¶ With tens of thousands of Cuirassiers as companions the King and Bismarck rode down the broad highways, toward Paris; Bismarck wore his famous big top-boots.
What a picture the King, Bismarck and von Moltke marching down the highways of France, at their back their almighty army, up to 1914 the greatest in all history, its fighting strength 600,000 men, perfectly drilled and armed with deadly needle-guns. In puffs of smoke the reign of Napoleon the Little was ending; and it is now curious to recall that, 50 years before, as a young lieutenant, the present King of Prussia had traversed almost the identical route with the Allies, to help defeat Napoleon the Great!
¶ The iron heel of war was grinding men's lives into the dust, setting fire to the country, and leaving a trail of destruction.
France looked along the German route as though a cyclone had devastated the face of nature.
¶ Past cities, towns, vineyards, châteaux, the tramp, tramp, tramp; the roll of the war drums; the rumbling of wheels--so the terrible Prussians marched on!
¶ "Summer was passing," says Lowe, "Autumn was coming fast; France had turned from the sap green of the vineyards to the golden hues of the harvest; but it was the harvest of Death."
¶ Now came a gigantic cavalry movement, to the right, a prodigious wheel, to round-up the French MacMahon, who had dodged and doubled in the basin of the Meuse. "The chase," said Bismarck, "reminds me of a wolf hunt in the Ardennes, but when we arrived, the wolf had vanished!"
To make common ground with Bazaine, MacMahon concentrated his troops, with the idea of breaking the siege of Metz, where 175,000 French soldiers were undergoing the horrors of starvation.
The Germans outwitted MacMahon, who finally decided to make a last stand around the frontier fortress of Sedan.
¶ On the night of August 31, the Germans closed in on him, in what proved to be one of the momentous battles in the world's history.
Von Roon and Moltke had 121,000 infantry and 618 cannon, the French 70,000 of all arms, 320 cannon and 70 Mitrailleuses.
On the slopes of Frenois, the Prussian King, Bismarck and a brilliant retinue witnessed for ten hours the dreadful carnage reddening the fields.
¶ "More artillery!" cried the King, surprised that the French would not yield.