THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
191 
the Governor to surrender, and not because, as was stated by some 
papers, the rising Moselle drove them up from below, for the man¬ 
agement of the river was in their own hands; though it is true that 
rain-water did collect in some of the cellars. The story was current 
amongst both French and Germans that the Governor, having 
married a Prussian lady, and having been accordingly denounced by 
local patriots as quite likely to make a treacherous capitulation, had 
declared that he would never surrender till the inhabitants on their 
knees should beg him to do so ; and that they thus obtained two 
days more bombardment than would have been otherwise necessary, 
as the Governor himself was sufficiently convinced by the first mani¬ 
festation of the number and nature of the besiegers’ batteries. But 
this statement I had not opportunity to verify. 
The actual damage inflicted on the besieged amounted 
daced. pr0 " 8 men killed and 66 wounded (two only of these 
being civilians) : on the ramparts, where most of the 
casualties took place, from enfilading shells descending at very 
rapid angles, a few gun-carriages were knocked about by fragments 
of shell, but I did not see any guns actually dismounted: in the 
cellars nobody was hurt. 
Of the houses, hardly one escaped without some serious injury; 
about a quarter of the town was burnt, including nearly all the 
Government buildings; and much of what remained standing would 
have to be taken down and built up again. A great many 
splinter-proofs of timber had been set up in front of the ground- 
floors of the houses, but they were of not much avail against the fire 
employed. 
Where shells had fairly met the brickwork escarps, the effect was 
small, generally a shallow excavation of 3 or 4 feet in diameter, with 
a funnel-shaped hole in the middle between 2 and 3 feet deep; but 
the houses, with stone walls averaging about 2 feet in thickness, 
seemed exactly calculated to call forth the best powers of these 
projectiles. I only saw or heard of one blind shell, though the 
inhabitants for a week after were busy collecting relics. 
The expense to the besiegers was 27 men killed and 
xpen 1 ure ‘ wounded, and 7,000 or 8,000 rounds of ammunition, or 
about 100 rounds a gun. I think it must be allowed that the ap¬ 
plication of this “ ultima ratio regis ” (so it is inscribed on some 
Prussian guns), was neat and effective, and more convenient to both 
sides than any other argument known, whether regular siege, storm, 
or starvation. 
The result might have been opposite if, on the first 
news of the German approach, the Governor had sent 
all civilians away from the fortress, and devoted the remaining 
energies and material to the construction of bomb-proof accommoda¬ 
tion—the one want of the place; but the French custom has been 
the reverse of this. He might, moreover, have broken up the earlier 
investment by the active use of his infantry; though it is probable 
that would not have much altered the end; he explained afterwards 
25 
