212 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. would have joined in the attack on Prussia ; but instead of this, the King of Bavaria, the second in power of the German princes, offered his support to Prussia from tbe beginning, and all Germany joined in the war. Thus what it was hoped might have been a war of France and Southern Germany against Prussia, became a war of France against all Germany. In the beginning of August, 1870, the French armies were mustering on the Rhine, full of boasts of again marching to Berlin ; and Buonaparte and his young son came to their head, putting forth procla- mations full of the grand words which the French love. The French armies got a little way on German ground, and on the 2nd of August bombarded Saarbriicken. The fighting began by the Prince Imperial firing the first cannon, and his father sent back a telegram about the poor boy's baptism of fire. Two days later the war began in earnest, and within three days, on August the 4th and 6th, the French were utterly defeated at Weissenb-'rg^ Worth, and F'orbach. At Worth Marshal Mac Mahon was altogether defeated by the Crown Prince of Prussia. The rest of the war was waged wholly within the territory of France. Strassburg was besieged by the Germans, and the Crown Prince advanced on the Vosges. Mac Mahon fell back on Chalons ; Bazai/ie, whom the em- peror now made Commander-in-chief, was at Metz. He was attacked and beaten on the 14th August at Courcelles, on the east side of Metz ; and as he did not immediately make his escape, the Prussians succeeded in making their way round to the west side of Metz, thus cutting off Bazaine from Paris. He tried to foroe his way through, but was beaten back in the great battles of Vionville and Gravelotte on the i6th and the iSth August. Mac Mahon was now ordered by the Court to march to Bazaine's relief, although this exposed him to almost certain ruin. He was intercepted by the Crown Prince of Prussia at Beaumont near Sedan, and surrounded in the great battle of Sedan, which ended in the surrender of the emperor and Mac Mahon himself along with the whole of the army (September 2nd). Buonaparte was sent to the Castle of Wilhclmshohe in Cassel. 14. The biege of Pans, 1870. — There was no longer any possibility of hiding the disasters of the army from the rest of France. Paris was thunderstrujrk, but full of rage, and visited all on the fallen ruler. His wife, who had been left recent, was helpless to djal with the storm, and
