The Childrens' Story of the War, Volume 1 (of 10) / From the Beginning of the War to the Landing of the British Army in France

by Edward Parrott

On the 2nd of August something had to be done to allay the impatience of the French people, and Napoleon ordered an advance on Saarbrücken,[119] where a Prussian detachment of 1,300 lay. After a fight of three hours the Prussians were driven back; but they retired in good order, and were not pursued, neither was Saarbrücken occupied. Shortly afterwards the tide of German invasion began to roll across the frontier. It consisted of three armies, and comprised 447,000 men. Behind these armies was a first reserve of 188,000 men, ready to be sent forward later; and behind them, again, a second reserve of 160,000 men. In addition, there were 226,000 men to fill up the gaps caused by the killed and wounded. Von Moltke's plan was that the three armies should march into France separately, and then unite to give battle.

At Weissenburg,[120] which you will see on your map almost directly east of Metz, the 3rd German army came in contact with the French. MacMahon,[121] the French general, had no idea of how the German armies were disposed, and he had sent but a single division to Weissenburg. This division had to meet a whole German army, and though it struggled gallantly for five hours, it was crushed by overwhelming odds. The Emperor and his staff now lost their heads completely; all was confusion and dismay.

The victorious Germans marched southwards towards Wörth,[122] where Marshal MacMahon was striving to draw his scattered forces together. A careless watch was kept, and early in the morning the marshal was painfully surprised to find himself attacked by a force which greatly outnumbered his own. He was well and strongly posted, and had with him a number of fine Algerian troops;[123] but the enemy attacked with such fierceness that, in spite of the desperate bravery of his men, they could not hold their ground. Under cover of darkness the remnants of the French army escaped.

The same day another calamity befell the French. The 1st and 2nd German Armies had by this time crossed the Rhine, and were marching on Saarbrucken. When the advanced guard reached that place, about nine on the morning of the 6th of August, it discovered that the French, under General Frossard,[124] were strongly entrenched on a plateau with steep wooded sides. Almost immediately the French guns opened fire, and the German troops at a distance from the battlefield marched "to the sound of the guns." As each regiment arrived it was hurried into action, and one of the fiercest and most deadly battles of the war began. The French ought to have won. There were enough of their troops in the neighbourhood to beat back the Germans, but the commanders had not been trained to act together, and the consequence was that several divisions of the army never came into the fight at all.

When darkness began to fall, Frossard fell back, and the Germans had won a victory of which they were hardly aware. The poor, distracted Emperor sent a telegram to Paris announcing this double defeat, and doubtfully declaring, "All may yet be regained."

All the three German armies were now on French soil. The 3rd Army, which formed the German left, was commanded by the Crown Prince, afterwards the Emperor Frederick; the 1st Army, on the right, was under old General Steinmetz;[125] and the 2nd Army, forming the centre, was under King William's nephew, Prince Frederick Charles of Hohenzollern, called by the soldiers the "Red Prince," because of his fondness for wearing the red jacket of the famous Death's Head Hussars. The aged King William held supreme command of these armies, and with him as chief of the staff was von Moltke.

So great was the anger of the Parisians at the French defeats that the Emperor hurried to the capital, leaving Marshal Bazaine[126] to command the "Army of the Rhine." From Paris he ordered Bazaine to retreat on Châlons,[127] the French Aldershot, and there join the remnant of MacMahon's army and a reserve army which was being formed.

At once Bazaine began blundering. While the Germans were sending out their cavalry to scout in all directions and to pick up information as to the movements of the French, Bazaine made no such use of his mounted men, and was quite ignorant of the doings of the Germans. He ought to have retired on Metz with all speed, but he wasted much time. Only part of his army was across the Moselle when the Germans attacked his rearguard at a place called Colombey.[128] After a fight of seven hours, darkness ended the battle, and the French claimed a victory. Both sides had lost heavily, and Bazaine was wounded for the sixth time in his long career, during which he had fought his way up from private to field-marshal.