Even then the condition of France was not desperate if the government had shown capacity; but conceit, vanity, and ignorance blinded the nation. Louis Napoleon should have known, and probably did know, that the contending forces were uneven; that he had no generals equal to Moltke; that his enemies could crush him in the open field; that his only hope was in a well-organized defence. But his generals rushed madly on to destruction against irresistible forces, incapable of forming a combination, while the armies they led were smaller than anybody supposed. Napoleon III. hoped that by rapidity of movement he could enter southern Germany before the Prussian armies could be massed against him; but here he dreamed, for his forces were not ready at the time appointed, and the Prussians crossed the Rhine without obstruction. Then followed the battle of Worth, on the 6th of August, when Marshal McMahon, with only forty-five thousand men, ventured to resist the Prussian crown-prince with a hundred thousand, and lost consequently a large part of his army, and opened a passage through the northern Vosges to the German troops. On the same day Frossard's corps was defeated by Prince Frederic Charles near Saarbrücken, while the French emperor remained at Metz irresolute, infatuated, and helpless. On the 12th of August he threw up the direction of his armies altogether, and appointed Marshal Bazaine commander-in-chief,--thus proclaiming his own incapacity as a general. Bazaine still had more than two hundred thousand men under his command, and might have taken up a strong position on the Moselle, or retreated in safety to Chalons; but he fell back on Gravelotte, when, being defeated on the 18th, he withdrew within the defences of Metz. He was now surrounded by two hundred and fifty thousand men, and he made no effort to escape. McMahon attempted to relieve him, but was ordered by the government at Paris to march to the defence of that city. On this line, however, he got no farther than Sedan, where all was lost on September 1,--the entire army and the emperor himself surrendering as prisoners of war. The French had fought gallantly, but were outnumbered at every point.