He negotiated equally with the Germans the authorization of an exit of his army « pour sauver la France d'elle-même » (to save France from itself), which meant from the republican push, as in revolutionary. It was during this stage that he vigorously opposed captain Louis Rossel who wanted to pursue the war and not betray his country (Rossel was the only officer to join since 19 March 1871 the Paris Commune). Since the Fall of Sedan, on 2 September, he represented the last hope in the French camp, Bazaine renounced to pursue combat and capitulated on 28 October. This surrender is often explained by the lack of motivation of Bazaine to defend a government which was corresponding less and less to his conservative ideas. However, Bazaine also presented the situation differently in a letter on 2 November 1870 in the "Journal du Nord" (Northern Journal): "famine, the atmospheres brought down the arms of 63,000 real combatants which remained (the artillery no longer fixed and the cavalry demounted, all this after having eaten the majority of horses and searched the land in all directions to find rarely a weak provision to general privations).[...] Add to this dark painting more 20,000 sick or wounded to the point of absence of medicines and a torrential rain since 15 days now, flooding the camps and not allowing the men to rest because their small tents were the only shelter they had". The news of this surrender afflicted France, while general Louis-Jules Trochu couldn't even seem to loosen the German noose around Paris which was besieged. Léon Gambetta, gone to Tours in the hope to assemble a Liberation army, understood that his tentative was unworkable and accordingly launched a proclamation where he explicitly accused Bazaine of treason in his speech: "Metz was capitulated. A general on who France was counting on, even after Mexico, just lifted from the Nation more than a 100,000 of its defenders. Marshal Bazaine has betrayed. He has made himself the agent of Sedan, the partner in crime with the invader, and, in the middle of the army which had the guard of, he simply delivered it, without even attempting a supreme effort, 120,000 combatants, 20,000 wounded, guns, cannons, the flags and the strongest citadels of France, Metz, virgin, to him, of foreign defilements". It is clear even at this early stage that Bazaine was acutely aware of his Army's shortcomings against the well known speed and menacing efficiency of the Prussian military machine, evidenced by his remark to a friend whilst boarding the train from Paris to Metz: ""Nous marchons à un désastre"."