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.
The French Retreat.
Throughout the night the wearied French divisions, which had been either engaged in combat or standing under arms, filed over the Moselle, and the Emperor took up his quarters at Longeville, outside the town. Marshal Bazaine’s order, dated the 13th, directed the whole Army on the road to Gravelotte, whence one portion was to continue by Mars la Tour, and the other turn off to the right and march on Conflans. The rigorous construction of the Marshal’s order yields that interpretation, but he contended, at his trial, that he merely indicated the general lines of retreat upon Verdun, and that the Staff and Corps Commanders should have used any and every road or track which would have served the main purpose. There are, or at least were, in 1870, only two roads out of Metz available for the march of heavy columns of troops of all arms and large trains—the excellent highway to Gravelotte, which is a long defile, and the road through Woippy, turning the uplands on the north. All the intermediate lanes or cross-roads are rugged and narrow, and only one, that passing by Lessy, has or had any pretension to the character of an inferior village road. Guns and carts can move along and up them in Indian file, but not easily if numerous, and nowhere at a good pace. Thus, even, on the 14th, the Corps of Frossard and Canrobert, who both started late, found the Gravelotte road so encumbered by trains that they could only make their way slowly, and did not arrive at Rozerieulles until after dark. The Emperor was still at Longeville, anxiously awaiting the issue of the fight which revived all his apprehensions. Metz was excited and alarmed, and the streets were crowded during the afternoon and evening, with passing soldiers, guns, baggage waggons and provision carts. Night brought no rest, for the Guard and the 3rd Corps came hastily over the river, and were densely packed inside the town and outside the ramparts in the space between the walls and Mount St. Quentin; while General de Ladmirault was engaged until morning in passing his divisions across the Isle Chambière, and Metman had also strayed from Bellecroix to that side of the town.
Marshal Bazaine had quitted Borny at dusk. He rode through Metz “with difficulty,” and made his way to the Imperial head-quarters. Here Napoleon, who was in bed, welcomed him with his usual kindness, and when the Marshal explained his fears lest the Germans should cut in on his line of retreat, and referring to his wound, begged to be superseded, the Emperor, he writes, “touching my bruised shoulder and the fractured epaulette, gracefully said, ‘It will be nothing, an affair of a few days, and you have just broken the charm.’” Apparently, Napoleon still clung to the belief that the allies he had sought would come to his aid. “I await an answer from the Emperor of Austria and the King of Italy,” he said; “compromise nothing by too much precipitation, and, above all things, avoid fresh reverses.” He counted on one sovereign whom he had defeated in battle, and another whom he had helped to enlarge his kingdom, and he counted in vain, partly because he was unsuccessful, but chiefly because the national political interests of both countries prevailed over the gratitude felt by Victor Emmanuel, and the desire to turn the tables on the House of Hohenzollern which was still strong in the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine.
“You will drag us out of this hornet’s nest, Marshal, won’t you?” exclaimed an officer, as Bazaine quitted the Imperial quarters. It was a task beyond his strength. When day dawned a thick fog shrouded the valley of the Moselle, and before the camp at Longeville was astir, a shell from the opposite bank burst near a tent, “cut a Colonel in two,” to use the soldatesque language of Marshal Canrobert, “carried off the leg of a battalion commander, and wounded two officers standing near a drummer.” The lucky shot came from a patrol of German cavalry, which had ridden forward as far as the railway station, unopposed, and its commander, observing a camp at Longeville, had brought his guns into action, and proved, once again, that the hornets were abroad and making a bold use of their offensive weapons. A battery hastily ran out, and the heavy metal of St. Quentin drove off the intruders; but they had learned that the foe was over the river before they retired. Soon afterwards, by Bazaine’s order, a mine was fired, and one section of the railway bridge was destroyed.
Then the retreat was continued. Finding the road obstructed by an endless stream of carts and waggons, Marshal Lebœuf turned aside, and struggling on, amid transport vehicles, threaded his way by Lessy and Chatel St. Germain to Vernéville, where about seven in the evening he had assembled the tired infantry Divisions of Castagny and Montaudon; but his cavalry and reserve artillery did not reach the bivouac until night; while Aymard’s Division was forced to halt in the defile, and Metman was at Sansonnet in the Moselle valley. Frossard, followed by Canrobert, had marched during the day as far as Rezonville, where both halted; and the Guard with the Emperor and Prince Imperial attained Gravelotte. General de Ladmirault did not stir at all on the 15th, he put a strict construction on Bazaine’s orders, and affected also to be uncertain whether he was to continue his retreat or not. But he had allowed Lorencez to press through the town and thrust himself into the Lessy defile, where his troops, unable to get on, had to pass the night. These disjointed and irregular movements testify to the confusion of a hurried retreat, to the flurry which had got the upper hand, and to the absence of anything like a firm control over troops and generals. How could it be otherwise? The Emperor still commanded, or was believed to command, and it is plain that at no time did the Marshal secure prompt and cheerful obedience, or inspire confidence, always essential to success, and never more so than when an Army has to be extricated from what the Imperial Guardsman graphically called a “hornet’s nest.”
The Germans cross the Moselle.
Far otherwise had the hours been employed by the German host. Early in the morning King William had ridden from Herny to the heights above the battlefield, and there the Head-quarter Staff, from actual observation, were able to form a correct judgment on the actual state of affairs. At first they took precautionary measures against a possible counter attack, and it was not until eleven o’clock that, evidence sufficient to convince Von Moltke having come in, decisive steps were taken. All the Corps of the Second Army were directed upon or over the Moselle, the 1st Corps was moved to Courcelles-Chaussy; and the 7th was posted at Courcelles sur Nied to guard the railway line and the depôts; and the 8th was on its left, echeloned on the Lunéville road. At nightfall the 3rd Corps had crossed the Moselle between Pagny and Novéant, where they found the bridge intact; the 10th had one division at Pont à Mousson and one westward at Thiaucourt; the Guard was at Dieulouard, and the 4th Corps astride the river at Marbache-Custines. The 2nd Corps had come up to Han sur Nied. The Crown Prince’s advanced troops were at Haney, St. Nicholas on the Meurthe, and Bayon on the Upper Moselle.