The Battle.

If Frossard aired on the side of caution, Kameke threw restraint to the wind. After obtaining orders from his Corps commander, General von Zastrow to launch an attack on what he believed to be nothing more than a French rearguard, and without waiting for support, ordered his division forward. Not only had he failed to comprehend that, rather than a weak French rearguard, an entire army corps confronted him, but he also hit the part of the frontier where the French had massed more than one army corps. The four divisions of Bazaine’s 3^rd Corps lay within fifteen miles of Spicheren.[1]

Just before noon on the morning of 6^th August, General von François, commanding the 27^th Brigade of Kameke’s division was ordered to clear the French artillery from the Rotherberg, and obviously sharing his commander’s view that nothing lay before him other than a weak holding force, François’s cannon began to lay down fire in prelude to his infantry advancing. Just after 1 p.m. he pushed out two battalions of the 74^th Regiment on either flank, while the remaining two battalions moved towards the Rotherburg. Upon emerging from the tree line onto the open ground in front of the Spicheren heights the Prussians were greeted by heavy artillery and chassepot fire, together with the harsh Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak of the Mitrailleuse machine-gun as it barked into action, none of this doing any real damage to their company columns owing to the erratic nature of the French artillery fuses, and the fact that the Mitrailleuse was used in batteries like the artillery, rather than being pushed forward and dug-in among the infantry. However his flank battalions were forced to halt their forward progress in the Stiring valley on their left by the massed fire from Laveaucoupet’s division, and in front of Stiring Wendel on their right by a blizzard of lead and iron delivered by Vergé’s division. At the same time, although they had managed to reach the base of the Rotherberg the Prussians could do little more than take shelter there from French fire, which proved difficult to deliver owing to the steepness of the cliff face.[2]

By 2.30 p.m. François 27^th Brigade was spread out over three miles and barely hanging on to the scanty ground it had thus far gained. Its losses were mounting and the troops much fatigued by their efforts. Kameke’s other brigade, the 28^th was just crossing the Saar River with instructions to attack the French left rear, and to this end its commander, General von Woyna, had already sent the 53^rd Regiment together with a half battalion of the 77^th Regiment into the Saarbrücken Forest, while the rest of his brigade was still strung out in the rear.

Now should have been the moment for Frossard to launch a counterattack. With Kameke’s division spread so thinly over the ground, and his brigades separated from one another by the thickly wooded terrain, a strong blow delivered to the Prussian left flank would have forced them to retire, maybe it would even have caused them to route? Their gun line would have been overrun, and serious problems would have resulted in Prussian coordination once the French had regained the Saarbrücken Ridge.[3] The view of a recent French historian sums it up nicely:

‘What greater opportunity can be imagined? Frossard had only to throw himself on the Prussian formations and destroy them as they arrived one by one in the valley. But that did not happen. Frossard, an excellent engineer officer but a second-rate tactician, sat tight, and so succeeded in losing a battle which he should with minimum effort have won, while Bazaine, with 40,000 men close at hand, watched impassively the defeat of an army corps for no better reason than that its commander enjoyed a greater esteem than he in Imperial circles.’[4]

Therefore the Prussians, who should have been taught a resounding lesson for their hastily conceived offensive, although still under considerable pressure from the French, were given time to bolster their overstretched front as more troops, and in particular more guns, were drawn to the sound of the fighting. As well as the remaining division of Zastrow’s VII Corps, the 13^th, Frederick Charles, seething at having Steinmetz’s First Army blocking the road that he was meant to use, now ordered a general advance on Sarrbrücken.

General François leading the attack  (see Bibliography)

At 3.30 p.m. Kameke, with every unit committed, but fully aware that help was on its way, launched a frontal attack against the Rotherberg using the Fusilier battalion of the 74^th Regiment and three companies of the 39^th, with General François leading. Opposed to them along the crest of the Rotherberg, and well dug-in, were the 10^th Chasseurs and to their rear in support, a battery of Mitrailleuses. With remarkable courage and tenacity, the Prussians managed to scale the cliff face, and despite taking heavy causalities, managed to gain the crest, where they held on grimly in the face of mounting French attacks. General François was killed along with many of his men, but sustained by their own guns down in the valley, which raked the French position with an accurate and concentrated fire; the Prussians could not be forced from the heights. [5]

Not only had Kameke put all his available infantry and guns into the battle, he had also thrown in a squadron of Hussars to clear the French from the Rotherberg, a gesture which clearly shows his desperation. Just what these mounted troops were supposed to do when confronted by the steep sides of the cliff face which had caused their brothers in the infantry enough problems we will never know:

‘The Hussars were not long in discovering that their riding-school lessons did not include practice in crag-climbing, and they went back wiser than before…They saw before them a track which looked practicable, and they dashed on up, strewing the path with dead and living debris as they advanced. How near the summit one at least of them may have got I never knew till the next day, when I saw a dead hussar and a dead horse tumbled over into the ravine three-fourths of the way up. I saw them ride up. I never saw any of them ride back.’[6]

As more and more Prussian batteries arrived on the field they inundated the French position. Every attempt to force Kameke’s small force from their precarious hold on the Rotherberg was smothered in shell fire, which also caused the French artillery to pull back out of range, their bronze muzzle loaders being no match for the Krupp breech loading cannon.

By 4.30 p.m. the first Prussian infantry reinforcements started to make their appearance. The 40^th Regiment (VIII Corps, First Army) came in between the Rotherberg and the Gifert wood. Here they forced the French Chasseurs from the crest and linked up with Kameke’s line. To consolidate their hold on the position, and with great skill and courage, four guns were hauled up a rough track on the eastern face of the Rotherberg, these were soon joined by a further four cannon, also dragged up the steep track manually. Once in position they concentrated their fire on the village of Spicheren, about 1000 meters further south across a spur of open ground. Three separate French attacks were driven back with great loss but the Prussians found that they had only scratched the surface of Frossard’s main position, which lay before them on the high ground around Spicheren and Forbach, and to come to grips with the main French line they would have to cross over ground covered by artillery on the Pfaffenberg, which remained outside the range of their own guns.[7]

Prussian infantry

On the Prussian right Woyna’s 28^th Brigade had become disorientated as it moved through the Saarbrücken Forest in an attempt to turn the French left. The 53^rd Regiment, accompanied by the general himself, had conformed to his orders and attacked the high ground known as the Coal-pit Ridge, but suddenly discovering that the French position extended much further than he had anticipated, Woyna called up the 77^th Regiment to bear more to the south-west. The two leading companies conformed, but the remainder of the First Battalion continued along the railway line where they became embroiled in the attack on Stiring Wendel. The other two battalions, just as they were about to wheel to the right, had received François 1.30 p.m. request for support, and had moved directly to the front, linking up with the 27^th Brigade at around 3.00 p.m. The problem of control and command was so bad that Woyna was unaware, even at 4.30 p.m. that he had effectively been deprived of half of his brigade, and that what still remained was insufficient even to hold onto the ground he had gained, never mind being able to carry out any turning movement.[8]

 Frossard was well aware of the threat of a turning movement around his left flank. Vergé’s 1^st Brigade (Valazé) had been holding its ground around the railway yards and factories of Stiring Wendel, but now became threatened on its left by the advance of the Prussian 13^th Division moving down the Rossel valley in response to the sound of battle. Frossard had moved Vergé’s other brigade (Jolivet) from its position guarding his extreme left to bolster the defence of Stiring, while Bataille sent forward a regiment from his reserve division to Vergé’s assistance. Frossard also sent off an urgent message for help to General Metman, whose division had been ordered by Bazaine to take up a defensive (again!) position covering the road to St Avold, to move onto the ground vacated by Jolivet’s brigade -unfortunately for Frossard, Metman became as dilatory as Bazaine, and never got into action - thereafter the French launched a counterattack, which drove the Prussians back in some confusion, many retreating back to Saarbrücken. At 6.00 p.m. it appeared that the entire Prussian right wing was about to fall apart.[9]

Fortunately for the Prussians, Constantin von Alvensleben had arrived earlier on the field with the forward elements of his III Corps (Second Army), and although he was outranked by both General Goeben and General Zastrow, his experience was such that his superiors were quite willing to leave operations in his capable hands.[10]

General von Alvensleben  (David Plant collection)

Having committed his troops piecemeal to the centre and left as they came up, Alvensleben realized that, although he had no firm information concerning the state of the Prussian right wing, if the French now counterattacked in strength he could be forced back against the river. Therefore he decided to make another attempt to force the French to relinquish their hold on the Spicheren heights. To this end he sent six battalions forward in a direct assault from the Stiring Valley, endeavouring to come in against Laveaucoupet’s flank. Even here the Prussians found themselves in trouble. The first wave of the attack crumpled as it came under massed artillery and chassepot fire, while the second wave, coming up through the Spicheren Forest was stalled by a well executed hit-and-run withdrawal to the crest by Laveaucoupet’s flank guard, the Prussians only gaining the summit well after night had fallen. Here the French made a last bid to push their enemy from the Rotherberg and the Giferts Forest, but the attack was so disjointed and ill conceived that it achieved nothing. Finally at 7.30 p.m. Laveaucoupet concentrated his division in a tighter formation above Spicheren.[11]

In the gathering darkness Frossard reluctantly decided to withdraw. Although his right wing had managed to blunt every attack thrown against it, the advance of General Glümer’s fresh Prussian division threatened his centre and left. To cover his retreat Frossard positioned 58 guns in one great battery around Spicheren, under the covering fire of which he managed to pull his corps back towards Sarreguemines.[12]

The French losses are reported as 2,000 killed and wounded, with a further 2,000 men missing, the majority of which were taken prisoner. The Prussians suffered over 4,400 casualties, which, allowing for their superiority in artillery, still demonstrates the effectiveness of the French chassepot.

On the same day (6^th August), some 40 miles further to the east across the Vosges mountains the Prussian Third Army had defeated Marshal MacMahon at Froeschwiller, inflicting upon him the loss of almost twenty thousand men.

In concluding I herewith quote from William McElwee’s work, ‘The Art of War,’ which well sums up the whole misguided attitude of the French high command:

‘…the supreme irony of the campaign lay not in the failure of the French generals to exploit by counterattack the superiority which the Chassepot almost invariably asserted over the Prussian artillery. It lay in the fact that they had under their hand and failed to use effectively what was to be a war-winner of the future: the only machine gun [in Europe] then in existence.

Napoleon III had counted on the Mitrailleuse to redress the known inferiority of his artillery; and properly handled it might well have done so. It could be fired accurately up to a range of 2,000 yards at a rate of 150 rounds a minute. Used as an infantry weapon in the front line it could not only have made the already devastating fire of the Chassepot invincible in the infantry battle, but have forced the Prussian guns far enough back to allow the French batteries to move close enough to give their infantry overwhelming support. But the French chose to use it as an artillery weapon, organised in batteries and kept well behind the firing line. Its performance was, in consequence, bitterly disappointing. Only Canrobert properly appreciated its potentialities and later lamented that he had not been given them at St Privat where, he reckoned, they could have both completed the destruction of the Prussian Guard and enabled him to thin out his front line to provide a sufficient flank guard to frustrate the Saxon flanking attack which won the battle. So the most important of all the technological military achievements of the period was left entirely unexploited.[13]

 
The Mitrailleuse (Musée Royal de l’Armée-Brussels)

Graham J. Morris 
August 2005