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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SCY-SHA |
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SEDAN , a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Ardennes, on the right bank of the Meuse, 12 M. E.S.E. of Mezieres by rail. Pop. (1906) town 16,0,4; commune 19,599. Sedan is built on the right bank of the Meuse round a bend in the river forming a peninsula. On the left bank stands the suburb of Torcy, situated partly within the bend, partly beyond the canal which cuts across the neck of the peninsula. There is a statue of Turenne (born at Sedan in 1611), remains of a castle of the 15th century and a Protestant temple dating from 1593. Sedan is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a municipal school of weaving. The manufacture of fine black cloth established in the middle of the 17th century by Cardinal Mazarin, held its place as the staple industry of the town till towards the end of the 19th century. A large variety of woollen fabrics are produced, and there are flour mills and factories for industrial machinery, boilers and heavy iron goods, chocolate, &c.Sedan was in the 14th century a dependency of the abbey of Mouzon, the possession of which was disputed by the bishops of Liege and Reims. United to the crown of France by Charles V., it was ceded by Charles VI. to Guillaume de Braquemont, whose son sold it to his brother-in-law Evrard de la Marck. For two centuries this family continued masters of the place in spite of the bishops of Liege and the dukes of Burgundy and Lorraine; and Henri Robert adopted the title " prince of Sedan." In the 16th century the town was an asylum for many Protestant refugees, who laid the basis of its industrial prosperity, and it became the seat of a Protestant seminary. Robert I. de la Marck (d. 1489) was lord of Sedan when he acquired Bouillon. His grandson, Robert III., seigneur of Fleurange and Sedan (d. 1537), was marshal of France and left interesting memoirs. Robert IV. de la Marck (d. 1556), also marshal of France, erected Sedan on his own authority into an independent principality. By the marriage of his granddaughter Charlotte with Henry I. de la Tour d'Auvergne, the duchy of Bouillon and the principality of Sedan passed to the house of Turenne. When the new duke attempted to maintain his independence, Henry IV. captured Sedan in three days; and the second duke Frederic Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne, eldest brother of the great marshal, who had several times revolted against Louis XIII., was, after his share in the conspiracy of Cinq-Mars, obliged to surrender his principality. Sedan thus became part of the royal domain in 1642. On the 1st of September 187o the fortress was the centre of the most disastrous conflict of the Franco-German War (see below). The village
Battle of Sedan (September 1st, 187o).-During the course of began to cross over the town itself. At nightfall on the 31st the 31st of August (see FRANCO-GERMAN WAR) the retreating the leading German infantry were approaching. The Army of French army (1st, 5th, 7th and 12th corps) under Marshal j the Meuse on the right bank of the river, with the II. Bavarians MacMahon assembled in and around Sedan, watched throughout j moving towards Bazeilles to reinforce it, and the III. Army, the day by the German cavalry but not severely pushed by them.: consisting of the V. and XI. corps with the Wurttemberg Sedan is a small old-fashioned fortress, lying in a depression division, was heading for Donchery to cut off the French from between two ridges which converge in the plateau of Illy about Mezieres, and only a weak cavalry screen closed the gap between 2i M. north-east of the town. The only part which its defences played, or might have played, in the ensuing battle lay in the strategic possibilities contained in the fine and roomy bridge-head of Torcy, covering an elbow bend of the Meuse whence the whole French army might have been hurled into the gap between the German III. and Meuse armies, had there been a Napoleon to conceive and to execute this plan. But MacMahon seems to have been too despondent to contemplate anything further than a battle for the honour of the army, and though communications with Mezieres, where Vinoy's corps (13th) was gathering, lay open throughout the day, he neither sent orders to it nor made any arrangements to meet the coming danger. The troops received food and ammunition, the disorders consequent on the successive days' fighting in retreat were remedied, and the men themselves got what they needed most of all, an almost unbroken day's rest. Locally their positions were strong, particularly to the east, where the stream flowing through the Fond du Givonne, though fordable, presented a serious obstacle to the tactical handling of the German infantry. But as a whole it was far too cramped for the numbers crowded into it; it could be completely overlooked from the heights of Frenois, where the king of Prussia's headquarters took their stand, and whence in the afternoon the German artillery firethem. During the night of the 31st of August the Bavarians threw a pontoon bridge across the Meuse below Remilly, and soon after daybreak, in a fog which lay thickly over the whole country, they began their advance towards Bazeilles, held by Vassoigne's division of the 12th corps and fairly prepared for de- fence. The firing called all troops within reach of the sound to arms, and before 5 A.M. the Meuse Army was marching to the battle-field, the Guards on the northern road via Villers-Arnay, the Saxons and IVth corps to the south along the river. Vassoigne's division contained a number of Marine battalions, and their stub-born resistance completely disconcerted the Bavarians. Deprived of all artillery co-operation owing to the fog, the latter spent themselves in fruitless and disconnected efforts in the gardens and streets of the village
6 A.M. the fog lifted, and the German batteries at once took part in the struggle. One of the first shells wounded Marshal MacMahon. The next senior officer, General Ducrot, at once assumed command (7 A.M.). But it happened that General Wimpffen
secret commission to assume command in the event of the death or dis-ablement of MacMahon. Of this power he did not at first avail himself, since he was a stranger both to the army and the country, whilst Ducrot possessed the confidence of the one and the knowledge of the other in the highest degree. But when about 9 A.M. he learnt that Ducrot proposed to move the whole army under cover of rearguards to the west towards Mezieres, he produced his commission and countermanded the movement
ridge
and Givonne, and there being no serious force of the enemy in front of them, the artillery was deploying along the western heights above the valley of Givonne, covered only by weak advanced guards of infantry, when suddenly a great column of French infantry, some 6000 strong, moving west in pursuance of Wimpffen
The III. Army had moved off as early as 2.30 A.M., and by 4 A.M. was already crossing the Meuse at Donchery, aided by several pontoon and trestle bridges thrown over during the night. Their right was covered from sight by the peninsula formed by a bend of the river, and the march of the several columns was unopposed till, clearing its northern extremity, they began to deploy to their right between St Menges and Floing. Here they encountered French outposts, which fell back on their main position on the ridge
It was now about rx A.M., and, whether moved by the belated impulse of Ducrot's orders or attracted by the apparent weakness of the Prussians within sight, the French infantry now made a brilliant counter-attack out of their position in their usual manner. But German reinforcements coming suddenly into view, and their elan having spent itself, they fell back again, bolding only to Floing, whence it required nearly two hours more to expel them. About noon Wimpffen rode up to General Douay and asked him whether he could hold on to his position. The latter, possibly elated by the success of his recent
glory
Riding back to the town to seek the emperor and implore him to place himself at the head of all available reinforcements, he saw a white flag break out from the steeple of the church tower, but almost instantaneously disappear. He did indeed reach the emperor, but, delayed by the appalling confusion, was too late. The flag had gone up again and he knew that further resistance was hopeless. The fighting did not cease at once. The troops he had directed to make the final effort, their eyes fixed on the enemy in front of them, never saw the flag; and until 6 P.M. a series of isolated attempts were made to break the iron circle with which the Germans had surrounded them. The emperor, who during the early hours of the day had fearlessly courted death, at length overcome by extreme physical pain and exhaustion, had ridden back to the town, and about 4 P.M., seeing no hope of success, had sent a parlementaire conveying his personal surrender to the king of Prussia, at the same time ordering the white flag to be hoisted. It was torn down by a Colonel Fauve, but was hoisted again half an hour later, when Prussian troops from Cazal were almost at the western gates of Sedan. It only remained for Wimpffen to make terms for the army, and after a long and gallant effort to avert the inevitable, he at length signed an unconditional surrender, with the sole alleviation (introduced as a tribute of respect for the gallantry shown by his men) that all officers were to retain their swords. Thus passed into captivity 82,000 men, 558 guns and stores to an immense amount. The price to the victors for this result was in round numbers 9000. The French killed and wounded numbered about x7,000. It is indicative of the demoralization in the French army that this figure is r000 less than the cost of the victory to the Germans at Worth, although on that occasion the French troops actually engaged numbered one half those available at Sedan. The duration of the fighting was the same in both cases. (F. N. M.) SEDAN-CHAIR, a portable chair or covered vehicle, with side windows, and entrance through a hinged doorway at the front, the roof also opening to allow the occupant to stand. It is carried on poles by two " chairmen." Alike in Paris and in London the sedan-chair man was an institution-in the one Sedan-Chair (after Hogarth). city he was usually an Auvergnat, in the other an Irishman. The sedan-chair was a fashionable mode of transport in towns up to a century or so ago. It took its name from the town of Sedan, in France, where it was first used, and was introduced into England by Sir S. Duncombe in 1634. Although a typically 18th-century vehicle it was used in the 17th, and had been known. much earlier. Indeed, the ancient sedia gestaloria of the popes is really a rudimentary form of sedan-chair. These vehicles were often beautifully painted, even the greatest French pastoralists not disdaining to embellish their panels. It is still in use at the public baths at Ischl, in Austria, and also in the city of Bath, England, as a mode of transit in connexion with the medical baths. The sedan-chair can be taken into the bedroom, and the invalid conveyed without exposure to the outer air to and from the mineral
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