Flaming June - Part 2
Pélissier's qualified satisfaction at the gains of 7th June was reflected in his public reaction. Alongside a General Order congratulating the troops on their success was another severely criticising them. 'Soldiers, an excess of enthusiasm which was deplorable in that it resulted in massive bloodshed, drove you far further forward than you should have gone, and many of you were cruelly punished for it. Today I have to remind you what you have been told I don't know how many times....especially after an assault, the honour of the Army and the safety of your own skins depends on the speed with which you reorganise and become effective to repel any enemy attack.'
This theme was developed in more robust language during the post mortem with his senior commanders on the 8th. Pélissier knew that the Emperor would make much of the appalling casualty rate and he was wildly bent on taking it out on scapegoats. He turned on General Mayran, and castigated him for the indiscipline of his men. Mayran, by nature a worrier, had according to Capitaine Cullet of the 95th said at the time of the stampede forward to the Malakoff ' This sortie is unwise, we should sound the retreat.' but obviously no direct order had been given. Pelissier also hit out at the 2 Corps Artillery Commander Brigadier Beuret - exactly what Pélissier thought the artillery could have done that they didn't do remains a mystery to me, and probably also to Beuret who left the meeting moist eyed threatening to resign. Mayran also left tearfully, although above all afflicted by news of the death of one of his brigade commanders. Lavarande, aged 42, had wanted to recce the Malakoff from close up, forward of the White Works. A Russian cannonball had taken off his head. Ironically this proved Pélissier's point, and he was for ever going to have trouble keeping a command structure together when senior officers with years of vital and irreplaceable command experience believed that their ultimate military destiny was to act as kamikazis. Scary really.
And how was Bosquet reacting throughout this conference? Tantalisingly, I haven't been able to find any historical record, although perhaps not surprisingly as it probably would have been political dynamite. Imagine how you would feel if, as Corps Commander, your superior is disciplining your subordinates in public in loutish language, whilst totally ignoring you. The eyes probably said it all. 'Get Bosquet' might well have been the message from the temporarily paranoid Pélissier afterwards - how else would it have been reported to him that Bosquet had acquired a map of the Malakoff defences from a prisoner which he was using for his own operational planning. ' Be so good' snarled Pélissier, 'be so good as to lower your sights to the horizon of discipline, where you might recall that every captured plan is to be passed to the Commander-in-Chief' His accolytes had also reported, quite wrongly, that Bosquet was in league with Niel and sending secret depatches to Paris.
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