It is admitted that, on the evening of August 4th, the Germans had lost touch of the adversary. The reason was that the 4th Cavalry Division, which had been ordered up by the Crown Prince early in the day, had found the roads blocked by an Infantry Corps, and the vexatious delay prevented the horsemen from reaching the front before nightfall. So difficult is it to move dense masses of men, horses, and guns, in accurate succession through a closed country, along cross-roads and field-lanes. The few squadrons at hand were not strong enough to pursue on the several roads which radiate from Wissembourg, and the defect could not be remedied until the next day. It was known that the fugitives could not have followed the southern roads, yet there were hostile troops in that direction, and it was surmised that they must have retreated into the highlands by the western track, yet they might have traversed another way, lying under the foot of the hills. On the 5th of August, the cavalry, starting out at daylight, soon gathered up accurate information. General von Bernhardi, with a brigade of Uhlans, rode forward on the highway, into the Hagenau forest, where he was stopped by a broken bridge guarded by infantry; but he heard the noise of trains, the whistling of engines, and, of course, inferred the movement of troops; while on the east, nearer the Rhine, the squadrons sent in that direction were turned back both by infantry and barricaded roads. Towards the west, a squadron of Uhlans crossed the Sauer at Gunstett, a place we shall soon meet again; while Colonel Schauroth’s Hussars found the bridge at Woerth broken, were fired on by guns and riflemen, and saw large bodies in motion on the heights beyond the stream. Hence it was inferred that the army of MacMahon was in position about Reichshofen, an inference confirmed by the reports from the Bavarians who had marched on Lembach, from the 5th Corps whose leading columns attained Preuschdorf, with outposts towards Woerth, and from the Badeners on the left, who found the enemy retiring westward. At night, the Crown Prince’s Army had not wholly crossed the frontier. In front, were Hartmann’s Bavarians at Lembach, the 5th Corps before Woerth, the 11th, on the railway as far as Surburg; the Badeners on their left rear behind the Selz; Von der Tann’s Bavarians at Ingolsheim, and the head-quarters and 4th Cavalry Division at Soultz, otherwise Sulz. The 6th Corps—having one division at Landau, formed a reserve. MacMahon’s troops, except Conseil-Dumesnil’s division of the 7th Corps, near Hagenau, were all in position between Morsbronn and Neehwiller behind the Sulz and the Sauer, a continuous line of water which separated the rival outposts. The Emperor had placed the 5th Corps at the disposal of MacMahon, yet he finally detained one-half of Lapasset’s division at Saareguemines, and drew it to himself; while that of Guyot de Lespart was sent, on the 6th, towards Niederbronn, and Goze’s, not wholly assembled at Bitsche on the 5th, remained with General de Failly, who, at no moment in the campaign—such was his ill-fortune—had his entire Corps under his orders.
French Position on the Saar.
We may now revert to the positions occupied by the rivals on both banks of the Saar, in order to complete the survey of an extensive series of operations which stretched without a break, in a military sense, from the Rhine opposite Rastadt, towards the confluence of the Saar and Moselle. If the German Head-Quarter Staff at Mainz, considering how well it was served, and what pains were taken to acquire information, remained in some doubt as to the positions and projects of the Imperialists, at Metz, ill-served and hesitating, all was bewilderment and conjecture. Neither the Emperor Napoleon, nor his chief adviser Marshal Lebœuf, seemed capable of grasping the situation now rapidly becoming perilous to them; they had, indeed, fallen under an influence which tells so adversely on inferior minds—dread of the adversary’s combinations; and, perplexed by the scraps of intelligence sent in from the front, they adopted no decisive resolution, but waited helplessly on events. No serious attempt was made to concentrate the Army in a good position where it could fight, or manœuvre, or retreat, although, as General Frossard and Marshal Bazaine both state such a central defensive position had been actually studied and marked out, in 1867. Whether the occupation of the country between Saareguemines and Œtingen would have produced a favourable effect on the campaign or not, it would have prevented the Army from being crushed in detail, and have given another turn to the war. But there was no firmness nor insight at Metz. The orders issued by the Emperor look like the work of an amateur who had read much of war, but who possessed neither the instincts of the born soldier, nor the indefatigable industry and business-like skill of a man who, thrust into an unwonted employment, compelling him to face hard realities, endeavours to cope with them by a steady and intelligent application of the principles of common sense.
On the morning of the 4th, the Emperor did no more than shift his left wing a little nearer to his centre, by bringing General de Ladmirault into closer contact with Marshal Bazaine, leaving Frossard in front of Saarbrück, and directing De Failly to assemble two divisions at Bitsche, and report to Marshal MacMahon. The notion prevailing in the Imperial head-quarters was, that the Germans designed to march upon Nancy, which was not their plan at all, and that the 7th Corps, reported to be on the march from Treves, might make an offensive movement to protect Saarlouis, forgetting, as Frossard observes, that their rule was concentration and not isolated operations; and that the railroad from Saarbrück afforded the only serious inlet into Lorraine. In the evening the news of Abel Douay’s defeat and “wound,” not death, reached Metz, and created alarm, but did not cause any serious modification of the Imperial plans. The next day the Emperor, still retaining the supreme direction of the Army, and keeping the Guard to himself, formally handed over the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Corps to Marshal Bazaine, “for military operations only;” and the 1st, 5th, partly at Bitsche, and 7th, mainly at Belfort, to Marshal MacMahon. The incomplete 6th Corps, under Marshal Canrobert, had not yet moved out from the camp at Chalons. Thus, there were practically two Corps remote from the decisive points, and one in an intermediate position, so handled by the Imperial Commander as to be useless. Not only was the force called out for war scattered over an extensive area, but—and the fact should be borne in mind—the fortresses were without proper and effective garrisons, and, what was equally important, they had no adequate stores of provisions, arms, and munitions; while the great works at Metz itself, upon which such reliance had been placed, were far from being in a defensive condition. Early on the 5th, in answer to a suggestion from Frossard, who was always urging concentration, the Emperor directed him, yet not until the 6th, to fix his head-quarters at Forbach, and draw his divisions round about in such a manner that, when ordered, he might remove his head-quarters to St. Avold; instructions which left him in doubt, and inspired him with anxiety. During the evening, however, acting on his own discretion, he thought it fit to place his troops in fresh positions, somewhat to the rear on the uplands of Spicheren, with one division, upon higher ground in the rear, yet that step, though an improvement, did not remove his apprehension respecting his left flank, which had been weakened by the withdrawal of Montaudon’s division of the 3rd Corps to Saareguemines. General Frossard has been much censured, but he was a man of real ability, and almost the only general who, from first to last, always took the precaution of covering his front with field works.
German Position on the Saar.
We have indicated, in the preceding chapter, the stages attained by the First and Second German Armies on the 4th; and have now only to repeat, for the sake of clearness, a summary of their array on the evening of the 5th. The several Corps of the Second were still moving up towards the Saar. The 4th Corps was at Einöd and Homburg, the Guard near Landstuhl; the 9th about Kaiserslautern, and the 12th a march to the rear. Further westward, the 10th halted at Cusel, and the 3rd was in its front, between St. Wendel and Neunkirchen. The First Army remained in the villages where it was located on the 4th, that is the 7th and 8th between Lebach and Steinweiler, with one division of the incomplete First Corps at Birkenfeld. On the evening of that day, however, General Steinmetz issued an order of movement for the next, which carried the leading columns of the 7th and 8th close to Saarbrück, and, as a consequence, brought on the battle of Spicheren, the narrative of which sanguinary and spirited fight will fall into its natural place later on. As the main current of the campaign flowed Metzward, it will be convenient to recount, first, the operations of the Crown Prince’s Army, which though in a measure subsidiary, produced more telling and decisive effects upon the fortunes of the French, than the engagement which broke down their foremost line of battle on the Saar.
CHAPTER V.
TWO STAGGERING BLOWS.