Villages for the Franco-Prussian War - Part 2: The Church

The defence of the cemetery at St Privat in 1870 is one of the iconic moments in the Franco-Prussian War and captured on canvas by Alphonse de Neuvelle. That story is a desperate one and is worth telling here.

By half-past seven on the evening of August 18, 1870, the end of resistance by the French 6th Corps was near. Marshal Canrobert’s men had held their ground all day, but the Germans, perhaps as many as 75,000 infantry supported by 156 guns, were closing in. The Guard Corps, supported by X Corps, advanced from the south and southwest while the Saxon XII Corps had swept past the  village of Roncourt to the French right and drove in from the northwest. St Privat was under attack from three directions. To face this onslaught Canrobert could muster perhaps 20,000 men, but only a small portion of that force defended the village.

On the northwestern face of the village, the 93rd Regiment held the stone walls of the gardens. Suddenly, the retreating French from Roncourt flooded back, closely pursued by nine battalions of Saxon infantry. The 93rd opened a devastating independent fire, shattering the German formations and halting them at four hundred meters. Ammunition began to run low and cartridges were gathered from the dead and wounded, but that supply soon began to run out. The discovery of a stray ammunition wagon gave the 93rd just enough breath to keep the Saxons at bay for a while longer.

To the southeast, the Prussian Guard, smarting from their bloody repulse in front of Amanvillers an hour or so earlier, made straight for the village cemetery, where a company of the 9th Chasseurs was posted. Canrobert ordered Colonel Vincendon’s 4th Regiment to reinforce them. The young colonel climbed a section of a collapsed wall and watched German advance."Let them come," he whispered, holding his men back until the enemy was only meters away. A heavy volley burst from the French lines and the Prussians stumbled back into a shallow depression. But the German gunfire began to open breaches in the perimeter. With a roar the 4th Regiment leaped over the walls with bayonets fixed, driving the Guardsmen further back.

The German batteries were ordered to enfilade the main street and Saint-Privat was turned into an inferno. Shells rained down upon the two makeshift field hospitals. The village church, overflowing with the dying and wounded caught fire. The burning wooden vault collapsed, burying the immobile wounded alive. Strangely, amid the apocalyptic scene, the surviving musicians of the 93rd defiantly struck up the Marseillaise.

 By eight o'clock, the outer defenses were pierced, and Canrobert  ordered a retreat. Still, many were cut off, trapped in a burning labyrinth - more than 2,000 unwounded prisoners fell into Prussian  hands. The defence of the Saint-Privat cemetery became a monument to despair. A handful of bloody Chasseurs, their ammunition spent, braced their bodies against the cemetery gate. When the Prussians finally broke the hinges, they found mostly corpses. In the corner, four wounded officers and two men stood proudly against the wall; the Prussian victors, struck by their courage, lowered their swords in a silent salute.

In the centre of the village, Second Lieutenant Coumès of the 93rd assembled a mixed platoon of displaced men. They barricaded themselves inside an inn, firing from the windows until the roof blazed over their heads. Dragging their wounded into the corners with pitchers of water, they fought their way down the staircase into the square where they joined a group of sappers under Captain Audier. When the Prussians rushed the square, Audier fell, and although he commanded only fifteen men and was completely surrounded, Coumès screamed,"à la baïonnette!” They dashed into the Prussian ranks, but were quickly overwhelmed and captured.

(Paraphrased from Français et Allemandes: Historique Anecdotique de la Guerre de 1870-1871, by Dick de Lonlay)

Since I have decided to base my Lorraine buildings on this village the church and cemetery are a must to make. That said, finding all information needed to make a model of this structure was no simple task. The church is gone now, burned out in the battle, as in the photograph below (that I captured from John Boadle's blog). The church was rebuilt in 1873 a few streets to the west. 

I have been unable to find any images of the church in its intact, pre-battle, state. The best I could find were the photograph and two sketches below which depict the church after the battle.

While they still lack some detail they, along with the photograph and the de Neuville painting, provide enough for me to create something fairly close to the original.

The first step was  determine the model's footprint. Now neither the church nor the cemetery appear to have been particularly large. In fact the cemetery appears quite a narrow strip between the church and the street. So I set the church size at 125mm x 80mm with a height of 100mm to the roof apex. A 30mm square, 120mm tall bell tower is recessed partly into the main area of the church - it should be a little taller (about double the wall height), but by time the steeple is installed it will be another 50mm taller and that is as tall as I want it to be. The photograph also shows a slight taper to the tower that I have chosen to ignore. A small extension, 20mm x 40mm protrudes from the back wall, accessed by a flight of steps. My FPW infantry bases have a depth of 40mm so the cemetery space must be 45mm between the outer wall and the building to allow the figures to be placed. In scale this is far wider than it was in reality, but this is a wargames building. So, taking the building, the cemetery and the buttressed wall into account the base size is 250mm x 150mm.

I cut the base and the basic pieces of the church from 3mm MDF and assembled the form.

Then the basic roof structure was added.

However, the model will not just sit on the base surrounded by a wall. The church was built on slightly elevated ground that falls away slightly towards the walls, that are more retaining walls than something to be defended, and if the de Neuville painting is to be taken as gospel were only knee high above the elevated interior in places. An arrangement of six stone steps ascend to the gate and two more will stand inside the gate. The steps were cut from 3mm card and MDF offcuts and fixed to the base.

Then a piece of 20mm polystyrene was cut for the elevation and shaped with the wire cutter. The ground appears to fall away more steeply to the rear of the church where a gate allows access to the garden.

The most notable feature in dd Neuville's painting is the main gateway. Fortunately it still stands today and there are plenty of images available.  I made my gateway as faithfully as I could from plasticard. The modern gate is made is wrought iron, but de Neuvelle show it as wooden and I have made it so - it will be trimmed to the correct height when it is ready to be hung.

I also made the church windows from plasticard and glued them to the church form.

The two doors, the large front door and the smaller back door (that will be accessed by stairs) are also made from plasticard.

The next step was to sculpt the external surface of rendered fieldstone.  I always like working on this kind of surface because of the uneven nature of the render, the ability to sculpt areas of exposed stone, cracks and other random damage through wear and tear. The photograph at the beginning of the post shows a very light render with the approximate shape of the stone showing through.  The correct way to do this is to create the surface and then put a thin render over top, but that is far too tedious. So I created a tool that can be used to replicate the appearance of the light render...I say tool, but is it just a piece of 3mm cardboard waste cut to a 3x3 point that is then tapped against a hard surface so that the point softens and when pressed against the putty surface creates a soft impression.

The process continued around all faces of the structure, but on the face opposite the cemetery I left a  lot more of the stone work exposed.

The next part to be worked on was the outer walls. The gateway was installed at this point. The walls were also made with much more exposed stone work.

Work on the front steps and the ground inside the cemetery followed. 

The roof was simply made from plasticard tile sheet.

The final piece of the construction was the steeple made again from plasticard, including the tiles.

The completed building waiting for painting.

Then it was then painted in tones appropriate for the region.

Having painted it I was unhappy with the way the upper part of the steeple joined the lower part. I had used a clear plasticard for the tiles and it was not easy to see the gaps, so a repair with some epoxy putty was needed.

The final touch was to place the tombstones - that I made from plasticard - and a bit of greenery. Because of that desire to be able to position stands inside the yard I placed the tombstones near the walls. There should be cross on top of the steeple, but with my record of damage to church crosses I have decided to leave it out.

Then adding a few figures and asking AI to render the images as paintings in the style of Alphonse de Neuville...