The Campaign of Sedan

ed by Marshal MacMahon, had been collected at Strasburg from the garrisons in the Eastern region. At first it consisted of the 1st Corps, which included four infantry divisions, tr

te, the army of MacMahon was strung out between the Lauter and Lyons, and even the portion which may be described as concentrated, consisted of fragments posted or on the march between Wissembourg and Hagenau. That very morning, the 1st Division of the 7th Corps started by railway from Colmar to join the Marshal. It was upon this scattered array that the Crown Prince was advancing. MacMahon, who had intended to assume the offensive himself on the 7th of August, did not know how near and how compact was the host of his foes. Abel Douay, established on the Lauter, was obliged to part with several battalions to keep up his communications, through Lembach, with the main body. He sent out a party on the evening of the 3rd, and early on the 4th, yet each returned bearing back the same report-t

ever found. Consequently, the whole Army was set in motion, but it was by a gift of fortune, who, however, rarely favours the imprudent, that they were enabled to defeat the division exposed to their onset. At four and six in the morning, the Corps moved out on a broad front stretching from the hills to the Rhine. Bothmer's Bavarians,

at on th

, received the road from Pirmasens. It took its name from the fort of Bitsche, but the track from that place came down the folded hills by the Col du Pigeonnier, or Dove-cote Neck, and joined the Strasburg highway just outside the Hagenau gate. Beyond the walls were factories, pottery fields, and mills; above and below were the once famous Lines of the Lauter [p 87] thrown up on, and following the right bank of the stream through the forest to Lauterbourg; while on the foot-hills were vines, which do not add to the beauty of any

an able soldier, came to a rapid decision. He placed two battalions in the town, another with a battery at the railway station, and posted the rest and twelve guns on the slopes of the Geisberg. The walls and ditches of the town, the railway buildings, and part of the Lauter Lines, brought the Bavarians to a stand, and the combat of small arms and artillery on this point continued amid the vineyards and hop-grounds, while [p 88] the German centre and Left were swinging round through the forest. The operation occupied considerable time, as two hours passed by, from the firing of the first gun, before the leading battalions of the 5th Corps were brought into play. At length, they came into action against the railway station, and as the 11th Corps had also devel

resistance, slew many of the assailants, who swarmed upon all sides, and compelled the more daring among them to seek shelter at the foot of the walls. Then the Germans [p 89] with great labour brought up in succession four batteries, by whose fire alone they could hope to master the obstinate defenders who had manned even the tiled roof with riflemen. Surrounded, threatened with the weight of twenty-four guns, and seeing their comrades outside in full retreat, the garrison which had done its uttermost, surrendered as prisoners of war. They were two hundred, had killed and wounded enemies amounting to thre

keenly in Hagenau and Reichshofen. Marshal MacMahon called for instant aid from the 7th Corps; and the Emperor, moved by the news, decided to send him the 5th Corps, which General de Failly was at once ordered to assemble at Bitsche and then move up the great road to Reichshofen. In the German head-quarters [p 90] and camps, on the contrary, there was rejoicing and that natural accession of confidence in the breasts of the soldiers now pressing towards the Saar which springs up in fuller vigour than ever when they learn that the

ion. General von Bernhardi, with a brigade of Uhlans, rode forward on [p 91] the highway, into the Hagenau forest, where he was stopped by a broken bridge guarded by infantry; but he heard the noise of trains, the whistling of engines, and, of course, inferred the movement of troops; while on the east, nearer the Rhine, the squadrons sent in that direction were turned back both by infantry and barricaded roads. Towards the west, a squadron of Uhlans crossed the Sauer at Gunstett, a place we shall soon meet again; while Colonel Schauroth's Hussars found the bridge at Woerth broken, were fired on by guns and riflemen, and saw large bodies in motion on the heights beyond the stream. Hence it was inferred that the army of MacMahon was in position about Reichshofen, an inference confirmed by the reports from the Bavarians who had marched on Lembach, from the 5th Corps whose leading columns attained Preuschdorf, with outposts towards Woerth, and from the Badeners on the left, who found the enemy retiring westward. At night, the Crown Prince's

sition on

able of grasping the situation now rapidly becoming perilous to them; they had, indeed, fallen under an influence which tells so adversely on inferior minds-dread of the adversary's combinations; and, perplexed by the scraps of intelligence sent in from the front, they adopted no decisive resolution, but waited helplessly on events. No serious attempt was made to concentrate the Army in a good position where it could fight, or man?uvre, or retreat, although, as General Frossard and Marshal Bazaine both state such a central defensive position had been actually studied and marked out, in 1867. Whether the occupation of the country between S

etaining the supreme direction of the Army, and keeping the Guard to himself, formally handed over the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Corps to Marshal Bazaine, "for military operations only;" and the 1st, 5th, partly at Bitsche, and 7th, mainly at Belfort, to Marshal MacMahon. The incomplete 6th Corps, under Marshal Canrobert, had not yet moved out from the camp at Chalons. Thus, there were practically two Corps remote from the decisive points, and one in an intermediate position, so handled by the Imperial Commander as to be useless. Not only was [p 94] the force called out for war scattered over an extensive area, but-and the fact should be borne in mind-the fortresses were without proper and effective garrisons, and, what was equally important, they had no adequate stores of provisions, arms, and munitions; while the great works at Metz itself, upon which such reliance had been placed, were far from being in a defensive condition. Early on the 5th, in an

sition on

Cusel, and the 3rd was in its front, between St. Wendel and Neunkirchen. The First Army remained in the villages where it was located on the 4th, that is the 7th and 8th between Lebach and Steinweiler, with one division of the incomplete First Corps at Birkenfeld. On the evening of that day, however, General Steinmetz issued an order of movement for the next, which carried the leading columns of the 7th and 8th close to Saarbrück, and, as a consequence, brought on