The Campaign on the Loire, 1870-1871: Orleans and Le Mans (From Musket to Maxim)

The campaign on the Loire was in many ways the most dramatic, and most important, of the campaigns of the German army during the winter of 1870-1871. It was fought for the most part in dreadful weather conditions which subjected its participants to extremes of physical hardship. The culmination of the campaign was the battle of Le Mans, which tested the armies on both sides to an even greater extent than the months which had gone before.

For the French, the indomitable Alfred Chanzy was by some way the ablest of their generals; notwithstanding the series of defeats sustained by his 2nd Army of the Loire, he never gave up. Less fortunate was General Claude d'Aurelle de Paladines, whose tenure in command of the Army of the Loire was marked by the abominable mistreatment which he suffered at the hands of Charles de Freycinet, the 'delegate' appointed by Leon Gambetta to support him in carrying out his duties as Minister of War.

The author has previously examined two of the other campaigns directed to the relief of the capital. In The Somme, 1870-1871: The Winter Campaign in Picardy, he traced the campaign of the Army of the North, under General Louis Faidherbe, which ended in failure at St Quentin on 19 January 1871.The second of these relief campaigns was mounted from the south-east of France, by the Army of the East, led by General Charles-Denis Bourbaki. After defeat at the battle of the Lisaine on 16-18 January by the German Corps led by General August von Werder, Bourbaki was compelled by the advancing Sudarmee under General Edwin von Manteuffel to retreat into Switzerland, and surrendered there. The author described this campaign in The Last Throw of the Dice: Bourbaki and Werder in Eastern France 1870-1871.