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Meantime the Third Army, under the Crown Prince of Prussia which, after having fought and won the battle of Worth, had been observing the army of Marshal MacMahon during and after the battle of Gravelotte was moving toward Paris by way of Nancy, in conjunction with an army called the Fourth, which had been organized from the troops previously engaged around Metz, and on the 22d was directed toward Bar-le-Duc under the command of the Crown Prince of Saxony.
Returning to Gravelotte, we next visited that part of the battlefield to the northeast of the village, and before long Count Bismarck discovered in a remote place about twenty men dreadfully wounded. These poor fellows had had no attention whatever, having been overlooked by the hospital corps, and their condition was most pitiful.
The advance of other German troops on that night made Bazaine's escape from Metz far more difficult than before, and very early on the morrow he drew back his lines through Gravelotte to a strong position nearer Metz. Thus, a battle, which in a tactical sense seemed to be inconclusive, became, when viewed in the light of strategy, the most decisive of the war.
As for grand old William I., the real maker of the German Empire on the quid facit per alium facit per se axiom, he died a veteran of many wars. He was not seventeen when he won the Iron Cross by a service of conspicuous gallantry under heavy fire. He took his chances in the bullet and shell fire at Koeniggraetz, and again on the afternoon of Gravelotte.
Over the grave of Hector Macleod is no proud and pathetic inscription such as marks the last resting-place of a young lieutenant who perished at Gravelotte Er ruht saft in wiedererkampfter deutscher Erde but the young Highland officer was well beloved by his comrades, and when the dead were being pitched into the great holes dug for them, and when rude hands were preparing the simple record, painted on a wooden cross "Hier liegen tapfere Krieger" a separate memento was placed over the grave of Under-lieutenant Hector Macleod of the th Imperial and Royal Cavalry Regiment.
Gravelotte, the farm in Maine, which Monsieur de Mortsauf had recovered after the emigration, was rented for seven thousand francs a year for nine years; his pension was four thousand. This income might not be a fortune, but it was certainly a competence.
As I have previously stated, the first of these blunders was the acceptance of battle by MacMahon at Worth; the second in attaching too much importance to the fortified position of Metz, resulting in three battles Colombey, Mars-la-Tour, and Gravelotte all of which were lost; and the third, the absurd movement of MacMahon along the Belgian frontier to relieve Metz, the responsibility for which, I am glad to say, does not belong to him.
From Gravelotte to Sedan he accompanied the army, and he was by the King's side on that fatal day when the white flag was hoisted on the citadel of Sedan, and the French general came out of the town with the message that Napoleon, having in vain sought death at the head of his troops, placed his sword in the hands of the King of Prussia.
Bancroft Davis, described the scene at the battle of Gravelotte when, owing to a rush by the French, the Emperor of Germany was for a time in real danger and was reluctantly obliged to fall back.
Diestelkamp, brimful of recollections of "six-and-sixty" and as ready to amputate your leg as to crack a joke or clink a glass; gay young Adjutant von Zuelow he who one day brought in a prisoner from the foreposts a red-legged Frenchman across the pommel of his saddle; and many other good fellows, over most of whom the turf of the Spicheren, or the brown earth of the Gravelotte plain, now lies lightly.
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