Effects of MacMahon’s Counter-Orders.
The fatal decision adopted at Le Chesne on the night of the 27th brought disorder and disaster upon the French Army. The wise resolve to retreat on Mézières, strangely as the statement may sound, had rekindled the fading spirits of the French soldiers. As soon as the fact was communicated to them they sprung with alacrity to perform the task of preparation. The officer who bore the order to the 7th Corps started from Le Chesne at six o’clock, and by nine at night the baggage, the provision transport, the engineers’ park, were actually in motion for Chagny, through the long defile which leads to Le Chesne. The cavalry were despatched to watch the flanks, and the infantry in silence and darkness glided towards their first halting place, Quatre Champs. “Everyman,” says Prince Bibesco, who was an eye-witness, “marched with a firm step. All seemed to have forgotten the cold, the rain, and the anxiety of the preceding days.” They drank in hope with the refreshing air, and then their hopes were suddenly extinguished; for as they were near Quatre Champs, at half-past five in the morning, an aide-de-camp from MacMahon rode up to General Douay and told him the latest decision—the Army was to move upon the Meuse.
The orders brought by the ill-omened messenger were that the 7th Corps, that very day, should move to Nouart, which it was not destined to reach; the 5th Beauclair, which it could not attain; that the 12th should gain La Besace, and the 1st Le Chesne, both of which marches were duly performed. Bonnemains’ heavy brigade of horse was sent to Les Grands Armoises, and Margueritte’s towards Mouzon, but afterwards to Sommauthe. The 7th Corps, fearing greatly for its baggage train, already far away, set out again and only reached Boult-aux-Bois, the men on short rations, the horses without a feed of oats. The same troubles beset the other corps which had despatched their trains northward. But the largest share of ill-fortune befell De Failly. He was ordered to march by way of Buzancy upon Nouart and Beauclair—indeed, to get as far forward as he could on the road to Stenay. The Marshal knew it was occupied, for he told De Failly to expect a sharp resistance before he could carry it. But when within sight of Harricourt and Bar his adventures began. He discerned hostile cavalry in his path; they were vigilant Uhlans of the Guard. De Failly halted; the cavalry increased, became enterprising, and some shots were exchanged; but in the end the French General, finding that he could not rely upon the support of Douay, who was resting his wearied men at Boult-aux-Bois, and believing that the direct road to Nouart was commanded by the enemy, he turned aside and, through narrow muddy lanes, made his way by Sommauthe to Belval and Bois les Dames, the last division not arriving at the camp until eight in the evening. Nevertheless, his appearance at and south of Bois les Dames so imposed on the German cavalry scouts that they retired from Nouart in the afternoon. The movements and halts of both French corps had been observed, and when night fell the Germans at Bayonville saw the French bivouac fires beyond Buzancy and in the direction of Stenay. At this time there were no hostile German infantry west of the Meuse nearer than Banthéville; for the troops on the flank of the French, from Vouziers to Dun, were wholly horsemen. No more valuable demonstration of the priceless value of cavalry was ever made than that afforded by the Teutons during this campaign. They were more than the “eyes and ears of the Army;” they were an impenetrable screen concealing from view the force and the movements of the adversary, who was still engaged in pushing up his troops in the hope of compelling the French to fight a decisive battle on the 30th. That hope, entertained by Von Moltke on the 28th, was not fulfilled, because, at the last moment, MacMahon turned his Army from Stenay upon Mouzon. On that day the King moved on to Varennes, and the Prince, his son, to Sainte-Menehould.
German and French Operations on the 29th.
The position of affairs on the evening of the 28th was somewhat perplexing, because the earlier reports sent in to head-quarters indicated, what was the fact for a brief interval, that the French were retiring northward. But no sooner had orders been issued to fit that state of things than certain information came to hand which showed that the Meuse was again their immediate objective; and it was then that, by abstaining from provocation, Von Moltke judged it possible to move up troops sufficient to fight with advantage on the 30th, somewhere west of Stenay. The Saxon Prince, acting within the discretionary limits allowed him, decided to cross the Meuse with the 12th Corps, and bring up the Guard and 4th to Buzancy and Nouart, but to evade a battle, and content himself with the fulfilling the task of obtaining intelligence. The orders were issued, and, while they were in execution, one body of cavalry tracked the 7th Corps during its painful march to Oches and St. Pierremont, and saw the divisions settling down in their bivouacs; and another made prize of Le Capitaine Marquis de Grouchy bearing despatches from MacMahon to De Failly. This was an important capture, for it not only deprived the unfortunate General of vital orders, but it placed in the hands of Von Moltke the arrangements which the Marshal had drawn up to guide the motions of his Corps. Out of this mishap grew a fresh misfortune for the French.
Marshal MacMahon, on the morning of the 28th, framed his plans on the supposition that he would be able to pass the Meuse at Stenay, and kept the heads of his columns pointing south-west; but learning at a later period that the Saxons were posted at that place in force—his reports said 15,000 men—he was again, at midnight, obliged to change his scheme, and he resolved to pass the river at Mouzon and Remilly. He, therefore, sent out orders directing the 12th Corps and Margueritte’s cavalry to Mouzon, for, having no pontoon train, he was compelled to seek permanent bridges; the 1st Corps and Bonnemains’ horse to Raucourt; the 7th to La Besace, which, as we have seen, they did not reach, but halted at Oches and St. Pierremont; and the 5th to Beaumont, which place they entered after weary marches and a sharp action. These were the orders for the day which, with other useful documents, were found in the pockets of De Grouchy. No special interest pertains to the march of the 1st Corps. The 12th found its way safely to Mouzon, crossed the river, and occupied the heights on the right bank, while General Margueritte despatched some of his Chasseurs on the Stenay road. What then happened? The Chasseurs returned and reported that they had seen no enemy, although at that moment Stenay was held by the enemy’s horse and foot. “They committed,” writes General Lebrun, then commanding the 12th Corps, “the fault which in former wars was made a ground of reproach against the French cavalry.” When in sight of Stenay they saw no Germans and turned back instead of pushing on to and beyond the town, or trying to do so; and the corps commander justly regards this laxity as a grave fault. So Lebrun, resting at Mouzon, could learn nothing, either from spies or his famous Chasseurs, respecting an enemy then within a few miles. The irony of the situation was complete when, a little later, the Zieten Hussars from Stenay rode up to Margueritte’s vedettes, and found him although he could not find them. In that fashion the French made war in 1870. General de Failly and his 5th Corps were more severely treated, for their ill-luck and misdirection brought upon them
The Combat at Nouart.
Acting on verbal instructions, given on the night of the 28th, at Belval, by a staff officer from the head-quarters at Stonne, De Failly set out the next morning towards Beaufort and Beauclair, two villages a few miles south-west of Stenay. He did not know, as we do, that the Marshal had changed his plans, and that the officer bearing the countermanding order had fallen into the hands of a German patrol. The French General did not break up his camp and quit Belval until ten o’clock in the morning, which gave the Saxons, who had been brought over the Meuse from Dun, plenty of time to watch his movements. Indeed, he could see them, troops of all arms, on the heights of Nouart, moving, as he judged, in an easterly direction, which was an error, possibly arising from some turn in the road, for the whole 12th Corps were over the Meuse between Dun and Nouart. General de Failly disposed his troops in two columns, one of which marched towards Beaufort by country roads; the other, with the General, consisting of Guyot de Lespart’s division and two regiments of Brahaut’s cavalry, made for Beauclair. Their road lay through the valley of the Wiseppe, a sluggish stream meandering through a marshy bottom land and passing Beaufort on its way to the Meuse. The route through Nouart was barred by the Germans, and when the leading French squadrons, crossing the valley to gain the main road, began to ascend the slopes, they suddenly came under a smart fire from infantry and guns. The French Hussars flitted fast back across the meadows, and De Failly at once stopped the march of both columns, putting his infantry and guns in position, and resting them principally upon two small villages. Then ensued, about noon, an indecisive but vexatious combat, for the Germans did not intend to attack in force, but simply harass and delay the 5th Corps; and De Failly, uncertain respecting the numbers which might be hidden by the woods, dared not retort, especially as he was remote from the French Army and without support from any other corps. So, for several hours, the fight went on. The object of the Saxons, who descended into the valley, was simply to detain the French, and, although the assailants traversed the brook and the high road, pushing forward a few companies and supporting them by an artillery fire from the heights, they did not come to close quarters. General de Failly was of opinion that he had repelled an attack, and that the enemy did not renew it because the French were so strongly posted; but the truth is that Prince George of Saxony not only held back his superior force because he had been enjoined to abstain from a serious engagement, but was himself misled by erroneous reports respecting the state of affairs towards Stenay. Soon after four o’clock De Failly also drew off; he had then just received a duplicate of the order directing him upon Beaumont. He sadly deplores the mischance, and pathetically relates how all his wearied troops reached Beaumont “during the night,” except the rear-guard, which did not enter the camp until five o’clock on the morning of the 30th.
The State of Affairs at Sundown.
Thus, for the French, terminated another day of error and loss, which left three Corps still on the left bank of the Meuse. When the sun went down, the German horse were close to every one of them except the 12th, which, it will be remembered, was on the right bank near Mouzon. The active cavalry moved in the rear of the 1st Corps, seizing prisoners at Voncq, riding up to Le Chesne, and keeping watch through the night upon the wearied 7th Corps, as it sought repose in the camps of Oches and St. Pierremont. The German Infantry Corps, meantime, had been closing up for the final onslaught. The 12th Corps was in and about Nouart, covered by outposts and patrols, which stretched away to Stenay. The Guard was at Buzancy, the 4th Corps at Remonville; the 5th Corps was at Grand Pré, with the Würtembergers near at hand; the Bavarians had come up to Sommerance and its neighbourhood on both banks of the Aisne; the 11th Corps stood at Monthois on the left, while the 6th Corps was in the rear at Vienne le Chateau. The head-quarters of King William were set up in Grand Pré, under the old gloomy castle, the Prussian Prince was near by at the little village of Senuc, and the Saxon Prince at Bayonville. Thus, in three days, the whole Army had drawn together, facing north, and was ready, at a signal, to spring forward and grapple with the enemy who had committed himself so rashly to a flank march in the face of the most redoubtable generals, and the best instructed, disciplined and rapidly-marching troops in Europe.