[5] Commanding 16th Division, VIIIth Corps.
[6] Commanded by General Glümen.
Right Wheel of the German Army.
Marshal MacMahon in his retreat had taken a direction which entirely severed his touch with Marshal Bazaine.
As he was not pursued, he could have used the Lunéville-Metz railway to effect his union with the French main army; for up to the 9th it was still open. But rumour had it that the Prussians had already appeared in Pont à Mousson, and the state of his troops did not permit him thus early to risk another engagement.
His Ist Corps, therefore, marched southwards on Neufchâteau, whence Châlons could be reached by railway. The Vth Corps was being shifted to and fro by contradictory orders from the Emperor's head-quarters. First it was to proceed to Nancy, then to take an opposite direction towards Langres. On arriving at Charmes it was ordered to Toul, but from Chaumont it was finally directed to proceed to Châlons. General Trochu had there located the newly-formed XIIth Corps, and behind this gathering point the VIIth Corps also managed to get away from Alsace and reach Rheims by rail by way of Bar sur Aube and Paris.
Thus by August 22nd a Reserve Army was formed, consisting of four Corps and two Cavalry Divisions, under the command of Marshal MacMahon, who, however, at a distance, as he was, of about 120 miles, was unable to render timely assistance to Marshal Bazaine, who stood directly in the line of the advancing enemy.
When the news of the double disaster of August 6th reached the Imperial Head-quarter, the first impression there was that it would be necessary to retreat immediately on Châlons with Bazaine's army; and the VIth Corps, a portion of which was already being transported thence to Metz, was ordered to retrace its steps. But this resolution was presently retracted. The Emperor had not merely to consider the foreign enemy, but public opinion within his own realm. The sacrifice of entire provinces at the very beginning of a war which had been undertaken with such high anticipations, would have provoked the unbounded indignation of the French people. There were still 200,000 men who could be brought together in front of the Moselle, supported by a large fortress, and though the enemy would still have the superiority in numbers, his army was holding a line nearly sixty miles long. It had yet to cross the Moselle, and this would necessitate a dislocation which might create a weakness at the critical moment.
In the IIIrd German Army the disorderly condition of the defeated enemy was not known, nor even the direction of his retreat. It was expected that MacMahon's Army would be found rallied on the farther side of the Vosges for renewed resistance; and as it was impossible to cross the mountains except in detached columns, the German advance was very cautious, and by short marches only. Though the distance between Reichshofen and the Saar is not more than about twenty-eight miles in a straight line, that river was only reached in five days. Nothing was seen of the enemy, except in the fortified places, small indeed, but too strong to be taken by storm, which command the highways in the mountains. Bitsch had to be avoided by a fatiguing circuit, Lichtenberg was captured by surprise, Lützelstein had been abandoned by its garrison, the investment of Pfalzburg was handed over to the approaching VIth Corps, and Marsal capitulated after a short resistance.