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Updated: May 16, 2025
He set forth in his scheme that the Imperial Government could not possibly allow Alsace-Lorraine and Champagne to be invaded without a trial of strength at the very outset; and Marshal Bazaine, who, at some period or other, annotated a copy of Frossard's scheme, signified his approval of that dictum, but added significantly that good tactical measures should be adopted.
This, together with the outflanking movement which their increasing numbers enabled them to carry out against the French left wing at Forbach, decided the day; and Frossard's corps fell back shattered towards the corps of Bazaine. It is noteworthy that this was but nine or ten miles to the rear.
Perhaps he was listening to the retreat of Frossard's Corps through the fair province of Lorraine a province that he should never live to see again. A few months more, a few battles, a few villages in flames, a few cities ravaged, a few thousand corpses piled from the frontier to the Loire and then, what? Why, an emperor the less and an emperor the more, and a new name for a province that is all.
"By jingo, it's unlucky I shot that fellow," he exclaimed, half aloud; "I don't want to meet any of that picket again while this war lasts." Unpleasant visions of himself, spitted neatly upon a Uhlan's lance, rose up and were hard to dispel. He wished Frossard's troops had not been in such a hurry to quit Morteyn; he wondered whether any other troops were between him and Saarbrück.
He himself demurred to Frossard's plans, saying that he was no partisan of a frontal defence, but believed in falling on the enemy's flanks and rear. Yet, as we know, MacMahon fought the battle of Woerth under conditions in many respects similar to those which Frossard had foreseen.
It was wise to hide this change to a strategic defensive by assuming a tactical offensive; and on August 2 two divisions of Frossard's corps attacked and drove back the advanced troops of the Second German Army from Saarbrücken. The affair was unimportant: it could lead to nothing, unless the French had the means of following up the success.
The crown prince, on the extreme left, struck the first blow at Weissenburg, on the 4th of August; and on the 6th he assaulted McMahon at Worth, and drove back his scattered forces, partly on Chalons, and partly on Strasburg; while Steinmetz, commanding the right wing, nearly annihilated Frossard's corps at Spicheren.
On the same day Frossard's corps was defeated by Prince Frederic Charles near Saarbrücken, while the French emperor remained at Metz irresolute, infatuated, and helpless. On the 12th of August he threw up the direction of his armies altogether, and appointed Marshal Bazaine commander-in-chief, thus proclaiming his own incapacity as a general.
"The thing is plain to me," gasped Rickerl, pointing to the smoke-cloud eddying above the vineyard "a brigade or two of Frossard's corps have been cut off and hurled back towards Nancy. Their rear-guard is making a stand that's all. Jack, what on earth did you get into such a terrible scrape for?"
He made a frank, manly apology for his intrusion, looked appealingly at Lorraine, and said, with a laugh: "The fact is, I'm astray in the wrong camp. I rode out from the Spicheren and got mixed in the roads, and first I knew I fell in with Frossard's Corps, and I can't get away.
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