I was told an incident which seems characteristic. I will cite it as I heard it, without comment and without guaranteeing its authenticity. The King of X., who did not love the new régime, who suffered cruelly from it in his own capital and who did not wish to let his authority over his own army be taken away from him, was ready to cry with vexation when he was asked for the last reinforcements to be despatched to the theatre of war. He would like to have refused them, but dared not do so. Shutting himself up in his palace, he refused to see his troops at their departure defiling with music across the public square in front of his palace.
But the whole of Germany had become drunk with the unheard-of, unhoped-for success of its arms, and this success exalted the different populations all the more that it had been greater than they had dared to hope for when the war began.
Up to that time France had been a formidable and much-feared power. The “_Rothosen_,” or “Red Breeches,” were regarded beyond the Rhine as invincible soldiers. At the news of the declaration of war, the various peoples were at first in great anxiety; everyone expected to see the French arrive from one day to the other.
If at that moment, I repeat, we had pushed vigorously forward instead of groping about and letting the enemy have time to concentrate his troops, take the initiative, and throw his soldiers in his turn on to our soil, the war would perhaps have taken another complexion, in spite of the wonderfully prepared plans of M. de Moltke.
A swift march to the Rhine, a vigorous advance beyond the frontier, carrying our arms beyond the river into the midst of German soil, would have produced an immense impression, and would have thrown doubt and hesitation among the allies of Prussia. Perhaps the whole campaign might have turned in favour of France.
I have no intention of here trespassing on military ground, where even those more competent than I are not always in agreement. But I can certainly bear witness, for it is the exact truth, that the anxiety of all sections of the German population was great, and that, when the news of the first victories arrived, one could not believe them, but rather considered them as miracles and attributed them to the Divine Justice which wished to punish “impious” France, the hereditary enemy of Germany, for having forced a quarrel on her and having without serious reason begun this terrible war. Once the first victories were won, there was no limit to the rejoicings, and as success increased and was accentuated, when one battle after the other was won and the German armies advanced in numbers and irresistibly on to French territory, this immense, matchless, and unprecedented victory produced an equally immense change in public opinion. What, was France letting herself thus be beaten? France, who had set the ball rolling, France, who had menaced the security of Germany for a century and who would always menace it, if Germany did not profit by the opportunity and take her precautions!