THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
mander of the besieging army would insist upon a surrender of the fortress at discretion, without conditions of any kind.
Deep silence followed this speech. Every one of the hearers felt that Corvin had told the truth. Finally, somebody—I do not remember who—asked to be allowed to put some questions. Then there was a confusion of voices in which some hotheads talked of “dying to the last man”; whereupon the governor gave the floor to a former Prussian soldier, who had become an officer in the forces of the Palatinate. This officer said that he was as ready as anyone to sacrifice to our cause his last drop of blood, and that those of us who were Prussians, when they fell into the hands of the besieging army, would have to die in any case. Nevertheless he advised the immediate surrender of the fortress. If we did not surrender to-day, we would be obliged to do it to-morrow. We ought not to expose the citizens of the town, with their wives and children, to famine, or to another bombardment, and all in vain. It was time to make an end, whatever might happen to us personally. A murmur swept through the hall approving this advice, and then it was resolved that Corvin should try once more to secure, at the Prussian headquarters, for the officers and men of our garrison as favorable conditions as possible. But if after a reasonable effort he saw the impossibility of obtaining such conditions, he should agree with the Prussian headquarters upon the necessary arrangements for a surrender at discretion. When we left the hall most of us undoubtedly felt that nothing else could be hoped for.
That afternoon I mounted once more my tower of observation upon which I had spent so many watchful and dreamy hours. The magnificent landscape lay before me in the beauti-
[ 213 ]
