88 
chanzy's campaign. 
main body of tbe French assembled south of the Loire, broadly speak¬ 
ing, from Nevers to Tours, under General cPAurelles de Paladines; 
another body assembled north at Amiens, first under Bourbaki then 
under Farre, and ultimately under Faidherbe. These were the forces 
then with whose aid Gambetta proposed to so worry the Germans sur¬ 
rounding Paris, and to so threaten their lines of communications as to 
make them either abandon the siege of Paris or, by staying at Paris, 
risk destruction. Recent evidence proves the soundness of this plan 
and its practicability with better trained forces. However, the sur¬ 
render of Bazaine at Metz on the 27th of October was fatal to the 
brilliant and daring rhetorician's plan. He was able to assemble two 
corps in the northern fortresses and down to Amiens; we shall not refer 
to these any more, except to say that, of course, the strategy of Chanzy 
was more or less determined by reference to the probable efforts of other 
Frenchmen in other directions, and was also determined or affected, as 
all strategy necessarily is, by national peculiarities, political prejudices 
and official caprices. Of course, if the Government is in the hands of 
a soldier, as in the case of Caesar, Frederick or Napoleon, all these in¬ 
fluences work in harmony. 
I admired Gambetta in 1870 and I respect his memory. He was a 
splendid personality, but the Tours Government, afterwards the Bor¬ 
deaux Government, was not in touch with many of the best Frenchmen, 
and many of the demagogues were incapable of political expediency or 
military foresight, and Gambetta himself was over-confident. 
In November the small German force in Orleans was obliged to 
evacuate it, the Bavarians were beaten at Coulmiers on November 9th, 
and went north towards Artenay and Toury, and it was generally sup¬ 
posed by the French people (and their hopes were encouraged by some 
manifestoes by Gambetta) that the result of this must be that d'Aurelles 
de Paladines would push rapidly from Orleans by every road north on 
Paris and compel the enemy to raise the siege. The Germans were 
perplexed exceedingly and made uncertain movements. But their Com- 
mander-in-Chief disappointed them ; he hesitated ; he withdrew rather 
than advanced, and spread himself on both sides of Orleans from Beaune 
la Rolande to near Chateauneuf. The Germans came from Metz, three 
corps, and they already had the Duke of Mecklenburg and Yon der Tann 
on the right of their theatre of operations. The Duke of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin was near Chateaudun ; Yan der Tann was between that and 
the Orleans and Paris road. Three French corps came up against 
them, the 15th, 18th, and the 21st, and part of the 19th; other three 
were more to the right, near the forest of Orleans, the 16th, 17th, and the 
20th. Thus then, as D'Aurelle was proposing a movement north from 
the Loire towards Paris, three corps after the surrender of Metz came 
south-west. Those three corps were, from right to left, the 9th Corps, 
the 3rd Corps, and the 10th Corps. This entirely upset the whole 
French arrangements, and then a most singular event occurred—the 
whole French forces were absolutely cut in two, after a series of battles 
from the 28th November to the 4th December, and the Germans re¬ 
entered Orleans on the 4th December. As I said, the French Corps were 
cut in two—three of them came south of the Loire and eastwards, the 
