"French debacle in 1870" Topic

A year or two back I started a thread about the perilous state of French supplies in 1870 and how this ham-strung their effort at the start of the war. This arose from re-reading Howard's "The Franco-Prussian War" and noting that French troops were begging for food in French towns near the front. Wawro's (yes, I know there are issues) history of the war notes a French corps CO sending one of his divisions back to the railhead with empty backpacks ordered to pick up supplies and bring them up. This is a strange use of trained regular infantry.

My mistake was to say that France couldn't feed her troops in her own country. People took exception to this. France the nation could provide enough supplies and the French civilian railroad system could carry them. The problem was that the amateurish French staff was unable to load and label rail cars efficiently and couldn't offload them at the front in a reasonable manner.

This led to the French front line officers being in the midst of a severe supply problem once they moved away from the railheads. Adriance's "To the Last Gaiter Button" tells the sad tale.

How could this be? The French staff had a cavalier attitude about boring rail schedule plans. They assumed it could be done on the fly. Their sly name for this attitude was "se debrouiller", which can be translated as "we'll muddle through somehow". Even more jocular was "le Systeme De" or System D.

This ad-hoc system had worked for expeditions of corps strength and below. It had more than a few problems when armies of 100,000 or so had been deployed in Italy in 1859 but victory soon disguised the problems.

In 1870 when a quarter million troops were mobilized the "system" fell apart. Any decent history of the Franco-Prussian War details the wildly incompetent mobilization of the French Army. I used to assume the problem was over once the troops were delivered. The chaos of the mobilization didn't end with the arrival of the troops.

Formations didn't have most of their animal transport*, needed to move supplies from the railheads to the troops in the field. Boxcars were sent up loaded haphazardly without bills of lading, to stations with platforms too short to offload the entire trains. This was the result of le Systeme D. The civilian railroads provided the trains as asked. The staff then fouled it up. Unopened cars were sent on to Metz where they sat on sidings and were ignored. When Metz surrendered it had some 30,000 boxcars in the yards. Perhaps if Bazaine had set a division to opening these he would have been able to hold out longer.
But that would have required gumption.

The supply problem could have been fixed if enough time was available. But the Prussians advanced and attacked before the mess could be sorted out. It is notable that during the frontier battles, French corps never marched to the sound of the guns while the Germans routinely did so, and they usually had the numbers at these battles.

The French generals at the frontier were supine. Perhaps the ongoing crisis with basic supplies was part of this. Imagine the stress of commanding hundreds of thousands of troops who were on half or quarter rations and begging food from civilians. This would be problem enough if the enemy were a long distance away leaving you alone.

The French did learn from this. Their staff instituted post-war meetings with the civilian railroad personnel and worked the kinks out. As a result, in 1914 troops could be taken from the eastern end of a long front and transported to form an army threatening the German western flank, leading to the miracle of the Marne. The miracle was the product of mundane planning and smooth execution. Derisory planning and botched execution led to the disaster of 1870.

* Note in the American Civil War when Longstreet's Corps and then Hooker's troops were sent west in late 1863. All went without their animal transport and both forces were relegated to staying near the rail lines until wagons and animals could be procured.

You are operating with a full clip here. I agree. In the Crimea the French had the better harbor and could bring up supplies, the second winter notwithstanding. The Italian campaign was brief and the French were fighting an identically armed foe more disorganized than they were. The wonder is that the Prussian "figured it out" and brought the bullets to bear. The French were superb at perhaps the brigade level but the rot had set in above. I read a book about the cavalry and the French were consistently outmatched. The Prussians were concerned with winning and the French not losing. Lack of food and supplies is not always fatal but the lack of aggression certainly is.God, I love the French, the ghost of Napoleon lingers.

The French suffered as much from their over-confidence in their weapons and their faulty tactical conceptions as from the fouled up mobilization and the logistical problems. They did not march to the sound of the guns because their experiences in Italy had convinced them that the defensive would be superior to the offensive. All they had to do was sit tight and let the Germans batter their army to pieces.

This would be aided by the "superior" Chassepot, with which the French infantry would destroy the Prussian hordes before they could bring their shorter-ranged Dreyse needle guns to bear. In fact, since French officers were given no training in range estimation, much less the men, fire was often opened at ridiculous ranges with little or no effect, and, since nobody had bothered to stress fire discipline, the French firing line found itself short of ammunition when the Germans finally assaulted the isolated and outnumbered French defenders.

As far as the artillery went, the technically inferior French guns were beaten down because the Prussians had learned the lessons of 1866 and deployed their batteries well forward and en masse, while the French carefully kept their guns behind the main line and maintained a sizable artillery reserve, which, if it was used at all, was only committed after the German guns had destroyed the initial French batteries, and the outnumbered reserves had to face the full weight of the Teutonic cannonade.

Cavalry was a little more even; both armies had faulty battlefield tactics. But, again, Moltke's soldiers had learned some of the lessons of 1866 and were more adept at screening and scouting than their French adversaries.

What are the issues with Wawro?

The initial Fr plans were of the traditional " carry the war outside, implemented since Richelieu.
Supply pb came swiftly as the huge forward suply depot(s) in Saint Avold station, very close to the border was taken by grateful Germans whose supplying war, never was a main interest.
Someone wrote about their failures ( Creveld?) I remember vaguely as they won too quickly in 66 to learn. They were sort of more efficiently " running on fumes" in 1870-71.

Faulty French doctrines, inept commanders, bad luck, bad habits from colonial warfare ( hello nowadays warriors?).
The railways was in the hands of several private companies, trying not to lose anything. Civilizn employees understandably running away from risks.
Train with 1 million rations arriving late in Prussian hands in Metz.
Annother running with engineering supplies leaving the demolition parties stranded, opening the bridge for encirclement at Sedan.

I don't think the Germans either had military railroad units either.

A huge mess on both sides, with the Germans swimming better in it.

The German staff had extensive meetings with railroad personnel to work out arrangements before the war. They also put bills of lading on the outside of the cars in a waterproof case. One look told you what was in the car. French staff had their first meetings with railroad personnel while the war was under way.

While German logistical arrangements creaked, they functioned. Compared to the chaotic French non-system they looked like a machine.

The French were superb at perhaps the brigade level

Yes. Too bad the top leadership was so poor.

They went to war in the midst of a massive re-organisation effort, political and military. Which tends to be bad.

I have been studying peace and conflict for a decade, and the decision of Napoleon III to got to war in 1870 still make no sense. I have good logical narratives for WW1, even for the Schlesvwig-Holstein wars, but try as I might I lift my hands up with Napoleon III in 1870. It rivals Louis XVIs decision to unite with the men who wanted his head in declaring war to Austria during the liberal phase of the French Revolution.

vtsaogames,

if you can find a copy of "To the Last Gaiter Button", it covers the supply and logistic plans and then goes into detail on how its execution fell apart. I am referring to the book, which IIRC may be out of print, not the wargame rules of the same title.

One difference between 1870 and 1914, Joffre was an engineer whose specialty was railroads. Napoleon III, Marshal Bazaine and General MacMahon were not.

I guess the French learned nothing from the ACW and the extensive use of rail.

Oh they used trains alright -mainly to distribute the army all over France in chaos.

If we're going to (rightly) criticize French rail logistics in 1870, let's at least give Napoleon III credit for innovative and successful use of strategic movement by rail to set up the battle of Magenta in 1859.

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
link
bloodybigbattles.blogspot.fr

I read somewhere, that many/most of the French wagon drivers were civilian contractors, who often didn't hang around when the shooting started, furthering hampering the supply issue.

The French approach to war and who should fight was different to that of the Germans.

The French had the idea that war was to be left to a small professional army, not to amateurs. Amazingly the French did not fully mobilize it's male population for war. It had little or no reserve units, indeed no reserve system to speak of.

The county which had practically invented mass conscription a century ago did not have a plan to do so. Where as the Prussian General Staff System (something else the French did not have) had developed a good reserve system which was a component of the standing army.

It wasn't until the Republican phase of the war that the French fully mobilized. Had the French developed an integrated reserve system as did the Prussians then of course, things may have turned out differently. But by 1871 there was very little of a corps of regulars left to rally around.

They were kinda transitioning to a full reserve system(and the political system to support it) when the war erupted.If the war had happened let us say in 1875 it would had been a different story. Those guards mobiles and guards nationale of 1871 where organisations created in the Empire, not after it. Yes they were not as good a German regulars, but still the structure permitted the Republic to raise massive armies in a small amount of time.