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It possesses in the Middle Age common traditions, deep and penetrating, a common language, and the recent memory of a marvellous triumph. Protestantism and the Prussian temper ensure religious freedom to Bavaria. Even in 1870 the old principles of the Seven Years' War, Protestantism and the neo-Romanism of Pius IX, reappear in the opposing ranks at Gravelotte and Sedan.
Going directly through the village of Gravelotte, following the causeway over which the German cavalry had passed to make its courageous but futile charge, we soon reached the ground where the fighting had been the most severe. Here the field was literally covered with evidences of the terrible strife, the dead and wounded strewn thick on every side.
It was by this road that the Pomeranians, numbering about 30,000 men, had been ordered to march to Gravelotte, and after proceeding a short distance we overtook the column.
Following the operations of the German armies from the battle of Gravelotte to the siege of Paris, I may, in conclusion, say that I saw no new military principles developed, whether of strategy or grand tactics, the movements of the different armies and corps being dictated and governed by the same general laws that have so long obtained, simplicity of combination and manoeuvre, and the concentration of a numerically superior force at the vital point.
While the VIIth Corps occupied the border of the wood, four batteries, backed by the 1st Cavalry Division, made their way through the narrow ravine extending for about 1,500 paces east of Gravelotte. But as soon as the advanced guard of the long column came in sight, the French redoubled their rifle and artillery fire, which had till now been kept under.
This place was on some high ground overlooking the villages of Rezonville and Gravelotte, about the centre of the battlefield of Mars-la-Tour, and from it most of the country to the east toward Metz could also be seen.
Then it was Los Muertos and Hooven, the sordid little Dutchman, grimed with the soil he worked in, yet vividly remembering a period of military glory, exciting himself with recollections of Gravelotte and the Kaiser, but contented now in the country of his adoption, defining the Fatherland as the place where wife and children lived.
Breakfast over, the Chancellor invited me to accompany him in a ride to the battle-field, and I gladly accepted, as I very much desired to pass over the ground in front of Gravelotte, particularly so to see whether the Krupp guns had really done the execution that was claimed for them by the German artillery officers.
If there were reasons why he should not go away with the others, as they had all taken it for granted that he would do, was that a reason why he, Gaston, whose father had lost a leg at Gravelotte, should do this masquerading German a service? All the German's amiability and originality did not change that. Perhaps, indeed, that explained the originality and amiability.
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.
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