THE DAILY E ENING TELEGRAPH TRIPLE SHEET PHILADELPHIA, SATURDAY OCTOBER 8, 1870.
8
BATTLES ON THE RHINE.
As Interesting lllmorlrnl ketrh-Ttaree Or
turtp ol Fightinc on the Historic flail le-
Ever since the time of the Merovingian
kings, ever since the world Wgan, probably,
war has tainted the Rhine streams with
human blood. The world grew wiser aud
8iw further produced its Galileos, its
Raphaels, its Shakespeares still the sword-j
crossed, and the dead men went floating
down the Rhine. Nations broke their
chains, nations were enslaved, still the, dead
men went floating down the Rhine. Many a
vintage of blood this fair river saw; many a
wounded soldier crept among its vines to
groan and then to die. -Many times its cliffs
echoed back the thunder of the cannon;
many a time the storm of war tore through
its vineyards. The proudest ornameut of the
Rhine, says the poet, is the crimson robe it
wears when the enemies of Germany tluat
dead upon its waters.
The wars of the middle ages are, m Mil
ton says of early English history, the mere
lights of kites and crows. Many of those
men in steel who lived on the rocks of llaben
slein and Talkenstoin fought on the Rhine
banks, and many perished in its stream. The
thieves were indeed always slaying and
thrusting at each other, and fighting for the
plunder they stole from Nuremberg, Worn,
and Spires.
The first real battles on the Rhine that are
worthy of record are thode by which the great
Turenne won his glory. This extraordinary
general, always most terrible when hardest
pressed, was the son of a Duke de Bouillon,
and from the earliest age showed a genius for
war. Being a delicate child, he was so anx
ious to inure himself to the fatigues of war
that he was one winter's night found by his
tutor asleep on the ramparts of the town. At
thirteen he went to learn arms in the camp of
his uncle, Frince Maurice of Nassau, and at
sixteen distinguished himself as a captain of
infantry at the siege of Bois le Due. A
Marshal in 1 (:.", he went under the orders of
the Cardinal de la V alette to defend Mayence
from the imperialists; and there he first
began to study the Rhenish frontier. Bat
from Mayence the French army had to
retreat to Metz for want of money and
food. During the splendid but dangerous
retreat of thirteen days, Turenne acquired
the name of "Father," from his care of the
soldiers. Always in the front rank of the
rear-guard, he divided his own meals with the
hungry and worn; he threw away his baggage,
and gave his carriage to the sick and wounded;
and he even gave np his horse to a wounded
man to save him from the enemy.
La Valette, to wipe away this defeat, be
sieged Saverne, where Turenne was wounded
in the-arm by a musket-shot. Scarcely re
covered, he hurried to Franche Comte, and
won two battles. In 1(37 he helped the Duke
of Saxe Weimar to take Breisach, the key of
Germany in the West, and a town sixteen
miles from Frankfort.
In 1G44, with five thousand cavaliers and
four thousand f antassins, Turenne passed the
Rhine at Breisach, surprised and beat the im
perialists, and relieved Fribourg. He then
took Philipsbourg and Mayence, so rapid
were French conquerors in those days. Left
by the Duke of Enghein with only six hun
dred men to keep in check on the frontier
Mercy and the D ake of Lorraine, he seemed
to be omnipresent at that crisis. He saved
Spires; he raised the siege of Baccarat; he
took Kreuznach (how familiar these names
seem to us just now!); he kept the enemy
from nniting their severed forces, and daring
the winter pushed into Swabia and Franco
ma and marched up to the very gates of Nu
remberg. The wearied troops at last clamored for
rest. Surprised in their quarters (H! 1.1) by
Mercy, Turenne kept a firm front, rallied his
troops, and pushed, not for the Rhine, but to
Ilesse, where the landgravine hod promised
reinforcements. "When Enghein returned,
the great battle of Nordlingen was fought in
Bavaria. The French centre was pierced,
the right wing gone, when Turenne, on the
left wing, with the Weimar allies, struck the
Austrian army in flank, and, supported by a
reserve of Hessian pikemen and musketeers,
won the victory. In spite of this murderous
but useless battle, the French had to retreat
and intrench themselves on the Rhine behind
the cannon of Fhilipsburg. The campaign
of 1C4", however, ended, to the delight of
Mazarin, by Turenne chasing the Spaniards
from the electorate of Treves.
The next campaign of Turenne on the
Rhine (1(540) was even more admirable. By
a finely-planned and swift march he passed
the Rhine at Wesel, traversed Westphalia and
Hesse, and joined the Swedes. It was his
strategy to win the game, and cry check to
the Emperor in the fewest possible moves.
Though inferior in force t the Archduke, Tu
renne tormented and baffled him, turned his
position, passed into Swabia, swept through
Bavaria, threatened Franconia,and finally won
the game. Maximilian cried out for peaoe.
Turenne then prepared to swoop on Aus
tria; for, like Lucian's Cicsar, he thought
nothing done while aught was left to do; but
Mazarin now recalled the army to the Rhine.
The Weimar troops, unwilling to leave Ger
many, refused to pass the Yosges and 6erve
in the low countries. At the instigation of
their mutinous generals, Reinhold and Rosen,
tney Indeed enervesced into mutiny, drew
their swords, and rode clattering and splash
ing across the Rhine at Strasburg. Bat
Turenne was not a man to bend to mutineers;
alone he threw himself among their swords,
and strove to persuade and coax,
to threaten and order them to re
main. He even rode with them as
far as Philipsbourg, but it was no use. Then
he broke out into a flame the great powder
magazine, bis heart, exploded with rage. He
arrested Rosen; he won over two regiments.
With them he flew after the rebels, overtook
them in the valley of the Tauber, drove into
them headlong, put them to the rout, and
laid low some hundreds of these stiff-necked
troopers. Then, recrossing the Rhine, Tu
renne defeated Montecuculi at Sommerhau
sen, and slew his colleague Melandez. All
Bavaria was then at his mercy; Austria lay
bare to his sword; and the victory of Sens,
won by Conde over the Spaniards, happening
about the same time, brought the emperor on
his knees, en i the result was the Peace of
Wfstphalia in 148, thus terminating the ter
rible Thirty Years' War.
During the wars of the Fronde, Turenne re
mained loyal, and fought for Mtzarin aud
the young king against Conde. ' By the cap
ture of Dunkirk, and those wonflerfnl victo
ries over the Spaniards whioh led to the
French conquest of half the towns in the
Netherlands, Turenne obtained the Treaty of
the Pyrenees, for which he was made marshal-general.
If he had turned Catholic,
Mazarin had offered to restore the title of
constable in his favor, bnt the hero refused.
In 1C72, when France made war on Hol
land, Tnrenne again rode to the RhiA.'and
c-roied at Wesel. During thrte" months,
with consummate genius, and with, as usual,
infenor forces, he baffled MoAtecuculi and
his old adversary, the Dnke oljLorruine, who
vt.i.lta to I'&bs the river t Mayence, Co-
blent z, or Strasburg, and join William of
OrnDge. The enemy at last fell back diR
piisttdand mortified into Westphalia. Against
the King's wish Turenne kept moving
all winter, r.nd uniting his troops
to thoee of Cologne and Mnnster, ad
vanced to far on the Elbe that the Elector
cried for peace. But Turenne had not men
enough to prevent the junction of the impe
rialists and the'Outch, so returned to the
Rhine to punish the Bishop of Wurzburg and
the Elector of Treves for breaking faith with
him. DuringVhis long and tedious cam
paign, Turenne endcaied himself to his sol
diers, who were devoted to his person and
proud of Lis fame. On one occasion Turenne,
exhausted with fatigue, fell asleep under a
bush. Heavy snow coming on, some of the
soldiers cut branches, and spread their cloaks
over them to shield him.
"What are you doing therje?-' he said,
awnkf-ninor.
"We want to preserve our f after," the sol
diers replied, "that is our great anxiety. If
we were to lose him, who would take its back
to our own country?"
In It! 72, Louis XIV, who had already partly
conquered Flanders, and only yielded up
Franche Comte at the treaty of Aix-la-Cha-pelle,
in K'.CH, to obtain breathing time for
fresh preparations, invaded Holland with oue
hundred and thirty thousand men. All the
wealth and genius of Europe seemed at the
disposal of the young king. Fifty million
francs had been spent in the organization of
this great force. Thirty French vessels had
joined an English fleet of a huadred sail to
sweep the coast of Holland. Conde and Tu
renne were among the generals of Louis; Vau
ban, the greatest engineer of the world, was
to conduct the Bieges by the profoundest ma
thematical laws; Louvois, the great minister,
was to regulate the finance; Luxembourg (af
terward the great foe of William of Orange;
was one of the commanders; Martinet (his
name has become proverbial, who only a year
before trained several regiments to the use of
the bayonet) diciplined the infantry. There
was even an historian on the royal staff, to
record the victories of the fleur-de-lis. The
twelve companies of the gardes de corps were
all gentlemen; the gendarmes of the guard,
light horse, the musketeers, and the hundred
Swiss, shone with gold and silver, ruffled it in
silk, or braved it in velvet.
"What a war!" exclaimed Madame de
Sevigne, with the prettiest horror in the
world, "the most cruel, the most perilous of
which we have ever heard since the march of
Charles VIII into Italy. They tell the king
that Yssel is defended with two hundred
pieces of cannon, sixty thonsand infantry,
three great towns, and a large river."
To meet this host of Frenchmen the Dutch
merchants had but twenty-five thousand poor
soldiers, commanded by young Prince Wil
liam of Orange, then only twenty-two, and
of a feeble constitution. Four Dutch towns
surrendered, and Louis came to cross the
Rhine. Conde, informed by the peasants
that the extreme dryness ol tne season
bad made the river passable, selected a place
on an arm of the Rhine. It was qjjly guarded
by an old tower, which served as a toll-house
for the ferry, and by seventeen Dutch sol
diers. The Count de Gaiche reconnoitred
the place, and found that there was only a
spot about the centre, twenty paces wide,
where the cavalry would have to swim. Fif
teen thousand of the king's household troops,
the flower of bis cavalry, plumes flowing,
scarfs fluttering, corselets glittering, at once
,,JsLed in." The infantry passed over a
bridge of boats and copper pontoons, invented
by the redoubtable Martinet. The king
himself directed, or thought he directed, the
whole march. The Dutch had only five hun
dred troopers and two weak regiments of in
fantry, unsupported by artillery, to resist their
assailants. A few Dutch horsemen rode into
the river to attack the French, but soon
retired, and the Dutch infantry,
also raked by the French artillery,
surrendered. Louis lost but few of his men.
The Count de Nogent and some other reck
less riders straggled away from the ford, and
w ere drowned. The young Duke of Longue
ville, hiving too mwh wine iu his hot head,
fired at and killed a- Dutch officer, who was
on bis knees begging for mercy. The Dutch
infantry, enrnged and in despair at this
cruelty, snatched up their muskets and tired
a volley, which killed the duke. A Dutch
cavalry officer, seeing Conde getting out of a
boat and about to mount his horse, rode up
and shot him in the wrist the only wound
Conde ever received in all his battles. Paris
made much of this passage of the Rhine.
"The general notion," says Voltaire, sar
castically, after the war, "was that the whole
army Lad swum the river in the face of an
intrenched host, and in spite of the artillery
of an impregnable fortress called the
Tholus' " t toll-house), '-it i8 true," he adds,
"that, if there had been a body of good
troops on the other side, the enterprise would
have been perilous."
Boileau puffed himself out till he looked
neaily as large as Homer, and wrote a poem
in favor of Louis, and, fifteen years later,
when Conde was a worn-out old veteran,
Bossuet spoke of the passage of the Rhine as
"the prodigy of our age and of the life of
Louis le Grand."
Napoleon, however, always mathematically
just about all battles but his own, spoke of
the ailair with great contempt as a fourth
class military operation, because in that
place the river was fordable, weakened by
the Waal, and only defended by a Landfall of
men.
Instantly the French had crossed the river,
Zntphen, Arnheim, Niinegnen, Utrecht, etc.,
surrendered. Indeed, such was the panic
that an officer named Mazel said to Turenne,
"If j on only give me fifty horse, I could take
two or three places." But Louis, flushed by
success, overshot its. mark. He refused the
Dutch otter to surrelider Maostreoht and all
the frontier towns' beyond the Seven Pro
vinces. Turenne, was absent. Louvois
directed the rejection. The Dulh grew
desperate at tins, -and a mob, crJfcl in their
wild fear, tore4 pjeces the tmtrt DT Witt,
and chose the Prince of Orange stailf ioMr.
The whole counitH8 laid uudor Watlrf and
the Dutch resglved wbgu. all was lostoBail
(a manse to thjsvfljast Indian
rather than becail slaves of Fra
In 1074 Loui-h 'urajur great a
bi.flast Indian settlMtfgits
rauce.
unuuc L'reai armies in ui
.... f . T
h!dfone on
t&-frderfe of Spain, one in
Germany, one in
CYmte. com man
ers, and oue in i'rancl2L
Sy himself. The Prince.,
I. f llrcmrvA frtnnlit T A ri 1.1 Ml I kn M i nrw '
unciiy at oenene, a village in urauaat, mu.
wiiii uu ream i excepcrtue loan 01 six inousaua
men on each side. Tbo great Turenne led
the army that was to scare Germany, and,'
passing the Rhine near Philipsburg, a place
overlooking a region of dull morass above
Spires, defeated the old Duke of Lorraine
and the Imperial General Cfrara at Sintz
heini. With twenty thousand men Tarenne
then crossed the Rhine and swept the Palati
nate, driving the confederate German priuces
Leyond the Necker and the Main.
The moment the cat passed into Lorraine
the mice came back and began to nibble at
Alsace. Then round flew Turenne and routed
them at Mublhouse. He now bee an "to eat
t np" te Pfllfttj(e, a? Mia cmtl vKl fioWier of
the Thirty YeBrs' War CRlled it. The fright
ened citizens, from the walls of Manheim,
saw two cities and twenty-five towns given to
the sword and flame. At the end of this
campaign there was not, said Tnrenne, a
single enemy in France who was not a pri
soner. Louis XIV, during this year, had re
ptatttly begged Turenne to return with the
ti oops and defend his kingdom, but he re
fused in a bold letter, which endad in these
words:
"I know the strength of the Imperial
(roopf, the generals who commind them, the
conntiy where I am; I take all on myself, and
accept the responsibility of the result."
"Turenne," says Voltaire, "never won one
of these great battles that decide the desti
nitsof nations; bnt still he n-as one of the
grefctest c.pptains of Europe." Conde envied
Liu', and Napoleon praised him.
Early in life luronne, sent by Mazarin to
ral'y the troops of some German allies, had
pissed the Rhine at Breisach (lt'M) and
beaten the enemy; he was now to fall beside
the Rhine. In lt!7." he had to Btop Monte
cuculi, the great imperialist general, from
pi Esing over the Rhine and ravaging AIsjco
and Lorraine. For six weeks these clever
players manoeuvred without leaving an open
ing tor the adversary. The moment at length
came; ard Turenne, who was on the German
side of the Rhine, seized it.
"1 1 ave them," he cried, and prepared to
cmt-h them between his army and the river.
The battle was fought at Saltzbecb. Tu
renne was cannonading the church and
chateau, and giving directions for the erection
of a frtsh i battery to stop a column of the
ttemy, when a shot struck him. The horse
moved on twenty paces; then Turenne fell
dend.
No general remained to carry out bi3 unde
veloped plans, and the soldiers, wearied of
mihtakes, at last called out in irony, "Turn
out our father's piebald mare, and she will
lead up."
"A soldier is dead to us," said Montecu
culi, "who has done honor to mankind."
The French retreated, pressed hard by the
Imperialists, but Conde soon arrived to pro
tect them; and the Germans then fell back.
In the wars of the revolution, whon the
Prussians threatened Alsace, Hoohe, who had
risen from the ranks, distinguished himself,
although constantly repulsed by the Duke
of Brunswick, in despatching a corps of
twelve thousand men to harass Wurmsor,
8nd to join Pichegru on the Rhine. The
result of this manoeuvre was the dislodging
cf the Anstrians from the line of Wissem
burg, the relief of Landau, and the liberation
of Alsace. In 17!4, when the Anstrians were
feeling secure, the French suddenly
plunged across the Rhine and seized
Dusseldorf. They then, under Custine,
stormed Manheim, after six different
assaults, and committed frightful atrocities on
the inhabitants. In 17!) 7, when Napoleon
was in Italy, Hoche, with eighty thousand
men, strove to establish a Rhenish republic.
Having concentrated at Andernach, he at
daybreak crossed the Rhine at Neuwied, and
carried the Austrian redoubts at the point of
the bayonet. An obelisk at Neuwied still
records the bridge that Hoche threw across
to the island in the middle of the river. In
the mean time, before Le Fevre could seize
Frankfort, Moreau had also crossed the Rhine
and fought the Austrians at Diersheim. It
had been Carnot's great plan, in conjunction
with Napoleon and.Moreau, thus to give the
Austrians no breathing time. Moreau, with
the army of the Sambre and Meuse, was to
have pressed forward on the eastern
frontier of Germany, supported on the left
by Jonrdan and the army of the Rhine,
until Moreau should be in a position to com
municate with Bonaparte through the Tyrol.
The combined armies were then to advance
on Vienna. Jonrdan in front drove War
tensleben back, as Moreau did the Archduke
Chailes, notnithstanding the Austrian gen
eral showed superior military genius. Leaving
a force to employ Moreau, the archduke sud
denly joined Wartensleben, and with a su
perior force overwhelmed and routed Jour
dan. The German peasantry rose and har
assed his rear-guard, while Moreau, by a
brilliant and daring retreat through the Black
Forest, with difficulty saved his army.
Before crossing the Alps for the campaign
of Marengo, Napoleon left the army of the
Rhine in charge of Moreau, who was to watch
the Germans end to cross the Rhine near
Schafihauscn, and, marching on alone with
bis whole force, to place himself in the rear
of the greater part of the Austrian army.
But Moreau was too cautious for such a dar
ing scheme; he crossed the Rhine, however,
at the end of April, reached Augsburg by the
15th of Jul', and kept the Germans from
interrupting Napoleon's invasion of the
Milanese.
j Bonaparte did not fight many battles on
, the Rhine. His great ambition flew with
such an eagle-flight as boon to sweep beyond
; boundaries so puny. His great victories
i were far away from France in Italy, in
; Egvpt, on the Danube, and on the Elbe.
Marengo was in Piedmont, Austerlitz in
; Moravia. In 1M1;, after that terriblo defeat
of his exhausted army at Leipsic, when the
j allies killed or captured fifty thousand
; Frenchmen, there was much blood again
j shed round the Rhine. The battle of Hanau,
; in tf esse, was really a fight for the road to
! the Rhine, for the Austrians and Prus
sians were pressing Hose on the retreating
emperor. Wrede and forty.five thou
saLd Bavarians barred the path to France.
The fight began in a wood near a small river
and a village called Neuhoff. The French
tirailleurs fought from tree to tree like deer
stalkers, and the Bavarians, seeing two bat
talions of the guards arriving to their aid, and
thinking the attack was in force always an
unwise supposition, that needs confirmation
gave way; at the same time a dash of
sabres on their left chased their cavalry be
hind the river. The road to Frankfort was
now open; but the French rear-guard, of
eighteen thousand, tinder Mortier, was still
behind, so Maimont was left with three corps
of infantry to cover their retreat while Na
poleon pushed on to Frankfurt.
The French were not out of the German
claws yet. The next day Marmont made a
double attack upon Wrede and the Bavarians
at Hanau, which he bombarded, at the same
time pushing his grenadiers over the bridge
at Neuhoff; here the Bavarians on foot suc
ceeded, and a body of a thousand or twelve
hundred got across the Knitzigg, but were
instantly fallen on and bayoneted. At this
moment Wrede himself was dangerously
wounded, and his son-in-law, the Prince of
Cot tin gen, killed on the spot. The Bavarians
then drew back, and left the Frankfort road
open to the French. During this battle a
German miller, seeing a hard-pressed body
of Bavarian infantry passing the channel of
X)8 mill-stream, driven hard by French cavalry,
igbtantly, with infinite promptitude, pulled
up the sluices, end enabled the infantry to
reform. For this service to Lis country the
u illtr was afterward pensioned. The French
loSf in this sharp action six thousand men
and the Austro-Bavarians ten thousand. This
was on the .'Jlstoi October. Napoleon left
Mftvence on the 7th of November, arriving
jp i'nrj.s on the uth, and ordered u instate
conscription of three hundred thousand men.
In this retreat be bad only gained two vic
tories, Dresden and Hanau; while at Gross
BoPTtn, Janer on the Katzbach. and at Culm,
at Dennewitz, Mocker, and Leipsic, the allies
had defeated him. In the skirmishes, too,
military writers showed that France had been
outnumbered in light c .valry, light infantry,
and sharpshooters.
On the 'J."th of January Napoleon left his
wife and child, and departed for the frontier.
Just before he departed, he exclaimed to a
Senator who objected to the levy as likely to
produce alarm:
"Wherefore should not the whole truth be
told? Wellington has entered the south, the
Russians menace the northern frontier, the
Prussians, Austrians, and Bavarians threaten
the eaRt. Shame! Wellington is in France,
and we have not risen in mass to drive him
back. No peace, none, till we have burned
Munich. I demand of France three hundred
thousand men; I will form a camp of a hun
dred thousand at Bordeaux, another at Metz,
another at Lyons. With the present levy,
end what remains of the last, I will have a
million of mer. Bat I must have grown men,
not these boy.conscripts who encumber the
hospitals and die of fatigue on the highways.
Councillors, there must be an impulse given;
all must march; yon, the fathers of families,
the bends of the nation, it is for you to set
the example. They speak of ptace, and I
hear of nothing but peace, when all around
should echo to the cry of war."
Wishing to avoid the forty fortresses that
protected the Rhine from Bas'el to Mayence
Msjence to the mouth of the Scheldt the
allies violated the neutrality of Switzerland
: and took Geneva. On the 21st of December
I Prince Schwarlzonburg crossed Iho Rbino
with the Austrian army at four points and ad
vanced upon Langres. It surrendered, as did
Dijon, but Lyons repulsed its Assailants.
Blncher and the army of Silesia advanced in
four divisions, blockading the frontier for
trespes of Metz, Sarro Louis, Thionville, and
Luxemburg, while other troops passed the
defiles of the Vosges and pressed forward to
Joinville, Vitry, and Saint-Dizier, to be in
cemmunication with the central army, which
had already penetrated as far as Bar-sur-Aube
Napoleon finding the allies linger at Langres,
prepared, with seventy thousand men, to
check them with one hundred and thirty
seven thousand, and stop their march to
Paris. At Chalons he made his stand, and
struck his first blow at Brienne, the well
remembered scene of his school-days. The
brave campaign which some writers think
evinces Napoleon's highest genius, ended, as
we all know, in the abdication of Fontaine
blcau. The history of towns on the Rhine is a
record of sieges and battles. Louis XIV and
Vauban built this fort; Turenne destroyed
that; this village was fired by Wrede's men;
this one on the opposite bank by Bonaparte's.
Let us sketch a few xt the Rhenish strong
holds in more detail. All who have been to
beautiful Coblentz have gone across to Ehren
breitstein to see to the best advantage the
junction of the Rhine and the Moselle; and
the course of the first noble river from Hol
zenfels to Andernach. The Gibraltar of the
Rhine, Ehrenbreitstein, was the old refuge
and stronghold of the Electors of
Treves, who, in later times, be
fore they lived on the other side of the
river, occupied a palace at the foot of "The
Broad Stone of Honor." Marshal Bouftlers
besieged this rock in 1(188 for Louis XIV, in
the wars we have described; but it laughed
all efforts of bis to scorn, though Vauban
built the batteries, and Louis XIV, in the
moBt flowing of wigs, strutted hither to see
it surrender to his cannon. But th e Repub
licans, fiercer and less scientific, took it 17'.)!)
after a terrible siege, dining which cats rose
to a florin and a half each, and horseflesh tj
thirty kreutzers a pound. When the French
bad to surrender it after the peace of Lune
ville, they spitefully blew it np. Byron's tine
lines
'Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shattered wall,
IS lack with tlie miner's blast upon her height
Yet shows of what she was when shot ami okli,
Keboundlng idly onherctrength did Unlit,
A tower of victory, from whence the flight
Of battled foes was watched along the plain.
But reace destroyed what war could never Wight,
And laid those proud roofs bore to summer s
rain "
are no longer true. Since 1814 the Prussians
devoted to the repair of this fortress the fif
teen million francs whioh France had to pay
her after the war. The government has be
sides expended on it one million two hundred
thousand pounds. The works .at Coblentx
on both sides of the Rhine, Murray's "Hand
bock," a reliable authority, says, can form a
fortified camp to hold one hundred thousand
men. The magazines are capable of storing
provisions for ten years for Bight thousand
mtn. The steep rock (wilfully exaggerated
by Turner, who makea.it touch the clouds) is
defended by about four hundred pieces of
cannon. The weak point, the English guide
book says, is the northwest; but three lines
of wall there have quite made up for Nature's
defects, and are strong enough for any num
ber of frenchmen s heads to knock against.
ine cisterns in tne rock are able to hold a
supply of water for three years, and there is
' besides a well sunk four hundred feet, and
I communicating with tke Rhine,
j Coblentz, with its fortifications, which took
j twenty years to complete, and which spread
from the Rhine to the Moselle, commanding
j the approaches from Cologne and Treves, and
I the roads to Mayence and Nassau, is one
of the stanchest bulwarks of the Rhenish
! provinces, of which it is the capital. Its
j lines form a fortified camp capable of con
I taining one hundred thousand men, and they
unite the two systems of fortifications of Car-
not and Montalembert. It has been the scene
of hard righting, for not far off, at Wissen
tiurm, the French under . Hoche, in 17D7,
crossed the Rhine in spite of the Austrians,
and a monument near the roadside bears the
simple inscription, "L'arniee de . Sambre et
Meuse a son General Hoche." Near the junc
tion of the Rhine and the Moselle, at Fort
Franz, on the height of Petersbourg, is the
grave of the young gonera); and not far off is
a ui eminent to General Marceau, another
young hero of the republic, who was killed at
the battle of Altenkirchen, in 17!, in at
tempting to cover the retreat of General
Jonrdan. The generals of both armies at
tended his funeral and wept over his grave.
At no great distance is Enger, supposed by
antiquaries to be the spot where C;esar
i fleeted his second passage of the Rhine by
means of a bridge which he threw across the
river. In our necessarily rapid survey of
the Rhine we next pasa on to Mayence, on
the left bank, before the war a town garri
soned by ten thousand men. This town grew
up from the camp which Drusus, the sou-iu-lw
of Augustus, turned into a frontier for
tress of great strength. Gustavus Adolphus,
the armed defender of German Protestantism,
La It a fort on a tongue of land here to com
mand both rivers. The Prussians bom
barded it in K'.ii, aud half-destroyed
the old red sandstone cathedral, whioh
in 1M3 the French turned into a
barrack end a magazine, much to the
detiiment of the old elector's monuments
with which it is stuffed. Napoleon hvl in-
the Rline at Mayence, but his reverses cam,
end the model alone was executed. Thuio
who remember when, refreshed by a dinner
glass of Hochheimer, strolling out to see the
stinpet, view of the vineyards of Wiesbaden,
the lihtiogau and the Taunus bathed in a
flood of innocuous golden fire, will be clad
to have such pleasant memories aroused.
Close to Oppenheim, conspicuous by the
grand ruins of the castle of Landskron, is
Irfelden, where, in the winter of 1(521, Gus
tavus Adolphus crossed the Rhine. The
sturdy Swedes rowed over, singing a psalm,
and there is a tradition that their king was
ferried over on a barn door. A ruinous
chnpel in St. Catharine's church-yard is still
full cf Spanish end Swedish skulls. The
beautiful church at Oppenheim was half
burned by the French during the war of the
rnlatinate.
Every Rhenish town has its sorrows to tell
of. Worms, that stately old walled town,
once the residence of the Prankish Carlovin
gian Kings, was burned by Melno in 1C8'.), by
order of Louis XIV and of Louvois, and that
shock it never recovered. Prankentbal, near
at hand, was held in M22-'2'. by a band of
English under Sir Horace Vere, for the elec
tor palatine, but Spinola and his Spaniards
betiegtd it, and the English surrendered.
Ludwigshafen, opposite Manheim, was the
scene of many revolutionary fights, and here,
in 1814, the Russians, under General
Sacken, forced the passage of the Rhine. No
Rhenish town has been oftener fought over,
bombarded, and pillaged, than "clean, plea
sant, friendly Mannheim." In 1(!8!), when
the French took it, the burghers were given
twer ty dajs to raze their city to the ground;
but, as tht-y were slow in beginning, the
French drove them out and set fire to the
houscF. The French bombarded it again in
1704, and in 17!'." Wnrmser aud the Austrians
threw into it twenty-six thousand cannon
balls and seventeen hundred and eighty
bombs, so that half the palace was burned
and only fouiteen houses remained uninjured,
when the nine thousand seven hundred
French soldiers surrendered. -
Spires, too, has had its trials. In 1(S0 the
French army of Louis XIV took the town,
and ordered al' the citizens to start for Alsace,
Lorraine, or Burgundy within six days. The
French provost-marshal and forty execu
tioners then entered the town, laid and lighted
trains of combustibles, and set the forty
seven streets of Spires in a blaze. Miners
also blew up the walls, fountains, and con
vents, dismantled the cathedral, and burst
open the graves of the emperors. The cruel
conflagration lasted three days and three
nights. In 17D4, Custine and his' troops,
after six assaults, took the town by storm and
repeated the cruelty of his predecessors. Be
fore the siege of H'8! Spires boasted thir
teen gates and sixty four towers defended by
artillery.
Nor would any summary of battles fought
upon the Rhine be complete without a men
tion of beautiful Heidelberg, from whose
walls the great river can be 6een by glitter
ing glimpses. This fair town, the capital of
the electors-palatine, has . been five times
bombarded, twice burned, and three times
sacked. In the Thirty Years' War red-handed
Tilly, after a month's bombardment, gave it
up to three days' pillage. The imperialists
held it for eleven years; and then came the
Swedes with fresh extortions. In 1G8S Melus,
a French general, sterner even than Turenne,
and more savage than Tilly, burned the town,
slew all the Protestants, and committed a
thousand excesses.
But there is scarcely a ruin oa the Rhine
but is the work of French or Swedish hand,
and our space only allows us to touch on a
few points of Rhenish history.
From the heights above Caubt, near Ober
weseJ, Bluchers soldiers, about to cross the
Rhine (New Year's night, 1814), seeing the
river open before them, fell on their kneos
(like Xenophen's men at the sight of the sea),
and abouted with one heart and voice, "The
Rhine! the Rhine!" That old love for the
river still continues warm in the centre of
every Gt rman heart. No foe must touch the
Rhine no enemy must plant a flag upon its
banks. It is pure and free, and so it must
remain. This is the chief article in the
cret d of united Germany, and every victory
the Prussians win over the French is . a
stronger argument that the inviolable creed
it will remain.
"Flow on, fair Rhine now free and proud,
Or come the sun or come the cloud ;
If for a time thou redder gleam,
Purer Utreafter ruus thy stream."
Apjrteton'8 Journal.
REAL ESTATE AT AUCTION.
MASTERS PER RMPTOIiY 8 ALB. !
THOMAS & SONS. Auctioneers. rE
u the Supreme Court for the Eastern Di9tr;ct of
Penrt)lvai)la, Daniel Titlow et al. vs. Charles A.
Ucnner et a!., of July T., 1ST0, No. 25. In pursuance
of an order and decree made by the Bald Court, la
the above cause, on the 6th day of October, A. 1).
lt-70, will be sold at public sale, oa TUESDAY, Oct
2Mb, 1870 ,at is o'clock, noon, at the Philadelphia
Exchange, the foil 3 wing described property, viz.:
VERY VALUABLE
FAHM.
M ACMES',
KNOWN AS TUB TITLOW KAR.VI,"
MT. A1HY,
TWENTY-SECOND WARD,
!ER.M ANTOWN.
No. 1. All that tract of land, with the Improve
ments t hereon erected, bcg'unlog In thu middle of
l uruli a laue aud middle of Michcuer aveuuo, lu
Twenty-second ward; then north 47 dog. 2S niiu.
west, about 1.S5 feet, more or leas, to point la
Miclit'iier avenue; then soutn 43 deg. 46 ml a. west,
about 975 Jcet 9 inches, more or less, crossing Wil
liams avenue to a stone; then south 17 deg. 43 min.
wist, V2i fca 1 Inch to front; then south 4-J deg. tl
mln. east, lblfl feet 7f Inches, more or less, croaking
Mount litasuut avenue and Sedgwick avenue to
atone In middle of I'nruh'a lane; then 42 deg. 45 rain,
east 3043 feet, more or ka, to p.ace of beginning,
containing about 39 acres 3 perches, more or less.
No. 2. All that tract of laud adjoining the above,
beginning in the middle of L'uiuti a laue aud Miche
ner avenue ; then north 42 drg. 45 miu., east 1205,
crossing Pickering avenue to alone in middle county
line; thn north 47 deg. 65 min. west, 764 feet 8,'
inches, moie or les, to middle of Sedgwick avenue;
then crossiug Pickering avenue 12ld feet V Inch,
more or lees, to middle of l'nruha lane; then 7JJ
ltet 6 inches, hi' re or less, to placo of beeiiininir,
containing about 2j acres 3 rood 21 perches, more
or less.
No. S. A tract of land adjoining the above, be
ginning at a point in the intdd.e of Cheltenham ave
nue or countv line road aud the middle t.f hedgwtck
avenue; thi-u north 47 deg. 65 mm. west, 7so feet
Inch, more or lefs, to ftone-'iheu south 43 deg. 41
niiu. went, crcssirg pHNteiirg uvtime about 1192
fret 10 inches more or lens, to point in middle
Micheuer avenue; then Koutiieastwardly S15 feet,
more or lean, to rninoie of Bedgwlck avenue; then
eastwardly along mUnMe of Se-igAlrk avenue ubj it
1200 feet 3'v tnciieo. inor or leas, to pUoe of begin
ning, containing about 22 acres 1 rod 34 perches,
more or less.
No. 4 All that ceitain lt of ground Bltuateou
the iiortlnastrrly eide of Montgomery avenue, at
the distance of 1 0 feet $ im-hea toutheas'Wdrdly
from Peiirrade street, in Eigh'eenth ward, oout -lining
in front 2t h et, 6 Inches, and in depth ltS9 feet 4
inches, to 15 foot (street.
Full particulars at the office of the Master. Terms
Cash. 1"0 to be pai l on each at thn time of bIi.
Py the Couit, Jerome Curtj', Master, 51 North Sixtii
bireet
M. THOMAS & -ONS, Auctioneers,
10 8 S 15 221 No, idtfand 141 S. KOUiifU Street
TRIMMINGS, PATTERNS, ET O.
NEW 8T0KE.
jiitf. i a. v, 11 tn 111: u 4,
l'uiicy and Staple Triiumlnx
jweiivu ;oou.-i, trc,
No. 224 South ELEVENTH 8treet.
Fomsdes, Soaps, Powders, Perfumeries, Hosiery,
Cloves, &thocB, Etc . 19 ths3mrp
REAL E5TTF AT AUCTION.
N
O
1
c
K.
By virtue and tn execction o. the powers contained
In a Mortgage executed by 4.
Till: CENTIIAL TASSENGEH RAILWAY
COMPANY
of the city cf Philadelphia," bearing date of
eighteenth day of April, i3, and recorded tn the
otv.ee for recording deeds and mortgages for the
city and connty of Philadelphia, In Mortgage Book
A. C. H., No. 66, pe 46ft, etc., the undersigned
Trustees named In saud mortgage
"WILL SELL AT TUBLIO AUCTION,
at the MERCHANTS' EXCHANGE, In the city of
Philadelphia, by
MESSRS. THOMAS & SONS, Auctioneers,
at 13 o'clock M., ofl TUESDAY, the eighteenth day
of October, A. D. 1h;o, the property described In and
conveyed by the said mortgage, to wit:
No. 1. All those two contiguous lots or pieces of
ground, with the buildings and Improvements
thereon erected, situate on the east slue of Broad
street, in the city of Philadelphia, one of them be
ginning at the distance of nineteen feet seven
inches and Cve-clghths southward from the southeast
corner of the sold P.road and Coates streets; thence
extending eastward at right angles wtth said Broad
street tlghty-elght feet one Inch and a half to ground
now or Inte of Samuel Miller; thence southward
along said ground, and at right angles with said
Coates street seventy-two feet to the northeast cor
ner of an alley, two feet six Inches In width,
leading southward Into Penn street; thence west
ward crossing Raid ailey and along the lot of ground
hereinafter described and at right angles with said
Broad stnet seventy-nine feet totheat side of
the said Broad street ; and thence northward along
the east line of said Broad street seventy-two feet to
the place of beginning. Subject to a Groand Rent
of to, silver money
No. 2. Die other of them situate at tho northeast
corner of the said Broad street and Perm street,
containing in front or breadth on the said Broad
street eighteen feet, and In length or depth east
ward along the north line of said Penn street seventy-lour
feet and two inches, and on the line of said
lot parallel with said Penn street seventy-six feet
five inches and three-fourths of an Inch to said two
feet six Inches wide alley. Subject to groand rent
of 178, silver money.
No 8. All that certain lot or piece of ground be '
ginning at the S. E, corner of Coates strecand Broad
street, thenc extending southward along the said
Broad street nineteen feet seven Inches and five
eighths of an Inch; thence eastward eighty feet one
Inch and one-half of an lrch; tnence northward, at
right angles with said Coates street nine feet to the
south side of Coates street, and thence west ward
along the south side of said Coates street ninety feet
to the place of beginning.
No. 4. Four Steam Dummy Cars, twenty Ject long
by nine feet two Inches wide, with all the necessary
steam machinery, seven-inch cylinder, with ten-lncbj
stroke of piston, with healing pipes, &c. Each will
scat thirty pasaengets, and has power sufficient to
draw two extra cars.
Notk. These cars are now in the custody ol
Messrs. Grlce & Long, at Trenton, New Jersey,
where they can be seeu. The sale of them Is made
subject to a Hen for rent, which on the first day of
July, 1870. amounted to $000.
No. 6. The whole road, plank road, and raflway of
the said The Central Passenger Railway Company
of the city of Philadelphia, and all their land, (not
included in nob. 1, 2, and 3,) roaaway, railway, rails,
rights of way, stations, toll houses, and other super
structures, depots, depot greunds and other real
estate, buildings and Improvements whatsoever.and
all and singular the corporate privileges and fran
chises connected with said company and plank road
an railway, and relating thereto, and all the- tolls,
lncolne, ixbiies, and prouts to accrue from the same
or any part thereof belonging to said company, and
generally ail tne tenements.neremtaments anu fran
chises of the said company. And also all the cart of
every kind (not Included In No. 4,) machinery, tools,
ImpU ments.and materials connected with the proper
equipment, operating and conducting of said road,
plank road, and railway ; and all the personal pro
perty of every kind and description belonging to the
said compunv.
Together with all the Btreets, ways, alleys, pas.
eugs, waters, water-courses, easements, franchises,
rights, liberties, privileges, hereditaments ana ap
purtenances whatsoever, unto any of the above
mentioned premises and estates belonging and ap
pertaining, and the reversions and remainders,
rents, Issues, and pro tits thereof, aud all the estate,
right, title, Interest, property, claim, and demand of
every nature and kind whatsoever of the said Com
pany, as well at law as In equity of, In, and to the
some and every part and parcel thereof
TERMS OF SALE.
The properties will be sold In parcels as numbered.
On each bid there shall be paid at the tune, the pro
perty Is struck orr Filty Dollars, unless the price Is
less than that sum, when the whole sum bid BhaU
be paid.
813 6U . W. W. LONOSTRETn.f lraBtee8
REAL ESTATE THOMAS A SONS' SALE.
-I On Tuesday. October 18, 1870. at 12 o'clock.
noon, will be sold at public sale, at the Philadelphia
Exchange, the following described property, viz. :
No. 1. Two-story brick Store and Dwelling, N. E,
corner of Seventeenth and A fton streets. All that
two-story brick messuage and lot of ground situate
at the N. W. corner of Seventeenth and Afcon
streets, Twenty-sixth ward ; containing in front on
Alton st'eet 10 feer, and extending in depth along
Seventeenth street 5S feet 2i Indies to a 4 feet wide
alley, with tho privilege thereof. Occupied as .a
liquor store; lias gas, etc. Subject to a yearly
gi und reit ol t-io-to.
No. 2. Modern three-Etsry brick dwelling, No. S24
N. Twenty-third street above Brown street All
that modern three-story brick messuage, with three
story back building -and lot of ground, situate on
the wett side of Twenty-third street, north of
Brown street, No. 2t; containing in front on
Twenty-third street 10 feet, and extending in depth
64 feet to a 4 feet wile-alley, with the privilege
thereof. Has gas, bath, hot and cold water, cook
ing range, heater, etc Immediate possession, teuij
ject to a yearly grourd rent of 1120.
Ai . m mum as s ru.rt, Auctioneers.
9 22 24 ocl Nob. 139 and 141 S. FOURTH Street
TO CAPITALISTS, BUILDERS, AND
!"! others THOMAS & SONS. Auctioneers.
Larue aud valuable Lot N. W. corner of Locust and
Twtnty.thlrd streets, 110 by 95 feet, three fronts.
On Tuesday, October 18,1870. at 12 o'clock noon,
will be sold at public sale, at the Philadelphia Ex
change, all t list large and valuable lot of ground
sitUMte at tho N. W. corner of Locust and Twenty
third streets (Ashton), containing in front on Locust
street 110 feet, and extending along Twenty-third
street and a 20 feet wide street 95 feet 3 inches, more
or less-3 fronts. Terms, half cash. Subject to a
lease, which expires 14th April, 1871.
M TboMAS A, SONS, Auctioneers,
9 22 oct S 15 Nos. 139 and 141 8. FOURTH Street
FURNACES.
Established in 1835.
Inramblj tb rreatert sauoeM OTr all competition
whenever isd wherever exhibited or need in toe
UNITUl STATES.
" CHARLES "WILLIAMS'
Patent Golden Eagle Furnaces,
Acknowledged by the leading Architect! and Builder
be ine moet powerful and dunble Furmoe offered, u4
the mott prompt, jiiinUc, ud Urgent bou la
line of boeineae.
HEAVY REDUCTION IN PIUCE3,
and onli flt-clM work turned ont
Not. 1132 and 1131 LI All EL T Street,
PHILADELPHIA,
If. B.-SFSD FOH BOOK
AND VKNTILATIOJJ.
OF FACTS Oil HEA1
234m
J. T. E ASTON. . M'UAHON.
TO ASTON & 31 cM AHOIV,
tsHJPPixo axo costifTssroy thirtcuAXTS,
No. 8 COKNTIhS KLIP, New VoVK,
No. 19 SOUTH WHARVES, Phtlmtelphla,
No. s W. PHATT bTHKKT. liar Snore.
We are prtpartd to ship eery Ascription oil
Fi eight to Philadelphia, New York, vyi) Hi iton, audi
intermediate poum ;ii prouipiue.a p j 1 .jeaijau-ii.
Canal boats and Hji-aru-tngg furnished at the shortest
lO'lCA
Ccrn Exchnge Bag Manufactory.
JOUJ T. DAILCf ,
E. E. Cor. WATER and MARKET St&
ROPB AS p TWIN S, BAGS and BAGGING, fol
Grain, Flour alt. &uper-f hosphaue of JJine, Bout
Dust Bus. - "
Large and crna:l GCNVT BAGS sonBtanUy on