Thanks to the high-speed relay of the semaphore telegraph, when Duc de Brunswick led his 23,000-man Prusso-Austrian Coalition main force west out of the Verdun fortress and into the Argonne Forest, it took only two to three hours for both the forward command of the Army of the Meuse and the Northern Command Headquarters at Suippes to learn the news in succession.
The General Staff judged that, at Clermont—20 kilometres ahead—the Coalition main force would join up with General Clermont-Clifford’s northward detachment and General Hess’s southward detachment. At that point, the Prusso-Austrian Coalition would have 45,000 men, 5,000 more than previously estimated. Even so, the overall commander at the front, General Moncey, and the chief of staff, Berthier, agreed that those extra 5,000 enemy troops would have no effect on what was to come.
After all, the French were fielding 110,000 troops against the Coalition’s 45,000—an advantage of 2.5 times. There was, in principle, no possibility of losing this battle. André, commanding from the Suippes headquarters 21 kilometres away, felt the same.
Yet after he turned away, André—still uneasy in his own mind—issued a secret order to General Chassé, commander of the gendarmerie: he was to arm to the utmost the 20,000 workers of the United Industries base near Chalons-en-Champagne, together with the reserve NCOs drilling at the Bacourt camp, and the cadets and instructors of the Reims infantry school, cavalry school, and artillery school. These 23,000 men were to appear at the most critical moment, and they were to be able to reach the eastern battlefield directly within five to eight hours.
133,000 against 45,000 still meant an advantage approaching three times the enemy’s strength. Berthier and the forward commanders swore repeatedly that, in a defensive fight on the prepared hill positions, the French—supported by superior artillery—could bleed an equal number of Prussian troops white before the line, without allowing them to advance a step; moreover, a French force twice as large could certainly withstand the Prussian army’s mad assaults head-on, as the fight at the village of Tigny—where the Prussian southward detachment had been checked—had already proved.
André also knew that the troops in that Meuse Valley encounter were not even his own core forces, but merely a detachment of reinforcements from the Army of the Rhine under General Custine. Soon, in a routine conference of senior officers, after reviewing again and again the gains and losses of the Meloncourt delaying action and the Tigny encounter, General Moncey—cautious by nature, yet confident—wrote to the supreme commander of the Northern Theater in a strikingly optimistic tone:
“Today’s Prussian army is no longer the invincible force it was in the Seven Years’ War. When they stormed Longwy, they could still display eight or nine tenths of their fighting power; once they marched out of Verdun, at most they retained half. Now, there is nothing that can prevent us from achieving this great victory.”
From a tactical standpoint, the Prussian army was an antique fit for a museum. Its organization and doctrine were built for a formal pitched battle on open ground—square against square—where the decisive factor was marching in perfect order until within forty or fifty paces, then delivering a full volley at once. At such close range, the killing power was terrible; it was Frederick the Great’s successful method in the Seven Years’ War.
The Prussians’ greatest weakness lay in their artillery. The reserve artillery Frederick the Great had founded existed only on paper, and the logistics system had never been improved, remaining as clumsy as ever. The heavy Prussian supply columns, constrained by the mountains and hills of Lorraine, could not maneuver rapidly.
To ensure the Coalition main force would be surrounded and destroyed, the artillery commander, General Senarmont, transferred all eighty of the newest André cannon developed by the Reims armories—primarily 12-pound Napoleon-style bronze guns—to the Army of the Meuse’s main front. He also prepared abundant ammunition: five “bases” in reserve (one base being thirty rounds per gun), including the precious howitzer shells.
There was no doubt that these gods of war would shine in a positional fight among hills and broken ground. For reasons of concealment, General Moncey, commanding at the front, still issued to the French detachments sent north and south to delay the Prussian army only the thirty-odd older guns. Even so, the well-trained French gunners, with their high accuracy, made the Prussians suffer bitterly and complain without end.
As for the Army of the Meuse’s deployment: on the southern wing, 20,000 reinforcements from the Army of the Rhine under General Custine held the southern sector (another 10,000 from those reinforcements had already been incorporated into the main front). On the northern wing, General Macdonald’s 15,000 men continued to hold the Chalade–Varennes–Meloncourt line.
The frontal defense was personally directed by General Moncey, commander of the Army of the Meuse: it included 35,000 infantry and cavalry, and—his trump card—General Senarmont’s 80 new guns.
At Suippes, 21 kilometres from the Valmy heights, where the Northern Command Headquarters was located, General Chassé led the 40,000-strong strategic reserve. After learning that the Prussian corps had moved west, he was ready at any moment to reinforce the Army of the Meuse. Now he needed only the order from Commander-in-Chief André and Chief of Staff Berthier: the 40,000-man reserve corps could reach the battlefield in three to four hours; if forced to march, it would take only two.
On September 19, after Chief of Staff Berthier and his staff went down to the forward command of the Army of the Meuse, the northern commander André and General Chassé, responsible for the grand reserve, remained at Suippes headquarters, waiting for the Battle of Valmy to begin in earnest.
In the Command Headquarters office, with nothing to do, André leafed through the enemy situation reports from the Army of the North and the Army of the Rhine. These had been delivered half an hour earlier by the intelligence officer, Captain Grisel.
The Army of the North, under Farrel and Hoche, still held the Nivelles–Wavrehaim–Torhout–Nieuwpoort (the Atlantic) line, in the central-southern region of East Flanders and West Flanders: first, to guard against a southward raid by the Austrian Netherlands forces; second, to cooperate with General Lefebvre of the Army of the Meuse in maintaining strategic pressure on the Bohemian corps around the Ardennes plateau (forest), forcing the Austrian army to be unable to pass smoothly through the Ardennes.
Because General Custine had taken away 30,000 of the Army of the Rhine’s main strength, General Kellermann and the remainder of the Army of the Rhine had only 20,000 men. Besides strengthening the Rhine defensive system at Strasbourg, they also had to continue watching the Prusso-Austrian Coalition’s left-wing corps stationed around Metz. Although the Coalition at Metz had fewer than 8,000 men, the highest order from the Northern Command Headquarters demanded only that the Army of the Rhine hold its ground and, before victory at Valmy, never take the initiative to attack.
This was because André and Berthier hoped to annihilate as much as possible of the 140,000-strong Prusso-Austrian Coalition (including 10,000 émigré rebel troops) within French territory, clearing the road for the next phase: the invasion of the Southern and Northern Netherlands (Belgium and the Netherlands) and the campaign in western Germany (Mainz, Koblenz, and the like).
“Damn, this is boring,” André muttered after finishing the reports, sounding utterly idle.
At first, he had wanted to follow Berthier down to the forward command, but he was jointly blocked by the chief of staff and General Moncey, commander of the Army of the Meuse. Though the northern commander swore that he would never interfere in the front’s command authority, Moncey still refused, even saying bluntly, “Forgive me, sir. From now until the moment the battle begins, the role you can play will not exceed that of an ordinary courier.”
It was true that as the God-Favoured, André’s strategic foresight and sense for the direction of events were so accurate as to seem uncanny; but when it came to tactical command, his level was, at best, that of a regimental commander (a compliment). In fact, when the Champagne Composite Regiment had been formed at Bordeaux, its battlefield commanders had always been Moncey and Hoche. André had always been the army’s commander-in-chief, its spiritual leader—and its quartermaster-general.
…
After passing the Northern Command Headquarters’ third checkpoint, Beaumarchais still looked extremely constrained. As a playwright past sixty, he stood before a large full-length mirror in the vestibule, fussing endlessly with his silver wig, brown coat, white shirt, stockings, and polished leather shoes.
Only when Captain Grisel—who had accompanied him—began to show open impatience did Monsieur Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais finish straightening himself and take his place before the commander-in-chief’s office, waiting to be received.
“So this fellow is Beaumarchais?” André asked his intelligence aide in a low voice.
Even after Captain Grisel confirmed it several times, André still found it hard to believe: the celebrated merchant, inventor, politician, gifted lover and devoted father, and brilliantly talented playwright of French history—Beaumarchais—was this very man before him, a withered old fellow cowering and grinning obsequiously.
The Beaumarchais of history, deeply influenced by Voltaire and Montesquieu and other Enlightenment thinkers, had once—promoting the political principle that “all men are born equal” and defending the interests of the oppressed—publicly exposed judicial corruption in a Paris courtroom. For that, he had been arrested and imprisoned by Louis XV’s royal guards. As the price of freedom, Louis XV had sent him to London as a spy to retrieve a confidential document of national importance… Later generations even made a film based on his adventures, The Proud Beaumarchais.
Now, the Beaumarchais standing before André was not proud at all; and anything further would only wound a famous man’s fragile pride. After all, ten days earlier he had walked right up to the gates of death—if Javert had not arrived in time at the For-l’évêque prison, this famed playwright might already have been a corpse abandoned in the wild.
“Please, sit wherever you like, Monsieur Beaumarchais. Oh, and what would you like to drink—coffee? champagne? hot cocoa?” André rose to welcome him and asked in a friendly tone. But before the dull and hesitant guest could even respond, André gestured for two cups of hot coffee to be brought at once.
André continued, “I trust Monsieur Javert has already told you. I need an outstanding playwright to write—no, not for me, but for the 200,000 French soldiers of the Northern Theater who are fighting and bleeding—a script for a stage musical. More precisely, it must depict and portray the grand scenes of the War of National Defense of 1792 being fought tens of kilometres from here. Yes—great France will win. This will be the burial ground of 140,000 Prusso-Austrian Coalition troops and rebels.
“Mm. Just as I declared in the Assembly hall, the name of this script and musical will be The Sacred War. As for the lyrics and the songs, I have already prepared them. All right—I’ll hum one for you first:
‘Great nation, fight to the death,
Destroy the German evil power,
Destroy the vile rebels…’
“…It’s fine, I know you are not skilled in musicals. My aide will take you to temporary quarters in a moment—there are more than ten composers and musicians there. Their experiences are not so different from yours; you can exchange ideas. In a few days, another group of actors will arrive as well.”
André further emphasized that, beyond the overall backdrop of the war, he believed this stage musical, The Sacred War, should contain multiple main threads. First: from the vantage point of history, it must reflect, in a comprehensive way, the great and radiant image of General André, the supreme commander of the North. Second: it should follow the growth of an ordinary soldier—a farmer’s son near Reims—who, under the great commander’s call, fights bravely and matures through battle. A third line, featuring émigré nobles as the villainous force, would show an exiled aristocrat achieving enlightenment at the final moment, raising the flag and turning against the Coalition on the battlefield, blocking the enemy’s retreat until he gives his life and thereby redeems his family’s former shame.
Most stage plays of the age were shallow tragedies or comedies; even Beaumarchais’s two great successes, The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, had fairly simple plots. What André wanted, by contrast, was a vast historical war panorama.
Since the era had no film, television, or photographs, André believed the stage musical would be his best propaganda weapon. Compared with newspapers, which never spoke, the stage musical’s power to stir the crowd and summon action was far greater—especially because its classic songs would be passed down forever, until even his enemies could not help humming a few lines.
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Thus André forcibly seated Beaumarchais in his chair and made him write at speed, while André himself paced back and forth in the room, recalling earlier scenes and songs.
Perhaps because of his Chinese father in his previous life, he was familiar with many Soviet propaganda tunes.
The popular “Evening Outside Moscow” had already been renamed “Night Outside Reims”; the widely sung “Katyusha” had likewise been renamed “Marguerite” (in memory of André’s lost lover); and “The Red Berries Blossom” had been adapted and “Frenchified” in content.
As for “The Red Army Is the Strongest,” André had first wanted to rename it “The Blue Army Is the Strongest,” but the damned Prussians also wore dark-blue uniforms—so the final version became “The Army of the Meuse Is the Strongest.”
Naturally, the classic “Farewell of Slavianka” became “Farewell to the Women of France.”
At first, André had worried that French, once converted from Russian tunes, might feel awkward, but he soon relaxed: Soviet marches, after all, had largely inherited the musical tradition of France’s own “La Marseillaise,” and the like.
…
The last piece was a Soviet-style great-power chauvinist march written by the Americans—“The Soviet March”—which André rewrote into “The March of France.” It marked that, after victory in the War of National Defense, the 200,000-strong French army would turn north and east to continue its advance, punishing all of German lands.
“The great commander shall punish all of Germany,
From the Baltic straight to the Mediterranean;
Everywhere on earth shall resound: flowers, fine wine—the French soldiers have arrived!
The great commander shall punish all of Germany,
From the Baltic straight to the Mediterranean;
Everywhere on earth shall resound: all shall face this fact—
The great conqueror has become reality.
Bow deeply, with reverence and gratitude, to the mightiest conqueror on the European continent!
All shall face this fact—
The great conqueror has become reality.
Bow deeply, with reverence and gratitude, to the mightiest conqueror on the European continent!
Long live him! Long—live him!”
In Russia, ever since Peter the Great, the country had long regarded Europe with intense envy and profound admiration, almost abandoning, in Peter’s own words, the “pitiful self-respect of barbarians,” and studying the European great powers with an obsession bordering on madness—culture and etiquette, industrial manufacture, military systems…
This was reflected directly in song and poetry: Russian writers would first compose in French; only after their works circulated widely in high society would they finally be translated into Russian. Even in André’s former era, the reborn double-headed eagle of Russia still could not resist appending a line of French to the title of its national anthem as a mark of authenticity. As for the Soviet era—its relationship with Europe turned from love to hatred; not only political consciousness was involved, but also a kind of geographical prejudice…
In the supreme commander’s office, the elderly Beaumarchais plainly could not keep up with General André’s nearly frenzied “creative” tempo. Only now did the famed playwright truly grasp why so many poets in Paris had been so envious and jealous of this soldier who refused to mind his own business—enough to make them all collectively eat dirt.
What made André especially hateful was that the “hookup” costs of poets—or men who fancied themselves poets—with Parisian ladies had once risen sharply. After all, in this age (and in later ages as well), there were not many Frenchmen—or Europeans—who could surpass Pushkin’s level of verse.
Beaumarchais guessed that, before long, the ranks of the envious would also include lyricists, composers, and playwrights.
When André turned back, he saw Beaumarchais clutching his own throat, as if he were about to suffocate—likely because the playwright’s mind had been stuffed full by the sheer volume of information André had poured into him. André immediately stopped, gestured for the old man to put down pen and paper, and drink some coffee to rest.
“Are all our musician friends present?” André asked Captain Grisel, who remained stationed in a corner of the room.
“Yes, sir,” the intelligence officer rose and replied. “They are rehearsing in the church hall of the quarters area.”
André glanced at Beaumarchais, then ordered the captain, “In ten minutes—no, in thirty minutes—have them gather in the meeting room next door, with pencils and blank paper ready. Oh, and also call that Polish lancer captain, Józef Wybicki. Notify General Chassé to attend as well.”
After several cups of coffee, once the playwright entered a working rhythm, he forgot his earlier restraint and worry. He made a whole list of demands to André, without the slightest politeness:
“Commander, I need five hundred soldiers who can sing, of equal height, strong in physique, to serve as chorus and harmony. Second, I need to reorganize a large military band with an orchestra at its core. Yes—drummers and buglers are crucial. Also, male and female soloists and ensembles will require at least thirty performers…”
André replied readily, “No problem. Choose from any of the 200,000 soldiers in the three armies; as for the band, every regiment has its own. Anyone you like, with decent skills—just conscript them directly. I will have the gendarmerie cooperate with your work. As for soloists, we will try to select from within the army first. For the female solos in pieces like ‘Marguerite,’ I suggest you look at the field hospitals and find the nurses. Don’t worry—those young girls, or old girls, have all returned to the secular life. They are no longer nuns serving God…”
It must be said: the great classical composers of eighteenth-century Europe were almost monopolized by Germans—Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and the like. Mozart was already dead, Haydn was in London, and Beethoven was in Vienna. Fortunately, after the Revolution of August 10, André had instructed Javert to gather up a whole batch of displaced lyricists, composers, musicians, and performers in Paris—people who had previously played for the court, and therefore naturally became targets of the revolutionary crowds.
André had never heard of these individuals, but from Beaumarchais’s excited expression, those “masters” seated in the meeting room were likely not charlatans. Naturally, André also used his authority to requisition the lyricists and composers of both “The Departure Song” (the Army of the North’s marching song) and “La Marseillaise” (the Army of the Rhine’s marching song).
“Gentlemen,” André addressed them, “I believe the purpose of this gathering is perfectly clear. At the moment of victory in this War of National Defense, I require a grand musical-and-dance epic—one that, amid magnificent scenes, will praise the 200,000 soldiers of France who fight and bleed for the nation. And of course, their families, and the commanders of the battlefield… At my invitation, Monsieur Beaumarchais has agreed to serve as the overall director of this musical-and-dance epic, while my aide, Captain Grisel, will act as liaison officer. Any funds, personnel, venues, props, and materials you require—indeed, anything at all—go to him.”
André added the word “dance” on Beaumarchais’s advice, because mere spoken drama—or even a pure musical—could not deeply convey the iron tenderness of soldiers parting from their lovers before marching out, or the fearless sacrifice and devotion displayed on the battlefield. But through dance and physical movement, the visual effect André wanted could be rendered extremely well.
After André’s talk with Beaumarchais before the meeting, he immediately abandoned the third main thread (the rebels), reducing it to a minor subplot. On Beaumarchais’s suggestion, The Sacred War would be divided into five acts:
Act One: Land of Peace and Freedom. Depicting the happy and beautiful life of the people of Alsace, Lorraine, and Champagne before war erupts, featuring songs “Night Outside Reims,” “Oh, Mother,” and “The Red Berries Blossom,” all “composed” by General André.
Act Two: The Evil Invasion. Showing the German Coalition’s assault on northeastern France, burning, killing, looting—every crime without exception. Here, André, as head of state, personally serves as supreme war commander and delivers a stirring speech in the National Assembly hall; thus the “Sacred War” begins. The soldiers follow the supreme commander to the front, singing “Ah, My Friends, Farewell!” (originally an Italian partisan song).
Act Three: Defend the Homeland. Champagne’s Reims is mobilized first: reserve soldiers, having received their call-up orders, part from their loved ones while singing “Farewell to the Women of France” (originally “Farewell of Slavianka”), then march to the eastern front. At home, families sing “Marguerite” (originally “Katyusha”) again and again, urging their beloved to fight for the nation, kill the enemy, and return victorious.
Act Four: The Great Victory. The Army of the North sings “The Departure March,” resisting the enemy in the Austrian Netherlands; the Army of the Rhine, under the inspiration of “The Marseillaise March,” successfully holds the Rhine and Strasbourg. On the main Champagne front, 110,000 French soldiers, to the accompaniment of “The Army of the Meuse Is the Strongest” (originally “The Red Army Is the Strongest”), encircle and annihilate the Coalition’s main force, winning the great victory of the War of National Defense.
Act Five: The Tree of Liberty. Victory in the War of National Defense is only a new beginning of Europe’s war of liberation. On stage, André’s solemn oath in the Assembly hall is recreated:
“…I swear that driving out the invaders is not the end of this war, but the beginning of the Sacred War!
I swear that the revolutionary tricolor shall fly high over Luxembourg, Brussels, Cologne, Mainz, Koblenz, Berlin—and Vienna!
I swear that the Tree of Liberty shall be planted across the European continent!”
Thus, under the background music of “The March of France” (originally “The Soviet March”), more than 200,000 French soldiers—driven by powerful revenge—sweep across every land of the Holy Roman Empire (including Prussia, Austria, the German states, the Northern and Southern Netherlands, and Italy) like a flood and a wild beast.
There were also other fine war songs. Yet André either did not know them or had forgotten their tunes and lyrics, and could only state his requirements and have Beaumarchais’s team compose selectively.
…
Seemingly for political purposes, André demanded—openly and covertly—that Beaumarchais do everything possible to weaken the contributions of the capital Paris and the Jacobins to the war, strictly forbidding any portrayal of the September massacres, and repeatedly emphasizing instead the sacrifice and devotion of ordinary people and the broad ranks of officers and soldiers of Champagne and the Northern Theater. Naturally, the positive image of Commander André must be supreme and incomparable.
André’s favorite piece, “Farewell to the Women of France,” began with Tsarist-style tenderness, then continued in a Soviet style of dominance and grandeur. André wrote lyrics such as: “In August, we stormed the Tuileries; in September, we destroyed 140,000 German bandits; in October, we flooded across the entire Holy Roman Empire…”
“My only demand is this: in October, when Europe’s war of liberation is pushed into the full breadth of German lands, the 200,000 French soldiers marching out must see—or hear—a grand musical-and-dance epic!”
After assigning the overall task, André departed with the gendarmerie commander, leaving more than thirty musical dramatists and lyricists in the room, waiting for Beaumarchais, as overall director, to refine the work, redistribute responsibilities, and then set everyone to their intense and orderly labor.
…
September 21, the Islettes Pass.
Duc de Brunswick and his Prusso-Austrian Coalition trudged along the broad post road of the Argonne Forest, taking nearly two full days before reaching the Islettes Pass. Reconnaissance cavalry returned to report that the French had built two defensive lines at the pass: within the parapets were at least 2,000 defenders and more than twenty guns.
Yesterday afternoon, Duc de Brunswick joined up at Clermont with General Clermont-Clifford’s northward detachment and General Hess’s southward detachment. The Coalition main force had now recovered to 45,000 men, carrying 45 guns—though ammunition was short, and, because of the continuous rains, the powder had been badly dampened and required drying.
When Duc de Brunswick raised his telescope, he saw, half a league away, the French troops thrown into confusion the moment they heard the Coalition had arrived. The infantry ran back and forth aimlessly; the positions looked chaotic. Soldiers’ shouting and officers’ curses tangled together.
At the same time, the French command post also received reports, and the commanders panicked as well. Several officers rushed out, swinging riding whips and lashing violently at the panicked men fleeing in all directions, trying to drive them back behind the parapet. Yet the infantry formations along the forward line remained a mess. Some soldiers, humiliated and enraged by the officers’ merciless whipping, even seized their weapons and glared at their superiors…
Nearby, the Prussian crown prince, Wilhelm III, lowered his telescope and burst into loud laughter. Before long, the young man stepped closer, went to Duc de Brunswick, and said in a low voice, “My dear uncle and commander-in-chief—these ‘brave French soldiers’ are the so-called elite of the Army of the Meuse that has kept you worried? Give me one regiment—no, only one infantry battalion—and I will take the Islettes Pass.”
The old duke could not be bothered to respond to the young crown prince’s rude provocation, and simply ignored him. The commander-in-chief observed that, although the pass terrain was relatively flat and light cavalry could force its way through, there were many large broken stones below the road. If cavalry charged up by force, the losses in horses would be heavy—likely the French had arranged it deliberately.
In Lorraine earlier, the old duke might have considered a light cavalry raid, but after a long series of marches, the number of horses lost to disease and exhaustion was far beyond expectation. More importantly, within France it was difficult to replace horses at all, so many German cavalrymen had become infantry with sabres, reassigned into infantry regiments.
Thus the commander and his chief of staff agreed to use infantry to take the two lines at the pass. The task was assigned to General Clermont-Clifford, who ordered Colonel Ernst von Massenbach to lead the Fifth Infantry Regiment—now replenished with replacements—as the main assault force. Nearly twenty guns from three artillery companies would support the attack.
Fifteen minutes later, Colonel Ernst von Massenbach’s Fifth Regiment had assembled at the foot of the heights. The artillerymen were still far behind, panting as they dragged the heavy guns uphill. As always, the French had sabotaged the road: ditches were everywhere, and massive trees blocked the way. For nimble infantry this was of little consequence—they merely had to bend down a few more times. But guns that could not bend and packhorses that did not understand words were at a severe disadvantage.
About five minutes later, an artillery liaison officer ran up to report that the twenty guns still needed fifteen minutes to reach the battlefield, and asked Colonel Ernst von Massenbach to wait.
The colonel shook his head and smiled. Turning back to the neatly formed ranks, he shouted, “Brothers! The French are waiting for us on the heights, waiting for us to win glory and wealth. Tell me—by the gods—should we wait for three artillery companies to come and share your honor and pride?”
“Let the artillery go to hell!”
“Yes—yes! Leave them twenty piles of shit, one pile per gun!”
The infantry roared in reply. They had suffered badly before Meloncourt, and many suspected it was the damned artillery’s fault—that the gunners had shirked their work and failed to suppress French fire (in truth, under the torrential rain, misfires had been too frequent). Today, the French had only one infantry battalion and five guns on the first line; moreover, the sky was clear, and the weather was especially suitable for infantry fighting in formation.
Thus Colonel Ernst von Massenbach decided to shake off the damned artillery and win this inevitable victory alone, washing away the humiliation of days past with the enemy’s blood.