showing how ill-informed the head-quarters were from first to last. The Emperor then drove off from Gravelotte by the road to Conflans, through the wooded ways which were so soon to be the scene of a sanguinary encounter. Three hours after he started von Redern's guns opened suddenly on the French cavalry camp near Vionville, and began, by a stroke of surprise, the most remarkable and best-fought battle of the campaign.

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE FRENCH RETREAT THWARTED.

VIONVILLE-MARS LA TOUR.

THAT feebleness and hesitation which had been so conspicuous on the side of the French from the outset of the campaign were not likely to cease when dangers and difficulties increased with every passing hour. The Emperor, while he commanded, had been incapable of taking, not merely a bold, but any resolution, and the mental qualities of Marshal Bazaine were not sufficiently far above the average to enable him to remedy the mischievous effects of the long course of erroneous conduct to the heritage of which he succeeded. Moreover, neither Bazaine nor any other French commander, despite recent experiences, had formed a correct estimate of German energy and enterprise. Least of all could they believe that a single Corps and two divisions of cavalry would venture to plant themselves across the road to Verdun. The evil consequences were increased by the inactivity of the cavalry, and the bad, unsoldierlike habit of making perfunctory reconnaissances carried only a mile or so to the front and on the flanks. Marshal Bazaine's phrase "les reconnaissances doivent se faire comme d'habitude"—reveals the whole secret. At Wissembourg, on the 4th of August, General Abel

Douay's horsemen returned from a short excursion and reported that no enemy was near; and at eight in the morning of the 16th, General Frossard was informed by the patrols which had come in that there was no adversary in force on his front. The German horse were near at hand, yet de Forton's cavaliers had not felt out as far as their bivouac. Marshal Bazaine's original intention was that the two corps ordered to follow the Mars la Tour road should start at four o'clock; and Frossard had his men out in readiness to move at that hour when a fresh order postponed the march until the afternoon. During the night Marshal Leboeuf, alarmed at the absence of two divisions and at the continued sojourn of de Ladmirault in the Moselle valley, had suggested that it would be better to stand fast until the several Corps had been once more brought within supporting distance; and Marshal Bazaine had readily yielded to the suggestion. Still no measures were taken to ascertain whether foes were approaching or not, and the soldiers, horse and foot, took up their ordinary camp duties as they would have done had they been at Chalons in time of peace. The actual situation, if they had known it, required that every horse, man and gun should have been in motion at dawn, yet they all lingered; and it may be said that neither superiors nor subordinates were alive to the peril in which they stood-not of defeat, still less rout, the odds available against German enterprise were too great,-but of a blow which would make them reel and, perhaps, turn them aside from the paths to the Meuse.

THE VIONVILLE BATTLEFIELD.

The road from Gravelotte to Verdun passes by the villages of Rezonville, Vionville and Mars la Tour through a generally open and undulating country. The

ground slopes irregularly and gently upward on all sides from the highway; the villages on the route are in the hollows or shallow valleys. North and south of Rezonville a ridge separated two ravines, the larger, on the east, formed by the Jurée brook, had its origin north of Gravelotte, the smaller on the west, came down also from the northern uplands and parallel to its bed ran the principal road from Gorze to Rezonville. At the southern declivity of the ridge, and extending eastward as far as the Moselle, were a series of foreststhe Bois de Vionville, Bois St. Arnould, the Bois des Ognons, the Bois des Chevaux. To the west and southwest of Rezonville the country was generally open; but there was a clump of trees shading a pool near Vionville, and, north of the high road, were larger patches of woods, named after the village of Tronville. North also of the highway, and within the French lines, woodlands covered the hill sides towards St. Marcel, the hamlet of Villers aux Bois being seated on the highest ground. Along this upper plateau are traces of a Roman road, running due west, the ancient route from Verdun to Metz; traces visible also in the fields nearer to the fortress. The French occupied the higher stretches on the eastern and north-eastern edge of this irregularly undulating and wooded region. General Frossard was posted on the left of the line in front of Rezonville; Canrobert on the heights towards St. Marcel; Leboeuf had his troops about Vernéville, the Guard stood at, and in rear of Gravelotte, and the careless cavalry brigades under de Forton and Valabrègues had set up their camps west of Vionville, and thence kept a listless watch towards the heights and hollows, west and south-west, just in their immediate front.

THE FRENCH ARE SURPRIZED.

Suddenly, about nine o'clock, they were struck by shells fired from a battery which seemed to have sprung out of a rounded hill a few hundred yards to the west of Vionville. The missiles fell among the tents and burst about a squadron filing up in watering order to the tree-shaded pool. In quick succession three additional batteries appeared on the crest and opening fire added to the confusion below. Murat's dragoons broke and fled and, accompanied by the baggage train, horses, carts, men, galloped and ran off towards Rezonville; and de Gramont's troopers, further to the rear, mounted and retired in good order up the northern slopes, halting on the right of the 6th Corps. The batteries, six in number, then moved up to a height closer in to Vionville and smote the infantry camps. They were promptly answered by the guns of Frossard's Corps, while his brigades stood to their arms, formed up and sprang forward with alacrity. About the same time, a solitary German battery, visible to the south, fired a few rounds into the French left and then withdrew over the crest unable to bear the storm of Chassepot bullets which were poured from the aroused and irritated infantry.

The collision, so unwelcome to the French, had been brought about in this wise. Prince Frederick Charles had ordered the Third and Tenth Corps and the Sixth Division of Cavalry to start early in the morning and strike the Verdun road west of Rezonville. As General von Voights-Rhetz, commanding the Tenth, intended to move upon St. Hilaire, beyond Mars la Tour, he instructed von Rheinbaben to reconnoitre in the direction of Rezonville, increased his horse artillery, and sup