98 
chanzy's campaign. 
centre, and the 18th and 10th Corps were in the rear and the flank, 
which is a somewhat singular position. At Sedan, you may re¬ 
member, by the banks of the river Meuse and its tributary the Chiers f 
the Prussian Guards, the 12th, 4th, 1st and 2nd Bavarians, the 11 th, 
the 5th, and the Wurtembergers gradually closed round the French, 
surrounded and captured them. So the French, the 21st, 17th and 
16th Corps retreated to Le Mans, and it was proposed that they 
should be pressed in and enclosed. But, in point of fact, at the be¬ 
ginning of the battle of Le Mans on the 10th, the proposed German 
combinations were not realised. Well, you might have imagined that this 
complete change in the whole disposition of the Germans would have 
been very embarrassing indeed to Prince Frederick Charles, the Duke 
of Mecklenburg. If you intended to attack from the concave'—that 
you should be obliged by the force of circumstances—to attack from 
the convex would be perplexing. And Chanzy had little doubt that 
he would soon weary out Prince Frederick Charles by resisting day 
after day under such circumstances and in such weather, and that he 
would give up and return; and if he gave it up, then Chanzy would 
immediately go for Paris as quickly as he possibly could. I see that 
the time is nearly up. I must thank you for your attention—it is 
rather a dry lecture. 
We must now come to the very position of Le Mans itself. This is 
the plateau D’Auvours. You will observe that it commands the railway 
to Paris and the road to Paris, and you will observe that it is connected 
with the positions on the right of the Huisne, by Champagne and Yvre. 
It was absolutely necessary to take it. On the road, the Ohemin des 
Bceufs, from Arnage up to the Huisne, see there were a number of 
divisions of the 17th and 16th Corps. The Germans never saw a better 
occupied position, and Prince Frederick Charles and Alvensleben might 
very well have abstained from attacking it; there were some 50,000 men 
in this position. It required constant attacks for three days consecutively 
before it could be carried. There were ready to attack it, from La 
Tuilerie, a very important part of the position, to the plateau of 
Auvours, only three divisions up in time on the 10th and 11th, these 
were the 18th of the 9th Corps on the right, then the 5th and then 
the 6th of the 3rd Corps. A description of how they attacked, 
and so on, it is quite impossible for me to read in the time at your 
disposal; but suffice it to say that they kept pounding away at 
the village of Change and at the plateau D'Auvours. Every small 
farm-house was taken, and some were taken and retaken, and in 
some cases without making very much impression until, on the 
night of the 11th, the disadvantages of depending upon untrained 
Volunteers, or half drilled Militia or levees en masse , or anything of the 
kind, became painfully apparent to the French Commander-in-Chief, 
and through him to every nation in the world except, perhaps, our own. 
The defence of La Tuilerie was entrusted to those dragons' teeth that 
are supposed in every case, by mere doctrinaires and sentimental rhetori¬ 
cians, to be ready to spring up fully armed the moment the invader crosses 
the frontier. Much better if they stayed as they were and earned money 
to pay trained men as a general rule. The Mobiles of Brittany were 
entrusted with the key of the French situation, The result was that 
