edge of the Bois des Ognons, the French Commander drew still more troops to that flank. Between Rezonville and the ridges near Gravelotte he had, by eventide, placed the whole of the Guard, Frossard's Corps, Lapasset's brigade, and one-half of Leboeuf's Corps. Fearing the storming columns which ever and anon surged outward from the woods towards the commanding heights south of Rezonville, Bourbaki brought up fifty-four guns and arrayed them in one long battery. The closing hours of the day witnessed a stupendous artillery contest, which was carried on even when the flashes of flame alone revealed the positions of the opposing pieces. The thick smoke increased the obscurity, and yet within the gloom bodies of German infantry, and even of horse, sallied from the woods or vales and vainly strove to reach the coveted crests or storm in upon Rezonville itself. At the very last moment a violent cannonade burst forth on both sides, yet to this day neither knows why it arose, where it began, or what it was to effect. At length the tired hosts were quiet; the strife of twelve hours ended. The German line of outposts that night ran from the Bois des Ognons along the Bois St. Arnould, then to the east of Flavigny and Vionville through the Tronville copses; and after the moon rose upon the ghastly field the cavalry rode forth and placed strong guards as far westward as Mars la Tour and the Yron. The French slept on the ground they held, the heights south of Rezonville, that village itself, and the ridges which overlook the highway to Verdun as far as Bruville and Greyère. It had been a day of awful carnage, for the French had lost, in killed and wounded, nearly 17,000, and the Germans 16,000 men.

It is impossible to state exactly the numbers present on the field--probably, 125,000 French to 77,000 Germans. The latter brought up two complete Corps,

the Third and Tenth, two divisions of cavalry, the 5th and 6th-these sustained the shock and bore the chief loss-a brigade of the Eighth Corps, the 11th Regiment from the Ninth, and four Hessian regiments of that corps under Prince Louis, the husband of the British Princess Alice. They also had, in action or reserve, 246 guns. The French mustered the Imperial Guard, the 2nd Corps, three divisions and one regiment of the 6th Corps, three divisions of the 3rd, and two of the 4th Corps, five divisions of cavalry, and 390 guns; so that on the 16th they were, at all times, numerically superior in every arm. When Alvensleben came into action a little after ten o'clock with the Third Corps and two divisions of cavalry-perhaps 33,000 men-they had in their front the 2nd and 6th Corps, the Guard, and the Reservc Cavalry-not less than 72,000, the guns on the French side being always superior in number. The 3rd Corps, less one division, was at ten o'clock only three miles. from the field; these and half the 4th Corps arrived in the afternoon, adding more than 50,000 men to the total, while the Germans could only bring up the Tenth, and parts of the Eighth and Ninth, fewer than 40,000, some of them marching into line late in the evening. The French Marshal, who fought a defensive battle, did not use his great strength during the forenoon, or in the afternoon when his right wing had wheeled up to the front. The result was an "indecisive action "-the phrase is used by the official German historian-and that it was indecisive must be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that Marshal Bazaine, nor he alone, stood in constant dread of an overwhelming inroad of "Prussians" on his left, with intent to cut him off from Metz and thrust him, unprovided with munitions of all kinds, on to the Briey-Longuyon road. But it may be inferred from the mode in which the battle was fought by the

French commanders, from the first shot to the last, that the Germans had obtained a moral ascendency over the leaders and the led, and that such an ascendency had a great influence upon the tactics, as well as the strategy, of Marshal Bazaine and his subordinates in command. Nothing supports the correctness of this inference more strongly than the fact that an Army of 120,000 men considered a great success had been achieved when it had resisted the onsets of less than two-thirds of its numbers, and had been driven from its line of retreat!

193

CHAPTER IX.

PRESSED BACK ON METZ.

DARKNESS had set in, and the last shot had been fired, when Marshal Bazaine rode back to his head-quarters at Gravelotte. There he became impressed with the scarcity-" penury"-of munitions and provisions; there he acknowledged to the Emperor that the direct road to Verdun had been closed, and that he might be obliged to retreat by the north; and there he wrote the order which was to move his entire Army the next day nearer to Metz. The troops began their retrograde march as early as four o'clock, by which hour Prince Frederick Charles was up on the hill above Flavigny, intently watching his antagonists. Rezonville was still occupied by infantry, a cavalry division was drawn up between that village and Vernéville until late in the forenoon, and the marches of troops to and fro kept the cautious German Commanders, for some time, in a state of uncertainty.

It has now to be shown how they had employed the 16th outside the area of the conflict, where the several Corps stood in the evening, and by what means the Great Staff, on the 17th, acquired the knowledge that the "Army of the Rhine" had retired upon the line of hills immediately to the westward of Metz.

The movement of troops comes first under notice. On the extreme left the Fourth Corps having crossed the Moselle at Marbache, had pushed forward in a southwesterly direction, part of the Corps making a dashing but fruitless attempt to intimidate the garrison of Toul, so important because it barred the railway to Chalons, and at the end of the day was still under orders to march upon the Meuse. The Guard, preceded by its cavalry, advanced from Dieulouard to several points half-way between the Moselle and the Meuse, the right being at Bernecourt and the left about Beaumont. The Twelfth Corps, Saxons, crossed the Moselle at Pont à Mousson, and had one division there and one about Regnieville en Haye. The Second Corps, still approaching the Moselle by forced marches, had attained villages east of the Seille. It will be readily understood that, as the Fourth and Second Corps were so far distant from the centre of action west of Metz, they could hardly be moved up in time to share in the impending struggle; and they, therefore, for the present may be omitted from the narrative. It was otherwise with the remaining Corps, and it was the aim of the Great Staff to bring them all up to the Verdun road.

From the very earliest moment, General von Moltke held the opinion that the full consequences of the action. on the 14th could only be secured by vigorous operations on the left bank of the Moselle; and as the reports came in from the front on the 16th, that sound judgment was more than confirmed. The Royal headquarters were transferred in the forenoon to Pont à Mousson, whither King William repaired; and von Moltke, who had preceded the King, found information which led the general to the conclusion that a new chapter in the campaign had been opened. Accordingly, he desired to push up to the front the largest possible