And such a will was disclosed in the person of Gambetta.
Minister of War, he had at the same time, by the French system of government, the direction of military operations, and certainly he was not the man to loosen his grasp of the chief command. For in a Republic, a victorious general at the head of the Army would at once have become Dictator in his stead. M. de Freycinet, another civilian, served under Gambetta as a sort of Chief of the General Staff, and the energetic, but dilettante, commandership exercised by these gentlemen cost France very dear. Gambetta's rare energy and unrelenting determination availed, indeed, to induce the entire population to take up arms, but not to direct these hasty levies with comprehensive unity of purpose. Without giving them time to be trained into fitness for the field, with ruthless severity he despatched them into the field in utter inefficiency as they were called out, to attempt the execution of ill-digested plans against an enemy on whose firm solidity all their courage and devotion was inevitably wrecked. He prolonged the struggle at the cost of heavy sacrifices on both sides, without turning the balance in favour of France.
In any event the German chiefs had still great difficulties to overcome.
The battles already won had cost heavy losses; in officers especially the losses were irreparable. Half the army was detained before Metz and Strasburg. The transport and guarding of already more than 200,000 prisoners required the services of a large part of the new levies being formed at home. The numerous fortresses had not indeed hindered the invasion of the German army, but they had to be invested or kept under observation to secure the rearward communications, and to safeguard the forwarding and victualling of troops; and each further advance into the enemy's country involved increased drafts of armed men. After the battle of Sedan only 150,000 men were available for further operations in the field. There could be no doubt that the new objective must be Paris, as the seat of the new Government and the centre of gravity, so to speak, of the whole country. On the very day of the capitulation of Sedan, all the dispositions were made for the renewal of the advance.
