local knowledge from a native in Metz. However, he was not permitted to go to it, for before dawn next morning they led him, shuffling in his wooden sabots, to a distant outpost, turned his face towards Metz, with the curt remark: “Go straight on to Metz, friend, or you will feel a bullet go through your back.”

Grumbling to himself, he drew near the French outposts, who fired at him. He lay down for some time, then, finding he was in a potato-field, he set to work and grubbed up a few potatoes to sell for a sou a piece. So at last he found his way back to Metz, and got well laughed at for his pains.

He then tried his hand at making small balloons to carry his letters away; but the Germans used to fire at them, wing them, and read the contents.

Many spies were shot in Metz, and some who were not spies, but only suspected. It was the only excitement in the city to go out to the fosse and see a spy shot.

There was one man whom all raised their hats to salute when he passed. He was a short, thick-set man, wore a light canvas jacket and leather gaiters. Under one arm hung a large game-bag, and over the other sloped a chassepot rifle. His name was Hitter, and he had made a great name by going out in front of the avant-poste and shooting the Prussian sentinels. One night he encountered some waggons, shot down the escort from his hiding-place, and brought four waggons full of corn into Metz, riding on the box by the driver, pistol in hand. This man organized a body of sharp-shooters for night work, and many a poor sentinel met his death at their hands.

One favourite dodge was to take out with them a tin can fastened to a long string. When they got near the Prussian outposts they made this go tingle tangle along the ground. Then cautious heads would peep out; more tangle tingle from the tin can, until the sentinels jump up and blaze away at the weird thing that startles them in the dark. Their fire has been drawn, and Hitter’s men have the outpost at their mercy. They either shoot them or bring them into Metz as prisoners.

At length Marshal Bazaine heard of Hitter’s prowess, and sent for him, wanting to decorate him; but Hitter was sensitive, and thought he ought to have been decorated weeks ago. He came reluctantly.

“My man, I have heard of your doings – your clever work at night – and in the name of France I give you this decoration to wear.”

“I don’t want it, Marshal. Pray excuse me, if you please.”

“Nonsense, my fine fellow. I insist on your acceptance of the honour.”

“Oh! very well,” said Hitter, “if you insist, I suppose I must; but, by your leave, I shall wear it on my back – and very low down, too.”

The Marshal glared at Hitter, turned red, and ordered him out.

As the siege went on the poor horses got thinner and thinner. Their coats stood out in the wet weather rough and bristly; often they staggered and fell dead in the streets. They were soon set upon, and in a short time flesh, bones, and hide had vanished, and only a little pool of blood remained behind to tell where some hungry citizens had snatched a good dinner.

One day a cantinière had left her cart full of drinkables just outside the gate while she went to the fort to ask what was wanted. She tarried, and her poor horse felt faint, knelt down, and tried to die. No sooner was the poor beast on his knees than half a score of soldiers rushed out to save his life by cutting his throat – at least, it made him eat better. They quickly slipped off his skin and cut him up in all haste. So many knives were “e’en at him,” they soon carried off his “meat.” Then, in a merry mood, seeing the gay cantinière was too busy flirting to attend to her cart, they carefully set to work and built him up again. They put the bones together neatly, dragged the hide over the carcass, and arranged the harness to look as if the animal had lain down between the shafts. Then they retired to watch the comedy that sprang out of a tragedy. Madame comes bustling out of the fort. Eh! what’s that? Poor Adolfe is down on the ground! The fat woman waddles faster to him, calls him by name, taunts him with want of pluck, scolds, gets out her whip; then is dumb for some seconds, touches him, cries, weeps, wrings her hands in despair. Sounds of laughter come to her ears; then she rises majestically to the occasion, pours out a volley of oaths – oaths of many syllables, oaths that tax a genius in arithmetic: diable! cent diables, mille diables, cent mille diables! and so on, until she loses her breath, puts her fat hand to her heart, and again falls into a pathetic mood, passing later on into hysteria, and being led away between two gendarmes. Poor madame! She had loved Adolfe, and would have eaten him in her own home circle rather than that those sacrés soldiers should filch him away.

Well, they ate horses, when they could get them; but donkeys were even more delicious, though very rare, for they seldom died, and refused to get fat. Food was growing so scarce in October that when you went out to dinner you were expected to take your own bread with you. Potatoes were sold at fifteen pence a pound; a scraggy fowl might be bought for thirty shillings. The Prussians had spread nets across the river, above and below, to prevent the French from catching too many fish. As for sugar, it rose to seven shillings a pound. Salt was almost beyond price. The poor horses looked most woebegone. Many of them were Arabs, their bones nearly through their skin, and they looked at their friends with such a pitiful, appealing eye that it was most touching. You might have gone into a trooper’s tent and wondered to see the big tear rolling slowly down the bronzed cheek of a brave soldier.

“What is it, m’sieur? I have just lost my best friend – my best friend. He was with me in Algeria. Never tumbled, never went lame. And he understood me better than any Christian. He would have done anything for me – in reason! Now he has had to go to the slaughter-house. Oh, it is cruel, m’sieur! I shall never be the same man again, for he loved me and understood me – and I loved him.”

At last there was only one horse left in that camp, and this was how he survived: He had laid himself down to die; his eyes were fogging over, he felt so weak; but one of the sick soldiers happened to pass that way, and being full of pity from his own recent sufferings, he bethought him of a disused mattress which he had seen in the hospital close by. He returned and took out a handful of straws, with which he fed the poor beast, a straw at a time. The flaccid lips mumbled them awhile. At last he managed to moisten the straw and eat a little. Another handful was fetched, and the horse pricked his ears, and tried to lift his head. That was the turning-point; life became almost worth living again. The story rapidly spread, and it became the charitable custom to spare a bit of bread from dinner for the white horse of the Ile Cambière. In time that spoilt child would neigh and trot to meet any trooper who approached, confidently looking for his perquisite of crust.

There were 20,000 horses in Metz at the beginning of the siege; at the time of the surrender a little over 2,000.

We are told by an Englishman who was with the German Army outside Metz that in October a good many Frenchmen deserted from Metz. On the 11th a poor wretch was brought into the German lines. He said that his desertion was a matter of arrangement with his comrades. The man was an Alsatian, and spoke German well. His regiment was supposed to be living under canvas, but the stench in the tents was so strong, by reason of skin diseases, that nearly all slept in the open air. The skin disease was caused by the want of vegetables and salt, and by living wholly on horse-flesh. The deserter reported that the troops had refused to make any more sorties, and they were all suffering from scurvy.

There was one village, Nouilly, which contained secret stores, to which the French used to resort, and which the Germans could not find; so the order was given to burn it. Most of its inhabitants had gone to live in Metz.

“I was sitting at supper with Lieutenant von Hosius and Fischer when an orderly entered with a note. It was read aloud:

“‘Lieutenant von Hosius will parade at nine o’clock with fifteen volunteers of his company, and will proceed to burn the village of Nouilly.’

“Von Hosius was fond of herrings, so he stayed at table to finish them, while Fischer went out for volunteers. In a few minutes von Hosius was putting on his long boots, taking his little dagger, which every officer wore to ward off the vultures of the battle-field in case of being wounded; then, taking his revolver, he sallied out to meet his little band. The service was full of danger, for the French lay very near, and had strong temptations for entering it by night. If he did encounter a French force inside the village, where would his fifteen volunteers be?

“A little group of us watched by the watch-fire as they marched down at the German quick step. For a while we could hear the crashing through the vines, then the hoarse challenge of the German rear sentry; then all became quiet. For a few minutes the officer in command of the outpost and myself were the only persons who enjoyed the genial warmth of the fire; then through the gloom came stalking the Major, who squatted down silently by our side. Presently another form appeared – the Colonel himself – and in half an hour nearly all the officers of the battalion were round that bright wood fire. They all tried to look unconcerned, but everybody was very fidgety.

“Von Hosius was a long time. An hour had gone, and Nouilly was but ten minutes or so distant, and the Colonel’s nervousness was undisguised as he hacked at the burning log with his naked sword. Suddenly the vigilant Lieutenant gave a smothered shout, and we all sprang to our feet. Flame-coloured smoke at last, and plenty of it. But, bah! it was too far away – a false alarm.

“The Colonel sat down moodily, and the Major muttered something like a swear. One thing was good: there was no sound of musketry firing.

“Another half-hour of suspense, and then a loud “Ha!” from both Lieutenant and sentry. This time it was Nouilly, and no mistake. Not from one isolated house, but in six places at once, belched out the long streaks of flame against the black darkness, and the separate fires made haste to connect themselves. In ten minutes the whole place was in one grand blaze, the church steeple standing up in the midst of the sea of flame until a firework of sparks burst from its top and it reeled to its fall.

“Presently they came back, von Hosius panting with the exertion (he was of a portly figure). The duty had been done without firing a single shot, and they brought with them a respectable old horse which they had found in a village stable.”

One evening, when the German officers were discussing the causes of the French defeats, a First Lieutenant told this story to illustrate it:

The Chief Rabbi of the Dantzic Jews had taken a new house, and his flock determined to stock his wine-butt for him. On a stated evening his friends went down one after another into the Rabbi’s cellar, and emptied each his bottle into the big vat. When the Rabbi came next day to draw off his dinner wine he found the cask was full of pure water. Each Jew had said to himself that one bottle of water could never be noticed in so great a quantity of wine, and so the poor Rabbi had not got a drop of wine in his butt.

Now, it was just the same with the French army. One soldier said to himself that it would not matter a copper if he sneaked away; but the bother was that one and all took the same line of reasoning, and the result was that nobody was left to look the enemy in the face.

In order to bring about the fall of Metz a little sooner, the Prussians drove out all the peasants from the neighbouring villages, and forced them down to Metz. The Mayor of Metz ordered them back; then the Prussians fired over their heads, and tried to frighten them down again. Meanwhile, the women and children were worn out and hungry, and sat down to cry and wish for death. These are some of the glories of war. Sometimes, when they returned to their village home after a week’s absence, they found a remarkable change. They had left a pretty villa, trim gardens, and tiny pond and summer-house. This is what an Englishman saw one day: