The Close of the Battle.
No specific and detailed account, apparently, exists, of this last desperate stand. But it is plain that, as the French centre and right yielded before Von Kirchbach and especially Von Bose, as the impetuous infantry onsets were fruitless, as the cavalry had been destroyed and the French guns could not bear up against the accurate and constant fire of their opponents, so the Germans swept onwards and almost encircled their foes. When Ducrot began to retire, the Bavarians sprang forward up the steeps and through the woods, which had held them so long at bay; the stout and much-tried 5th Corps pushed onward, and the 11th, already on the outskirts of Froeschwiller and extending beyond it, broke into its south-eastern and southern defences; so that portions of all the troops engaged in this sanguinary battle swarmed in, at last, upon the devoted band who hopelessly, yet nobly, clung to the final barrier. How bravely and steadfastly they fought may be inferred from the losses inflicted upon the Germans, whose officers, foremost among the confused crowd of mingled regiments and companies, were heavily punished, whose rank and file went down in scores. Even after the day had been decided, the French in Froeschwiller still resisted, and the combats there did not cease until five o’clock. But in the open the German flanking columns had done great execution on the line of retreat. A mixed body of Prussian and Würtemberg cavalry had ridden up on the extreme left, one Bavarian brigade had moved through Neehwiller upon Niederbronn, and another had marched through Froeschwiller upon Reichshofen. The horsemen kept the fugitives in motion and captured matériel; the first mentioned Bavarian brigade struck the division of General Guyot de Lespart, which had reached Niederbronn from Bitsche; and the second bore down on Reichshofen. The succouring division had arrived only in time to share the common calamity, for assailed by the Bavarians and embarrassed by the flocks of fugitives, one-half retreated with them upon Saverne, and the other hastily retraced its steps to Bitsche, marching through the summer night. The battle had been so destructive and the pursuit so sharp that the wrecks of MacMahon’s shattered host hardly halted by day or night until they had traversed the country roads leading upon Saverne, whence they could gain the western side of the Vosges. Nor did all his wearied soldiers follow this path of safety. Many fled through Hagenau to Strasburg, more retreated with the brigade of Abbatucci to Bitsche, and nine thousand two hundred officers and men remained behind as prisoners of war. The Marshal’s Army was utterly ruined, Strasburg was uncovered, the defiles of the Vosges, except that of Phalsbourg, were open to the invader who, in addition to the mass of prisoners, seized on the field, in some cases after a brilliant combat, twenty-eight guns, five mitrailleuses, one eagle, four flags, and much matériel of war. The actual French loss in killed and wounded during the fight did not exceed six thousand; while the victors, as assailants, had no fewer than 489 officers and 10,153 men killed and wounded. It was a heavy penalty, and represents the cost of a decisive battle when forced on by the initiative of Corps commanders before the entire force available for such an engagement could be marched up within striking distance of a confident and expectant foe.
One other consequence of an unforeseen engagement was that the 5th Division of cavalry, which would have been so useful towards the close of the day, was unable to enter the field until nightfall. The Crown Prince and General Blumenthal, not having the exact information which might have been supplied by horsemen who rode at the heels of the fugitives, remained in doubt as to the line or lines of retreat which they followed. It was not until the next day that reports were sent in which suggested rather than described whither the French Army had gone. Prince Albrecht, who led the cavalry, had hastened forward to Ingweiler, on the road to Saverne, but he notified that, though a considerable body had fled by this route, the larger part had retired towards Bitsche. Later on the 7th he entered Steinburg, where he was in contact with the enemy, but, as infantry were seen, he was apprehensive of a night attack from Saverne, and judged it expedient to fall back upon Buchswiller. The division had ridden more than forty miles in a difficult country during the day. From the north-west came information that the patrols of the 6th Corps had been met at Dambach, and that the French were not visible anywhere. The explanation of this fact is that one division of the 6th, directed on Bitsche, had, in anticipation of orders, pushed troops into the hills, and had thus touched the right of the main body. The reason why neither MacMahon nor De Failly were discovered was that the Marshal had fallen back to Sarrebourg, and that the General had hurried to join him by Petite-Pierre; and thus contact with the enemy was lost by the Germans because the defiles of the Vosges were left without defenders.