The Emperor and MacMahon seem even then, on the afternoon of the 31st, to have hoped to give their weary troops a brief rest, supply them with provisions and stores from the fortress, and on the morrow, or the 2nd, make their escape by way of Mezieres.  Possibly they might have done so on that night, and certainly they could have reached the Belgian frontier, only some six miles distant, and there laid down their arms to the Belgian troops whom the resourceful Bismarck had set on the qui vive. To remain quiet even for a day in Sedan was to court disaster; yet passivity characterised the French headquarters and the whole army on that afternoon and evening.  True, MacMahon gave orders for the bridge over the Meuse at Donchery to be blown up, but the engine-driver who took the engineers charged with this important task, lost his nerve when German shells whizzed about his engine, and drove off before the powder and tools could be deposited.  A second party, sent later on, found that bridge in the possession of the enemy.  On the east side, above Sedan, the Bavarians seized the railway bridge south of Bazeilles, driving off the French who sought to blow it up[44].

[Footnote 44:  Moltke, The Franco-German War, vol. i. p. 114.  Hooper, The Campaign of Sedan, p. 296.]

Over the Donchery bridge and two pontoon bridges constructed below that village the Germans poured their troops before dawn of September 1, and as the morning fog of that day slowly lifted, their columns were seen working round the north of the deep loop of the Meuse, thus cutting off escape on the west and north-west.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the town, von der Tann’s Bavarians had begun the fight.  Pressing in on Bazeilles so as to hinder the retreat of the enemy (as had been so effectively done at Colombey, on the east of Metz), they at first surprised the sleeping French, but quickly drew on themselves a sharp and sustained counter-attack from the marines attached to the 12th French corps.

In order to understand the persistent vigour of the French on this side, we must note the decisions formed by their headquarters on August 31 and early on September 1.  At a council of war held on the afternoon of the 31st no decision was reached, probably because the exhaustion of the 5th and 7th corps and the attack of the Bavarians on the 12th corps at Bazeilles rendered any decided movement very difficult.  The general conclusion was that the army must have some repose; and Germans afterwards found on the battlefield a French order—­“Rest to-day for the whole army.”  But already on the 30th an officer had come from Paris determined to restore the morale of the army and break through towards Bazaine.  This was General de Wimpffen, who had gained distinction in previous wars, and, coming lately from Algeria to Paris, was there appointed to supersede de Failly in command of the 5th corps.  Nor was this all.  The Palikao Ministry apparently had some doubts as