The End of the Battle.
In this action the French lost not quite four thousand, and the Germans nearly five thousand men; on both sides more than two hundred officers had been killed or wounded, General Decaen, commanding the 3rd Corps, mortally, while Bazaine and Castagny were slightly hurt. The French had actually on the field, including the Guard in reserve, with one brigade in the front line, three Corps d’Armée; for, though Lorencez did not press far forward, still the whole force under De Ladmirault was present, and in action. The Germans brought up successively two Corps and one Division, but a large portion of the 1st could not reach the scene of actual fighting until dark. It is impossible to ascertain exactly, and difficult to estimate the numbers engaged; but one fact is manifest—that the German assailants were numerically inferior, especially during the first two hours; that the disproportion was only lessened between six and seven; and that, at no time, were the French fewer in number. Marshal Bazaine emphatically states, in his report to the Emperor, that he held his position without employing the Guard, which is true, but it is not less true that the whole front of his line was driven in; and that he stood at the close within the range of the heavy guns in the forts. The French fought well, but they fought a defensive battle, and that is why they exacted from the assailant a much heavier penalty than he inflicted on them. The retreat of the Imperialists was delayed; but in the Great Head-quarter Staff serious misgivings began to spring up, and a fear lest the habit of bringing on improvised battles might not become a real source of danger. An able and enterprising General in command of the French at Spicheren and Borny would have read a severe lesson to German advance-guards, and would have made them pay for their temerity.
Not until a late hour did the news of the battle reach the king, who had established his head-quarters at Herny, on the railway. Prince Frederick Charles, at Pont à Mousson, was only informed of the event the next morning. His Army, the Second, had been engaged in marching up to and towards the Moselle, and at eventide the several Corps halted at these points. The 4th Corps was over the Seille, and not far from Custines and Marbache, places just below the confluence of the Meurthe and Moselle; the Guard had one division a little lower down at Dieulouard; the 10th Corps, entire, was at Pont à Mousson, with a brigade to the westward; the 3rd, the 9th, and the 12th, were facing the Moselle between Pont à Mousson and the left of the First Army, prepared either to frustrate a French advance up the right bank—a possible movement always present to the mind of Von Moltke—or cross the river. The 2nd Corps had come up to Falquemont; and a Reserve Landwehr Division, under General Kummer, was being organized at Saarlouis. To complete the survey, it should be added that Gneisenau’s Brigade, sent to surprise Thionville, an enterprise which failed, was returning to rejoin the First Army; and that on the evening of the 14th, the foremost troops of the Crown Prince’s Army were some squadrons of cavalry in Nancy, and an infantry brigade in Lunéville.