Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/401

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BATTLE AND FALL OF SEDAN.
363

Among the captured material of war were 400 pieces of field artillery, 150 fortress guns, and 70 mitrailleuses. About 14,000 French wounded were found lying in Sedan and in the neighborhood, and 3,000 French escaped into Belgium, and laid down their arms. The great Army of the North thus passed out of existence.

Amongst the prisoners there were 1 marshal (MacMahon), 40 generals, 230 field-officers, and 2,595 officers of other grades.

The losses of the Germans were:

1,310 killed,
6,443 wounded,
2,107 missing.
Total 9,860.

The losses of the French according to their own statements were, exclusive of prisoners and missing,

3,000 killed,
10,000 wounded.
Total 13,000.

The strategical feat of the Germans by which an army of more than 200,000 men made a wonderfully accurate "wheel to the right" by means of which the entire force was concentrated after a march of four days on a point upwards of 47 miles from where the left wing previously stood, is probably without a parallel in military history.

The result of the battle of Gravelotte was to imprison Bazaine's army in Metz, where it remained until its surrender. The imprisonment of Bazaine's army made possible the capture of Sedan with the forces under MacMahon, the surrender of the emperor, the fall of the empire, the advance upon the French capital, the siege and capture of Paris, and the great triumph of the German army. At Versailles, on the 1st of January, 1871, King William of Prussia was proclaimed Emperor of Germany amid the roar