Metz

“ We heard, also, that the inhabitants of Metz, on hearing the terms of capitulation, had meant to rise and put Bazaine to death, but that all through the siege three mitrailleuses had been placed in front of his head-quarters, and that he had escaped the day before this shameful capitulation was to take place.
All this appeared to us almost impossible. Metz surrender unconditionally! Metz, the strongest town in France, defended by an army of a hundred thousand well-seasoned troops: the last army left to us after Sedan! ”

“ The first view of Metz, after traversing an uninteresting country, is remarkably fine. It stands in a fine rich plain, near though beyond the reach of an eminence—for it does not deserve the name of a mountain—the sides of which are covered with woods, villages, and vineyards. There is something very grand in entering a fortified Town—the clattering of drawbridges, appearance of moats, guns, sentinels, and all the other etceteras of war. ”

“ Those who leave Paris by a train which starts in the evening, and can sleep through the dull night journey, will agreeably wake up on a fine summer’s morning on the Upper Moselle, in the neighbourhood of Metz. Here it is a softly-flowing river, with vineyards and white villages on the banks. ”

“ I have lived all my life at Strassburg and at Metz, those two outposts against France—those two great fortresses of cities which the Germans have done their utmost to make impregnable, but which are not impregnable if attacked in a certain way. They have their weak spot, just as every fortress has. ”

“ Verdun itself is only one day's march from Metz. If you study it up on a map you will learn that, within a circuit of thirty miles, Verdun is protected by thirty-six redoubts. But what you will not learn is that this great fortification is not yet connected with its outer redoubts by the subterranean passages which were a part of the original scheme. It is that fact which is disturbing. Every engineer in the French army knows that the citadel at Metz has underground communications with all its circle of outer ramparts. ”

“ The Metz train, carrying a number of high-ranking officers, had the right of way, and the soldiers turned and cheered as they saw, painted on every car, the flashing initials that proved the train to be in the service of the General Staff.
At every station there were troops, crowds, flags, bands. There was hustle and bustle. Singing, laughter, shouting. Words of command. Curses.
Booted, spurred officers piled into the train, half-a-dozen of them into Tom's and Vyvyan's compartment. ”

“ From the last word one would imagine this could only mean Metz in Lorraine; but there is another Metz in the Gâtinais; and although it is, and clearly always has been, an insignificant little town, quite undeserving the title of “urbs,” it seems more likely than its greater namesake to be the place really meant. For Metz in Lorraine would be completely out of the way of a traveller from Palestine to Anjou, while Metz in the Gâtinais was not merely close to Fulk’s home, but was actually in the territory of his own son-in-law (of whom we shall hear again later) . ”

“ Metz is the heart of the German organization on the western front: the railroad center, the supply station, the troop dépôt. A blow at Metz would affect the security of every German soldier between Alsace and the Belgian frontier. But if the French can drive the Germans out of the Bois-le-Prêtre and establish big howitzers on the crest the Germans are still holding, there will soon be no more Metz. The French guns will destroy the city as the German cannon destroyed Verdun. ”

“ We needed rest, certainly; and so made up our minds to endure with equanimity the necessity we were under of not fatiguing ourselves to death from a principle of economy. The inn was tolerable, and the table d'hôte sufficiently good; and, best praise, quietly served, Metz is a clean, pleasant town, a little dull or so; but from the gardens on the ramparts we commanded a view of the hill-surrounded plain in which it is built, with the Moselle flowing peaceably at our feet. We hired a boat, and loitered several hours delightfully on the river ”

“ On July 25th, for the first time in the history of the University of Strasbourg, a professor was hissed out of his lecture room. He had said that the Prussians could speak better French than the Alsatians. The most serious demonstration which has occurred in Metz since the annexation, took place on Sunday evening, January 8, 1910, when the police broke up forcibly a concert given by a local society. The newspapers of Metz claimed that this was a private gathering, to which individual invitations had been sent, and was neither public nor political. ”

“ The little ruined shop, in itself a contradiction of the cry, rang out and clattered with the noise until it seemed to Fevrier that it must surely pierce across the country into Metz and pluck the Mareschal in his headquarters from his diffidence. But they were only fifty deserters in a deserted village, lost in the darkness, and more likely to be overheard by the Prussian sentries than by any of their own blood. ”

“ What terrified us, awakened in him a speculation.
"In the forest of Hagenau," said he, "there's also oak wood for Ludwig's mill."
It was, and remained so; everything served as a stepping-stone to Joseph.
He gave us further particulars of the capture of Metz, and of the march towards Paris. At the name of Paris, my brother-in-law's face became flushed and excited. "That you will never get, never!" he said; "the world will go to pieces, first! But Metz, indeed! And 173,000 men! believe in nothing after this!"
I told Joseph of Ernst; I must impart it to some one. ”

“ On the 29th of October, in torrents of rain, the French soldiers went out of Metz, casting down their rifles and swords in heaps at the gate, many glad enough to become prisoners of war and have a full stomach. The Germans came in very cautiously, examining fort and bastion and bridge, to prevent any mine explosions, and in a few hours “Metz la Pucelle” had become a German city. Marshal Bazaine, who had done so little to help them, was the object of every citizen’s curses. The women pelted him with mud and called him “Coward!” ”

“ The traveller, arriving after long hours of journey through the battlefields, might sigh with relief, gape with pleasure, then hurry away down deflagged streets, beneath houses roped with green-leafed garlands, to eat divinely at Moitrier's restaurant, and join the dancing in the hall below.
Not a night passed in Metz without the beat of music upon the frosty air. It burst into the narrow streets from estaminets where the soldiers danced, from halls, from drawing-rooms of confiscated German houses where officers of the "Grand Quartier Général" danced a triumph. ”

“ The churches of Metz show very little of Romanesque influences, though it is indeed strong in churches dating from the thirteenth century onward. Early Gothic in nearly every shade of excellence is to be found in the churches of Metz, from the cathedral church of St. Stephen downwards, and, because of this, it is the Continental city where{120} the development of the style can be most thoroughly studied and appreciated. ”

“ Friday, October 28th.—In the afternoon Moltke sent the Chief a telegram which reported that the capitulation of Metz was signed to-day at 12.45 P.M. The French army thus made prisoners number in all 173,000 men, including 16,000 sick and wounded. Bennigsen, Friedenthal, and Von Blankenburg, a friend of the Chancellor’s in his youth, joined us at dinner. From the French officers captured at Metz and their approaching transportation to Germany, the conversation turned upon General Ducrot and his disgraceful escape from Pont à Mousson. ”

“ Whatever may have been his motives, Marshal Bazaine directed his Army to retire upon a position of exceptional strength on the heights to the westward of Metz, which look towards the wooded ravine of the Mance brook throughout its course, and beyond its source over the undulating plain in the direction of the river Orne. This ridge of upland abuts on the Moselle near Ars, is covered at its broad southern end by the Bois de Vaux, is intersected by the great highway from Metz to Verdun, which is carried along a depression where the wood terminates, and over the shoulder above Gravelotte. ”

“ METZ, Herman A., man of affairs and publicist, b. in New York City, 19 Oct., 1867, son of Edward J. and Frances Metz, both natives of Germany who came to the United States in 1848. He was born on the lower East Side whence so many self-made men have sprung, and his earliest years were marked by toil and self-sacrifice. It has always been his proud boast that after he had attained his twelfth year, he never cost his parents a penny. While attending the public schools he earned enough money selling newspapers to cover his living expenses. ”

“ I thank the city of Metz for its festive welcome, and I pray you that my thanks be made known to the citizens through an official announcement. If I have removed my headquarters to Urville it is because as a landholder in Lorraine I could not do otherwise, since my subjects in this province wish to have me there. In token of my imperial favor I extend to the burgomaster a golden chain of office which the burgomasters of Metz shall be entitled to wear from this time forth. It gives me especial pleasure, however, to be able to bestow this chain upon the present burgomaster. ”

“ M. de Fouquet, a friend of Madame d'Urfe's, was Governor of Metz, and I felt sure that, with a letter of introduction from Madame d'Urfe, this nobleman would give me a distinguished reception. Besides, his nephew, the Comte de Lastic, whom I knew well, was there with his regiment. For these reasons I chose Metz as a meeting-place with the virgin Corticelli, to whom this new part would certainly be a surprise. Madame d'Urfe gave me the necessary introductions, and I left Paris on January 25th, 1762, loaded with presents. ”

“ There, at Metz, 200 miles from Paris, were the headquarters of the energetic Bouillé; and beyond Metz was the Rhine, where the Emperor Leopold, his brother-in-law, was already assembling troops that might prove a further support.
With such an outlook, it was natural that the Court, and in this case the Court meant the Queen, should attempt to concert measures with Vienna; the phantom of the Austrian alliance, so detested at the time of the Seven Years' War, was reappearing. ”

“ Metz, Toul, Verdun:—readers recollect that Siege of Metz, which broke the great heart of Karl V.? Who raged and fired as man seldom did, with 50,000 men, against Guise and the intrusive French, for six weeks; sound of his cannon heard at Strasburg on winter nights, 300 years ago: to no purpose; for his Captains of the Siege, after trial and second trial, solemnly shook their heads; and the great Kaiser, breaking into tears, had to raise the Siege of Metz ”

“ Thus the great hills that border the Moselle, the distant frontier, the vast plain which is (they say) to be a battlefield, and which lay five hundred feet sheer below me, the far guns when they were practising at Metz, the awful strength of columns on the march moved me. The sky also grew more wonderful, and I noticed living things. The Middle Ages, of which till then I had had but troubling visions, rose up and took flesh in the old town, on the rare winter evenings when I had purchased the leisure to leave quarters by some excessive toil. A man could feel France going by. ”

“ In like manner, other Uhlans, operating further up the stream, found the camps and intrenchments abandoned, so that it became certain, on the evening of the 11th, that the French Army had been drawn back under the guns of Metz. The next day the activity of the cavaliers increased, and they pressed forward until they were in contact with the French outposts, and were able to observe the whole new position between Queleu and Bellecroix, working up on the left to a point within three miles of Metz, and proving that as far as the right bank above the town, the country was unoccupied. ”

“ The "Wandering Jew" really is a Jew, of the best and most intellectual type. His name is Paul Herter. His father was a man of Metz, who had brought to German Lorraine a wife from Lunéville. Paul is thirty-five now, so you see he wasn't born when the Metz part of Lorraine became German. His parents—French at heart—taught him secretly to love France, and hate German domination. As he grew up, Paul's ambition was to be a great surgeon. He wished to study, not in Germany, but in Paris and London. ”

“ It was Metz and its three railway junctions. I stood up and looked down on the amazing scene. There lay to our view vivid evidence of German activity. I could see here and there through the jumble of lights the straight line of a brilliant boulevard. It seemed strange to think that down there moved and laughed German soldiers and civilians in the streets and cafés, all unconscious of the fur-clad [Pg 73] airmen moving high up among the stars in their throbbing machine. ”

“ Outside of Strassburg and Metz — even in cities like Colmar and Muhlhausen — the immigres constitute but a small fraction of the population. So far as 'expansion' is concerned, crowded Germany gains nothing by annexation, for the land of Alsace still belongs to the Alsatians. The Germans cannot get a foot of ground unless they buy it. This they could do before 1870, and this they can do in any part of the earth. The Germanization of Strassburg and Metz is scarcely more marked than the Germanization of manufacturing cities outside of Germany—let us say, of Milwaukee, or of Sao Paulo, in Brazil. ”