atest armies of modern times was the most serious
disaster that could befall the French cause. Bazaine's army was
needed, not in a fortified town, but _in the field_. It was a
tremendous force. The army that Prince Frederick Charles locked up in
Metz could have marched from Parthia to Spain against the resistance
of the whole Roman Empire, at the high noon of that imperial power! It
could have marched from end to end of the Southern Confederacy in the
palmiest day of that Confederacy, and could not have been seriously
impeded! And yet this tremendous force was pent up and shut in, as if
under seal, while King William and the Crown Prince and Bismarck and
Von Moltke hunted down the French Emperor and his remaining forces,
brought them to bay, and compelled a surrender.

This was accomplished by the first of September. The Empire of
Napoleon went to pieces. The Third Republic was instituted. The
Empress fled with the Prince Imperial to England, while her humbled
lord was established by his captors at the castle of Wilhelmshohe.
Republican France found herself in possession of a political chaos
which could hardly be stilled. She also found herself in possession of
a splendid army of more than one hundred and seventy thousand men shut
up helplessly in Metz. The situation was highly dramatic. The Republic
said that Bazaine should break out, but the Marshal said that he could
not. What he said was true. The Germans held him fast. But the
Republic believed, as it still believes, that Bazaine, loyal to the
fallen Emperor rather than to his country, wished to handle his army
in such a manner as should compel the restoration of the Empire, under
the auspices of the German conquerors.

This idea was hateful above all things to the French Republicans.
September wore away, and more than half of October; but still the
siege of Metz was not concluded. Vainly did the new Republic of France
strive to extricate herself. Vainly did she raise new armies. Vainly
did she look for the escape of Bazaine. Finally, on the twenty-seventh
of October, that commander surrendered Metz and his army to the
Germans. It was the most tremendous capitulation known in history.
Never before was so powerful an army surrendered to an enemy. The
actual number of French soldiers covered by the capitulation was
fully one hundred and seventy thousand! The prostration of France was
complete, and her humiliation extreme.

Bazaine became the Black Beast of the pub