Another important object, with which Herr Stephan is said to have arrived in the occupied provinces, was to verify the accounts of the French postmasters, and to see that the cash in hand, which, as government money fell at once to the invaders, corresponded to the entries in the books.

Thus the Prussians took not only military, but administrative, possession of all Alsace and more of Lorraine than they meant to keep, immediately after the battles of Wörth and Spicheren.

URING the Prussian manoeuvres of each autumn, one or more army corps invade

and occupy a province which really belongs to some other army corps; and thus, in time of peace, the Prussians study, not only the main business of war, which undoubtedly is fighting, but also that very important branch of the art which consists in finding convenient quarters and plentiful supplies. In Prussia, every householder is obliged to keep a certificated register of the number of men his house will hold in time of peace, and the number during war-that is to say, under pressure; and though they cannot force their neighbours to imitate them in this respect, the Prussians possess lists of the quartering accommodation afforded, not indeed by every house, but by every town in the countries bordering on their own.

All the Prussians, then, had to do on entering French villages and towns, was to quarter themselves on the inhabitants, as they are in the habit of doing in their own country; writing in chalk on the door of each house, the number of soldiers provided for within. The houses of Prussian villages during the marching season are marked in a similar manner.

But there was this important difference in regard to supplies. Requisitions issued by the Germans in their own country during the autumn campaigns, are addressed to the local authorities, who pay those executing the requisitions, and get repaid out of the state exchequer. In France also (when there was time and opportunity for doing things in an orderly manner), the requisitions were addressed to the mayor, and by him given out to private individuals; then it was for the person executing the requisitions to obtain payment from the mayor, who generally did pay in whole or in part out of the local funds, looking, on behalf of his commune, to the state for future indemnification.

An idea somehow got abroad when the Germans first entered France, that it was they who were, on the conclusion of peace, to redeem the requisition papers. This supposition may have had its origin in the fact, that during the invasion of 1792, the requisitions issued by the Duke of Brunswick's

army were made out in the name of Louis the Sixteenth, and not, as during the invasion of 1870, in that of the German commanders.* The requisition papers of 1870 served, like those of 1814 and 1815, to show (in the absence of receipts, which in small transactions were not invariably given) precisely what the persons executing them had been "required" to supply.

Requisitions were issued for every imaginable thing, in great quantities and small. Horses, oxen, sheep, were taken by requisition; and I have seen a requisition paper (dishonoured) for six eggs. Requisitions were often made out for coffins, and a boot-jack is said to have been somewhere procured by the same simple means. Horse shoes were constantly the object of requisitions; indeed, along the great lines of march the blacksmiths were everywhere impressed into the Prussian service.

In the time of Frederick the Great, the Prussian soldier on a campaign received two pounds of bread a day, and two pounds of meat a week, "which," says Frederick, "the poor soldier well deserves for his troubles and fatigues."+ If those were his full deserts then, he gets more than his deserts now; for proclamations exhibited in all the occupied towns announced that soldiers quarteréd upon

* Göthe's "Campaign of France."

Frederick the Great's "Instructions aux Officiers," etc.

inhabitants were to receive daily "750 grammes of bread, 500 grammes of meat,* 250 grammes of bacon, 30 grammes of coffee, 60 grammes of tobacco or 5 cigars, half a litre of wine or a litre of beer or one tenth part of a litre of brandy. Individuals, especially in the country, were often called upon in a direct manner, to furnish what was wanted; but requisitions for supplies on a large scale, whether of food, wine, horses, carts, or no matter what, were addressed to the authorities, who summoned the inhabitants, and distributed the order among them.

The only officers who possessed the right of issuing requisitions, were generals and commanders of detached corps; and the rule was, that when objects "requisitioned" were supplied, receipts. should be given. Numerous requisitions were no doubt executed in pure loss; while, on the other hand, some ingenious Frenchmen are said to have obtained payment from the authorities, not only on account of requisition papers, but also for the receipts corresponding to them. For the requisition system, to have worked at its best, the French ought to have known beforehand that they were going to be invaded, and under what conditions. The Prussians certainly announced, in many of the towns they entered, that receipts would be given; * 500 grammes = 1 lb. 11⁄2 oz. avoirdupois.