Read Ebook: The Downfall (La Débâcle): A Story of the Horrors of War by Zola Mile Vizetelly Ernest Alfred Translator

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Without taking part in the dispute, Jean considered the lieutenant to be in the right. Though astonished by the long delays and the prevailing confusion, he had never doubted that they would give the Prussians a fearful thrashing. It was sure and certain, indeed, since he and his comrades had been sent there for no other purpose.

Then, with that sober-minded air of his, he explained his fears: the victory of Sadowa had brought Prussia increased power, a national movement was placing her at the head of the other German States, a vast empire was in progress of formation, men were seized with an enthusiastic, irresistible impulse to secure the unification of the Fatherland. Thanks to the system of compulsory military service the whole nation was up in arms, fully instructed, well disciplined, provided with a powerful war material, trained also to European warfare, and still flushed with the glory of its triumph over Austria. The intelligence and moral strength of this army were also to be noted; nearly all the commanders were young men, and took their orders from a generalissimo who seemed destined to revolutionise the entire art of war, whose prudence and foresight were perfect, and whose perspicuity was marvellous. Then, confronting Germany, Weiss boldly depicted France: the Empire greatly aged, still acclaimed, as witness the Plebiscitum, but rotten at the basis, having weakened love of country by destroying liberty, and having reverted to liberal courses when these could be of no avail but could only accelerate its fall; and exposed, moreover, to crumble away as soon as it ceased to encourage the appetite for enjoyment which itself had fostered. The army, still laden with the laurels of the Crimea and Italy, was certainly splendidly brave; but the system of allowing men to escape service by a pecuniary payment had tampered with its efficiency; and it had been abandoned to the routine of the Algerian school, and was far too confident of victory to make any real effort for proficiency in the new science of war. Finally, the generals, for the most part of indifferent merit, were consumed by rivalry, whilst some were crassly ignorant, and at the head of them there was the Emperor, ailing and hesitating, deceived by others and deceiving himself as to the outcome of this frightful adventure, into which they all plunged like blind men, without any attempt at serious preparation, and amid universal bewilderment and confusion, like that of a scared flock driven to the slaughter-house.

Rochas stood there listening, agape, with his eyes wide open and his terrible nose contracted. Suddenly, however, he made up his mind to laugh, with a huge laugh that distended his jaws from ear to ear. 'What are you cackling there? What does all this humbug mean?' he shouted. 'There's no sense in it; it is too stupid for anyone to trouble his head about. Go and tell it to the marines if you like, but not to me; no, not to me. I've seen twenty-seven years' service!'

So saying, he struck his chest with his clenched hand. The son of a journeyman mason from the Limousin country, Rochas had been born in Paris, and not caring for his father's calling had enlisted when he was only eighteen. A true soldier of fortune, he started off with his knapsack, gaining a corporal's stripes in Algeria, rising to the rank of a sergeant at Sebastopol, and promoted to a lieutenancy after Solferino. Fifteen years of hardship and heroic bravery was the price he had paid to become an officer, but he was so painfully ignorant that it was certain he would never be made a captain.

He was brimming over with delight, and all the old military gaiety of France rang out in his triumphant laugh. This was the legend--the French trooper marching victoriously all over the world with his sweetheart on one hand and a glass of good wine in the other; the universe conquered whilst singing a drinking refrain. A French corporal and four men, and lo! immense armies of foreigners bit the dust.

But he suddenly thundered out: 'Beaten, France beaten! Those Prussian pigs beat such men as we!' Then stepping up to Weiss he caught hold of a lapel of his coat. His tall, slim, knight-errant style of figure expressed profound contempt for any enemy, no matter who that enemy might be, and supreme indifference as to conditions of time and place. 'Listen to me, sir,' he said; 'if the Prussians dare to come here we will escort them home again--we'll kick them all the way back--all the way back to Berlin. You hear me!'

Dazed and almost convinced, Weiss hastily declared that he asked for nothing better. As for Maurice, who held his tongue, not daring to speak out before his superior, he ended by laughing in unison with him. That devil of a lieutenant, stupid though he was, had warmed his heart. Jean, too, with a nod of the head, had approved each of the lieutenant's words. He also had fought at Solferino, when it rained so heavily. Moreover, that was the proper way to speak. If all the officers had spoken like that, the men would not have cared a fig about there being no pots or pans, or flannel waistbands.

He drew himself still more erect, raising his arm like a flag-staff. 'Listen, there has been fighting to-day, and the staff are waiting for news. Well, I'll tell you what news will come! The Prussians have been thrashed--thrashed to such a point that they have neither arms nor legs left them, thrashed to such a degree that only crumbs of them remain for us to sweep away!'

At that moment a loud, dolorous cry resounded under the sombre heavens. Was it the plaintive note of some night bird? Was it the sobbing voice of Mystery coming from afar? The whole camp, shrouded in darkness, shuddered at the sound, and the disquietude fostered by the delay in the arrival of the expected despatches became more intense, feverish, and widespread. The flame of the candle that illuminated the anxious vigil of the staff had shot up higher, and now it was shining erect, without a flicker, like the flame of a taper beside a death-bed.

But it was ten o'clock; and Gaude, springing from the dark ground where he had been lost to view, was the first to sound the signal for the men to retire for the night. Far and near, the other bugles replied, till the sound gradually died away in a faint flourish, as though the very instruments were drowsy. Then Weiss, who had lingered there so long, affectionately pressed Maurice to his heart, and bade him be brave and hopeful. He would kiss Henriette for him, and say all manner of kind things to uncle Fouchard.

Just as he was going off a rumour sped through the camp causing a feverish agitation: Marshal MacMahon had gained a great victory, it was said; the Crown Prince of Prussia and 25,000 men had been taken prisoners; the enemy had been driven back, annihilated, leaving his guns and baggage in the hands of the French.

'Of course!' exclaimed Rochas in his thundering voice; and running after Weiss, who, quite delighted, was hastening away towards Mulhausen, he added: 'We'll kick them all the way back, sir, all the way back!'

A quarter of an hour later, however, a despatch announced that the army had been obliged to abandon Woerth, and was in full retreat. Ah! What a night! Rochas, overcome by sleep, had wrapped himself in his cloak, and as often happened was slumbering on the ground, disdaining any shelter. Maurice and Jean had slipped into the tent, where, with their heads resting on their knapsacks, Loubet, Chouteau, Pache, and Lapoulle had already settled themselves. There was just room for six men, provided they curled up their legs. At the outset Loubet enlivened all these hungry fellows by convincing Lapoulle that some fowls would be given out at ration time, next day; they felt so tired, however, that they were soon snoring, careless whether the Prussians came or not. Jean remained for a moment quite motionless, pressed close against Maurice. Despite his great fatigue he could not get to sleep, for everything that Weiss had said of the innumerable, all-devouring German nation, that was up in arms against France, was revolving in his brain; and he realised that his companion also was awake, thinking of the self-same things. Suddenly Maurice drew back impatiently, and Jean divined that he inconvenienced him. The instinctive enmity and repugnance, due to difference of class and education, that separated the peasant from the young man of culture, assumed a form of physical dislike. It filled Jean with a feeling of shame and secret sadness, and he tried to make himself small, as it were, to escape the hostile contempt that he divined in Maurice. The night was freshening, but inside the tent, with all these closely packed bodies, the atmosphere became so stifling that Maurice, seized with feverish exasperation, at length bounded outside, and stretched himself on the ground a few paces off. Jean, feeling quite wretched, sank into a kind of semi-somnolence, full of unpleasant dreams, in which his sorrow that nobody cared for him was mingled with the apprehension of a terrible misfortune, which he fancied he could hear galloping along, afar off, in the depths of the Unknown.

Several hours must have elapsed, and the whole black, motionless camp seemed to be annihilated beneath the oppressive weight of that dense, evil night, heavy with something fearful which was as yet without a name. Every now and again there was an upheaval of that sea of darkness, a sudden groan resounded from some invisible tent, the gasp of some soldier in a fitful dream. Then there came noises that were not easily recognised, the snorting of a horse, the clash of a sabre, the hasty footsteps of some belated prowler--all those commonplace sounds which acquire at times a menacing sonority. Suddenly a great glow blazed forth near the canteen. The front was brilliantly illuminated, and the piles of arms could be seen with ruddy reflections streaking the burnished barrels of the guns, as if with trickling runnels of freshly shed blood. The sentinels stood out dark and erect amid this sudden conflagration. Was this the enemy, whose appearance the officers had been predicting for two days past, and to meet whom they had marched expressly from Belfort to Mulhausen? Then, amid a great crackling and sparkling, the flame suddenly went out. After smouldering for hours, the pile of green wood, with which Lapoulle and Loubet had busied themselves so long, had all at once blazed up and burnt away as though it had been so much straw.

Alarmed by the bright glow, Jean in his turn had precipitately bounded out of the tent, and in doing so he narrowly missed stumbling over Maurice, who lay there, looking on, with his head resting upon his elbow. The night had already fallen again, more dense than ever, and the two men remained there stretched on the bare ground, at a few paces from one another. In front of them, in the depths of the gloom, there still shone the window of the farmhouse, illumined by that solitary candle that looked like a funeral taper. What could be the time? Two o'clock, three o'clock perhaps. The staff had certainly not gone to bed. One could hear the brawling voice of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, who was quite exasperated by this long vigil, which he had only been able to endure thanks to multitudinous cigars and glasses of grog. Fresh telegrams were arriving, and matters must be getting worse, for the shadowy estafettes could be indistinctly seen galloping hither and thither like men deranged. Stamping and swearing could be heard; then came a stifled gasp like that of a dying man, followed by a fearful silence. Had the end come at last? An icy chill had swept over the camp, weighed down by sleep and anguish.

Just then, as a slim, tall, shadowy figure walked past them rapidly, both Jean and Maurice recognised Colonel de Vineuil. He was with Surgeon-Major Bouroche, a stout man with the head of a lion. They were exchanging disconnected words in an undertone, words but imperfectly articulated, like those one sometimes hears in dreams: 'It came from Basle--our first division is destroyed--twelve hours' fighting, the entire army in retreat.' The colonel stopped short, and called to another shadowy figure, slight, nimble, and dapper, that was hastily approaching, 'Is that you, Beaudoin?'

'Yes, colonel.'

'Ah! my poor friend. MacMahon has been beaten at Froeschweiler, Frossard is beaten at Speichern, De Failly hemmed in between them, gave neither any support. At Froeschweiler we had but a single corps engaged against an entire army. Prodigies of valour, but everything was swept away--rout and panic, and France open to the invader.'

His sobs were choking him, and the words he added died away as he and his shadowy companions disappeared, melting as it were in the surrounding darkness.

Maurice had sprung from the ground, shuddering from head to foot. 'My God!' he stammered.

And he found nothing else to say, whilst Jean, with an icy chill at his heart, muttered: 'Ah! What cursed luck! That gentleman, your relative, was right, after all, when he said they were stronger than we are.'

Maurice, quite beside himself, felt inclined to strangle Jean. The Prussians stronger than the French! The thought made his pride revolt. But the sober-minded, stubborn peasant was already adding--'Still it doesn't much matter. A man doesn't give in just for one blow. We shall have to hit them back.'

The night had been pregnant with the anguish of this disaster. And now in the east appeared the dawn, an ambiguous dawn, infinitely sad, that whitened the tents full of sleepers, among whom one could now dimly descry the cadaverous-looking faces of Loubet and Lapoulle, Chouteau and Pache, who were still snoring with their mouths wide open. The aurora of a day of mourning was rising amid the soot-tinted mists that had ascended from the distant river.

THE PANIC--FROM BELFORT TO RHEIMS

Towards eight o'clock the heavy clouds were dissipated by the sun, and the bright, hot August Sunday shone upon Mulhausen, nestling amid the broad fertile plain. From the camp, now wide awake and buzzing with life, one could hear the bells of all the parish churches ringing out in full peal through the limpid atmosphere. Fraught though it was with a terrible disaster, this beautiful Sunday was a gay one, and the sky had a festive brilliancy.

When Gaude suddenly sounded the call to rations, Loubet affected great astonishment. What would there be? Some of that fowl which he had promised to Lapoulle the night before? Born amid the Paris Halles, in the Rue de la Cossonnerie, Loubet was the chance offspring of a market woman, and had enlisted, so he expressed it, for money's sake, after trying in turn a variety of callings. Fond of his stomach, he had a keen scent for dainty morsels, so he went off to see the rations distributed, whilst Chouteau, the artist--in reality a house painter of Montmartre--a handsome man and a revolutionist, who was furious at having been kept in the army after completing his time, began chaffing Pache, whom he had caught saying his prayers, on his knees, behind the tent. Pache, a sorry-looking little fellow with a pointed head, coming from some far-away village in Picardy, submitted to the chaffing with the patient gentleness of a martyr. He, and that colossus Lapoulle--a brutish peasant reared amid the Sologne marshes, and so stupendously ignorant that on joining the regiment he had asked to be shown the King--were the butts of the squad.

'A good mark for the commissariat!' exclaimed Chouteau.

'The fowl--why, where is it?'

'Why, there, on the ground. The fowl I promised you, the fowl the corporal brought.' So saying he pointed to a large white stone lying at their feet.

Lapoulle, quite amazed, ended by picking up the stone and turning it over in his hands.

All the other men of the squad were splitting at sight of the expression on the face of Lapoulle, who, convinced at last, was already licking his lips. Ah! that rascal Loubet, there was no chance of catching the blues in his company. When the fire crackled in the sunlight and the pot began to sing, the whole squad, ranged around it like worshippers, visibly brightened as they watched the meat dancing on the water, and sniffed the nice smell that began to spread. They had felt fearfully hungry since the night before, and the idea of feeding took precedence of everything else. The army had been beaten, but all the same they must fill their stomachs. From one end to the other of the camp the fires were flaming and the pots boiling, and a voracious delight displayed itself while the bells continued clearly pealing from every steeple in Mulhausen.

Just as nine o'clock was about to strike, however, a sudden stir spread through the camp; officers hurried hither and thither, and Lieutenant Rochas, on receiving instructions from Captain Beaudoin, passed in front of the tents of his section.

'Now then, fold up everything, pack up everything; we are starting.'

'You'll have it another day. We start at once.'

General Douay had determined on an immediate retreat, for some serious reasons. The Sub-Prefect of Schelestadt's despatch, already three days old, had been confirmed. Telegrams stated that Prussian camp-fires had again been seen threatening Markolsheim, and that an army corps of the enemy was crossing the Rhine at Huningen. Full and precise details were at hand; cavalry and artillery had been observed, with infantry marching from all directions to their rallying point. An hour's delay, and the line of retreat on Belfort would assuredly be intercepted. As a result of the defeats of Weissenburg and Froeschweiler, the general, isolated, adrift in his advanced position, now had no alternative but to fall back in all haste, especially as the morning's tidings were worse even than those of the night before.

The staff set out ahead at a rapid trot, spurring their horses onward and in dread lest they should be outstripped and find the Prussians already at Altkirch. General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, foreseeing a hard march, took the precaution to pass through Mulhausen, where he breakfasted copiously, cursing the scramble all the while. And Mulhausen, as the officers rode through it, wore a sorrowful aspect. At news of the retreat the townsfolk poured into the streets, lamenting the sudden departure of the troops whose protection they had so pressingly implored. So they were to be abandoned, and all the valuable supplies accumulated at the railway station were to be left for the enemy; even the town itself would perhaps be merely a captured town before the evening. Along the country roads, the villagers and the peasants dwelling in wayside homesteads also hurried to their doors in astonishment and dismay. So the regiments they had seen marching to battle only the day before were already retreating, flying from the enemy without even having fought! The commanders were gloomy, and without answering any questions urged on their horses, as though the very fiend were at their heels. Was it true then that the Prussians had crushed the army, and were pouring forth from all sides into France like the waters of a swollen river? And, infected with the growing panic, the peasants fancied they could hear the distant roll of the invasion travelling through the atmosphere and roaring louder and louder every moment. Then carts were filled with furniture, houses were swiftly emptied, and families fled one after another by the roads along which fear was galloping.

In the confusion of the retreat, whilst skirting the canal from the Rhone to the Rhine, the 106th was brought to a halt near the bridge, after covering only the first thousand yards of the march. The marching orders, given badly enough, had been even worse executed, and had resulted in the whole of the Second Division crowding together at this spot. The passage was so narrow--barely sixteen feet--that the defiling seemed likely to last for ever.

Two hours elapsed and the 106th was still waiting there, facing the interminable stream of troops that flowed past it. Standing under the fiery sunrays with their knapsacks on their shoulders and their arms grounded, the men at last waxed indignant in their impatience.

'It seems we belong to the rear-guard,' said Loubet in that waggish voice of his.

'They are having a fine game with us, letting us roast here,' cried Chouteau in a rage; 'we were the first to arrive, we ought to have gone on ahead.'

At sight of the broad fertile plain and the level roads intersecting the hop grounds and fields of ripe corn, on the other side of the canal, it was now quite apparent that they were retreating, returning indeed along the same route they had come by the day before, and as this was realised jeers and furious scoffing sped through the ranks.

'So we are taking to our heels,' resumed Chouteau. 'Well, this march to meet the enemy, which they have been dinning into our ears since the other morning, is a precious funny one. Really now, this is too much bluster! We arrive, and then back we bolt without even having time to eat anything.'

However, Lieutenant Rochas began to trounce Sergeant Sapin for the disorderly bearing of his men; and hearing the noise, Captain Beaudoin, as dapper as ever, drew near: 'Silence in the ranks!'

Jean, who like a well-disciplined veteran soldier held his peace, was looking at Maurice, who seemed amused by Chouteau's malignant, passionate raillery: and he was astonished that a gentleman who had received so much schooling should approve of things which, however true they might be, were certainly not things to be said. If each soldier began blaming the generals and giving his opinion, they would certainly not get on together.

At last, after waiting another hour, the 106th was ordered to advance. The bridge, however, was still so crowded with the fag end of the division that the most deplorable disorder was created. Several regiments became intermingled; some companies were carried along and got across, whilst others, driven to the edge of the roadway, had to stay there marking time. And to make matters worse, a squadron of cavalry insisted on passing, driving the laggards who were already falling out of the ranks of the infantry into the neighbouring fields. After an hour's marching, quite a large party of stragglers stretched along the road, crawling and dawdling at their ease.

It was thus that Jean found himself in the rear, adrift with his squad, which he had not cared to leave, in the depths of a hollow road. The 106th had disappeared, not another man nor an officer of the company was to be seen--only solitary soldiers, a medley of strange men exhausted at the very outset of the march, and who were walking along leisurely wheresoever the paths might lead them. The sunrays were overpowering, it was extremely hot, and the knapsacks, rendered the heavier by the tents and all the complicated paraphernalia that swelled them out, weighed terribly on the men's shoulders. Many of these stragglers were not habituated to carrying them, and were inconvenienced too by their thick, campaigning great-coats, which seemed to them like leaden vestments. All at once a pale little linesman, whose eyes were full of tears, stopped short and flung his knapsack into a ditch with a deep sigh of relief, the long breath which the man who has been agonising draws as he feels himself coming back to life.

'He's in the right,' muttered Chouteau, though he himself continued marching along with his shoulders bending under the knapsack's weight. Two other men, however, having disburdened themselves, he could no longer hold out. 'Ah: curse it!' he cried, and with a jerk of his shoulders he tossed his knapsack on to the bank. Half a hundredweight on his shoulders--no, thanks. He had had enough of it. They were not beasts of burden that they should have to drag such things about.

Immediately afterwards Loubet imitated him, and compelled Lapoulle to do the same. Pache, who crossed himself each time they came upon a wayside cross, unfastened the straps of his knapsack, and carefully deposited it at the foot of a low wall, as if intending to come back and fetch it. And Maurice alone was still laden when Jean, on turning round, saw what his men had done.

'Take up your knapsacks. I shall have to pay for it if you don't.'

The men, however, without as yet openly revolting, trudged on silently, with an evil expression on their faces, as they pushed the corporal before them along the narrow road.

'Take them up or I shall report you!'

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