Friedrich Engels 
The fate of Metz 

The Pall Mail Gazette. 
Nr. 1771, 17. Oktober 1870 

The fate of Metz. 

If we are to believe the news from Berlin, the Prussian staff seem to 
anticipate that Paris will be conquered before Metz. But this opinion is 
evidently founded quite as much on political as on military reasoning. 
5 The troubles within Paris for which Count Bismarck has been waiting 
have not yet begun; but discord and civil war are expected to break out 
without fail as soon as the big guns of the besiegers shall commence 
booming over the city. So far, the Parisians have belied the opinion held 
of them in the German headquarters, and they may do so to the end. If 
10 so, the notion that Paris will be taken by the end of this month will 
almost certainly prove illusory, and Metz may have to surrender before 
Paris. 
Metz, as a mere fortress, is infinitely stronger than Paris. The latter city 
is fortified on the supposition that the whole or at least the greater por- 
15 tion of the beaten French army will retire upon it and conduct the de- 
fence by constant attacks on the enemy, whose attempts to invest the 
place necessarily weaken him on every point of the long line he has to 
take up. The defensive strength of the works therefore is not very great, 
and very properly so. To provide for a case such as has now occurred by 
20 the blunders of Bonapartist strategy would have raised the cost of the 
fortifications to an immense sum; and the time by which the defence 
could thereby be prolonged would scarcely amount to a fortnight. More- 
over, earthworks erected during or before the siege can be made to 
strengthen the works considerably. With Metz the case is very different. 
25 Metz was handed down to the present generation by Cormontaigne and 
other great engineers of the last century as a very strong fortress— strong 
in its defensive works. The Second Empire has added to these a circle of 
seven very large detached forts at distances of from two and a half to 

Friedrich Engels 

three miles from the centre ofthe town, so as to secure it from bombard- 
ment even with rifled guns, and to transform the whole into a large 
entrenched camp second to Paris only. A siege of Metz, therefore, would 
be a very lengthy operation even if the town held but its normal war 
garrison. But a siege in the face of the 100,000 men who are now shel- 
tered under its forts would be almost impossible. The sphere in which the 
French are still masters extends to fully two miles beyond the line of 
forts; to drive them back to the line of forts, so as to conquer the ground 
where the trenches would have to be dug, would necessitate a series of 
hand-to-hand fighting such as was only seen before Sebastopol; and sup- 
posing the garrison not to be demoralized by their constant fights or the 
besiegers not to be tired of such a sacrifice of life, the struggle might last 
many a month. The Germans have therefore never attempted a regular 
siege, but are trying to starve the place out. An army of 100,000 men, 
added to a population of nearly 60,000 and to the numbers of country 
people who have sought shelter behind the forts must sooner or later 
exhaust the stock of provisions if the blockade be strictly enforced; and, 
even before this shall have taken place, the chances are that demoraliza- 
tion among the garrison will compel surrender. When once an army finds 
itself completely shut up, all attempts to break through the investing 
circle fruitless, all hope of relief from without cut off, even the best army 
will gradually lose its discipline and cohesion under sufferings, priva- 
tions, labours, and dangers which do not appear to serve any other pur- 
pose but to uphold the honour of the flag. 

For symptoms of this demoralization we have been watching for some 
time in vain. The stock of provisions inside the town has been much more 
considerable than was supposed, and thus the army of Metz has had a 
pretty good time of it. But the stores, if plentiful, must have been ill 
assorted; which is quite natural, as they were stray supplies for the army, 
accidentally left in the town and never intended for the purpose they have 
now to serve. The consequence is that the diet of the soldiers in the 
long-run becomes not only different from what they are accustomed to, 
but positively abnormal, and produces sickness of various kinds and of 
daily increasing severity, the causes of this sickness operating stronger 
and stronger every day. This phase of the blockade appears to have now 
been reached. Among the articles of which Metz is short are bread, the 
chief ordinary food of the French peasantry, and salt. The latter is abso- 
lutely indispensable to maintain health; and, as bread is almost the only 
form in which the French partake of starch for fat-producing food, the 
same may in this case be said of the former. The necessity of feeding the 
men and inhabitants on meat principally has, it is said, produced dysen- 

The fate of Metz 

tery and scurvy. Without trusting too much to reports from deserters, 
who generally say what they think will please their captors, we may still 
believe such to be the case, as it isjust what must occur under the circum- 
stances. That the chances of demoralization must thereby increase rapid- 
ly is a matter of course. 

The very capable correspondent of the Daily News before Metz states, 
in his description of Bazaine's sortie of the 7 of October, that after the 
French had established themselves in the villages to the north of Fort 
Saint-Eloy (north of Metz, in the valley of the Moselle) a mass of at least 
30,000 of them was formed more to their right, close to the river, and 
advanced against the Germans. This column, or group of columns, was 
evidently intended to break through the circle of investment. This task 
required the utmost determination. They would have to march straight 
into a semicircle of troops and batteries concentrating their fire upon 
them; the severity of this fire would increase up to the point of actual 
contact with the enemy's masses, when, if they succeeded in routing 
them, it would at once considerably diminish, while, if they had to re- 
treat, they would have to undergo the same cross-fire a second time. This 
the men must have known; and, moreover, Bazaine would use for this 
supreme effort his very best troops. Yet we are told that they never even 
got within the rifle-fire of the German masses. Before they reached the 
critical point, the fire of the artillery and of the line of skirmishers had 
dissolved their cohesion: "the dense columns first staggered and then 
broke." 

This is the first time in this war that we hear such things of the men 
who could face cold steel and hot fire well enough at Vionville, Grave- 
lotte, and the latter sorties. This inability even to attempt thoroughly the 
task which they were put to seems to show that the army of Metz is no 
longer what it was. It seems to indicate, not as yet demoralization, but 
discouragement and hopelessness—the feeling that it is no use trying. 
From that to positive demoralization there are not many steps, especially 
with French soldiers. And though it would be premature to predict from 
these indications the speedy fall of Metz, yet it will be surprising if we do 
not soon discover more symptoms announcing that the defence is on the 
wane. 

The surrender of Metz would have a far less moral, but a far greater 
material influence upon the course of the war than the fall of Paris. If 
Paris be taken, France may give in, but she need not any more than now. 
For by far the greater portion ofthe troops now investing Paris would be 
required to hold the town and its environs, and it is more than doubtful 
whether men enough could be spared to advance as far as Bordeaux. But, 

Friedrich Engels 

if Metz capitulated, more than 200,000 Germans would be set at liberty, 
and such an army, in the present state of the French forces in the field, 
would be amply sufficient to go where it liked in the open country, and to 
do there what it liked. The progress of occupation, arrested by the two 
great entrenched camps, would at once commence again, and any at- 
tempts at guerrilla warfare, which now might be very effective, would 
then soon be crushed.