The Battlefield of Gravelotte.
Whatever may have been his motives, Marshal Bazaine directed his Army to retire upon a position of exceptional strength on the heights to the westward of Metz, which look towards the wooded ravine of the Mance brook throughout its course, and beyond its source over the undulating plain in the direction of the river Orne. This ridge of upland abuts on the Moselle near Ars, is covered at its broad southern end by the Bois de Vaux, is intersected by the great highway from Metz to Verdun, which is carried along a depression where the wood terminates, and over the shoulder above Gravelotte. North of the road the high ground, with a westerly bias, runs as far as Amanvillers, and thus trending slightly eastward, ascends to St. Privat la Montagne and Roncourt, and back to the Moselle bottom lands below Metz. The left of the position, opposite the Bois de Vaux, is curved outwards, its shape being indicated by the high road, which, after bending round and creeping up the hill as far as Point du Jour, turns abruptly to the west, and crosses the Mance upon a causeway east of Gravelotte. This bulwark, occupied by Frossard’s Corps, from near Point du Jour to St. Ruffine in the lowlands, was made more formidable by shelter-trenches, field works, and gunpits. The two houses at Point du Jour were pierced for musketry, and the immense quarries in the hill-side, at the elbow of the ridge facing the Mance, were filled with troops. The only mode of reaching the front was either up the narrow causeway by St. Hubert, or across the deep ravine. Behind this strong front the ground sloped inwards, so that the troops and reserves could be, and were, screened from view as well as from fire. In the bottom stood the village of Rozérieulles; and above, the eminences on which the engineers had planted the forts of St. Quentin and Plappeville. The hollow through which the highway ran was bordered with vineyards, and near to Metz villages and houses clustered thickly astride of the road. On the right of Frossard were the four divisions forming the Corps of Lebœuf, extending as far as the farm of La Folie, opposite Vernéville. Here the ground was high and open, yet also sloping to the rear as well as the front, and its chief strength lay in the strongly-built farmsteads of St. Hubert, seated on the roadside just above Gravelotte, in those of Moscow and Leipzig, standing on the bare hill-side; and in the Bois de Genivaux, a thick wood, which filled the upper part of the Mance ravine. Beyond the 3rd Corps lay the 4th, under De Ladmirault, having its left in the farm and château of Montigny le Grange, and its right at, and a little north of, Amanvillers, a considerable village, planted in a depression at a point where one of the roads from Metz quits the deep defile of Chatel St. Germain, and bends suddenly westward to join, at Habonville, the road to Briey. The track of the railway, then unfinished, ascends this wooded gully, and winds on to the open ground at Amanvillers. The country in front of the ridge, from that place to Roncourt, is an extensive open descent, which has been compared to the glacis of a fortress, at the foot of which stand the villages of Habonville, St. Ail, and St. Marie aux Chênes. On the southern edge of this succession of bare fields is the Bois de la Cusse, which was not, strictly speaking, a continuous wood, but a sort of common irregularly strewed with copses; and on the north were the valley of the Orne and the woods bordering its meandering course. The 6th Corps, Canrobert’s, occupied and guarded the right flank, having an outpost in St. Marie, and detachments in the villages beyond Roncourt; but placing its main reliance on St. Privat, which, looked at from the west, stood on the sky line, and, being nearly surrounded by garden walls, had the aspect of a little fortress. The Imperial Guard, considered as a reserve, was drawn up in front of the fort of Plappeville, on the east side of the deep ravine of St. Germain. The fort of St. Quentin looked well over, and protected the whole of the French left, and served especially as a support to Lapasset’s Brigade at St. Ruffine, which faced south. Here the edge of the position touched the suburbs of Metz, and was within cannon-shot of the right bank of the Moselle, opposite Jussy.
It will be seen that the battlefield may be divided into two portions, differing from each other in their external aspects. The bold curved ridge held by Frossard rose between two and three hundred feet above the bed of the Mance, having in rear ground still higher, and was backed by the mass upon which stands Fort St. Quentin. It was, indeed, a natural redoubt open to the rear, covered along its front by the steep sides of a deep ravine, and accessible only by the viaduct built over the brook, a solid embankment, except where a vaulted opening allowed the stream to pass. On the French side of the bridge was the strong farmstead of St. Hubert, well walled towards the assailant; and further north the thick woods of Genivaux, which ran near to and beyond the farm of Leipzig; so that while a deep gully protected Frossard, Lebœuf had defensive outposts in the wood, which he intrenched in a series of recessed field works, and in the stout farm buildings, which stormers could only reach by passing up gentle acclivities, every yard whereof could be swept by fire. The right half of the line was different in every respect from the left—for there was no wood, and the whole front, from Amanvillers to Roncourt was, for practical purposes, though not so steep, as free from obstacles as the slope of the South Downs. The left and centre were supplied with artificial defences, but the right, which did not rest on any natural support, and might be turned, was not fortified by field works, because Marshal Canrobert’s intrenching tools had been, perforce, left behind at Chalons. The great defects of this “inexpugnable” position were that it had bad lateral communications, no good lines of retreat, and a weak right flank. Marshal Bazaine, who misjudged the formidable strength of his left wing, and gave his opponent the credit of contemplating an attack on that side, had taken post in Fort Plappeville, where he placed the reserves, and whence he could not see the right, which it does not appear that he had ever examined. The penalty for so grave an error was the loss of the battle.