The Third Corps strikes in.
Rheinbaben’s bold horsemen and gunners had done their work; they had gained for the oncoming infantry that species of moral advantage which always accrues from a surprise. As they fell back to more sheltered positions behind the swelling hills, the right wing of the 3rd Corps, under Stülpnagel, entered the field from the south; the left wing, directed by the fiery Alvensleben himself, came down into the arena from the south-west, and several batteries, urged on by Von Bulow, dashed up and formed the centre of the assailants. Indeed, the guns were in action before the infantry could march over the distance between their starting points and the outward spray of the French line of battle; so that for an appreciable interval the groups of batteries had to depend upon themselves. Yet not for long. Stülpnagel’s battalions plunged into the dense woods on the right, and waged a close combat with the skirmishers of Jolivet’s brigade, who were slow to give ground. Beyond the thickets, the left wing of the division drove Valazé’s skirmishers from an eminence, the highest in those parts, and a battery was speedily in action on its bare summit. By degrees, as they came up, the battalions of the 10th Brigade went forward on the left, or western, flank of the height, where the contest, conducted with vigour on both sides, eddied to and fro, until the German onset, repeated and sustained, gained the mastery, and cleared the slopes so effectually that five other batteries, driving up the hill as fast as they could clear the defile, took ground on its top, and gave support to the companies in the wood and on the open down. About an hour was consumed in this desperate work, made all the more arduous because the German infantry pushed eagerly into the fight, not in compact masses, but one battalion after another as each struggled up to the front. Major-General Doering was killed, and many officers went down in this sanguinary strife: one battalion which dashed forward to resist a French attack at a critical moment lost every officer. But as it retired, broken and wasted, the French were smitten in turn by its comrades, forced to give way, and the position was, at this heavy cost, secured. For the troops engaged in the forest had now attained the northern edge of the Bois de Vionville, the batteries on the lofty hill were safe, and Stülpnagel’s Division was solidly established upon the most commanding uplands in that part of the field.
To their left rear was the 6th Cavalry Division; but between them and the fields west of Vionville were no infantry, only lines of guns, protected by a few squadrons of horse. For the 6th Infantry Division, coming on from Buxièries, had gradually wheeled to the right until they faced to the east, the 11th Brigade crossing the high road, north of Tronville, the 12th moving upon Vionville; so that they formed a line of attack directed upon Bataille’s division which held Vionville and Flavigny, having on its right, beyond the Verdun road, the division of Lafont de Villiers belonging to Canrobert’s Corps. While Stülpnagel was striving to obtain a grip of the woods and heights on the French left, Buddenbrock, the other divisional commander, acting under the eyes of his chief, threw the weight of his division upon the two villages which covered what was then the French centre. Vionville was first carried by the usual turning movement, and its capture was followed by the outburst of a still more murderous conflict. The French had brought up more and heavier pieces, and these poured a crushing fire into the village. The Germans answered by continuing the attack on the French infantry. Yet so confused was the engagement on the bare hill side, so completely was it a “soldiers’ battle,” such was the swaying to and fro of the mingled companies which, crushed and mangled, yet welded themselves together and pressed on, that, once more, the official German historian renounces the task of minute description. But the effect of the hurly-burly was soon manifest—Bataille’s entire division, unable to endure the torment, and seeing its General fall wounded, went about and retired; Valazé’s brigade, “taken in flank,” says Frossard, by a German battery, and losing its gallant commander, also marched off through Rezonville; and the nearest brigade of Canrobert’s Corps likewise receded, either under pressure or weakened in purpose by example. The Germans paid a great price for the immense advantage secured; but as Flavigny fell into their hands, as the left of Stülpnagel’s Division joined in its capture, and as the front of battle was now no longer an arc but its chord, the prize was well worth its cost. The sole reinforcements which had arrived to aid the 3rd Corps, were two detachments, parts of the same brigade, and pertaining to the 10th which, on their way to join that Corps then moving westward, had turned aside, attracted by the magnetism of the cannonade. How much of the success obtained was due to the valour, devotion, and endurance of the artillery may be gathered from the French narratives. No troops could have fought with greater hardihood and dash—not fleeting, but sustained—than the infantry of the 3rd Corps, all Prussians from the Mark of Brandenburg. But they had their equals among the dauntless gunners, deserving to be called “tirailleurs d’artillerie,” who literally used their batteries as battalions, dragging them up to the very outward edges of the fight, often within rifle-shot, and when pressed, retiring some scores of paces, then halting and opening at short range upon their pursuers. The line, composed of groups of batteries, especially in the forenoon, was the backbone of the battle.