Sedan 1870: The Eclipse of France

An historian and former archivist who has translated two remarkable French memoirs of the Franco-Prussian War (The Reality of War, and The Shame of Defeat, 1870-1871: A French Army Surgeon in the Franco-Prussian War), Douglas Fermer's Sedan 1870 deals with an old battle which led to the collapse of an imperial dynasty and the appearance of a new power in European politics.

At Sedan in 1870, the Prussian war machine that gained renown under King Frederick the Great in the mid-18th century, and which suffered humiliation at the hands of Emperor Napoleon I in the early 19th century, came full circle to dominate the battlefield at the dawn of the 20th century. Relations between France and the German states—especially Prussia—were far from cordial throughout the 19th century and Napoleon had been seen by the Germans as either a conqueror or as a unifier. The reaction against him put the most conservative and most militaristic of the German kingdoms, Prussia, on a course towards reforming its military system and also sparked a growing rivalry between it and the Austrian Hapsburg Empire for the leadership of the German nation.

In his effort to achieve Prussian pre-eminence, King Wilhelm I modified the army. Regiments were doubled in size. Men were conscripted to serve three years in the active army, five in the reserve and 11 in Prussia's national guard, the Landwehr. The king armed his infantry with the new breech-loading rifle patented by Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse, and his artillery with cast-steel breech-loading cannons, developed by Alfred Krupp. This re-armament process required money that the Prussian parliament refused to authorise; in response, Wilhelm's war minister, Albrecht von Roon, recalled Otto von Bismarck from his position in Paris to become prime minister and foreign minister, and to override parliamentary objections. Wilhelm also appointed Helmuth von Moltke as the army's chief of staff. To concentrate his forces as soon as possible Moltke doubled the amount of railway cars available for transport. He also modernized the medical services, the Crimean War and the Battle of Solferino having shown that those who died post-battle were many more than those who died in battle. The new Prussian army proved its capabilities in the wars against Denmark in 1864 and Austria in 1866. In the face of the growing Prussian threat, French Emperor Napoleon III also strove to modernize his army. The French already had Chassepot bolt-action rifles, as well as about 250 Montigny mitrailleuses—predecessors of the Nordenfeld machine gun—when they declared war on July 17, 1870. 

The author focuses on two battles to set the stage for Sedan: Froeschviller on August 6, 1870, which compelled Marshal Patrice de MacMahon's army to abandon Alsace, and the battle of Baumont on August 30, which also forced MacMahon to retreat to the fort of Sedan. Both battles demonstrated the inadequacy of the old Bronze 12-pounder against the cast-steel Krupp gun, as well as the nonsense of French cavalry charges against disciplined infantry. On the other hand, German frontal assaults without artillery support proved just as costly.

Fermer's principal narrative describes, step by step, the severe battles around Sedan, from Bazailles, where 2,700 French marines were lost fighting “to the last cartridge,” to the final entrapment of the French army. Present with the Prussian staff to witness the surrender of the French army and its emperor was an observing representative of another new, growing power, General Philip H. Sheridan. Besides clarifying the political background of the conflict, the author succeeds in making the reader privy to the brutal realities of the Franco-Prussian War, as well as the hesitancy that pervaded not only the French but also the German commanders on the road to victory. Anyone interested in the full background of the Franco-German rivalry that marked the period of 1870 to 1945 will find Sedan 1870 a must-read.

Thomas Zacharis (Ed. H. D. W.)