The line between the two forts was closed with every resource of field fortification; but they proved of no avail, and only gave a fresh illustration of the old saying, related of a British soldier in the Crimean days, who, when taunted by a superior officer with being afraid of the Russian trenches, replied, ‘It ain’t the —— mud heaps, it’s the —— that stands behind!’
The line depended on the forts for flank defence, and when these were silenced, the struggle degenerated into a purely frontal one, in which the immense superiority of our fire in accuracy told. It was, perhaps, in its commencement, the nearest approach to an ideal skirmishing fight we have yet had. Covered by the fire of every available heavy gun—maintained to the last moment possible—our skirmishers crept in to within the edge of the obstacles and entanglements, potting every Frenchman as he showed his head, so that the working parties who followed immediately behind could cut the wires, etc., at their leisure. In places dense lines of abattis could not be thus easily dealt with, but the value of these fell when once the flanks were turned; and when the troops told off for the actual storm broke cover there was practically nothing in front to stop them. We carried the place almost at the first rush; then ensued many long hours of wood fighting, and at the fall of night our outposts finally held the line, Dugny, Le Bourget, Raincy, Neuilly. Many of the officers had been there before. We are now within easy bombarding range of the city.
As I write a report comes in that great fires are raging in Paris. This cannot be caused by our shells.
All firing has ceased at the outposts. A report is current that a _parlementaire_ with a white flag has come in, and an armistice is looked on as certain.
The report is confirmed. An insurrection has broken out in the city; the Government is deposed, and some members of it massacred. We are moving forward to the line of the old forts which will be given up to set free the garrisons to act against the Commune, and from them we hold the whole city at our mercy.
At length we have great news to report from the British Army. A great battle has been fought and won. Nay, more—the whole Russian Army in Bulgaria, caught like rats in a trap, has, after two days of fierce fighting, laid down its arms. It will be seen, therefore, that the British Army has, after all, not turned up in Asia Minor, but in Bulgaria. All the rumours and apparent demonstrations which led to the belief that a great campaign in Asia Minor was intended, were merely designed to distract attention from the real objects of the expedition. Those who are familiar with Lord Wolseley’s methods now profess to have been always made suspicious by the fact that, as we reported in our issue of June 4th, he had been talking a great deal of the advantages of a campaign in Asia Minor. They say that it is notorious that he holds strongly to the belief that what is supposed in your own army to be about to happen will soon be believed by the enemy. He succeeded in this way in imposing on Arabi so completely during the ’82 campaign, that (extraordinary as it may appear) the Egyptian leader was a prisoner in Ceylon, when he was for the first time made acquainted with the great movement of the English expedition from Alexandria to Ismalia. Lord Wolseley then succeeded in deceiving Arabi because he had imposed upon the world at large, although precisely in a similar manner he had, by spreading reports of a call from Captain Glover during the Ashantee campaign, managed to embark his troops for the surprise of the coast towns from which the Ashantees were drawing their supplies, without any one suspecting the direction in which he was going to strike. The former ruse had been forgotten, and caused no suspicion as to the second. If we may judge by the comments of our contemporaries on the reports which have been hitherto furnished of the war, they have been either very discreet and loyal, or have been completely bamboozled. And yet it was tolerably plain that the direction in which an English Army could at the moment be most effectively employed was in clearing Bulgaria of the aggressive force of Russians, which, from the peculiar circumstances of the case, she had not force to dispose of alone.