194 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
force to throw it hack as fast as it came. This system, on the level 
plain from Metz towards Thionville, was 2-J miles in depth, from the 
first slight shelter trenches of the advanced posts opposite Ladon- 
champs, through many intermediate supporting works of increasing 
development hut always of easy communication in all directions, 
with lines of gun-pits and roads prepared for the rapid advent of 
field-guns nearer home, up to the main strength of the well-prepared 
position w'hich rested on the fortified village of Mezieres. This 
waiting method of defence, coupled with the amount of notice of 
large movements necessarily yielded by the bareness of the ground 
between the hostile lines, enabled the investing army, though 
guarding a circuit of thirty miles, invariably to collect troops enough 
to the point of pressure to ruin the fierce efforts of the beleaguered 
to break out. 
Bazaine There is no doubt (in the German army, at any rate) that 
Bazaine did his best to get his forces away, though by the 
time when he attempted it, the preparations against it had left him 
no chance : the Germans believe that he could not try earlier than he 
did, owing to the disorganisation of his army by its enormous losses. 
They know that his army was starving at the last; and that though 
some quantity of provisions had been privily hoarded by the citizens, 
the amount would have made but little difference if divided amongst 
all the besieged. They believe that, though Bazaine may have desired 
to unite certain political conditions to his capitulation, he was no 
traitor, the use of which epithet they assign to the French manner: 
and they think that the patriots of Metz would have scolded but little 
at the capitulation if Bazaine had only billeted a few soldiers in every 
house with orders to share and share alike. 
As I had previously read the statement of a correspondent of one 
of the daily papers that he had seen, after the capitulation, vast 
quantities of provisions in one of the advanced forts, I inquired of 
various staff officers if they had known of this untouched store of the 
enemy’s; they told me that, though in the confusion of the latter 
days of the defence some special batches of provisions might have 
been overlooked or even forgotten after storage, they knew that 
nothing of consequence for 180,000 men had been found. With 
regard to the correspondent’s vision, (as the Governor of Metz told 
me that I was the first Englishman who had received permission to 
enter the advanced forts), I think it possible that his zeal may have 
led him to observe what he could from the outside ; everywhere tall 
traverses of sandbags and revetments of casks would have met his 
eye, and quickly filled, by inventive wit, with flour and pork, have 
become crushing evidence of the treachery of the unfortunate French 
Commander. 
The Battle-field of Gravelotte , 
™ -i to the west of Metz, offers a region of rolling hills with 
large woods and ravines interspersed; one principal 
ridge, its nearest point about three miles from the advanced forts 
