First Encounters.

General Charles Auguste Frossard  (David Plant collection)

Ineptitude and hesitation had quite literally, ‘…handed strategy over to the Paris mob. The boulevards were thronged, and shouts were raised demanding the instant invasion of Germany.’[1] As usual, what the crowds in Paris demanded was considered as an indication of the mood of France as a whole, and on the 1^st August Napoleon ordered a reconnaissance in force towards St Arvold and Saarbrücken, which entailed, on the left, the 3^rd Corps moving in the direction of Völklingen, in the centre the 2^nd Corps, accompanied by the Emperor and the young Prince Imperial moving over the Spicheren heights, and on the right 5^th Corps crossing the river Saar at Sarreguemines.

On 2^nd August Frossard’s 2^nd Corps drew up along the heights overlooking the Saarbrüken parade-ground and his artillery began to exchange a sporadic fire with the Prussian horse artillery battery which was stationed, together with four squadrons of cavalry and twelve companies of the 40^th and 69^th Regiments around the town. After a brief skirmish the Prussian commander in Saarbüruken, Colonel Pestel, who had orders to avoid bringing on a pitched battle, withdrew his force northwards to Lebach.[2]

With their usual flare for exaggeration the French press embellished events out of all proportion with what had happened in reality, ‘An entire German army corps had been destroyed. Saarbrücken had been reduced to rubble. “Our army,” said a Press announcement the following morning, “ has taken the offensive, and crossed the frontier and invaded Prussian territory. In spite of the strength of the enemy positions, a few of our battalions were enough to capture the heights which dominate Sarrbrücken.” In the capitol cheering crowds thronged the streets and the church bells rang. It was the first demonstration of public euphoria; and it was to be the last.’[3]

The Town of Saarbrücken

While the French were celebrating a hollow triumph, Moltke was pressing on with the concentration of the Prussian armies. His forces now formed two wings. On the right, the Second Army under Frederick Charles containing the III, IV, IX, X, XII Corps, and the Prussian Guard, was advancing from the Rhine River towards Saarbrücken, while the First Army under General Steinmetz with the I, VII and VIII Corps were moving into line with the Second Army from the direction of the lower Moselle River towards Saarlouis, in all both armies numbered some 185,000 men. The left wing, commanded by the Prussian Crown Prince and containing the V, XI and the two Bavarian Corps and a division each from Baden and Württemberg, and numbering 125,000 men was advancing to threaten Alsace and Strasbourg, separated from the right wing by the Vosges Mountains.[4]

Totally unaware of the advance of the Prussian Third Army, on the 3^rd August Marshal MacMahon had ordered the town of Weissemburg to be occupied by the division of General Abel Douay (brother of Felix), which numbered 8,000 men, and whose nearest support lay twenty miles away. Despite having sent cavalry patrols across the frontier, which proved to be as useless at reconnaissance as the French High Commander were at organising an effective plan of campaign, Douay deployed his division around the little town where he was engulfed by the Prussian Third Army. The General himself was killed and his shaken troops fell back to link up with MacMahon around Worth.

General von Kemeke  (David Plant collection)

Moltke’s plan had been to unite the Prussian First and Second Armies behind the River Saar; there they would wait until the Third Army had crossed the Vosges Mountains. However General Steinmetz had other ideas, and proved that he did not have the slightest notion regarding Moltke's plans.

As soon as he received news of the fighting at Sarrbrücken, and despite strict orders from Moltke that the First Army was not to cross the Saar, but to coordinate its movements with the Second Army, Steinmetz, on the evening of the 5^th August, ordered his entire force to the Saar. Here the 14^th infantry division, who formed the First Army advance guard under General Arnold Karl von Kemeke, advancing on Saarbrücken on the morning of the 6^th August, found the bridges still intact, and seeing the opportunity that this offered, pushed on to occupy the high ground just beyond the town. Frossard, who had withdrawn his 2nd Corps back about one mile to the Spicheren plateau, had abandoned these heights in order to take up what he considered to be a ‘position magnifique.’