The Bavarian Army and French Civilians in the War of 1870-71

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The Bavarian Army and French Civilians in the War of 1870-71 by Mark R. Stoneman

Copyright 1994 by Mark R. Stoneman Scan uploaded to GoogleDocs on 8/15/2010 http://clioandme.wordpress.com

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Universität Augsburg

Magisterarbeit

30. Januar 1994

Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte

Anschrift des Verfassers: AuBere Uferstr. 79 86154 Augsburg

Prof. Dr. Stig Förster

Contents Introduction Ch.1 Bavaria's Army The Soldiers The Officers Discipline Effect of.1 866 Defeat on Morale Bavarian Rifles Ch.2 "Hostile Feelings" A Nation Goes to War BavarianReactions Bavarian Memories of the French

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CIO Liv ing off the French 3 2 German Ideals: Moral Sensibilities and the International Law of War German Reality: The Logistics of the German Armies 3 "Like God In France" 3 7 Marcatding and Requisitioning 4 0

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Ch.4 Fighting the UnseenEnemy 4 The First Encounters 4 German Policy and the International Law of War A Close-Up View: The Example of Bazeilles

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Ch.5 Maintaining Remnants of One's Prewar Seff

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Ch.6 "Guerre à Outrance" 7 The French War Effort after Sedan 7 The German Leadership's Conception of Society and War General von der Tann's Policy 8

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Ch.7 Peoples' War on the Loire 8 2 The Condition of the Bavarian Troops 8 2 "Rassenkrieg" : The Bavarian Soldiers' War against the French Civilians

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Conclusions

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Works Consulted

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Illustrations The following illustrations appear after the given page numbers: "Es bivouakirt sich sonst wohl leicht i t 4 jeden Loch in jeden Haus " 4 "Das verdeckte Gericht" 4 "Straßenkampf in Bazeilles" 5 "Abschiedeines bayerischenKarassiers vom feindlichen Quartier" "Feldwache an der Loire" 8 "Überfall einer Feldpost durch Franctireurs" 8 "Karassiere stecken eine Male i n Brand" 9 "Ueberfall einer Chevaulegers.-Patrouille " 9 "Ein ckutscher Barbar im Feindesland" 9

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Maps The following maps appear after the given page numbers: "The Theatre of War" "The Campaign of the Loire"

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1 Introduction Scholars of German history usually portray the Franco-German War of 1870-71 as a national war, whereby German unity was cemented and consecrated by the spilled blood of its confederated armies. This is not wrong, but it tends to obscure much of what happened during the war. For Germany did not become a nation-state simply through a common struggle, but through a common struggle against the French, which then colored postwar German nationalism. 1 T hand e the French that they carriedhome from the war, and these soldiers—from all walks France e x p e of r i l ei f e n 2 absorbed c e s them, being positively inclined towards its military after such great successes. — 3 G eimages of the French must have contributed to and mixed with German beliefs in their These b r o r mu g own and moral superiority that were so prevalent after 1870-71. a h tcultural n thave 4 n d t the h German e y perception m u of sFrance t as its Erbfeind (traditional enemy and influenced s hAo e sd larchenemy) that helped make World Wars I and II thinkable for so many Germans: e i5 Te o understand these important elements of German nationalism after 1870-71 one must know ir ms a what h ghappened between the Germans and the French during the Franco-German War. e a s An important aspect o f the conflict was engaging the French in battle, but this has td already been fairly adequately researched. o w 6 r e o every v e day, r , but their need for food and quarters did force them to deal almost vi Mi osoldiers French tr th e tG e daily with French r m civilians. a n These experiences made lasting impressions on the German u soldiers, sh l do f whom i elaterr wrote s about their time in France, and many more who bought a lo many td i memoirs, d These books devoted much space to battles, but they devoted as and lh read y these n t with French civilians. T h e German soldiers' quarters, their e much space oto encounters e fiv g h t F "hosts," e 7r 1re fGermany's o o victory over France than its unification: Karl Erich Born, "Von der Reichsgründung bis zum I. Weltkrieg. 1y n d -G C cebbardt. Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, 9th ed., vol. 3, Herbert Grundmann. ed. (1970; Stuttgart: Klett„ 1979) ac The 250. n importance of Germany's struggle against France is also reflected in Imperial Germany's choice of national o rd holiday. Sedwitag, 2 Sept., even if the day was chosen more by default h I2rs dE r Sn 3 icrh n vol. 2, Machtstaat vor der Demokratie (Munich: Beck, 1992) 230-238. 0e kenia , 4cr cp e 3s to7_ 0 hhe a h r n 5 iB fd e On G the cbo hRoad to Total War; The American Civil War and the Getman Wars of Unification, German Historical Institute, M s m e a Washington, DC. 1-4 Apnl 1992, 20-24. e s ert o ri&The n n best modem account of the military conflict is Michael Howard, The Franco-Prussian War: T h e German lfh lfc m Invasion o of France, 1870-1871 (1961, London: Routledge, 1989). oe io a rw b i 7 te n r1.si e a h d m a ue

2 other run-ins with French civilians were a central part of the German soldiers' war. An d they are important for our understanding of the war; for the Franco-German War was a national war, a war between two nations, two peoples, who to a large extent supported their respective country's war efforts . 8 l t bcamdries w a sbetween soldier and civilian became blurred, and German soldiers often where a found themselves in conffict with French civilians. And while the national character of the war w a r did not cause w h i all c such conflicts, it imparted the tone. I t often transformed what in past wars h have seemed to be no more than the unavoidable side-effects o f war into a part of may o f t France's e Germany's and respective national struggles. n r a In the v eighteenth century and most of the first half of the nineteenth century "cabinet war" a had g been e the usual form of warfare in Europe. Wars were fought by small professional d armies in limited campaigns for the limited aims of dynastic rulers, whereby nationalism and m o public opinion played little or no role, and there was a clear distinction between soldiers and r e civilians. The t h civilians' lot was simply to pay taxes and occaisonally—should the war cross a paths—suffer n their loss of property and possibly life. They were never supposed to take up tarms. h 9 mercy at the hands of their enemy,ill for the states claimed a monopoly on the use o f no e T h p fo o rce s . e o p "people's war," which even conservative states like Prussia and Austria had to adapt 1 appeared, e1 lw u e ' D to. To defeat Napoleon—to even survive—the conservative states needed to raise people's rsh i n armies, i.e.r mass armies of universal (male) conscription whose soldiers were patriotic. T o ga o i put through social reforms. Because in people's war a country's existance was tm this d end they e s h i usually, threatened, civilians also took up arms to defend their country and the line between e,d civilian and soldier became blurred. Though nothing new, these guerillas had a new and F powerful motivation, nationalism, a force born out of the French Revolutionary period which rea threatened the existence of the European order as it had been. After these wars conservative nn European states managed to regain their monopoly on the use of force by turning back the cd clock hm on some of the reforms, restricting themselves to small cabinet wars, and suppressing R nationalism. Bu t in 1870-71 Germany and France again had a people's war on their hands, a e n which contained more destructive potential than its forrurmers at the beginning o f the one vy 8o l h On the Bavarian and German side see ch. 2 below. 0 ua t n 9 i o F Sd Prussian Triangle of Leadership in the Face of People's War: A Re-Assessment of the Conflict between Biscmarck "The rand tn s Moltke 1870/71," unpublished essay prepared for the conference On the Road to Total War, The American Civil e ia War r the German Wars of Unification, German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, 1-4 April 1992, 5. i and n gy1 ) 1 n cWalter Fo R Laqueur W h ece r ,b aI sG taeFu e r i l l a u srt :B A t

3 century. Industrialization and nationalism now made it possible to tap increasingly more of the human, material, and economic resources a country had to offer, making it possible for larger numbers of troops to come together more quickly and deal deadlier blows than ever before. Fortunately this potential was not fully realized, but this "industria1i7Pd people's war" (Förster) did get ugly. Not only were there high battle casualties, but civilians became involved—on the receiving end of guns and on both ends of rifles. Afte r Sedan France's new government was forced to mobilize all o f France's human, material, and economic resources, and it was dependent on the patriotism and political goodwill of the nation. France felt its existance was being threatened, that Germany's demands for Alsace and Lorraine were inordinate, which they were for the limited aims of cabinet w a r. 1 2 would G e continue r m a nto ybe threatened, thus in part German insistance on the annexation of and a l s o f e l t Alsace-Lorraine. And in spite of Germany's lack of democracy, public opinion, influenced by t h a t nationalism, could i t s not be ignored by German governments in an age of industrialization, e x and i a shighly t developed a n newspaper c e media, the importance of which is testified to by literacy, h a d Bismarck's concern for the German press while he was in France. b e e n 13 A narmies, d G e ofrwhose m asoldiers n y identified h withatheir d people's most country's war ainas. v14 Tah i ss t s one which drew the civilians into it to a far greater extent than a people's war forw bothasides, cabinet war. And while in France much of the civilian involvement was—as in times past--the result of soldiers' needs for food and shelter, its consequences were particularly shocking in an age when Europeans considered theniselves to be more civilized than their forefathers.° Thus far I have referred to the Franco-German War as both a national war and a people's war because both terms were used by contemporaries of the war and both are nearly synonomous. One emphacizes a people or Volk, the other a nation, which is a people. One difference is that the word people also has democratic implications, i.e. the involvement of a country's individual citizens or subjects, including especially the common folk. A good example of the two meanings of people in German is the 1989 East German parole "Wir sind das Volk!" which expressed approximately the wish, "We, the people, have something to say about how things are run in this country." The parole then rapidly changed to "Wir sind ein 12 F3 1 O hr 807-808. Fo r evidence of Bismarck's concern for the German media see e.g. Moritz Busch, Mit Bismarck vor T 1991) s t Erlebnisse und Gespräche mit dem großen Kanzler während des Deutsch-Französischen Krieges 1870/71, ed. Paris. o er Helmut m Stindermann, 4th ed. (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1942). ,1 4s a M 5 5e 1N o ie n 0 Revolutionary Europe (up.: Leicester UP, 1982) and J.F.C. Fuller, The Conduct of War, 1789-1961 (1961; London: lc Methuen, tp 1979) 11-121. For a more detailed characterization of the war in this context see Stig Förster, "Helmuth von th hp Moltke und das Problem des industrialisierten Volkskriegs im 19. Jahrhundert," Genemlfeldmarschall von Moltke: ks ee Bedeutung und Wirkung ed. Roland G. Foerster, f or the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Beiträge z ur e hr. Militärgeschichte 33 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1991) 103-108. 3 I id -a se

4 Volk!" which expressed the belief that the citizens of the DDR and the BRD together made up one people, one nation, and should therefore be united in a single nation-state. Both of these meanings are present in the term people's war, whereas the term national war is related more to "Wir sind einVolic." In this essay I try to either emphacize the common national struggle with the terni national war or the soldiers' individual involvement as citizens (I use the term loosely) with the term people's war, although this varies somewhat according to context, since both elements--"the people" and "a people"--are present. Finally, while Stig Fôrster's term industrialized people's war is accurate, for the most part I avoid using the extra adjective industrialized because I presuppose it in this context. Sometimes contact with the French civilians was friendly, but not always, and as time passed relations worsened. Some incidents involved only simple misunderstandings, but there was also stealing and marauding on the part of the soldiers and withholding of food and drink on the part of the civilians, the latter of which led to threats to the civilians, searches and seizures of their property, and sometimes their beatings. There was even armed conflict between German soldiers and French civilians. Some civilians—the so-called francs-tireurs, who came to embody France's national struggle, its guerre it outrance—either armed themselves spontaneously or were organized in guerrilla groups. There were also gardes mobiles (local militia) without uniforms, who were mistaken for or considered civilians and francs-tireurs. German reactions to armed civilians included court-martials and executions, immediate shootings without bothering to take prisoners, burning down houses and towns, levying stiff fines on towns, taking hostages, and plundering. Rumours and stories of what happened abounded after the war, but have since been forgotten, with the exception of the francs-tireurs; and historians have studied the francstireurs only in a general way. The purpose of this essay is to examine the record, as it has appeared in print, of a specific segment of the German army, the two Bavarian corps, to find out what happened between German soldiers and French civilians and why, whereby, because of the sources available, the focus will be more on the Bavarian soldiers and less on the French civilians. Because this essay is based solely on the printed record it is inherently provisional; however, it should serve as a useful basis for research of the hand-written record, which up to now has not been systematically studied. The Bavarian army makes a good example for a number of reasons. First, there are a large number of printed sources available in Augsburg's State and City Library and in the former Bavarian War Archives in Munich—memoirs, diaries, letters, regimental and other unit histories, and newspapers. Second, modem historians of the Franco-German War have paid close attention to the Prussian army, thereby conveying the impression, i f inadvertently, that that is all there was. Ye t other German armies fought in the war as well, and their story also

5 needs telling. Third, the Bavarian army participated in some of the nastiest fighting of the war involving civilians, in Bazeilles outside Sedan, and later on the Loire. The intensity and ugliness of their fighting and daily life allows us to see more clearly the dynamic between soldier and civilian, insofar as officers, soldiers, and veterans were willing to write detailed accounts of their experiences. Fourth, the Bavarians had a reputation for brutality, including the habits of plundering, putting houses to the torch, and shooting civilians without tria1. 16 While this noteriety is not deserved by the Bavarians alone (other German units had similar experiences with the French and reacted in similar ways), it still requires that more attention be paid to the Bavarian army. Finally, because the Bavarians had problems with the French civilians similar to those that the Prussian and other German armies had, and because the Germanarmies all actedmore or less equally as drastically, the Bavarian army is a reasonable basis for a case study. While not everything was the same—which this essay will show--a study of the Bavarian army can point the way to further study of the experiences of the other Germanarmies as well. German military relations with French civilians in 1870-71 were examined once before in 1952 in an unpublished dissertation by Bertram Winterhalter, which is singular in that it covers not only f r a n c s However, Wmterhalter's approach is too legalistic; the international law of war is explored at tir e ur s , b u t length, but social and cultural factors are ignored, with the exception of nationalism and a few a l s o political r e q considerations. u i s i t Furthermore, Winterhalter is extremely apolegetic. H e accepts i o n s the , Prussian military leadership's arguments of "military realism" and "military uncritically c o n t r i necessity." b u t i o n 18 military s , necessity, which was supposedly humane because it allegedly sped up the war. F o r a In the 1960s and 1970s the f r a n c s W i n t n Howard, e r h aHeinz Helmert and Hansitirgen Usczeck, Werner Hahlweg, Walter Laqueur, and d tir e ur s a t t r a c t e d l t e r 'rhiébattt Schneider are all useful for understanding the guerilla war as a military Fernand q um ao r r e c o n in the context of nationalism and civilian participation in partisan warfare, and they phenomena t ea t r t es n t i o n . s i d . S t u d i e explain e r ato some extent the German reaction. 1 7s 19 b y t1 6 i Ho o w e v e r , b y i88-89; s o l a t i n g n 1 s Friedrich Koch-Brenberg, Drei Jahre in Frankreicli Errinnertmgen eines Tmopenoffiziers aus dem Feldzug M in dercOccupation i s c 1871-1873 h (Munich: Beck, 1891) 37; Graf Solms-Soimenwalde, unpublished memoirs, f1870/71 u r a und n o a e l -16 fg Sept. 1870 (found by Josef Becker, Universität Augsburg); Bertram Winterhalter, "Di e Behandlung der o i r e Zivilbevoelkertmg franzoesischen durch di e deutschen Truppen i m Kriege 1870/71 (unter besonderer th u r s v Beruecksichtigung der Stellungnahme Bismarcks und des Generalstabes)," dim, Universität Freiburg, 1952, 199. fu r o m o "For Winterhalter see previous footnote. Here I discuss only post-World War 11 literature on the topic, because older n m literature was rooted in a world of assumptions very close to the one this essay is about and hence more a primary than Hsecondary source. See e.g. Fritz Hoenig, Der Volkskrieg an der Loire im Herbst 1870, 6 vols. (Berlin: Mittler, 1893aa e 1897) and von Ditfurth, "Betrachtungen fiber den kleinen Krieg 1870/71," Beiheft zum Militär-Wochenblatt (1898) n l 4571L, cited in Werner Hahlweg. Guerilla. Krieg ohne Fronten (Stuttgart Kohlhammer, 1968) 67-68. iv t 18 i 0yn9 1 g "m H ,

6 requisitions and quarters, the most common basis of the Franco-German military-civilian relationship, one does not learn why many of the armed conflicts errupted nor why they took a given course. Furthermore, examining francs-tireurs by themselves blinds us to positive aspects of Franco-German contact during the war. The Germans and the French had good experiences with each other, and these too need to be examined, as Hans Heinrich Fleischer and Manfred Messerschmidt have shown? 0 Fleischer's essay, "Der Krieg 1870/71 im Spiegel zeitgentossicher Briefe und Berichte" (1972), is good because he reports both positive and negative experiences with the French, which he sees as part of the same story. Heischer's attempt to separate post-war ideology from attitudes the soldiers had during the war is particularly helpful. H e has used not only memoirs written after the war, but also undoctored, unpublished letters written during the war, something other historians have not done. Unfortunately his approach is somewhat elitist. H e focuses on officers and philosophical traditions, but not on the everyday lives of ordinary soldiers. Nevertheless, his essay is an important contribution, one which sadly has largely been ignored. Messerschmidt's essay, "The Prussian Army from Reform to War" (1992) handles the francs-tireurs problem in terms of the ideological development of the German military leadership, which became dominated by "military realism" in the last third of the nineteenth century. He also examines the nasty character of this war which sucked civilians into it. Here he makes the important observation that the francs-tireurs war produced in the Germans and Frenchextreme images of the other asenemy which lasted long after the war. Messerschmidt alsoremarks on the seeming paradox of good relations between some German officers and French civilians, which for bim meant this was no people's war. Unfortunately he does not try to explain this paradox. An important contribution towards understanding the French during this war has been made by Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, 1870. La France dans la guerre (1989), in which he not only handles military topics in a narrower sense, but also explores how most sections of French society experienced the war and evolved during this time. For my purposes AudoinRouzeau's book is useful for understanding how the French civilians reacted to the German invasion and occupation, i.e. the requisitions, contributions, hostage-taking, plundering, killing, and buming. 21 H i s is also helpful. francs-tireurs e x p l a n a t 22 1871 i o 5th n et (1967; Berlin: Militfirverlag der DDR, 1984); Laqueur 83-88; Fernand Thiébaut Schneider, "Der Krieg in fnmzésischer Sicht," Entscheidung 1870. Der deutsch-franzenische Krieg, ed. Militargeschichthches Forschungsamt o f tluough Wolfgang von Comte and Ursula von Gmadorf (Stuttgart: Deutsche, 1970) 191-198. h e 2t 0 F Jahrbuch r e Vereinigung "Freunde der Universitin Mainz" (Mainz: ap_, 1972); Messerschmidt, 18-26_ H dem der a2 n n1Audoin-Rouzeau c h 261-272. 5 c o n H

7 All of these essays help us understand what happened between the German soldiers and French civilians, but none of them concentrates on the topic in detail, with the exception of Vormterhalter, whose standpoint is somewhat alien to us today. In the following essay I attempt to build on the observations of the above scholars and then go deeper. In doing this I consider not only military factors, but also political, social, cultural, and psychological factors. Fo r war, like every other object of historical study, is rooted in a specific social context, one that changes with time, and one that changes that which is rooted in it, including war. Any explanation of war divorced from its social context would be devoid of meaning 23 To understand what h ,ppened between the Bavarian soldiers and French civilians in 1870-71 one must examine not only international law and military events (in the narrow sense of the word); one must also look at the the social context, e.g. what cultural norms governed the Bavarian soldiers' treatment of the French civilians, what attitudes towards the French informed the Bavarian soldiers' actions, what image of society shaped the policy of the Bavarian and German military leadership, and why the soldiers reacted to attacks from francstireurs psychologically differently than to deadly battle against regular troops. The advantage to such an approach is that studying war can also shed light on the belligerent societies, because during war the societies' social structures, political beliefs, and cultural values are challenged, sometimes radically altered; in any case they become highly transparent. 24 acceptable behavior for women, how men were supposed to treat women, what some T h i s ecomponents s s a of manliness were, and in what esteem private property was held. Th e conflict with fra n cs y -w i itl was confronted with a society which did not conform to its notions of how society because tlshould i r e u rbe. s a l s s h o so h wThe e following essay is organized thus. First, I examine the Bavarian army as it was d o s the war broke oui. This includes the army's social structure, its soldiers' and officers' when ln g role in it, the troops' discipline, the effects of the Bavarian army's experience in viewi of their h t t 1866 on the soldiers' and officers' morale, and the Bavarian rifle. I n chapter two 1 illustrate o h and n e explain Bavarian attitudes towards the French and the war when it broke out, and place this tB a 2 2 h v2 3 a A e u r d Clausewitz; i A von see e.g. his summary of the history of war and society in Carl von Clausewitz, On War, eds. and trans. o G e Michael and Peter Paret (1976; Princeton; UP, 1989) bk. 8, ch. 3b, 585-594. O n the Clausewitzian method and a i nHoward m n irsl -relevance its today: Stig Förster, "Carl von Clausewitz und die Sozialgeschichte des Krieges," Antrittsvorlesung, 27. m R Jan. iat 1993. F o r more on the importance of studying war in its social context see Best. A good example of n ia n o histotiogmphy that seeks to explain the outcome of a war not only wit h descriptions of battles, but also wit h i of the socio-political factors that shaped and supplied the respective armies is James M. McPherson, zm amgysisses rd e a u i of Freedom. The Civil War Era (New York: Ballantine, 1988). Battle yle Cry 1 h a 2t, 4 9 ir S Oxford, y1989). f 5 es e e -lto M

8 in the context of Clausewitz's "hostile feelings". In chapter three I discuss how the Bavarian army was supposed to be quartered and fed, and I show how this looked in practice. I also treat the friendlier side of the Bavarian soldiers' and French civilians' relationship here. I n chapter four I examine Bavarian experiences with armed civilians I n chapter five I examine some strategies soldiers had for maintaining vestiges of their prewar selves, which was important to their mental well-being in a war where they broke many cultural rules. In chapter six I describe the French conduct of the war in connection with the francs-tireurs and discuss the German leadership's reaction in the context of its conception of society and war. In chapter seven I explore what happened during the worst part of the war, the war on the Loire. Fmally I draw some conclusions and speculate about the impact of these experiences on the Germans' mentality.

9 Ch. 1 Bavarires Army More than 130,000 Bavarian soldiers saw duty in France during the war of 187071. 2 5 segments of Bavarian society (women excepted) represented in the Bavarian army? And how T did h the soldiers and officers view their roles in the army? Answering these questions will help determine whether or not it really was a people's war for the Bavarians. O f further interest is i s how well disciplined the soldiers were in the beginning and how good their morale was, for i this too would affect military-civilian relations. Finally, in connection with troop morale it is n also c necessary to look at the rifle most Bavarian soldiers carried, for this put them at a disadvantage l against French soldiers and francs-tireurs. u d Soldiers The e No definitive studies of the Bavarian army's social composition in 1870-71 have been d t completed as y e t, w 2 6 There b u had t beensucha thing earlier, since almost the beginning of the century, but in name 68. o e w only a and d o with many exceptions. 27 N o ow universal conscription had been introduced, the Fränkische Kurier commented on kra year nafter v i r t u a l l y m w the compositon of the army thus: e y o n e ty vh e ar Die h a dArmee kann m it großer Befriedigung a uf das vergangene Jahr tc zurückblicken. Wir haben jetzt eine wirkliche Armee, nicht eine solche auf dem tB o a vo Papier oder in der Registratur des Kriegsministeriunzs; wir haben eine Armee s v ar r e i rvon Fleisch und Blut, von Kopf und Herz; sie ist keine Steuer, kein Blutzehnd e . ap mehr, den nur der Arme leisten muß; der Arme wie der Reiche, der Hohe wie O n Niedere, der Gebildete wie der Ungebildete stehen in ihr Arm in Artn,28 is n t der 8 ra social o groups d All seemedto be represented in the army. This was also the impression that the J a n u n u c themselves e soldiers had in 1870-71. One veteran enlisted man, who had been a student a r y d d 1 volunteer, 8 in his memoirs about everday life in the field outside Paris during the siege. r u n wrote 6 9 how wood, had to be cut, windows installed, shoes made or repaired, and more. He ie described v p e r Even though the area was almost devoid of civilians who might have done these tasks, the sl a 2la5 1c von c1 zweioalten Dreizelmem. Beitrag zum Feste am 15. Mai, 1851-1901 (Ansbach: Eichinger, 1901) 20. eei6 2 nr war.s Wolf D. Grimm-, Das Bayerische Heer 1825 bis 1864. Line kritische Analyse der bewaffneten Macht Bayerns n1866 M m r i icct Regierungsantritt vom Ludwigs 1. bis zum Vorabend des deutschen Krieges, MilitArgeschichtliche Studien 14, ed. e e hpo MilitSrgesehicaliehes t i Forschungsamt (Boppard am Rhein: Bola., 1972). h B nMs a x Leyh, d "o n "Die bayerische Heeresreform unter König Ludwig H. 1866-1870," Darstellungen aus der Bayerischen fa Krieg u n d Heeresgeschichte 23 (1923): 56, 70. ti m o 28/xyh 70. s rin . c1 s tkW

10 German army was able to deal with them alone: "Das ist ja der Vorzug unserer deutschen Armee, des Volkes in Waffen, daß darin jeder Stand, jede Berufsart vertreten und somit eine Summe von Kenntnissen und Fertigkeiten aufgespeichert ist, welche es mühelos macht, far jede An von Arbeit den berufenen Vertreter aus den Reihen herauszunehmen. " 2reserve 9 Aofficer f recalled o r mthat e when r flour had to be ground outside Paris millers and machinists were simply pulled out of the ranks. 30 of F the l owars r i ain n man 1866 and 1870-71, described the assembly of the troops in Munich in July K i i h n h a u s e r , 1870 thus: m e r c h a n In alien Landestrachten und aus allen Standen, der Bauer neben dem Beamten, t a n der Arbeiter d neben seinem Fabrikanten, der Sturtzer neben dem Theologen, kamen v e t esie aller je nach der Größe zu stehen; in wenigen Minuten machte der blaue Rock Sta n d u n d R a n g g l e i ch , a l l e w a re n Soldaten u n d a n Vaterlandsverteidiger•31 e n l i s These recollections give the impression that most segments of (male) Bavarian society were t e d represented in its army. However, at present it is not possible to determine whether or not all classes and occupations were represented proportionately. I f they were not, Bavarian soldiers and officers felt otherwise. Their pride in this is evident from the above quotes. Bavaria's conscripted soldiers were, in the words of the Fränkische Kurier quoted above, the army's "flesh and blood," its "head and heart.," I n the nineteenth century a proper army needed such soldiers. I t needed large quantities of inexpensive cannon fodder, which could be aquired only through conscription, mercenaries being too expensive. And it needed well disciplined and highly motivated men to advance in the face of murderous fire, to march long distances on empty stomaches, to fight even in winter, inadequately clothed, and to endure countless other hardships, which mercenaries may not have been prepared to do. Conscript soldiers would be highly motivated because they had a personal stake in the war's outcome. In the language of the veterans quoted above Bavaria's soldiers were a "people in arms" a n d "defenders of the fatherland." Veterans commonly referred to themselves as citizen-soldiers. "D i e große Mehrzahl unserer Soldaten • • • von heutzutage sind bewaffnete Bürger" wrote Friedrich Koch-Breuberg, a veteran company commander of the I Bavarian Corps. 32 This was a realistic assessment in more than one way. The Bavarian army had initiated a badly needed reform only two years before the war broke out , 33 s o t h a t i n 29 1 8 7 0 t h e 0174-175. s 3k 0a ro lRegiment "Prinz Carl von Baden." 1870," type-written manuscript, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg, 1910, 107. s3L e 1 fFe l (Munich: Beck, 1914)17. io r K 32 riba F r der Occupation 1871-1873 (Munich: Beck, 1891) 15. und i u n ie g m K dr

1 1 Bavarian army could not yet be considered--as was the case in Prussia--"the school of the nation," i.e. a place where citizens not only became soldiers but learned to view the world as their king wanted them to. 34 W h i l e the Prussian soldiers were also patriotic, viewed themselves as citizens, and felt that they were fighting for king, country, and the German fatherland, Bavarian soldiers were more open to the influences of civilian society. Because the military reform which would bring Bavaria's army into line with Prussia's had only been in effect for two years in 1870, the Bavarian army resembled less an instrument to be used by the king alone than a people in arms. The Officers The Bavarian officer corps was mainly bourgeois, with the exception of certain units traditionally favored by the nobility. Between 1868 and 1914 the nobility made up 30% decreasing to 15% of the officer corps. This was the result of a Bavarian policy which gave preference to qualifications over birth for entry into the corps. Also, in Bavaria there was not as much nobility as in Prussia to fill the ranks. Nevertheless, Bavaria attempted to promote homogeneity, or what Hermann Rumschôttel calls "social exclusiveness", in the officer corps by recruiting officers from the families of officers and civil servants, as well as merchants, lawyers, teachers, doctors, and ministers. Despite these efforts, between 1870 and 1880 about 30% of the officer candidates came from the lower classes. 35 To make the officer corps more homogeneous, to promote a caste honor and caste conciousness, and develop an esprit de corps, tribunals called Eirrengerichte were set up in 1870. Th e jurisdiction of these tribunals included reserve officers. Th e cases that were handled in the beginning had less to do with honor in the narrow sense of the word than proper bourgeois behavior. I n 1870 injuries to personal honor and the honor of the officer corps included the following: not being determined enough, indebtedness (especially to those under one's own command), =seeming lifestyle, improper public behavior, drunkeness, gambling, being sworn at, breaking one's word, offending someone's sense of honor, and challenging someone to a duel that was not justilied. 36 T h e suggests n e ae d Ehremerichte heterogeneous officer corps. h i this sense the corps was close to the t o fi g h t people. m a n y 37 f 3o3 0t n h e s e 3 4 t1, The Period of Unification, 2nd rev. 0 n t h i n ged. (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990) 169 and Gerhard Ritter, Staatsktmst und ths Krieashandwerk. Das Problem des "Militarismus" in Deutschland, vol. 1 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1954) 154-158. Rit t er e referred to a "Volksschule" whic h Pflanze borrowed and translated. h i t r3w5 e e h P H Bayerns im Industriezeitalter 9, ed. Karl Bost (Berlin: Dtmcker, 1973) 91-94. rf3 e6 r o u m R 3 7 sru an T h m sn m e

12 On the other hand there was a conservative tradition in the officer corps, much the same as in Prussia. In 1864 a Bavarian officer wrote, Wenn man behauptet, clie Heere seien nicht productiv, so ist diell mi5glich, aber auch gänzlich gleichgültig: dagegen kommt ihnen eine andere Eigenschaft zu, welche ihre Bedeutung und Nützlichkeit bezeichnet: sie sind conserva tiv Die Heere erhalten den Fürsten ihr Recht, bewahren die Nation vor Anarchie und Barbarei; ohne sie würde Europa schon längst anfänglich der rothen Republik mit allen Gräueln verfallen, dann aber die Beute eines Eroberers geworden sein.38 Like in Prussia, Bavaria's officers (and soldiers) did not take an oath to the constitution but to the king. The officers considered themselves apolitical in the sense that they obeyed their king and did not occupy themselves with his politics. 39 S u cofhsociety a conception was directed against revolution in support of the king. c o n s e r v a t i v e 4() Yet at the same time corps was less particulistic, more (German) nationalistic p o l i t i c the a officer l than a Bavarian t t society i t as auwhole. d This e seems to have started in 1866 after Prussia's victory. a n July 1866,dsoon after Bavaria's defeat, Döllinger wrote that he had heard that Already on 28 young Bavarian officers were "voll Bewunderung P r die preußische Superiorität_" T h i s admiration developed into a wish to become more closely associated with Prussia and share in its military glory. 41 German nationalist. B a v a r i a Finally, Rumschottel has remarked that while Bavarian officers of this time remained n loyal o f tofi their c eking, unlike in 1848, in the Bavarian officer corps there was a much wider rspectrum s of political opinions than in the Prussian officer corps. c o n ut h i s 42 I s the e people. n s e corps was--in 1870—close to lt dh e o f fi c e r 43 And although the army was responsible to neither the constitution nor the people but to b e king alone, it was more firmly under the control of its elected representatives than the the l o The officers were to fullfill their duties to the letter and lead a clean, modest life, as well as internalize the old knightly yvirtues The a purpose of this was to guarantee the quality of the officer corps and justify the officers' special status in lsociety. The main difference with the Bavarians seems to be that the Bavarians had to deal more with people who tassociated with and behaved like members of the lower classes, while the Prussians had to deal with rich bourgeoisie who o were too decadent Hans-Martin Ottmer, "Ursachen und IrmtergrUnde zur Entwicklung deutscher militärischer Tradition vom Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts bis 1914," ed. isfilitärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Tradition in deutschen t h Streitkräften bis 1945, Entwicklung deutscher militärischer Tradition I (Herford: Mittler, 1986) 178-179. e i 38 r D Rumschiittel 222; original emphasis. ak s9 3 si u k 4(1 t m 1n1 i guenllas threatened to turn the world as the German officers knew it upside down. For more on this see my discussion ec s s Moltke's conception of society and war in ch.& of hg d 4w 1 teat R o2 4 nn l e uR u 4 d3 2 m ld u T corps, e h promote a caste honor and caste conciousness, and develop an esprit de corps increasingly made themselves 2 sm dc felt; as see Rumsehbitel. i2 H hs a ôe c -et tl t h h e a 2

13 Prussian army was. The Landtag could not directly control the army's use or size, but it could do this indirectly through its control of the military budget,' 4 something Prussia's parliament had not been able to do when the Prussian government reformed its army. In this sense the Bavarian army was close to at least the voting segment of the population. Moreover, enough of the people were represented in the army by men who considered themselves citizen-soldiers, and the officer corps was diverse enough, that in many ways the Bavarian army was a people's army when it marched into France in the summer of 1870. Discipline Because the Bavarian army had only two years to reform its army, in 1870 it was not yet imbued with the famous Prussian "cadaver obedience." The Bavarian troops fought well, standing their own in the worst of battles, but their organization was not yet as tightly knit as the Prussians'. Hugo Arnold, a young officer in the Royal Bavarian 1 lth Infantry Regiment during the war, recalled the state of Bavarian discipline during a march at the beginning of August: Am Morgen des 8. August sollten w i r . . aufbrechen und kochten deshalb schon frühzeitig ab; allein der auf 8 112 U h r morgens angesetzte Abmarsch verzögerte sich bis zum 4 U h r nachmittags, d a sich das V. preußische Armeekorps vor uns einschob. Obwohl wir die Gewehre in Pyramiden setzten und die Tornister ablegten, so waren wir aber diese Verzögerung gerade nicht sehr erbaut und ungeachtet des strengen Verbots, womit das "Raisonnieren" betroffen ist, mögen jenen Generalstabsoffizieren, deren Anordnungen wir diese unerfreuliche Rast bei strömendem Regen zu verdanken hatten, die Ohren geklungen haben bei dem Meinungsaustausche, den wir pflogen, als die langen Heersaulen des genannten Korps in vortrefflichster Mars chordnung, mit bester Adjustierung, wie aus einem Gasse geformt an uns vorüberzogen. Wi r mußten ihrer vorzuglichen Haltung die aufrichtigste Bewunderung zollen und mancher Ausdruck des Neides entflog dem Gehege unserer Zahne; denn, die Hand auf das Herz gelegt! bei uns ließ sich diese hohe Stufe der Marschdiziplin und der kriegerischen Erscheinung damals noch nicht erreichen. I n dieser Hinsicht waren uns die Preußen "weit liber" und w i r konnten uns bloß damit gewissermaßen trösten, daß die Ursache einzig in der kurzen Ausbildungszeit der Mannschaften gelegenwar.45 The Bavarian soldiers were not yet as highly disciplined as soldiers needed to be in order to follow to the letter their leadership's orders regarding the treatment of civilians and their property.

44 Le Verhältnisses am Beispiel des Milit.iretats, der Heeresstärke und des Milittiriustizwesens, Wehrwissensehaftliche yh Forschungen 28, et MilitArgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1981) 24-60, 7 5 -; 4 D7 . -7 e H

14 Effect of 1866 Defeat on Morale Important for the troops' morale, and thus behavior, was their self-confidence. I n July 1870 the self-confidence of Bavarian soldiers and officers was debilitated by memories of the Bavarian disaster in 1866, when Bavaria had been allied with Austria and much of the German Federation against Prussia. How much the memory of this failure persisted in the army is hard to say, but reading the memoirs and regimental histories of the 1870-71 war gives one the impression that the Bavarians suffered from an inferiority complex. Fo r example Hugo Arnold, a reserve officer, made a suspiciously determined effort in his memoirs to show Bavarian self-confidence. He described Bavaria's mobilization thus: Ich tr a f gerade rechtzeitig, noch am ersten Mobilmachungstage, beim Regimente ein. D i e Arbeiten waren bereits im vollen Gange, doch wie ganz anders funktionierte der Heeresapparat als noch vor vier Jahren! i m unglücklichen Jahre 1866 hatte man ebensoviel Wochen gebraucht, wie jetzt Tage, und dessen ungeachtet hatten die damaligen Leistungen unendlich vieles zu wünschen übrig gelassen. M i t gehobener Stimmung blickten wir jetzt dem näher und näher rückenden Wajlengange entgegen; denn gerade der Umstand, daß der Mobilmachung ungeachtet der außerordentlichen Schwierigkeiten bei der Neuheit der ganzen Einrichtung gerduchlos und im Ganzen glatt vollzog, gab uns ein gewaltiges Selbstvertrauen. 46everything went as smoothly as he wrote is unimportant. Significant is that, Whether or not regardless of his claims to the contrary, self-confidence seems to have been lacking at the beginning of the war, a condition which continued. The same author spent much effort trying to show that what the Bavarians experienced on the Loire, where by the middle of December sickness and battle had reduced the First Corps to a third of its original size, "ebenbürtig neben den größten Vixen [steht], welche die Kriegsgeschichte kennt." T h e Bavarians' efforts were neglected by contemporary military historians to a great extent, and non-Bavarian accounts were not sympathetic, a fact Arnold was sensitive to . 47 Remarks by Prussians confirm that they held none too high an opinion o f the Bavarians. Crown Prince Frederick-William recorded in his diary on 4 August after the battle at Wissembourg (Weißenburg) that the Bavarians had done well considering they were trained differently. They fullfilled their mission o f taking the city walls "sobald die preußischen Truppen ihnen clas gute Beispiel gaben, D i e Turkos haben sich ihnen gegenüber als die richtigen Wilden erwiesen. " 4considered 8 S uthecPrussian h troops to be, and comparing the Bavarians to Black colonial troops a shows what he thought of the Bavarians. Another time Frederick-William complained about r e m a r k the lack o f agwesive behavior. H e wrote o f the First Corps s General h o vonwder Tann's s h o that "man w scheint dort nervös zu sein, seitdem keine preußischen Helme in commander s u p e r 46 i1 1 o r 4 7 tH u g i n r i c h OttohMeisner, ed,, Kaiser Friedrich ILL Das Kriegstagebuch von 1870/71 (Berlin: Koehler, 1926) 26_ ' He eg o u A o c r o

15 unmittelbarster Nähe stehen." 49 W hsuch i lassessments e Prussian, of the Bavarians were typical. These remarks were not published i n until 1926, but the attitudes were common fare during 1870-71. s o m e w aIn theyinitialsdays of the war the army had to change direction more than once. An army t h eon the bad effect these movements had on bis unit's morale. For 4 August priest commented che noted, r "Dies o Umherziehen w hätte bald das Geftihl der Unsicherheit hervorgerufen, wie es n während p r des Feldzuges i n 1866 oft empfunden w u rd e ." 5 f e wthe French d ain battle y s at Wörth. A young officer, Gottlieb von Thater, c 0 Ae engaged successfully lw a t ea r t h e described in his memoirs the positive effect this had on troop morale: B a v a r i a n s s Viele persönliche Werte besaß die bayerische Armee, d a s i s t n selbstverständlich—auch sie war deutsch. Aber auf ihr lastete der noch frische o Mifierfolg des Jahres 66 und das damals erwachte Geftihl der Mangelhaftigkeit, t y diepdurch ernste Arbeit weniger Jahre noch nicht ausgeglichen sein k o n n t e. i c Wiea anders die Preußen! "N u n feht dat olle Siejen wieder los!" soll ein l eingezogener Reservist ausgerufen haben. Eine festgeftigte, lang eingelebte Organisation des Heeres war ihre Grundlage. litre umfassende Schulung hatte ihnen schon beispiellose Lorbeeren engetragen. Ihre Lehrmeister und Führer waren ihre sieggekrönten Fürsten. Und nun hatten auch wir ein Lorbeerreis gebrochen, nun stunden auch wir unter dieser erprobten Führung, das haw den letzten Rest von Zaghaftigkeit getilgt. Vertrauen und Selbstvertrauen waren eingekehrt. Wi r waren andere Menschen geworden. — Wenn mir am 7. August befohlen worden ware, mit drei Mann nach Paris at marschieren, verdammt, ich Witte es getanil A tremendous lack of self-confidence and self-esteem shows through. And even if this really was overcome after 7 August, Thdter's sense of inferiority in relation to the Prussians still lasted on, to which the above quote bears witness. The Bavarians remembered 1866 and it understandably still bad a negative impact on their self-confidence and self-esteem, especially in connection with the Prussian army. H o w much did this lead the Bavarians in 1870-71 to want to overcompensate for 1866? I n other words, did the Bavarians sometimes give no quarter because they were trying too hard? 52 The answer to this is not apparent from the sources, but the thought needs to be kept in mind. Bavarian Rifles Reflecting on his experiences on the Loire twenty-five years after the war, Hugo Arnold wrote, "Zu r Verbesserung der Stimmung trug der Zustand unseres eigentlichen Handwerkszeuges, der Gewehre, auch nicht sonderlich b e i ." 5 3 M o s t B a v a r i a n s 49 cM a r r i e d 50 t(Munich: e h e 10. Ri Lentner, 1899) sa n i 51 e r m G 52 2 u o tn 1 0 d Oi o 7

16 so-called Podewilsgewehr, which had been a muzzle-loader and after 1866 was converted into a breach-loader. This was to be used until such time as the more modem Werdergewehr could be aquired. This did not happen in time, supposedly because of the disapproval of the Landtag. The problem with the Podewilsgewehr is that it was difficult to load, especially in bad weather, and it was prone to malfunctions. This put the Bavarians at a serious disadvantage against the French chassepot, which was easy and safe to fi r e . 5 4 T h in e range between the French and the Bavarian weapons was also significant. I discrepancy have not found a direct comparison, but the superior Prussian needle-gun had a range of only 600 yards as compared to the chassepots' 1600 yards. 55 T that h i 300 s chassepots a n dwere the o equal t h ofe500r need1e-guns. meant t56 e S cu ch h n i ac a hl a n d i c a p the Bavarians' fighting ability and hurt their morale. This is important because frustrated, d r ie f d f u e cr ee dn c e s angry soldiers who lacked self-confidence may have been less generous than usual with the lives and property of the enemy county's civilians.

5 3 5H 4 u 5g H 5 uo g fl o 5A 6 o w V der mr militärischen Landkriegnihnmg, vol_ V, part I X A a Militargeschichtliches Othmar Hackl and Manfred Messerschmidt f[Municht n.p., [19791), .oo llH a n d b u c hForschungsamt z u through r r329-330. d ldul e u t s c h e n d n 3 nl ,a i l i t A m e s c h i c M o 5

17 Ch. 2 "Hostile Feelings" To understand what happened in the war it is important to look first at what feelings and attitudes towards the French the Bavarians carried with them into the war.57 Carl von Clausewitz used the concept "hostile feelings" to explain the implications of these for war, which for him were a "moral force" and "effect" which influenced how soldiers fought. His explanation of this in On War helps explain what happened between the Bavarian soldiers and French civilians, even if he was only referring to combat between soldiers. Essentially combat is an expression of hostile feelings. But in the large-scale combat that we call war hostile feelings often have become hostile intentions. At any rate there are usually no hostile feelings between individuals. Y e t such emotions can never be completely absent from war. Modem wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations; this serves more or less as a substitute for hatred between individuals.58 In war soldiers do not hate enemy soldiers as individuals, but the feelings that motivate individuals in duels (Clausewitz defines war as "nothing but a duel on a larger scale" a r e still present- Soldiers not only have "hostile intentions," but often hate their opponent as members of the opposite side, members of the other nation, and these feelings influence their fighting. What Clausewitz did not say here is that when hostile feelings are directed not just at anarmy but at a nation, they tend to influence the soldiers's conduct towards all people of the opposed nation, combatants and noncombatants alike—a dynamic that will be illustrated in the following chapters. To understand how soldiers felt about France and the French when they crossed the frontier, I examine Bavarian society's reactions to the war's outbreak and its opinions and memories of the French, for Bavatia's soldiers and officers represented a broad cross-section of Bavarian society. T o this end it is helpful to recall first the broader political situation betweenGermany and France at the beginning of the war insofar as it shaped German public opinion and visa versa.

57 W8i 5 n t C 59 e 1 a C rl h u sa au

18 A Nation Goes to Warm On 13 July 1870 Bismarck released to the press a dispatch from Eins describing the Prussian king's latest encounter with the French ambassador. Bismarck had reduced and sharpened its content to emphacize France's attempt to humiliate the king and make Wilhelm's refusal to discuss further the Hohenzollern candidature appear abrupt and insulting to France. This dispatch gave France a final tug into war in a crisis that had popped up ten days earlier when news leaked to the European press that a Hohenzollern prince had been offered the vacant throne of Spain.. France felt this might be a good occasion for war with Prussia, with which tensions had been rising since Prussia's victory over Austria at Kbriiggatz (Sadowa) in 1866. 61 to enter the war at Prussia's side, since it was not a matter of the German nation but of states F o the Hohenzollern dynasty. Moreover, a war caused by the candidature would not conflict with r France's principle of nationality; France could stop Germany from becoming a nation-state and t h e maintain that each people had the right to unite itself in one. On 14 July the French still H o government chose war and called up the reserves, and the following day the Corps Législatif h e approved the necessary war credits. France's formal declaration of war on Prussia was made n z on o 19 l July. l e But the French government was mistaken in its belief that the Hohenzollern candidature r n would not provide a national cause for war in Germany. Bismnrck's manipulated version of c the a Ems dispatch had emphacized• the insult to Prussia's king, a German king, and this n perceived attempt to humiliate the king outraged millions o f Germans within Prussia and d without. Raised on memories of the Napoleonic Wars, their suspicions about France revived i in d 1840 during the Rhirte Crisis and in 1866-67 during the Luxembourg Crisis, Germans were caught a up in a wave o f patriotic fe rvo r. 6t 2 F ewhich e d imany n g Germans believed France to be, was German nationalism and the Erbfeind, tu h i s national er n tmovement, h u san increasingly i a s mimportant force in politics. The war was not about the Hohenzollern but the "German question." l t would over-come France's veto on fe o candidature, r w a r 60 ao g als Problem a deri kleindeutschen n sFinigungspolitik Bismarcks 1866-1870," Das kaiserliche Deutschland. E Frankreich xtuc Politik und Gesellschaft 1870-1918, e t Michael Stürmer (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1970) 74-78; Ernst Deuerlein, comp. etl p et , Die Colindimg and des Deutschen h e Reiches 1870/71 in Augenzeugenberichten (1970; Munich: dtv, 1977) 32-59; t Nipperdey, 1866-1918 1, 55-63; Pflanze 446-469, 480481, 490-491; Carl Tanera, Weissenburg, Wörth, Spichem, d w 1 of Der Krieg von 1870/71 dargestellt von Mitkämpfern (Nördlingen: Beck, 1888) 1-19; newspapers from the vol. hp period (see Works Consulted). 6er 1 ren 0France in Paris in M. Doeberl, Bayern und die Bismarckische Reichsgründung, Bayern und Deutschland (Munich: res Oldenbourg, 1925) 20-22, 218-219, 222-223. eo 6u2 t lFor 0 n the effect of the Rhine Crisis on the national movement see Hagen Schulze, Dec Weg zum Nationalstaat. Di e m ah t deutsche Natiomdbewegimg vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Reichsgrandung, 2nd et (Mtmick dtv, 1985) 80--83. O n the ea tLuxembourg h Crisis see Pflanzt' 372-381, 384-386, 405, 408. ereb w dt

19 German unification. Working together with this nationalism was the common belief that fighting a war for political aims and national aspirations was normal and acceptable. International politics was aggressive power politics where the possibility of war always existed. Clausewitz's claim that "war is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means" 63 was not (or would not have been) as unacceptable to Germans in 1870 as it is to so many today. Fighting a war for national aims corresponded with many nationalists' view of politics, which was molded by the national trauma wrought on Germany by Napoleon at the beginning of the century. Gerhard Ritter wrote o f the "Durchdringen einer rein kämpferischen Auffassung der P o l i ti k ." 6 4 Politics became a struggle between two parties with an unmistokably aggressive tenor. From such a conception of politics it was not difficult to take the extra step into war, and indeed some nationalists had propagated war before 1870-71 in the tradition of the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon. 65 I t toa further l i a nthe idea that unification would require armies and war, "blood and iron." The helped u n i fi c a t period leading up to the Franco-German War had produced a "militarization of liberalism and i o n nationalism" a s (Best), albeit not to the extreme it reached later in the century. 66 w e Those Germans who did not desire a German nation-state also supported the war, l l because German territory was threatened by France. France had declared war on Prussia and a would certainly want to gain something for its efforts. This fear of the French coupled with s loyalty P r to the u integrety of German territory was also a form of German nationalism, even i f it s not s correspond i did with the goals of the dominant kleindeutsche nationalists, who sought a a ' s German nation-state which excluded Austria. s u c c eIf there s were voices against the war, they were not loud enough to interfere. T h e s e German s states quickly recognized the casus foederis according to the offensivesouthern i defensive treaties of 1866, which obligated them to place their troops at Prussia's command in n time 1 of war. Baden's government immediately ordered mobilization and the destruction of its bridges 8 over the Rhine. Faced by the pmspect of a French occupation, even those who hated 6 Prussia saw that Baden had to go with it. In Wiirttemberg German patriotism was outraged by 4 French demands; on 17 July the King ordered mobilization, and on 22 July the Landtag a approved the war credits with only one dissenting voice. h i Bavaria the government honored n d casus foederis because it saw this as its best hope for remaining sovereign. Bavaria's the 1 prime minister and foreign minister, Bray, explained Bavaria's position thus: 8 Gehen w i r mit Preußen und gewinnt dieses den Krieg, so ist Preußen 6 66 3 t t e r 262. "Ri a 65 a R 6 6i u tBt se r es e

20 gezwungen, den Bestand Bayerns zu achten. Unterliegt Preußen, so verlieren wir vielleicht die Pfalz, aber mehr kann uns nicht geschehen, denn Frankreich muß die SelbststMdigkeit der deutschen Einzelstaaten immer begünstigen. Das gleiche tritt ein, wenn wir neutral geblieben sind und Frankreich siegt. Siegt aber Preußen, obwohl wir es gegen den Vertrag im Stich gelassen haben, dann erwartet uns das Schicksal Hannovers,es wäre finis Bawtriae.67 In the cities there was much support for the war and the particulaiists soon gave way and approved the war credits. Prussia entered the war at the head of a confederation of all the Germanarmies and with the support of the German nation (i.e. those Germans living in what in 1871 became the German Empire). On 18 July 1870 the Augsburg AllgemeitteZeitung aptly declared, "Der Krieg zwischen Frankreich und Preufien ist ein nationaler Krieg." BavarianReactions But not all Bavarians (or other Germans) were filled with patriotic fervor for Germany and a burning hatred of the French, at least not in the beginning before much spilled blood changed this. A less lopsided picture is necessary if we are to understand what happened in the war between the French civilians and Bavarian soldiers, for there were good moments too, moments which do not fit our common modern perceptions of two peoples, two Erbfeinde, at war. To understand the Bavarian public mood at the war's outbreak we must first look at German nationalism, which to a great extent shaped the public's reaction. Before 1870 there was a widespreadconciousness in Bavaria of Germany as a linguistic and cultural entity, and in this sense there was a German national identity. B ut this was not nationalism as we understand it; it was not that force which has dominated European history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To be sure, nationalism is based on culture, language, and tradition, but it also manifests itself politically and has political aims. Many nineteenth century Europeans believed that each people or nation was entitled to unite itself in a single political entity, a nation-state, which sometimes brought peoples into conflict, when one nation's goals were perceivedas a threat by another nation, as when France saw danger in the birth of a German nation-state. This form of nationalism became an important part of the collective indentity of increasingly more Europeans, and events in Europe today show that it has lost none of its power. 68 How widespread was German nationalism in Bavaria before the war broke out? A 67 G Berlin; quoted in Andreas Kraus, Geschichte Bayerns: Von den Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: Beck, 1983) 543544. ra f6 8 O Ni excluded union with the German provinces of Austria and isolated German settlements in eastern and south-eastern tp p Europe, which had become impossible after the German war of 1866, and which most non-Austrian German tnationalists er had not wanted to include in 1849, because they could not, and because Prussia seemed the more promising o de alternative; Nipperdey, 1866-1918 11, 252. C y, a

21 short look at Bavarian society before July 1870 shows that nationalism could not bave been anywhere near universal. Nationalism tended to grow and spread as an answer to psychological and anthropological needs for new forms of collective identification and social communication created by social change and the resultant widening of the inhabitants' geographical and political horizons, rooted in a population explosion, the industrial revolution, the growing economic impact o f the Customs Union and the railroad, and the rise o f literacy.69 Yet industrialization and social change were slower in Bavaria than elsewhere in Germany: 7 considers mandatory schooling and military conscription—German nationalism was not the ° only possible result Bavaria was, as Bismarck noted, perhaps the only German state with its A n d own t h hioOrly developed nationalism, Bavarian nationalism: 71 u g hFor the majority of Catholic Bavarians, who made up the majority of Bavarians, the m o d political ernbodyment of this sentiment was the Patriot Party, which was particularist, i.e. i t e r n favored i z a Bavarian independence and was against German unification under the leadership of Prussia t i o and at the exclusion of Austria. German unification was favored by many Catholics, n in the form of a Greater Germany, which included Austria and its many Catholics, who but d were necessary to prevent the confession from becoming a minority in Germany, something i that d they felt had to be prevented from happening, especially in an era where confessional p r differences were again important. Bavaria had to maintain its integrety. The predominantly o g Protestant Prussia could not be allowed to dominate Germany: r e 72 T h u s , w h e n w a r 1870 s sbecause of an argument between Prussia and France, one could have expected the c a m e i n - - who held a majority in Bavaria's Landtag, to oppose it. And they did at first_ The Patriots, e v commitee charged with the question of war voted six against three for Bavaria's neutrality and e n against war credits. The commitee's chairmen, Dr. Jörg, argued that the war's cause in no i way n injured Germany's honor or integrity, so that Bavaria need not fight at Pmssia's side. But ar member of the Landtag who was a Patriot, Sepp, a historian., argued that Bavaria must enter u war. He said he had intended to speak out for armed neutrality, but the French declaration the r of a war made the war's cause irrelevant for him and caused him to forget Bavaria's defeat in 1866 alongside Austria at the hands of Prussia. "Au ch wir haben ein deutsches Herz und l a halten fest an dem Ausspruch des deutschesten unter den deutschen Fürsten: W i r wollen r 6e9 auf 0 n dem We i n die Moderne 1850-18,90, Oldenbourg Grundriss der Geschichte 14, 2nd ed. (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1989) a t131-133; for an approach to the origins of nationalism in Germany using modernization theory see Schulze 49-58. s 7h 0 ewn ed. (Munich: Beck, 1979). 02nd hh1 n7 i r iPflanze F I. 393. e nis e 7n2 t r ed T1987) h 406, 617-618; Nipperdey, 186.6-1918 II, 51-53, 337-340. tiooc o r eh mn

22 Deutsche sein und Bayern bleiben." Th i s changed the mood in the Landtag, and in the end, on 18 July, a large number of Patriots voted with the Progress Party, giving the government their support. On the first vote, over the question of neutrality, there were 89 against and 58 for. On the second vote, over the war credits, there were 101 for and 47 against. 73 T held h e held 80 seats, the Progress Party 63, and other groups with liberal tendencies Patriots 11. 74 However, one should not confuse the nationalism of particularists, who wanted to protect the C German fatherland with the nationalism of those seeking German unification under Pmssian a leadership. Moreover, there is the question of how heavily Bray's considerations of Bavaria's t h sovereignty weighed on the representatives, i.e. how important the idea was, that Bavaria must o fight at Pmssia's side in order to remain independent. Nevertheless, a solid majority supported l i the c i war with France in order to protect Germany. At the same time, however, there was a large group s of representatives who opposed the war. m The above explains who supported the war in the Landtag and who did not; however, d the Landtag representatives were elected indirectly, so the general public's sentiment cannot i be d inferred from this alone. Another way to get at the public mood is to examine a n representative sampling of newspapers from the time. O f course the newspapers did not o always express the attitudes of their readership; often they must have tried to convince the t reading public to change their opinions. But the opinions that they expressed, when taken as a p whole, must be representative of the opinions that were circulating among the Bavarian public, r e insofar as those opinions were printable. There must have been a correspondence, albeit not c proportional, between the media's spectrum of opinion and the public's spectrum of opinion, l without there necessarily having been correspondence between a given newspaper's opinion u d its readers' opinions. and e fairly 75 F orepresentative r t h i sof Bavaria in that both confessions and the main political parties had a are IG share press. Furthermore, the results these newspapers yielded have many he ain Augsburg's v e similarities rr e l with i Erich e dSclmeider's research on public opinion in the Bavarian Palatinate, 76 pm ra i m a 73 rar i274; lSeppyquoted in Rail 274. K IN/11, nu a 7o4 s1n n 7 -5 5 iA ae W method; Werner u Blessing, g s"Zur Analyse politischer Mentalität und Ideologic der Unterschichten im 19 Jahrhundert 4 i tnr e Aspekte, Methoden und Quellen am bayerischen Beispiel," Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 34 (1972): b u r g 4 reiir 768-816. However, following these suggestions would go far beyond the scope of this essay. A t the same time I feel n e w s ;H e r ignoring the topic because of limited sources awl literature is not possible A n essay is meant not only to present that L o ap dugaup by research p e also ideas, and my ideas would not be able to develop fully if I did not explore this aspect of B facts but e larn problem, the s even , if in such a limited fashion yn e a6 7w h h s,Rheinpfalz," E Lacguerre de 1870171 et ses conséouences, eds. Philippe Levillain and Rainer Riemenschneider, Actes du l9"i r sXXe i c colloque historique franco-allemand organise à Paris par rinstitirt Historique Allemand en coopération avec le 1 hi iE h -rs n S 9 g

23 fact which is suprising when one considers the different histories and geographic locations of Augsburg and the Palatinate, but one which lends credibility to the results yielded by Augsburg's newspapers. Much support for the war was reported in Bavarian cities, where German nationalism was most widespread. In Munich, on 17 July, between 20,000 and 30,000 people gathered in the rain to cheer their king. 77 I nthe war. The invitations read thus: support N u r e m Heimtückisch b e r g und räuberisch überfällt uns der Kaiser der Franzosen plötzlich a mit einem Krieg, zu dem jede berechtigte Veranlassung fehlt. Wi r sehen, daß g r o dein u Herrscher p der Franzosen es nur darum zu thun ist, das Aufblühen unseres o f Vaterlandes zu verhindern und, wie früher, Deutschland als ein Spiel der m e Launen Frankreichs erscheinen zu lassen. Die Zeit ist nicht zu Worten, sondern n zu Thaten cmgethan. Unser Volk muß in den Kampf; schützen wir unsere g a t friedlichen h Gauen, unseren Handel und Industrie. W i r müssen unzweifelhaft e r e erkkiren, d daß wir von unserer Regierung und unseren Landesvertretern das ehrliche Festhalten an dem Schutz t o g e , t h eBunde rernstlichst verlangen und begehren müssen, daß Bayern gegnüber alien landesverratherischen Gelüsten sofort mit der vollen Macht seines Volkes dem - u n d t alten T r uErbfeinde t z b lDeutschlands i n d n i sentgegentritt.78 s h The m was ithe aggressor, t the main culprit being Napoleon Ill, who is e group feltethat France e m threatened not just Prussia, but all of Germany, so that it s ad Moreover, mentioned twice. France o r d d , e u m necessaryen was for the other Germanstates to come to Prussia's aid. The war was not about the t s c h e n d Hohenzollern candidature, but German unification, a matter for all Germans. Anyone who did a not y see things this way was "treasonous." Other nationalists also felt this way. On 18 July the t nationalist Augsburger Anzeigblatt stated, o Nicht die Frage der Thronfolge in Spanien, nicht die gerechtfertigte Zurückweisung frecher Forderungen ist der Grund des Krieges, sondern der Haß und die Furcht vor der weltgebietenden Macht des sich einigenden Deutschlands. Damit Napoleons Stern nicht erbleiche, soll das Werk der Einigung Deutschlands zerstört. w e rd e n . . 7 9 The liberal and nationalist Augsburger Abendzeitung, which voiced the opinions of the Progress Party (Fortschrittspartei ), also felt that France, led by Napoleon, was the aggressor and that Berlin was irmocent of any wrongdoing. "Das Berliner Kabinet vermeidet Alles, was provoziren könnte . " And, although these liberals dreaded war for the deaths it would cause and the damage it would do to trade, they were confident about Germany's chances, for "sollte wirklich der Krieg ausbrechen, was Gott verhüten möge. P r e u ße n ist gerüstet, seine Armee ist komplett und schlagfertig, seine Festungen armirt und Alles vorbereitet, den Centre de Recherche Adolphe Thiers, 10-12 Oct 1984 and 14-15 Oct. 1985 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1990) 110-157. 77 T a 1870: 2661-62. July n 7 e8 r7 Aa9 ,"u 1g W s b

24 abwehrenden Stoß gegen Frankreich zu fiihren " 8 would not tolerate Germany's unification and increase in power. ° T h i s h a d The above quotes identified Napoleon HI as the main culprit, although France as a t o b e whole Erbfeind. The language of an editorial in the Augsburger d owas presented n e as Germany's , f o Abendzeitung wentr further by suggesting that not Napoleon, but the French people, were F r and a therefore n thecGermans' e enemy, whereby the French government was still Germany's implicated in the perceived crime. 81 "Krieg" sollen wir haben, unser Erbfeind, der Franzose will es; er will es nicht dulden, daß Deutschland mächtig und geachtet im Rathe der Völker sitzt und die französischen Blâner haben es offen ausgesprochen, daß Europa nur dann Ruhe und Frieden genießen darf, "wenn Frankreich beruhigt ist." Seitdem im Jahre 1863 in Europa -- in der schleswig.holsteinischen Frage -- "ein Schuß ohne Erlaubnij3 Frankreichs gefallen ist",.. lauert die französische Regierung auf die erste, beste Gelegenheit, um der Welt zu zeigen, daß Europa's Völker nach der Pfeife Frankreichs tanzen müssen. D a ß Frankreich die jetzige Gelegenheit zum Kriege nur rmahwillig vom Zaune gebrochen hat, darilber ist alle Welt einig I n ganz Deutschland, soweit die deutsche Zunge reicht, herrscht die Stimme der Erbitterung gegen die unverschämten Anmalitmgen des französischen Chauvinismus, dem es beliebt, die Kriegsfackel über Europa und Deutschland zu schwingen 8 2 Here one still sees ambiguity about war guilt; for the author both the French and their government wanted the war. But it is clear that the enemy included the Pi ouch people.. lt was an exageration that all of Germany, "as far as the German tongue reaches" was for the war. I n the first place Austria and isolated east and s o u t h -settlements were excluded from such questions. And there were many in Bavaria, members of eastern e t h n i c G e r m a n the Patriot Party, who favored armed neutrality at the very most. The Patriots did, not see France as the only guilty party. The AugsburgerPostzeitung wrote, Wenn man die Nachrichten über die Volksstimmung aus Paris und Berlin liest, so möchte man meinen, die Bevölkerungen Preußens und Frankreichs brennen von Kriegslust. F r l i g t man, ob Frankreich oder Preußen die größere Schuld an diesem unseligen Kreigssturm treffe, so dürfte sie sich ziemlich gleich vertheilen. Preußen hat durch die Genehmigung der Candidatur des Prinzen Leopold Frankreichs Empfindlichkeit provocirt, obwohl Graf Bismarck schon aus der Geschichte wissen mußte, daß eine so eifersüchtige und eitle Nation wie die Franzosen, sich dieselbe nicht gefallen lassen werden. Nicht geringere Verantwortung an diesem frivolen Kriege infft aber Frankreich —83 Prussia too was behaving aggressively. However the above language betrays more hostility 80 ' 3 e e E. Schneider 130-134, "S a 8y e B 17 July 1870: 1744, m , a 83 "y "P A e ol u m

25 towards the French than towards Prussia; Bismarck should have known what to expect from sucha "jealous" and "vain" nation. This hostility is then confirmed later in the same editorial, when the author was interrupted by the news that war was official. Surprised that such a war was possible"im 'aufgeklärten' und so humanistisch 'gebildeten' 19. Jahrhundert unter solchem Vorwand," th e author declared, "Möge er kurz sein und bald zum Heile des deutschen Volkes enden, dem selbstverständlich unter allen Umstanden unsere Sympathieen gehi5ren." 84 I n little or not at all, for him too it was a national war. peoples s p i t However, there were many who were mistrustful of Prussia and who guarded Bavarian e independence jealously. For them the war was none of Bavaria's business. And there were o f h iwho were just plain scared of war (especially those in the higjhly exposed Palatinate. those s 85 Confessional differences also played a role. Particulist sentiment was supposedly widespread l )c among a i Catholics, although more accurate is perhaps to say it was widespread in Catholic rural m areas, especially in Altbayern (" old Bavaria"), the core of the state where Bavarian t nationalism was strongest. I n his memoirs, Florian Kiihnhauser, a former infantry soldier h from a village near Traunstein, recounted a conversation among the villagers. One man a expressed his reservations thus: t t "Ja, ja--die Preußen!" sagte er, "die Preußen haben wieder was Schönes h angerichtet; das ganze Bayernlandl geht noch m i t dieser preußischen Freundschaft zugrunde, allesamt werden w i r noch lutherisch. U n d e Einquartierung bekommen wir hier an der Grenze grad genug; zuerst die w Österreicher, dann die Franzosen und brandschatzen tun sie uns, daß wir alle a noch an den Bettelstab kommen. ''86 r This man did not want to see Bavaria enter the war on either side. ' s On 18 July a metalworker from Birth, Heinrich Mayer, called the war "Massenmord" c at a Socialdemocratic convention in Munich: "immer müsse das Volk die Folgen der Kriege a tragen, während jene Herren, d i e si e heraufbeschwören, b e i m Schach-Spiele u beiscunmensitzen, sich die Hände drücken und zum Schluß nach wie vor gute Freunde sind." s e "Nationalstolz" was nothing but "der H O der Nationen, indem man jetzt mit diesem Wort i die n Völker gegeneinander hetze im Interesse einzelner herrschender Dynastien " 8 e particularism r e there at work, but instead a highly developed class conciousness which t 7 wasHlittle e his case knew no national boundries. A group of workers in Augsburg also had a class in r conciousness, but they saw Napoleon as a foreign aggressor who had to be dealt with first. e Deutsche, angegriffen durch den Mörder aller Volksfreiheiten, durch s den Dezembermann Louis-Napoleon, haben die Pflicht, mit allen ihren Kräften t fi r die Verteidigung des heimatlichen Bodens einzustehen. e 8d4 "8P5 t oS l6 8 ieht ei 1 87 sE ec C Di hS 1 GeI

26 Der Ka mp f gegen die ebenfalls freiheitsmörderischen Gelüste Bismarcks und des Preußenkönigs ist dadurch nicht aufgegeben; in erster Linie fi r den Deutschen steht aber, sich den fremden Tyrannen vom Halse zu halten.88 According to the liberal newspapers, there were even those who wanted to side with France.89 Such reports may have been exagerated, for polarized party politics played an important role in such invective joumalism. 90 AAugsburger n e xAbendzeitung a m p l reads e liberal thus: o f swenn ugewisse c Blätter h in München jetzt noch in dieser ernsten Lage den p a r offenen t Verrath y gegen das Vaterland predigen, wenn in dieser Schandpresse, r h e wie t im o"Sigl'r schen i Vaterlande" c und im "Volksboten", der Krieg gegen den f r o m eigenen Bundesgenossen gepredigt wird, wenn die Soldaten in diesem Spülicht t h der Presse zum e Ungehorsam nicht nur verleitet, sondern geradezu aufgefordert werden, auf litre Führer zu schießen, und wenn durch "verrtitherische Buben", wie w i r es heute in der Farsterzfeldergasse mitiansehen mußten, solche SchmiltzbOtter sogar noch unter die Soldaten zum Zwecke der Verfihrung vertheilt werden, -- so schaden solche Bubenstreiche dem nationalen Gefilhle und der Begeisterung der hiesigen Bevölkerung und unserer Soldaten nicht; diese Leute haben keinen Anhang und wir sind überzeugt, daß auch der ehrliche Then der Patrioten von ihnen sich lossagt. . 9 1 The Augsburger Anzeigblatt announced its will to fight those in Germany who sided with France or were--in its e y e s -schlage man sie tüchtig auf das Maul „ . Unsere Ultramontanen wird mcut dann auch zur against Ruhe so. -- " G e bringen, r m a --n soy oder : 9 There " 2 Wwas much e npressure n to go along with the German nationalist line; those who did not were ,d S u i c h e often faced with physical abuse. I n the Bavarian Palatinate town of Neustadt people were lF a r n g a u n a zg e threatened openly on the street. Those who spoke of neutrality were treated almost as traitors. a o ns t ei cn i p a t e Democratic councilor Philipp Schmidt drew the fire of the nationalist Kaiserslauterer Zeitung z d u tfor h e s cautioning c hagainstr "jedem Chauvinismus" and asking people not to injure "das Ehrgefahl p o s w e i e nt der französischen Nation," because of the Palatinate's precarious postion on Germany's a f or r t f western These Democrats took a less chauvenistic and more cautious line K uh border l r tot France. r a e u kthan a, national-liberals; m p f however, . they were anything but anti-German and pro-French. n the 93 s Before war was a foregone conclusion, youths in Munich attacked a particularist publisher o named Sigl in a pub and at the suggestion of an American attempted to tar and feather h i m. 94 88 1 n 1. Von den Anfangen der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung bis zum Ausgang des 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin 1963) 583, vol. st quoted in Dettedein 47. i8t 9 u tE. Schneider 119. "B fa y 9 I"Bayem," Augsburger Abendzeitung 16 July 1870: 2634. ü er 9 rn 2, "9 D M "3 i9 e E a A .4 fS ru e V rcrx m i

27 After war was official, the same man and another, named Mahr, had to be protected by the police during pro-war demonstrations outside the king's p a l a ce 5 T h e The r eBavarian w police a sbelievedait necessary l s tooconfiscate several newspapers, often repression. o f fi c i a l more than once.96 Even the relatively pro-German, but Patriot, Augsburger Postzeitung did not feel it could express itself freely. After the South German states had officially entered the war, this paper editorialized, "Es bleibt uns nichts übrig, als- der bayerischen Kammer, die dem Prefigesetz nicht unterworfen ist, es zu überlassen, die Meinung de fsicl bayerischen Volksmehrheit zum Ausdruck zu bringen. . " 9 e c apicture u s of e popular o opinion f towards the war. Certain is that while support for get7an B accurate s u c h the r war e was p widespread, r e s sit was i by o nonmeans universal, at least not in the beginning. Nevertheless, Bavaria's mobilization went quickly and smoothly, taking only two i t i s weeks . d i f c u l t 9 8 conscripts'fi cooperation cases must have been due more to a sense o f duty and loyalty to t o o T country (Bavaria) and king. An d where this loyalty was absent, there was the memory of s o tough m e government action taken against protesters of universal conscription in 1868, when the e armyx had used "control assemblies" to enforce conscription and had assigned troublemakers to e at penal batallion in Ingolstadt. B y 1870 Bavarians were accustomed to universal n t conscription. t 99 h i s Bavarian Memories of the French w Bavarian attitudes towards the war and the French were influenced not only by German a s nationalism and French politics but by concrete experiences Bavarians had had with the French a during wars at the beginning of the century. The perceived wrongs of the French remained n etched in the minds of those Bavarians who had experienced French occupiers directly, or who i had n had to go to war with them and then against them. These Bavarians passed their d experiences down to the next generation. Just as memories of the Germans in World War II i still influence the thinking of many Europeans, Americans, and Israelis today, and memories c of a the Japanese have not been forgotten in America and Asia, in 1870 memories o f the t Napoleonic wars had not been forgotten in Germany. In fact they were omnipresent. i Bavarian experiences included contributions, requisitions, maurauding and plundering o soldiers, harsh actions taken against civilians who appeared threatening to the French n 9o5 A 9f 6 u "l Bg Postzeitung 18 July 1870: 1311. sa yb 9o7 u s e "yD8r 9 g e n e9 r, 1 1 9 r"a Kn e l 0 T A l rvr i

28 occupation, and fighting—not always willingly—under Napoleon's command. I n 1796, after the French march into southern Germany, many leaflets appeared revealing the bitterness of South Germans towards the occupation. A leaflet from Nürnberg shows what and how much the French took "als Mitarbeiter cm der deutschen Freiheit," i.e. i n order to liberate the Germans from tyranny. Another satirizes the friendly relations between Gellman women and French soldiers. 1130 troop l n presence was too long and expensive. Even an active supporter of the Bavarian French 1 8 0 5 French like Minister Montgelas's wife felt the occupation was too much. On 30 May t h alliance e 1806 to the French foreign minister, Tall eyrand, B ashevcomplained a r i a n Hat s man, seit die Welt besteht, je so gefräßige Verbündete gesehen wie euch, a n die ihr euch zu einem Aufenthalt ohne Ende niedergelassen habt, ohne eine Miene zu machen zu zahlen? Aber wißt, daß man um diesen Preis auch Feinde d dahaben könnte, und dann hatte man wenigstens das Vergnügen, den einen t oder anderen oder allesamt umzubringen.101 h On e 23 April 1809 Regensburg (not yet Bavarian) had the bad luck to be taken from the F r by the French in storm, which by tradition gave the French soldiers the right to Austrians e n plunder. c h 1132 to w Napoleon his reply was, "C'estlaguerre." A n d 1(13 e p h In these times German nationalism took root in what became Bavaria in its enlarged r nineteenth century borders, although it was not widespread. m d e 1114 A n t When i - F rone 8nOctober c h 1813 Bavaria switched sides with the Treaty of Ried, the e r common. more o st eh n t i m e n t n population enthusiastic about fighting the French, if not as wildly nationalistic w y a was seemingly s e t as d Prussia, which had suffered more. On 15 October the queen wrote that an, h unbeschreibliche Freude und Begeisterung . . g e h t durch alle Klassen, von i e den ersten bis zu den letzten. Jedermann will jetzt marschieren. D i e einen d s sagen, sie hätten Brüder, andere Söhne, Verwandte, Freunde zu rächen. Ma n , a hört nur das. Ganze Bataillone unserer mobilen Legion sagen, wenn es gegen i m Frankreich gehe, warden sie sich sofort auf sechs Jahre verpsflichten.105 n e Such anti-French sentiment was also an expression of German identity, if not always German t s o nationalism in its more modem form. Geoffrey Best is quite accurate to remark that "The i t German nation.. discovered itself by contrast with the French and through loathing of d h e them." 1 e ,° but n also their identity as Germans. However, this does not mean that all Bavarians saw the b 6 e u0 0 mt 1 A xm en 31, m 41. itt - 38, j u1 3n 1 1 t r e F kd 1 1h4e mi n c nh km °a e0al3m 1 e is z a r me 2 1 Iy u° n N 1 4 n k0 4 .4an e- 4lt M m Ji 0a6m 5 1 p W 4 tu n 5 n Jq B e ln e o h h 2 nt su e t u

29 French as their Erbfeind. This would need more time. Bavarian newspapers from mid-July 1870 recalled the Napoleonic Wars. On 18 July the Augsburger Anzeigblatt published an editorial entitled "1813-1870" which shows how vivid the memories were: nicht der Geist von 1806, nicht die Dentlithigung und Erbärmlichkeit der Schlachten von Jena und Auerstädt, sondern der Geist von 1813 und 1814 herrscht jetzt in Deutschland. Die Begeisterung, die Opferwilligkeit, die Kraft und der Muth des ganzen Deutschlands, welcher in den Schlachten an der Katzbctch, bei Leipzig. Paris und Waterloo der Franzosen Uebermuth brach, wird Napoleon 111.und seinem verblendeten Volke entgegentreten.107 The various battles were recalled by name, names which must have had much emotional content, even for those who were not pro-war. The names of important figures from the earlier wars also appeared in the papers—names such as Scharnhorst, Arndt, Jahn, Gneisenau, Fichte, and Kö rn e r. 1 successful effort to liberate itself from French domination. ° In 1870 many Bavarian soldiers and officers recalled what had happened to someone in 8 I n their t h own i s family during the Napoleonic wars. Josef Krumper, an officer in the Royal Bavarian w ThirdaInfantry Regiment who had been called up from the reserves, described in his memoirs y he felt at the war's outbreak: how t h Meinem Vater, der in seiner Kindheit zu Anfang des Jahrhunderts die e schweren Jahre corsischen Regiments mitertragen, war mein Soldatenlos eine n e w Genugtuung. s p a Hatte er doch sehen müssen,, wie im Jahre 1809, zur Zeit des Tyroler p e r Aufstandes, sein Vater durch französische Militär von Mutter und Kindern s gerissen wurde. Der Verdacht, mit den Tyrolern Rebellen gemeinschafti. Sache d gemacht zu haben genügte, den Müller zwei Monate lang in schwerer Haft zu r halten„ von der er unschuldig erklärt und entlassen, gebrochen zu den Seinen e zurückkehrte, um alsbald zu sterben. w Viel Groll blieb bei dem Sohne dieses Märtierers auf den verhassten o Franzen - unser Erbfeind - zurfick.109 n same man recalled reading Theodor Körner with a friend during the Loire campaign. I t The t night and they expected battle the next day. "Massmer holt sein Körner hervor, und wir was h stärken um an dessen herrlichen Dichtungen aus 'Leyer und Schwert'. We l c h ' junger e Kriegsmann würde da nick begeistert? 'U n d schlägt unser Stundlein im Schlachtenroth, I p o Willkommen dann sel'ger Soldatentod!'. . " w 1 1 0 influenced L i e u t by e the n aNapoleonic n t strongly Wars. I n 1910, now a General Major, he wrote, e G o t t l i e b Irv a 7 f o n "u1 1 0 88 T h A t e r 13E Ilw a s 187 S ft Hk rumper 156. Another Bavarian officer recalled a poem from Körner during battle, "Gebet wahrend der Schlacht" a , " l s o c0 i h Dietrich Fr e i h m von LaBberg, Mein Kriegstagebuch aus dem deutsch-französischen Kriege 1870/71 (Munich: r9 e A n Oldenbourg, 1906) 65-66. iu ad K g r e rd s 1

30 "Meine ganze Jugend stund unter dem Eindrucke der Freiheitskriege." T h e memories the adults passed on made a strong impression, especially on youths like him who desired unification. "Ideale waren es, die uns damals erftillten; so hoch stunden sie uns, daß wir sie flir unerreichbar hielten. Nur ein Wunder konnte sie verwirklichen." A fte r 1871 many more Bavarians claimed to have desired German unification than actually did before the war's outbreak, but ThAter's statement seems credible in light of his backrormd. H e came from a bourgeois familiy in Nuremberg and went to the Gymnasium there. Th e fate of his family during the Napoleonic Wars had much to do with his nationalism. Mein Grofivatter Thaler, Hopfenhändler in Nürnberg (Beckschlagergasse) war anläßlich der Schlacht von Hanau (30131. Oktober 1813), in die er auf einer Geschäftsreise verwickelt worden war, vo n plündernden Franzosen niedergestochen worden. Schwer verwundet wurde er noch nach Nürnberg gebracht, starb aber dort nach kurzer Zeit. Sein Tod und die Kriegsläufte [sic] Phrten zum Bankrott des Geschäftes und die zahlreiche Familie geriet in bittere Not. -- Mein Großvater mütterlicherseits, Giirsching, war als Offizier mit in Frankreich, kam siech zurück und starb in jungen Jahren. It Thater exemplifies how family memories o f the French mixed together with German nationalism to form a mixture that would be potent when he encountered the French, a mixture that might motivate him to hurt the French, or at least make it easier to do so. Moltke, who under the Prussian King commanded the confederated German armies, was born in 1800 in the middle of the Napoleonic wars. His family's house in Lübeck was plundered by the French in 1806. This experience and other impressions of the French's doings during this time contributed significantly to his nationalism and anti-French attitudes, 112 which in turn must have influenced his decision-making in France. Besides the personal memories of soldiers and officers the German armies had their own tradition of the Napoleonic Wars. Just as German society received this in the shape of songs, poetry, and literature, the German armies had songs that commemorated heroes of the time, cursed French deeds, and promised revenge. The Bavarian army was no exception, despite the fact that it played only a small part in the fight against Napoleon. 113 A song from when Bavaria switched sides, on 8 October 1813, went thus: 0 Kaiser Napoleon, du großer Potentat, wie sind wir deiner Freundschaft so überflüssig salt! Du hast uns gehudelt, gebudelt und geschabt, daß wir kein heiles Fleck/ein am Leibe mehr gehabt. Du kctmest ja so freundlich herein ins Bayerland, und wolltest uns nur reichen die liebe Bruderhand; doch kaum warst du darimten, so griffest du auch zu, I llThlit er 1-2. 112 IF 1d 3r 0s nt e Forschungsamt, Tradition 138-143. tr ,h M

31 nach Mann und Roß und Wagen, nach Kalb mitsamt der Kuh. Und erst deine Soldaten, sie wurden ja nie satt mit Fressen und mit Saufen, von frail bis in die Nacht; in Wein mußten sie baden, zu schlecht war alles Brot, kein Braten wollt mehr schmecken, geflucht gleich: Schwerenot! Wir mußten mit dir ziehen in jeden Krieg und Streit, davon in Rufiland geblieben an drelj3igtausend L e selbst ta ; unser General Mt dort den bittern Tod es war ein großer Jammer, erschrecklich harte Not. Jetzt woll' n wir's aber zeigen, wo Barthel holt den Most, wenn du die bayerische Fäuste hast auch einmal verkost; denn unser König Max tritt den Allierten bei, so ist es schon beschlossen, von dir sind wir nun frei. Wir legen nich ehr nieder unser Waffen und G'wehr, bis daß wir dich gejagt mit deinem ganzen Heer. Mara, ihr deutschen Brüder, jetzt ziehen wir mit euch: König Max und der soll leben, General Wreden auch v4gleichl 114 The song shows Bavarian and German patriotism, which had grown out of these times, connected with a hate for the French, and a desire for revenge for all the damage they had done to Bavaria's land and people. The third stanza of another song from the same period says that they intended to take what had been taken from them: Frisch ate Das Frankreich soli geben und alles Gut vollauf? Was du uns tatest nehmen, das nehmen wir wieder bei Hauf.115 No one talked like this in 1870, but the Bavarians did do what the song promise& Yet some positive memories of the French had also been passed down. Ge or g Hammon, an army priest in 1870-71, noted with satisfaction that the French cooked the same way as his uncle, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, had described. (His uncle told him other stories as well, which, unfortunately, Hammon does not describe.) Undoubtedly other positive memories were handed down as well.

I 14-obergang der Bayern zu den Alliierten." Dirndl, wo hast denn dein Schatz, juhe . . . Bayerische Soldatenlieder und yaterliMdische GesiMge, ed. and comp. Pant-Ernst Ranc her -1 1 5 011er "Ma ( R o s e n h e i m : R rso c s e n h e i m e r ,

32 Ch. 3 Living off the French German Ideals: Moral Sensibilities and the International Law of War Despite nationalist overtones in Germany, war had broken out between governments, not peoples. Therefore the fighting was supposed to be between armies. French soldiers, not French civilians, were supposed to be the object of the German armies' violence. Thus when Germantroops entered France Prussia's King William! proclaimed to the French civilians that he was fighting a war against their government's soldiers, not them. The civilians "werden daher nach wie vor fir ihre Person fir ihr Hab und Gut so lange Sicherheit geniessen, als sie sich nicht durch feindselige Unternehmungen gegen die deutschen Truppen des Rechts berauben, ihnen meinen Schutz angedeihen zu lassen." 116 T o his German armies he proclaimed on 8 August, Mehrere Corps werden heute und morgen den französischen Boden betreten. Ich erwarte, daß die Mamiszucht, durch welche Ihr Euch bisher ausgezeichnet habt, sich auch besonders auf feindlichem Gebiete bewähren werde. W i r fihren keinen Krieg gegen die friedlichen Bewohner des Landes; es ist vielmehr die Pflicht jedes ehrliebenden Soldaten, das Privateigenthum zu schonen, und nicht zu dulden, daß der gute Ruf unseres Heeres auch nur durch einzelne Beispiele von Zuchtlosigkeit cingestastet werde.117 Not only the king's conception of war, but his sense of honor prohibited him from willfully allowing harm to come to French civilians_ 118 T European h i s w a ofswar as well as European moral sensibilities, which required that accepted concept i n war way, i.e. in accordance with European cultural a cbe fought c o in r andorderly a n and c "civilized" e values and w i norms t as well h as their more formalized embodiment, the international law and t custom ofhwar. e g eIn the n Europe e of r1870-71 a there l was l no formal international law of war set in writing y which governed the status of civilians and their property. Instead there were generally accepted customs which had been evolving over time. In 1870 it was generally agreed that states, not peoples, warred against each other. Thus the state could confiscate the property of the enemy state and utilize its resources, e.g. collect its taxes. B y corollary the people, while not the objects of the enemy government's war, were subject to the occupying power's martial law, for they were citizens or subjects of the state, whose civil authority was assumed by the occupying power. Likewise, all civil servants who did not choose to resign were to cooperate 116 921; G . quote in Winterhalter 33_ H 117 u Bataillons Fr a (Landshut 1887) 336. tn z 118 h B Wi l a e cr r a

33 with the occupiers, although they were not expected to commit treason against their own country Civilians were forbidden to take any action against the occupiers, who in turn were permitted to make use of private property only insofar as it sewed their military purposes, i.e. requisitions and quarters for their troops' daily needs. Still, the occupiers were not allowed to plunder and as the highest civil authority they were required to maintain law and order. Civilian courts were supposed to continue their usual work and military courts were to deal with all actions taken against the occupying a r m y . 1 1 9 William also spoke of requisitions in his proclamation to the French. H e portrayed them as a simple necessary legal measure of the occupiers which was separate from the w a r . 1 20 Requisitioning maintained a semblance of legality as long as i t was conducted by officers specifically authorized for that purpose. l t differed from organized stealing in that the civilians whose property it was were supposed to be given a receipt so that accounts could be settled after the war, usually by the losing si d e . 1 2 1 not I nbe injured, t h i nor, s supposedly, would the general moral sensibilities of his age. would w a y t h e Requisitioning could remain halfway tolerable and humane as long as (1) troops spread P r u s s i a n out k and i kept n moving, g preferably ' s through densely populated areas, taking only what they s e not stripping n stowns bare e of nourishment, (2) requisitions were conducted in an needed and o f by authorized officers, not by the soldiers themselves, so that plundering organized manner h o n o and r conflict with civilians could be avoided, (3) requisitioning officers showed restraint with families who had very little, (4) the army's supply system was sufficiently well organized that troops did not depend on requisitioning alone, (5) troops were paid, fed, and disciplined well enough that they did not take to marauding, (6) perceptions of the enemy did not lead soldiers to take revenge on civilians, (7) junior officers made an effort to prevent marauding, and (8) their commanding generals sent signals to them that such was d e si re d . 1 2 2 T h the e Prussians, G e r believed m a nthat s they , had such a supply system, or at least they particularly propagated this belief. Thus according to them, the Germans proscuted a war against the French army, not people,. The reality was quite different. German Reality: The Logistics of the German Armies On paper the German armies had the means and organization to supply themselves well enough to meet the Prussian king's expectations that private property be spared. I n reality "friction" (Clausewitz) in the war, i.e. unpredictable events and human error, hindered the 119 W 1 2iCnl ter /i t i r t hal 2h Kriegserlebnisse bayerischer Artilleristen aus den Jahren 1870/71, 2 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1902) 58-70. ta e nr 1 /2 d W UP, 24 1977) 76-82: see also the Test of this chapter. i2G -O n B

34 logistical organization created by Moltke and his general staff from functioning anywhere near adequately. Consequently the German armies were forced to live o ff the land, just as Napoleon's had done at the beginning of the century. 123 F r i cwho t i o n " the , mobilization w a stressed s Moltke" himself, during massing troops as rapidly as possible at c a u s e d the i cost ofnseparating them from their tra i n s. 1 2 4 Saof e the v etrains o t theharmies. e r The train troops were not sufficiently armed for pinability rr a lto tsupply fb a c t y o r s self-defense, which led a l s o to problems with francs-tireurs. Their marching discipline was poor. Facilities that nine out of ten wagons had to be left c o nto repair t r wagons i b were u sot inadequate e d behind. Finally, the trains were so ineffective that their field commanders often did not bother t o to give them orders, leaving the trains' movements up to their own initiative. t h e 125 Railroad problems also contributed to the Germans' inability to supply themseves, for the rails could not keep up with the troops and thus could not be relied upon to feed them. Aside from the potential problems inherent in a system which combined rails and horses there were organizational mistakes made by Molke and the general staff. There were not enough troops to guard the lines, which were subject to sabotage. There were no provisions for the transfer of civilian rolling stock to the military at the war's outbreak. No central supply and transportation headquarters existed; merchants simply pushed supplies forward as quickly as possible in order to make money. The resultant logjam was made worse by an absence of manpower and wagons for unloading, as well as storage facilities, which in turn led to the usage of rolling stock for storage and an exacerbation of the rolling stock shortage. Gelman troops often dismanteled signal and communication equipment of captured lines, rendering it useless to the French—and the Germans.I 26 F i n athe l lPrussian y , t hbadeordered its reform in 1869, but this had not yet been done provisional; army r a i l r o a d when the war broke o u t s e c t i o n ' s 127 T h e o r An g 1897 a history n iof the z Bavarian a t army's railroad section reported many of the same r e s u l t ipmbl o ems. n o f w a s 129 a l I n l The railroad section was much too small for the task, and the personnel was inadequacy. a t d hd i i trained. s inadequately I n autumn the railroad section had trouble getting French laborers ti i o ns because it th of theaharvest, even after offering high pay, although this situation later improved o b The railroad men were too often occupied with requisitions, cooking, and their own t Bavarian sm e i l l i ro1 2 3v n s n4 10 2 e d o Nr e C 1 tvfa 2ep5l C re 126Creveld, Supplying 104-106. o l h d a t vr ,e l 127Karl e o Thoma and Otto Gyilling, "Die bayerische Feldcisenbahn=Abteilung im Kriege 1870-71," Darstellungen aus S e d , in Bayerischen o n der Kliegs= und Heeresgeschichte 6 (1897): 85-86. U S fsa o 12 P 8 u lP l n w e 1 p 2CI 9 d o w V i r hrlo e tp s e n n m yil a i e

35 protection against francs-tireurs ,because they were alone with no infantry or other support. There were also severe material shortages. The results the Bavarian railroad section achieved, while impressive, were hardly adequate. The lines that did function were extremely primitive and imreliable. 130 lt is significant that none of the German railroad problems were new, having already been encountered by the Prussians in 1866, from whom the Bavarians had since been learning.131 The war historian Martin van Creveld estimates that one well organized railroad line would have been able to meet the Germans' total needs. Since Moltke had a chance to learn from 1866, he bears a large amount of responsibility for what happened between the French civilians and German soldiers in 1870-71, even i f his impressive victory has led historians to obscure this fact. 132 In addition to organizational problems Moltke's strategic priorities prevented the rails from effectively supplying the German troops. The armies' pace was fast. They bypassed fortresses which blocked the railroad line, not bothering to take them or build lines around them (with the exception of Metz, around which a line was built). The rails could not keep up with the troops. 1 From the beginning the German armies were forced to resort to requisitions. The HI Array 33 did without its trains until they caught up at the end of August, and even then it could not use them. A rest day scheduled for 27 August was cancelled in order to catch Macmahon's army, which was then defeated at Sedan. Soldiers were told to fend for themselves by living off the land and supplement this with their iron rations as needed,'34 assuming they still had their iron rations. For some this was the first time individual soldiers foraged, at least officially and openly; 135 f o r The trains, which finally had caught up, had very little to offer due to their own difficulties. o t h e r consumption during the past month, and the captured French supplies were not enough. s However, t h i major supply problems were avoided. Due to the lack of any sizable French forces sto oppose their march on Paris, the Germans could spread out and live off the rich country. w aAround Paris this changed, for the French had deserted their towns, burned their crops, 137 s and off their l i ve sto ck. n driven o 1 8h T i h o s e t1 3 3a w n1r l3i 1 gh o p a r t i c i p a t nC om o e 1 3r 2 e a e ld . w v Cr o i11dav e3, 13 3 n C e n 3r 4 1 S t6dv ,e l h e dm 0 1 35 u S sA e g e - d , ii G /p K 1 o3t 6 ituS n c l u d i n ym l1 p el7i p 1L 3 u B d ,iaigu b g y b S p lo C p 1 l2 r3 § s ei 8r n tveyC h erille p n _ 6 g 0 n e d dyw g ,ei l

36 Bavarian Corps—could no longer rely on requisitioning, yet supply lines were h a rnearest d l y railhead b e t twas e ten r . days away by wagon, and the Germans had a severe wagon The shortage. 139 bringing up artillery and shells for the bombardment of Paris, and they were hampered by busy M u c French saboteurs. In order to feed themselves the German armies became "a gigantic foodh producing f o o machine" (Creveld). The troops harvested food and processed it with what d machines were available, e.g. grain was threshed, ground, and made into br e a d. a n 'troops themselves did a fair amount of scavenging among the deserted houses, looking for 4d1 T h e hidden f o supplies of wine and anything edible. 142 d d On the Loire, where the 1 Bavarian Corps spent October, November, and December e r preventing newly forming French armies from coming to the relief of Paris, the supply l situation was worse. Supply lines were even more tenuous than around Paris, and German a and y French troops exhausted existing food and fodder supplies by crisscrossing the land again a again. and t 143 In addition to jetting food and fodder from the civilians, the soldiers were regularly t quartered in their houses. This was done in order to avoid the extra baggage of tents and to h e provide the soldiers with decent protection against bad weather, although it could have a bad reffect on troop discipline since soldiers were dispersed and quartered separately from their a i officers. l h 144 I tto feed their "guests". e expected w a a The French civilians' horses, clothes, shoes and other material goods were also 145 sd am l t requistioned by the Germans. s 146 v e forced n Civilians t oi E were to drive wagons, bake bread, help build temporary bridges that were tan h ge blown, repair sabotaged roads, and show the Germans the Wa y . w c .1 4 i7 v i l i a n s ' la113 9 a4 b o r yC w s 14 r4e ) a v o l ro 1W T4, 1e q u i s i d h tf1Sh4ri e2i o n e d , C vtf1g h L 4ee3li e u 1e, d S ebp19r e4i g4 S ep 1 1 the rd 0anlFrench i armyi see Audoin-Rouzeau 80. u c6 -i yc- h a 1 4 5 n c h n .1 i 7 n r -r 1 glorreichen 1 Feltizuge p ig n c 1870/71l nach dent Tagebuch eines bayerischen Rtgers, 3rd ed. (Kaiserslautern: Gotthold, 1887); 78 g ll gi_o Fritsch, 1870171. y Heinrich 9 Frivmerungen und Betrachtungen (Bonn: Marcus, 1913); Gronew. Georg Hammon, Einiges u b t1A u d e d n g 1 s aus r dem Tagebuch eines Feldgeistlichen un Kriege 1870/71 (Kempten: Diumheimer. 1887); Leibig; Koch-Breuberg; ye 0 ti.t .h Ksumper; n Killmhauser. l0 e l o e n 1 o4h4 6 g H twdn0te4u; 7 1 B 1 g Infimtrieregiments 1 Prinz Arnulf und seiner Stammabteilungen (Munich: Lindauer, 1914) 552; LaBberg 110, 137; .r1 o1 u sm -0a -o g Kiihnhauser 113; 11W. Weigland, "ebelangebrachter Patriotismus," 1-11itz. and Schmalz T .v o • 0m A s 1r 2 6 _ ,A e in r-o e r c

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37 Thus King William I's pmclamations that the French civilians were not the object of his war and that private property should be spared remained little more than words. H o w the civilians were really affected can be seen better by examining the experiences of individual soldiers and officers. The rest of this chapter does this, presenting first the good and then the bad. "Like God in France Many Bavarian veterans recorded their impressions of France as if they were writing for travel guides. France was a beautiful country which they remembered fondly. A priest, Gronen, had memories that were typical of many educated Bavarian officers and enlisted men. In Rheims, "Mi ch interessierten zunächst die Cathedrale und die Ableikirche vom hl. Remigius• Erstere in ihrem reinen gothischen Stil macht einen gewaltigen Eindruck. Aber auch die Basilika des hi. Remigius ist überaus sehenswerth." 148 A n Palatinate, e n l i sEmonts, t e dhad fond m memories a n of N a n cy. the Bavarian f1 4 9 r A no o t m e n spared l i snotdetails e d of armed conflict with civilians and his Klihnhauser, whohinehisr memoirs m a n , horror at these civilians, fondly recalled touring a palace andgardens in Fontainebleau. 1513 T took h e an interest in the French culture, one which they considered equal to their own. Bavarians "Hier leben wir wie Gott in Frankreich! wrote Otto von HoeBlin, a one-year volunteer and NCO, on 28 August to his mother. 151 marches, T h e worn-out shoes and clothing, bivouacs outdoors in bad weather, and hunger, long B a v a r i a n but s on o the l whole d i they e ate r and s drank well, and they were often quartered inside, if frequently under f acramped c conditions. e d They also enjoyed relatively good relations with the French they h a r on. d From s thehBavarian i were quartered point of view there were two major trends in Francop Bavarian relations. On the one hand the French were the enemy. On the other hand the French i n were much like normal people and civilians one did not wish to harm t h the Bavarians, e "Malesherbes ist f o r ein freundliches Städtchen, wir hatten dort gute Quartiere," recalled m Ktihnhauser. o f 152 warm encounters with French civilians of comparable social backround. B aT vha i r si 1 m lessaeducated y a lbut s have been true of the classes, few, o if any, of their experiences have found a n their o f way fi into c print; moreover, the lower ranks were usually quartered under more crowded e1 4 8r s a01 r4 o9 n d n em1n 3 E5 1 ,e o 1 C n 1ti l d l u 15 2 s m h a c07 t t a einer Gedächtnis t Li • 4•11_ Zeit. Auszüge aus Feldnostbriefen des früheren "Einjährigen" und Unteroffiziers Otto von 3 u s8e r gefallen am 2. Dezember des Jahres 1870, led. and comp. Gustav von HoeBlinl (Augsubrg. Reichel, 119111) 4. HoeBlin o e;- 3 d e1vs9 5; 2 n o 5h 3l K l1eE i n m h quotes M e officers, but the examples of two enlisted men. Leibig, a student, and Klilmhauser, a merchant, show that such e m s H a u se trestricted to officers alone. was sa s not o o e r erln s e d

38 conditions, which inhibited such contact. Leibig, a young student one-year volunteer, had many good quarters on the march. This was partly due to the small size of his unit, which containedreplacements marching to their battalions in August, but it was also due to his young age and, perhaps more importantly, his social backround. One particularly good experience, "that I think about with pleasure was in Réméreville, a six hours' march from Nancy. There he was assigned to a house surrounded by a "friendly garden." Es hatte zwar alle Lädengeschlossenwegen der Fliegen, wie ich nachher erfuhr und oft sah, aber als ic h eintrat, wurde ic h von dem kinderlosen Kaufmannsehepactr Jesserondsehr freundlich begrüßt; den Namen ersah ich aus einem mir überreichten RecImungsfornrular, wogegen ich mich mit einer Visitenkarte revanchierte. Dem stattlichen brünetten Mann sah man sofort den ehematigenSoldaten an und ich war noch nicht lange unter seinem Dach, da hatte er schon mit Stolz auf seinen imposanten Militetrabschied unter Glas und Rahmenhingewiesen; er hatte in der Krim mitgekämpft und längere Zeit auf der Insel Martinique gestanden. Seine hübsche Frau war sehr gütig gegen mich; sie bedauerte "rich lebhaft um meiner Rife willen, sie strich mir durch's Haar und als ich abends schon halb entkleidet war, kam sie, von ihrem Gatten begleitet, nochmal, um mich zu fragen, ob ich noch etwas bedürfe. Nach meinem Alter wurde ich sehr htiufig, hier zum erstenmale, gefragt und die Mitteilung derselbenstets unter lebhaften Bedauern vernommen. Trotz der mangelhaften Konversation -- die Frau konnte von einem Straj3burger Aufenthalt her einige deutsche Brocken— war es so gemütlich und behaglich in diesem Hause, daß ich dachte, das Frankreich lasse sich recht gut an. Noch vor dem Abendessen kamen einige in der Nachbarschaft liegende Kameraden, auf Zuspruch und unter der Leitung eines französisch Sprechenden ging eine leidliche Unterhaltung zusammen; als sie gegangen waren, blieb ich wie der Sohn des Hauses zurück und wir setzten uns zu Tische. E s gab trefflich bereitete Tauben, mehrere Compots, Salat und Honig, an Wein gebrachs natürlich auch nicht. Als wir uns setzten, glaubte ich mein bon appétit anbringen zu müssen: wie erstaunte ich aber, als auf dies die Ehegatten sich ansahen, die Frau aber lautsagte: Protistcazt. Als sich ihre Blicke auf mich richteten, bejahte ich dies. Diese Entdeckung ihrerseits hatte aber nicht den geringsten Einfluß auf ihr Verhalten gegen mich, es blieb bis zum Schluß ganz liebevoll und freundlich. Beim Abschiednehmen mußte ich versprechen, zu schreiben. Ich bin aber nie dazu gekommen, werde also vielleicht von den guten Leuten für tot angesehen. Sie begleiteten mich beide hinaus Ills zur Gartenpforte D a s halbe Dorf war auf den Beinen und unsere Uniform schien es den Lothringern cmgethanzuhaben.154 This was perhaps an exceptional example because the town was not overcrowded, and Leibig may have exagerated his hosts' fondness for him, but his vision of the French is typical for this period of the war Lik e Leibig these French believed in family, were able to appreciate a military career, enjoyed good conversation, food, and drink, had similar manners, and were recogni7Ably Christians. Here Leibig and his hosts were of different confessions, which was okay. I n other cases the Bavarians' predominant Catholicism worked to their advantage. 154 Lei bi g

39 Many other friendly incidents happened as well, as the many Bavarian memoirs testify to. Friedrich Koch-Breuberg, later in the war a company commander, recalled staying with other officers in the house of the owner of a champagne factory. " In seinem Hause verspeisten wir zum Frühstücke den ersten lapin und sprachen uns sehr verschieden fiber die Güte dieses Nationalgerichtes aus." The n their host showed them his factory and had them taste everything. "We lc h komische Vorstellung hatte ich früher von der Herstellung des Champagners gehabt! Das war alles so einfach und -- schmeckte so gut." While drinking chamPagne , wir politisierten natürlich nicht mit Herrn Testulat. Weder ihm noch uns wollten wir die Stimmung verderben und es war so gemütlich in seinem Hause. Ich sehe es noch, das Speisezimmerchen mit den gelben Holztapeten, dem Klapptische mit der Lampe drüber und dem niedlichen Büffet. A uc h der Schreibtisch in der Ecke am Fenster fehlte nicht. Das ist nun einmal in besseren Bürgerfamilien Frankreichs so üblich. D ie breiten Betten behagten uns sehr, nur sehnten wir uns nach einem deutschen Kopfkissen und verwünschten die Flu! von Stoff, weiche den Himmel ausmacht. Überhaupt lernten wir jetzt das Innere der französischen Hauser mehr kennen.I55 Some officers did talk politics with their French "hosts," which sometimes even had a positive impact on their relations with them. Arnold recalled talking with a "Royalist" and Koch-Broberg with a "Legitimist," i.e. French who supported the reestablishment of the monarehy. 156 who started the war, and the republic, which continued it. N o t Another possible reason for good relations between the Bavarian officers and French a l l civilians o f fi is c that the French probably realized that their security depended on these officers. e r sHans Heinrich Fleischer has observed that German officers recalled good experiences w e French with great surprise in their letters, for they did not expect the French to be so with the r e much c o like n themselves. Fleischer sees this contact as positive, for the Germans could see the French s e as r real people and develop a more differentiated impression of them than was available v the a press. t Therein lay the seeds for an understanding between the Germans and the French, in i v e which unfortunately did not materialize. , 157 T h a t i n s t e a d war b is hardly surprising when one considers that the Germans were not guests, and that each n e g a t i v e u experienced enough hardship and conflict to hate the other for a long time to come. side m e m o r i e s t Nevertheless, p e r thesgoodi experiences s t are important because they show that the Germans and m e dwere broadly of the same culture andmake clear to us that some of these socio-cultural French a a f limitedtthe hostility e in this war, i.e. took precedence over the national struggle. It is similarities n r y also t evident that h even in this war the Germans and French were not irretrievably Erbfeinde as w e1 5 5 e K o 1 rc 5h 61H5u 7 e FB g loree i;u Asbrce

40 they seemedto be in the first decades of the twentieth century. Positive experiences between the Bavarian troops and French civilians show how at the basic level of individual people the violence of the war was often quite limited. Marauding and Requisitioning More common than the good experiences above, however, were stealing and enmity This was often the result of crowded quarters, which were common for the enlisted men. After Leibig reached his battalion in France he also hadsuchexperiences. Je weniger stark die Zahl der Einquartierten war, desto leichter war natürlich den Franzosen die Aufsicht über ihr Hab und Gut; ja in diesem Fall waren sie fast durchgehends freundlich, gesprächig, zum mindestens gaben sie Kartoffeln freiwillig heraus. Wo aber 20, 30, 40 Mann auf einmal einfielen und im Nu alle Räume des Hauses sowie alle Nebengebäude belegten und untersuchten, da hörtefil r die Franzosen alle Aufsicht fiber ihr Eigentum auf; da verstanden wir's wohl, fragten aber nichts darnach, wenn sie stumm dem allem zusahen oder bald da bald dort erscheinend unter Schimpfen und Fluchen Einhalt zu thun suchten.158 Such situations were quite common. A dolf Uhland, a Landwehr officer, claimed in his memoirs that only after the Bavarians reachedthe Loire did things get ba d.I 5 9 true T h ini his s case, mbutamore y common h areamemories v e of maurauding long before the Bavarians been reached the Loire, or even Sedan. 1 Taking food should not have beennecessary, for the French were usually supposed to ° feed 3 the Bavarians in their houses. Many tried, but some resisted. Above the door of a house which Emonts and his fellow enlisted men entered on 19 August was written, "Inn diehsern Gwadier mussen mahn Saunzeihsich kropp seihn, sunst bekohnzd mahn Nichds." T h e soldiers noted this, and after putting down their gear and washing themselves they politely asked for food, whereupon their "hosts" answered rudely that they bad nothing left to give. The soldiers became more insistant, and then nasty, and were then given plenty of food. Emonts wrote that they had asked to buy wine--which is believable because he had few scruples about admitting to taking things in general—but they had been refused. S o after discovering where the wine celer was, some of the soldiers created a diversion with the pigs outside and the others took what they needed. When the farmer reported this to the Bavarian military authorities, they shut him up by threatening him with 50 soldiers to quarter and feed if he bothered them again at night. Nevertheless the officers did try to find out who stole the wine, but no one was willing to talk, so the whole group, half a platoon, was punished. Emonts does not say what the punishment was, but it was likely mild, probably in the form of 158 L5 e9 i 1 b idg Kelleter, 1888). A 7 o l f 160 8 U. g E .h l

41 some extra duty, for Emonts did not think much of i t . 1 6 1 Another cause of conflict were language difficulties. I n the beginning many of the French were ethnic Germans who the Bavarians could speak to and politely make requests of. Once the language border was crossedthis changed. Educated Bavarians found that the French could not understand what they said and visa versa. Soldiers who used the military handbooks for French pronounced everything wrong, were rediculed by their comrades, and became frustrated. "Ochs schreibt man's und Rindvieh sprich man's." There were soldiers who felt that learning French was not worth the trouble. The y said, "sie wiirden's den R ote n 1 6 2 sagen und weisen und sich selber holen, was sie wollten. " schon 1 6 language 3 E mborder o n they t s werer ordered e p tooalways r t use e "s d vous plait!" when asking for things, the t h a t a t but that there were still many language difficulties. Die meisten zogen ihr Notizbuch hervor, schrieben sich die drei französischen Wörtchen auf undmachten hiervon unter Anwendung handgreiflicher Zeichen ergiebigen Gebrauch. S o z.B. Madam! s ' i l vous plait -- mehreremale wiederholend-- mit entsprechender Pantomime des Stiefelschmierens, ich /lab ke Fett mah vorr trier Stewle zu schmere, gew'n m'r e bissel! J e ne vous comprends pas, monsieur, sagte bedauernd die höfliche Hausfrau. Der Jager, ärgerlich darüber, daß er nicht verstanden wurde, wiederholte mehreremale seine Bitte. Endlich wird es ihm doch zu langweilig. A uc h ist ein der französischen Sprache mächtiger Kamerad nicht anwesend, Aufklärung zu geben. Der Jager reißt den Küchenschrank auf, nimmt sich seinen Bedarf an Fett und schmiert triumphierend seine StiefeLl164 On the other hand, for Leibig and his miserable French the language border presented an oppurtunity. He found it a pity that many men did not bother with the language and so learned no more flian ba if owna part, his first quarters in a French speaking area were in a town where everyone was d o z e n friendly to the Bavarians, "woraus wir schlossen, daß wir die ersten Deutschen in loco F r e n cwaren." h Leibig stayed with a cobbler who was keen to talk with him " A m Abend machte er w o Vergnügen r sich ein daraus, mich in die Dorftchenke zu flihren und mit Speise und Trank zu d s regalieren. " d u r 165 iwerentaughtg"s p l a i t " and others "toute de suite . " C o m t1 6 6 hin an edited version of his diary a reservist who was given a commision in 1870, m u n i rKrumper, e recorded for 31 August, "1st's heute nicht, so wird es Morgen werden. D e m c a t i o e n Soldaten q u ist es einerlei; er lebt, so lange er's hat -- und haben thut er's jetzt, denn Angecourt p r aI 6 1 r om b tE 162 e l e roT1 h6n e3t s m s s F Le 1 6r i4 o 4 2 w e ng b im 1 5 fE -c 64 e 3 o nhit L e 3 1 6 _ 6 aas5 rr i g b Irgiegsfreiwilligen Gymnasiasten aus dem Jake 1870/71 (Mtmich: Beck, 1899). yA 3 3 e P r 6 7 em 5 s-. u

42 und die naheliegenden Gehöfte werden rein ausgeplündert -- es wird gesotten und gebraten, gesungen und getrzotken." 167 A particularly s a successfulbecause they lived in separate quarters from the soldiers, and were not r u l e in manycasesbecause their attempts were only pro forma. Emonts had to take food and drink o f fi c e r s subversively, t r i but e hedtook it. 168 Hugo Arnold, a young officer, wrote of the measures taken tagainst men o in his company for allegedly stealing wine from a vacatedhouse. Until they could h i n d be tried they were led behind the regiment, which was degrading. "War uns die A e r fart f s und faru sich recht c unlieb, so erregte dieser Transport bei den übrigen Abteilungen großes a ir e s c h o n Aufsehen h und zog uns anzügliche Bemerkungen zu." Bu t the men were found innocent and a c the ranks t i "honest soldiers." rejoined as v i t Ich ywill bei dieser Gelegenheit aber nicht verhehlen, daß die Sache eine gewisse , ungute Stimmung gegen unsern. Regimentskomnzandeur aufkommen ließ, a l t sein emsiges Bemühen, die französische Zivilbevölkerung vor den Leiden weil h o u Krieges zu bewahren, nach unserem Ermessen übertrieben war und eher des g h uns selbst schädigte.. .169 tA career officer h who was a major general in 1911, Gottlieb von Thater, recalled how they were e y forced to let the soldiers scrounge for food on the march to Sedan. "Es ist gestohlen und man drückt ein Auge zu. Mundraub müssen w i r dulden, wenigstens unter so gedrangen Umstanden. Freilich ist diese Untugend schwer wieder abzugewöhnen. Die Kerle sind wie der Jagdhund, der einmal einen Hasen angeschnitten hat ." 1 A major concern of the officers was the troops' discipline. For 31 August Thater recalled, 7() Infolge der Anhäufung großer Truppenmassen w a r arger Mangel a n Lebensmittel eingetreten. E s ist begreiflich, daß unter diesen Umstanden die Selbsthilfe Platz griff und daß jedermann nahm, wo er etwas fand. U m nun der daraus entstandenen Plünderung ein Ende zu machen oder um sie wenigstens zu organisieren, erhielt ich in Raucourt den Auftrag, Lebensmittel far das Bataillon zu "requirieren" . 1 7 1 ThAter went with three men to a nearby village to see what he could find. What he did was supposedly legal because he was under orders and he issued receipts, but he felt there was little difference between requisitioning this way and plundering, except that the main body of troops maintained discipline, which was important for him and his superiors. The importance of discipline canalso be seen in an anecdote Ktilmhauser recounted. When his platoon marched past some grapes, his Landwehr lieutenant yelled "Wer eine Traube pflückt wird prozessiert!" To avoid the lieutenant's wrath the troops kept their eyes pointed straight ahead. Then came 167 1K 6r 8u mmp E 169Hugo Arnold 74-75. oe n1 t 17 s7 ° r7 1 1 42 hh aa T 2. ter 4

43 the command "Rechts schwenkt!" followed by "Hale Then, standing in the middle of the grape vines, the lieutenant ordered his troops "Zum A n g r i f f ! " and so the soldiers proeeded to e a t. 172 B u t Leibig's unit reached a well stocked farm on its way from Sedan to Paris the When t h e y officers m a i made n t no attempt to control their soldiers. The troops spontaneously spread out and began a i ntaking e deverything edible they could find. When the farmer's wife screamed "Mon dieu, d ipoules, s cmes poules!" an officer simply replied, "Ach, was liegt an so ein paar Hühnern!" mes i p l i This was Leibig' s most extreme example, but it was not exceptional. n e . 173 O f fiwith c etheir r s soldiers, w for e they r too e had to eat, and in the field they could not rely on in collusion o f t e n quarters, restaurants, or sh o p s. 1 4 Thumour. h e One officer noticed that his men were in an unusually good mood in spite of in7good o f fi c e r s a strenuous night march, and he also noticed wine bottles making the rounds. H e tried to find a l s o out t owhatl was e happening, r a t but e no one would talk. Then someone admitted that they had found a d bottle of wine, which was understating the quantity considerably. I c h sagte ihnen kein Wort m a r a da auch u dich meine Freude hatte, daß der Marsch so flott und lustig weiter der Mißbilligung, i n g ging. "175u j s t Troop discipline and the officers' moral sensibilities sometimes reached such a low that t units stole from o each other, even with the help of officers. And officers used their authority to k e take e stolen food p and drink from their men. Everything was justified for the sake of some food or t drink. For h exampleea batallion commander sent an officer to end the plundering at a factory i r owner's house. The officer placed guards around the house and then chased the soldiers m away. The French owner thanked him, but regretted that he had nothing to give. Secretly this e n did not bother the Bavarian, for he knew his guards had taken everything from the marauding soldiers. The many bottles of wine and champagne were then divided up among the batallion' s officers, and the company the guards came from were allowed to keep the two ducks they had relieved the marauding soldiers 0 0 76 One veteran officer recognized in this method of feeding troops the reason for the collapse of moral values in the war, der Krieg ist ein gräßliches Übel und verwildert die Menschen. Doch nicht die Schlachten und Gefechte mit ihrem planmäßigen Morden und Dreinschlagen sind die Hauptztrsachen der im Kriege nach und nach um sich greifenden Verwilderung; sondern das fortwährende Kantonnieren, Biwakieren und Requirieren, das Streben Einzelner wie ganzer Abtteilungen nach Besserung der 172 K 1 7i i3 h 174— L en n.g. ih Erinnerungen aus dem D e u t s c h a u b i g-sf r a n zBallhorn, (Nuremberg: ö s i s c h1872) e n 23-24. e 8rF e l d z u g e 1 1 5 1 6 -1 8 7 0 - 1 8 7 1 E ri 1 9 7 v6 o n n n 5 F ie 0 r, e i n e m rn u n . oc

44 durch den Krieg bedingten entbehrungsvollen oft mehr als spartanischen Lebensweise bilden die Faktoren, welche bei längerer Dauer eines Krieges an dem mit Recht sorgsam gepflegten Baume der Humanität oft recht rauhe, manchmal sogar stachelige Triebe hervorschiefien lassen. _177 This veteran was also talking about organized requisitions by small detatchments of well disciplined troops, which usually were thorough. The officers often took the last cow of a poor family, something that could not be helped as long as requisitions remained the sole means of supply for the German soldiers in areas that had been stripped bare by large concentrations of troops. In August shortages arose in some places, which led to bitterness in the civilian population.' 78 Requisitions also led to badscenes between the Bavarian soldiers and French civilians. Koch-Breuberg, an officer who later became a company commander, recalled in his memoirs that in Fmlois "wurde ich zum Requirieren kommandiert. Das war mir ein herzlich zuwiderer Dienst. Ic h danke meinem Schöpfer, daß ich ihn nie wieder zu verrichtenhatte." 179 Hugo Arnold was an officer who had to do a lot of requisitioning, probably because he produced results without letting moral scruples get in his way, threatening to burn and plunder where necessary, and making good his threats. 18 detail, "Da eine allzu humanitäre Anschauung dazu neigt, die Vornahme von Requisitionen, ° H e e x p l a i n e d soweit sie sich auf Privateigentum erstrecken, als unberechtigt anzusehen, . " F o r him r e q u i s i t i o n s requisitions i nwere nothing more than "Ake kriegerischer Selbsthilfe." They were necessary to h the armies, i feed asswell as to deny thé enemy of supplies• m e m Krieg o mußi den Krieg r s 181 Der ernähren! -- Das ist eine harte und grausame Maxime, i n und härter noch als der Klang des Wortes ist seine Durchftihrung; denn sie fordert Verzicht auf alle menschlichen Regungen im Herzen und setzt an deren Stelle die rohe brutale Gewalt, die allein rum Ziele ftihrt. Es bleibt keine Wahl, du oder ich, das ist die unerbittliche Losung bei dieser Form des Kampfes um das Dasein; nimmst du nicht weg, was du für die Deinen bedarfst, so hungern sie told gehen zu Grunde; ein anderer aber, der ein weniger weiches Hetz im Busen trägt, bemächtigt sich im nächsten Augenblicke doch alles dessen, was du voll mitleidiger Schonung den feindlichen Einwohnern gelassen hast, damit sie ihr Leben notdürftig fristen.182 The social-Darwinist tenor here may reflect more Arnold's mentality in 1 8 9 6 . 1his 83 N e vaccurately e r t h ereflects l e sthe s ugly , statement character of the war. This is how the war was almost 177 S 1 7c8 h sowie E m der Stammabteibmgen des Regiments (Leipzig: Klinkhardt. 1898) 604-605. al2 1H 7 9 ie i K o 180Hugu— Arnold', 53-61, n cn hz 1 81 R e r, e B H i 8u 2 1 uG b e g te 8ou3 H r1 g M zs on g Thought: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992) 73-113. 2O n a A r G 0c o l n h ro .e

45 from the beginning, and it became increasingly worse. Requisitions were a struggle for survival between the Bavarian soldiers and French civilians, and thus were de facto a part of the Bavarian soldiers' war on France.

46 Ch. 4 Fighting the Unseen Enemy The First Encounters In 1870 nationalism was prevalent in France, the country which had actedas a catalyst for nationalism in Europe at the beginning of the century. Since that time primary school, military service, the printed media, and the spreading of literacy had all strengthened French nationalism, which was also contributed to by memories of the French Revolution and--in northernFrance—memories of a German invasion and occupation more than fi f t y netyeffect e a of r these s factors e a rin l1870 i ewas r that . even before the first French casualties the war The was to a great extent a national war for the Fr e nc h. 1 8 4manifested I n s itself o m e form of francs-tireurs and other armed civilians who shot at war in the c a s e s German p o troops p u from l the a start. r 185 S o m e Lorraine volunteer had been organized and training for this since the s u francs-tireur p p o r groups t o f t h i s fLuxembourg o r w a h scrisis in 1e 8 6 8 , t1 8 6 d p r That ou rarmed bi n g aencounters b l with civilians took place from the start runs against the w h i c h y conventional wisdom of historians who see Sedan as the turning point from cabinet war to n s ap t o i no nt aa l people's s e Wa n ru t. is m, n e o 1 87 T o e became war only after Sedan, because that is when the Republic was proclaimed; b n atpeople's u b e h a t is when the people-in-arms, the huge armies hurriedly assembled from scratch, began to that s u r e d i darken German ,r u hopes of a quick French surrender. n 188 ur n - i military n s operations w i t in any h significant Wa y , fn oR German hindered A l s a ros io m M l t ehg ad t h 1 i Napoleon's t harmies a instead. d a 8 9 them, c concentrating e ignore on From the standpoint of civilian c i v i l i a n s th k e . b e e n p o s s i b l e a involvement, h ao however, d a national war was being fought from the very beginning. a tn n o Bewohner t i n u n d u m Weißenburg zeigten gegen i h r e deutschen "Die d d Stammesgenossen ein sehr feindliches Benehmen. Si e schossen auch schon vor dem 4. t August auf vorübergehenden Patrouillen." h 19 e 184 °rA uO n 4 A u g u s t 185 dde o i u r i n g S 8e 6 t1nes h e n a t ce e.g. Förster, Moltkc 22, 221, 237. A century ago German historical opinion was the same. After Sedan "der 187S' R o G e r m a n e ft r. Kampf u z c der Heere wich einem Kampf der Nationen!" wrote one Bavarian military historian i n 1897; Kießling. g . eGeschichte a n f des Königlich f o r 5. InfantriRegiments t Bayerischen Großherzog Ernst Ludwig von Hessen, part Ill, 1833o a u I1897 l (Berlin: Mittler, 1897) 217. c s t3f o o t-17vtt 8i 8 a k e - h a "Geschichte des Krieges 1870/71" (1888), Förster, Moltke 337-339; Kießling 217; W. Lech. Das Kgl. Moltke, T v rh e Bayerische t5 4. FrAdartilleriRegiment "König". E i n Rückblick auf seine 50 jährige Entwicklung 1859-1909 a u r e (Stuttgart t6 h Uhland, 1909) 78; Winterhalter 67. rs ;189Lacpteur85. e G d g s G e 2 r e 5 o r

47 Wissembourg civilians participated in the defense of their town. According to the laws and customs of war they were not allowed to take up arms, but their help was desperately needed, for the French were outnumbered 50,000 to 6,000.191 Apparently there were no soldiers to defend one section of the wall, which was defended solely by civilians who "sich gegenseitig zum Massakrtren auffstachelten_" Only later did a French unit come, whose captain then threatened to shoot those civilians who would not leave the a r e a . 1 9 2 A fwere t e inr Wissembourg t h e "Bürger der Stadt haben aus den Häusern geschossen, wie Prussians B a v a r i a n s a n d bereits eidlich bekundet worden sein soll, weshalb mehrere Verhaftungen erfolgt s i n d ." 1 9 3 people were court-martialed and likely executed. A Bavarian regimental historian later These wrote that Dick, a French historian, berichtet daß unsere Soldaten in Weifienburg sich wie wütende Hunde benommen hätten. "A n die schrecklichen Erdrosselungen sterbender Turkos schließen sich Salven auf die Bürger. D i e Metzelei geht während der Nacht fort, man schießt die besiegten Bürger (sic!) und Soldaten nieder. In manchen Häusern lap man kein lebendes Wesen übrig. A n folgenden Morgen ftihrte man zur Nachahmung alter Opfergebräuche an die Totenstatte des General Douay; man erschießt sie un verscharrt sie daselbst!"194 The Bavarian historian, writing in 1897, was unable to believe the French report, which really was exagerated and distorted_ Nevertheless, taken together with German reports of civilian participation, it testifies to the fierce character of the war at the outset. While it is unlikely that civilian killings went on into the night, long after the battle was over and the officers had regained control of their troops, it is likely that the Bavarians did kill civilians in regular battle where civilians were shooting at them. And possibly the Bavarians killed civilians as an angry reaction when they entered the town and caught civilians with weapons in their bands. Executions and burials after court-martials were also likely, as shall be seen later, for the Germans considered it a crime under penalty of death for civilians to take up arms, a fact which all Germahs reporting on this considered-normal and acceptable. During the next major engagement in which the Bavarians participated, at Wörth (near Froeschwiller) on 7 August, French civilians also got involved, making a lasting and dark impression on the Bavarian soldiers. One Bavarian officer wrote that after the battle he became 'Zeuge eines höchst merkwürdigen Auftrittes, den i ch zu meinen unangenehmsten KriegserlebnissenZdtde. " 1 9 5 inEorder i t h e r their property andbecause of their patriotism, troops to protect c i v i l i a 196 o r t h en sc i v i l i a n s h a d 1913 a h d 1 9m1o- i kE l l e n tg su F i 1 9 2 d 1 r e 3s E a1,f 9mr 3 n oMneti 1 9 4 F d so s ne Q N 1 9u5 m m t i 1 r. ,t e u o bayerischen A u Offiziers mitgetheilt von Georg Morin (Munich: Franz, 1882) 32-33; quote 32. H 3 lsF r a t e d 1o i e id

48 killed and mutilated soldiers, tearing out their tongues and poking out their eyes, so that they would not be able to bear witness or testify to how the civilians plundered the wounded and de a d. 1 9 7 involved in the maiming and killing of German soldiers, for which they had to stand been I n court-martial. During the hour the civilians awaited the court-martial's decision they were a n threatened by excited and outraged German troops, among them Bavarians. l7mmer grlifier y c wurde der Andrang von Soldaten aller Waffengattungen, und als die Schandtaten der a Gefesselten bekannt wurden, hatte die Bedeckung vollauf zu tun, daß sie nicht gelyncht s wurden. 'Haut sier— niederschiefien! '— 'nein aufhängen!' schrie alles durcheinander. . " e , The B civilians looked awful, for when the Germans had caught them they had beaten them a bloody and perhaps even used their bayonets. While the civilians were awaiting their v judgement the village minister came with an officer to establish their identites and help them a r i prepare for death. One denied his guilt, most were aware of it, some remained 'frech" and a defiant. " M i r dauerte diese Verhandlung zu lange; ich mochte diese Bestien nicht Langer n sehen." v 198 graves and then executedthem.199 e A f t e t The main motive for the soldiers' anger was that the civilians were allegedly r e a "hyenas,"" i.e. people who lived off the dead and wounded of the battlefield like vultures. r s h No a soldier could want this to happen to his fallen comrades, let alone himself, regardless of o r n nationalistic temperment. These "hyénas" did not have to be civilians who lived in an area the t s ttroops r fell fighting in, but could also be people travelling with the army. For example one a iofficer a discovered in a rude way why his units Marktenderin, a woman who traveled with the g l soldiers r and sold them provisions, had been anxious that there should be battles; after a battle t e he h found a friend with missing fingers, and after the next battle he caught the Marktenderitz, e e dressed ai a man, trying to cut off his own finger, on which was a r ing. t 2B A nnot d associated w hexclusively i l e with people's war, it gave them a new quality in the "hyenas" h1 3 1 were a a eyes v of the soldiers, who saw their existance as proof of French barbarism, no matter that the t civilians a r in Worth spoke Germart. b 2i a As the month of August wore on francs-tireurs increasingly made their presence felt. e °n t 196 2s w H 1 o9u7 geo A 1 u 98 lK A r s e 1 9ä 9 d oh rn h n u nu 2H ilg oud s h a M 2I1 m e e rr A A O Feuilleton zur NeuenAugsburger Zeitung 135 (1870): 541-542. ,0 o v 4 n u r23l4 0l o2 1 la d s "woman s S 6 in for this. Hans von Kretschman, letter to bis wife. 21 Aug. 1870, Lily Braun, ed. Kriegsbriefe aus den Jahren -e 1n rE m - il 1870/71 von Hans Kretschman. 5th ed. (Stuttgart 1904) 70. h T 4 u ia,4dr a 5 a 4 h n i72n

49 The offending civilians were often gardes mobiles who had just been called up by the French government, but had not yet joined their units and were still wearing civilian clothes. These menbanded together in small groups and fi rOne e dBavarian a t regimental p a s s history i n gnoted, 'Ein Tagesbefehl vom 2 4 . m a c h t e die Truppen s o l d i e r s mit einer neuen Art von Gegnern bekannt, den Franctireurs--Freischlirlern, deren Aufgabe es f r o m sein sollte, vereinzelt t h e Marschierende zu überfallen und niederzuschiefien." 2 c o v e r G o f German Policy and the International Law of War 4 w o o d s . The above regimental history referred to the francs-tireurs as ʻWicht regulären, vom 2 M Völkerrecht mit der Todesstrafe bedrohten Bewaffneten. . " 2 officer wrote to his wife from outside of Metz that, "Leute, die nicht einem uniformirten ° Truppenkörper 5 A Pangehören, r u s ssind i einfach a n Mörder, wenn sie schießen." 2 opinion g e asnwell, e butr whereas a l murderers usually were tried before they were executed, Moltke °s t a f f directed be summarily 6 T h that i s francs-tireurs w a scouldM o l t k s hot. e ' s 2 William, commander of the Third Army, which included the two Bavarian corps, believed that C trials r 7 Pwere r unecessary. s s i a He n issued C a proclamation r o w to n the effect that all civilians who endangered the P German r i armies n were c to e be taken before military courts, which were expected to sentence to F e dwhoeattacked r i German c ksoldiers, deathr all those sabotaged bridges, railroads, and telegraph lines, plundered German military property, were spies, or who deliberately misled German troops while guiding them. The crown prince's proclamation was not solely a reaction to the francs-tireurs in the heat of war, but was based on a royal decree dated 21 July 1 8 6 7 . 2Prussian military leadership had anticipated the effects of nationalism in war and had ° 8formulated T h ea policy three years before the first shots were fir e d. 2prince sadly noted in his diary, c Da die Bewaffnung der Landbewohner in diesen Gegenden bereits mehr um 9 O n 2 gegriffen 8 Ahat,usind g wir u genötigt, s t sich in energischester Weise zur Ablieferung t h e der Waffen c zu schreiten. r o Einzelne w n Schüsse, meist in hinterlistiger, feiger Weise, fallen allerorten aufPctirouillen, so daß uns nichts übrig bleibt, als durch Anzünden der Hauser, aus denen die Schüsse kamen, oder aber durch Forderung von Geiseln und Kontributionsausschreibungen Gegenmaßnahmen zu ergreifen. Es ist schauderhaft, aber um größeren Unglück vorzubeugen, 203 1 Vi 204Edi n xte Stammabteilungen 1813-1815 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1894) 122-123. 2rE 0hd5ae lr td ,e E 2 06 r eD rr e K 26 We 1s 2c t3 s0o H k - 8 22 h m w a -2 . 02i 9 1W a n e, rn d 6 t Messerschmidt 19. b 3M .o al 3lr4 b a ty k ee 7e l.,r t e. 8t t

50 unvermeidlich, und hängt mit der Verkündung unseres Kriegs gesetzes zusammen. Glücklicherweise liegt nicht mir, sondern meistenteils den kommandierenden Generalen die Anwendung sokher strengen Strafen ob.210 The crown prince was aware of how problematic suchmeasures were, for he sought to duck responsibility for them by passing the buck to his subordinate generals. Contributions were quite common. 211 T h e taxes for those towns in which francs-tireurs had acted against the of one year's property a m o u n t Germans, w a s 212 little mention of this s u p was p made o sin the e veterans' memoirs and no mention was made of the a l t hdo hostages u g h t fates_ o 213 i confiscating n b firearms e from the civilians, M o r e s 214 o at houses n t i qwas u ea normal s Burning h e form of punishment. c o m m a n e d 216 Ce n i on v the i l spot i au nwithout si w r ea short makeshift or pseudo tr ia 1 , q v even a trialeaor after m oshot fc a a m i l y a n ht 2 1 7 eelbrought alali st ehrbefore oo u w s h many lu g court-martials ot o m seem e x e c e d , s to have been let off the hook . s is 2 1 8n Oc de ee troops, wd h .Bavarians o l e included, is one of ruthlessness,'even if the s impression on leftl bytu the mhGerman tt2 h i 1h 5 e soldiers were somewhat restricted in what they were allowed to d o . e t 2 1 9 r Iand t today s hweowould c kconsider e d mostmsucha n yeven if they arc still common in p e 1870-71 acts illegal, m iv e nn a many parts of the world. ty i v As has been stated in the previous chapter, in the Europe of 1870-71 it was generally e h m e states, not peoples, warred against each other. Thus civilians were forbidden to agreed that a a s v 210 u r e M 2 1e1i e s b n4 eder Errichtung bis zum 1. Oktober 1 8 9 1 (Berlin: Mittler, 1892) 290; Krumper 120; Luitpold Lutz, "Die E von ro G r Bayerischen Landwehrbataillone I m Feldzuge 1870/71." Darstellungen aus de r Bayerischen Kr i egs= u. e F fe sr o Hemesgeschichte 24 (1924): 12, 14; Uhland 141, Prussian examples: basting 96-97; Letter to his wife, 26 Dec. ic1870, eh Heinrich Rindfleisch, Feldbriefe 1870/71, 7th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1912) 134. s e n d 6 1r 2 2 a r i0 h ci W 2h 13 c h 3 i t e 262; n Rouzeau TI h e n Winterhalter 179. r,igb a o2 l6 1n4 lte lg y heitere Erinnerungen eines Ordonanzoffiziers im Feldzug 1870/71, zweite Reibe (Nördlingen: Beck, 1888) 69-73. lh und 1 r0 1 u cfg 7 o e1 5 23 6 oA 8 o r E ;r m 4 216Georg Bleysteiner, Aus grater Zeit (Augsburg: Ricgcr, 1896) 367-369; Kretschman, letter to his wife. 29 Aug. nn .oH o r1870, Braun (1904) 80; Eder 165-166; Hermann Freiherr von Egloffstein, comp. and ed., Ein Sohn des Frankealandes .cl m s ed in troller Zeit Kriegsttriefe, aus dem Nachlasse seines Vater. Gesellschaft far Fränkische Geschichte, Nenjahrsblatter ra ;H 6 l 5(Würzburg. Stiirtz, 1912) 53-54; Helvig 110-111, 246; Kiihnhauser 113. 114, 149, 162; LaBberg 122, 148-149, VIT n eB o 6 Leibig 90; Lutz 12. 14; Messerschmidt 23; Karl Müller, "Die Tätigkeit der kgl. bayer. 3. Feldgeniekompagnie -v t198; d 6a is ;

wahrend des Krieges 1870171," Darstellungen aus der Bayerischen Kriegt u . Heeresgeschichte 11 (1902) 80-81; Carl er K g Tanera, Ernste und heitere Erinnerungen eines Ordonanzoffiziers im Feldzug 1870/71 (Nördlingen: Beck, 1887) 101; tBn o1 Uhland 95, aa ci1 2 17 vc hg 3 B 106, ak a 189; Müller 80-81; Tanera, Erinnerungen 1, 95, 101 11, 64-65. Some Prussian examples: Egloffstein 53-53. 61; B -e y Fritsch 62-63; basting 82 re e r1 e s m il tuago Arnold 1, 135-137; Bamickel and Schicullinger 110; Grosch 658-659. u1 2ia a bw 81 9 m nn M ee ; er ed s e sF

51 take any action against the occupiers. If they did they would face courtmartials. 22 European military courts were expected to mete out rigorous punishments to offenders C 1of their martial law in order to set examples and scare the civilian population into docility. However, the basic rules of humanity were to be observed in every case. Considerations of humanity had motivated scholars of international law to attempt a codification of the international law of war in order to tame war and make it less inhumane; however, they were forced to subordinate considerations of humanity to the demands of war. The American Civil War "Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field" and Bluntschli, a Swiss international law of war activist, stated that the severity of punishment should depend on how secure an occupied area was; whereby the United States "Instructions" went further by declaring, "to save the country is paramount to all other considerations." The international law of war was not a constant, but something flexible which depended on the military situation. Military necessity determined the severity of punishments, not what those to be punished actually did. I n other words, the law of war was subjective and potentially variable. I t was not something fixed, but depended on how those conducting the war perceived considerations of humanity and military necessity, whereby military necessity always limited considerations of humanity. 221 In the field the necessities of war took almost total priority over considerations of humanity, for the army commanders, in contrast to the legal experts, viewed things first and foremost in terms of military success. They were sometimes guided by considerations of humanity, but this was not a primary value, as it was for the lawyers. For the army "military realism" was a paramount virtite. 222 Odecisions. n l y Such a conception of what constituted acceptable behavior in war tore at the making p u r e l y foundations " m i l ofi the t international a r y " law of war?" Although the Prussian crown prince was guided c o by n considerations s i d e ofr humanity more than many other commanders, he too was a t i oof n convinced the snecessity of burning down houses, taking hostages, and raising w e r contributions. Considerations of military necessity and the ideology of military realism guided e him. v Like athe rest oflthe German military leadership, he believed in the necessity of immediate and i harshdreactions to all attempts by French civilians to sabotage German military efforts. The w h civilian population had to be scared into docility. e n Another problem lay in determining who was a civilian, for the distinctions between soldier and civilian were not always clear. International custom and law required men to wear a uniform or recognizable insignia and to be subordinate to a military commander in order to be 220 W 2 2i 1 nte 2W2i 2 rn h t ea W 2 2ie3 lr th n teea M r rt thseae s 2

52 recognizedas combatants. The difficulty for the French lay therein that many of their gardes mobiles, a citizens' militia, were not uniformed or their uniforms resembled the typical rural manner of dress, especially the blue blouse, which some German commanders refused to recognize. Nor was proving that one was subordinate to a military command always easy, for some Germancommanders required the French to have orders calling them up and in which it was clear that they were entered in the roles of a specific corps. Francs-tireurs presented a bigger problem. Governments had the right to raise irregular troops, as Prussia had done against France in 1813, but their legal status was uncertain. The Prussian chancellor informed the French government that francs-tireurs would be given combatant status if they could be recognizedas soldiers a rifle' sshot away, i.e. if they were clearly uniformed. Moltke, on the other band, believed that those caught in bandit attacks could be shot immediately. The actual commanders' behavior varied, which is not surprising in light of such an unclear situation and such unclear rules, although the basic tenor of their procamations and orders remained extremely threatening to the civilians. 224 Germanproclamations sometimes had an effect that would be funny if the threats had not been so serious. Verdy du Vemois, a member of the Prussian general staff, recalled the efforts of the army to establish telegraph communications in mid-August. " A comical impression was produced by seeing a French peasant in a white nightcap and blue blouse sitting by eachtelegraph pole already erected. The villagers had been made responsible for the safety of the poles, etc., and had hit upon this plan of watching them in order to keep themselves from being punished.” 225 just T in h terms e w a r than of requisitions and collateral damage during battles, or in the form of h a d punishments b e e dealt n out to those who had acted against the occupying forces. The civilians were expected b r to o protect u the g property h t of the German army or suffer the consequences, for German h o m countermeasures aimed noteat finding and punishing the guilty party, but scaring and subduing tthe civilian population o through terror. The burning of entire villages and the raising of t h e contributions ini this light. c i vshould i be seen l a n s m o The Example of Bazeilles A Close-Up View: r e Knowing what German policy was is only part of the story, for the soldiers who carried it out were human and thus subject to many other influences as well. T o see and understandthese influences and their impact it is necessary to observe soldiers in armed conflict with civilians as closely as possible. The fighting at Bazeilles is well suited to the task because more veterans wrote about it in more detail than any other fighting involving civilians. 224 F. 225 T . V e r Greenwood, 1968) 78. York: S dy c d

53 This was no accident for in Bazeilles the people's war reached its first shocking culmination of violence for the Bavarians. The account of one Bavarian veteran in particular, Florian Kiihnhauser, a veteran of 1866 and 1870-71 and a member of the sixth company in the prestigious leibregiment, is particularly v iv id. 226 I n what t happened h e for it shows to an enlisted man on a small personal scale, and it provides a f o l l o w i n g framework for telling an otherwise untenable tale. That Kiihnhauser wrote more than twentyi t i s five after the war e years x a m i reduces n enone d of his memoirs' significance, for their main gist is a t other memoirs, histories, and letters, which are also cited in the following. corroborated by l eBazeilles n wasga village t about h two miles , 227 south-east of Sedan. On 1 September at about six o'clock in the moring Kohnhauser's company pressed forward to the town's mainstreet without encountering resistance. Tr s t aus den gegenüberliegenden steinernen Eckhäusern krachten die ersten feindlichen Schüsse. Alles stutzte." The Bavarians were up against the Marines of Lebrun's Corps, the best troops in the Army of Chalons. They answered the French fi rbange e , stille ein. 'Mara! Hurra b u t !were stopped by murderous French fire. "In wenigen Minuten lag der ganze erste Halbzug m ' eo r t önt e e s der tot oder schwerverwundet auf dem Boden um ihren schmeidigen Zugfiihrer. s u t6.nKompanie s o Neue z u und r immer ü cneue k Versuche . " wurden gemacht, frisch angestürmt, aber vergebens. " f2T 2 8 h o s The development of rifled weapons with a long range and good accuracy, combined te h with the of reliable rapid firing breech-loaders had given a decisive advantage to e i development i n rf tactical the r defense. o n b u 229 O n e t Civil War, in which barely half of the 14,000 attacking Confederates survived, in order to lr el e da n understand how deadly frontal assaults had become. e o n nt l y s found to outnumber defenders of a fortified position by at least three to one for r23 c they a needed l u e that C i larpsuccessfu )t D uh r i n g t h e c t h lsneak within 400 paces of 124 from C i v i l W Prussians, a r where they began to storm the Prussian e er o n t a fo m se a bayonet r i attack. c After a ncoming s within 250 meters the first Prussian salvo tore c positions rlA u s e t for r linto ts aeranks. s They continued until the third Prussian salvo broke their attack. The Danes e s their t ah e t o , l had u t . to retreat 150 meters back to cover, during which they received another three or four then f2e b 3 1 salvos. P i After c a further twenty minutes of shooting the Danes had lost a total of three officers u id o k t 2 t26 e n fK t227Hugo s L 123-138; Birth and (losen 11, 1712-1719; letter to bis sister t l i ' Arnold h n h f6; .c filing L o n260-268; gh j u mKoch-Brenberg e a u , 30-39; 1 Tanem, Weissenburg, O M 92-99, . 134-139; Howard 208; Winterhalter 65-66. h a te 2u 8s 8 7r 0 , 1 H o e B l i n 2 a e 4hri i K g 2 2 9r ue 7 P h n h H verbesserten iase uo ss i Feuerwaffen auf die Taktik," 1865, Förster, Moltke 147-164. 3 w -n 2 s3ra( )n e a p j e 83 e 2S 1 t4D 6 e e . a M o h 4 .n h. i s g P

54 and eighty-five soldiers dead or wounded and the Prussians had lost three so1diers. 232 Fattacking o r soldiers well fortified positions this meant sheer terror. This was the situation Ktihnhauser found himself in while rtmnin .protected g d oby wa n a stone building and armed with the superior chassepot. s t O r d e de l ty i l dn i e r s 233 s o veterans never complained about such danger. Perhaps it would have been unmanly, for B a a nz e d i l l e s , soldiers or tried to avoid danger were harrassed by their d r who a showed w they i were n scared g tcomrades.234 h A Bavarian e Jäger who fought around and in Bazeilles later in the day also fi r e described advancing in the face of French fire. ' We r es nicht selbst erlebt hat, macht sich o f keinen Begriff von m e einem richtigen Kugelregen. Die blauen Bohnen flogen bald so dicht und n zahlreich um unsere Ohren, daß sie die reinsten Galgenmelodien pfiffen, rechts und links fielen die braven Schlitzen." 235 While advancing Ktilmhauser and his fellow soldiers were fired at from behind from the windows, basements, and roofs of other stone houses. ' E i n e schier beängstigende Verschiebung der Kompanie trat ein; man wußte ja nicht mehr wohin und was tun, wir waren ja ganz schütz ,the uuncertainty n d and terror of bullets from behind. The Bavarians tried to force their way into w e h r l the houses, but these were locked up tight. N u n began ein wütender, verzweiflungsvoller o s iKampf." m First they forced their way into a comer house, which gave them a good firing K r eand u divertedsome of the French fire. Then some men moved forward and forced their position zwayf into e a u store in another building. 'Diese Tapferen kamen auch auf den glücklichen e r . " Einfall, das dortige Warenlager anzuzünden und Rauch und Feuer taten bald ihre Wirkung." T oThe French soon had to leave that building and the immediate area, but further progress for the tBavarians seemed impossible. The intensity of the French fi h rHerde e i n c r e die a sMannschaften e d . " in der W Straße i hin e und herjeder wollte und sollte, ja mußte drängten ee i n e decken, um sich nicht unnütze dem Feuer auszusetzen. Jeder Hausvorsprung, jeder tsich e s c h e u e rToreingcmg r wurde benutzt, und von da aus erspäht, ob sich nicht an einem Fenster etwas o rühre." rThe success of French efforts led them to increase their efforts with even deadlier o effect on the Bavarians. f 'Wir erkannten endlich, daß die Einwohner m i t den Soldaten gemeinsame Sache t h machten, ja daß sogar Weiber sich am Kampf beteiligten und frech die Flinte schwangen." e236 Ktihnhauser described the efforts of the French civilians firing from houses as 'hinterlistig" f rand lneuchlerisch" B y contrast he called the Bavarians "Pflichteifrigen" ; i.e. they were o 232 n M3o3l 2 t02 kn3 e4 at,F2 3rhi5 le"t2Le se3Bct6 ach1thmeKr i 5 sitae7h r-n

'ou ( E I -ZI6T 1 P P P 1 : g a g e l n y ) i p z l o o m ; s p u o p p s t m o l a S W u n P U E L O P U 0 A I I I M I T H M

55 simply performing their d u t y . 2lneuchelmôrderisch" 3 7 O t h e r and lzeimtlickisch" to refer to civilians who had fired at soldiers from B a v a r i a n hiding t r places o and o whoptook sup arms in the first pla c e . 2 3 8 S u c h t e s Bavarian feelings which followed and accompanied anger, and French as the a l outrage s at the o r m s g s g e es t u uinitial their fear and uncertainty. Bavarian blood boiled because in their opinion the French id n d i g n a t i o n , were not fighting fair. t h A fair fight entailed fighting anenemy one could see and recognize as such, an enemy e that t wouldenot shoot and r then run, hide, or pretend to be an innocent civilian. A fair fight m s the enemy a chance to fight back. meant giving 239 S was h o ta o bu. t i n g a t of a ruse t2 4 3 h e were not prepared for them. In the nineteenth century warfare for the "civilized" world was e A l tn h oe u gmh y supposed be carried out by armies that fought in big units and whose soldiers were fg u re to r oi l m b hclearly i recognizable n d as such. This was reflected by the uniforms of the time, uniformed l a e and b e c tc a u s twhich a were not camouflage as they usually are today. The Bavarians wore bright blue e i c sand the French wore red trousers, neither of which was suited to clandestine tactics, uniforms h a except to make the soldier wearing them aneasy target. Notions of war with fair rules can also d be b seen in e the admonishments officers made to their troops not to redicule passing French e nof war for the same could happen to the m . prisoners a4 1 "r W a r 2 i s some four decades earlier. scale," Clausewitz had written o u n o Tt hh e ir n u t 242 e g w a bfor s explaining than just an intellectual vehicle war. To a great extent officers saw war this way. n d a d ut eo l m o r e f In duelling, although illegal, was tolerated and practiced. Rumschtittel o n to fact, h during i peacetime s a suggests tolerated m e it was t a p because h o of rits resemblance to war, i.e. so that the officers could lr a r g e r prepare for wa r . c ethemselves n 2t 4 uKiihnhauser's unit received orders to break down the doors and take each house in r -i e sfighting. "Soeben krachte unter den wuchtigen Hieben zweier Pioniere das Tor hand-to-hand 3, C i v i l i a n des Hauses, aus dem besonders viel geschossen worden. Jeder sG uns n igegenüberliegenden p e r s h a d nehmen; eine ganze Sektion salve in den Hausgang." The French tried to wollte e Rache hier n o r but the Bavarians managed to catch them, 9 marines, and led them off as prisoners of flee, p l a c m war. At the same time a civilian sought toescape from the basement and almost succeeded, but ea in3 7 n 2 s K a u c 2t 3 8 h n h H r3u9 2h aus g o a A leadership n in Adolf von Erhard, "Bayerische Einzelthaten und Gefechtsbilder aus dem deutsch=franz6sischen Kriege eor A r Dartstellungen i1870-71," m w o r aus der Bayerischen Kriegs u . Heeresgeschichte 8 (1899): 106-196, as well as by o 8 pn ro descriptions of battles in the memoirs and regimental histories read for this essay. llp d 1 d . e s 240LaBberg 17-18. . s1s i 241 o, n K 21 4t i2 o h n C l ah 2 f24 3 0 a u s u8 s e n h e r w it d ; u

in the Bavarian officer corps: Rumscheittel 161-180 , o n w h y i t

56 als er nun gepackt und festgehalten wurde, brach ein Gezeter, ein Schwall von Worten los. Der Schurke beteuerte aufs heiligste seine Unschuld, wahrend er in seiner Aufregung doch noch das Gewehr in der Hand behalten hatte, dessen Lauf noch ganz warm war. M i r diesem Halunken wurde kurzer Prozeß gemacht. Ein Landsmann von mir setzte das Gewehr an -- ein Knall -- und er lag in seinem Blute.244 Although the soldiers knew that the civilians had acted illegally under penalty of death, they were also aware that they were supposed to arrest such people for court-martial. Ye t such standards of civilization were ignored or forgotten in many cases as the war intensified. Officers even tacitly approved of suchbehavior,as is illustrated by the following story told by a Bavarian officer named Koch-Breuberg. During the fighting at Bazeilles two civilians in typical blue blouses were brought before a battalion commander and some of his officers. 'Herr Major, die haben gerade auf uns geschossen! i s t das wahr? schrie der erregte Major. ." H e had just lost and burned a good officer. "Schießt sie sofort tot! Gleich dort!" ordered. "Unsere Leute hatten diese Kerle gleich niedermachen sollen, sagte ein ruhiger Kamerad zu mir. Jetzt gehören sie eigentlich vor das Kriegsgericht." The officer who wrote these memoirs explained and justified the soldiers' and officers' rage and desire for revenge with the effect of the civilian snipers and the French killing of wounded_ The civilians had avoided an "ehrlichen Kampf." 245 General von der Tann, commander of I Bavarian Corps, wrote of 'Ynz ersten Schreckenerklärbaren Uebertreibungen." 246 H e f Ine the l afternoon t understandable. at a villa higher ranking officers were moving into it grew t h a t t h e noisy. "Gefangene Weiber, entwaffnete Bauern wurden in Schattren hereingetrieben. Dann t r o o p s ritt b General e h vonader Tann v hinzu. i o Votre r empereur est prisonnier, began er scharf die Silben w a êtes desscanailles! On ira vous fusiller! Der General sprach noch mehr, was betonend. Vous a t aber -- er schenkte ihnen das L e b e n ." ich nicht mehr weifi, l2 4 7 T eh e a o l l so w i n g alsocommuted thefsentence of a French civilian court-martialed and sentenced to death for td a y t h e firing on Bavarian soldiers. g e n e r a l 248 During the house-to-house fighting Kiihnhauser and others encountered a woman holding a child, blocking the way up the stairs into her house, swearing that there were no soldiers there. Moved by this woman and willing to believe her, the Bavarians were about to leave when they beard a noise. They quickly forced their way upstairs, but the men who had beenthere had managed to escape over the roofs. One Bavarian fired after them but missed. 244 K i 2 41 5 lKmo h 246 a cu h s2ve o 4r n7 Bre 1d C 2 48 7 u br e oe cf th A 9 Bamickel and SchleuBinger 104-111, quote 110-111. rg -T e .3 r a B are 7

57 The shot causedthe woman to let out a scream. "Das schlechte Gewissen der Frau hatte sich verraten, glaubte sie doch, ihr Mann sei erschossen." On the second floor they found a table with bullets, and on the floor many bullet cases lay around. This showed, 'Me stark die Schufte dort ihr Unwesen getrieben. M i t echter Weiberlist hatte die Frau ihren Zweck erreicht." She had held them up long enough to get away. "Als wir hinunterkwnen, wa r sie mitsamt dem Kinde zu ihrem Glück verschwunden, denn in dieser Kampfeswut ware wahrscheinlich auch ein Frauenmord nicht ausgeschlossen gewesen. " 2 4 9 Kiihnhauser's belief that killing a woman would have meant breaking a tabu and crossing a new threshhold of violence was as self-evident to his contemporary readers as it is to us today. However, hardened by atomic bombs and genocide, it might be less than obvious to us that in war our collective application of violence is limited by cultural norms and values, albeit norms and values which are often stretched almost to the breaking point. For example, Michael Fellman has shown how in the American Civil War Confederate guerillas and their Union opponents observed at least one limit in their otherwise no-holds-barred hell of terror and counter-terror in Missouri. 250 B so. o tThus h it was possible for each side to maintain a strange sort of gentlemanly this was s i d e s attitude b e ltowards o n the g enemy's e d womenfolk, who were exempted from bodily harm. Each side shrank back t o from completely undermining all of their cultural values and norms, at the center t which hstood the e belief that a man must protect the weak, i.e. women, children, and old of s a m folks, his own and others belonging to his cultural group. This excluded Afro-Americans and e Native c uAmericans, l t whouas the "Others" ( F eand ma a n l) 251wDuring e r the e Franco-German War the Bavarians considered the French to be r l l mutilated. u n r e s t r a i n d l y g r themselves. o They eshared much like b e pa t e n , the same basic culture, religion, and values, and the u Bavarians from beer to wine. A s soldiers they treated their ra a hadp e dswitching , nlittle difficulty kFrench icounterparts l lwith respect, e dalthough they were unsure about the Turkos, France's d ,f e troops, who they regarded as exotic wild creatures. Black colonial l 252 A n t d were i f a leven e shot on the spot as has been shown above, the civilians-in-arms nomquarter, tF r e hn c given h women were supposed to be treated better—even if they became dangerous. For, like the a t Americans, central to the Bavarian male identity was the notion that they were the protectors of women and children, even French women and children during war against France. This can be seen in pictures published in a history book for popular consumption later in the century, 249 K 2 5i i0 h M ni ch unpublished essay, prepared for the conference On the Road to Total War, the American Civil War and the German Wars a uUnification, s ha of e German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, 1-4 April 1992; Minna, Inside War. e r l2 5 1 7 F el F e 2 52 9 ll mh a -rnIs. a n o r, 8 n , "B 0

58 which show how the Germans and their soldiers wished to see themselves. I n one case a German soldier was cutting bread and giving it to French children.253 In another a Bavarian was sitting on a bench, playing with two small French cildren, their mother standing next to them, as if the Bavarian were the father of a happy family.254 This belief is also evident in Ktihnhauser's initial wish to spare the woman and her child, as well as in his choice of term 'Frauenniorci," i.e . if she had been killed it would have been wrong, it would have been murder. But this limit was crossed in Kiihrthauser's mind, who remarked that in the bitter house-to-house fighting of Bazeilles, "wahrscheinlich auch e i n Frauenmord nicht ausgeschlossengewesen fwä r e l." 2 5 5 ofTdecorum h e by not claiming ownership to it, expressing instead a mere possibility which sense t h o u g h t w a s had tilm liftatthe situation was volatile enough to make the Bavarians kill r'b e s u a h t nothing h e to do r with e himself.K , a l was t correct. h o l n uBaIan, a village between Sedan and Bazeilles, civilians also women g h participated in the fighting.257 A Bavarian Jäger from the Pfalz recorded in his memoirs the h e fate of a woman a telescope from a church tower. m a i hensaw through t a i n Auffailig e war, d eine Frau zu bemerken, die sich, mit der Flinte in der Hand, wie rasend benahm, als sie von einer Patrouille ergriffen und gewaltsam gegen den s o m eWald geführt wurde. Um die anscheinend Rasende bildete sich ein Kreis. I n demselben wird gearbeitet. Mach einigen Minuten öffnete sich der Kreis; weifie Rauchwolken verkündeten eine Exekution.258 The men who killed this woman knew it was wrong, for they had moved next to the woods and surrounded her in order not to be seen Emonts, the Bavarian Jager who recorded this killing in his memoirs did not condemn it, but he was aware that it departed from normal wartime behavior. He would not othérwise have bothered to mention it. At the same time, the fact that he did not condemn it implies that he considered it understandable, and his language makes it soundas if to him it were justified. The woman was 'rasend," not ladylike, and her deathwas not a murder, but an "Execution." But Emonts could avoid breaking the tabu of hurting women by simply being an observer?-59 Thus he could remain the same man who at Wissembourg had explained to the civilians in his quarters, "daß wir größtenteils ihre Nachbarn (Pfälzer) und nicht eine 253 Egmont Fehleisen„ Der Deutsch-französische Krieg 1870-71 im Wort und Bild (Reutlingen: EnBlin, [1893-18941) 324. A copy is in the conclusions of this essay. 254 F e5 b 25 l1eCi t 256 si l ei nn pel describe oneself as a mere observer instead of participant. Both of these were mechanisms for the soldiers to maintain 2 bau h nimage an a of themselves as normal humane people; Fellmam Inside War 200, 202 1 ser n 2 3 757 h E bayerischen Gendarmerie, sowie deren Tätigkeit von 1812-1900 (Augsburg 1-limmer, 1900) 109. .9 m a o 2 5 n 8 t A sE sc8 5m9 2 o 5 o o nn t 0 b s3

59 zügellose Räuberbande seien; die Ehre der Frauen und das Eigenthum unserer Mitmenschen würden wir achten W a s dem anständigen Benehmen eines bayerischen Jägers zuwidersteht, wird vermieden." A woman nursing a baby was crying. Moved by this the soldiers implored her to tell them why, but she only cried harder.. Endlich nach langem Bitten erfuhren wir, daß ihr Mann sich am Kampfe betheiligte und erschossenam Bitscher Thor läge. O h l ! erscholl es aus aller Mund. Jeder bemühte sich, der jungen Mutter und jugendlichen Witwe sein Beileid auszudrücken. Das Abendessen war unterdessen aufgetragen. Nach eingenommenem Imbifi eilten wir gegen Bitscher Thor und fanden hie r zwei todte Blousenmänner gegenüber unserer am Morgen eingenommenenStellung.260 Emonts believed he had not harmed this woman, but had only performed his duty. And in this case there seemed to be no informal execution involved, for the French civilians had fallen opposite the Bavarian positions, presumably in battle. T w o weeks later Emonts and his comrades were nasty to a French woman who would not feed them, something the civilians were usually obligated to do when troops were quartered on them, and, moreover, the duty of all good women. This woman, however, did not resemble Emonts image of how women should be. When the soldiers politely asked for food they were refused "in flegelhafter Weise" by the "schnurrbärtige Famzosin" The Bavarians replied by behaving in kind until they were fed.261 The Bavarian image of women did not allow for enraged, ill-mannered, fanatical, unhelpful, or otherwise unladylike or unwomanly women. A letter written by Carl Tanera in Orléans on 30 November 1870 to his sister makes clearer the Bavarian male ideal of woman. In it he described three statues of the Maiden of Orléans. O n the first one he observed, "Man muß. s e h r genau hinsehen, wenn man erkennen will, daß mandas Erzbildnis einer Juneau und nick das eines Kavcdierie=Generals vor sich hat. Sie reitet nemlich regelrecht, wie ein Mann und hat noch dazu einen recht guten Sitz. Höchstens die Absätze dürften etwas tiefer sein." At the same time Tanem was concious that his sister might see this in a different light and so felt compelled to instruct her, 1 1 1 itte , Schwesterchen, lache nicht, denn Du verstehst davon gewiß gar nichts." Mounted, the statue figure looked forward "ganz schneidig" and pointed her sword towards the ground. "Mein Hausherr meinte, sie senke ihre Waffe vor Gott, der ihr den Sieg verliehen. D a hätte sie aber auch die Augen, den Kopf undbesonders die Nase senken können. letztere streckt sie jedoch ganz respektswidrig in die Höhe und deshalb macht sie alles eher, als einen fromm demütigen Eindruck." The second figure "ist doch ein Weib. Erstens reitet sie nicht, zweitens trägt sie ein wallendes, hübsch dargestelltes Frauengewand und drittens macht sie nicht ein so unverschämtherrisches Gesicht, wie der Reitergeneral auf der place du Martroi." She was not very maidenly, but she made a good impression and was even attractive. The third statue, 26 C6 1 E 2 /m o n t E s

60 Tanem's favorite, "ist wirklich eine Jungfrau; keine schöne, aber eine fromme, würdige, die Helm und Pcmzerhandschtthe abgelegt hat, um mit über die Brust gefalteten Minden und mit demütig gegen das Kreuz ihres Schwertes geneigtem Haupte ihem Gotte fiir das zu danken, was er durch sie hat Großes vollbringen lassen." This statue was the smallest and most modest. "Bei den anderen dachten wir aber immer an herausgeputzte Pariserinnen in irgend einem großen Ballet." 262 The women killed or almost killed in the descriptions above shared none of these virtues but did share some of these vices. One former enlisted man, Weidner, remembered Bazeilles twenty-five years later. "Hier bewahrheitete sich der Dichterspruch: 'Da werden Weiber zu Hyänen,' denn die letztgenannten Geschosse wurden meist von Weibern, deren Gesichter von Wuth verzehrt waren, auf uns geschleudert, ja einige hatten sogar mit ihren zarten Minden die Mordwaffe ergriffen undwacker geschossen." 353 W e the i dwomen's n e r contribution to the fighting. Nevertheless, his attitude towards exagerated women and firearms is authentic. Since the armed women of Bazeilles were no ladies it was easier for the Bavarians to break a tabu and dream of killing them, which in somecasesbecame reality. Gordon Craig has pointed out that women's struggle for emancipationwas particularly difficult in Germany, being much like that of the Jews. Both groups saw their hopes raised during the Enlightenment and then squashed in the nineteenth century, when "women came under attack as inferior beings who had no right to expect full integration in society." Craig remarks wryly, "If the analogy cannot be carried further, it is because Germans who found it possible to conceive of a society without Jews could not comfortably imagine one without women." A ll the same, the "offensiveness" in anti-Semitic and anti-feminist rhetoric was similar. Craig points out that women's situation in Germany was not different than for example in England. "What was unique to Germany was that the subordination of women was more stubborn and protracted than in the advanced Western cotmtries." 264 T hthat i s l emen a may d snot have m e women on as high a pedestal as American speculate German put their t o men did, who during the guerilla War in Missouri still treated their women like ladies, albeit in a twisted way, even when the women did not act accordingly . 2 6 5 Tagainst h e women c umay l thave u rbeen a llower in the case of the Germans, although this violence l i m i t s e t remains nothing but conjecture on my part. o n Cultural limits on violence also made the Bavarians differentiate between which men 262Franem, Erinnerungen I, 4142. For an introduction on women in Germany see Craig, The Germans 1982, reprint with afterward (London: Penguin, 1991) 147-169. 263 1 . 1 42. 1895) 2g 6 4 —6r a5 C 2 iWge, l F lTemi hd n , a

61 they shot immediately and which they arrested. I n another house in Bazeilles Florian Klibehauser and his comrades found two Frenchmen in civilian clothes with weapons in hand. The Bavarians did not shoot these men, Klihnhauser later reported, because they had dropped their weapons and surrendered immediately. They were then led off as prisoners to await court-martial.266 There may have been further reasons for their lives having been spared. Perhaps the Bavarians had had fewer problems with the house in the first place and so were not in as heated an emotional state. More likely these men were spared an immediate shooting because they belonged to a higher socialclass and either behaved better or were better respected by the Bavarians who captured them. For Ktihnhauser, a businessman who had been working in Vienna when the war broke out, referred to these men as 'zwei Franzose in Zivilkleidern," but in the same paragraph described other civilians as Thisenmtimzer," which was how Bavarians usually referred to French civilian workers and farmers who typically wore a blue blouse. Europeans did often use socio-economic backround to differentiate between who belonged to one's own cultural group and who was the "Other" and thus to be treated differently. 267 I nlay wounded in their own blood, surrounded by bullet cases and their weapons. prisoner t h i s Despite this evidence of their having fired at Bavarian soldiers, the Bavarians took their c a s weapons and left them to their own fate, which in light of the later fires meant death from fire e or T smoke i u sinhalatation. 268 e n Inn i civilian caught with a weapon above, who Ktihnhauser's comrade shot on the spot, was cl io nn n e c t i o dressed n e r " as a workman and thought to be a blacksmith or a metalworker, for his hands were all w ialthough t h black, Kiilmbauser remarked that this might have been due instead to his having fired this h weapon h so eofte n. i2o6 9 s s Noteworthy is that when Ktihnhauser and his comrades left the two wounded u h e Bhisetzmitoner to their own fate Klihnhauser portrayed this as almost merciful, which it hardly o a fwas d in light of the fir e s . c b7 0 Tl h a a 2 t psychological need to see himself as a man who observed the rules of humanity as he s e e s h understood ife e l tthem. In this way he established limits on the violence in Bazeilles. ttn h During i sthe fighting the soldiers received mixed signals from their superiors about what s fi h c do with to a armed s civilians. t On the one hand they were supposed to arrest them for trial by o g u l h i m court-martia1. d h i271 O nnshot immediately, the comments of an officer present who said they should have civilians ta b i be ten h e p s i 2 66 o o n g a lt i h veo e K t267Fellman, "At the Nihilist Edge," 18. rm tla h e i 2 68 a h a u s d l ii K g h 2 69 n e t1htonr h d 8 2 70 t(ah niuit is h h 0 K s 271See Arnold 1, 135-138; Heinze 612-613; lailmbauser 44-45, 80-81. e e h gnnr hh e.g. Hugo -a h o w 8 e a r 8 a tsuu ss n

62 beenshot in the fi rofsvon t der Tann in a similar situation make it clear that the officers, right up to the I Bavarian p l a c e Corps commander, condoned the immediate shootings of civilians,as long as proper form was b e c a u observed, i.e. there were no outside witnesses. s e i nWhen the Bavarians did take French civilians prisoner they often first beat them tbloody. h One e company commander who sat at a court-martial remembered seeing the malt of o r y such beatings. t h Patrouillen brachten Einwohner„ die heimtückisch aus den Kellern den e y Unsrigen in den Rücken gefeuert, Verwundete massakriert und in die Flamme n geworfen, sich mit den Waffen in der Hand widersetzt haben sollten; wir o mußten ihre Bewachung übernehmen. D ie Unglücklichen sahen schrecklich w aus, viele waren mit Kolben und Sabel schlimm zugerichtet worden, die h Kleider hingen ihnen in Fetzen vom Leibe. Das war im Kampfe geschehen. a Auf den verzerrten Gesichtern aber prägten sich die wilden Leidenschaft aus, d der Fanatismus, der ihnen die Waffen in die Hand gedrückt hatte, die Haare t hingen zerrauft in's Anlitz und die blutunterlaufenen Augen loderten in wilden o Gluien,272 b language of this Bavarian officer makes clear that he felt the civilians deserved what they The e got The French civilians had not only fi t and more. r rbehind e d a t t h the e wounded, who they should have left alone or helped, but they were and i e massacred B a v, a r i a n s d of full "passion" and "fanaticism" which was supposedly in sharp contrast to soldiers simply h a e i m t ü c k i s c h " performing fn r their duty. o m ". E i n großer Obelstand war es, daß sogar auf unsere Blessiertentrager mit dem d t roten Kreuz schonungslos geschossen wurde und diese deshalb nicht mehr vorgingen." h Instead the comrades of the wounded either carried them into the next house, where they later e burned, or left them lying outside in the gardens. Because the fighting went back and forth the e wounded fell in French hands and were, claims Kiihnhauser lnehrfach mißhandelt und n rverstiimmlt." a 273Kampfeswut T h e wurde darob immer großer; es wurde ein Kampf der blutigen Notwehr. " die g o4 l d i 2s A Bavarian army priest felt that executions of civilians after trial by court-martial were justified, e7 e r s d for d iti hat s been c proven that the civilians "in meuchlerischer Weise am Kampfe sich betheiligt r[hand," o v eand r even shot at the stretcher bearers, in one case wounding one in the a r m . e e 7 5d 2 Bavarians and other Germans often complained about how the French ignored the Geneva tm h convention, a which governed the use of the red cross and the treatment of the sick and i s rw wounded. The Germans seem to have had a better record in this respect, k h 276 a n d t h u s f e l t 2e s7 2 2H n7ou 3 g K 2 i7 i4 t rb hA Kn 2 7U5 an hhunrosh G 2 7d 6 elo aern us V a er 8In ey rI i, o u

63 indignant at the French. The soldiers Killmhauser was with then resorted to setting a building on fire, which made things quieter. Bu t that was not enough; "es mußte gründlich anders kommen, wenn wir nicht alle ein Opfer dieses grausamen Strafienkampfes werden sollten. Darum wurde befohlen, in alle erbrochenen Häuser Feuer zu legen." What had earlier been the spontaneous reaction of some inventive soldiers was now ordered by the soldiers' commanders. The fire spread quickly. ' D e r Brand gewann immer mehr an Ausdehnung; die Feinde wurden ausgeräuchert wie die Wespen. D u rch Rauch und Flammen ging es vorwärts, wenige Stunden später war das blühende Städchen ein brennender Trümmerhaufen." While the houses were being set on fire a woman with tears in her eyes approached Killmhauser and others and begged to collect ʻloch einige ihre Habseligkeiten" before the house was burned. "U n d selbst in diesem erbitterten Kampfe . . u n d obwohl wir schon einmal durch List betrogen worden waren, gewährten wir die B i tte ." 2 7 7he was K i still i l m h a u s according e r sto his h cultural o wassumptions. e d In a deformed way he and that a decent man his comrades protected this woman and were polite to her by letting her rescue some of her belongings. A t the same time i t is clear that the soldiers' power over this woman was complete, which must have given them an enormous sense of potency. 278 'Die Mannschaften a l l e r Kompanien waren durch d i e Einzelkämpfe ganz durcheinander gewürfelt a l l e Verbände unter den Kompanien [waren J vollständig aufgellist." 279 also reveals much about the quality of the fighting, the hand-to-hand, house-to-house fighting K t i l m was h a of u assort e where officers did not always have control over their men, who were left to their own wits. An o th e r officer wrote, ' I n kürzester Zeit waren unsere zw e i Kompagnien r w r und kämpften in kleinen Gruppen in den verschiedenen Häusern, ob sie brannten zerstreut o t oder nick' . " The Bavarians had to go everywhere, for the French marines even defended e buildings that were about to collapse from the fire. ' E s gab hier in den Zimmern, auf den o Stiegen f und Gängen, in den Kellern und unter dem Dach und selbst auf den Dächern t h verzweifelte Einzelkämpfe." i28 s in close formations where their superiors had relatively tight control over them. Even hand-to°a Y e t t h e hand s fighting was s o l d i e done r s en masse. 281 a T h ed h 277 a B c t ia v a r ei a nn s K b 278 e w h 64-65. toer tl r e a r i e n F h au u m r e p a r le m7 a9 nd p 2 ser e n m,fi d K a n 280 8 -fe n b h o r L a 3 d 2 A 8u 1s a B n b w oft officers h .tH the e and NCOsecan be seen in Ehrbard 116-118; a visual impression of how they fought can be gained twrorole e e r g a from o Die Bayern l a tr r d ; 8 e immFeldzugeo1870/71. Eine Sammlung von 40 Bilder aus Deutschlands großer Zeit (Augsburg: 5 c3 su h no t s 4 u -e n

64 absence of close formations in Bazeilles, which made it all the more frustrating and scary. A t the same time little restrained the soldiers outside of their own selves. This situation made possible some of the attmcities commited by the Bavarian side. During such house-to-house fighting it was easy to loot without fear of recrimination, and there were many opportunities to do so. A Bavarian officer, Dietrich Freiherr von LaBberg, remarked, Es war interessant, mit welchem Eifer und zugleich mit welchem Humor und Leichtsinn unsere Soldaten, selbst während des Kampfes und trotz der oft drohenden Gefahr, unter einstiirtzenden Häusern begraben zu werden, nach Lebensmittel und frischer Wäsche suchen; nach dem hitzigsten Kämpfen kamen sie aus den Kellern mit Wein, Brot und Eiern [etc.] hervor und teilten anderen davon mit. I c h sah, wie i n einem Zimmer drei Soldaten Wäsche untersuchten, die auf einem Tisch lag; da fanden sie unter der Wäsche wohl aufgezählt Geld, 50 bis 60 Franken, liegen. Einer von ihnen wollte es gleich nehmen, doch ein anderer sagte: "Geh lafi es liegen, stehlen wollen wir doch nicht". Vielleicht hat es ein anderer genommen, vielleicht ist es aber auch mit verbrarmt.282 This was looting, but the soldiers did not consider it such for they only took things they needed. (The soldiers even appear here as good men because they shared what they found with their hungry comrades.) LaBberg's claim that the money was left alone is believable, for the distinction was common. A t the same time, if the soldiers were aware that LaBberg, an officer, was watching them, they may have felt compelled to observe this distinction, for soldiers were generally allowed to meet their daily needs but were forbidden everything above and beyond this?" And if there was looting, LaBberg reduced its significance by implying that things would have been lost in the fires anyway. Ktihnhauser also bore witness to looting. After six hours of fighting his regiment had been gradually pulled out of Bazeilles in order to restore order to it. While the fighting continued Kiihoba userand his comrades lay in a fi ebrachten die verschiedenstenGegenstände mit . . . " l2 2 4 H e r e having received a map from another soldier. Otherwise he was only an observer, like dexcept K i i h n h a u s e r LaBberg, thus able to distance himself from such behavior. But he observed the results of aa d and m i t t e d nlooting, if perhaps only on a small scale, and he did not condemn what he saw. B y taking t o dn t condemning h i n behavior, g , the Bavarians crossed one more cultural tabu, things,oor not such t estealing, even if they considered what they took to be either something they needed to survive sor something that would have been lost to the fire anyway. I n the beginning of September trespect for private property had not yet become meaningingless, but in Bazeilles this value was e Reichel, [1912-13]). d 2 . 82 1 .a 2 IB 8b 3 L e8 i4 2 m e b ir0gg1 1 5 m 7 h m

65 put to the test. In six hours of fighting Ktilmhauser's regiment had lost 15 officers and 260 men killed and wounded in the street and house fi g h t wounded ing. T dead, h ewere buried in the ruins of the collapsing houses "Oder in der Glut who, or B a v a r i a n s verbraten a sund verkohlt s ind." 2 8 5 I n inordinately heavy, but neither were they light. Significant is that these casualties were to a a c o m p a or i sl o ne w h great extent of sniping and brutal house-to-house fighting in which civilians w i o t the hproduct l s t participated. The Bavarian veterans could never forget this. o t h e r m o r b a Ktihnhauser t t reflected l in his memoirs more than twenty-five years later what this battle e e s t meant to him h and other a soldiers. "Sokhe Schreckensstunden prägen sich fief in des Soldaten tn h e Herz ein,e sie bilden einen Markstein und sind fir solche, die nicht ganz nervenlest sind, s 2 5 0 rückwirkend c a s auf die u Gemiitsstimmung a durch das ganze Leben; aus solchen Tagen, aus 0 lsolchen t Stunden i e datiertsauch die unzertrennliche Kameradschaft der Krieger." w e 2 of this statement reflected the genuine feeling that only those that had been there really r e S understood each other; the rest must remain outsiders. A t the same time such idealization of n 6 T h e l a s t p a r t o soldierly comradeshipwas a fcnm of militarism, which was common fare in the last decade of tnineteenth-century Europe. It was typical of the Franco-German War veterans who wrote war memoirs to idealize their experiences and praise soldierly virtues. Kiihnhauser was no different, but the fi rsignificant s t p a that r t he refers to the negative long-term psychological impact of the fighting in o f Bazeilles, both an indication of how bad it really was,as well as an explanation for the extreme h i s reactions s t a oft theeBavarians. m e Inncontrast t to the above described Bavarian attrocities standthe mild results of civilians' s t a court-martials held on 1 and 2 September.287 Fairly representative were the experiences of the n d s Bavarian officer, m a r JosephSteinberger, who described his experiences in Bazeilles in a letter to a k eofficerdin the field. On the evening of 1 September he participated in a court-martial as fellow ltranslater. y Thirty-two French civilians, men and woman, including a ninety-year-old woman, a p were accused a r of firing on wounded and unwounded German soldiers. O f these only one was sentenced to death by a firing squad, and he was then pardoned by General von der Tann, who t f corps commander had to approve deathsentences before they could be carried out. What the as r fate of the others was the officer did not report.288 Since they were not found guilty and thus o were m not sentenced to an immediate execution, they were either declared innocent and set free, t they were transferred to a Militärbezirksgericht in Germany, where they may have been or h 285 i 1 286 s0t 1i (K 2 m t 8nh7h b T ha 2a 8 a r uu 8ss tB a e r e eri c m 8 o

66 pardoned after the wa r . 2convinced 8 9 T hof the e civilians' guilt. 'Es hatte sich herausgestellt, daß unsere Soldaten in ihrem r e p o r t i n g leicht begreiflichen Grimme allzu rasch mit der Anklage bei der Hand waren, daß dieser oder o f fi c e jener auf siegeschossenhabe. Jeder, der nur schwarze Finger hatte, wurde arretiert " r 2w 9 reporting a officer had fought at Sedan, but had not participated in fighting in Bazeilles or in The °s other fighting involving civilians, n o 291 s o t h a t were. t h e w a s d i Another s a Bavarian p officer, Hugo Arnold, who had fought in Bazeilles and experienced n o t p o conflict i n with t civilians, nevertheless had a similar experience in a court-martial. H e the bitter a s e d e m b i t t e r aand his fellow judges were unable to sentence a man and a woman to death because the e d was not clear enough. Bavarian witnesses who had arrested them were unable to evidence t a t tconfirm beyond all doubt that these two civilians had been the ones who had fi t h e h rFe d observed ar t t that, h 'Ver e nmungebildete . Arnold Mann aus den unteren Volksschichten schrickt unter e e c h Verantwortung zusammen und sucht sein Gewissen sicher zu stellen, indem er der o Last der u a tlieber unklar c und unsicher deponiert, als entschieden bejaht oder verneint. " s o 2 9 2 Iof mnBazeilles, s p this i tofficer e wasoable to f support the t decision h eto not immediately sentence brutality o t h e e r and instead s them to death refer them to a Millteirbezirksgericht. I n this way Arnold showed o that r certain limits on violence still existed and that law and order still had meaning for him. Later, after the war had dragged on a few more months and become even uglier Arnold no longer believed in such limits. Wenn ich mir später die Sache nochmals überlegte, als uns an der Loire und in der Perche allerorten Franktireurs einzeln und in Banden, aber stets im Hinterhalte—entgegentraten,sohabe ich mir wegen der allzu großen Milde und Bedächtigkeit bei unserer Urtellsfällung Vorwürfe gemacht. Gegenüber dem glühenden Fanatismus der Franzosen, der allerdings einer an und fi höchst Quelle, der Vaterlandsliebe, entsprang, war Schonung nicht bloß ü r s edlen i c h eine Lächerlichkeit, sondern ein Verbrechen. Gegen den Feind, insbesondere' gegen jenen Feind, der sich selbst außerhalb des Rechts stellt, gibt es bloß die Anwendung des einen Grundsatzes: A ug' um Auge, Zahn um Zahn! Sentimentale Humanität gereicht bloß den Häuptern der eigenen Leute zu verderben.293 This was a vision of war with no limits, total war. And while this level of violence and cultural decay was never completely achieved, things did become so bad later in the war on the Loire that the lives of French civilians were worth very little indeed. How much restraint other court-martials showed at this point in the war is not clear. 289Hugu_ Arnold I, 135-137 290 ph Steinberger written in the field to August Schleullinger shortly after 1 Sept. 1870, A ft Bamickel and SchleuBinger 104-111, quote 110- 111. er 29I a a 2B l 9e2 i 1m 2 t 9t 3 kg lc u 1 e 1ru oe l

67 Because the victors cast themselves in a positive light one is advised to be cautious, especially since, as will be seen below, the Bavarians were later very sensitive to postwar charges of attrocities. On the other hand, in some cases Bavarians did not hesitate to admit to shooting civilians on the spot, so that by comparison i t would seem to be easy to admit to death sentences after court-martials. To answer this question the actual court records still need to be examined. Two weeks after Bazeilles the Bavarians and Prussians were accused by The Times of London of having set Bazeilles on fire in order to punish the civilians for their participation in the battle, whereby supposedly only 300 of 2000 residents survived. Neither this version of events nor these numbers contained much truth. A s has been shown above, houses were torched as an alternative to storming them, whereby spontaneous revenge played an important role. Although fire was used to punish and tame civilians during the war, this was not premeditated punishment, but rather a response to a threat and to angering civilian behavior in the heat of battle. As to the number of civilian casualties in Bazeilles, after the war French civilian authorities found that a total of thirty-nine civilians had been burned, asphyixiated, otherwise killed or wounded, or were missing. These included two bedridden women, three men, and three children burned or asphyixiated, as well as one woman and thirty men killed, wounded, or missing. General Freiherr von der Tann cited these figures in defense of his tro o p s, 2 9 4 not have been anywhere near as large as the figures The Times printed. Nevertheless, it could w h e is r eclear b that the fighting was some of the most brutal in the war and did involve civilians, whose deaths were caused by circumstances shocking to Europeans in 1870, and which y h remained burned in the memories of Bavarians and French for years afterward. The blurring e of the line between soldier and civilian was shocking enough to spur a lively media debate, d 295 which compelled von der Tarm to publish an explanation of events after the war in June i d1 8 7 1 , n2 9 6 any others involving civilians. oa n 297 Bazeilles was the culmination of the war against the Second Empire, in which civilians td were im ninvolved from the start, and it was a premonition of things to come in the war against the cRepublic, o rl which culminated in the war on the Loire. I have discussed it at such length because ue the dm intensity of the conflict and the plentiful accounts written by Bavarian participants make a number of things clear about armed conflicts in this war in which civilians became involved. e tm 294 o9r e5 i Fh 2 io rh e s H 2 9i r6 trvs ahro n Hugo Arnold 1, 123-138; Bamickel and SchleuBinger 109-, Berg 353-354; Emmonts 53; Gronen 22-23; 297Eg. v a de n Helvig H o e B l i n 4-6; Koch-Breuberg 30-39; Kiihnhauser 76-90; LaBberg 49-83; Tanera II, 47-48. o n ee r d n d T dx h G

68 First, the soldiers stood under enormous stress, for the chances of being shot were high in this age of modem weaponry and outdated tactics. Yet the soldiers and veterans never complained about this in writing. Instead they praised soldierly virtues. A t the same time it was okay to vent one's rage and frushation at f r a n c s - were "illegal" anyway. Armed civilians provided a good target for revenge, one which and tir e ur s b e c a u s e t h e y could be shot on the spot. This does not mean that the soldiers thought the problem out this d i d n o t way. They were strained to the limit by the intense fighting and were naturally outraged at fi g h t "civilians' f attempts a ito make r their " lives even more dangemus and miserable. While in the Franco-German War not every armed encounter with civilians took place during such intense combat, the soldiers were under constant physical and psychologicalstress and their lives were often placed in danger, so that these observations of Bazeilles are relevant to the war as a whole. Second, the fighting was sointense and soserious that the tabu on killing women was broken. 298 white women during the U.S. Civil War, in which the tabu on killing womenseems to have T h i s ibeen s widely observed. 299 for e svery p few women were killed. N e v e r t he le e c i Third, when deciding whether or not to kill a civilian caught red-handed with a as sl ,l weapon, o distinctions s t appear to have beenmade not just according to gender, but also according ym to social backround. sB i a v a r i n a Fourth, n g looting occurred during battle because soldiers had undergone weeks (later, s fi o l d imonths) of hardship r s and deprevation and were put in a position where looting was possible ci ae without p t r fear of o consequences, i.e. they were left alone in other people's houses, their enemy's n b ain a rather b lawless situation. houses, w l y h Fifth, officers do not seem to have ordered the immediate killings of civilians as a ed matter of policy, but neither did they condemn it. While this varied from officer to officer, no i n d veterans expressed regret at civilians who were summarily shot. N or did officers object to o d looting n on a modest scale. re Sixth, that the Bavarians resorted to fire in order to drive out the enemy, shows how ca extreme the battle was. The 19th century reader found this as shocking as we do today. w o a However, before passing judgement on the Bavarians it is worth remembering deadlier m lp weapons of the twentieth century, suchas flamethrowers and fire bombs in World War H. The i a Bavarian? methodwas more primitive, but operated on the same principle. rn All of this together gives the impression of a war with few limits, a war which had little ee sh reported instance of Prussians killing women later in the war on the Loire is in: Letter to his wife, Chfiteaudtm, 298A e t19 Oct. 1870, Egloffstein 46-47. r 2h9 9 ee l , Fe lm

69 to do with nineteenth century pretensions to being highly "civilized." On the other hand, up to this point in the war this battle was exceptional. Moreover, there were some apparantly thorough trials o f civilians in Bazeilles, which contrary to expectations produced n o executions. Such trials approached nineteenth century ideals by restoring some sense of law and order. Nevertheless, Bazeilles gave the Bavarians and French a taste of things to come.

70 Ch.5 Maintaining Remnants of One's Prewar Self Two weeks after the fighting in Bazeilles, Florian Killmhauser was in Fontainbleau, which he remembered clearly and fondly. Fontainbleau ist eine wunderschöne Stadt in Mitte des großen Waldes, mi t einem kaiserlichen Lustschlofi und prachtvollem Schloligarten. I c h hatte Gelegenheit, die inneren Räume des Schlosses, seine Galerien und Prunksäle zu besichtigen, wobei mir besonders das reizende Spiegel= und Emaikabinett, sowie die riesig ausladenden Plafonds der Stile noch in lebhafter Erinnerung sind. Herrlich war der Blumenflor und die Teppich gärtnerei im rückwärts anstoßenden kaiserlichen Garten; in den Teichen wimmelte es von Karpfen, darunter schon ganz bemooste Häupter. I c h ftihlte mich nicht mehr als Kriegssoldat, sondern glaubte i n Schönbrunn oder i n den Garten von Sanssouci bei Potsdam zu lustwandeln. Auch die schöne Kirche war viel von andächtigen Soldaten besucht. D i e Einwohner zeigten sich ziemlich entgegenkommend und waren froh über die Besatzung, d a sie von den Franktireurs, die dort in großen Massen ctuftauchten, sehr zu leiden hatten.300 In spite of all he had been through, Ktilmhauser was able to sit back and be a normal person and tourist; at least he attempted to do this, and he succeded insofar as he later had fond memories of the town. A t the same time his comparison with the francs-tireurs betrays something of his unease over his and his comrades' less tame doings with civilians, including requisitions, quarters, and armed conflict. Undoubtedly the French civilians did often suffer under francs-tireurs, for they were not under any strict military control. But how much better were the Bavarians? For Kiihnhauser they at least stood on the right side of the law. And in larger towns that they peacefully occupied this was even true; there the Bavarian soldiers were usually well behaved, being under the tighter control of the higher ranking leadership. B u t Kiihnhauser knew that the Bavarians were not always orderly, well disciplined, or respectful of French civilians' lives and property, and this disturbed him. B y remembering and writing about Fontainbleau he was able to show to himself and the public that during the war he had not lost his humanity, and that what had happened in Bazeilles had been an exception. After the war veterans struggled to come to terms with what happened between them and civilians in Bazeilles and elswhere. Koch-Breuberg's defense of Bavarian actions was representative of these efforts. Die Erbitterung der Soldaten in Bazeilles war e i n e derartige, daß alles, was dort vorgekommen, entschieden zu entschuldigen ist. W e r dem ehrlichen Kampfe entronnen, sah sich hinterlistigem Morde ausgesetzt, wer verwundet zusammerzstarzte, konnte erwarten, daß ihn ein hafierftilltes Weib, ein Bauer auf scheußliche Weise ins Jenseits befördere. D i e Bayerischen Soldaten waren in vollem Rechte, wenn sie ebenso grausame Gegenmaßregeln 300 Kti hnh

71 ergr Situationen nur ltufierst selten vorkommen, gänzlich vermeiden wird iähnliche ff man sie wohl nie können. Wer wollte Freund oder Feind hier verdammen, im en. Kriege muß eben alles vom betreffenden Standpunkte aus betrachtet werden. G Die o tkomische Verurteilung, welche ein englischer Herzog damals gegen uns Bayern in die Welt sandte -- w a r eben echt englisch. D e r Spleen der t Menschenfreundlichkeit spukt da ja gewöhnlich außerdem Hause herum -- im s eigenen Haus macht man nicht viel Gebrauch davon.301 e Koch-Breuberg i felt that the Bavarians's actions were justified because the French had fought extremely unfairly. Any normal soldier had a right to be bitter about how the French fought D and fight backawith the same methods. Nevertheless, Koch-Breuberg wrote that this kind of n thing actually did not match his vision of a modem civilized Europe. l t bothered him enough to k defend the Bavarians and wishfully predict a gradual decrease in the frequency o f such i incidents. At the m same time he tried to relativize what happened by cl 'aiming that such incidents mnever completely disappear and by comparing the Germans to the British. would probably o There is also adhint that only those who were there could understand and judge. This reasoning was written down e thirty years after the war, but I suspect the rationalizing process began during the warritself. By maintaining that they were not savages, that there were good reasons n for doing what they did, the soldiers could preserve remnants of their old prewar civilized e selves. n Veterans K made a particular effort to justify their requisitioning and marauding. Unlike killing civiliansrand burning down houses, this was something virtually everyone did, month i after month. This obviously bothered many of them, because they spent many pages of their e memoirs justifying g it and describing the context in which it took place, in order to make it understandableefor those who had not been there, and perhaps to themselves as well. These men esteemed zw rwas e sseriously p e c t undermined, which disturbed them. Two chaplins were upset by the hardship i f o r brought about by requisitioning from poor families. Raimund P. Gronen wrote in bis memoirs p r i v a s for t e7 August atcFroeschwiller, h wine Frau kam mir in den Weg und bat mich dringend, ich möchte ihr p r o p Eine e sein, daß ihr die einzige Kuh gelassen werde, von deren Milch sie e r t y behilflich n auch den Verwundeten mittheile. L e i d e r konnte ich ihrer Bitte nicht h i g z weil was an Schlachtvieh zu Kriegszwecken nothwendig war, h l y entsprechen, i unnachsichtlichrequirirt wurde. Die Leute, denen nach Kriegsrecht das Vieh , v genommen wurde, erhielten hierüber eine Bescheinigung, damit sie nach dem a Feldzug i um entsprechende Entschädigung einkommen konnten.302 n l For was legal and militarily necessary, and the postwar compensation d Gronen requistioning i to his value system. Georg Hammon's comments were similar. Afte r the restored balance y s e battle at Wörthi be wrote ' M i l Wehklagen, Bitten und Verwünschungen sah ich eine t e 3d 0 1 r K 0o 2 3 u r c hr oG t i er ne n B n

72 Bauernfamilie hinter ihrem Kühlem hergehen, wekhes man zur Schlachtung aus dem Stalle hinwegfährte_ Doch wurden die Leute später reichlich entschä4igt." 3 chaplins could still seethemselves as men of high moral standards, who did not let the rigors m I n t h i s w a y t h e s e of war gnaw at their moral fiber. Many soldiers were less particular than this and usually admitted to having taken things. But they all made a point of saying they only took what they needed to eat and keep warm, for this they considered legitimate. Any other things they took were not mentioned. For goodmeasure some veterans added that the French were worse, for the Bavarians did not have clear consciences about what had happened. And they made sure to include details of what they actually paid money for. Even Emonts, who delighted in bragging about what he took, felt it was necessary to point out incorrect French behavior. H e wrote that when the Bavarians entered Chalons on 7 September, they went shopping and paid for what they received from the French shopkeepers, which the French soldiers allegedly had not done . 3 0 4 rationalizing and comparing in the 1880s and 1890s, when most of the memoirs I have Such read were written, did not just propagate myths of the bad French and the good Germans. It also enabled the Bavarians tosee themselves as decent human beings after the war. Moreover—it is worth repeating--even during the war the soldiers and officers probably usedsuchreasoning and in this way maintained a grasp on their cultural values. I n this sense moral decay was not complete in the war, for there were limits to what the soldiers would do, or at least admit to doing. On the Loire these limits were stretched even further, but even there they existed, albeit tenuously. The soldiers' good relations with the French civilians described earlier should also be seen in this light. The soldiers did nasty things that had little to do with the prewar world they had known; yet they struggled to remain normal people with their old value system intact—not just in their postwar accounts of the war, but in their actual dealings with civilians during the war. When things got out of control in one place, when the Bavarian soldiers transgressed their normal cultural rules, they tried to regain control the next chance they got, provided they were still capable of doing so. The war was a constant struggle to keep their world as they knew it from falling apart. 305 O n e civilians. w a y t o d o t h i s w a s o 3t 0 3 1c I a u l t i 3OE4 mm E o a t e 3v0m o n5 n t s , participants g struggle o against this—I am indepted to Fellman. Inside War. F 2 or 5 8 t8oh d , i s

73 Ch. 6 "Guerre It outrance" French Conduct of the War after Sedan After their decisive victory at Sedan the Germans believed the war was practically won.306 V e r d y d u Vemois commented, "Ausser vo r Metz dürfte es k a u m noch Blutvergiessen geben. I n Paris werden sie sich innerhalb 14 Tagen a n d i e Köpfe bekornmen." 307 noch Zuckungen." A n dT h e s e 308 increasing francs-tireurs activity. a h os Fp o er s 310 Otto HoeBlin, wrote to his sister on 1 October, '?ch. . l e b e der Allen Hoffnung, l a von ed nat m ea x p l e a s l in acht spätestens Tagen meinen Einzug in Paris halten zu können. " b e i a7 3 u t the t h e wasFoverthrown r e n and c a Government h e 1 1a f BsvInstead surrender. of National Defense was B a r iemperor a n O c t dw ie d n o t o n goverment e formed. This managed to raise from scratch armies of millions and use them to o ry b eee a r r prolong seemingly endlessly. hthe war vs oo l a u n M rt e After France's d catostrophic defeat at Sedan guerre a outrance was proclaimed by the e e r lb t Government ofnNational Defense. Only all-out war utilizing all of France's recowrces could ak e y d wear out st t the Germans and win the war for the French. N 312 S n Cc e men F atritsadisposal n c toestart, part of this effort was to be made at the local a t i fighting organized h O , d i d n o t e d e level by irregular troops, i.e . partisans or francs-tireurs. h a v e ,t r 313 " H a r r a s s t h e detachments without advised Gambetta, France's Interior Minister and e' n o upausegor relaxation," h eo n oe m y ' s V war p leader, s on 26 Sept. The Delegation should aim to, "prevent [the enemy] from deploying, e restrict a the area of his requisitions, make him thin out before Paris, disturb him day and night, rs always and everywhere . " Only after the regular armies had had time to build up strength K w e could they engage in operations to relieve Paris. rl l 3 " W w i wrote l l one republican. i, I 4 Paris guerilla, intoeSaragossa!" m aS t ek e ne a c k e r s , e 315 3 0 3F 06 r ae cn t c o er g D i r Li91a 3q7 n 3 o fe 67.t deeWinterhalter uo in V rud o n e ss P o Graf t s p s yr308Alfred des Generalfeldmarschalls Alfred Grafen von Waldersace, ed. g r n von eWaldersee, aDenkwiirdigkeiten t 8a z d u d i Heinrich Ottot Meisner, vol. I, (Stuttgart 1922) 101. quoted in Winterhalter 67. 4u e V 3e0 9 ; o m Ekme e l ) 78; Kfihnbauser 104-118. E "W io us it nt 311Letter to his sister, Longjumeau, 1 Oct. 1870, FloeBlin 6. ,n s d1r 2 l3e 5 ih euaA 6 3 ld ot1i 3 n 314—__ , 5 A e -ur ndo w& parlementaire sur les Actes du Gouvernement dc la Défense Nationale: Dépêches télégraphiques officielles, ng 7 o eM. vol. r6 o 2 (Versailles 1875) 258, cited in Howard 249-250, quote 249. See also Andoirt-Rouzeau 195-196. R R 6szo cu parlementaire sur les Actes du Gouvernement de la Défense Nationale: Dépositions des témoins, vol. 1 o u315Encruit z- e a (Paris 1873) 380, quoted in Howard 250. B s au u 6 e 11i 7 7n

74 Telegraphs, advocated the formation of guerilla bands "which will cut off convoys, harass the enemy and hang from trees all the enemies they can take well and truly by the neck, after having mutilated them." In addition he suggested that 20,000 - 30,000 Kabyle tribesmen be recruited andsent to Germany "with leave to burn, pillage and rape all they find on the way." Steenackers wrote that the French should fi g h t tat h G e ofrthemcentury. a n s French theebeginning a316 s t h e French guerrilla activity never S p a n i a r d s materialized on this scale, but there were many who fought as guerillas. One h a d Ficlich government estimate put the number of organized units at 300 fand their o membership u g 57,600. h This included foreign sympathizers as well • at t3 1 7 A n o t h e r estimate put these figures at 400 and 80,000 respectively. t h e 318notHjust o on wthe roles m isa another n y question. Undoubtedly many did not fight but stood under and w e r e a c t u a l l y pressure to perform military service. After the war it was important for the French to cast a c t i v e themselves in as positive a light as possible, i.e. present themselves as patriotic, which may have inflated these numbers. On the other hand, there were those who took up arms against the Germans independently of suchunits and belonged to none. Poorly equipped and badly led on the whole, the francs-tireurs missed many chances to hit the Germans hard, and their two most impressive feats were of no military importance. They blew up the viaduct of Forttenoy on 22 January after it was no longer essential to the Germans' rail line, and on 27 October they took a village north of Paris, Le Bourget, which meant little and which the Germans reoccupied four days later. Yet the francs-tireurs did make a difference. Although during the course of the war the Germans lost only about 1,000 men to francs-tireurs (a small number in comparison to the thousands who fell in each major battle), they were forced to deploy about 120,000 men, a quarter of their total force in France, to protect their communication lines. On the Loire the francs-tireurs made the Germans' war effort extremely difficult. In conjunction with the massive new people's armies the war was prolonged to the point where Bismarck had to fear foreign intervention. The Bavarian and Prussian armies on the Loire were faced with a style of fighting for which they were illprepared and which could not be won as speedily as the victories during the first month of the war had be e n. 319 Michael Howard has pointed out that a better use of France's mscources might have been for its leaders to devote more effort to the guerilla war than it did, until such time as it 31 6 vol. E n 2 (Versailles 1875) 256, quoted in Howard, 250. q u1i 7 3 l t1o8 H 3 p w ar F. including francs-tireurs in Paris; he also points out the wide discrepancies between sources; 198 and endnote 69 on r l. d 369. T e 5 2 S 3 9Laqueur m . 2 c e n h t a

75 could field armies fit engingh to defeat the Oerman armies, but that this was not possible because of the French political situation. I f Paris were taken France would surrender,SQ it had to be relieved. The French bad no luxury of time. They needed to field what they could and fight. 3 2 always saw the guerilla effort as a "temporary expedient" and constantly gave the relief of Paris t highest priority. The guerilla effort could have become much more intense and been much ) more S t effective. Instead the government sought to bring it under its control and discipline it, éuntil p shortly after the cease-fire the francs-tireurs units rapidly dissolved. T h e French h a leadership preferred to stick to a classical conception of war; they believed that battles decided n e the A outcome of wars, not guerillas.321 What Audoin-Rouzeau does not say is that the French leadership's conception of society was probably also a major factor in bolding it to a classical u d o i conception of war. The war was to be organized and directed by the government, not n individuals at a local level. Not only did the French leadership not put enough effort into the R francs-tireurs war, but it also made efforts to bring the francs-drafts more and more under its o u contro1. z e 322 a u "passive resistance" of officers and civil servants, who were not favorably inclined towards the T c h i s francs-tireurs in light of reports of their bad behavior, including brigandage, and their lack of to e n enthusiasm for armedencounters with the Germans. There was also the innate conservatism of d n e n cs y officers who not only despised the indiscipline of many francs-tireurs, but also many w i disapproved of the blurring of the line between soldier and civilian. ad 323 O innthe hands t h ofesoldiers wand htheir o military l e and political leadership, and it was decided sremained e t h e w a r sby r their t efforts. In this sense "guerreaoutrance" was never fully realized. rs e But there was something new about the French prosecution of the war—the size of the n i g armies, t h die speed with which the Delegation threw them together, and the enormous amount of ecivilian a n participationnecessary to organize andarm the troops.324 And this led to new horrors e"on the d battlefields. The poorly trained and led French troops could not maneuver well on the b s battlefield andmade aneasy target for the more mobile Germans. And they were often poorly yt and usually undisciplined. The result was that the French always bad troops to engage aarmed r p a kill German troops, but their own casualties were extremely high. N o matter bow many and a t French soldiers the Germans killed, wounded, or captured, the French always came up with te more, and the bloodshed continued. This refusal to give in, this guerre à outrance, was h g yi new . ic 2 5 3 32 n T e 2 h1 C 3 itr s 1 3A2u2 H h w rno i 0d 3 o 2- 3 n e oh •ta L w3ao2 q4 R e su H3 g s u 5eH aro2ezw u e ao rrp r d w e" a n ea u 2t8 3

76

The German Leadership's Conception of Society and War Moltke was astounded and frustrated by the French effort. On 12 October he wrote his brother Adolf, 'Wird dies unglackliche land endlich einsehen, daß es besiegt ist, daß seine Lage sich mit jedem Tage verschlimmert? Aber ich zweifle nicht, daß man auch jetzt wieder eine Siegesnachricht publiziert." 326 n dbecause o Inzwischen n not yetAwon war es dem Terrorismus der Advokatenregierung 2 3 gelungen, Eigenschaften der französische Nation auszubeuten, ihren N o v allee guten m und b schlechten e r Patriotismus, h e ihren Muth, ihre Selbstliberschätzung und Unwissenheit." He was frustrated w 'Nachdem r o das ganze t that französische Heer in die Gefangenschaft nach Deutschland e gewandert ist, stehen heute mehr Bewaffnete in Frankreich gegen uns als zu Anfang des A d o l Krieges." For hirn the French conscription of all men up to 46 in order to send them f immediately t h into warawas an "atrocity." From the standpoint of humanity he would like to see tthe proof that a people could defend itself and thus a militia would be enough to defend a t h country. ' Ve r vcaerlandische Standpunkt ist freilich ein anderer, und wir hoffen zu zeigen, e chl3 w die Erhebung a selbst einer Nation mit sokhen unerschöpflichen Mitteln und von solchem r Patriotismus, wie die französische, nicht Stand halten kann gegen ein geschultes und tapferes w a He e r .s . I ike the French, Moltke conceived of war in terms of battles. For him the form of war " 3 2 change, but its essence remained the might 7 328 H i s m a i n

same.

destroy the enemy army in a decisive battle as quickly as possible, which would keep the war s t r a t e g y limited andmake possible a rapid peace. This was his Vernichtungsprinzip or principle of i n w a r extermination. In 1866 he succeded in this well enough to route the Austrians at Kiiniggratz, w a s tupon whicho Bismarck could quickly build a peace s e e k Before 1870 Moltke knew that a war with France would not be as simple. H e was a n d aware that patriotism in France would probably not let it surrender after the first major defeats, that France would instead choose to fight on for as long as it possibly coulsrl. 330 " E i nBoden e verlorene a u Schlacht f französischem würde Frankreich nimmer zum Frieden bestimmen, sondern bei dem Patriotismus der Nation zur Aujbietung aller Kräfte des an Hilfsmitteln so reichen Landes," he wrote in a memorandum in January 1 8 6 7 . 3 3 1 on T years h i of s observations o b s eand r meditations v a t i about o n the French, during which he concluded based w a s 326 L2 e7 t 3 t ee rt L 328 tt e r Fo 3 2 r9 o tm F ö 3 3 r0 h o o r s t F 3 3er1 ih ö re , te "s s io D e M rb ,k s n s n o

77 that the French people, their character and patriotism, were the biggest threat to Europeanpeace and stability. 332 He believed Germany and France were Erbfeinde and knew that a war between them France. M o l t k e would be a national war. He wanted this war, and he feared it. Yet by the winter of 1868-69 h i m s he to delude himself into believing a war against France could be quickly won, after a e managed l f w offensive a rapid and the removal of Napoleon Ill, for supposedly Germany wanted nothing of s France and thus the war would remain a cabinet wa r . s r 3 3 3t On o n g I September at Sedan it seemed to most observers that Moltke had again succeeded l rapidly in y winning a war through a descisive battle. Moltke himself believed this and indeed he ihad rendered n fl most of the French army useless. On 7 October he still believed this, despite u e German terriorial demands, but he soon grew frustrated. In the beginning of December, after n c Loigny, e d Poupry, and Orleans, he thought he finally had won the battles necessary to bring b about peace but found out that he had not. H e then gave up the idea of a rapid end to the y wa r. 3G3 4 In January he was able to formulate his solution to this national war, this guerre e outrance. r A ll of France must be completely conquered and cmshed. 335 m with H the e crown d i prince: s c u s s e d t h e s e ideas a Moltke: We shall push forward into the south of France in order to finally n break the enemy's power. p a The Crown Prince: B ut what will happen when our strength is exhausted, t r when we can no longer win battles? i o Moltke: We must always win battles. We must throw France completely to t i the ground. s m The Crown Prince: And what then? a Moltke: Then we can dictate the kind of peace we want.336 n concept of war was radical. Moltke wanted to annihilate the existing French armies as This d well as any military potential France might still possess. His solution was radical because he a saw h in France the source of revolution in Europe. The entire French people had to be a subjugated in order to put an end to this. This solution was as extreme as the Delegation's t efforts to defend France, for it would have been possible only if Germany had mobilized all its r human, material, and economic resources to the extent that France was doing. e 3d3 7 Nevertheless, Moltke still conceived of war in terms of battles. He made no plans to o deliberately terrorize the civilian population and scorch the earth, as had happened in the f American Civil War. On 8 September 1870 while travelling with the Prussian headquarters 332 R 3 3u 3 d Ro i rl4 3 3 fS s tt e 335 S r , lt e w Fd 3 3dr6 a lM m s t Q ue 3 e o 3nl 1n a rR,ti e o t2 l nt r ' T d

78 U.S. General Sheridan expressed the American view on the treatment of civilians. Moritz Buschrememberedthe conversationthusEr findet auch die strengste Behandlung der Bevölkerung in einem Kriege in Ordnung, und zwar aus politischen Rücksichten. "Die richtige Strategie", so sagte der amerikanische General ungefähr, "besteht erstens darin, daft mandem Feinde tüchtige Schlage beizubringen sucht, soweit er aus Soldaten besteht, dann aber darin, daß man den Bewohnern des Landes so viele Leiden zufilgt, daß sie sich nach dem Frieden sehnen und bei ihrer Regierung darauf dringen. Es muß den Leuten nichts bleiben als die Augen, um den Krieg zu beweinen."338 Sheridansaw the people as the enemy and concluded that the war had to be prosecuted not just against the soldiers, but against the civilians as well. Moltke alsosaw the people as the enemy, but with the exception of the bombardments he did not draw the same drastic conclusions as Sheridan. But given the German supply situation and Moltke's attitude towards francs-tireurs the result would not have been much different from what Sheridan suggested, had Moltke been allowed to continue the war. Moltke believed francs-tireurs should be summarily shot and as the war intensified he came to believe in mass punishment, including burning whole towns. Moltke wrote to Werder in Burgundy, 'The very severest treatment of the guilty as regards life and property can alone be recommended to your Excellency, whole parishes being held responsible for the deeds of individual members when these cannot be discoveree 339 An important reason for Moltke and the rest of the German military leadership to treat francs-tireurs -force. Moreover, they stank of revolution. The Prussian army had a tradition and political ha r s hl yfunction of protecting the crown against domestic revolution, 34 °military wah ileadership's fl u ein France. n c e idn this sense German actions taken against francsw sc h i nactions G e r m a n tttireurs h hand,other a e armed civilians could be seenas quasi police work, something separate from t the actual business of war, and Moltke could later write about the war and to a large extent a r ignore m ethe problem of armed civilians. But it was not just police work. Moltke's radical new dvision of how the war should be prosecutedwas also directed at revolution; he aimed at making ca complete i v end to revolution in France. i34 l i that a well-trained army could defeat the people's armies raised from scratch was based ashow I H ni s c o m m e n t s simply on his hope that the Germans would win; his "vaterländische" perspective was not snot t o h i s tsimply h German in an ethnic sense. Moltke wanted to see Prussia's unique constitutional b r o t h e r rA e d o placed l f army exclusively under the king's control, immune to the system win, which the at t h a t 3 eh3 8 n e B eh3u 9 d o 3 p e s ch 0 t7du o 3 1zur e1 P Militärgeschichte, vol. 11 (n.p.: mp,„ [1975-76] 160-217,. h 5 it . o fl 3 41 e n a R5r s tH

79 influences of parliament. (Ironically, to do this he would have had to call Prussia's consitutional system in question by becoming more dependent on public opinion. 3 4 2 against the people's armies and the measures taken to counter francs-tireurs both had battles ) T h u s t h e the same political aim for Moltke. But his concept of war did not allow for this. War must be consist of battles. The armed civilians were terrorists who had to be punished and made an example of. Bismarck had little to say about purely military matters, which the issues dealt with in this essay were considered to be . 3 4 3 supreme H i s command (Oberbefehl) when he had first been appointed to head Prussia's king's h a n d s govemment. w e r e 344 Moltke's. t i B ue t d h i s y b Like Moltke, Bismarck was horrified by the people's war he had helped to create. o p i in h s However, answer to the problem depended on a conception of war more limited than io o rn sbis i g i n o Moltke's. Even after December be held on to the idea of negotiating a peace under halfway a l n p tolerable r conditions o for m the French (with the exception of the annexations and an indemnity) in t h iorder s e to put an end to the war as quickly as possible. He did not want to prosecute the war te indefinitely. t r e Aside from the questions of Germany's strength there was always the risk of o a t intervention. m foreign d e f ee n Tontthis enddBismarck felt his diplomacy should be combined with a more ruthless to h war. On the surface he went beyond Moltke by suggesting that the German prosecution of the fe c i take no prisoners and terrorize the civilian population. He even made requests to the armies v i king to this effect. Bismarck was aware of the connection between domestic and international l i politics a nand felt that pressure should be brought to bear directly on the civilian population. His desire for harshmeasures against civilians was supported by a a concept of society similar to s m Moltke's. Bismarck also feared revolution and the threat to the state's monopoly on the use of a for c e . k 3 4 5 Bismarck's wish to deliberately terrorize the civilian population was actually realized in e a case of the bombardments. However, the other measures that the German and Bavarian the n military leadership ordered against French civilians were considered punishment for actions i n taken against the German armies and their martial law, and they were a warning to all others. t e They r were e not officially a systematic effort to terrorize the French civilian population. But, as s tseven will show, the result was often the same. On the Loire the Bavarians and chapter i n 3g4 2 F 3c4O3 rMi Hseitt w a r e und zu befehlen hätte. . "; Busch 80. o e p r4r 3 „4 n4f 5 e 3b "-at c T Mr rre sd i sr t e a n

80 Prussians increasingly wreaked havoc and destruction wherever they we nt. 346 General von der Tames Policy In Bazeilles General von der Tann, commander of the I Bavarian Corps, was outraged at civilians for shooting at his men, but hadnevertheless decided against having them shot. H e evenpardoned a mansentenced to death. 347three S weeks u c after h Bazeilles. not l e n i e n c y In the Department Seine-et-Oise, outside of Paris, von der Tann had the following w a s notice posted, which was in tune with Moltke's thinking. n o t Da mehrere Mordthaten von Franctireurs, die in den benachbarten Wäldern a m a tliegen, t begangen e rworden sind, so befehle ich, was folgt: 1 ) Jedes Individuum, o fwelches im Innern der Wälder oder in dem Dickicht angetroffen wird, muss als p o lFrcmctireurbetrachtet i c y werden. 2 ) Die Gemeinden, welche die Anwesenheit solcher Individuen auf ihrem Territorium nicht denuncirt haben, werden mit , starken Kriegssteuern belegt. 3 ) I n gewissen Fä lle n werden die a t l e Gemeindehärden a s in Anklagezustand versetzt. Hauptquartier des 1 Bayerischen Armee-Corps. Longjumeau, 22. September 1870. t Der Ober-General v. d. Tann348 One cansee military realism at work here. All those found in the woods "must" be considered francs-tireurs, and hence pay for this with their lives. In addition to this whole towns would be punished. All means were justified to guarantee the security of von der Tann'stroops. By issuing these orders von der Tann helped to create, or at least intensify, an extreme atmosphere where francs-tireurs were believed to be everywhere. This was dangerous for civilians in a situation where soldiers and officers had been known to summarily shoot suspectedfrancs-tireurs instead of arresting them for trial. A few days later a Bavarian patrol composed of 2 officers, 2 NC0s, a bugler, and 45 Jager who had volunteered for the duty was sent from the I Bavarian Corps headquarters at Longiumea -the u population o n into behaving themselves, find any food or animals they had hidden in the a n woods, and combat francs-tireurs. The officer who led this, Carl Tanera, later recalled his e x p orders e d ithus: t "Die Waldungen durchstreifen, Bewaffnete vertreiben, fangen und erschießen, iVieh o requirieren n und an die nächsten Truppen abgeben, uns, d. h. die deutsche Uniform in tdenh verborgensten Schlupfwinkel zeigen und alles thun, was die Sicherheit der Armee gegen r o hinterlistige Überfälle erhöht ." 349 These orders likely came from or had been approved by u g von h der Tann. t 346 h civilians, but also the them of the war; Messerschmidt 23-24 Al l mention of contributions I have found were in M e se connection se with francs-lireurs and other French offenses against the occupiers. rw s c 3 47 ls m t ee 3o4 8 icdht H o4i r9 3 m tr.dha n e4

81 Such orders were almost a blank check. Nevertheless, according to Tannera's memoirs they did not simply go out murdering, but instead maintained the forms of trials and executions. For example when a German supply unit turned over a man to them who had been caught sabotaging telegraph lines, they first interrogated him (Tanera says he confessed), then asked if they should report his death to any relatives and if he wanted to pray. Finally they stood the Frenchman next to a roadside ditch, blindfolded him, and a six-man firing squad shot him . 3 5 morally and legally in the right, but this was no real court-martial. I n another case Tanera ° demanded a Maire give up the town's weapons which were distributed by the government. T The h Maire claimed they had none, but one of Tanera's men had overheard some women who e were glad the weapons were hidden in the church. After finding them and destroying them f (they were old) Tanera announced to the Maire, "Jetzt werden Sie fiisiliert." T h e town's o inhabitants pleaded for his life. "Da ich überdies über mein Recht, den Menschen erschießen r m lassen, doch sehr im Zweifel war, so ließ ich mich scheinbar nur widerwillig, in zu sWirklichkeit aber sehr gerne erweichen und schenkte ihm das Leben." o 351 saved T h the e Maire's o nlifel was y Tanera's t h i ofnjustice. g H is orders, which likely came which sense f from I Bavarian Corps headquarters, probably would have allowed more. a t The requisitions were ordered because there was little food to be found outside of r Paris, but Tanera's orders connected the requisitions with scaring the French civilian i population. And Tanera understood' his job as such. When he found a flock of sheep in the a lwoods he not only had bis troops take them away, he also took potshots at the shepherds as a they ran a wa y . n 3 5 2 This expedition went beyond punishing and setting examples. I t was designed to d harass the civilian population. Nevertheless, the reason for taming the French was not to bring e x about a desire in them to demand France's surrender, as Sheridan deemed desirable, but to e keepthem from threatening the Bavarian's security. c u t i o n w e r e s t 35 °3uF5 a n2 IcT5 3 e tn n aka T a et r a

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•-•.: •••••

"The Campaign of the Loire" Source Nfichael Howard,TheFranco-Prussian War, 286.

82 Ch.7 People's Wa r on the Loire The Condition of the Bavarian Troops The Loire formed a natural line of defense behind which France formed new armies with which it hoped to relieve Paris. General von der Tann's I Bavarian Corps and the 22nd Prussian Division attatched to it were sent to Orléans to put a stop to this Wit h the exception of Bazeilles his troops had seen comparatively little fighting, but this soon changed. O n 11 October von der Tann and his 28,000 men captured Orléans. 353 T and h ideadly s w a ofsmarchest andhbattles e for the Bavarians. (Later they were joined grueling months s t a r t o f by Prussians who had become available after the capitualation of Metz and who now assumed t h r e e command on the Loir e .) 3 5 4 T went h e hungry, froze, got sick, became exhausted, and were shot at until by the middle retreated, B a v a r i a n of December the! Bavarian Corps hadbeen almost completely destroyed. s 355 Otto von HoeBlin, a one year volunteer and NCO, wrote to his mother on 1 November c o n t i n u o uOrléans, s l y from m o v wenige von den mit mir ausmarschierten Kameraden sind noch geblieben! Wie e d Mein Schatzenzug bestand bei unserem Ausmarsche aus 1 Leutnant, 3 b a Unteroffizieren und 52 Soldaten. Der Leaman: und zwei Unteroffiziere fielen, c k 34 Soldaten sind tot, verwundet oder erkrankt, nur ich und 18 Soldaten hasten a den Vorzug, bis heute noch gesund und unverwundet zusein..356 n And this was before the worst fighting had begun. The Bavarian officer Carl Tanera later d rememberedthe losses in his brigade f. o r Seit dem 2. Dezember stellte ich auf B e f t h , neue Liste der Offiziere auf. Bei keinem Bataillon konnte ich noch fragen "wer a d v ist e hlheute m gefallen?" e i n e ssondern ich erkundigte mich nur, wer noch da sei, um den a n c Befehl G e zu n übernehmen. e r a l s A m 8. Dezember wurden von den 7 Bataillonen e d der Brigade befehligt, we il es i n denselben keine j e d 4 evon Lieutenants n a Sktbsoffiziere A b emehr ngab und d keine Hauptleute; 9 Kompanien des einen n Regiments fiihrten Feldwebels. Wir hatten keine Offiziere mehr, urn die Stellen e i n e d zu besetzen. Am 11. Dezember frith morgens wies mein Rapport nach: Die 3. bayerische I n f a n t e r i e Mann. Davon waren etwa die Hälfte der Offiziere und 500 Mann erst am 8. , Dezember - Babends r i g a dals e :Ersatz 7 aus der Heimat eingetoffen Unsere ursprüngliche B a t a i l l o n Starke e , betrug ungefähr 192 Offiziere und 7000 Mann und wiederholt hatten wir schon Nachschuberhalten.357 4 0 O f fi z i e r 353 H e , 3 5o4 w a 0n 3 55 2 1 2 rt dh 0n Erinnemngen L See also the4Prussians' experiences, e.g. Braun: Rindfleisch. 2 8

te 5h 6 3 5 c e- t e 3L 57 2 a 8 Ttt8 ear.rn m tra eo

83 Another officer, Hugo Arnold, reported that on 11 December his brigade's strength was 1,912 men of which 1,099 were replacements. The rest were sick, wounded, or dead.358 LaBberg wrote that during a role call on 1 December, after a tough battle, most of the men called were no longer there; the names were simply answered with reports of how, where, and when they were wounded or killed. ' W i r Offiziere und die meisten der noch i n Reih' und Glied stehendenSoldaten konnten bei diesem trauigen Appell die Tränen nicht zurückhalten. Unser Batallion existierte eigentlich nicht mehr. " 3 5 9 Suchreports and figures must be kept in mind when looking at the Bavarians' relations with the French civilians, which became increasingly strained as francs-tireurs activity increased in November... 36 vengeance, a need that was personal, not based on an abstract concept of nation and patriotism. 0 I r fi g h After the war a reserve officer wrote to the surviving brother of a dead comrade that "wir l o s s e s gingen a n ftir g einander e r e und m it einander ins Feuer" 361 Although the war was being fought d Germany, comradeship—more than patriotism--kept the soldiers going. On 18 October for t1870 the h comrade e who later died, HoeBlin, wrote to his brother, "wir (haben] die vielen s o l d i gefallenen e r sFreunde und Kameraden blutig gerächt. , " Three days later he wrote to his mother of all a n the friends he had lost and how in the next battle his last friend had been killed. d ich hätte blutige Trdnen weinen können über das Unglück meiner Freunde und empfand fast fi l l Freude fiber stürzende Feinde, denn nach Bache lechzte mein zerrissenes Herz. ”362 S u c h e d emotions and t h sentiment spilled over into the Bavarian soldiers' attitudes and behavior towards e civiliansmas well, especially since francs-tireurs activity always increased when French the w i troops were near, which they frequently were. With time the Bavarians began to genuinely t h hate a the French. On 12 October HoeBlin still could write of the "heroic" French defense of Orléans. n 363 e theater he had just visited. HoeBlin was amazed at H e i s die bodenlose Sittenlosigkeit der französischen Stücke. Kein Wunder, daft ein td o n Volk, das von Jugend auf seine Unterhaltung im Gemeinen sucht, einem Volke ef mil edlerer Lebensauffassung nicht widerstehen kann. Religiosität und co h Diziplin, welche zu einem braven Soldaten unbedingt gehören, müssen bei ar n solcher Sittenverderbnis dem französischen Soldaten mangetn.364 g e A Prussian officer in Orléans, Rindfleisch, wrote to his wife on 9 December, 'Der Ekel vor d 3 i 58 1 3 n15 t9 i3 1g6 .o .0 a A a6 l ir1 3F o l 1ee or e 1rrb 362 n tL BeoLoigny g t on 2 December; Heelnill e p tl in l io r2 n t e t e6r3 3 5 1d s tr 6e 4t 3L 3 41 o e- r 1to w .1 f;h te, t t ri io o

84 der französischen Nation nimmt überhaupt bei uns allen von Tage zu Tage überhand. " 3 65 HoeB1M's and Rindfleisch's hate of the French was accompagnied by a belief in the Germans' moral superiority. This became standard fare after the war. During the war the belief in German moral superiority is remarkable in fight of how debased the soldiers moral standards had become; yet it is also understandable. I t was necessary for their sense of worth and their will to survive and to fight. They had to believe in what they were fighting for. Hate of the French increased with the deprivation the Bavarians suffered. Weeks of cold, inadequate clothing and supplies, poor quarters, long marches, and frequent fighting made wrecks of the soldiers. 366 I n recorded a a lieutenant, for 26 November a typical description of the troops' condition at this d i a r y time. e d i t e d a f t eUnsere r Uniformierung, besonders das Schuhwerk, war in einem trauigen Zustande. Manche hatten kaum mehr Stiefel an den Füßen, manche gingen in t h e Holzschuhen, manche in Frauenschuhen, wieder andere selbst in Pantoffeln w a r oder sie hasten die Falk mit einem Stück Leder oder Zeug umwickelt. Gegen D i e t r die nasse Kälte und zum Schutz bei Nacht in den oft sehr notdürftigen i c h Quartieren dienten Decken aller Farben und Größen und französische F r eUniformstücke, i besonders jene praktischen m it Kapuzen versehenen h e rgraublauen r Chasseurmlintel; fast jeder Soldat und Offizier bis hinauf zum v o General war mit einem derartigen Stück versehen. Unsere Gesichter waren n blaß und eingefallen und eine gedrückte Stimmungmachte sich geltend infolge L a Benormen Strapazen und der fortwährenden fast im Kreise herum sich der b e r bewegenden Märsche, ohne ernstlich auf denuns immer ausweichenden Feind g , zu stoßen; wie oft hatten wir schon die hohen Tiirme von Chtirtres am Horizont gesehen! Unsere Reihen lichteten sich durch Krankheiten in bedenklicher Weise und es war keine Seltenheit, daß unterwegs 15, ja 20 Mann von einer Kompagnie vor Ermattung liegen blieben, die sich dann bei Nacht zu Wagen oder zu Fuß wieder nachschlepplen.367 Such hardship impacted negatively on troop morale and discipline. A Prussian general staff officer, Kietschman, wrote to his wife from the Loire on 12 December, Von den Baiern kannst Du Dir schwer einen Begriff machen. I n Trupps ,zu Dreien bis Sechsenbedecken sie die Landstraße, haben die Truppen verlassen, die Gewehre z. Theil weggeworfen, sich mit allen möglichen Decken behangen, plibidemd ziehen sie nach Hause. Tcmn hat von 30,000 Mann noch 5000. D ie Offiziere gehen innerer Krankheit wegen nach Haase.3133 There was little left of the I Bavarian Corps. They had wasted away in several weeks of marching and a recent series of battles against an enemy which vastly outnumbered them. Many of those that survived suffered from shell shock, which Kretschman called "innere Krankheit." 369 365 L 3e 6n 6 e r H 6u 7 3 tL go a 3 68 o Ab B K rr e h n o

85 The Prussians looked down on the Bavarians for this. Ksetschman observed in the same letter, Der Großherzog telegraphirte: "Die Baiern sind ein unnützer Ballast, die mehr schaden als nützen." Dem General Tann sagte der Großherzog im Gefecht: "nun gehen Sie mit dem Rackerzeug fort." Es macht einen ganz tollen Eindruck. Jetzt wird die ganze Bande nach Orleans genommen, um sie etwas zu retabliren. Das sind nun Leute, die 1 Jahr dienen. .3 1 0 Although the Prussians were better, more experienced soldiers than the Bavarians, such criticism was unfair and arrogant The Prussian soldiers' will to fight was also rapidly fading. On 8 December Heinrich Rindfleisch, a reserve officer in the Prussian army who was not prone to self-pity, wrote to his wife from the Loire, Es sind wenig Geister. d e r e n Spannkraft aushält, um das ewige H in. und Hermarschieren, Frieren, Hungern, Biwakieren und Fechten als eine Folge der großen Pflicht zu empfinden und immer so festzuhalten! Enthusiasten und Skeptiker fallen rechts und links von der Heerstraße ab, und wer von den Berufssoldaten "das Kreuzel" hat, möchte es auch gern über den Rhein schaffen! So bleibt gewiß nur ein kleines Häufchen derer übrig, welche die Idee des "Krieges auf das Messer". m i t Ernst und Eifer in sich tragen .371 The Prussian troops' discipline was such that their officers did not always dare to intervene when plundering took pla c e , 3 72 a n d Bavarians. t373 h e i r were subjugated. His troops were tiring and becoming fewer. u M on l it kf o r m e The soldiers' condition was due only to a small extent to the francs-tireurs. Wha t d e a e down a was r the weather, the marches, the poor supply system, and the battles. really w opwore up them a n c e lButdthe troops, already on edge, reacted to francs-tireurs and searched for food with a w a h a vengence which cannot be understood in the context of national passions alone. s v e s i m i h la"Rassenkrte2": a rThe Bavarian Soldiers' War aRainst the French Civilians td 374 The German and Bavarian military leadership were officially at war with the French o a government, represented by its army; however, the Bavarian soldiers were fighting not only td i h e French f fi soldiers, but French civilians as well. This war against the civilians manifested itself in c basic u ways, living off them and fighting them, whereby the distinction was not always two l t 369 t For an example of shell shock in the American Civil War see McPherson 734; The term shell shock was unknown to participants of the Civil War and Franco-German War, but McPherson appropriately mes it to describe the condition i of men who fought for weeks on end. 3m7 0 e K found r e fault with the Bavarian's training from his viewpoint in Versailles. Meisner 250. tcs7 c 3 1 o h m L e 3n7 t2 t ta Li e7 enr3t, n 3 tlt e r S 3 ue7 4 i e o s c E ttn xt h g e . a m ie ot . g pl e rh s

86 clear. Living off the civilians entailed living with, requisitioning from, and plundering them, just as before. B ut here the small area between Orléans, Tours, and Le Mans was crisscrossedrepeatedly by the French and German armies, who in the process exhausted the resources of many parts of it. The bigger towns tended to fair better, but on the whole the sources give the impression of much want and ne e d, 3 7 5Hugo I n Arnold t h described i s c (end o nof tch.e3)xbecame t that reality for many soldiers. A t its most t h y extreme soldiers against the French civilians. In the process the s t ituwasga case g of the l Bavarian e soldiers became further and further removed from their prewar selves. f o r s uThe frequency r v of i armed v conflicts a l with civilians and the extremity of Bavarian and other German reactions also increased. The most famous such incident took place in the night of 7 to October, shortly before the Bavarians first took Orléans. Rambouillet, 9 . October. D a s Ereignis des gestrigen Tages i s t z u schrecklich, als dass ich Euch es nicht beschreiben sollte. Wie Ihr bereits erfahren haben werdet, wurde in der Nacht vom 7. zum. 8. October die 4. Escadrondes Schleswig-Holsteinschen Husarenregimertts 16 im Cantonnement auf Vorposten von Mobilgarden überfallen und bis auf 48 Mann und 12 Pferde vollständig niedergemacht. Der Ueberfall geschahMorgens 112 4 Uhr, die vor der Escadron liegende Bayerische Feldwache in der Starke von 60 Mann wurde

zurückgedrängt, Die Stadt Namen3 ANi s Male 376 angegriffen, w u r ddie e 3 Ställe, v welche o ndie Husaren inne hatten, sofort umzingelt und schon beim Satteln der Pferde wurden Mannschaften und Pferde 3 S e i t e n zusammengeschossen; da sämtliche Schüsse blindlings durch Luken und stark m i t gegeben wurden. D ie Husaren vertheidigten sich durch besetzte Stallthiiren e i mitn e nso gut es ging und sie nur konnten; doch endlich Schiessen dem Carabiner die Nutzlosigkeit aller Gegenwehr einsehend flüchteten sie einzeln, auch mehrere zusammen über Mauern kletternd nach dem nahen Gehölz und entkamen aufdiese Weise diese 48 Mann. Die Officiere, welche ihre Pferde in einem etwas abseits liegenden Stall hatten, haben sich gerettet, nur ist der Rittmeister verwundet. -- Wir wurden, als diese Nachricht bei uns eintraf, allarmirt und sofort rücke die Brigade nebst Artillerie und einer Compagnie Bayerischer Jäger nach dem 2 112 Meilen entfernten Städtchen. D or t wurde der Befehl zum Plündern und Denzoliren gegeben, alle Lebensmittel und Fourage herausgeschaffl, ebenso Vieh, und dann von unseren Husaren jedes einzelne Haus, auch die in der Umgebung befindlichen Gehöfte, Holzgamben und Heu- und Strohschober in Brand gesteckt und ist also die ziemlich hübsche Stadt in einen Aschenhaufen verwandelt.—Den Weibern, Kindern und Greisen wurde eine halbe Stunde vor dem Inbrandstecken dies eröffnet, damit sie noch Zeit hatten, abzuziehen. M a nne r wurden nicht verschont, sondern erbarmungslos erschossen oder niedergehauen. Bis spät in der Nacht hinein schlug die Lohe gen Himmel. 3 7 7 375 An 376A d ,o i 1 377Letter from a Prussian who helped raze the town, ffirth and (losen II, 2633-2634. For a slightly diffemat version nut o based on a French report see F. T. Schneider 195-197. . 2 -5

87 A franc-tireur reported that they had been 200 to 300 men strong. They had captured 69 Germans and 89 horses against their losses of about ten dead or wounded, six of whom had beenshot by the German troops who had come to punish the town after the attack.378 How many Germans were killed is unclear. The above report makes the numbers seem high; yet a French report later put them at 1 officer and 2 soldiers379 The German author of the above letter was horrified by these events, but wrote that the German reactionwas justified, because the French had shot the Germans they had captured and had carted their corpses off in order to claim a bounty. 380 T h intentions i s wwere a rampant. s evil French u n l i k e l y , Thecivilians of Ablis were punished for an attack which they had nothing to do with, b u t except r u of course m that o someone u r hadsinformed the francs-tireurs of the Germans presence, 381 o during thef bloodletting some had come out and watched. and 382 h i s who wwere a coming s for theTGermans, to see an enemy in all the French. p r o b a b l y Francs-tireurs did not pose a serious threat to large concentrations of troops, but small e n o u g h detatchments and individuals were regularly harassed?83 This resulted in fear and uncertaintly for many troops, since tens of thousands of German troops repeatedly served in small detachments for requisitioning, disarming the civilian population, searching for francs-tireurs, protecting supply lines, transporting prisoners of war, and more. A n aid-de-camp who delivered orders atone at night remembered that, Das immer mehr sich entwickelnde Franktireurunwesen war überhaupt die unangenehmste Folge des Rückzuges am 9. November. A u ß e r ihren bewundernswerten Phrasen haben sie nichts großes geleistet; im kleinen aber genierten sie uns doch oft ganz gewaltig. Wenn man sich als Soldat auch gerne gefallen legit, in der Feldschlacht, beim Angriff, vor dem Bataillon ehrenvoll zu sterben, so ist doch die Aussicht, von irgend einem Bauern bei Nacht hinterrücks angeschossen und dann m i t Knütteln erschlagen zu werden, so wenig verlockend, daß unter solchen Umstanden selbst der grape Enthusiast nicht mehr die Wahrheit des Satzes "duke est pro patria moll" vertretenwird.384 Tanera and other Bavarians were willing, despite their fear, to die in battle, but dying at the hands of francs-tireurs was different. Here the Germans had no chance to fight in a fair and equal way, which was frightening for them. In battle the risks were known. One knew where the bullets were coming from and when, even if one could not avoid getting hit by them; but 378 H7i r9 3 th E 38° a T . H 3 8i r1 n S tF.h d82 c3 aT . G 1 h 3E 8 -r 3 n Sh ta n H 8o 4w 3 d c se a a rai dn T G h e n d 2 r 5a e o n

88 francs-tireurs could shoot anywhere, anytime, when the soldiers were least expecting it. And in battle one had at least the small comfort that if one died, it would be for one's country. I t was not at all clear that this would be the case if one were shot by a franc-tireur .theFauthor o r ofea picture x a m p published l e book over forty years later felt compelled to remark in the discription of a picture showing a Bavarian patrol being ambushed by civilians that, We r auch sie starben einen ehrlichen Soldatentod.* ihr Vaterland." 385 Arecorded n o t hineanr edited o version f fi c ofehisr diary , Uhland, for 27 November, "Jeder ist mehr oder A d o l f minder bedacht, in diesen Guerillaktimpfen, in denen man doch keinen Ruhm ernten kann, sein Leben zu schonen und der Gefahr möglichst auszuweichen, wodurch eine Demoralisation der Truppe zu befürchten steht." 386 F oomnipresent. r t hThis e scaredthem. seemingly B a v a r i a n The experiences of a few Bavarians, the resultant rumours of such, and the drastic t r o o p s measures t hordered by e the leadership all led the Bavarians to see an enemy in every civilian f a le r . a n c s m t 8 7i anr aimed e French u r civilian s was unable to escape, 3 When w e r H u sostand der friedliche Blusenmann in seinem Weinberg bei der Arbeit und e o g schaffte, scheinbar unbekümmert um die Dinge um ihn her, mit der Hacke A r darauf los, aber Verderben sinnend und auf den Augenblick wartend, in dem er n o die im Laub versteckte Büchse wieder aufnehmen konnte. Fragten wir ihn um l d irgend etwas, so stand er diensifertig Rede, die Mütze oder den Hut in der l Hand, stets die politesse der grande nation wahrend, und nur das unheimliche e Feuer in seinenAmgen'verriet die miihsarn verhaltenen Gluten in seinem Innern. t Und gerade so wie dieser Mann verhielt sich der Nachbar drüben im andern t Weinberg und ferne am Sctume des Gehölzes bewegten sich ebenfalls einige verdächtige Blusenntanner, die auf harmloses Holzsammeln ausgegangen h waren, wie der Inhalt ihre Körbe bewies, sobald wir zur Untersuchung i herankamen. s Diese Art des Kleinkrieges fiel uns höchst t i g und wir hatten den a Freischärlern bittere Rache geschworen, wiewohl wir ihrem Patriotismus volle t Anerkennung zollten. . 3 8 8 t This was written a quarter of a century after the war, but the feeling is authentic. To Arnold all i t French men on the Loire appeared as the enemy, one that avoided open conflict and used u devious tricks to escape being shot. His perception of events, which was shared by many, d 385 e conclusions. "Ue s be 3 8 r6 h f ah1l U 387 o 1 a n dunreliability points to a climate of fear and rumours, which was by no means restricted to the common soldiers. A 0n Such e 1 w little t h8 later Rindfleisch, a Prussian officer, commented on another officer who had insisted a poor tailor and father of i 1 e four tn was afranc-tirww 1 Dec. -u n8 1870, Rindfleisch 135. h e . 2 :r 8e"8U n s e r e 3 rr l 1i u L e u 1 fig_pni m, tno. e25; Gronen 36-37; Krumper 159; Kigmhauser 109. Prussian examples: Jesting 98; Kretschman, letter C o la ohis be wife, i 29 d Sept e 1870, Braun (1904) 112-120. g to h e iu l n A v a i tn ä rn

m

l

89 perhaps most, made life difficult for French civilians in that no matter what they did, they would appear guilty, particularly the m e n3 8 9 The men could often not afford to be anything but deferential and non-political towards the Bavarian soldiers, for any other behavior could have invited German wrath. For example, towards the beginning of a war a German snit changed directions and went back through a town, whose inhabitants believed the Bavarians were retreating. A t least one Frenchman taunted them and was knocked out by the rifle butt of an angry Bavarian. 39 °outspoken B y women c o were n t tolerated, r a s t as , long as they conformed to the Bavarians' notion of what was womanly. The Bavarian reserve officer Kmmper observed that the inhabitants of France all looked the same, "Die Männer blaue Blusen, weite Hosen und zwei Hände i n die Taschen. D i e Frauen dagegen appetitlich und m i t weissen Häubchen, dann lebhaft mit Mund und Händen." 391 circumstances they had no choice other than to appear as inconspicuous as possible. A K m m p e r Prussianreserve officer, Rindfleisch, wrote his wife from the Loire on 15 November that, u n d e r s t o o d Ich lag bei einem Kaufmarm. Der ganze Kerl eine Nachtmlitze, mit chronischen Rheumatismus und in jedem Worte des Sinnbild des "Friedens um jeden t h Preis". Das Weib war gleich charakteristisch. Gerade das Gegenteil des e Mannes, und wie es hier oft der Fall zu sein scheint, mit aller der nationalen m e n Erbitterung erftillt, die den wehrfdhigen Männern abgeht.392 ' s He wrote about this to his wife again on 26 November. 'Die Manner reden (wenigstens im b e h Gespräche mit a v i uns) sehr vernünftig und friedesiichtig über die Lage, nur die Weiber sind oft o r völlig ungeberdig in ihrer Kriegslust, namentlich wenn sie sich ihrer Manner schämen . . " a 3 9 3 were observations about the extent to which the French people on the Loire still These s supported d e the war. v Rindfleish suspected that the men were either tired of the war or cowards, i although o he didusense that perhaps they acted otherwise when they were not with the Germans. s , sense in both Krumper's and Rindfleisch's remarks that the women could take One can b advantage of their gender t o y what they really thought, but the men could not and did not do u this, for fear of German wrath. t g French civilian male lives were moderately safe as long as the Bavarians maintained isome semblance of order, either by arresting civilians for court-martial or by restricting their v shootings of civilians to those they believed had fired shots. And when houses were burned, e then n only those from which shots were fired. While these last two possibilities were fraught twith real and potential injustices they still limited the objects of the Bavarians' violence. I n h Ablis there were no such limits. All the houses were burned and all the men were killed. The e 389 3M9y1 ) r3ua9nn1 d rreau, e K 3 92 r sp E r m L e3 t 3 9 iet ra n t ee rt L n d n e 4 ter

90 Germans, including Bavarians, made no effort to discriminate. A ll were guilty. A t the same time the Germans maintained their images of themselvesas protectors of women, children, and old people; they took everything from them, but they spared their lives. Helvig wrote that this was the first time that a whole town was burned down in the wa r , 3 9Hessians 4 b u doing t I two hweeks a ve aer lie r f o u n d of this r e p o r t 9a 5 Suchscenes repeatedthemselves with increasing frequency on the Loire, where the war deepened and violence against civilians became commonplace. Usually only plundering and fire is mentioned in the reports. s i n c e f396 r a n cBs u t h e -t Towards the end of November Bavarian troops entered the area of Châteaudun. 'Die tsi r eou r l d i e r s Bewohner h des gesamten o t Landstriches hatten sich vorher ganz hervorragend am Treiben der ss , o s N ow that the French troops were gone and the Bavarians were beteiligt" itFrcmktireurs t h ieunexpectedly s there French civilians treated the Bavarians with deference. ' S i e mochten tl i k h e Repressalien farchten und hätten scharfe Ahndung verdient, aber leider! verstanden wir in y e l y dieser nur zu schlecht!" e l das Kriegshandwerk i e tb h Hinsicht n unserer a n oSoldaten t h eüberfallen r d wekhe hatten, wurden auf die Wache geliefert und nach av397 t Iezwei c a s e , ' D r e i tt einer Portion Prügel wieder entlassen. " B a u e r n , o h 3 9 8 T h i s w a s of the war. Nevertheless, it is believable, for these authors also wrote of plundering, b ephase re e l a t i v e l y and killing when describing their relations with civilians. rburning, r e s t r a i n e ed Bavarian restraint was perhaps partly due to the individual efforts of officers, although w b the Bavarian e h troops' a condition v i and morale worsened this would have had less of an impact. as eo r there were fewer and fewer officers, and those there were often in bad shape. A t rFurthermore f o r ehigher levels the leadership t h i did attempt to keep things from getting too out of hand, at least on rthe s surface. On 28 October, when an old woman was killed, announcements were posted in e Chécy stating that the authorities were investigating the matter. On 7 November, after an NCO p was e found guilty of killing the woman because of "carelessness" announcements were posted awith the news of his prison sentence. t399 A c c o r d i n g beenexecuted. In another Bavarian officer's memoirs there is a report of an old woman who st o t h e was killed by two men for some cheese. This may have been the same woman. The soldiers o a r m y ' s fwere sentenced l a wto be shot , on 8 November, but their sentences were commuted to prison terms tt h e 394 h s o l d i e 1 3 -9 5 rvon le e l weiland General der Infantrie (Berlin: Reimer, 1903)140. This was deleted from the 1904 edition after 1 C Kretschman r G v much protest; Braun esit gs loudh o (1904)uvi-viii. 1 c el 9h6 3 d 1 m S r0h9ea7 3 a v n, e 3H 9u 8 .m e fl o o Lg a 3 a e 9t 9 o A B br L tn aot n n e r og B te eb

91 because of an old law which recognized that they were going to battle the following day and allowed for a reduction in the severity of their sentences. The officer who wrote about this remembered 'Wir alle waren über die rohe That empört. E s

war dies der einzige mir

bekannte F a l l : 4 becasue a civilian had been killed, for this had become standard fate, but because a woman not W I had been killed. French life hadbecome worth very little indeed on the Loir e . b e l i e v 1 When Bavarian soldiers killed civilians instead of arresting them for trial, they were e t h or less a following a line implicitly desired—by this time perhaps even ordered—by the more t Bavarian military leadership and generally approved of in the veterans' memoirs after the war. t h e Nevertheless it is also probable that by December the Bavarian military leadership's hands were y tied r by e theavery precarious discipline of the 1 Bavarian Corps. On 2 December the crown lprince l remarked y on the I Bavarian Corps in his diary, "die Nachrichten über die Disziplin h [lauten]so ungünstig, daß General von der Tann selbst eingesteht, daß er nicht mehr Pr den a inneren Halt seines Korps aufkommen könne."*Y d 2 e no r other s choice u cthan h to allow plundering and killing that was not directly or only b U n dhad leadership ce o n d i t i o n s tenusously associated with francs-tireurs, even if they had wanted to put a stop to it. ie t Ansimpression of what was happening is conveyed well by Hoelllin's comments to his in ls i ha letter k dated e 27November, l y sister in to a Wir gleichen t ch jetzt seit unserem Rückzug von Orleans einem fliegenden tk h e e Korps, das überall, wohin es kommt, Elend und Jammer verbreitet. D i e d ; Erbitterung unserer Soldaten hat einen so hohen Grad erreicht, daß die Einwohner der berührten Ortschaften schwer darunter zu leiden haben. Es darf h o auch das nicht wundern, wenn Ihr bedenkt daß wir fast jedes Quartier erst mit w e Gewalt nehmen müssen und oft von den Franktireurs mit Pulver und Blei v e empfangen werden, wogegen man auch mit ihnen sehr wenig Umstände macht. r , Wir hätten das im Frieden nie gedacht, daß s o m i t Menschen Leben I umgegangen wird. Doch will ich diese Gedanken nicht fortspinnen.403 s The u civilians had to fear for their property and their lives, and there was not much they could s to protect either. Even killing old womenwas acceptable. do p In this period some participants came to understand the war in social-Darwinist terms as a e "Rassenkrieg" 'Pm or war between two races. Such a term implied a deeper, more basic c t conflict than "people's war" or "national war." Seen this way the war had become a struggle t of h people against people for existance, one in which more and more rules of civilization were 4i W s A Bavarian reserve officer wrote that on 24 November "Die Soldaten erzählen sich, dass vorgestern ein Artillerist 401 /ein w altes Weib todtgeschlagen habe, weil sie ihm den Eintritt in's Haus verwehrt; ein scheusslicher Act, der die K Verrohung unserer Soldtztaten kennzeichnet." Krumper 169. a o 4()2 cs Mei 4 h sne e 4 - 4 r6 Ablis. E 1 2 5 H x 3 a 0 ; o

•

92 ignored, and one which the military leadership was losing control of.

*01111 MT M M11 1°S . q u v a f t i n ' 0 : 1 q w a w a t r a p a m f o g t v u o c t e N g t ' .

93 Conclusions For this essay I have sifted through old literature, both anecdotal and military-technical, in order to get at the root of what happened between the Bavarian army and French civilians in the war of 1870-71. I n doing so I was often forced to rely on books whose authors' had undergone changes in the years since the war had taken pla c e : 5 F o of r tletters u n actually a t e l written y I the war to guide me in judging the authenticity of the editions during f o u n d s o m e veterans' postwar recollections: 1 provisional. ° 6 N e v e r t h e l e s s , soldiers were not well prepared for the war. The army's overdue s o1. The m Bavarian e o reform hadfbegun only two years earlier and had not yet been completed. The Bavarians had tnot yet attained h theesame level of training and discipline as the Prussians, and their rifles were f o l l o w inadequate. At the same time their morale was low because of their 1866 defeat. A ll of these i n g difficulties impacted i s negatively on their behavior towards civilians in France in 1870. This is s owhy the mBavarians e earned notoriety for plundering relatively early in the war. probably w h a t However, to attribute all the infractions and attmcities committed by the Bavarians solely to bad training and discipline would miss the point. The superior and self-confident Prussianarmy also relied on requisitions and civilian quarters to feed and shelter its troops, and in the days prior to Sedan, when the Germans were trying to catch the French, the Prussian leadership even had to let its soldiers look for food on their own. It is doubtful that such things went well for the French civilians, because, as I have shown above, such situations were loaded with potential for injustice, plundering, and conflict. The system of quartering and feeding the troops on the civilians was problematic no matter how good the soldiers' discipline was. On the Loire the Bavarians were worn out and their ranks were decimated by bad weather, long marches, and deadly battles. They were less well prepared for this than the Prussians were, and with time they resembledless an army than an armed horde leaving a trail of death and distruction in its wake. But by December and January the Prussians were also becoming worn out and were sinking to the same depths. Their discipline and training, while superior to the Bavarians', was also no match for this war. At the same time, untrained and unprepared for guerilla warfare, the Prussians and the Bavarians were infected by an atmosphere rife with rumours and fear of f r a nc s twas ir ethe ur result s . Tofh i sactual encounters which did not fit their concept of armed conflict, but some 4a5 O0n6 M Egl offstei n; Hoeßlin Rindfleisch. Some things were edited out of these, but nothing was added 4 t h B e s _ e

94 the Bavarian and Prussian military leadership's own responses helped to create this extreme climate. German nationalist and anti-French sentiments also played a role, as well as the need to avenge one's fallen friends andcomrades. 2. After the war Moltke helped to propagate a widespread belief that during the Franco-German War the Prussian supply system had been highly organized and had functioned well. This was more fiction than fa c t. 4 not organized and trained an adequately functioning supply system, nor did Moltke give such ° matters 7 T hany e consideration in his operations so that the Bavarian and other German soldiers mostly the land and its people. P r uhad s toslive i off a n a nAt thedsaine time the leadership maintained that civilians had no right to defend B a v or otherwise a r itakeaup arms. n themselves This reflected the international law and custom of war m i l i t a r at y the time, but was contrary to European socio-political realities. People no longer unquestioningly l e a accepted d e what r fate their governments or occupyingarmies chose to impose on s h i p them. They believed they had a say in what directly affected their lives. The German military h a leadership knew this and—true to its concept of society—reacted by insisting that the direct d participation of civilians in war was illegitimate and illegal.'" The Prussian-Germanconcept of war dictated that war should consist of battles. Any threat to German soldiers outside of the battlefield was to be eliminated or overcome using any means, so long as military operations were not interfered with. This so-called "military realism" subordinated all considerations of humanity to successful military operations. Thus the German armies took steps far out of proportion to the civilian threat, even to the point of fining, killing, and burning the houses of innocent people. N o measure was too severe if it served military ends as the German military leadership understood them: 4 were affected by requisitions and troops being quartered on them was also of no consequence. 0 After the war the German military leadership formulated this more precisely. A 1913 reader 9 H o w c i v i l i a n s meant for a broad public categorically stated, "Die Führung darf sich von Verpflegungsrücksichten nicht beeinflussen lassen." " I n erster Linie muß stets der Waffenerfolg stehen, der mit allen Mitteln zu erstreben ist und hinter den alle anderen Rücksichten, auch die Verpflegung, zurücktreten müssen." 4113 e f orequisitions r e officers B to make from and organize quarters with civilians, utilizing threats of W o r l d 407creveld, W a Supplying_ r War 103. 408.o place this in an international context, in 1874 in Brussels an international conference agreed that guerillas were I illegal and declared that to be recognized as lawful combatants they "must answer to a specific commander, wear a t h e distinctive badge, carry arms openly and conform in operations to the laws and customs of war." (Asprey) Asprey I , G82. e r m a n 4°9Messerschmidt 18-19. a M. von Schreibershofen, r m Das deutsche Heer. Bilder aus Krieg und Frieden (Berlin: Mis t ein, 1913), 247-248, 4113 quotes y vii, 248. t r a i n

95 burning down villages, taking hostages, etc. to get the job done . 41870 1 1 shows V othat n the Bavarian d e rarmy'sTleadership a n was n 'influenced s by this same dogma. p o l i c y i n 3 The combination of quartering troops on the civilians, requisitioning from them, and imposing harshpunishments for any perceived infractions or threats was de facto a war on the French civilians. Audoin-Rouzeau is correct to say that the civilians formed a "second fr ont." 4the 1 2civilians, suchas the United States had done in its Civil War, the impact of its system of A l t supply h o u taken together with its methods used to punish andscare the civilians into docility had a similar g h effect. This is important, for, as Audoin-Rouzeau points out, the French civilians had tthe last word on 8 February 1871, when they voted for the national assembly which would h decide on the issue of peace. e 413 From the perspective of 8 February it would seem that German measures had been G esuccessful. The French chose peace. Ye t during the war German methods caused much rFrench national agitation. The Germans helped crystalize French nationalism and add to it a m acomponent which boded ill for the future—hatred of the Germans fed by extreme and one-sided images of them as a barbarous enemy. n 4 l 1 e4 4. The Bavarian army was a people's army, filled with men who understood athemselvesas citizen-soldiers and who understood the war as their war. This was not so for d all soldiers, but for a significant number of them—perhaps a majority. Thus from the e Bavarian r sbeginning they were influenced by "hostile feelings" towards the French, which were h i widespread in Bavaria. These included political attitudes towards French behavior in and p before 1870 as well as memories of French occupations at the beginning of the century. For n many Bavarian soldiers the war was a national war, a crusade for Germany. e v At the same time there were Bavarians who opposed the war. Unfortunately their e voices were so effectively silenced in 1870 that they have since remained mute. r In France the Bavarians encounteredarmed civilians from the start. Yet there were also f friendly u relations between the Bavarians and the French. During their first month in France lmany discovered that the French were good people, more or less like themselves. Particularly l the officers enjoyed dining, drinking, and talking with them. This was due to class and y cultural similarities, and perhaps to the officers' influence, but it was also due to the less . d crowded conditions under which the officers were quartered. e 4 v1 1 D Vorbereitung ie auf die französische dolmetschermilfwg), 2nd ed. (Stuttgart Maud, 1913). The difference here was that o d r a would be personel trained to do the job, thus maintaining the troops discipline, who were not supposed to do there lthese , things on their own. See also Schreibershofen 247-248. D o 2 41 e A p 4 1u 3 rd o i A e 4 1u 4 d n - i do A u d e R no -o i d u a

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96 The common soldier was often packed into houses and then things became unpleasant. From the beginning there were also tough requisition scenes and marauding. A n d the Bavarians reacted to francs-tireurs and other French civilian actions taken against them in extreme ways. As the war dragged on the Bavarians' "hostile feelings" increased in their intensity and became more widespread. Good feelings towards the French became fewer. Pleasant scenes continued, but the dominant tone was negative, especially after the war came to resemble a "Rassenkrieg." This negative impression was the one which lasted on in the memories and myths of both countries to poison their relations in the future. 5. Ye t as measured against the scale of violence and horror possible between two peoples the worst extremes were not reached. The cultural tabu on killing women was broken, but fairly rarely, and when it happened it disturbed other Bavarian soldiers and officers. The Bavarians also made distinctions about which men they killed. Although they made the lives of French civilians miserable and dangerous, they never treated the French as the savage Other where nothing was tabu. This says something about the quality o f the Franco-German enmity. I n spite o f everything the Germans and the French showed that they still belonged to the same broad cultural group. Unfortunately social-Darwinist interpretations of the war as a "Rassenkrieg" together with a good memory of all the bad that transpired between them did not let this fact take on much significance for decades to come. After winning the war the Germans believed in and preached their own moral and cultural superiority. T h e Bavarian veterans were no exception. I n the decades preceding World War I they worked hard at portraying themselves as good Germans in order to establish their place of glory and honor in the founding of the new German Empire. When they wrote of the war it was Germany's "grofieZeit, " 4 1 5 a function n d oft theh myriad e important of Bavarian war memoirs which were published after the war. B a v a r i a n s All of these books were German national. The counterpart o f this belief in the superiority of h a d the Germans was of permanent and extreme enmity (Erbleindschaft) between the b e e an ideology n tFrenchh and the e Germans. r e Feeding . this were extreme images o f the French as fanatical T h i s murderers and otherwise immoral beings. This tendency was born of real events in the war, w a but it distorted memories and accounts of what really happened between the Bavarian soldiers s and a French civiliansn in 1870-71. 416 One can see this in the illustrations included in this essay. Th e Bavarians were 415 5 4 e1 e6 e Ronzeau 272, 321-322. F l .e g . isc th e r

97 portrayed as properly uniformed, well disciplined soldiers who had done their duty in the war against France and at the same time had protected women and children. The French were cowardly and devious murderers who used questionable methods. Th i s was an important component o f the German nationalism which was strengthened and reshaped i n some Bavarians and awoken in others by the war of 1870-71. Such images boded ill for the future because they taught the next generations to see the French as their enemy and believe that war with them would be just and necessary. Such pictures also taught that drastic measures were justified and necessary to deal with the enemy. The description of the picture entitled "Feldwache an der Loire" (after page 80) did not mince words. Es wird jedem Feldzugsteilnehmer wohl unvergeßlich bleiben, mi t welchen Schwierigkeiten die Bayern infolge der Unsicherheit durch die Volksaufhetzung im Süden Frankreichs zu kämpfen hatten. Wa r Gefahr im Verzug, so spielte der Landeingesessene den friedlichen Bauern, glaubte er aber seiner Beute sicher zu sein, so gri ff er flugs zur Flinte, um hinterrücks auf ahnungslose Patrouillen zu schießen. Wer aber von ihnen auffrischer Tat und mit der Waffe in der Hand erwischt wurde, mit dem wurde kurzer Prozeß gemacht. E r wurde an den nächsten Baum oder die nächste Mauer gestellt, eine Abteilung Filsiliere legte au/ihn an, und er dzofte seine Seele Gott befehlen.417 This had the appearance of justice being served because the cunning Frenchman had been caught red-handed, and the way he had been killed resembled not a murder but an execution. But such behavior deviated greatly from nineteenth century peacetime standards. Su ch an image brought "military realism" into the common household and made it acceptable. I t helped to condition German civilians to a different set of morals and rules in war, or rather to fewer of them This is significant because in future European wars the entire German nation would be mobilized.

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