On the 29th the French fire was silent, and the hill was found deserted. The Germans had no intention of continuing to occupy the position. Their batteries now turned their fire on the forts, which suffered severely, and on the earthworks near Bondy.
By the end of the year the besiegers had succeeded in collecting the most indispensable ammunition in Villacoublay. The engineer operations were entrusted to General Kameke; the artillery was under the command of General Prince Hohenlohe.[61] The battery emplacements had long been finished, and with the dawn of the new year 100 guns of the largest calibres stood ready to open fire on the south front of Paris.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Viz., the section of the investment line on the northern side, from the Marne above, to the Seine below Paris, held by the Army of the Meuse, consisting of the IVth, the Guard, and XIIth (Saxon) Corps.
[60] "Kirchhof" seems to stand in German not only for our "churchyard," but also for our "graveyard," in which latter there need be no church. In the case of Le Bourget the church stands in the village street—the reader will remember de Neuville's striking picture—and the graveyard lies outside the shabby village, and has the aspect of the modern "cemetery." That term has therefore been used.
[61] Details as to the personnel of the artillery and engineer commands of the siege operations will be found on a later page.
The Army of the East under General Bourbaki.
While the French forces were engaged in constant fighting, in the north on the Seine and the Somme, in the south on the Loire and the Saône, General Bourbaki's army had nowhere made itself prominent. Since the 8th of December, when the 6th Cavalry Division had reported its presence at Vierzon, all trace of it had been lost. It was of course of the greatest importance to the supreme Command that it should know the whereabouts of so large an army; only the IInd German Army could acquire this information, and on the 22nd it received instructions to obtain the required enlightenment by means of reconnaissances.