Abstract
Staff Ride Question: Can such things as enduring lessons be drawn from previous eras? Discuss with reference to the Franco‐Prussian campaigns of 1870.
Introduction
The Franco‐PrussianFootnote 1 War was the largest and most important war in Europe between the age of Napoleon I and World War I. It was fought by two of the European Great Powers, one long established and the other emerging, conducted without outside intervention. Its cessation preceded over 40 years of peace in Europe and saw the emergence of a unified Germany, signifying ‘a seismic shift in international relations’.Footnote 2 It also marked the end of France’s Second Empire and confirmed the end of France’s dominance in continental Europe.
The Franco‐Prussian War saw the emergence of huge armies and the mass mobilisation of reservists and new methods of command, control and communications that were refined by the emergence of new technology. In its conduct, the Franco‐Prussian War blended the weapons, tactics and methods of an earlier era with new military science. Though soldiers fought this war, armaments factories, public opinion, the media, military staff work and mass revolution influenced it. This new pattern of total warfare affected not just the soldiers of the two protagonists, but also large parts of the civilian populations of both France and Germany. It therefore marked the beginning of ‘an age of absolute war’.Footnote 3
In this article, the relevance of military history is examined, with particular reference to General Helmuth von Moltke,Footnote 4 Chief of the Prussian General Staff and mastermind of the Prussian victories during the Franco‐Prussian War. The 1870 campaign is then examined in three specific areas that contributed to the defeat of the French Army: the organisation of the armies, preparation for the campaign and the conduct of operations. Finally, enduring lessons will be drawn out where appropriate.
The Value of Military History as seen by Moltke
It is axiomatic that enduring lessons can be drawn from previous eras and Moltke had no doubts as to the value of military history. He regarded it to be so important that he ensured that the promotion of its study was one of the central responsibilities of the Prussian General Staff, rather than leaving it to anyone else. He himself set the style of study of military history by his monograph on the Italian or Franco‐Austrian War of 1859, which was first published in 1862. He wrote an objective description of that war in order to draw valid practical conclusions. The history of the Austro‐Prussian War of 1866 was later written in a similar manner under his direction and he took the view that strategy could benefit greatly from history, provided that it was studied with the right sense of perspective.
According to Moltke, historical study was also of the greatest usefulness in acquainting a future commander with the complexity of the circumstances in which military actions could take place. He believed that no staff or army exercises, ‘indispensable as they were for the training of staff officers, could put before their eyes as realistic a picture of the significant aspects of war as history was able to do’.Footnote 5 According to Sir John Keegan, Moltke ‘held it a duty of piety and patriotism’ to study military history.Footnote 6 After the conclusion of the Franco‐Prussian War, he ensured that the Prussian General Staff recorded it comprehensively for future study. Other nations, particularly France and Britain, also analysed the campaigns in detail.Footnote 7
Moltke’s view on the value of military history strikes a chord with current thinking. Keith Simpson emphasises that the fundamental relevance of the study of military history is that it encourages the serviceman to think, analyse and reach conclusions about complex matters.Footnote 8
Sir Michael Howard specifies that three general rules should apply for the serviceman who studies military history as a guide to his profession. First, he should study in width over a long historical period. Second, he should study in depth, taking a single campaign and study it from every possible perspective using every source available. Finally, the serviceman should study the context of the political, economic and social factors.Footnote 9
Moltke himself would have agreed with both of these military historians and he would have undoubtedly approved of the subject of this article. However, the value of all history is qualified by its interpretation and as Napoleon I concluded: ‘What is good in one case, is bad in another.’Footnote 10 Finally, sufficient recognition must be given to the passage of time and advances in technology. It is therefore particularly important to bear this in mind when evaluating a campaign that took place over 130 years ago.
The Organisation of the Armies
In fact, the origins of the demise of the French Army began long before 1870. Richard Holmes writes: ‘The [Franco‐Prussian] war was lost not so much on the battlefields of Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne in 1870 itself, as in the French cabinet and Ministry of War, in the regiments and military academies, in the years before 1870.’Footnote 11 The organisation of the French Army was based on a system that was introduced in 1818 after the defeat of Napoleon I. The new system was based on limited conscription by ballot, which produced an army of about 288,000 long‐service troops by 1851. Recruits were not generally of high quality: men who received an ‘unlucky number’ in the ballot had to serve for seven years, although they could pay a substitute to take their places, and over half of them did so, some even taking out insurance. Illiteracy in new recruits ran at about 20–30 per cent, creating serious problems with training.
By law, at least a third of the officers had to be promoted from the ranks, and in practice more than a half of all officers were ex‐rankers. Regimental officers were a combination of older veterans and younger aristocrats, which often meant good leadership at regimental level, but produced disputes at the higher levels of command. Marshal Achille Bazaine, commander of the Armée du Rhin in 1870, had risen through the ranks, whereas Marshal Patrice MacMahon, commander of the Armée de Châlons was an aristocrat of Irish descent.
The French Army joked that it operated under ‘Le Système Debrouillage’, meaning improvisation or muddling through.Footnote 12 Its supplies and communications were often chaotic and pay was poor and promotion was slow. Despite this, it had a long record of success in a sequence of different wars, including the Crimean and Franco‐Austrian Wars, although its operational experience was predominantly based on its colonial campaigns in Algeria, where it was used to winning easy victories.Footnote 13
The French recognised that an army of 288,000 was too small in 1866, after the Austro‐Prussian War. However, they were not particularly conscious of any great military weakness compared to Prussia. In February 1868, after 16 months of debate, the Loi Niel was passed and the intake of conscripts was increased, although half of those taken were only required to serve for five months, training over a three‐year period. Conscription was reduced to five years and those who completed their service with the Army went into a new reserve for a further four years.
An attempt was also made to revive the National Guard, which was to be divided into static local National Guard forces and a Garde Mobile. However, political pressure limited Garde Mobile training to no more than 14 non‐consecutive days a year for five years, with the guardsmen returning home each night. These reforms were to produce a French wartime army of 800,000 troops, with 400,000 Garde Mobile by 1875, but they had little time to take effect before July 1870, when the active field army stood at about 277,000, plus a largely untrained reserve of 173,000 more. The Garde Mobile existed chiefly on paper and the mobilisation of 1870 undoubtedly caught the French Army in the process of changing from one recruitment system to another.Footnote 14
Morale and the efficiency of the French soldiers, particularly the non‐commissioned officers, were also very low. The Loi Niel might have given France her men, but it did not give her soldiers.Footnote 15
In contrast, the Prussians had been reorganising their army for some ten years before the 1870 campaign. In 1861 the Prussian Army stood at about 130,000 soldiers, chiefly made up of three‐year conscripts. The Landwehr, a large compulsory militia, which was officered largely by the middle classes, could be called out to fight and was seen as a liberal counterweight to the conservatism of the Prussian Army. General Albrecht von Roon, the Minister of War, saw the Prussian Army and its values as central to any national aspirations and he planned for a considerably increased army, supported by placing the Landwehr completely under army control. In 1864, the reforms were tested successfully in a renewed six‐month conflict with Denmark. The Austro‐Prussian or Seven Weeks War followed in 1866, with Prussia inflicting a crushing defeat on Austria in the war’s only major battle at Sadowa.
The combination of Prussian Minister‐President Count Otto von Bismarck’s political skill in isolating an enemy and then ending the war swiftly, coupled with Moltke’s skill in military bureaucracy and administration, were vital in ensuring a Prussian victory. The attitude of the Prussian people was also important. They willingly accepted that a large conscript army was in Prussia’s greater interest, readily subordinating themselves to its demanding discipline. They saw it as their duty to serve their king and their country.
Moltke commanded what was officially the Federal Army of the North German Confederation and its allies, although since 1867 the Prussian military system had been extended to most of the forces involved. The officers were a tight‐knit group and many of them were aristocrats for whom soldiering was a career. Conscripts entered the army at 20 years of age and served for three or four years before returning to civilian life, remaining with the Landwehr for another five years. Despite having a much larger intake than France, the quality of Prussian troops was much higher and illiteracy among the conscripts was almost unknown. In wartime, the reserve and the first year of the Landwehr (all men up to 28 years of age) could be immediately recalled for service, while the remaining Landwehr could be activated as a reserve force. This gave Moltke in 1870 a Prussian field army of some 730,000 men.Footnote 16
The lessons from this are clear. Any serious military power contemplating a major war must allow itself time to build up its regular forces to the desired level. It should also legislate for, administer, and train the requisite number of reserve forces rather than rely on notional figures. The French failed dismally in both respects and compounded the problem needlessly by declaring war first. Key to Prussian success in 1870 was the fact that they possessed a properly trained, professional army, with a reserve that could be mobilised quickly.
Unfortunately for the French, their army was a article tiger and they were unprepared for total war. General Louis Trochu, the defender of Paris, was later to write that the French Army was ready to fight in 1870, ‘as it had been for the Crimean War, the Italian War, for the Mexican adventure, for all the military experiences of that era; that is to say, [it was] ready to fight successfully and sometimes with brilliance against armies constituted and trained like itself’.Footnote 17 Sir Michael Howard writes that ‘It was the tragedy of the French army, and of the French nation, that they did not realise in time that military organisation had entered into an entirely new age.’Footnote 18 Moltke had clearly recognised this development and when it came to a war of national survival, everything depended on how well the two protagonists could translate their respective underlying strengths into military force and how well they could fight.
Preparation for the Campaign
Even if its army had been well organised when war was declared on 19 July 1870,Footnote 19 France was ill prepared to fight a major European war, although boastful of her military prowess. In contrast, across the Rhine, more than 400,000 well‐supplied Prussian troops were massed on the border, facing Alsace and Lorraine. By 1 August, Napoleon III found himself at the head of 250,000 men, most of whom were not yet ready for combat. However, the Emperor put his faith in l’élan et le cran – flair and guts ‐ of the French soldier. The 1870 campaign was the first experience of what the Prussians called ‘Millionenkrieg’ (the War of the Millions).Footnote 20 The forces that were mobilised on both sides together constituted by far the largest armies that had been seen in Europe that century. The largest army previously fielded had been La Grande Armée of Napoleon I in 1811–12, which had been at its maximum 600,000.Footnote 21 One of the major problems for the two protagonists was the movement and supply of the vast new armies. Thousands of horses for transport and haulage were also required and needed to be requisitioned. Both men and horses needed daily food and water.
Effective mobilisation and rapid deployment of the armies depended on prior planning, railroads and the telegraph. The shape of the Prussian railway system largely dictated their plans for mobilisation and concentration. Events during the American Civil War had indicated the importance of railways and had shown that mobility and logistics were now permanently to be transformed on a grand scale. The Prussians quickly recognised the specific military application and added a Railway Section to the General Staff in 1864. Their mobilisation plans, drawn up in 1869–70, provided for the three armies to assemble along the Rhine,Footnote 22 intending to envelop the French forces from both sides if they attacked eastwards. The majority of Prussian regiments were regionally based, with each parish recruiting a battalion. On mobilisation, reserves were required to return to their local depots in order to bring the regiments up to war establishment, prior to setting off by train for their concentration areas on the border.
Although the process did not go perfectly, it was enabled by the efficient use of the telegraph and effectively completed just 18 days after the mobilisation order had been issued. Including the southern allies and all the reserves of the Landwehr, about 1,183,000 men were mobilised and 462,000 were concentrated on the frontier. The Prussians had certainly learnt from the mistakes that they had made in rail transport during the Austrian campaign in 1866.
The French had some experience of railways, but the lack of detailed peacetime preparation was a great handicap. In 1870, the French mobilisation had not been planned in the Prussian fashion and it soon degenerated into chaos. Regiments were recruited from across France and were not regionally based. This led to formations taking about a month to reach full strength. Furthermore, given the urgency of the situation, French plans combined mobilisation with concentration, so that regiments departed for their concentration areas under strength, leaving the rest of their men and equipment to follow. About 2,000 separate contingents, each of 50–300 reservists, gathered together at towns throughout France, travelled first to their regimental depots, and then on to join their regiments. Stories became rife after the war of reservists who lived almost on the German frontier journeying to depots in southern France, Algeria or Corsica, and then back to their regiments on the frontier, only to arrive too late for the war.
The French Army also had to improvise: the Garde Mobile was used to augment the line infantry and ad hoc formations known as Régiments de Marche were formed by combining battalions from different organisations. These units lacked a sense of identity and were often led by inexperienced officers.
The deliberate fusion of mobilisation and concentration also resulted in major difficulties in supplying and equipping reservists, as well as units being placed under commanders who were unknown to them.Footnote 23 Logistic arrangements also broke down on mobilisation, as the Intendance refused to adopt wartime accounting, with peacetime centralisation and bureaucracy causing supply difficulties.Footnote 24 The government had reduced the military budget and the Ministry of War had failed to introduce a supply organisation that was able to respond more closely to the needs of the campaign. The medical service was totally inadequate and the inefficiency of the transport system, hindered by non‐existent staff work and poor route selection, led to traffic jams. The system of regional organisation and the absence of established corps and divisions, organised for field service with supporting arms and services attached, were also major reasons for the chaos on mobilisation.
In late July 1870, both sides expected the French to attack first, invading from Alsace and Lorraine across the common frontier into Germany. A quick attack would have given France her best chance of victory and presumably was the reason why she had sought and declared war. In reality the French were completely unprepared to take any such action, and their only plans for war with Prussia were rudimentary. The French Ministry of War had no planning function and Napoleon III’s staff was ineffective, more an imperial retinue than a military headquarters. Indeed, French strategic and operational planning was non‐existent and the Franco‐Prussian War has been identified as the only case in the nineteenth century in which a country declared war with no prior preparation or military action.Footnote 25
The only French offensive plan had been drawn up in 1868, but it lacked specification and detail. It was essentially an order of battle, creating three armies based on the main rail routes that ran into Metz and Strasbourg. As Richard Holmes comments, this plan did not survive mobilisation, let alone first contact with the enemy.Footnote 26 By the time that Napoleon III arrived at Metz on 28 July to take command, only about 200,000 French soldiers had been mobilised. In the face of inadequate supplies and equipment, many troops had to fend for themselves or wandered around looking for their units. Napoleon III realised that the process of mobilisation and concentration was proceeding so slowly that a quick offensive was impossible. Corps and divisional commanders had received no written orders or verbal instructions.
By contrast, King Wilhelm I had the services of Moltke and the Prussian General Staff. Since 1857, Moltke had concentrated on establishing his General Staff as a technically professional elite, carrying out detailed peacetime planning for future wars. The 12 most able officers out of the 40 who passed out annually from the Kriegsakademie were taken and Moltke personally supervised their training as staff officers.Footnote 27 His own headquarters was small, consisting of 11 officers, 10 draughtsmen and 7 clerks. He established staff officers at army, corps and divisional level, all of whom could quickly interpret his orders, aided by the telegraph system and numerous mounted messengers. As the General Staff representative, the chief of staff at every level had equal, and sometimes greater, authority than the formation commander. General Staff officers became known by the nickname ‘Demigods’, with no great affection.Footnote 28
On the other hand, the French Staff Corps, instituted in 1818, had a very different role and was merely a ‘vehicle for the transmission of command and the provision of orders – nothing more’. It was sadly irrelevant when the situation called for swift decisions and astute planning.Footnote 29 The French staff system had not moved on since Napoleon I and must bear much of the blame for the operational failures in 1870.
An enduring lesson that can be drawn from the build up for the campaign is that the mobilisation of reserves must be based on a workable plan and sound staff work. It takes time to deploy the reservist, whether he is part of a formed unit or as an individual, particularly if he is to be issued additional equipment or be required to conduct pre‐deployment training. Joining the main force – today most likely by air, rather than by railway – requires organisation, detailed planning, commitment of sufficient resources and a transport system that can cope with a sudden and sustained increase in use.
The Conduct of Operations
Thus, on the eve of battle, the Prussians held the advantage in critical areas: in conscription and mobilisation, deployment and training, modern large‐scale combat experience, morale, peacetime preparation, planning and logistics. These in themselves would have probably brought victory, but the incompetence of the French high command must also be added. On 31 July, Napoleon III ordered the advance, but after making minor gains, the French were soon recoiling before the Prussians. The French lost four battles in 13 days,Footnote 30 after which the Armée du Rhin under Marshal Bazaine retreated behind the fortifications of Metz, where 150,000 Prussians besieged it. A second French force under Marshal MacMahon fell back some 150 miles to Châlons‐sur‐Marne, where Napoleon III joined them. By 20 August, the Armée de Châlons had been formed and the French government insisted that it should join Bazaine who was planning to break out of Metz and move north. Napoleon III, lacking the military foresight of his uncle, agreed to advance and MacMahon led the Armée de Châlons northeast towards the Belgian frontier, in an attempt to avoid the Prussians, before striking south again to link up with Bazaine.
Moltke immediately took advantage of this incompetent manoeuvre by wheeling two of his armies north to catch the French in a pincer movement. On 30 August, the Prussians caught up with the Armée de Châlons and, after losing 5,000 men and more than 40 guns in a sharp fight, MacMahon withdrew to Sedan. By 1 September, the Armée de Châlons was overwhelmingly defeated and hopes of a French victory were gone.
At the tactical level, the French and Prussian forces were more evenly matched, but lessons can still be drawn, specifically in the areas of command and control, firepower, protection and mobility. Regarding command and control, the Prussian General Staff monitored events and the telegraph permitted some degree of control over the field armies up to 200 miles apart.Footnote 31 Since 1866, while King Wilhelm I remained the titular Commander‐in‐Chief, Moltke had established his own right to issue orders directly as Chief of Staff. Orders were delivered by the use of ‘directives’. Moltke gave his three army commanders an unprecedented degree of independence, whilst at the same time, monitoring their actions closely and constantly. The result greatly enhanced flexibility in command and control.Footnote 32 He decentralised tactical command, and control of operations was intended to be a ‘matter of day to day decision making within the context of an ongoing campaign’.Footnote 33
Unfortunately, this style of command turned out to be rather a weakness during the campaign. Moltke, the overall commander, might have had a clear enough picture of what he wanted to accomplish, but his army commanders often squandered the operational advantage by either not understanding what he wanted or just being unable to accomplish it. Moltke’s greatest problem came from General Karl von Steinmetz who commanded the Prussian First Army. During the first month of the campaign, he was wilfully obstinate, impatient and insubordinate, barely recognising Moltke’s position. He made little effort to understand his commander’s intent and scheme of manoeuvre and eventually Moltke replaced him.Footnote 34
The true essence of the Prussian command system was not to try to foresee every move in war ‘as if it were a railway timetable’. Instead, Moltke insisted that planning should only go as far as the first encounter with the enemy and for that, he needed subordinates ‘with wide ideas, men who know how to read events, in his manner’.Footnote 35 So flexible were Moltke’s plans that it proved possible to accommodate the moves and blunders of his subordinates, to the point of ensuring that even a battle that was tactically lost could result in a strategic victory.Footnote 36
Where the Prussian command system proved weak was in translating Moltke’s overall guidance into appropriate action. After 1870, he put considerable effort into developing a corps of officers who could understand a campaign and translate the general directives of a campaign commander into appropriate operational orders.
Throughout this brief war, Napoleon III in 1870 was failing in health and was in constant pain. Nevertheless, his position as head of state and the myth of his uncle as a great war‐leader persuaded him to take command.Footnote 37 The disastrous result was that he could not lead effectively himself, while his presence with the army made it impossible for anyone else to do so. Unlike King Wilhelm I, the French Emperor had little military experience and he had no equivalent to Moltke, the General Staff or Bismarck. In peacetime he had constantly interfered in military matters and he stultified the initiative of his subordinates. Compared to the Prussians, his generals lacked practical training and experience of modern European war. There is no doubt that the failure of the French high command, and Napoleon III and Marshal Bazaine in particular, were significant factors in the defeat of the French Army during the early weeks of the campaign.
Weapon technology made a major difference to the way that both sides fought. The French Chassepot breechloader rifle was superior to the Prussian Dreyse ‘needle gun’ with almost twice the effective range.Footnote 38 Smokeless powder for both rifles and artillery would be more than a decade in the future. Consequently, clouds of smoke and the need for close formations on the battlefield provided mass targets that were easily visible at the Chassepot’s maximum range. Although the French had little experience of fighting a major war with modern weapons, they found that the Chassepot rifle proved very capable of repelling unsupported Prussian infantry attacks.
In artillery, the Prussians held the advantage. After 1866, they had re‐equipped with the latest Krupp‐built steel rifled breech‐loaders with percussion‐fused shells that burst on impact.Footnote 39 The French had neither the time nor the money to modernise their artillery and they still used bronze muzzle‐loading cannon,Footnote 40 which only had time‐fused shells that burst at restricted pre‐set ranges. French factories did not produce sufficient percussion fuses until November 1870, by which time it was too late.Footnote 41
The growing lethality of infantry firepower and artillery naturally had an effect on troops in the open. Although increasingly vulnerable, close troop formations were still required to keep control and transmit orders, both when marching to and manoeuvring on the battlefield. Infantry tactics were ‘as often as not, murderously clumsy’Footnote 42 and had advanced little since the days of Napoleon I, although individuals were able to load and fire their rifles from the prone position and from behind cover. Little initiative was shown at the lower levels, a result of outdated tactical training and defective junior leadership.
Some French generals, particularly those with engineering experience, sought to reduce the effect of artillery by taking up strong defensive positions, thereby tempting the Prussians to advance into a hail of fire. Some used defensive entrenchments,Footnote 43 and the use of buildings as strong points was not unusual.Footnote 44
Regarding mobility, both sides employed the cavalry badly during the campaign and neither of the two traditional mounted tasks – reconnaissance and shock action – was conducted well. Reconnaissance was performed rather better by the Prussian cavalry than the French screen which was particularly ineffectual, but the difficulty in getting the information back to the main body of troops was one reason why Moltke believed that detailed planning was impossible and why the armies so often marched blindly about the countryside. As for shock action, there are numerous examples of futile cavalry charges during the campaign, most notably by a Prussian brigade at Mars‐la‐Tour and a French division at Sedan.Footnote 45
There are a number of enduring lessons that can be drawn from the way in which operations were conducted in 1870. First, it is clear that Moltke himself learned from his experience of the war. After the campaign, the concept of ‘mission command’ matured as a doctrine, inextricably linked to the development of the German General Staff.Footnote 46 There is little doubt that Moltke was exceptional for his time, both as a strategist and as a military administrator and perhaps he is an enduring lesson in himself. The contrast with the incompetent French high command is stark. Napoleon III was incapable of commanding on such a huge scale. He did not have the experience, military training, education or ability, and neither did his generals. Nor did he have the temperament and calmness necessary for controlling large masses of troops. His personal surrender at Sedan must have been very damaging to his soldiers’ morale.
Although the tactics employed in 1870 had barely changed since 1815, the advance of technology and increase in firepower had tipped the balance between firepower, protection and mobility towards static warfare, exemplified by two major investments and one siege. The dominant weapon on the battlefield was now artillery. The lesson here is that armed forces must be able to respond quickly to advances in technology and tactics.
Conclusion
At Sedan, the Prussians inflicted 17,000 French casualties, as well as taking some 83,000 prisoners and capturing all their guns and baggage, for fewer than 9,000 casualties. The Prussian victory and the humiliation of the French Army decided the outcome of the Franco‐Prussian War. Napoleon III surrendered and on 4 September, the Empire was overthrown by a popular uprising in Paris.Footnote 47 Within a fortnight the Prussians had advanced on the capital and had begun a long and harrowing siege of the city. Marshal Bazaine and the French garrison at Metz eventually capitulated on 29 October after a siege of two months and over 104,000 troops of the French Imperial Army were captured. Eventually, on 29 January 1871, all French regular troops surrendered and Paris was occupied. Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, was proclaimed German Emperor at Versailles and in May 1871, under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt, France was required to cede Alsace and two‐thirds of Lorraine, as well as pay reparations of over five thousand million francs.Footnote 48
Moltke was in no doubt about the importance of the study of military history and after the impressive Prussian victories in 1870–71, the Prussian General Staff recorded and analysed the campaigns in detail, drawing lessons in preparation for future conflicts. Across Europe, military academies and staffs also studied the Franco‐Prussian War as the model for future war in Europe. By 1898, an estimated 7,000 titles on the subject had been published.Footnote 49
Nowadays, provided that sufficient recognition is allowed for the passing of the years, enduring lessons can be drawn from the 1870 campaign for contemporary pull‐through: the importance of an effective organisation and structure of the armed forces; the necessity of workable mobilisation plans; the relevance of professional military education and training; the essential qualities of high command, including the concept of operational directives; and finally, the importance of making use of technical advances. Such lessons are as relevant now as they were in 1870, maybe even more so today, since the passage of time has perhaps strengthened and confirmed their veracity.
Notes
1 The German forces in the Franco‐Prussian War included the North German Confederation, of which Prussia was the dominant member, and the South German states of Baden, Wuerttemberg and Bavaria. To conform to common usage, the North German Confederation and its allies are referred to as the ‘Prussians’ throughout this article.
2 Simon Trew and Gary Sheffield (eds.), 100 Years of Conflict: 1901–2000 (Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing 2001) p.26. France never recovered the position that she had held before 1870. After the war, the country was slower to continue industrialising than Germany, and it fell decisively behind Great Britain as Europe’s leading financial power and foreign investor.
3 Michael Howard, The Franco‐Prussian War (London: Hart‐Davis 1961) p.3.
4 General (later Field Marshal Count) Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke (the Elder) (1800–91) was appointed Chief of the Prussian General Staff in 1858. He also masterminded the Prussian victories over Denmark (1864) and Austria (1866). His nephew (Moltke the Younger) was Chief of the German General Staff at the start of World War I.
5 Peter Paret (ed.) Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton UP 1986) p.289.
6 John Keegan, The Face of Battle (London: Jonathan Cape 1976) p.20.
7 The British Army Staff College conducted battlefield tours in Alsace and Lorraine prior to World War I. The future Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Henry Wilson, spent time ‘rambling and bicycling’ around the sites of Sedan and on the Franco‐Prussian marches, both as a student (1892–93) and as the Commandant (1907–10). Bernard Ash, The Lost Dictator: A Biography of Field‐Marshal Sir Henry Wilson (London: Cassell 1968) p.69. In France, the events of 1870–71 became the basis of the tactical training of the postwar army. Richard Holmes, The Road to Sedan: The French Army 1866–1870 (London: Royal Historical Society 1984) p.4.
8 Simpson outlines 12 reasons why servicemen should study military history including, inter alia, for intellectual curiosity, inspiration and the generation of esprit de corps. Keith Simpson, ‘The Value of Military History to the Serviceman’, RUSI Journal 133/1 (Spring 1988) pp.64–5.
9 Michael Howard , The Lessons of History (Oxford: Clarendon 1981), quoted in Simpson (note 8) p.64.
10 Quoted by Jay Luvaas , ‘Clausewitz and the American Experience’, unpublished lecture, US Army War College c1982–87, p.4.
11 Holmes, Road to Sedan (note 7) p.1.
12 Stephen Badsey, The Franco‐Prussian War 1870–1871 (London: Osprey 2003) p.16.
13 Service in the Armée d’Afrique was voluntary. The ‘Africains’ had a different style and ethos to the conscripted Metropolitan French troops. The pressure of war undoubtedly emphasised these differences and the resultant polarisation created friction and problems of morale and leadership. Holmes (note 7) pp.29–32. Some French officers who had served in Algeria developed a disdain for their opponents, which proved dangerous in other theatres of war. Ibid. p.53.
14 Badsey, Franco‐Prussian War (note 12) p.25.
15 Holmes (note 7) p.97.
16 Badsey (note 12) pp.21–2.
17 Quoted in Howard, Franco‐Prussian War (note 3) p.39.
18 Ibid. p.39.
19 The French declared war over a minor issue, the circumstances of which had undoubtedly been engineered by Bismarck, the Prussian Minister‐President. In Sept. 1868, the last ruler of Spain from the house of Bourbon, Queen Isabella II, was overthrown in a revolt. The Spaniards established a more liberal constitution and sought a suitable candidate for a constitutional monarchy. The preferred choice was Leopold, the eldest son of Prince Karl Anton of Hohenzollern‐Sigmaringen, a branch of the ruling house of Prussia. The family was reluctant, but Bismarck recognised the opportunity for confrontation and persuaded them to accept. The French protested and their ambassador in Berlin met with King Wilhelm I several times at Bad Ems near Koblenz. On 12 July 1870, it was announced that Leopold had renounced his candidacy, but France demanded more: a guarantee that Leopold would never accept the Spanish throne and an apology for the insult to France. King Wilhelm I politely declined to do this and by publishing the famous Ems Telegram, Bismarck contrived to convince the French that King Wilhelm I had insulted the French Ambassador. French public opinion demanded war, which the Assembly formally voted for on 15 July. Whereas Moltke was authorised to implement his war plans and begin mobilisation on 16 July 1870, the formal French declaration of war was delivered to Bismarck in Berlin on 19 July 1870.
20 Badsey (note 12) p.9.
21 Howard quotes Pierre Lehautcourt stating that the German Army in 1870 was the largest force assembled since the time of Xerxes. Howard (note 7) p.23. The structure of both the French and Prussian armies was similar, based on the army corps. The typical army corps was about 30,000 men strong and consisted of two, three or four infantry divisions, a cavalry division and divisional artillery. This all arms formation was equipped and organised to function and fight on its own, if necessary, like a small army. On deployment and once away from the railheads, armies moved on foot averaging about 10 miles a day. Under Napoleon I, the French Army developed the technique of army corps moving separately across country for speed of manoeuvre and ease of supply, either from supply depots or the local countryside. Given the limitations of nineteenth century roads, the army corps moved independently, only coming together for a major battle.
22 One of the most important decisions of the campaign made by Moltke was the choice of the location of the initial assembly area for the army. Moltke himself said: ‘A mistake in the original assembly of the armies can hardly be put right again in the whole course of the campaign.’ Quoted in Meyer (1996) p.38.
23 Holmes (note 7) p.25.
24 The French Intendance was responsible for the supply and distribution of food, fodder, firewood and clothing, the supervision of military administration at all levels, and the organisation and discipline of military hospitals and prisons. It also verified unit accounts. Ibid. p.74.
25 The French offensive plan envisioned a general advance into the South German States. From there, possibly with Austrian and Italian assistance, a march on Berlin was contemplated. In contrast, Moltke based his own plans on the urgent need to get as many troops to the frontier as fast as possible, even leaving supply trains behind at first to increase the number of combat soldiers. His worst‐case assessment was that the French might attack with a force of about 150,000 by 25 July, cutting through the unprepared Prussian formations. Moltke further assessed that if the French had not invaded by 1 August, the Prussians could win a defensive campaign. If the French had still not attacked by 4 August, Moltke determined that the Prussians would take the offensive. Undoubtedly, much of what happened in the first two months of the war stemmed from the reasonable Prussian assumption that the French Army and its generals, belonging to the most powerful country in Europe, were at least as good as themselves.
26 Holmes (note 7) p.179.
27 The Prussian General Staff had three main responsibilities in 1870: planning, coordination and operational readiness. Planning was the most crucial function, assessing potential enemies and writing war plans, which were updated annually. Planning also entailed how to recall reservists quickly on mobilisation and how to transport the forces by rail to their concentration areas. Coordination involved the translation of pre‐war plans into reality. Operational readiness involved the training of officers and soldiers. By 1867, the General Staff was organised into two elements. The first was divided into three geographic departments concerning potential enemies to the east, south and west. Another section was concerned with the railway system. The second element was functional in nature and divided into five sections: military history, geography, topography, the War Room (the centralised display of all relevant information) and the Land Triangulation Bureau (the production of maps).
28 Badsey (note 12) p.19.
29 Holmes (note 7) p.69.
30 The four battles were: the Battles of Wörth, Spicheren (both 6 Aug. 1870), Mars‐la‐Tour (16 Aug. 1870) and Gravelotte–St Privat (18 Aug. 1870).
31 The telegraph had first been used extensively for military command and control during the American Civil War. In 1870, its contribution to rapid mobilisation was enormous. However, the nearer the enemy, the smaller the role it played. The downside of this new technology was that it could encourage over‐control from the rear.
32 Martin van Creveld, Command in War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1985) p.145.
33 Meyer (note 22) p.32.
34 General von Steinmetz was a much‐decorated 73‐year‐old officer who, like King Wilhelm I, had begun his career fighting Napoleon I. After the Battle of Gravelotte–St Privat, King Wilhelm I appointed Steinmetz as Military Governor of Posen. The other two Prussian army commanders, Crown Prince Frederick William (the Third Army) and his cousin, Prince Frederick Charles (the Second Army)) were younger (39 and 42 years of age respectively) and were more in tune with Moltke’s command style.
35 Fritz Hoenig, 24 Hours of Moltke’s Strategy (Woolwich, UK 1895) p.175.
36 Creveld, Command (note 32) p.145.
37 Badsey (note 12) p.22.
38 In 1848, the Prussians had adopted a breech‐loading rifle, the Dreyse ‘needle gun’ (so called because of its long needle‐like firing pin), which was a weapon some years ahead of its time. It had an effective range of some 600m and the superiority of the weapon over the Austrian muzzle‐loading rifles was a decisive factor in the Prussian victory at Sadowa in 1866. However, by 1870, the Dreyse was nearly obsolete. As part of their 1868 reforms, the French Army had equipped its troops with a rifle of the next generation, the Chassepot breech‐loader, with a maximum range of 1,200m. The only reported advantage of the Dreyse was that it was better than the Chassepot when used as a club in close‐quarter fighting.
39 After encountering the very good Austrian artillery in 1866, the Prussians re‐equipped with new field and horse artillery guns (calibres of 80mm and 90mm). They seldom opened fire at above 3,000m, which was their effective range, although the 90mm calibre piece had a maximum range of 4,600m. The Prussian siege artillery was equally as impressive, with calibres up to 210mm and ranges of between 4,000m and 8,000m.
40 The main French artillery piece was the 1858 pattern rifled 4‐pounder calibre field gun, with an upper range of 3,300m and the 1839 pattern 12‐pounder smoothbore siege gun, converted to rifling, with a notional upper range of 5,600m.
41 The French artillery also included batteries of the Mitrailleuse, an early machine gun mounted on wheels and treated as the equivalent of a field gun that could fire over 200 rounds a minute out to about 2,500m, with an effective range of about 1500m. The Prussians respected this weapon, but it could have been more effective if the French had deployed it tactically in combination with their infantry. Excessive secrecy resulted in a lack of pre‐war trials and training for its crews. Additionally, the weapon often broke down and its narrow field of fire also made it less effective.
42 Howard (note 3) p.455.
43 At the Battle off Sedan, the French General Felix Douay dug in his VII Corps troops on the spur above Floing in two lines of trenches, 200 yards apart. In their rifle pits holding up to 12 men, the French were able resist a number of strong Prussian attacks.
44 For example, elements of the French Armée du Rhin at the Battle of Gravelotte‐St Privat occupied six farms. The solid walls provided natural fortresses, which anchored the French line. The night before the battle (17/18 Aug. 1870) was spent digging trenches and rifle pits and loopholing farm walls and buildings.
45 For almost the preceding 20 years, cavalry had been told that they were obsolete, since their horses could not survive the increases in firepower. However, there was nothing that could replace them in their two main functions: reconnaissance, which was increasingly important for the new large armies, and shock action by conducting mounted charges to scatter the enemy. For example, Maj Gen. Friedrich Wilhelm von Bredow’s 12th Brigade was committed to ‘win time’. It was an act of desperation, but the ‘Death Ride’ did succeed in disrupting the deployment of the French VI Corps at a crucial point in the battle. At the Battle of Sedan, Gen. Margueritte’s French cavalry division, commanded by Gen. Marquis Gaston de Gallifet, was launched in three repeated charges against the Prussians, attempting to clear a path for the rest of their forces to escape. Each time the Prussian line held firm, the French reformed and charged again, suffering heavy losses with each charge. For the French, prewar training had been poor and their tactical doctrine was outdated.
46 As Liddell Hart observed: ‘the General Staff was essentially intended to form a collective substitute for genius, which no army can count on producing at need’. After 1870, German military ideas and culture replaced those of France around the world as the model to be copied. By 1914, all major European countries had a general staff, as did the United States of America. In addition the European countries, less Great Britain, all adopted the German model of conscription, with essentially the same concept of rapid mobilisation and concentration by railway.
47 The surrender of Napoleon at Sedan was a catastrophic blow to the French Second Empire and the Bonaparte dynasty, which was already unsteady, increasingly unpopular, and could not survive. Leon Gambetta proclaimed the Third Republic and Napoleon III followed his Empress into exile in England. Although Gambetta escaped to the south by balloon to raise new armies, French resistance was effectively over. In Paris, after three successive sorties by the garrison had failed, Louis Trochu, the military governor, sought an armistice with the Prussians.
48 The peace settlement has been described as harsh and the root cause of conflict in the future. France certainly neither forgot nor forgave. At the time, in the Place de la Concorde in Central Paris, where statues symbolise the great cities of France, the figure of Strasbourg was draped in a black shroud of mourning. Emile Zola’s novel of the French defeat, Le Dêbacle, appeared in 1892. The French Army talked of la revanche (revenge) against Germany. But the Treaty of Frankfurt ushered in the longest period of peace between the Great Powers of Europe for more than 200 years. Other than the Russo‐Turkish War (1877–78), there was no major war involving any of the Great Powers for the rest of the century. But, the experience of the war undoubtedly left a lasting hatred on both sides that resurfaced twice in the twentieth century. Badsey (note 12) p. 87.
49 According to Badsey, in general terms not very much changed up to 1914: railways were still key to large‐scale movement; the motor vehicle and the aeroplane were at an early stage of development; and there was still no replacement for the cavalry. Communication also remained much the same; although the telephone and the radio transmitter had been added to the telegraph, none of them could function well on a battlefield. The new generation of weapons that appeared at the end of the nineteenth century – artillery, rifles and machine guns – were an even bigger leap forward in firepower than that which took place after 1815. Badsey (note 12) pp.91–2.