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Battle of Sedan and capitulation

The Battle of Sedan was a total disaster for the French—the army surrendered to the Prussians and Napoleon himself was made a prisoner of war. MacMahon arrived at Sedan with one hundred thousand soldiers, not knowing that two German armies were closing in on the city (one from the west and one from the east), blocking any escape. The Germans arrived on 31 August, and by 1 September, occupied the heights around Sedan where they placed artillery batteries, and began shelling the French positions below. At five o'clock in the morning on 1 September, a German shell seriously wounded MacMahon in the hip. Sedan quickly came under bombardment from seven hundred German guns. MacMahon's replacement, General Wimpffen, launched a series of cavalry attacks to try to break the German encirclement, with no success. During the battle and bombardment, the French lost seventeen thousand killed or wounded and twenty-one thousand captured.

As the German shells rained down on the French positions, Napoleon III wandered aimlessly in the open around the French positions. One officer of his military escort was killed and two more received wounds. A doctor accompanying him wrote in his notebook, "If this man has not come here to kill himself, I don't know what he has come to do. I have not seen him give an order all morning."

Finally, at one o'clock in the afternoon, Napoleon emerged from his reverie and ordered a white flag hoisted above the citadel. He then had a message sent to the Prussian king, who was at Sedan with his army: "Monsieur my brother, not being able to die at the head of my troops, nothing remains for me but to place my sword in the hands of Your Majesty."

After the war, when accused of having made a "shameful surrender" at Sedan, he wrote:

Some people believe that, by burying ourselves under the ruins of Sedan, we would have better served my name and my dynasty. It's possible. Nay, to hold in my hand the lives of thousands of men and not to make a sign to save them was something that was beyond my capacity....my heart refused these sinister grandeurs.

At six o'clock in the morning on 2 September, in the uniform of a general and accompanied by four generals from his staff, Napoleon was taken to the German headquarters at Donchery. He expected to see King William, but instead he was met by Bismarck and the German commander, General von Moltke. They dictated the terms of the surrender to Napoleon. Napoleon asked that his army be disarmed and allowed to pass into Belgium, but Bismarck refused. They also asked Napoleon to sign the preliminary documents of a peace treaty, but Napoleon refused, telling them that the French government headed by the Regent, Empress Eugénie, would need to negotiate any peace agreement. The Emperor was then taken to the Château at Bellevue near Frénois (Ardennes), where the Prussian king visited him. Napoleon told the king that he had not wanted the war, but that public opinion had forced him into it. That evening, from the Château, Napoleon wrote to the Empress Eugénie:

It is impossible for me to say what I have suffered and what I am suffering now...I would have preferred death to a capitulation so disastrous, and yet, under the present circumstances, it was the only way to avoid the butchering of sixty thousand people. If only all my torments were concentrated here! I think of you, our son, and our unhappy country.