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the Online Distributed Proofreading Team from imagesgenerously made available by the Bibliothèque nationalede France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr.
By Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
Le Petit Homme Rouge
Author of "The Court of the Tuileries 1852-70" etc.
With A Frontispiece
London, 1914
O husbandmen of hill and dale,
O dressers of the vines,
O sea-tossed fighters of the gale,
O hewers of the mines,
O wealthy ones who need not strive,
O sons of learning, art,
O craftsmen of the city's hive,
O traders of the man,
Hark to the cannon's thunder-call
Appealing to the brave!
Your France is wounded, and may fall
Beneath the foreign grave!
Then gird your loins! Let none delay
Her glory to maintain;
Drive out the foe, throw off his sway,
Win back your land again!
While this volume is largely of an autobiographical character, it will befound to contain also a variety of general information concerning theFranco-German War of 1870-71, more particularly with respect to the secondpart of that great struggle—the so-called "People's War" which followedthe crash of Sedan and the downfall of the Second French Empire. If I haveincorporated this historical matter in my book, it is because I haverepeatedly noticed in these later years that, whilst English people areconversant with the main facts of the Sedan disaster and such subsequentoutstanding events as the siege of Paris and the capitulation of Metz,they usually know very little about the manner in which the war generallywas carried on by the French under the virtual dictatorship of Gambetta.Should England ever be invaded by a large hostile force, we, with our verylimited regular army, should probably be obliged to rely largely onelements similar to those which were called to the field by the FrenchNational Defence Government of 1870 after the regular armies of the Empirehad been either crushed at Sedan or closely invested at Metz. For thatreason I have always taken a keen interest in our Territorial Force, wellrealizing what heavy responsibilities would fall upon it if a powerfulenemy should obtain a footing in this country. Some indication of thoseresponsibilities will be found in the present book.
Generally speaking, however, I have given only a sketch of the latter partof the Franco-German War. To have entered into details on an infinity ofmatters would have necessitated the writing of a very much longer work.However, I have supplied, I think, a good deal of precise informationrespecting the events which I actually witnessed, and in this connexion,perhaps, I may have thrown some useful sidelights on the war generally;for many things akin to those which I saw, occurred under more or lesssimilar circumstances in other parts of France.
People who are aware that I am acquainted with the shortcomings of theFrench in those already distant days, and that I have watched, as closelyas most foreigners can watch, the evolution of the French army in theselater times, have often asked me what, to my thinking, would be theoutcome of another Franco-German War. For many years I fully anticipatedanoth