The Battle-field.
The ground occupied by the 2nd Corps was an undulating upland lying between the great road to Metz and the river, which, running in a northerly direction from the spurs of the Vosges, turns somewhat abruptly to the west a couple of miles above Saarbrück on its way to the Moselle. The heights of Spicheren, partly wooded and partly bare, fall sharply to the stream in the front and on the eastern flank, while on the west lies the hollow through which the highway and the railroad have been constructed. The foremost spur of the mass, separated by a valley from the Spicheren hills, is a narrow rocky eminence, which Frossard names the Spur, and the Germans call the Rotheberg, or Red Hill, because its cliffs were so bright in colour, and shone out conspicuously from afar. On the French right of this rugged cliff were dense woods, and on the left the vale, having beyond it more woods, and towards Forbach, farms, houses and factories. The upper or southern end was almost closed by the large village of Stiring-Wendel, inhabited by workers in iron, and having on the outskirts those unseemly mounds of slag with which this useful industry defaces the aspect of nature. The village stands between the road and railway, and as the heights rise abruptly on each side, all the approaches, except those through the woods on the west and north-west, were commanded by the guns and infantry on the slopes. It should be noted that west of the neck which connected the red horse-shoe shaped hill with the central heights in front of Spicheren village, there is a deep, irregular, transversal valley, which proved useful to the defence. General Frossard placed Laveaucoupet’s division upon the Spicheren hills, in two lines, and occupied the Red Hill, which he had intrenched, with a battalion of Chasseurs. In rear of all stood Bataille’s division at Œtingen. On the left front, Jolivet’s brigade of Vergé’s division occupied Stiring, and Valazé’s was placed to the west of Forbach, looking down the road to Saarlouis. As Frossard dreaded an attack from that side, especially as the road up the valley from Rosseln turned the position, his engineer-general threw up a long intrenchment, barring the route. It was in this order that the 2nd Corps stood when some daring German horsemen trotted up the high road to feel for it, while others, on the west, pressed so far forward that they discerned the camps at St. Avold. Below the front of the position, and just outside Saarbrück, the foot-hills, Reppertsberg, Galgenberg, Winterberg, and so on, and the hollows among them were unoccupied by the French, and it was into and upon these that Rheinbaben pushed with his cavalry and guns, which, from the Parade ground, exchanged shots with the French pieces established on the Red Hill or Spur.