NOTES OF THE WAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 782, 25 November 1870, Page 4

NOTES OF THE WAR.

Bismarck's extreme carelessness of his personal safety has occasioned frequent alarm. He perambulates through the enemy's lines alone, and at all hours, refusing an escort and all precautions. The Paris correspondent of the Times states it as bis " firm convicti n [that if the Prussians carry the place by storm, the resistance of a large portion of the population, not excluding women, many of whom have armed themselves with revolvers, and even rifles, will be so ferocious aid desperate, continued up to the last moment from house to house and street to street, that the result will be an indiscriminate slaughter worthy of the dark ages." The last English telegrams informed us that General Bourbaki had been allowed to leave Metz for the purpose of endeavouring to arrange terms of peace on the basis of the restoration of the Napoleonic dynasty, as well' as of his want of success and return to the fortress. The following particulars regarding General Bourbaki's career are given by a Glasgow paper : — " Charles Denis S^uter Bourbaki is a Frenchman of Greek extraction, his father having taken refuge in France under the First Napoleon, and rendered him valuable services. The son was born in Paris in April, 1816, and at the age of 20 became a lieutenant of Zouaves, joining the African foreign legion, the gathering of all the dare-devils in Europe, two years later. His services in Algeria it would be in vain to enumerate, for their name is legion. In 1854 he became general of brigade, and served in the Crimean war ; and at Alma, Inkermann, and the assault upon Sebastopol he distinguished himself by his desperate valour and military skill. In the Italian campaign, at the head of his Algerian troopß, he added fresh laurels to his name, and at the outbreak of the present war was appointed to command the Imperial Guard, and is reported to have been wounded in one of the late engagements. A blunt but honest soldier, his reputation stands very high in the French army, and many grumblings have been heard that such a tried commander was not entrusted with a more important command instead of dangling about Metz with the reserve." It will be remembered that in the fearful battle of Rezonville, before Metz, King William, while bearing testimony to the general skill and courage shown by the French, singled out the Imperial Guard for special praise, as I aving been well bandied. General Bourbaki's sister, Madame Lei reton, is the Secretary of the Empress, and was her sole attendant ia her flight from Paris to Hastings. The state of the conquered provinces — apart from the sufferings of the very poor — is really terrible in one respect. No one residing in them knows, except from time to time by Prussian official telegrams, what is happening outside. Of course, no newspapers are published. Moreover, no newspapers are received from abroad, except by the army and by foreigners having interest at HeadQuarters. In the cafes and hotels not a fragment of a journal of any description is to be seen. "Nous vivons, comme des innocents," eaid a storekeeper to me at Pont-a-Mousson ; " we know nothing of what occurs beyond the limits of this town ;" and I have already mentioned that a peasant near Clermont asked me whether it was true that the French fleet had bombarded Berlin. When a battle is fought news of the Prussian victory is given to the inhabitants of all the occupied towns very punctually; but no intelligence of any other nature reaches them. No letters can be sent except of the simplest kind. They must be left unsealed, they must be very short, and they must not contain one word referring directly, indirectly, or by implication, to public matters. On the other hand, the invaded have no violence to fear at the hands of the invaders ; and this seems to me a very important point. " Violence, indeed !" say the French, when you speak to them, »s I have often done, on the subject. "W hy should they have recourse to violence- when they get everything they want?" Nevertheless other invaders have not only use I personal violence to enforce the slightest demand, they have, carried fire and sword into unoffending villages, so that the consequences of a battle have sometimes been more terrible than the battle itself. After going along the whole line of invasion from Saarbriick, by way of Bar le Due, to Sedan, and doing my best to see everything that could be seen, I have not seen one soldier in the least degree intoxicated, nor one civilian struck. At St. Mihiel I heard of a soldier getting drunk and firing at a woman who refused to give him any more liquor ; but also found that he was tried the next day by a court-martial and publicly hanged in the market-place. Speaking of the arming of the Garde Mobile, a correspondent writes : — Most of the Paris Battalions of the Garde Mobile aro armed with the tabatiere, but they are promißcd the Chassepot shortly, and their instruction ia being continued at St Maur. 'i hey only received muskets a few days ago, having previously gone on guard with sticks Some of the little miseries of the Mobile, in spite of the gravity of the situation, have excited our merriment. When the men arrived in camp at Chalons they were short of linen and had to wash for themselves, and such] was the quantity of soap which slipped down the pumps that the soup was full of suds. The 15th Battalion is commtnded by a wealthy dealer in precious stones, who ordered hogsheads of wine and tons of provisions along the road from Chalons to Paris. The 14th Battalion preceeded the 15th, and swept everything as clean as if it had been' a visitation of locusts. There is not much discipline in the corps in consequence of the officers not knowing their duty. lam told that the Mobile of A gen, which I believe is in the Department of Lot-et-Garonne, have .refused to march • unless the Republic -is

declared. Among other items of military new^, I may mention that the debr'a of some of the caralry regiments which suffered most during the campaign have returned to Paris, and been well received. The other day a detachment of priests who have volunteered for hospital service passed up the boulevards knapsack on back, on their way to the front. I did not see the reverend fathers march, but I am told that the tears came into the eyes even of sceptics. The fortifications are nearly completed, and in a day or two the guns which are to defend Paris will be placed in position. Many of those pieces are of ancient date, and are marked with two L's interlaced, surmounted by a royal crown, and bear such names as "l'Exile," "leHetour," "le Desire," probably out of compliment to Louis XVII f. Other guns of a later date have been christpned " PExtravagant," •' le Freluquet," " le Brouillon," &c. There is a curious tale told here of a peasant who was found decapitated alongside an officer of Zouaves on the morning after Gravelotte. From the position of the bodies, and other circumstances, it is sup posed that the camp follower was engaged in rifling the pockets of the d< ad, as a lantern was found in his left and a knife in his right hand. Not being able to take off the officer's belt, the camp follower evidently took his knife and plunged the point into the wounded man, who, awakened out of a trance by the pain, seized his sabre with one hand, and the hair of the marauder wi : h the other, and cut off his head, which he still clutched. The Commission charged with the examination of the private correspondence of the Emperor have made a brilliant discovery. The letters tied with rose-coloured ribbon, contained in the coffet en marqueterie, are the production of, or at any rate signed by, Marguerite BelUnger. That a coquette should write the warmest of warm letters to the Emperor, should she have a chance, is natural enough ; but that the Emperor should keep them, seems absurd. The public has taken a peep behind the Imperial curtain, and has discovered not only what it knew before, that Napoleon 111., in bad taste, prefers the plain daughter of (a blanchisseuse to the dutiful Eugeoie, but also that scandal of which poor innocents have hitherto been kept in the dark. The Imperial mistress in one letter informs Monseigneur that his name shall not perish. What ought to be done with the semi-Imperial infant, when he made his bow to the world, was hard to unravel and troubled the brains of the popu-* lace. The President of the Court, M. Devine, undertook the affair. His robes were laid aside, and as Homme d' Affaires he persuaded the unmarried mother to exchange. A document was legally drawn up, stating that the infant was not the lineal descendant of Napoleon, for the purpose of securing to Marguerite Bellanger the splendid property of Mouchy. A stray number of the liappef, received from Paris, contains two private letters purporting to have been written by Marguerite Bellanger, and confessing that the illegitimate child whose paternity she had tried to fix on the Emperor was not hia own. These letters are addressed to the Emperor as follows :— " Cher Seigneur — I have not written to you since your departure, fearing I might offend, but after the visit of Mons. Devine, I think I ought to write. Jn the first place, I beg of you not to scorn me, for without your return I know not what will become of me; secondly, I beg your pardon. I have been guilty, it is true, but I a-:sure you I was in doubt. Cher Seigneur — If there is any way in which I can redeem my fault I will not shrink from anything. If an entire life of devoted ness will regain your esteem it is at your service. You could demand nothing that I am not ready to undertake if necessary to your peace of mind. I will exile myself ; say but the word and I will leave. My heart is so f uli of gratitude for all the good you have conferred upon me, that to suffer for you would be a happiness. Do not doubt tny sincerity and depth of l»ve. I would also beg that you would eend a few lines in reply to the address of Madame E. Bellanger, Hue de Lannery, Comineville. Awaiting a reply, accept, cher Seigneur, my adieux. Your entirely devoted, and very unfortunate — Makqubbite." These letters were found among the secret correspon ence, marked " Lettres a garder." The Lancet says : — A medical officer belonging to our army, while present in Paiis a few days ago, paid a visit to the encampment in the Champ de Mnrs. The description of what he saw and the impressions received will be of interest at a time when the defence of Paris, occupies so much attention : — '•There were probably Bjoo or 10,000 men under canvas there. They consisted almost entirely of young lad*, utterly undisciplined, and undergoing the earlier stiges of recruit drill. Their clothing had but lately baen issued to them, and they wore it as yet awkwardly. Among them I observed reinforcements belonging to the Bth, 10th, 14th, 35th, 33th, 46th, 6Sth, 88th, and 97th Regiments of the line, those of each corps occupying their specified portion of the general camp, the men being drilled in front of their own regimental tents. The form of the general camp was determined by that of the Champ itself, its front facing the Seine. Two wide str.eti extended direct from front to rear, the tentes dabri being arranged in double rows on either side, one row opening to the flank, and the other inwards, but by no means regularly or neatly pitched. There was certainly some slight attempt at order, but evidently of a poor kind ; tents of various sizes, some capable of containing only two men, others of accommodating Bix, were placed indifferently. Altogether, the impression conveyed by the appearance of ihe camp was that it looked like * cross between that of a series of Sepoy regiments and one of itinerant gipsies. In each tent was a goo 4 , quantity of straw, on which the occupants slept at night. At the entrance such of the soldiers as were not at drill were occupied in cleaning their sword-bayonets and Chassepot rifles, for none of ihtir other equipments looked as if they were meant to bu

cleaned or had ever undergone that process. On either flank were arranged a series of latrines and cooking places, both sets of arrangements being in offensively close proximity to each other ; and, as a considerable breeze prevailed, the combined odours as they passed across the camp were anything but inviting. The cooking places consisted of superficial excavations in the ground, each 3 ft long, 10 in. broad, and about 6in. or Bin. deep. The fuel was wood, and raised on a range of stones along either side of this little trench were a series of three or four camp kettles, with mess tins on their top, both of these being filled with meat and vegetables in the course of cooking for dinner. The cooks were soldiers appointed for the duty. A few of the latrines were partly protected from view ; the grea er number, however, consisted of nothing more than an open trench, along the centre of which a plank was placed. But there existed unmistakable evidence in almost every direction around the camp that many of the men were independent of all such contrivances. In the rear were a number of mules, bearing pack saddles for caco'ets, and other means of conveyance for the wounded. The muleteers, all dressed in blue blouses, stood by their animals, talking and laughing with the " wrens " of the place; The soldiers drilled ; passers-by stood to look and admire ; the cooks cooked, and the soldiers, in utter disregard of all appearances, repaired to the places set apart for them— the entire spectacle being as extraordinary and as decidedly against all rules of sanitation and decency as the most unfastidious could desire. And this is the case in Paris. What is it away in actual service ? At the auberge there came in at night a French officer of the 21 Cuiras.-iers — a man of great stature and of fins appearance, of some 42 or 45 years of age — only a senior caotain of his regiment, tie had a ball in his arm, another in his leg — his horse had fallen dead under him, and as he was down he was trampled on and Eeveiely hurt in the back, and his shoulder was dislocited ; but he talked away as well and as sensibly as any man could do, and much better than many of that much underrated cl ss of officers styled •• plungers" by the ignorant multitude. It whs with him as with all othir French officers of intelligence whom I have heard — the came admission of inferiority to their enemy in everything but the courage of thsoldier. •' We were simply shot dow.n just as if we were wild duck 3 in a decoy, and when we did move it was to try what was impossible and to complete the butchery. They would not let us try to cut through till it was too late." Imagine 14 regiments of cavalry to be thus hemmed in and massacred without a chance. Every one is (i down on" M. de Failiy, who is neither killed nor wounded, but who is a prisoner, iml to whom his own countrymen would be worse than any Prussians. There is great unanimity on some points. The men abuse the officers, the officers abuse the Generals, the Generals say that neither officers nor men would listen to the appeals which were made to them. As to the Intendance, which we have adopted as nearly as we can in the Control System (I hope " bettering the instruction "), there cannot be a doubt, according to all testimony, of its complete and disastrous failure in all except the enriching of a few man But outside and beyond all these accusations, men and officers and officers and men agree in attributing their crushing defeats to what they c»ll a new system of tactics on the part of the Prussians. The "new systtm" is simply the employment of an enormously preponderating artillery to bring a converging fire to bear on the enemy, the concealment of their own infantry in woods and hollows, and the kteping their battalio s out of sight till the fire of the distant guns shall have demoralised the force opposed to them, which is no longer able to meet the battalion? of the infantry when it is let loose at them. This is certainly incorrect in one respect. If there is any fault to be found with the Prussian Generals, it is that they have pushei their infantry into action too soon, and even on the Ist of beptember, though the fault was generally avoided, the Bavarians in the centre and some battalions on the left might have been kept under cover till the artillery had done its work.