The Campaign on the Loire, 1870-1871

The campaign on the Loire was in many ways the most dramatic, and most important, of the various campaigns of the German army during the winter of 1870-1871. It was fought for the most part in dreadful weather conditions which subjected its participants to extremes of physical hardship. The culmination of the campaign was the battle of Le Mans, and this tested the aimies on both sides to an even greater extent than the months which had gone before.

With the collapse of the Second Empire after the crushing French defeat at Sedan on September 1 1870, it was widely assumed that it would not be long before the Franco-Prussian War came to an end. This assumption, while understandable, proved entirely incorrect. The hastily assembled Government of National Defence unexpectedly succeeded in raising very substantial forces, organised with the aim of relieving Paris, now besieged by the advancing German armies. Inevitably, these new French forces lacked the training and discipline of their adversaries, and in many instances were not well led. Nonetheless, in the autumn and winter of 1870-1871, the offered a serious threat to the besieging armies, advancing as they did from several directions.

The author has previously examined two of the campaigns directed to the relief of the capital. In The Somme, 1870-1871: The Winter Campaign in Picardy, he traced the campaign of the Army of the North, under General Louis Faidherbe. This ended in failure at St Quentin on January 19, 1871 at the hands of the German First Army led by the redoubtable General August von Goeben. The second of these relief campaigns was mounted from the south-east of France, by the Army of the East, led by General Charles-Denis Bourbaki. After defeat at the battle of the Lisaine on January 16-18 by the German Corps led by General August von Werder, Bourbaki was compelled by the advancing Sudarmee under General Edwin Edwin von Manteuffel to retreat into Switzerland, and surrendered there. The author described this campaign in The Last Throw of the Dice: Bourbaki and Werder in Eastern France 1870-1871.

In this book, the author has turned to the campaign on the Loire, which was in many ways the most dramatic, and most important of the campaign s fought during the winter of 1870-1871. It was fought for the most part in dreadful weather conditions which subjected its participants to extremes of physical hardship .. The campaign culminated in the battle of Le Mans, which tested the armies on both sides to an even greater extent than the months that had gone before.

The campaign on the Loire confirmed that, in the Chassepot rifle and the mitrailleuse the French possessed infantry weapons which were far superior to those of their opponents. But it also confirmed that the German artillery would almost always be decisive in ensuring German battlefield superiority. Perhaps most strikingly, the war had also shown that the management skills of the Prussian General Staff, so carefully developed by Moltke ever since he succeeded to the post of its chief, represented the way forward for military leadership.

The Loire campaign also illustrated some of the command problems that could arise as a result of the interaction of very differing personalities. On the German side, for instance, it was only after Moltke, extremely dissatisfied with the proceedings of the detachment under the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, intervened, that the difficulties were resolved. He replaced its chief of staff, Colonel von Krenski, with the temporary appointment of the Prussian Intendant-General, Albrecht von Stosch. The latter was, indeed, one of the outstanding heroes of the Loire campaign, whose achievements did not go unnoticed by his colleagues and by historians alike, even if the convention that Royal army commanders should have the credit for victories won was what weighed with the Press and the general public.

For the French, the indomitable Alfred Chanzy was by some way the ablest of their generals; notwithstanding the series of defeats sustained by his 2nd Army of the Loire, he never gave up. Less fortunate was General Claude d' Aurelle de Paladines, whose tenure in command of the Army of the Loire was marked by the abominable mistreatment which he suffered at the hands of Charles de Freycinet, the 'Delegate' appointed by Leon Gambetta to support him in carrying out his duties as Minister of War. Freycinet thereby had the effective conduct of the armies of the Government of National Defence, a position to which he brought vast enthusiasm and determination, but no military experience whatsoever.

On both sides there were many other commanders who played important parts in the struggle on the Loire, but in the end its great heroes were the ordinary soldiers whose loyalty, courage and endurance illuminated the campaign. The recollections of some of those in less senior positions, such as the Prussian Hans von Kretschmann, and the French Roger de Mauni, give a real sense of what it was like to be fighting on the Loire in the field during the fearful winter of 1870-1871.