The Downfall (La Débâcle). Emile Zola

they had fallen in the panic and the rout, lying half dead with fatigue in a ditch, and then dragging themselves along in the rear of the army, forced by exhausting attacks of fever to linger behind in the towns, and so belated at last that they were now only just arriving, somewhat restored to health, and bent upon joining their squads. Maurice, who was about to tackle a piece of Gruyère cheese, noticed, with his heart oppressed, the envious glances which they darted at his plate. 'Some more cheese, and some bread and some wine!' he called. 'You'll join me, comrades, eh? I stand treat! Here's to your health!'

      They sat down delighted; and Maurice, with an increasing chill at his heart, noted to what a lamentable condition they had fallen, with no weapons, and with their overcoats and red trousers fastened with so many bits of string, and patched with so many different shreds of cloth that they looked like pillagers—gipsies who had donned some old garments stolen from corpses on the battlefield.

      'Ah! curse it, yes!' resumed the bigger of the two, with his mouth full. 'It wasn't all fun over there. You should have seen it. Just tell your tale, Coutard.'

      Then the little one, gesticulating with a hunk of bread in his hand, began his story: 'I was washing my shirt while the soupe was being got ready—we were in a beastly hole, a regular funnel with big woods all round it which enabled those swinish Prussians to creep up on all fours without our knowing it—then, just at seven o'clock, their shells began falling in our pots. We rushed to arms in a jiffy, curse it! and up to eleven o'clock we fancied we were giving them a downright licking—but there weren't more than five thousand of us, you must know, and fresh detachments of those pigs kept constantly coming up. I was on a little hill, lying down behind a bush, and in front of me and right and left of me I could see them marching up, swarming like ants, like lines of black ants that never came to an end. Well, you know, we couldn't help thinking that the commanders were regular duffers to have shoved us into such a wasp's nest, far away from our comrades, and to leave us there too, to be crushed without any help coming. Then, in the midst of it all, our general, that poor devil General Douay,[16] who was neither a fool nor a capon, was hit by a ball and toppled over with his legs in the air. His account was settled! All the same, we still held out, but there were too many of them, and we had to slope. Next we fought in an inclosure, and defended the station with such a thundering row going on that one was quite deafened. Then, I hardly know, but the town must have been captured, and we found ourselves on a mountain—the Geissberg they call it, I think—and there, having entrenched ourselves in a kind of château, we kept on potting those pigs. They jumped into the air as we hit them, and it was a sight to see how they came down again on their snouts. But it was all no good; they kept on coming up till they were quite ten to one, and with as many guns as they wanted.[17] It is all very well to be brave, but bravery in an affair like that simply means leaving one's carcase on the field. Well, we were quite in a jelly at last, and we had to take ourselves off. All the same, our officers showed themselves regular duffers—didn't they, Picot?'

      There was a pause. Picot, the taller of the two men, drained a glass of white wine, and then, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, rejoined: 'Of course. It was the same at Frœschweiler. Only idiots would have thought of giving battle with affairs in such a state. My captain, an artful little beggar, said so. The truth is, the commanders can have known nothing. An entire army of those beasts fell on us when we were barely forty thousand. No fighting was expected that day, it seems; but the battle began little by little, without the officers wanting it. Of course, I didn't see everything, but I know well enough that the dancing went on all day, and that just when one thought it had ended the music began afresh. First at Wœrth, a pretty little village with a comical steeple, covered with earthenware tiles, which make it look like a stove. The devil, too, if I know why we were ordered out of Wœrth in the morning, for afterwards we had to fight, tooth and nail, to try and recapture it. But we didn't succeed. Ah! my boys, we did have a job there. You should have seen all the bellies ripped open and the brains scattered about. It was incredible. Then we had a set-to round another village—Elsasshausen, a beastly name to remember. We were being mowed down by a lot of guns which were firing at their ease from another cursed hill, which we had also given up in the morning. And then it was that I saw, yes, I myself saw the charge of the Cuirassiers. Ah! how the poor devils did get themselves killed! It was pitiful to send men and horses charging over such ground as that, a slope covered with scrub and full of ditches. And, besides, worse luck, it could be of no earthly use. All the same, however, it was brave, it was a grand sight to see. And after that? Well, after that it seemed as if we had no other course but to try and take ourselves off. The village was burning like tinder, the Badeners, the Wurtembergers, and the Prussians—the whole band, in fact—one hundred and twenty thousand of those beasts, had ended by surrounding us. But we didn't go off. The music began again round Frœschweiler. The plain truth is, MacMahon may be a duffer, but he's plucky. You should have seen him on his big horse in the midst of the shells! Any other man would have bolted at the outset, thinking it no shame to refuse battle when one isn't in force. But he, as the fighting had begun, determined to let the skull-cracking go on to the bitter end. And he managed it, too! In Frœschweiler we weren't like men fighting; we were like animals, eating one another. For a couple of hours the gutters ran with blood——. And then? Well, we had to skedaddle at last! And to think we learned just then that we had overthrown the Bavarians on our left! Ah! curse it, if we, too, had only had a hundred and twenty thousand men, if we had only had enough guns and not quite such duffing officers!'

      Still exasperated and violently inclined, Coutard and Picot, in their ragged uniforms grey with dust, were cutting themselves hunks of bread and bolting big bits of cheese, whilst venting their nightmare-like souvenirs under the beautiful vine with its ripe grapes spangled with golden darts by the sun. They had now come to the fearful rout that had followed the battle; the disbanded, demoralised, hungry regiments fleeing through the fields; the high roads one stream of men, horses, carts, and guns in frightful confusion; all the wreckage of an annihilated army, lashed onward in its retreat by the mad blast of panic. Since they had not been able to fall back in good order and defend the passages of the Vosges, where ten thousand men might have stopped a hundred thousand, at least they might have blown up the bridges and filled up the tunnels. But the generals bolted in the universal scare, and such a tempest of stupefaction swept along, carrying off both vanquishers and vanquished, that for a moment the two conflicting armies lost one another—MacMahon hurrying in the direction of Lunéville, whilst the Crown Prince of Prussia was looking for him in the direction of the Vosges. On August 7 the remnants of the First French Army Corps swept through Saverne like a muddy, overflowing stream laden with wreckage. On the 8th, the Fifth Corps fell in with the First at Saarburg, like one torrent flowing into another. The Fifth Corps was also in full flight, beaten without having fought, and carrying along with it its commander, that sorry General de Failly, who was distracted to find that the responsibility of the defeat was ascribed to his inaction. On the 9th and 10th the flying gallop continued, a mad sauve-qui-peut, in which no one halted even to look round. On the 11th, in the pouring rain, they descended towards Bayon, so as to avoid Nancy, which was falsely rumoured to be in the enemy's hands. On the 12th they encamped at Haroué; on the 13th at Vicherey; and next day they reached Neufchâteau, where the railway at last gathered together this drifting mass of men, who, during three entire days, were shovelled into the trains, so that they might be conveyed to Châlons. Four-and-twenty hours after the last train had started the Prussians came up.

      'Ah! cursed luck!' concluded Picot. 'We had to use our legs, and no mistake. And we two had been left at the infirmary.'

      Coutard was just emptying the bottle into his comrade's glass and his own: 'Yes,' said he, 'we took ourselves off, and we've been on the road ever since. All the same, however, one feels better now that one can drink to the health of those that haven't had their skulls cracked.'

      Maurice now understood everything. After so stupidly allowing themselves to be surprised at Weissenburg, the crushing, lightning stroke of Frœschweiler had fallen on the French, its sinister glare casting a vivid light upon the terrible truth. France was not ready, she had neither cannon, nor men, nor generals; and the enemy, treated with such contempt, proved to be strong and solid, innumerable, perfect alike in discipline and tactics. Through the weak screen formed of the seven French Army Corps, disseminated between Metz and Strasburg, the foe had literally punched his way. Of a certainty