Peace of Amiens

“ Great Britain was guilty of more direct breaches of the peace of Amiens. Russia refused her guarantee for the independence of Malta, and the British government was therefore technically justified in retaining it. No similar justification could, however, be alleged for the retention of Alexandria and the French towns in India. These measures were, as will be seen, defended on broader grounds of public policy. Not the least of the causes of discontent with the new situation was the refusal of Napoleon to follow up the treaty of peace with a commercial treaty. ”

“ Such was the eagerness to participate in the glorious struggle, that the militia almost universally offered themselves for foreign service, and the country with one voice called for an effort equal to the occasion. But the Government was not prepared for such exertions. Our military operations had never yet been carried on upon a scale such as was now required, and since the peace of Amiens they had been almost wholly suspended. Though great and most essential improvements in the army had been steadily and unostentatiously carried into effect by the Duke167 of York, much remained to be done ”

“ The treaty of Amiens which followed soon after the Egyptian campaign brought about a peace for fourteen months, and during that time, Lord Rohallion wrote repeatedly to our Ambassador at Paris concerning the little protégé who had now found a home in Carrick; but at a period when all the powers of Europe were only, as it were, taking breath and gathering strength for a greater and more deadly contest, such a trivial matter as the fate of a shipwrecked boy could gain but little attention. ”

“ Had he by his gunboats, or by his intrigues or threats, been enabled to extort a second edition of the Peace of Amiens, after a warfare of some few months, all mouths would have been ready to exclaim, "Oh, the illustrious warrior! Oh, the profound politician!" Now, after three ineffectual campaigns on the coast, when the extravagance and ambition of our Government have extended the contagion of war over the Continent; when both our direct offers of peace, and the negotiations and mediations of our allies, have been declined by, or proved unavailing with, the Cabinet of St. ”

“ Like all Miss Edgeworth's writings, they found instant favor and were translated into French and German. With no desire to detract from their merits, we cannot avoid the inference that this circumstance points to a great lack of contemporary foreign fiction of a pure and attractive kind.
CHAPTER VII. IN FRANCE AND AT HOME. The peace, or rather the truce, of Amiens had induced many travellers to visit France. They all returned enraptured with what they had seen of society in Paris, and with the masterpieces of art dragged thither, as the spoils of military despotism. ”

“ The continent, by ceasing hostilities, compelled England to a momentary peace. Pitt, Dundas, and Lord Grenville, who had maintained these sanguinary struggles with France, went out of office when their system ceased to be followed. The opposition replaced them; and, on the 25th of March, 1802, the treaty of Amiens completed the pacification of the world. England consented to all the continental acquisitions of the French republic, recognised the existence of the secondary republics, and restored our colonies. ”

“ Amiens was in darkness, with the lightnings of the guns which had never ceased their labors through the night flashing in the heavens their magnetic summons to battle. When a dip into a valley shut out their roar a divine hush lay over the world. ”

“ The Battle of Amiens (August 8th-13th) , fought by the Fourth British Army under General Rawlinson, and the First French Army under General Debeney, who had been placed by Marshal Foch under the British command, carried the line of the Allies twelve miles forward in a vital sector, liberated Amiens and the Paris-Amiens railway, and resulted in the capture of 22,000 prisoners and 400 guns, together with the hurried retreat of the enemy from wide districts to the south, where the French were on his heels. These were great days for the Canadian and Australian troops. ”

“ It was, in truth, fully manifested, before the close of the year, that the treaty of Amiens was an experiment that had signally failed, and that recourse, at no distant day, would be again had to the sword to decide the contest for superiority between the two countries of France and England.
Nor was the conduct of Napoleon in Paris less indicative of war; ambition being conspicuous in every movement. ”

“ Early next morning there was a thrill of anxiety in Amiens itself. Reports had come through that the railway line had been cut between Boulogne and Abbeville. There had been mysterious movements of regiments from the town barracks. They had moved out of Amiens, and there was a strange quietude in the streets, hardly a man in uniform to be seen in places which had been filled with soldiers the day before. I think only a few people realized the actual significance of all this. Only a few—the friends of officers or the friends of officers' friends—had heard that Amiens itself was to be evacuated. ”

“ I have, in a former letter, noticed the great number of beggars that swarm at Arras: they are not less numerous at Amiens, though of a different description—they are neither so disgusting, nor so wretched, but are much more importunate and insolent—they plead neither sickness nor infirmity, and are, for the most part, able and healthy. How so many people should beg by profession in a large manufacturing town, it is difficult to conceive; but, whatever may be the cause, I am tempted to believe the effect has some influence on the manners of the inhabitants of Amiens. ”

“ On April 4th, the Germans attacked again, determined to break through at all costs. Against the French front alone, 15 kilometres in length, eleven divisions were hurled. Crossing to the left bank of the Avre, they took the villages of Morisel and Mailly-Raineval from Debeney’s army, and threatened the railway from Clermont to Amiens, which was their objective. At Hangard, the British, shoulder to shoulder with the French, repulsed all attacks. Further to the north, they withdrew to the west of Hamel, and during the night were forced back to the Villers-Bretonneux plateau. ”

“ A few minutes before midnight Friday, when they came back along the road to Amiens, crawling back slowly in a long, dismal trail, the ambulance wagons laden with the dead and dying, hay carts piled high with saddles and accoutrements, upon which lay, immobile like men already dead, the spent and exhausted soldiers, they passed through the crowds of silent people of Amiens, who only whispered as they stared at the procession. ”

“ Mar. 11, 1597. when the news suddenly arrived that Porto Carrero, the Governor of Doullens, had seized the important town of Amiens by a clever coup de main (March 11, 1597) . ‘Enough,’ said Henry, ‘of playing the King of France; ‘tis time to be the King of Navarre again.’ Biron was despatched to besiege Amiens forthwith. In June, the King followed himself with an army, in which the presence of Montmorenci, Mayenne, and Épernon showed that the old factions had been well-nigh extinguished. ”

“ Attacks and counterattacks followed each other in rapid succession, which resulted in the British gaining some ground. If it was the purpose of the Germans to make a drive on Amiens, this sector was of special importance, for it lay east of the city between the Somme and the Avre. What encouraged the Allies' High Command to believe that Amiens was the objective was the massing of great numbers of German troops in this area and in the district around Albert. In expectation of a heavy blow in these regions the Allies brought into the battle front as rapidly as possible a great number of guns. ”

“ During the same day (10th) , the British captured Proyart and approached Chaulnes.
280mm. GUN WHICH BOMBARDED AMIENS CAPTURED BY AUSTRALIANS. RANGE: 30 MILES.
From that moment Amiens was safe from further aggression, as the Germans, harried by the victorious Allied armies, retreated each day.
(Translation)
Twelve hostages chosen from the town councillors, and the Attorney General, will answer with their lives for the undertaking entered into by the Municipality that no hostile act will be committed by the population against the German troops. ”

“ It was the time of the final violence, when the German hordes flung like driven cattle against the Western line where free men fought for liberty. Fate hovered dreadfully in the balance that spring of 1918; Amiens was threatened, and if Amiens fell, Rouen must be evacuated. ”

“ The Germans attack in great strength towards Amiens; they advance considerably on either side of Moreuil (south-east of Amiens) ; the French lose Morisel and Mailly-Raineval. The Germans claim to have taken 90,000 prisoners and 1300 guns since March 21. ”

“ Bases were crowded to overflowing. Train services were seriously deranged by the German approach to Amiens. The traffic upon the main roads in the Somme valley was an eloquent intermingling of troops, guns, and civilians evacuating as much of their property as possible upon wagons and carts, which were piled high with children, tables, utensils, bedsteads, farm implements, and always mattresses. The shelling of Amiens Cathedral and the long gun which played on Paris were signs of the destructive ascendancy of the enemy. ”

“ During the battles of the Somme in 1916, and afterward in periods of progress and retreat over the abominable fields, the city of Amiens was the capital of the British army. When the battles began in July of that year it was only a short distance away from the fighting-lines; near enough to hear the incessant roar of gun-fire on the French front and ours, and near enough to get, by motor-car or lorry, in less than thirty minutes, to places where men were being killed or maimed or blinded in the routine of the day's work. ”

“ After the rupture of the treaty of Amiens the 89th was ordered first to the West Indies and then to the Cape of Good Hope, and was engaged in the recapture both of the French sugar islands and the Dutch colony in Africa. ”

“ The city of Amiens, one of the keys to Paris, had been a chief objective of the German drive, but all efforts to capture that important railroad center failed. True, Noyon, Peronne, Bapaume, Albert and Montdidier, on the south, and Festubert, Neuve Chappelle, Armentieres, and Paaschendaele, to the north, were successively captured from the Allies, in spite of the most gallant and heroic resistance. But then the lines held firmly, and all the Germans had to show for an awful sacrifice of life and morale was a few miles of advance into territory already devastated by war. ”

“ One important result of the British drive was that Amiens, the "dead city of Picardy," began to come to life again. Its population of 150,000, including 40,000 refugees, had fled before the German offensive in March, 1918, but the former inhabitants began to return when the menace of the invader disappeared, as the invader himself was chased back toward the Somme. A service of thanks to the Allied arms was held in the Great Cathedral of Notre Dame in Amiens, August 15. Despite the damage from German guns and bombs, the cathedral retained the title of the most beautiful in all France. ”

“ Those boys from ten to sixteen who were driving the plow for next year's sowing had become men in their steadiness.
Amiens was happy in the memory of the frustration of what might have happened when her citizens looked at the posters, already valuable relics, that had been put up by von Kluck's army as it passed through on the way to its about-face on the Marne. The old town, out of the battle area, out of the reach of shells, had prospered exceedingly. ”

“ This is Villers-Bretonneux, the village from which the Australians drove the Germans on the night of April 24-25. The story of the attack, of which we have read so many accounts, was again told to me by an officer as we stopped for a while in the village to see the ground over which the men of the South proved their worth in what we hope will be the last battle of the Somme.
Amiens is the last fringe of civilization. Beyond that we come into the dead world which was over-run by the German hordes in [34] the summer of 1918. ”

“ On September 5 the head doctor of the German ambulance gave orders to send to Amiens all the French wounded. The Amiens Red Cross sent twenty automobiles, with doctors and nurses, and the latter were on the point of restarting for Amiens when Colonel von Kosser, the Governor of the town, ordered them to be detained in Péronne, where they remained for two days in barracks, and were then released. The Red Cross people had to walk to Amiens, as the Germans kept the motor-cars. ”

“ We are not ready to fight yet. But wait!"
"Wait! Wait? Is that the thing for French soldiers to do? That is not how Napoleon won his battles! He struck—and he struck first!"
"Never until he was sure of victory."
"But if they keep on retreating, they will be south of here! The Germans can take Amiens, [Pg 60] if they like!" exclaimed Harry in much alarm.
"What of it? It will be sad for Amiens, but it will do the Germans no good. Amiens has no strategic value. Less than Rheims or Laon—and we know now that the Germans have them both, though that has not been in the bulletins." ”

“ Sir Ian Hamilton's Gallipoli Diary is one of many military documents that shew that civilian morale at home cracked before the morale of the soldiers under fire. There was a fantastic legend that the English were unvaryingly calm and resolute, with a calmness and resolution that became calmer and more resolute with every demand. Nothing is farther from the truth. There was a panic when the Amiens despatch was published; and every outburst of popular violence or madness had panic as its origin and explanation. ”