Meet General Carl Blumenthal. He was with the Prussian's 3rd Army on the left, separated from the rest of the armies by 50 miles of mountains. On Aug. 4, Blumenthal crossed into the Alsatian frontier. The French under General MacMahon decided not to defend this frontier, but led his 48,000 soldiers to a good position at Froeschwiller. (1)
So Blumenthal fell like a ton of bricks on a town called Wissembourg: 50,000 Germans against 8,600 French troops. The French division's commander was killed, the town fell, the French ran and the whole battle lasted from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Then Blumenthal went and found MacMahon, who was still sitting on his ridge at Froeschwiller.
By 3 p.m., MacMahon was in serious trouble. He tried to send out the cavalry -- but the attack was hopeless. Cavalry couldn't charge against infantry with breech-loading rifles, a lesson, Howard says, that was to be forgotten long before 1914. The German guns were pulverizing the French. By 4:30 p.m. it was all over. The Germans paid heavily, but MacMahon lost half his strength.
It would take the armies of Europe 50 years to learn the significance of Aug. 6, 1870, said Howard: "The collapse of the cavalry, the transformation of the infantry and the triumph of the gun."
The defeats also left the French terribly depressed. Possible allies like the Austrians and Italians just sneaked away. Paris was outraged. But the French managed to regroup and assemble nearly 180,000 men at Metz. Napoleon III planned to go to Chalons and raise a new army, so he appointed a new commander-in-chief named Francois Achille Bazaine.
Apparently Bazaine has a very bad reputation in military history, but Howard begs us to ignore that and judge him fairly. (Easy for me to do — I'd never heard of the guy.) We're also told to overlook the fact that Bazaine was a weird-looking dude with "tiny, malevolent eyes set in a suety, undistinguished face." (2)
On Aug. 13, Bazaine started pulling everyone out of Metz at 4:30 a.m. It was a mess. Heavy rains had swept away or damaged all the extra bridges the French had built across the Moselle river nearby. Baggage trains blocked the streets of Metz. Twelve hours later., the troops were finally starting to cross the Moselle when they heard Prussian cannons.
The Germans were pretty surprised to see the French still around, but that didn't stop them from attacking. It was unclear on the morning of Aug. 15 what the battle achieved. Both sides claimed victory and "Bazaine lost 12 vital hours making his escape from Metz."
Bazaine went to bed early after the battle and about 10 a.m. the next morning, he sent off his 160,000-man army along one steep road west to Verdun. This guaranteed that the Germans would reach the Meuse river — the next river on the way to Paris — long before the French.
For the Germans were still lurking around out there. When the French realized that, they stopped moving again. Great, said Moltke, and he told Frederick Charles to advance straight north and attack them on the road to Verdun. But Fred couldn't believe the French would dink around like that ("Surely they must be close to the Meuse by now!") and he marched northwest to head Bazaine off. Only Fred's extreme right wing was heading north the way Moltke wanted.
The result? Fred's two right flank corps had to fight the entire French army on the 16th. By 11:30 a.m. the German position looked desperate, and at 2 p.m. they sent out the cavalry. "It was, perhaps, the last successful cavalry charge in Western European warfare," Howard said. Military historians pointed to it for the next 40 years that sending out cavalry against guns was just dandy. By the time the fighting died down at night, both sides, once again, felt they were the victors.
Bazaine had no such illusion. Since the Germans had cut the road to Verdun, he had to return to Metz to reorganize.
Understandably, this put a a little hitch in the French victory party. It took the French eight hours to cover 3-4 miles on the road back to Metz and form a single line north to south. Moltke saw new possibilities in this. Forget the Meuse, he said, let's push the French army away from Paris.
On Aug. 18 the two armies clashed. This time both full armies were engaged (the Germans had 188,000 men and the French had 112,000) and this battle was actually on purpose. Things came to a head at 7 p.m. when the Germans sent in the last reserves. It was routed and the Germans panicked, but the French didn't follow up. They saw no need to pursue their enemy.
"Such an army does not deserve victory," said Howard, disgusted.
This time, neither side felt victorious. The Germans had lost too many men and the French just ended up in Metz again.
________________________
1) I can't wait till this war gets further into France and I can pronounce these names.
2) Howard really isn't helping Bazaine's cause with comments like this.
Friday, June 14, 2019
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
The Franco Prussian War: Plans? What Plans?
So there we have the Germans, expecting an invasion from France any minute. Moltke started positioning his three armies according to his detailed plan.
The King’s nephew Frederick Charles (“Mr. Cautious”) was marching south from the Rhine to Saarbrucken through the mountains. Steinmetz (“Mr. Crazy”) was marching to Saarbrucken from the west. Separated from these two armies by 50 miles of mountains we had the Crown Prince (“Mr. Crabby”) out in the East.
Moltke wanted to attack the French army right away, but Mr. Crabby said he wasn’t ready. So Moltke told Mr. Crazy (Steinmetz) to move a little southeast. Steinmetz refused; instead he took his army straight into the path of the 2nd Army, led by Mr. Cautious (Frederick Charles).
OK, that didn’t go well, obviously. “It was becoming clear,” said Howard a little grumpily, “that Moltke’s plans were more likely to be disrupted by his own subordinates than by the French.”
Moltke’s original plan to encircle the French was now in the trash can, but he still had a chance to try again if only Steinmetz did as he was told this time.
So now two overlapping German armies were marching on Saarbrucken. They get to the Saarbrucken heights — no French. They march a mile south and there the enemy is, based at the Spicheren high ground and strung out to hell and back.
The French must be retreating, the Germans decided, and they tossed aside Moltke’s detailed plans. The first German general on the scene attacked the French at Spicheren.
At first that was okay with the French general Frossard. He had a nice ridge to sit on. But then the day wore on, and nobody came to help him, and every German within earshot was marching to the sound of the guns. By 7:30 p.m., Frossard realized he had to get out and retreat south through the night.
Obviously, the French didn't feel good about this. And the Germans now camped on the battlelfield felt like the victors. But Howard points out that it wasn't the 4,500 Prussians who died in front of the ridge who chased Frossard off ; it was a half-hearted attack on the rear. The Prussians could have driven the French back without shedding much blood at all.
"But the Prussian generals were true disciples of Clausewitz," Howard said sadly. "For them, battle was its own justification."
I don't necessarily agree with this. I don't think the Prussians were all that dumb. I say they really were the victors even though Moltke's grand strategy was screwed up. This battle totally rattled the French commanders and they never really recovered. And really, isn't that what the Prussians wanted? I mean, they weren't dying for a ridge and some trees.
Maybe throwing a wrench into the French command was worth the cost. Clause himself said that armies weren't made to march around the countryside avoiding battle — they were there to force some decisive action.
Sorry, Howard. I gotta go wth Clause with this one
The King’s nephew Frederick Charles (“Mr. Cautious”) was marching south from the Rhine to Saarbrucken through the mountains. Steinmetz (“Mr. Crazy”) was marching to Saarbrucken from the west. Separated from these two armies by 50 miles of mountains we had the Crown Prince (“Mr. Crabby”) out in the East.
Moltke wanted to attack the French army right away, but Mr. Crabby said he wasn’t ready. So Moltke told Mr. Crazy (Steinmetz) to move a little southeast. Steinmetz refused; instead he took his army straight into the path of the 2nd Army, led by Mr. Cautious (Frederick Charles).
OK, that didn’t go well, obviously. “It was becoming clear,” said Howard a little grumpily, “that Moltke’s plans were more likely to be disrupted by his own subordinates than by the French.”
Moltke’s original plan to encircle the French was now in the trash can, but he still had a chance to try again if only Steinmetz did as he was told this time.
So now two overlapping German armies were marching on Saarbrucken. They get to the Saarbrucken heights — no French. They march a mile south and there the enemy is, based at the Spicheren high ground and strung out to hell and back.
The French must be retreating, the Germans decided, and they tossed aside Moltke’s detailed plans. The first German general on the scene attacked the French at Spicheren.
At first that was okay with the French general Frossard. He had a nice ridge to sit on. But then the day wore on, and nobody came to help him, and every German within earshot was marching to the sound of the guns. By 7:30 p.m., Frossard realized he had to get out and retreat south through the night.
Obviously, the French didn't feel good about this. And the Germans now camped on the battlelfield felt like the victors. But Howard points out that it wasn't the 4,500 Prussians who died in front of the ridge who chased Frossard off ; it was a half-hearted attack on the rear. The Prussians could have driven the French back without shedding much blood at all.
"But the Prussian generals were true disciples of Clausewitz," Howard said sadly. "For them, battle was its own justification."
I don't necessarily agree with this. I don't think the Prussians were all that dumb. I say they really were the victors even though Moltke's grand strategy was screwed up. This battle totally rattled the French commanders and they never really recovered. And really, isn't that what the Prussians wanted? I mean, they weren't dying for a ridge and some trees.
Maybe throwing a wrench into the French command was worth the cost. Clause himself said that armies weren't made to march around the countryside avoiding battle — they were there to force some decisive action.
Sorry, Howard. I gotta go wth Clause with this one
The Franco-Prussian War: If you blink, you’ll miss it
I guess I should’ve noticed this sooner, but the Franco-Prussian War was not what you’d call a long conflict. It lasted from July 19, 1870 to May 10, 1871. That’s less than a year. I’ve got stuff in my freezer that’s been there longer.
Generally I read about long wars with multiple campaigns and a revolving cast of characters spread out over long distances, even between continents. Such books include pages of maps and jarring, six-month leaps in time. (“The following winter, General Robert E. Lee was still …”)
So this book moves at a pretty slow pace, which is to be expected if you’re spending 456 pages on a 9-month war. That’s like one and a half pages per day, although of course it doesn’t work out that way with all the analyses of forces and such.
This means I’m occasionally looking up and saying things like: “Aren’t we done mobilizing yet?” and “When does the first general get fired?” and finally: “My God, I’ve read 80 pages and it’s not even August yet — when is somebody going to start shooting?”
But enough with the complaining. It’s time to present the crucial element that begins any bloody conflict between two proud and battle-hungry combatants: The Trivial Incident.
As such Incidents go, the one that sparked the Franco-Prussian War was one of the weird ones. It was called “The Hohenzollern Candidature.” (1)
Spain in 1780 didn’t have a king. I don’t know why, or why they couldn’t pick a nice Spaniard to do the job, but they asked a German named Leopold.
This was OK with Leo and Prussia’s King William I, but when the French found out, they went absolutely bananas. Leo withdrew his bid for the throne, but that wasn’t good enough for France. They wanted Prussia humiliated. Some cranky comments by King William about the whole affair get leaked to the press, and the next thing you know, everyone’s declaring war over an unstable throne that nobody really wanted anyway.
Prussia lost no time lining up its three armies as planned. King William’s nephew Frederick Charles — Howard called Fred “cautious to the point of timidity” — would lead the 2nd Army. The Crown Prince drew the 3rd Army, which was full of unenthusiastic southern Germans. The 1st Army went to a man called Steinmetz, who Howard called “willful, obstinate and impatient of control.”
France had planned for three armies as well, but at the last minute Napoleon III threw out that plan in favor of one big army under his personal command. The mobilization of the French troops was total chaos and soldiers were gravely short of both food and discipline.
Everyone assumed the France would attack Germany right away – nobody considered an invasion of France. Helmuth von Moltke, chief of staff of the Prussian army, knew that every day that went by without a French attack tilted the balance in his favor. But France was too screwed up to attack. “By the beginning of August, as trains from all over Germany poured uninterruptedly into the Rhine, Moltke could scarcely believe his fortune.”
Meanwhile, Lebouf, France’s minister of war, felt pretty good about his own country’s mobilization until he came to Metz and looked things over. Supplies were piled up everywhere. Not enough men were gathering to invade Germany. There were barely enough around to defend Metz.
Napoleon III turned up on July 28, but he was little help. “The campaign of 1859 had shown his total incapacity for generalship even when in good health,” Howard said. “Now he was suffering agonizingly from the stone and in constant pain.”
On Jul y 31, the French army started a series of confused marches in the rain, then performed the easy task of taking Saarbrucken with great style. And so hostilities began.
___________________
(1) Soon to be a Hollywood thriller starring Matt Damon as Jason Hohenzollern.
Generally I read about long wars with multiple campaigns and a revolving cast of characters spread out over long distances, even between continents. Such books include pages of maps and jarring, six-month leaps in time. (“The following winter, General Robert E. Lee was still …”)
So this book moves at a pretty slow pace, which is to be expected if you’re spending 456 pages on a 9-month war. That’s like one and a half pages per day, although of course it doesn’t work out that way with all the analyses of forces and such.
This means I’m occasionally looking up and saying things like: “Aren’t we done mobilizing yet?” and “When does the first general get fired?” and finally: “My God, I’ve read 80 pages and it’s not even August yet — when is somebody going to start shooting?”
But enough with the complaining. It’s time to present the crucial element that begins any bloody conflict between two proud and battle-hungry combatants: The Trivial Incident.
As such Incidents go, the one that sparked the Franco-Prussian War was one of the weird ones. It was called “The Hohenzollern Candidature.” (1)
Spain in 1780 didn’t have a king. I don’t know why, or why they couldn’t pick a nice Spaniard to do the job, but they asked a German named Leopold.
This was OK with Leo and Prussia’s King William I, but when the French found out, they went absolutely bananas. Leo withdrew his bid for the throne, but that wasn’t good enough for France. They wanted Prussia humiliated. Some cranky comments by King William about the whole affair get leaked to the press, and the next thing you know, everyone’s declaring war over an unstable throne that nobody really wanted anyway.
Prussia lost no time lining up its three armies as planned. King William’s nephew Frederick Charles — Howard called Fred “cautious to the point of timidity” — would lead the 2nd Army. The Crown Prince drew the 3rd Army, which was full of unenthusiastic southern Germans. The 1st Army went to a man called Steinmetz, who Howard called “willful, obstinate and impatient of control.”
France had planned for three armies as well, but at the last minute Napoleon III threw out that plan in favor of one big army under his personal command. The mobilization of the French troops was total chaos and soldiers were gravely short of both food and discipline.
Everyone assumed the France would attack Germany right away – nobody considered an invasion of France. Helmuth von Moltke, chief of staff of the Prussian army, knew that every day that went by without a French attack tilted the balance in his favor. But France was too screwed up to attack. “By the beginning of August, as trains from all over Germany poured uninterruptedly into the Rhine, Moltke could scarcely believe his fortune.”
Meanwhile, Lebouf, France’s minister of war, felt pretty good about his own country’s mobilization until he came to Metz and looked things over. Supplies were piled up everywhere. Not enough men were gathering to invade Germany. There were barely enough around to defend Metz.
Napoleon III turned up on July 28, but he was little help. “The campaign of 1859 had shown his total incapacity for generalship even when in good health,” Howard said. “Now he was suffering agonizingly from the stone and in constant pain.”
On Jul y 31, the French army started a series of confused marches in the rain, then performed the easy task of taking Saarbrucken with great style. And so hostilities began.
___________________
(1) Soon to be a Hollywood thriller starring Matt Damon as Jason Hohenzollern.
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Franco-Prussian War: Revenge of the Paper-Pushers
“The Franco-Prussian War” by Michael Howard
I’ll confess that when I opened this book, I knew very little about the Franco-Prussian War. I didn’t even know who won until I read the front flap. (“Darn, now I know the ending!”
The author, Michael Howard, would be appalled by this, of course. He wrote this book for serious history students who know all the players, read French and German fluently (1), and can find Staarbrucker on a map.
But despite the language barriers, the Franco-Prussian War fills a vital gap in history for me. I’ve spent some time with Napoleon I and Clausewitz and the Civil War generals, but then it’s a long dark night until Franz Ferdinand gets shot in Sarajevo in 1914.
So it’s time for the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871, between a barely united north Germany under Prince William and France under Napoleon III.
SPOILER ALERT: The Germans win.
In the 40 years following the Napoleonic Wars, Howard says, big armies supported by mobilized nations went right out of style. European governments were back to running little armies as a side hobby. The emerging middle class was more interested in making money than going to war.
“Everywhere armies languished in unpopular and impoverished isolation,’ Howard said.
Well, isn't that so sad. Poor, peaceful Europe.
That changed when Prince William took the Prussian throne in 1858. In a few short years he and his buddy Roon remodeled the army, created a North German Confederation and won some victories. The French also reformed their own military somewhat, creating a bigger army, but they didn’t account for the changes science and industry had made to war.
The Germans did. They realized that army commanders needed a good general staff now so they could split up their big armies and move them around. “The Prussian general staff acted as a nervous system animating the lumbering body of the army,” Howard said.
The French, on the other hand, “huddled together in masses without the technical ability to disperse.” They had a good breech-loading system, but terrible artillery. (2)
In effect, the Franco-Prussian conflict was the first Paper-Pushing War. Its outcome would depend on organization, not skill in leadership or courage in battle. Armies had to be in the right place, on time and in adequate strength. That certainly didn’t bode well for the French.
But in 1870, France felt fairly good about their reforms. They had nearly 500,000 soldiers available and could scrape up 300,000 more. They had tons of supplies.
“By the standards of its last campaigns, the French Army was ready,” said Howard. “It was the tragedy of the French Army, and of the French nation, that they did not realize in time that military organization had entered into an entirely new age.”
____________________________________________________
(1) The book's footnotes are filled with long quotes in French or German that probably begin “Ha ha, you monolingual Americans have no clue what’s going on here! Ha ha!” Not that I’m paranoid.
(2) Howard makes a little side joke about the artillery in French here. Apparently France’s minister of war just filed away reports about some great steel guns with the comment “Rien a fair.” I think that means “Nothing to do.”
I’ll confess that when I opened this book, I knew very little about the Franco-Prussian War. I didn’t even know who won until I read the front flap. (“Darn, now I know the ending!”
The author, Michael Howard, would be appalled by this, of course. He wrote this book for serious history students who know all the players, read French and German fluently (1), and can find Staarbrucker on a map.
But despite the language barriers, the Franco-Prussian War fills a vital gap in history for me. I’ve spent some time with Napoleon I and Clausewitz and the Civil War generals, but then it’s a long dark night until Franz Ferdinand gets shot in Sarajevo in 1914.
So it’s time for the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871, between a barely united north Germany under Prince William and France under Napoleon III.
SPOILER ALERT: The Germans win.
In the 40 years following the Napoleonic Wars, Howard says, big armies supported by mobilized nations went right out of style. European governments were back to running little armies as a side hobby. The emerging middle class was more interested in making money than going to war.
“Everywhere armies languished in unpopular and impoverished isolation,’ Howard said.
Well, isn't that so sad. Poor, peaceful Europe.
That changed when Prince William took the Prussian throne in 1858. In a few short years he and his buddy Roon remodeled the army, created a North German Confederation and won some victories. The French also reformed their own military somewhat, creating a bigger army, but they didn’t account for the changes science and industry had made to war.
The Germans did. They realized that army commanders needed a good general staff now so they could split up their big armies and move them around. “The Prussian general staff acted as a nervous system animating the lumbering body of the army,” Howard said.
The French, on the other hand, “huddled together in masses without the technical ability to disperse.” They had a good breech-loading system, but terrible artillery. (2)
In effect, the Franco-Prussian conflict was the first Paper-Pushing War. Its outcome would depend on organization, not skill in leadership or courage in battle. Armies had to be in the right place, on time and in adequate strength. That certainly didn’t bode well for the French.
But in 1870, France felt fairly good about their reforms. They had nearly 500,000 soldiers available and could scrape up 300,000 more. They had tons of supplies.
“By the standards of its last campaigns, the French Army was ready,” said Howard. “It was the tragedy of the French Army, and of the French nation, that they did not realize in time that military organization had entered into an entirely new age.”
____________________________________________________
(1) The book's footnotes are filled with long quotes in French or German that probably begin “Ha ha, you monolingual Americans have no clue what’s going on here! Ha ha!” Not that I’m paranoid.
(2) Howard makes a little side joke about the artillery in French here. Apparently France’s minister of war just filed away reports about some great steel guns with the comment “Rien a fair.” I think that means “Nothing to do.”
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