Army of the Loire

“ In a few weeks four armies seemed to start, as it were, from the earth, in France—those of the North, the East, the West, and the Loire—all intended either to resist the farther advance of the German foe, or to co-operate in the relief of the capital. The first three armies were, as yet, in a very bad and ill-disciplined state; but the fourth army—that of the Loire—composed largely of veteran troops, and numbering nearly 100,000 men, with from 300 to 350 guns, was by no means to be despised by an enemy. ”

“ We know that they are in the habit of making war in a thoroughly ungentlemanly manner, and we cannot make up our minds whether our "attitude" is causing them to hesitate, or whether they are not devising some new trick to take us by surprise. That they are starving, that their communications with Germany are cut off, that their leaders are at loggerheads, that the Army of the Loire will soon be here to help us to demolish them, we have not the slightest doubt. ”

“ These dispositions, which showed plainly that the real strength of the Army of the Loire was inadequately understood in the invaders' camp, permitted the commander of that body—a veteran named D'Aurelles de Paladines, who had done much to improve its discipline—to attempt a design he had been meditating, and even to strike a blow at his enemy which possibly might have had extraordinary results. D'Aurelles, aware that the only obstacle to his reaching the lines around Paris was one corps of 25,000 men, resolved to attack and overwhelm that detachment ”

“ The project was to cross the Seine below Paris at Bezons and Carrières, and to make a simultaneous attack on the positions of the IVth Prussian Corps on the heights of Argenteuil from the south, and from St.-Denis from the east. A march on Rouen by Pontoise was to follow, into a district not yet altogether exhausted of resources. The Army of the Loire was also to proceed thither by railway by way of Le Mans, and so there would be massed in that region an army of 250,000 men. ”

“ The Army of the Loire has at length made its submission to the King, after stipulating but in vain for the beloved tricolor. Report says it is to be immediately dissolved and a new army raised with more legitimate inclinations. Should the King accede to this, France will be completely disarmed and at the mercy of the Allies, and the King himself a state prisoner. The entrance into Paris, thro' the Faubourg St Denis, does not give to the stranger who arrives there for the first time a great idea of the magnificence of Paris ”

“ Behind their forts, their troops, their crowd of peasants, and their ramparts, they boast of what they will do. If they do really bury themselves beneath the ruins of their capital they will be entitled to the admiration of history, but as yet they are civilians of the present and heroes of the future. Noisy blusterers may be brave men. I have no doubt there are many in Paris ready to die for their country. I can, however, only deal with facts, and I find that the Parisians appear to rely for safety upon everything except their own valour. One day it is the Army of the Loire ”

“ The blindness was marvellous, for the French Army was falling back upon the Loire, one hundred and fifty thousand allies occupied the outposts of the capital, and they continued to pretend that the King was not strong enough to penetrate into a city where not a soldier remained, where none was left but civilians, quite capable of restraining a handful of federates, if these had taken it into their heads to stir. ”

“ The English visitor, flushed with health, and wealth, and victory, could little enter into the feelings of the blighted warrior, scarred with a hundred battles, an exile from the camp, broken in constitution by the wars, impoverished by the peace, and cast back, a needy stranger in the splendid but captured metropolis of his country.
“Oh! who can tell what heroes feel, When all but life and honor’s lost!”
And here let me notice the conduct of the French soldiery on the dismemberment of the army of the Loire, when two hundred thousand men were suddenly thrown out of employ ”

“ Joyously the girl left the room, and began immediately the task of gathering the army together; the army that had been forced to disband through the inertia of its King. A tide of popular enthusiasm arose as soon as it became known that the English towns on the Loire were to be attacked, and from all quarters came men eager to fight, with or without pay; beginning again to hope for their country and aroused by the Maid’s exploits before Orléans. Selles, a town of Berri, about fifteen miles from Loches and about fifty miles south of Orléans, was chosen for the recruiting camp. ”

“ Orleans, the head-quarters of the 5th Army Corps, is the military centre for the departments of Loiret, Loire-et-Cher, Seine-et-Marne, Yonne, part of Seine-et-Oise and part of Seine. It is situated 75 miles south-west of Paris by rail, and has a population of about 60,000, including its garrison. As the capital of a separate kingdom, Orleans enjoyed great prominence throughout the Middle Ages, and it is always remembered for its associations with the soldier-maid of France, Jeanne d'Arc. One of the principal artillery schools of the Army is situated here. ”

“ Within a month, however—leaving aside what was done in other parts of the country—France had on the Loire alone an army of 100,000 men, who for a moment, at all events, turned the tide of war. At the same time I would add that, before Gambetta's arrival on the scene, the National Defence Delegates had begun to concentrate some small bodies of troops both in Normandy and in Picardy and Artois, the latter forming the first nucleus of the Army of the North which Faidherbe afterwards commanded. ”

“ Last night the Royalist army crossed the Loire; and the firing was continued until morning. The heights all seemed crowned with flame. The forest in which we had stopped for the night was set on fire in the conflict, and a large body of the Royalist cavalry skirmished with the retreating Republicans till morning. ”

“ Everywhere, except south of the Loire,—where the last remnants of Napoleon’s army had collected under Marshal Davoût,—was the country in the military occupation of foreigners; and in Paris especially, there were no regular troops to be seen, other than those of Great Britain, of Prussia, and of their allies. They guarded the King and the Royal palaces; they stood at the barriers of the town, and they performed all the military duties of the capital. ”

“ He was forced to enlist large numbers of French soldiers to fill up the gaps in his English army: he sent envoys to the Emperor Sigismund soliciting help in men-at-arms and archers;140 and a similar request was also made to John, King of Portugal. In addition to losses in the field and by sickness, four thousand of his men are said to have died of an epidemic in the course of a single march during the campaign on the Loire; and still it was necessary to garrison every town or fortress of military importance that might be won from the enemy. ”

“ In the Arrondissements the National Guards were formed into companies and battalions; then in each Department these were consolidated into brigades; and finally the brigades were incorporated along with the nearest troops of the line and Gardes-Mobiles into the larger Army-Corps.
Thus, in the course of October, under cover of the troops of General d'Aurelle de Paladines which had re-crossed the Loire, a new XVIIth Corps was made up at Blois, another, the XVIIIth, at Gien, and a third, under Admiral Jaurès, at Nogent le Rotrou. ”

“ Loyer tapped his shoulder.
"My dear colleague, there is some use in having big armies."
"I believe as you do," replied Lariviere; "the present army fills the superior necessities of national defence."
"The use of big armies," continued Loyer, "is to make war impossible. One would be crazy to engage in a war these immeasurable forces, the management of which surpasses all human faculty. Is not this your opinion, General?" ”

“ After this the nuclei of armies, in the west, the north, and the south-east of France, have made their appearance, and are growing formidable; and the military strength of what had been deemed the effete and worn-out nation, has shown itself to be great and threatening. The attitude of the armies of the Loire and of the West has compelled the Germans to draw in almost their whole available forces to cover the immense circle of their lines around Paris ”

“ What it has really been in the way of being shot at would cover a small campaign three times over, and I do not doubt many of my officers and men have had even a worse time than myself, and there is very much more hard work to come. The French Army can always produce fresh [96] troops for each fresh job, but our smaller army has to send the same troops up to everything, and then when the regiment is reduced to fragments, it is filled up with anyone from anywhere, and to the authorities it is the same as the original good regiment. ”

“ Placing a French garrison in the bridge towers the Maid with her forces camped for the night in the fields and next morning passed on down the river to Beaugency. These towns with their castles and towers were very conspicuous on the flat plain of the Loire; and bodies of men were easily seen by the watchmen on the walls. As soon, therefore, as the English saw the French approaching they did not try to defend the town, but retired into the castle, leaving men ambushed in houses and sheds to surprise the French. ”

“ The folk of Orléans, on the other hand, once more appeared both zealous and munificent; for they [Pg ii.95] eagerly desired the reduction of a town commanding the Loire for seventy-five miles above their own city. They deserve to be considered the true deliverers of the kingdom; had it not been for them neither Jargeau nor Beaugency would have been taken in June. Quite in the beginning of July, when they thought the Loire campaign was to be continued, they had sent their great mortar, La Bougue, to Gien. With it they had despatched ammunition and victuals ”

“ How gaily the army marched out to the reconquest of annexed Lorraine and to occupy the Germans whilst the English landed in Belgium. It was a force thoroughly representative of France, for it was recruited from all parts. There were reservists from Bordeaux, from Marseilles, from Montpellier and from the West, but the heart of the crusade was the famous 20th Army Corps from Nancy—Lorrainers to a man—who had inherited the memory of the année terrible. ”

“ And, during the late war with America, he was most actively employed on the Halifax station; where the Loire, then commanded by Captain Thomas Brown, captured the Rolla privateer, of 5 guns and 80 men. ”

“ There were the King's American Dragoons, De Lancey's First and Second Battalions, the New Jersey Volunteers, the King's American Regiment, the Maryland Loyalists, the 42nd Regiment, the Prince of Wales American Regiment, the New York Volunteers, the Royal Guides and Pioneers, the Queen's Rangers, the Pennsylvania Loyalists, and Arnold's American Legion. All these regiments were reduced, of course, to a fraction of their original strength, owing to the fact that numbers of their men had been discharged in New York, and that many of the officers had gone to England. ”

“ The native troops knew not who was with them or against them. Whole regiments ran like hares without striking a blow (sic) , and the English, astonished to encounter so little resistance, massacred the fugitives as if at a shooting-party; 3,000 trained men belonging to the infantry, all that the army of the East possessed, faced the enemy, and with the last vestiges of the artillery, fired valiantly as long as they were able. ”

“ The whole of this country north of the Loire, from Rennes to Nantes, the triangular point resting upon Angers, is the country of the Chouans, which it is necessary, in reference to the Vendean war, to distinguish from the country south of the Loire, in the department of the Loire Inférieure, called le Bocage, or la Vendée. Although the latter was the scene of the more desperate warfare between the republicans and the royalists, yet the former had its share of bloodshed and misery. ”

“ To-day news has arrived here that Thoré and his followers after routing those who barred their passage, have reached the Loire. He has, they say, about 400 horse, among whom are many Germans. Whether he will be able to cross is uncertain, as a strong force has been collected in hopes of crushing him. Two thousand of Alençon’s cavalry with some infantry are reported to be awaiting his arrival on the other side of the Loire. ”

“ For when we consider the necessary detachments from this force to guard his communications through an enemy's country, as he wishes the President to do, in order to justify the largeness of the force required, we cannot help asking how soon the army for active operations would be reduced to a hundred and fifty thousand. And how long would a general be in reaching New Orleans, if he is six months in making up his mind to advance with an army of that strength on the insignificant fortifications of Manassas, manned, according to the best information, with forty thousand troops? ”

“ During these times, the town of Peronne situated on the river Somme, was strongly garrisoned by forces sent thither by the constable of France, in the king's name under the command of sir Robert de Loyre. They consisted of one hundred men at arms well appointed, one hundred genoese cross-bowmen, and the same number of other combatants; and they made very frequent excursions, day and night, over the countries attached to the duke of Burgundy and his allies, bringing to their garrison considerable plunder of cattle and other effects. ”