That fine body had been in action for two hours and a half, and, despite a long march on to the field, was still fresh, its too impetuous advanced brigade, alone, having been roughly handled, and thrust back earlier in the day. The task now before them was the capture of Elsasshausen, which would open the road to Froeschwiller, take off the pressure from the 5th Corps, place Ducrot’s steadfast infantry in peril, and enable the whole available mass of German troops to close in upon the outnumbered remnant of MacMahon’s devoted Army. For these brave men, although obliged to give ground, were fighting in a manner worthy of their old renown, now dashing forward in vehement onslaughts, again striking heavy blows when overpowered and thrust back. Lartigue’s and some of Raoult’s troops stood on the right and left of Elsasshausen, supported by batteries on the higher ground, and two cavalry brigades in a hollow near the Eberbach. The foremost infantry occupied a copse which was separated from the main forest by a little glade, and this defensive wooded post had, so far, brought the extreme right of the 11th Corps to a stand. About half-past two, the centre and left had come up to the north-western edge of the Niederwald, and thus the French in the copse had fresh foes on their hands. They replied by a bold attack upon the adversary, whose front lines of skirmishers were immediately driven in. The gallant effort carried the assailants into the great wood, but not far; for behind the flying skirmishers, on both sides of the road, were troops which had more or less maintained a compact formation. Instead of yielding before the French advance, the German infantry, accepting the challenge, came steadily forward along the whole front, bore down the skirmishers, dispersed the supporting battalion, and, following the enemy with unfaltering steps, crossed the glade, and drove him into, and out of, the copse-wood, which had hitherto been an impassable obstacle. As the entire line rushed forward, they arrived at the skirt of the wood, and, coming at once under the fire of the French guns on the heights, and the infantry in Elsasshausen, they suffered severe losses. Then their own artillery drove up and went into action, setting the village on fire, yet not dismaying its garrison. The tension was so great, and the men fell so fast, that General von Bose resolved to risk a close attack upon an enemy whose position was critical, and whose endurance had been put to so exhausting a strain.
Thereupon, at the welcome signal, the bands of disordered foot soldiers—for nearly every atom of regular formation had long disappeared—dashed, with loud shouts, into the French position, carrying the village at a bound, and, pushing up the hillsides, took two guns and five mitrailleuses. The troops of the 11th had now crossed the deep road running south-westward from Woerth, had effected a junction with groups of several regiments belonging to the 5th, which formed a sort of spray upon the inner flank; and had besides, as already noted, extended south-westward towards the road to Reichshofen. Once more the French strove, if not to retrieve a lost battle, at least to insure time for retreat. They fell upon the Germans along the whole line, making great gaps in its extent, and driving the adversary into the forest; but here, again, the artillery saved the foot, and, by its daring and effective fire, restored the battle, giving the much-tried infantry time to rally, and return upon their tracks. The Germans had barely time to recover from the confusion into which they had been thrown by a furious onset, than the four Cuirassier regiments, commanded by General Bonnemains, were seen preparing to charge. Unluckily for these stout horsemen, the tract over which they had to gallop was seamed with deep ditches, and barred by rows of low trees, so that not only could no compact formation be maintained, but the cavaliers were not, in some instances, able to reach their foes, who were well sheltered among the vine-stocks, and behind the walls of the hop-gardens. Moreover, the German infantry were assisted by batteries of guns, which were able to begin with shells, and end with grape-shot. The cavalry did all they could to close; but their efforts were fruitless, and the enormous loss they endured may be fairly regarded as a sacrifice willingly made to gain time for the now hardly bested army to retire.
MacMahon Orders a Retreat.
Indeed, the hour when a decision must be taken had struck, and MacMahon, who had cleverly fought his battle, did not hesitate. He determined to hold Froeschwiller as long as he could to cover the retreat, and then fly to Saverne. For, although neither Hartmann nor Von der Tann, despite their desperate onsets, had been able to shake or dismay Ducrot, still, he was well aware that Raoult’s and Lartigue’s divisions had been driven back upon Froeschwiller, and he could see from the heights one fresh column of Bavarians moving towards Neehwiller, on his left, and another descending from the Hochwald to join the throng on the right bank of the Sulz. Moreover, two brigades of Würtembergers had come up to support the 11th Corps, and one part of them, with horsemen and guns, threatened Reichshofen, a Bavarian brigade, as we have said, was heading for Niederbronn. In addition, some of Ducrot’s intrenchments were carried by a Prussian Regiment on the right of the 5th Corps, and it was evident that the fierce struggle for Froeschwiller would be the last and final act of the tragedy. Yet, so slowly did the French recede, that an hour or more was consumed in expelling them from their last stronghold; and except on that point, their does not seem to have been any serious fighting. The reason was that the place was held to facilitate the withdrawal of such troops as could gain the line of retreat, and although the disaster was great, it would have been greater had not Raoult, who was wounded and captured in the village, done his uttermost to withstand the concentric rush of his triumphant enemies.
The Close of the Battle.
No specific and detailed account, apparently, exists, of this last desperate stand. But it is plain that, as the French centre and right yielded before Von Kirchbach and especially Von Bose, as the impetuous infantry onsets were fruitless, as the cavalry had been destroyed and the French guns could not bear up against the accurate and constant fire of their opponents, so the Germans swept onwards and almost encircled their foes. When Ducrot began to retire, the Bavarians sprang forward up the steeps and through the woods, which had held them so long at bay; the stout and much-tried 5th Corps pushed onward, and the 11th, already on the outskirts of Froeschwiller and extending beyond it, broke into its south-eastern and southern defences; so that portions of all the troops engaged in this sanguinary battle swarmed in, at last, upon the devoted band who hopelessly, yet nobly, clung to the final barrier. How bravely and steadfastly they fought may be inferred from the losses inflicted upon the Germans, whose officers, foremost among the confused crowd of mingled regiments and companies, were heavily punished, whose rank and file went down in scores. Even after the day had been decided, the French in Froeschwiller still resisted, and the combats there did not cease until five o’clock. But in the open the German flanking columns had done great execution on the line of retreat. A mixed body of Prussian and Würtemberg cavalry had ridden up on the extreme left, one Bavarian brigade had moved through Neehwiller upon Niederbronn, and another had marched through Froeschwiller upon Reichshofen. The horsemen kept the fugitives in motion and captured matériel; the first mentioned Bavarian brigade struck the division of General Guyot de Lespart, which had reached Niederbronn from Bitsche; and the second bore down on Reichshofen. The succouring division had arrived only in time to share the common calamity, for assailed by the Bavarians and embarrassed by the flocks of fugitives, one-half retreated with them upon Saverne, and the other hastily retraced its steps to Bitsche, marching through the summer night. The battle had been so destructive and the pursuit so sharp that the wrecks of MacMahon’s shattered host hardly halted by day or night until they had traversed the country roads leading upon Saverne, whence they could gain the western side of the Vosges. Nor did all his wearied soldiers follow this path of safety. Many fled through Hagenau to Strasburg, more retreated with the brigade of Abbatucci to Bitsche, and nine thousand two hundred officers and men remained behind as prisoners of war. The Marshal’s Army was utterly ruined, Strasburg was uncovered, the defiles of the Vosges, except that of Phalsbourg, were open to the invader who, in addition to the mass of prisoners, seized on the field, in some cases after a brilliant combat, twenty-eight guns, five mitrailleuses, one eagle, four flags, and much matériel of war. The actual French loss in killed and wounded during the fight did not exceed six thousand; while the victors, as assailants, had no fewer than 489 officers and 10,153 men killed and wounded. It was a heavy penalty, and represents the cost of a decisive battle when forced on by the initiative of Corps commanders before the entire force available for such an engagement could be marched up within striking distance of a confident and expectant foe.
One other consequence of an unforeseen engagement was that the 5th Division of cavalry, which would have been so useful towards the close of the day, was unable to enter the field until nightfall. The Crown Prince and General Blumenthal, not having the exact information which might have been supplied by horsemen who rode at the heels of the fugitives, remained in doubt as to the line or lines of retreat which they followed. It was not until the next day that reports were sent in which suggested rather than described whither the French Army had gone. Prince Albrecht, who led the cavalry, had hastened forward to Ingweiler, on the road to Saverne, but he notified that, though a considerable body had fled by this route, the larger part had retired towards Bitsche. Later on the 7th he entered Steinburg, where he was in contact with the enemy, but, as infantry were seen, he was apprehensive of a night attack from Saverne, and judged it expedient to fall back upon Buchswiller. The division had ridden more than forty miles in a difficult country during the day. From the north-west came information that the patrols of the 6th Corps had been met at Dambach, and that the French were not visible anywhere. The explanation of this fact is that one division of the 6th, directed on Bitsche, had, in anticipation of orders, pushed troops into the hills, and had thus touched the right of the main body. The reason why neither MacMahon nor De Failly were discovered was that the Marshal had fallen back to Sarrebourg, and that the General had hurried to join him by Petite-Pierre; and thus contact with the enemy was lost by the Germans because the defiles of the Vosges were left without defenders.
2.—Spicheren.
As the critical hours drew nearer when the capacity of the Emperor Napoleon and Marshal Lebœuf, applied to the conduct of a great war, was to be put to the severest test, so their hesitation increased and their inherent unfitness for the heavy task became more and more apparent. Marshal Bazaine had been intrusted with the command of three corps “for military operations only,” yet the supreme control was retained in Metz, and the Corps commanders looked more steadily in that direction than they did towards the Marshal’s head-quarters at St. Avold. Along the whole front, at every point, an attack by the enemy was apprehended. General de Ladmirault was convinced that the 7th Prussian Corps would strive to turn his left; Marshal Bazaine was disturbed by the fear that the same body of troops would come upon him from Saarlouis; General Frossard felt so uncomfortable in the angle or curve on the Saar, which he occupied, that he vehemently desired to see the Army concentrated in the position of Cadenbronn, a few miles to the rear of Spicheren; General Montaudon, who had a division at Sarreguemines, was certain that the enemy intended to swoop down upon him; and General de Failly was in daily alarm lest the Prussians should advance upon the gap of Rohrbach. At Metz all these conflicting surmises weighed upon, we might almost say collectively governed the Emperor and the Marshal, who issued, recalled, qualified, and again issued perplexing orders. It is true that, owing to the supineness of the cavalry, and the indifference of the peasantry on the border, they were without any authentic information; but if that had been supplied it is very doubtful whether they would have been able to profit by it; and they were evidently unable to reason out a sound plan which would give them the best chances of thwarting the adversary’s designs or of facing them on the best terms. The sole idea which prevailed was that every line should be protected; and thus, on the 5th, the Guard was at Courcelles; Bazaine’s four divisions, hitherto echeloned on the line from St. Avold to Forbach, were strung out on a country road between St. Avold and Sarreguemines; De Ladmirault, who had been ordered to approach the Marshal, misled by the apparition of Prussian patrols, gave only a partial effect to the order; while Frossard, on the evening of that day, instead of the next morning, made those movements to the rear which attracted the notice of his opponents and drew them upon him. At dawn on the 6th, “the Army of the Rhine” was posted over a wide space in loosely-connected groups; yet, despite all the errors committed, there were still three divisions sufficiently near the 2nd Corps on the Spicheren heights to have converted the coming defeat into a brilliant victory. That great opportunity was lost, because the soldierly spirit and the warlike training, in which the French were deficient, were displayed to such an astonishing degree by the Germans whom they had so unwisely despised.
The watchful cavalry on the right bank of the Saar had noted at once the retrograde movement which General Frossard effected on the evening of the 5th, and the German leaders were led to infer from the tenour of the reports sent in, that the whole French line was being shifted to the rear, which was not a correct inference at that moment. Yet it was true and obvious that Frossard had withdrawn from the hills in close proximity to Saarbrück. In order to ascertain, if possible, how far and in what degree the French had retired, small parties of horsemen crossed the river soon after daylight, and rode, not only along the direct route to Forbach until they were stopped by cannon fire, but swept round the left flank, and even looked into the rear, observed the French camps, and alarmed both Marshal Bazaine and General de Ladmirault. Above Sarreguemines they tried to break up the railway, and did destroy the telegraph; and thus, by appearing on all sides, these enterprising mounted men filled the adversary with apprehensions, and supplied their own Generals with sound intelligence. Some information, less inaccurate than usual, must have reached the Imperial head-quarters at Metz, seeing that a telegram sent thence, between four and five in the morning, warned Frossard that he might be seriously attacked in the course of the day; but it does not appear that the same caution was transmitted to Bazaine, with or without instructions to support his comrade. It is a nice question whether the general conduct of the war suffered the greater damage from the active interference or the negligence of the Emperor and his staff.