On the 25th the 3rd Brigade reached Le Quesnel. The 15th Division of the VIIIth Corps advanced beyond Montdidier, and the 16th to Breteuil, whence it established connection with the Saxon detachments about Clermont. On the 26th the right wing closed up to Le Quesnel, the left to Moreuil and Essertaux. The cavalry scouted forward towards the Somme, the right bank of which it found occupied. The enemy's attitude indicated that he was confining himself to the defence of that position. General von Manteuffel thereupon determined to attack, without waiting for the arrival of the 1st Division, the transport of which from Rethel was extraordinarily delayed. His intention, in the first instance, was to utilize the 27th in drawing closer in his forces, which were extended along a front of some nineteen miles. But the battle was unexpectedly fought on that same day.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] According to statement on p. [177], to Mézières.
[49] The "five brigades" mentioned in the text consisted of the 3rd of Ist Corps, and the four composing the VIIIth Corps, of which, the Ist and VIIth, the Ist Army was made up. The 1st Cavalry Division, originally belonging to the Ist Army, was transferred to the IInd Army by the reorganization following the capitulation of Metz.
Battle of Amiens.
(November 17th.)
General Farre, with his 17,500 men distributed into three brigades, stood eastward of Amiens on the south bank of the Somme, about Villers Bretonneux and Longueau along the road to Péronne, holding also the villages and copses on his front. Besides these troops there were 8000 Gardes-Mobiles occupying an intrenched position about two and a half miles in front of the city.
In accordance with instructions from the Army Headquarter, General von Goeben (commanding the VIIIth Corps) had given orders for the 27th that the 15th Division should take up quarters at Fouencamps and Sains; the 16th at Rumigny and Plachy and in the villages further back; the Corps-Artillery at Grattepanche. Consequently the VIIIth Corps was to be assembled before Amiens between the Celle and the Noye, at the distance, then, of nearly two and a half miles from the Ist Corps, and divided from it by the latter brook and the Avre. General von Bentheim (commanding the 1st Division, Ist Corps[50]) on the other hand, had sent his advanced guard, the 3rd Brigade, into quarters north of the Luce.
At an early hour that brigade seized the passages of the brook at Démuin, Hangard, and Domart. At ten o'clock it moved forward in order to occupy the appointed quarters, and as the enemy were already in possession, a fight began which gradually increased in magnitude.