Battle of Sedan (1870)
스당 전투 (1870)
The battle of 1–2 September 1870 in which Moltke's German Third and Meuse Armies encircled and annihilated MacMahon's French Army of Châlons at the fortress town of Sedan on the Meuse. Napoleon III was taken prisoner with 104,000 men, the Second Empire collapsed and a republic was proclaimed in Paris on 4 September.
In depth
When Bazaine's Army of the Rhine, pushed back at Gravelotte on 18 August, was shut up in Metz, Napoleon III and MacMahon set out with the 130,000-strong Army of Châlons, formed on 17 August, to relieve it. The army marched north-east towards the Belgian border to avoid the Prussians, leaving both flanks exposed. Moltke detached three corps from the siege of Metz to form the Army of the Meuse under the Crown Prince of Saxony, turned north with it and the Third Army and fell on the French at Beaumont on 30 August. Having lost 7,500 men and 40 guns, MacMahon abandoned the link-up with Bazaine and withdrew into the obsolete seventeenth-century fortress of Sedan to rest the army and, in his words, manoeuvre in front of the enemy; he underestimated the German strength and refused General Douay's request to dig trenches, saying the army would not stay long. By 9 a.m. on 1 September the Prussian V and XI Corps had closed the ring to the north-west. The battle had begun at 4 a.m. with a Bavarian surprise attack on Bazeilles; when MacMahon was wounded, Ducrot took command and ordered a retreat, but Wimpffen, who held a government commission to succeed him, overruled it and counter-attacked.
From 11 a.m. German artillery on all sides drove the French into the Bois de la Garenne; on Ducrot's orders General Margueritte's cavalry charged Floing three times, Margueritte was mortally wounded and 791 men fell. When the Prussian Guard took the wood at 2:30 p.m. the troops inside surrendered. Napoleon III hoisted a white flag on the fortress wall; Wimpffen sought an "honorable capitulation", but Moltke refused, pointing to the lack of ammunition and food and to 250,000 Germans against 80,000 French. At 11:30 on 2 September Wimpffen signed the surrender of the Army of Châlons and the fortress. The French lost 3,220 killed and 14,811 wounded, and 104,000 men passed into captivity with 558 guns; German casualties were 9,860. The emperor was sent on the 3rd to Wilhelmshöhe near Kassel. His capture left Prussia without a government to make peace with, and on the 4th crowds in Paris stormed the legislature and a republic and a Government of National Defence were set up. In Germany 2 September was celebrated as Sedantag until 1919 in recognition of the battle's role in unification, though the Kaiser refused to make it an official holiday. Émile Zola's La Débâcle depicts the battle.