The Combat at Saarbrück.
King William did not reach Mainz until the forenoon of the 2nd of August; and it is characteristically remarked in the official history of the War, that the journey from Berlin had been relatively slow, because it was necessary to fit the six supplementary trains bearing the great head-quarters into the series of military trains in such a way as would not retard the transport of troops. It is a small fact, but an apt illustration of the preference uniformly given to essentials in the Prussian arrangements for war. Soon after the Staff had arrived in the “Deutsche Haus,” lent by the Grand Duke, whose son, Prince Louis, the husband of the British Princess Alice, commanded the Hessian Division, unexpected information greeted them. Telegrams reported first that a serious action was in progress at Saarbrück, and later that the Prussian troops had withdrawn from the town.
This was the famous combat, known at the time as the Baptême de feu of the unfortunate Prince Imperial. The Emperor Napoleon entered Metz on the 28th of July, and took the command of the “Army of the Rhine.” Until that moment, the seven corps d’armée in the field were under the orders of Marshal Bazaine, who received his instructions from Paris through Marshal Lebœuf. They were to act strictly on the defensive, advice which may be said to have been needless, since, as we have shown, not one of the corps was in a condition to march and fight. When the Emperor appeared on the scene, no great change for the better had taken place, and there was still a dearth of real information respecting the strength and position of the enemy, while the reports brought in contained an enormous percentage of error. Nevertheless, there was a vague feeling at head-quarters that something must be done to satisfy a public opinion which thought that the French armies should have been already beyond the Rhine; and on the 30th of July Marshal Bazaine received orders to cross the Saar and occupy Saarbrück. The task was to be intrusted to General Frossard, supported by troops on the right and left, drawn from the Corps of De Failly and Bazaine. Yet this modest operation dwindled down, when discussed in a sort of Council of War held the next day at Forbach, into a simple cannonade, and the occupation of the heights on the left bank! The Emperor was told that his project could not be executed, and resigning himself, as he always did, to the inevitable, he warned MacMahon that no movement should be made on his side before the lapse of eight days. The ostentatious movement on Saarbrück was to be made on the 2nd of August. Now, at that date, the place was occupied by fractions of the 8th German Corps, posted on both banks of the river above and below the town. They consisted of four battalions of foot, several squadrons of horse, and one battery, and the nearest immediate support was some miles to the rear, near Lebach. Colonel von Pestel had held the position from the outset of the war, and was allowed to remain, at his own request, although a considerable army stood in his front at no great distance, that is, the three leading corps of the Army of the Rhine. But on the 2nd Count von Gneisenau was in command of the German outposts, and had orders, if pressed, to retire upon Lebach, but he stood fast, and even assumed the offensive, in order to ascertain exactly what the pressure might be, and test the intentions of the adversary. Against him, in the forenoon, advanced Frossard in the centre, Bazaine on the right, and De Failly, who had crossed the river at Saareguemines, on his left. It was a wonderful spectacle. The Emperor and the Prince Imperial were present on the hills to behold so vast an array moving out in parade order, to fight a sham battle with real shot and shell, against a dozen companies and six guns. It is not necessary to enter into a detail of this combat; it is sufficient to say that the Prussians held on to the left bank until they were obliged, after an hour’s fighting, to retire before the development of several brigades. Finally, when a French battery on the Reppertsberg had opened fire on the bridges and the town, Count von Gneisenau withdrew his troops, first to a place near the town, and afterwards to a position further in the rear. At other points on the river the French had failed to pass, but in the evening they sent parties into Saarbrück, then unoccupied. The French in this skirmish lost eighty-six, and the Prussians, eighty-three officers and men killed and wounded. It was the first occasion on which the soldiers of Napoleon III. had an opportunity of testing the qualities of the German Army, and they found that their secular adversaries, disciplined on a different model, and broken to new tactics, were as hardy, active, and formidable as those of Frederick the Great.
After this striking example of stage thunder, there was a pause—the French did not pursue the retreating companies of the 40th and 69th, hold the town, or even destroy the bridges. Indeed, General Frossard, in his pamphlet, explains that although so few were visible, there must have been large numbers of the 8th Prussian Corps near at hand, and insists that they were held back because the adversary did not wish to show his strength; so that the result actually had an unfavourable influence on the French—it inspired in them a feeling of apprehension. They dreaded the unknown. Without exact, and with what was worse, misleading information, the Marshals and Generals were bewildered by every adverse strong patrol, which boldly marched up and even looked into their camps; and out of these scouting parties they constructed full corps ready to pounce upon them. No master mind at head-quarters filled them with confidence, or gave a firm direction to their soldiers. At a very early period, even in the highest ranks, arose a querulous dread of “Prussian spies,” and a belief that the hills and woods concealed countless foes. The apprehensions had no solid foundation, since the First Army was not nearer the Saar than Losheim and Wadern, and the only troops in the immediate front of General Frossard were those composing Gneisenau’s weak detachment, which retired some miles on the road to Lebach. Yet the feeble operation of August the 2nd induced the Great Staff to concentrate the First Army at Tholey, that is nearer to the main line of march of the Second Army, and on the left flank of the probable French advance. None took place, and thenceforward the swift and measured development of the German movement southwards went steadily onwards.