GERMAN-FRENCH WAR. 



359 



occupied Le Mans. In the preceding battles 

 the French had made a desperate and partly 

 even a successful resistance ; the bloody battle 

 of Ardenay was only decided by an attack 

 during the night upon the southern heights 

 which were held by Gardes Mobile. The left 

 wing of the French army, on which Chanzy had 

 concentrated his best troops, also displayed 

 great bravery, but finally had to abandon 

 their position on 1'Huisne. While the German 

 troops were occupying Le Mans, Chanzy was 

 driven from Montfort through Saint-Corneille 

 and Savigne 1'Eveque toward the Sarthe. Al- 

 together the Second Army had lost, in the bat- 

 tles from January 6th to January 12th, 177 

 officers and 3,203 killed and wounded ; but, on 

 the other hand, 22,000 unwounded soldiers, 

 two banners, 19 pieces of ordnance, and a large 

 quantity of war material of every kind, had 

 fallen into the hands of the victorious Ger- 

 mans. The army of Chanzy was too demoral- 

 ized to continue the war; Chanzy himself 

 admitted that it needed a reorganization, 

 which was to be effected in Brittany in the 

 region of Rennes. One part of the French 

 army marched westward from Le Mans toward 

 Laval, whither it was followed by the main 

 force of Frederick Charles, which, on January 

 14th, took, almost without resistance, the 

 camp of Coulie. The other half of the army 

 of Chanzy turned northward toward Alenc. on, 

 and was pursued by the German troops, which 

 had beaten the Army of Havre on the Lower 

 Seine. During the night from January 16th 

 to January 17th, these troops, after a slight 

 skirmish, took Alencon, where the Thirteenth 

 Army Corps, under the Grand-duke of Meck- 

 lenburg, joined them, in order to advance from 

 here, through Mayenne, toward Rennes. 



The plan of the French, to withdraw so 

 many detachments from the two main armies 

 of the Germans as to enable them to make, with 

 a better prospect of success, a new effort for 

 raising the siege of Paris, now proved to be 

 unsuccessful. It was to fail in each of its parts. 

 General Faidherbe, who had reorganized his 

 army and received large reinforcements by sea 

 from Southern France, suffered likewise a de- 

 cisive defeat: in his march upon Amiens, he 

 had advanced as far as Corbie when the severe 

 frost compelled him to make a halt. On Jan- 

 nary 14th, his main force was concentrated at 

 Albert. General Goeben, who had succeeded 

 Manteuffel in the command of the Army of the 

 North, had thus far watched the movements 

 of the enemy from the left bank of the 

 Somme; he now crossed the river, and on 

 January 18th defeated the vanguard of Faid- 

 herbe at Beauvois, one mile west from St. 

 Quentin. On January 19th, a bloody battle 

 was fought at St. Quentin, which lasted seven 

 hours, and ended in a crushing defeat of Faid- 

 herbe, who in great haste had to retreat be- 

 yond Cambray as far as Lille and Douai ; more 

 than 10,000 unwounded soldiers fell into the 

 hands of the Germans, who on their part had 



suffered a loss of 94 officers and 3,000 men 

 killed and wounded. 



On the same day on which the battle of St. 

 Quentin was fought, the army besieging Paris 

 had to resist the formidable sortie which was 

 attempted by Trochu. The bombardment of 

 the city had for some time been continued with 

 great energy and considerable success. Even 

 the barracks of the forts Issy and Vanvres 

 had begun to suffer, and in that part of the 

 city which lies on the left bank of the Seine 

 the German artillery began to cause terrible 

 devastation. Trochu, therefore, resolved to 

 make once more a desperate attempt to break 

 through the besieging line. The sortie was 

 chiefly made, on January 10th, from Fort 

 Valerien. On the side of the French nearly 

 100,000 took part in the movement, while on 

 the German side the Fifth and parts of the 

 Fourth Corps were chiefly involved. The 

 hottest fighting was near St.-Cloud and Bou- 

 gival. The French during the whole day 

 fought with great bravery, and their artillery, 

 in particular, made the utmost efforts to dis- 

 lodge the Germans; 'but, when night put an 

 end to the fighting, the Germans maintained 

 all the positions which they had held in the 

 morning. The Germans lost 39 officers and 

 616 men killed and wounded; while the 

 French loss was estimated at 5,000 men. On 

 January 21st the siege-train which had been 

 brought on from Mezieres, and which consisted 

 of 75 pieces of heavy ordnance, opened fire 

 on St. Denis and the neighboring forts to the 

 north of Paris, and thus deprived the French 

 of the hope of continuing important sorties on 

 this side, as they could no longer as before 

 rally under the fire of these forts. In Paris, 

 the Reds had, in the mean while, become so 

 troublesome that Trochu, who already had 

 transferred the Ministry of War for Paris to 

 General Lefl6, expressed a wish to resign also 

 as commander-in-chief and as President of the 

 Provisional Government. On January 22d 

 the office of commander-in-chief was conferred 

 upon General Vinoy, but, at the request of his 

 colleagues, General Trochu continued to exer- 

 cise his functions as President of the Provisional 

 Government. The latter circumstance on the 

 next day led to a rising of the Reds, which, in 

 turn, induced the Government to enter into ne- 

 gotiations concerning capitulation. Even on 

 the same day (January 23d), Jules Favre made 

 his appearance in Versailles. On January 26th 

 the negotiations had so far advanced that firing 

 ceased on both sides. On January 28th a 

 capitulation and an armistice of three weeks 

 was concluded. The armies in the field were 

 to retain their mutual positions, and to leave a 

 neutral space between them. A line of de- 

 marcation was agreed upon, which cut through 

 the departments of Calvados and Orne, and 

 left to the Germans the departments of Sarthe, 

 Indre-et-Loire, Loire-et-Cher, Loire t, Yonne, 

 and all the territory north of them, with the 

 exception of the departments of Pas de Calais 



