... and greatest blunder of all was MacMahon's move to relieve Metz, trying to slip 140,000 men along the Belgian frontier. Indeed, it is exasperating and sickening to think of all this; to think that Bazaine carried into Metz — a place that should have been held, if at all, with not over 25,000 men — an army of 180,000, because it contained, the excuse was, an accumulation of stores. With ...