Chapter VII: To Sedan

September 26th. I had been told that if I were at the railway station just before 9 a.m. I could go by the train which was to carry the Weimar Landsturm Battalion to Charleville. I arrived in time, but only to be informed that an alteration had been made in the train time-table and that this battalion would not leave until later, but that an ammunition train for Sedan, of about twenty-two “N” wagons, covered in with tarpaulins, was on the point of starting; if I liked to go by that, a first-class compartment would be placed at my disposal. A few passenger coaches were attached to the train, and I seated myself in one of these. My future travelling companions were the ten or twelve _Ersatz_ Reservists, belonging to an Ammunition Park Depot established in Mayence, who were in charge of the train. The latter had been on the road for eight days and the men had slept eight nights on the train. Our carriage had strayed here from the north-eastern regions of Germany, as appeared from its mark: “Prussian-Hessian State Railways, North-East.” On the wall of my compartment there was a little map of the railway line from Berlin to Memel.

I had been advised by a friendly soul at the _Hotel Staar_ to take with me a supply of provisions, as it was more than doubtful whether any eatables could be found on the way. Four substantial cheese and ham sandwiches, three eggs and two bottles of mineral water had therefore been stowed away amongst my luggage in the compartment.

And so we started. We glided smoothly out of Luxemburg Station, and passed a train shunted into a siding and crowded with soldiers who sat and talked and laughed and seemed to be in the best of spirits. The town disappears behind us. We are out in the open country. We pass by flourishing villages, farms and woods, meadows and pasture lands with grazing cattle, fields with ploughs at work, country roads and metalled high roads lined by two long rows of trees vanishing in the distance. In the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg one sees no houses wrecked by shells, no people rendered homeless. It is true that the billeting of German troops has caused some inconvenience, but the inhabitants have received full compensation for all that has been taken.

On the roads one sees no marching troops, no toiling columns. And why--so near to the front? It is because, as far as the railways are worked in conjunction with the German railway system, they carry out almost the whole of the transport. It is only when railway traffic comes to a stop that recourse must be had to lines of communication by road. Hence the country on both sides of the railway looks quite flourishing, often idyllic. The only thing that reminds us of war are the sights which meet us at the railway stations, and the guards posted along the line. These guards are frequently stationed at such short intervals as to be actually in sight of each other. German railway corps troops are responsible for the traffic. The Landsturm attends to the guarding of the line. There you may see men of over forty, clothed in the dark-blue tunic with red collar and light-blue shoulder-straps, black trousers with a narrow red stripe, and peakless blue caps with red band. All are armed with rifles. It is especially at bridges and other important points of the line that one is sure to see these loyal trusty fellows, pacing to and fro,--just as they are doing in every other part of the German Empire. They are always there, always vigilant. _Lieb Vaterland, magst ruhig sein...._

Our route takes us _via_ Mamer and Kapellen. The country is rather flat; gently undulating, sunlit fields extend in every direction. Between two stations the train pulls up--we wonder why. At last we see a long train of empty carriages, nothing but goods-trucks, running up by our side on the up line. There does not seem to be a soul in it and one can hear how empty it is by its hollow ring as it rumbles by. It has carried a body of fresh troops as a reinforcement for one of the armies, and is now hurrying back through Luxemburg to fetch another. When the train has passed by, we run on to Kleinbettingen, where not a single civilian is to be seen, only some twenty of the usual trusty blue Landsturm men.

Sterpenich! So we are now on Belgian soil. There is no change in the landscape. Here, too, German soldiers are on guard, and here and there, as in Luxemburg, a field is being ploughed. But one is not reminded by customs officers that one is entering another country as in peace time; war breaks down all barriers.

We stop for a while in Arlon. We feel tempted to take a stroll through the town, but as I did not consider my ammunition train dependable, I contented myself with having a peep at the church with its grey tower and louvre-turret, and looking at the handsome station building. To the south-west, the dull but distinct thunder of guns was audible, but my fellow-travellers could not say whether it came from Verdun or from the Argonne. The distance would be some sixty kilometres or over.

Meanwhile the train moves on at normal speed, but soon repents this effort and runs dead slow as if the murderous load which it is carrying, in the shape of heavy projectiles, will not bear shaking. We are now running on a high embankment and cross a country road by an arched stone bridge. At its foot a solitary sentry, alone with his rifle, looks up at us as we pass.

Here is a village wrecked by shells and burnt. All that is left standing is some bare walls staring at us from between the trees. Part of an avenue has been cut down, as also the trees on the fringe of woods near the railway. At first I thought this had been done to facilitate watching the line and preventing attempts at wrecking it. But further on we found the felled trees stacked in piles, and a goods train on a siding, loaded with hewn timber, suggested that the wood was to be used for sleepers. Large notice-boards _Langsam fahren!_ (slacken speed) mark the spots where the straight line changes into sharp curves and where the German engine-drivers have not yet become familiar with the ground. Traffic is not particularly brisk, and one does not pass many trains on this line, though it is a double track.

Lavaux, Cousteumont and Hamipré are small stations. The soldiers of the guard-pickets are sitting peacefully on the platforms smoking and reading the latest newspapers that have come through. Longlier and Neufchâteau are larger stations, where some wrecked houses are to be seen from the carriage window. This is a memento of the fights of a month ago, when the Army of Duke Albrecht of Württemberg beat back the opposing forces. We run into Libramont station alongside a huge troop train which, like ours, is bound for Sedan. All carriages are decorated with green branches, as if on the way to a midsummer fête. Sentences chalked on the sides of the carriages testify to the high spirits of the passengers:--“To dinner in Paris,--now waiting”; “Every shot a Russian,--every thrust a Frenchman,--the Serbs must die,”--and such like jokes. Amidst the jovial song and merry talk of the soldiers the train then rolls away to an unknown fate.

After an hour’s halt it is our turn to follow in its track. We run through fields in which fragrant stacks of oats are standing in rows like soldiers. A road-bridge of stonework crossing the line has been blown up by the enemy before they retired, clearly in order to block the railway line passing beneath. The Engineers are now busy repairing it. Otherwise there are not many traces of warfare to be seen from the railway in Belgian Luxemburg.

From Libramont our course lies to the south-west. At a small station we stop once more immediately abreast of a troop train, and glide slowly past it. It consists of third-class carriages, the interiors of which are exposed to our view, one by one, through the open doors. On every imaginable projection the soldiers have suspended their knapsacks, rifles, tunics and cartridge belts, all in picturesque and almost impressive disorder. Some are lying stretched full length on the seats, with their noses in the air, fast asleep; others sit with crossed legs, smoking, chatting or looking out on the scene outside. Officers and non-commissioned officers occupy the first and second class compartments. They are cavalry. The train also comprises “H.Gr.” carriages filled with horses. There are eight in each carriage, four on each side, with their heads turned towards each other and they are separated from the central doorway, with sliding doors, by bars suspended on short chains. The halters are fastened to the bars. Between the bars--that is in the middle of the carriage--is a table on trestles, and two benches. On these some men are seated at their midday meal--cold coffee and savoury sausage sandwiches.

Bertrix! Another stop of one hour. Through the window one overhears involuntarily a few scraps of the soldiers’ conversation. “Have you heard that the Belgians are said to have a secret wireless station near Arlon, which it is impossible to lay hands on?”--“That was a neat piece of work of Weddigen’s.”[17]--“But the losses on land are far greater than at sea--a submarine means twenty men, but a bayonet charge on land ten or a hundred times as many.”--“Is it true that Rheims has been taken?”--“It is said that the right wing has fallen back a good way.”--What rumours one hears in the rear of the fighting line!

[17] See footnote to p. 113.

The station-master of Bertrix comes up to my compartment and engages me in conversation. He tells me that the stone bridge which we have just passed was destroyed by the Belgians on the 19th of August during the fierce engagements which were fought in this region. “But we railwaymen,” he confessed, “had to sit tight and listen to the guns in the distance. We cannot go into the firing line and fight with the rest.”--“Yes, but your work is just as important, after all! How would the fighting troops fare, as to supplies and reserves, if the railway traffic were not kept going?”--“That is true, but at any rate it is terribly trying to one’s patience.”

He further told me that from Bertrix, for thirty-six kilometres onwards, the railway had been continued by German railway troops to establish connection with the French railway system. All blasting work, cuttings and embankments had been almost finished when the war broke out, but the line in question was not to open for traffic until 1916, as probably a war before then, in these regions, had not been thought of. The new line is a single track and is of the type of a “field-railway.” Its section is narrow and will not bear too heavy a load. Its traffic capacity would therefore necessarily be very small. This was the reason for our long stop at Bertrix.

At last the train which had been holding up the line arrives and we can go on. To the south-east a boundless view opens towards far-off regions wreathed in a dim blue haze, where, beyond the boundaries of Belgian Luxemburg, Montmédy and Longuyon are situated. One feels glad to see the oat stacks in the fields; many mouths will need feeding here during the coming winter. And for the same reason I was glad to observe the well-fed cattle, of which I caught a glimpse in copses and pastures.

“Have you any recent newspapers?” This from the Landsturm sentries and railway workers as our train slowly rolls by. “I have already given away those I had,” I answer. But as I lift up a coat I discover yet another copy of the _Treves Gazette_, and next time I see a group of soldiers I throw it out and observe how eagerly they devour the news--one of them reading aloud and the others listening.

Here stands a curious-looking train, belonging to some fatigue party or railway corps. Some of the carriages have been fitted up as repair workshops, with carpenter’s benches and grindstones, and saws, chisels, axes and hammers are lying about. Other carriages are crammed with bicycles, wheelbarrows, spades, crow-bars, hatchets, pickaxes and other tools--entrenching tools, such as used by the sappers.

As we issue from a long tunnel, a beautiful landscape presents itself to our view--more hilly than before. Below us several high roads meet, in a vale clad with verdant trees. Towards the nearest road the embankment slopes down steeply. Near by is a guard-hut, with a small detachment of Landsturm men close by, resting from their labours and waiting for their comrades to come out on the line to relieve them. A number of grey-clothed workers with spades on their backs come up to the railway line. “Any newspapers left?” asks one. “All gone,” I reply. “That is very unfortunate,” he answers, without looking up. Had I only anticipated such avidity for news, I should have bought up the whole edition of the Luxemburg German newspaper. At a small halting-place we see some forty blue and grey soldiers near their piled rifles. Is there no end of all these men in arms? To think of the numbers which the railways alone absorb!

The sun is setting; it is nearly six. After we have passed another tunnel, the panorama of the meandering water-course of the Semois unfolds itself in the valley beneath us. More groups of railway workers returning to their billets. “You have twenty kilometres to the French frontier,” one of them informs me, and another points to a wrecked village on the slope of a hill. We are told that whole piles of corpses lie buried there.

The sun has now set, but there is still sufficient light to enable us to see, from a high bridge across the Semois, the main road, deep down below to the right of us, crossing the river on a handsome stone bridge with three spans. The banks are thickly covered with foliage, and we pass through a dusky belt of trees.

The twilight deepens and the shades of night begin to fall. It is a pity to be robbed of the view over this beautiful country. The line winds in manifold curves, now rising, now descending.

On we travel, desperately slow; the train groans and the timbers of the carriages creak under the burden of their load. Ahead of us appears another tunnel. At its entrance a little hut has been erected, where a patrol of Landsturm soldiers are just engaged in preparing their supper. We are travelling very slowly and are able to exchange a few words with the blue-clad men. Slowly and steadily we glide into the dark mouth of the tunnel. The engine pants and snorts, the tunnel is filled with smoke, and we quickly close the windows. We advance more slowly still, and the steam makes a horrible roar in front. Now the engine breaks down, and we come to a standstill! One of my fellow-travellers comes into the pitch-dark compartment, carrying a little lamp, which makes us feel more cheerful. The smoke becomes thicker and fills the compartment--if this goes on much longer we shall be asphyxiated. I open the window for a moment and peep out--nothing but darkness and smoke! But through the cloud one can see the sparks flying from the engine, which seems to be gathering strength. This train is loaded with powder and shot, and if it should explode just here in the tunnel--well, the railway corps will have their work cut out!

The engine gives another snort, making the walls of the tunnel re-echo. We begin to move again. A light appears ahead--probably the mouth of the tunnel. But no, it is only a lantern dimmed by the smoke. A little later it is the reflection of the engine-fire that looks like the dawning of daylight. Will this eternal tunnel never end? We have been in it for more than half an hour, when at last it gets clearer and we can breathe fresh air again. But there is now little daylight left; the dusk obliterates the outlines of the landscape and the moon, yellow and mocking, floats over the troubled earth.

By about eight the satellite has whitened, and is perched in the tree-tops. It is clear and cold. How easy it would be for snipers to send their bullets from some lurking-place in the woods through the faintly lighted windows of the train! But no shots echo through the night; all is hushed and silent outside. There is nothing to remind one of war--one travels as in times of profoundest peace.

We have left behind to the west of us Bouillon, once the dukedom of Godfrey the Crusader, and are now at Messempré-Messincourt, the first station on the French side. One of my fellow-travellers has met an acquaintance from Darmstadt, and gives him messages for his home just as the train moves out into the darkness. A sheaf of flame issues from the funnel of the engine, tinging the steam red. Probably the fire and the powder on board are used to each other by now, after having kept company for a whole week. Over the flat French meadows floats a film like the whitest hoar-frost, but it is only a very thin stratum of mist, lit up by the moon....

About midnight I fell asleep for the rest of the journey, and at 3 o’clock on Sunday morning, the 27th of September, I was awakened by one of my fellow-passengers who told me that we were in Sedan. We had been travelling for eighteen hours. The Commandant of the station, Major von Plato, is already up at this early hour, cheerful and sprightly; he receives me with a hearty welcome and places a room in the station building at my disposal. But before I take possession of my new quarters I must have a cup of tea with the Major and a few other officers, as wide-awake and lively as he. Our early breakfast is served in a strange-looking dining-room belonging to the commissariat station established here, where sixteen lady volunteers provide for up to four thousand wounded daily. In their kitchen huge caldrons are always boiling, filled with nourishing soup. Immediately after the occupation of Sedan, a wooden shed was erected in two days in the station yard, where troops and wounded passing through are now fed at long tables. This morning, too, several seats were occupied, whilst outside a detachment of Landwehr were waiting for their morning coffee and roll. Each man was also to receive dry rations for the day--bread and ham--to take with him on his journey to the front. All were merry and cheerful, no one would guess that these men would shortly stand in the fighting line, to conquer or to die. It was said that, on an average, five thousand men a day had been passing through Sedan, on their way south, during the last five weeks. Meat and vegetables for the maintenance of these troops are supplied by the Sedan “Line of Communication Depot Commandant’s District,”--a French district the boundaries of which have been defined within the sphere of the Chief Command of one of the German Armies. The provisions are supplied, on requisition, by the French local civil authorities,--such is the custom in war time. The invader lives on the invaded. It will be readily seen how advantageous it is to be able to carry on warfare beyond one’s own frontiers. Woe to the vanquished! The invaded country must feed, not only its own army, but also that of the invader. As long as grain was to be had, it was simply requisitioned, but now, towards the end of September, flour had been procured from Germany to supply the requirements of the troops. In the coffee kitchen a dozen large caldrons were bubbling away, and an old Frenchwoman, garrulous but cheerful, was busying herself among them.

The room which was now to be mine had been set apart for Major von Plato and his Adjutant. They were to use it in turn to rest in, but they had never had occasion to do so, as they were working day and night and only snatched a short rest, often without undressing, in the refreshment-room of the station, which did duty as Station Commandant’s Office. The detachment told off for guarding the railway station had its quarters in the third-class dining-room. The men were lying on the floor, and were just about to get ready for the morning roll-call.

Our round also brought us to the waiting-rooms and store-room, where the Base Hospital wards had been established. In one of them none but badly wounded French soldiers were lying, nursed by the Red Cross staff. One ward contained Germans awaiting the day when they could bear being conveyed eastward. I was once more impressed with the importance of being able, even in an intermediate base, to clear the hospital wards immediately. A notice had just been received that a train with wounded was on its way to Sedan, and that five hundred ambulance carriages had been requisitioned by the Commander of the Army--which suggested fierce fighting and bloody engagements. When the train arrived, there was much bustle on the platforms. The sisters of mercy and volunteer civilian workers hurried from carriage to carriage with pails and cans of steaming coffee and large round baskets filled with bread. Bearers stood ready with their stretchers to carry those of the wounded whose condition was critical out to the motor-ambulances which were to take them to the hospital in the town. All goes like clockwork--everybody works with zeal and zest in this labour of charity. However many may come, there is always sufficient food for all, stretchers and bedding are never lacking, and the helping hands never tire. The wounded Frenchmen are treated with the same kindness as their own wounded, perhaps even better, as nearly all have a feeling of compassion for those who have fallen into an enemy’s hands and who, apart from their wounds, must suffer at the thought that their native country is bleeding under the hostile invasion. Sedan station is like a swarming beehive. Ambulance trains are not the only ones to be seen; frequent trains loaded with fresh troops also run into the station. There is also a considerable number of prisoners. Most frequent of all are the supply and ammunition trains from the north, and trains with captured or worn-out war material from the south. Now night is hovering, cold and starry, over Sedan, rich in memories of the past. But to those who are working here for the sake of tending the wounded and providing food, there is no difference between night and day. It is a puzzle to me how the officers, doctors, nurses and working staff can stand it. The force which impels them and prevents their breaking down with fatigue, is the love of their fatherland, which is now fighting its greatest and most fateful war.

During our hurried round the Major narrates some episodes of the locality. The bridge across the Meuse was blown up by the French, and after the street-fighting some civilians fired from the windows. A fine of two hundred thousand francs was therefore levied on the town. A few days later, shots were fired again from houses in the town, and the war contribution was increased by half a million francs, to be paid within forty-eight hours. The Maire was given the somewhat unpleasant task of raising this sum. It was paid after fruitless representations as to the difficulties. If we try, in an entirely objective manner, to enter into the psychological currents which in such cases stir the minds of the French and of the Germans, we come to the following result: The Germans consider that, when a town has been conquered by them in honest and open fight, they are its masters, and the fight is therefore ended. The French citizens who are armed and have seen that their own troops are unable to defend the town, nevertheless nourish a mad hope that they can check the invasion and prevent the enemy from taking up his quarters there. They fire in frenzy and hatred, forgetting that a few fatal shots signify nothing in the serried ranks of disciplined soldiers. Nor do they realise that they are doing an evil service to their fellow-citizens, and that the war levy will become much heavier. An open honest fight is _one_ thing, but shots by civilians, after a decisive issue of the fight, are looked upon as murder, and must be punished, according to usage of war, by shooting or hanging, bombardment or imposition of a war contribution. No rules of civilised warfare recognise sparing the lives of sniping _franctireurs_ or civilians firing from an ambush.

The sufferings which war brings in its train for the populace visited by it are severe enough without being intensified by cowardice and stupidity. It is best, while there is yet time, to create for oneself an efficient army--_that_ will always command respect. Characteristically enough, such attempts as described here are defended and approved by individuals who, in times of peace, oppose the regular military training of their people. When the day of retribution comes they shout themselves hoarse at “right being trampled under foot.” But it is futile to disguise the betrayal of one’s own country. It is then too late. Jurisprudential sophistries are silenced when the guns talk in their voice of thunder.

When Major von Plato came to Sedan, in the early part of September, the railway station looked more than wretched. Dead horses were lying about everywhere at and on the line. The fallen soldiers had been buried in very shallow graves, contributing to some extent to the unbearable stench which filled the air. The Maire was requested to call out French labourers, whose task was to scour the whole neighbourhood and bury the bodies properly. Now the ground around the station looked well and properly kept.

In the afternoon I went with Major Heyn and a couple of other officers--one of whom was ordinarily a judge at Frankfurt-on-Main, and had now become _Kriegsgerichtsrat_ or “Court-Martial Councillor”--for a motor drive to the historically famous spots outside Sedan, the very name of which evokes, in the breast of every Frenchman, memories of grief and sorrow.

We drive through the town. The citizens who have remained or returned are not few in number, but the well-to-do have gone away and taken up their abode elsewhere. Some shops are open, and those in which articles of food, preserves, or tobacco are sold, are emptied of stock, the owners having done a brisk business. But the tradesmen on whose shop-signs one reads _Teinturerie_ (dyer), _Imprimerie_ (printer), _Bijouterie_ (jeweller), and the like, might just as well have put up their shutters. A school has been converted into an intermediate base hospital, and the Place d’Alsace is the “motor-vehicle hospital,” or open-air workshop. This may not be photographed, as the sentry informs me when I approach with my camera. On one of the “patients” undergoing treatment here, the inscription “Mannheim Brewery No. 6” indicates its avocation in peace time. Even such motor-lorries, then, are mobilised for service in war time! All is arranged and regulated beforehand with the utmost forethought and exactitude. But, for this very reason, everything goes like clockwork when the hour has come. The honest brewer in Mannheim had no need to enquire what he had to do when the mobilisation order was issued. He knew it, and sent his motor-lorries to the prearranged spot.

_Impavidus numero victus 1870_ is the inscription engraved on a memorial near a street still showing traces of the fighting, to which indeed the marks of bullets on its houses bear witness. Two bridges across the Meuse, one of stone, the other of iron, have been blown up by the French and replaced by the Germans.

We are now out in the open country and pass over the scene of the hotly contested sanguinary fights of the 25th and 26th of August. The entrenchments have not been filled in, and the parapets and trenches are still in the same state, though they have crumbled here and there. I was told that many of them had been thrown up by the local population, whose assistance thus gave the defenders an advantage over the attack.

Near the village of Frénois we run up to the little château of Bellevue, where after the great battle of the 1st of September, 1870, the capitulation of the French Army was signed on the morning of September 2nd, and where King William I. of Prussia had his historic meeting with the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III. The two monarchs met on the small glass veranda on the ground floor, which forms a porch or vestibule to the château.

The furniture which was there at the time has all disappeared and there is no relic of those days remaining. Yet there is one! The aristocratic and venerable lady--who owns Bellevue, is still there, bowed with age and grief, and is now witnessing for the second time all the phases of a Franco-German war. Her hair was snow-white and she was bent with age, but it seemed nevertheless that she held her head high, and her carriage was proud and commanded respect. We asked whether we might see the interior of the château, but she asked us to excuse her--a wish which, of course, we respected.

It is not to be wondered at that the soldiers, whose way lies past Bellevue, like to look at the famous veranda. But the old lady asked that these visits should cease; she wished to be left in peace, alone with her sorrow. “_C’est bien malheureux; c’est très, très triste!_” she repeated again and again, and she, like her words, evoked the deepest sympathy. Bellevue with its round tower stands like a rock lashed by the tempestuous waves of the two greatest wars of modern history.

Our next objective is Donchery, the little town which now inspires, in a twofold measure, such mournful impressions. It was here that General von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff, and General Wimpffen, the French Commander-in-Chief, discussed the terms of the capitulation late at night on the 1st of September, 1870. Count Bismarck, the Prussian Prime Minister, was also present, as well as several officers of both sides. The house where the negotiations took place has been destroyed in the present war. But Werner’s picture remains. This has a most stirring effect on the beholder. To the right, the Germanic iron strength and resolution, which will admit of no compromise; to the left the beaten Frenchmen in their dire misfortune. Moltke especially attracts our eyes, as he stands there with his hand thrust upon the table, categorically demanding the surrender of the whole French army, and we may well look with emotion on the picture of the “Iron Chancellor,” sitting with his hand on his sword-hilt;--these two men, the great strategist and the great statesman, are just about to lay the foundations of the mightiest empire of modern times;--but the central figure of the painting is Wimpffen, for he stands there as the impersonation of the deepest tragedy and the most terrible misfortune that could befall man. He has just been struck by the blow which the terms of capitulation involve for him and all France. He can bear no more--he has risen to go; but he totters, and has to support himself on the table and a chair. The light of the lamp falls upon his face, which betrays the deepest anguish and grief. His name will now be coupled for ever with this calamitous day! A picture of the Corsican hangs on the wall, and the great Emperor seems to cast a reproving look on the unfortunate general. The countenances of his companions express sorrow and dejection for which language has no words. No less grave is the expression of the Prussians standing on the other side. Their features betray admiration for the heroism of the French army and its dauntless courage, which should have deserved a better fate. The artist has created a scene which suggests to us that all those present were conscious of the fact that this day would live in memory as one of the greatest in Prussia’s history and one of the most tragic in that of France.

Some parts of Donchery have been destroyed by the shells of the present war, but the Church of St. Onesimus still remains standing amid the desolation and has not suffered any damage to speak of. The chancel with the high altar dates from the twelfth century, the nave from the fifteenth. In front of the altarpiece stands a crucifix of ivory, and filtering in through the beautiful stained-glass windows, a multi-coloured light plays upon the pillars. The priest who accompanies us, assures us that not a single shot has been fired from the windows of Donchery and that the punishment which was inflicted on the town was therefore unmerited. But the German documents tell a different tale. A careful investigation in France and in Belgium will reveal, in due course, where the root and origin of the participation of the civilian population in the warfare is to be found. Until the result of this investigation lies before us, it will be wise to abstain from pronouncing judgment.

On the return journey to Sedan we also stopped for a while at the little house by the roadside where Napoleon and Bismarck had an interview on the morning of the 2nd of September. Accompanied by his suite of a few horsemen, the Emperor drove over from Sedan in a landau. He had alighted and stood, broken and prematurely aged, leaning on his stick, when Bismarck came up alone on horseback. This incident, too, has been immortalised by Werner in one of his pictures. The victor and the vanquished then entered the house together, ascended the steep and narrow stairs and seated themselves in the inner of the two larger rooms. The host, the weaver Fournaise, withdrew; his wife, twenty-seven years of age, stayed in the outer room. And Madame Fournaise is still alive--a worthy and kindly woman, with a cheerful and philosophical view of life, in spite of the harrowing scenes which she has witnessed around her abode. The only thing that annoyed her was that two rifle bullets had gone through her windows and lodged in the ceiling. But she gave us a regular lecture on that momentous day, forty-four years ago, and recalled each detail. The Emperor had been friendly and condescending, Bismarck cheerful and jocular, when they had talked to her. And when the interview was over, and both of them went their way, the Emperor had given her four 20-franc pieces, which she still kept, set in a frame under glass, with the following inscription: _Donné par sa Majesté l’Empereur Napoléon III à Mme. Fournaise le 2 Septembre, 1870_.

As a memento of our visit we shall keep the stamp which she imprinted on our note-books: _Maison de la I^{re} entrevue, Donchery_. And the house itself is known as _Maison du Tisserand_, or “The weaver’s house.”

At last we return by another road to Sedan, in order to cast a brief glance over the site of the forts which have been razed since 1870, and to enjoy the fine view over the unfortunate town from the surrounding heights. One cannot feel cheerful in Sedan; one feels as if one’s breast were oppressed by a leaden weight. Here is a people, generous and yet thrifty, which has suffered and is now suffering--which, in the leading strings of the republican democracy, has been led to an abyss of misfortunes--a people which has deserved a better fate than to bleed to death for the sake of its allies--a people whose children vainly repeat those high-sounding, but in reality empty and hollow words: _Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité_. What brotherhood is it that never thinks of anything but revenge; what equality is it that for political aims sacrifices the fruits of the people’s thrift; what liberty is it that drives these same people into the arms of the world’s most despotically governed power?

And yet one cannot but love the French, above all on account of their fascinating and attractive qualities, their unbounded patriotism, their brilliant bravery, their ever youthful enthusiasm, their bright wit and their high level of art. And one deplores the desolation which is spreading over their glorious country and which might so easily have been avoided.

Late in the day we drive back into the town, past Place Turenne, where a statue, nearly one hundred years old, has been erected in memory of the great victorious marshal, himself a native of Sedan. In the market-place is the office of the Sedan Intermediate Base Commandant, located in a better-class café, in which busy clerks have taken the places formerly occupied by the habitués of the place. Here we happened to come across a most unusual sight,--a couple of civilians from Germany, who have come to see about the body of a killed relative. The dead man had been traced, and if they could identify his body they would have a zinc coffin made and take him home.

From there I proceeded to the Hôtel Croix d’Or to call on General Baron von Seckendorff, who is Inspector of the Lines of Communication of the Fourth Army. The “Inspectorate” comprises, besides its Staff--the Chief of which is Colonel von Kemnitz--a variety of administrative branches, with subordinate organisations and establishments. One may truly say that whole armies and endless processions of transport columns of various kinds pass through General von Seckendorff’s hands. The task of the lines of communication organisation in general is, on the one hand, to arrange for bringing up to the army reserve troops and matériel of all kinds, and, on the other hand, to relieve the fighting troops of the wounded, prisoners, booty of war, and all worn-out material. As already hinted, each class of requirements has its own representative in the Line of Communication Inspectorate. There are supervisors for the provisioning and for the hospitals, for ammunition supply and store maintenance, for the railway traffic, for the telegraph, post-office, and road and hydraulic construction departments, for administration of justice and maintenance of law and order, and for civil administration. It is an immense burden of labour that rests on the shoulders of an inspector of the line of communication. There must be no hitch anywhere. The troop trains must not come too late; the ammunition and commissariat supply trains must arrive at stated times and places. Nothing must go wrong. The inspector must know how to find ways and means in all emergencies, must think of and foresee everything,--else incalculable calamities may arise.

It might not be out of place here to give a short outline of the manner in which the lines of communication between the fighting troops and the home base are arranged.

I reproduce a diagram showing the arrangement of the lines of communication of a German Army. The reader will see how the railway lines coming from the home bases of the respective army corps are made to converge towards the main line of transport which leads to the district of the lines of communication of an army--in a hostile country to a principal line of communication depot or “intermediate base,” and how, from this point, a new system of lines of communication of all kinds--railways, field railways, roads, waterways--diverges towards the operating units at the front. The whole reminds one vividly of a tree with its roots and branches. As far as possible, the functions in connection herewith must be planned in peace time. Of course, instructions and regulations are drawn up, not only for the transport system as a whole, but also for each and every detail thereof, as one can never elucidate with sufficient clearness the various administrative branches of war: the commissariat, the medical service, the veterinary department, the field post-office, the field telegraph department, the field-railway service, the war matériel and the army pay departments, etc.

The supreme direction of the organisations of the lines of communication is exercised by an Inspector-General, who is subordinated to the Chief of the General Staff. The various armies each have their “Lines of Communication Inspectorate” subordinated to the Chief Command of the army, organised internally as indicated above. It controls the respective principal Lines of Communication Depot or “Intermediate Base,” and has under it the “Lines of Communication Depot Commandants” who in their turn are in charge of one or several Lines of Communication Depots with their surrounding districts.

Now what principles are followed, in their work, by these different controlling authorities of the lines of communication? Well, they have, in continual _collaboration_ with the commanders of the troops, to supply to these the requisite information as regards depot, hospital, and other arrangements on the lines of communication,--such as store depots of different kinds of war matériel--and to give timely notice of the arrival of men, horses, matériel and requisites.

Generally speaking, it is the duty of the Lines of Communication Depot Commandant to look after all the requirements of the system of the lines of communication itself, and to provide for the detachments of troops, and transport of remounts and animals intended for food, which may happen to be stationed in, or pass through their district of the lines of communication, while the “Inspectorate of the Lines of Communication,” through organisations and establishments directly subordinated to it, requisitions what is needed for the fighting troops from within the whole of its district of the lines of communication, or from the home bases. In order that the organisation of the lines of communication may work quickly in the event of urgent requirements--more especially in case of a battle--it establishes, as we have seen, store depots of matériel and requisites. Books are kept as to all that is stored within the respective district. The “Inspectorate” always enters into close relations with the civil administration, and in a hostile country may often--if the safety of the army requires this--take over this administration into its own hands. Both the “Inspectorate of the Lines of Communication” and the “Intermediate Depot Commandant’s Office” frequently requisition, for instance, from the Maire, labour for certain purposes. Some ten labourers or other civilians may for instance be required to bury dead horses or to clear a road. The soldiers of the invading army do not do this themselves.

Frequently, the working of hospital departments attracts, more especially, the attention of the layman; at least such was the case with me. One marvels at the enormous sphere of duties that fall solely to the share of the intermediate base surgeons, subordinated to the “Inspectorate.” The Chief Surgeon-General at the “Inspectorate of the Lines of Communication zone of the 4th Army” had under him hospitals at twenty-eight different intermediate depots, apart from the transports of sick and wounded passing through this zone of the lines of communication.

The reader will form some idea of the amount of work which devolves on the officers in charge on the lines of communication, when I mention that the Lines of Communication Depot Commandant’s Office in Vouziers alone, usually received every day six hundred requisitions and enquiries which all had to be attended to immediately. This needed men of ready and well-trained skill and energy, who could accomplish the task of ensuring that the fighting troops always had what they needed at the right time and in the right place. Dawdling routine work will never do in war!

If we had before us a large-scale map, faithfully representing the army and its connection with the home base, the lines of communication would appear to form a veritable cobweb, or network, the knots of which would be formed by the intermediate base depots. But the aspect shown by this network would only hold good for a certain period, perhaps only for one day. For, especially in the extreme ramifications of this network, changes are of course incessantly occurring, owing to the advance of the positions, or transfers of troops. The whole is like a system of blood-vessels in the body of the army or of the nation. The transport columns going west are the fresh blood of the arteries, maintaining combustion and life in the organism of the army; the trains returning east, empty, or loaded with wounded, represent the spent blood flowing back to the heart and lungs to be renovated. You cannot form any clear idea of this complicated apparatus until you have seen and felt, on the lines of communication, the throbbing of the pulses of the army.

The army thus rests on the home country, and draws its food and sustenance from every nook and corner of the whole German empire--just as the roots of a tree, with their ramifications of fibres, suck up from the earth the nutritious juices. Every town and village, every farmstead in Germany feels that it contributes, in its measure, to the vitality of the army. The whole nation takes part in the war, and the soldier out at the front, in the trenches, cannot fight with any prospect of success, unless the peasant at home does his duty. But the German peasants and the whole German nation are doing their duty, not as if it were a hard necessity, but gladly and with pride and devotion.

And now let us return to the “Inspectorate of the Lines of Communication zone of the Fourth Army!”

General von Seckendorff has,--to use a common expression--plenty to do, and he works like a galley slave, I must say! He maintains faultless discipline on his lines and inspects them daily in person. During the campaign he has already covered twelve thousand kilometres in his elegant covered car. On the roads he rules with an iron hand and can, if necessary, roar like a lion at men and officers. But towards me he was kind, and gentle as a zephyr.

He received me with open arms and invited me to stay to supper in the large restaurant of the hotel. Here, some forty of the three hundred officers now in Sedan were assembled--among them a Prince Hohenlohe who had something to do with the Red Cross. At the moment when we entered, the gentlemen were already standing by their seats around the long table and the small side-tables, and the General introduced me, once for all, with a few forceful yet kindly words. The food served was the same as for the rank and file--boiled rice, mutton with beans and potatoes, and pancakes with jam, the last being a luxury in honour of the Sunday.

After a pleasant evening, in the course of which the General invited me to accompany him next day to Vouziers, I walked at midnight through the silent and empty streets of Sedan. The way from Place Turenne to the railway station, where I was staying, was rather long, and it was made no shorter by the six sentries who in turn stepped out from the gloom and challenged me--a suspicious-looking night-bird, perhaps out on some unlawful errand. Each of them read the “pass” issued to me by General von Moltke, and then left me to my fate--and to the next sentry. All were quiet and civil, and they were doing their duty. When I came to the last, quite close to the railway station, I stepped up to him and asked whether he had any objection to reading my _Ausweis_. He replied with a smile: “I suppose it has already been read often enough; and besides, I have seen you in the company of the Chief of the _Kommandantur_.”

But this Chief had gone to sleep when I came “home.” He certainly needed rest after all the trains he had cleared through the course of the day. And as for myself, I will not deny that I was half-asleep before I lay down on my bed.