The capture of St. Hubert was nearly coincident with that stage in the heady fight before Vernéville which saw the Hessians embattled on the Bois de la Cusse, the exposed artillery of the 9th Corps in retreat from a false position, and the opportune appearance of the Guard about Habonville and of the Saxons to the north-west of St. Marie. In front of their main line the French held the latter village, were well forward in the hollows west of Amanvillers, stood fast in the farms of La Folie, Leipsic, Moscow, Champenois, and that portion of the Bois de Genivaux which covered the eastern arm of the Mance. The fight had raged for more than three hours, and they had only lost possession of the L’Envie and Chantrenne, places distant from their front, and St. Hubert, which, no doubt, was a dangerous-looking salient within a few hundred yards of the well-defended ridge where the high road turned at right angles towards the blazing farm of Point du Jour. From end to end, therefore, and it was between seven and eight miles in length, measured by an air-line, the whole of Bazaine’s formidable position was intact. The Imperial Guard, the effective reserve, still stood on the heights east of Chatel St. Germain, behind the left, and six miles from the right where the battle was to be decided.
Operations by the German Left Wing.
The two Corps, forming the left wing of the German Army, had been guided far more by the reports brought in by daring cavalry scouts, than by the orders received either from Prince Frederick Charles or Von Moltke, because these latter were necessarily less well-informed than the Corps commanders who were the first to receive the information. Yet the latter, of course, while taking their own line conformed to the governing idea, which was that the French right flank, wherever it was, should be turned. Moving eastward from Jarny, with the 12th Corps the Crown Prince of Saxony learned before two o’clock, that Roncourt was the extreme northern limit of Canrobert’s Corps, and he, therefore, varied a head-quarter’s order to march upon St. Marie, by directing one division, the 23rd, under Prince George, to march down the right bank of the Orne, through Auboué, and turn to the right upon Roncourt. One brigade of the 24th Division he directed on St. Marie, keeping the other back as a support. About the same time the whole of the Guard, except one brigade detached to back up the 9th Corps, had formed up near Habonville, and their batteries, as we have seen, had taken up a position which enabled them to smite St. Privat. When, therefore, General Pape had moved up the Guards by the ravine west of St. Marie he found the Saxons ready to co-operate with him in driving out the French battalions occupying the pretty village which has the air of a small rural town. It sits at the foot of the long bare incline leading down from St. Privat, traversed by a straight road bordered, as usual, by tall scraggy trees; and nestling amid gardens and walled inclosures shines out a cheerful white spot in the diversified landscape. From this point, St. Privat looms dark and large on the hill-top, larger and darker looking than it really is. To the southward of that village, beyond a dip, down and up which the cottages creep, stands the farmstead of Jerusalem, and further south the ground rolls away towards Amanvillers. More than a mile of open country separates St. Privat from St. Marie, affording no lurking places to either side, except such as can be found in the gentle swelling and falling of the fields; indeed, to the casual observer the smoothness of the surface seems broken only by the poplars on the highway. West of St. Marie there is a shallow ravine, and beyond it copses, and south, as we know towards Vernéville, more copses, ruddy brown farmsteads, and white villages. At this moment the battle-smoke puffed out, curled, rose in fantastic clouds, or rolled along the ground, upon the hill-sides and above the thickets and barns; about St. Marie, however, the air as yet was untainted by the sulphurous mists of combat so rank a mile away, but the garrison stood painfully expectant of the coming fray. For though the Guards were hidden the Saxon brigade to the north-west was visible, and the skirmishers driven from St. Ail, told how the “Prussians” were mustering for the onset.
Suddenly lines of skirmishers appear, gun after gun drives up, the Saxon artillery reinforcing the pieces which the Guard can spare, until three distinct lines of batteries are formed and open on the village. The German Generals, who judged the place to be stronger and more strongly garrisoned than it was, had brought to bear overwhelming forces—probably also to save time; so that, after enduring a hot cannonade from seventy-eight guns, the French battalions, who had borne the bombardment and had spent abundance of ammunition in return, did not await the shock of the storming columns sent against them, but fled by the eastern outlet to their main body. The Guard and the Saxons, who had come on with ringing hurrahs, swept into the place on all sides; some prisoners were taken, but the greater mass of the defenders and the French battery which had kept up a flank fire on the approach to the south face of the village, got safely up the hill. When they were inside St. Marie the assailants were able to see that “the adversary had done nothing to increase, by artificial means, the defensive value of a post, naturally strong; and had even neglected to barricade the roads and paths by which it is entered.” The truth is that the occupation of St. Marie by the French was an after thought, and that although defensible in itself the place was far too remote from the main French line of battle to be supported; and the garrison, which no doubt, in a different temper, might have died fighting in the streets and houses, yielded when they felt the hail of shells and saw the impending storm-cloud of infantry ready to burst upon them. The defenders hastened towards Roncourt and St. Privat, losing men from the fire of their exulting enemies, who followed on the eastern side until stopped by the chassepot and the guns on the hills. Thus a point of support was secured in that quarter, about half-past three, but no advance could be made until the artillery had prepared the way, and the turning column had made further progress in its march.
Nevertheless, the Saxon troops on the north of St. Marie and some who had been engaged in its capture, carried away by their ardour and the sight of a retreating foe, pursued so far and were so promptly reinforced that a fierce infantry fight ensued. For a French brigade, led by General Péchot, dashed out of their lines, struck roughly on the front and turned the left flank of the Saxons who, being obstinate, held the slightly uneven meadow lands with great difficulty and much loss. Although they were aided by their own batteries and those of the Guard which had been moved forward on the front between St. Ail and Habonville, and whose fire smote diagonally the French columns rushing out of Roncourt and St. Privat, yet the Saxons were overmatched; and, after much labour, as they were nearly all spread out in skirmishing order, General Nehrdorff, who comprehended the situation, and saw the waste of effort, gradually drew them back to the original line. The French counter attack, swift and sharp, was well sustained, and the bold Saxons paid a heavy price for their temerity. While this combat was in progress, the Crown Prince of Saxony from a height in front of Auboué, gazing intently towards Roncourt, made an important discovery—he saw troops in movement to the north of that village, and, in fact, Canrobert’s outposts extended nearly to the Orne. Thus, after a long search, yet not before four o’clock, the extreme right of the French Army was at length found, and thereupon the turning column of horse, foot, and guns, one-half Prince George’s division, was ordered to take a still wider sweep northward ere it wheeled in upon the French rear. As it marched stealthily on its way, the Saxon artillery developed a long line of batteries pointing towards Roncourt, protected by Craushaar’s brigade, which made a lodgment in the western block of a deep wooded ravine on the left of the guns, and stood ready to dash forward when their comrades emerged from the villages and copses behind the French right. In the centre the troops of the 9th Corps had stormed and occupied the farm of Champenois, had tried again, without success, to win the eastern tracts of the Bois de Genivaux, and, supported by 106 guns, had maintained a sanguinary contest with Lebœuf’s steady brigades, ensconced over against them in the farms, thickets, and hollow ways. About five o’clock the fury of the battle diminished for a moment, in the centre, on the left, and even on the right, where, down to that hour, it had raged with a spirit and vigour which must now be described.
General Frossard Repels a fresh Attack.
The enormous defensive strength of the position held by General Frossard’s Corps does not seem to have been thoroughly understood by anyone except that accomplished engineer. Marshal Bazaine did not perceive its value, for he was perpetually afraid that the Germans would break in upon it, either from the Bois de Vaux or by the high road, and his apprehensions or prejudices were confirmed when a column of troops was seen to be ascending the river-road from Ars towards Jussy, near St. Ruffine. General von Steinmetz, on the other hand, who had peered out from every available height between the Bois des Ognons and Gravelotte, although each attack which he had directed had been repelled, thought he discerned symptoms of weakness and even of retreat. The truth is that Frossard’s men were well hidden, not less by the natural features of the ground than by the trenches which he had dug and the breastworks which he had thrown up. If his batteries were silent or withdrawn it was because, although overpowered in the gun fight, they were yet still able to arrest the onsets of infantry; and if the French fantassins were invisible, it was because they were lying down or arrayed on the reverse of the ridge. The hot-tempered General of the First Army, however, surmised, after the capture of St. Hubert, that troops had been detached to aid the distant right, or that a moment had come when, if pressed home by an attack of all arms, Point du Jour could be carried and the French driven headlong into Metz. Under the influence of this delusion he rode up to General von Goeben, who was watching the battle near Gravelotte. Captain Seton, an Indian officer who was present, noticed the violent gestures and rapid talk of Steinmetz because they offered so strong a contrast to the steady coolness of the younger warrior. At that moment he was expounding opinions and issuing orders which brought on one of the most brilliant and destructive episodes in the battle. Goeben had already sent forward Gneisenau’s brigade, partly on and partly north of the road, but they were needed to feed the combat, support the weakened and scattered companies, and secure St. Hubert.
What Steinmetz now designed was a home-thrust on the French position; and, accordingly, he ordered several batteries of the 7th Corps and Von Hartmann’s cavalry division to cross the Gravelotte defile and plant themselves on the gentle acclivities to the south of the road. Now the highway runs first through a cutting, is then carried on an embankment, and only near St. Hubert are the gentle southern slopes above the gully accessible to horses and guns. But this narrow track swarmed with troops, into the midst of which came the cavalry and artillery. The infantry gave way and four batteries arrived on the opposite side of the defile, followed by the 9th Uhlans. But so deadly was the storm of shot which burst from the French position—for cannon, mitrailleuse, and chassepot went instantly to work—that two of the batteries were at once driven into the ravine below. The Uhlans actually rode out into the open, took up a position, and remained until it was plain to all that the lives of men and horses were being uselessly sacrificed. The other regiments, “well peppered,” had already gone “threes about” before clearing the defile, and the Uhlans, who were dropping fast, rode back, as well as they could, to Gravelotte or the sheltering woods. A more extravagant movement has rarely been attempted in war, or one less justified by the evident facts of the situation as well as by the deadly results. Yet two batteries actually remained, one, under Captain Hasse, in the open, about seven hundred yards from the French lines of musketry; the other, commanded by Captain Gnügge, covered in front by the low wall of the St. Hubert garden, but lending a flank to the adversary at the top of the road. Captain Hasse and his gunners were stubborn men; they fought their battery for two hours, in fact, until nearly all the men and horses were down. Even then Hasse would not retire, and one of his superiors was obliged to hurry up fresh teams and forcibly drag the guns away. But the battery under the wall held on, and did good service by firing on the French about the Moscow farm.
The failure of these mistaken attacks and the retreat of guns and horsemen seems to have shaken the constant German infantry, for they gave ground everywhere but at St. Hubert, and the French came on with such vigour that General Steinmetz himself and his staff were under a heavy fire. Fortunately three fresh battalions plunged into the combat; but they could not do more than sustain it; for every attempt made to approach the French, either towards the Moscow farm or Point du Jour, met with a speedy repulse. Indeed, down to five o’clock, the point of time at which we have arrived, along the whole line, no progress whatever had been made by the German right wing, which held on to St. Hubert, the ravine of the Mance, and the western portion of the Bois de Genivaux, but could not show a rifle or bayonet beyond in any direction. It was only the powerful German artillery which still remained the superb masters of the field, so far as their action was concerned.
It was at this time that King William and his staff, which included Prince Bismarck, rode up to the high ground above Malmaison, where he established his head-quarters in the field, and whence, until nearly dark, he watched the battle. Over against him, concerned respecting his left, and ignorant of the state of the battle on his right, was Marshal Bazaine, in the fort of Plappeville, whither he had returned from St. Quentin, which commanded a wide view to the south and south-west. He says that he gave General Bourbaki discretion to use the Guard wherever it might be wanted. But that officer knew little more than the Commander-in-Chief. An hour or two earlier, taking with him the Grenadier Division of the Guard, he had started towards the north, following a hilly road east of the St. Germain ravine. He had seen the immense mountain of white smoke which towered up in the north-west, but the current of air, hardly a wind, apparently blew from the south-east, since at Plappeville he could not hear the roar of the guns, and the view was so obstructed that he could not obtain even a glimpse of the country about St. Privat. He had to leave behind him the Voltigeurs and Chasseurs of the Guard, who were partly in reserve and partly posted to support Lebœuf, who called up one regiment from Brincourt’s brigade. Bazaine had also sent some guns to support Lapasset in his contest with the troops which Von Golz had marched up from Ars to the woodlands and vineyards opposite St. Ruffine. The French at this stage were still in good spirits. If Lebœuf was a little anxious behind his farmsteads, his woods, and skilfully-disposed re-entering echelons of shelter trenches; Frossard, who soon after relieved his front ranks from the reserve, was content; and De Ladmirault, as was usual with him, believed that he might be almost considered victorious, and only required a few battalions of the Guard to insure his success. The ammunition on both sides was running out here and there; indeed, Canrobert declares that he was compelled to borrow from De Ladmirault; still there was enough to last out the day. Over the seven or eight miles of flame and smoke and tumult, for a brief interval, came what may be called a lull compared with the deafening tempest of sounds which smote on the ear when the rival combatants raged most fiercely.