GENERAL BOURBAKI’S CAMPAIGN. 133 
quite possible that the siege of Paris by the 3rd and 4th German 
armies would have had to be raised. That is my opinion, of course if 
any gentleman differs from me we can discuss his view later on. 
Now here we have Nos. III., 1X. and X. and the Duke of Mecklen- 
burg proposing to go in a western direction, or rather hesitating as to 
what they were to do on the Ist of January. We have Nos. I. and 
VIII. up at Rouen and Amiens, and all the others round Paris. 
The only others available for any purpose were II., VII. and XIV.; 
XIV. was the new corps, consisting of Von Werder’s Baden division, 
of a combined Prussian brigade, and the 4th Landwehr division. Three 
corps were available for the eastern theatre of operations: Von Werder’s 
men, the II., the VII., and also the division investing Belfort, a reserve 
division. Gentlemen, I ask you please to remember these data. 
As against these three corps, their directing staff not knowing exactly 
what the French proposed to do, there were available four French corps, 
two French divisions and Garibaldi’s men. Four French corps, those 
which had originally been part of D’Aurelles de Paladines’ army, to 
wit: Nos. XV., XVIII., XX. and XXIV. (see appendix). A new corps 
was formed at Lyons, Cremer’s division had already been engaged in 
the direction of Dijon; Garibaldi’s men were about Autun, south of 
Dijon. 
Phe German staff were recently criticised in the columns of The 
Times. Well, uncertainty is not confined to military operations, and 
I do not really believe the German staff deserves the contumely 
with which they are treated by people who are wise after the event. 
Napoleon himself was supposed to be as good a soldier as any 
other in modern times, and was almost the greatest man from an 
intellectual point of view—since Bacon. Napoleon says that looking 
back on his past he could see in regard to each campaign a great 
variety of methods by which he could have improved his cam- 
paigns ; but it is one thing to look back on the past, and another thing 
to look forward with regard to the future ; anybody can draw up a plan of 
campaign for people after those people have fought it for his instruction. 
The critics say that this German staff ought to have known every 
thing that was going on along the Loire. Well, there were 250,000 
Frenchmen all round the district; there were some 63,000 or 70,000 
Germans between Vendome and Orleans; and there was about Montargis 
a corps and about Auxerrea corps.! At any rate, whether the German 
staff ought to have known what the French were about to do or not, they 
most decidedly did not know what the French were about to do until 
the first few days of January had passed. ‘They thought that it was 
extremely probable that General Bourbaki would move north of the 
Loire ; that General Chanzy would move towards Paris from the Loir, 
and that General Trochu would try to come out of Paris at the 
same time. ‘They thought there would be a kind of concentrate move- 
ment, the two sections of the French army moving on the outer flank 
of the Germans in the Loire district towards Paris, whilst the Paris 
people would come south-west towards Chanzy. Consequently they kept 
1 The lecturer, in all cases, pointed out the exact position of divisions on the maps, but to repeat 
all this would occupy an inordinate amount of space. 
18 
