140 GENERAL BOURBAKI’S CAMPAIGN. 
attacks were frequently repulsed by artillery alone. Here you have the 
German artillery on the defensive playing almost as distinguished a part 
as the German artillery on the offensive did at Sedan. On the evening 
of the 16th the German right was broken at Chenebier, by the {8th 
corps and Cremer’s division; but the Germans recovered themselves 
about 12 o’clock, and they made a night attack. They did not recap- 
ture the position, but they stopped the forward movement of the French. 
On the 17th Bourbaki began to retreat, he ordered a retreat which was 
continued on the 18th, i9th, 20th, 21st and 22nd, which day saw his 
army back again at Besangon. 
And then took place a fine display of strategic ability. Manteuffel’s 
corps that had been marching to the aid of Von Werder found that he 
did not require their assistance, on the contrary he sufficed to keep the 
hindmost columns of the retreating enemy on the move. So Manteuffel 
immediately came to the conclusion to interpose between Bourbaki’s 
army and every possible avenue of escape to Lyons or elsewhere, to close 
the line of retreat south,—in other words, to close the various roads be- 
tween the Swiss frontier and the Doubs. The VII. corps joined in to the 
right of No. XIV., and the II. corps madea sweep round towards Lons- 
le-Saulnier. The wretched Bourbaki in a state of despair gave orders for 
a movement backwards towards the Lower Saone and the Upper Rhone 
on the 26th of January, but by the 26th of January one hostile corps 
would be on his right flank, and another corps, the II., in his front. 
‘What occurred on the 27th, 28th and 29th I need not detail, the 
miserable retreating French, in a state of starvation and despair, were 
driven towards the Swiss frontier by the XIV. corps and the VII. 
corps, while the II. corps kept continually moving on towards its right 
and upwards towards Pontarlier, where the final battle occurred, and 
the French were obliged to lay down their arms in Switzerland in a 
deplorable condition. 
Now this, gentlemen, is merely a general outline of the condition of the 
campaign; some details, as I said before, I will furnish, though they 
‘would take too much time now. But we ought to read some evidence of 
the awful state to which an army, starting in all the pride, pomp, circum- 
stance and glory of war, can be reduced, in a very short time, generally 
through the folly of the State, and partly through the incapacity of its 
staff. 150,000 men, in their own country, started from Besancon about 
the 8rd of January, were stopped by one-fifth of their force on the 9th 
of January, beaten by one-fourth of their force on the 15th, 16th and 
17th of January, driven to a most disastrous retreat, and pursued by a 
fourth of their force, and then closed in upon and compelled to retreat 
into another country than their own by another army one-third of their 
force ; the whole thing not occupying one month, from the 8rd January 
to the 2nd February. And in what condition did they present them- 
selves to their neighbours after this tremendous enterprise, which was 
to raise the siege of Belfort, which was to capture Von Werder, and 
which was to reduce the 250,000 Germans about Paris to a state of 
utter destitution; what became of them? ‘* Most of these unfortunate 
men arrived in Switzerland in a state which defies description. 
Some had bits of wood under their bare feet, others wore wooden sabots, 
