The humble and brilliant military tactician
Marshall Francois Bazaine is mostly remembered for his brave and valiant actions during the
Franco-Prussian War. Despite being in charge of the fully functional French Army of the Rhine with clear orders to retreat west and regroup with the rest of the French army, Bazaine audaciously disobeyed the orders of the politicians and brilliantly led his forces into the strategically insignificant fortified city of Metz thus leaving the Army of Chalôns to be most ingeniously run over at the
Battle of Sedan. Completely baffling the Prussian military commanders, Bazaine then kept his troops idle for half a year until bravely surrendering before starvation set in. Unfortunately for him, the rest of the French leaders were not quite as clever, and improbable as it may seem, France ended up losing the war. Needless to say, Bazaine was bestowed the highest French military decoration after the war – namely death by firing squad awarded by the court martial. But even then, his envious opponents would not let him have his prize. He was stripped of his military honour, when his death sentence was commuted to life in prison. Albeit still a reasonably high honour, after 4 years Bazaine would show his true humble nature by renouncing his military accolades altogether. In 1874 he escaped from prison and settled in Spain where he smoked himself to death. His great-great grandson, the Blood Bowl player, shows far less promise as a military commander, but he did once finish second in a boxing match.
DEATH!
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