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Vous qui ehantez victoire, Heros de Sadowa, Rappelez-vous l'histoire D'Auerstadt et d'Iena. Alas! the time was drawing near when the cannon of Reichshofen was to change the merry tune of the French chanson into a dirge for many of the brave, light-hearted fellows, then so unmindful of the storm slowly gathering in the east.
And then I loved the sonorous words of the great captains, the dramatic representations of martial glory. My father was in the third regiment of zouaves, the one which was hewn in pieces at Reichshofen, in the Niedervald, and which in 1859 at Palestro, made that famous charge against the Austrians and hurled them into the great canal.
Soldiers of the King or of the republic, old "grognards" of Napoleon, who always growled yet followed just the same, youngsters who bit their cartridges with childish lips, veterans of fights in Africa, cuirassieurs of Reichshofen, gardes-mobiles of the Loire, all, at the moment of duty and sacrifice, did everything that France expected of her sons.
The defeats of Forbach and Reichshofen soon caused these first plans to be modified. The 6th Corps was ordered to return to the Chalons camp. The last troops of the 2d Brigade, held up at Toul and Commercy, were returned on the same trains. The 1st Brigade entrained at Nancy, on the night of August 8th, arriving at the Chalons camp on the afternoon of August 8th.
The news of this reverse and of the large German forces ready to pour into the north of Alsace led the Emperor to order the 7th French corps at Belfort, and the 5th in and around Bitsch, to send reinforcements to MacMahon, whose main force held the steep and wooded hills between the villages of Wörth, Fröschweiler, and Reichshofen.
Behind Woerth, again, distant a little more than two miles on the road to Reichshofen, was the key to the position, the village of Froeschweiler. From this point the French left was thrown back to a mound, covered by a wood, in front of Reichshofen. On the 5th of August the crown prince had set his army in motion, and had rested for the night at Sulz.
The line of railway between Strassburg and Bitsch touches Reichshofen; but, for some reason that has never been satisfactorily explained, MacMahon was able to draw up only one division from the side of Strassburg and Belfort, and not one from Bitsch, which was within an easy march.
But by five o'clock the defence was outflanked on the two wings and crushed at the centre; human nature could stand no more after eight hours' fighting; and after a final despairing effort of the French Cuirassiers all their line gave way in a general rout down the slopes to Reichshofen and towards Saverne.
Meanwhile MacMahon, on hearing of Douay's defeat, had marched to Reichshofen, received there the shattered remnants of Douay's division, and, with the emperor's orders under no circumstances to decline a battle, took up a position on the hills of which Worth, Froeschweiler and Elsasshausen form the central points.
The Germans, having seized Woerth, stormed the hilly slopes between that place and Froschweiler, and made a furious assault upon the latter, now more than ever the key of the French position. For while Froschweiler was their objective centre, their right was thrown back toward Elsasshausen and the Niederwald, their left to Reichshofen.
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