“Look out for cavalry!” Such was the cry that was raised on the sanguinary field of Vionville-Mars-la-Tour oftener than in any other battle of the Franco-German war.

When France declared war against Germany in July, 1870, she sent all her available troops—numbering about 300,000 men—as fast as ever she could to her eastern frontier, where they formed themselves into what was called the “Army of the Rhine,” under the supreme command of the Emperor Napoleon. This “Army of the Rhine” was composed of eight separate Army Corps, or Corps d’Armée, commanded by Marshals Bazaine, MacMahon, and Canrobert, and by Generals Bourbaki, Frossard, Ladmirault, Failly, and Félix Douay.

On the other hand, the Germans divided their forces into three main armies—each also consisting of several Army Corps—of which the combined strength was about 384,000 men; and so quickly had the Germans—who are famous for their powers of organisation—done the difficult work of mobilising their forces (that is to say, preparing them to take the field), that, within a fortnight after the order for this process had been issued, no fewer than 300,000 helmeted defenders of the Fatherland stood ranked up and ready along the Rhine. Old King William of Prussia assumed the nominal command of all this tremendous fighting force; but in reality the man who directed and controlled its movements was Field-Marshal Count von Moltke, who was perhaps the most studious and scientific soldier the world had ever seen. He had divided all the field strength of Germany into three separate armies—each also composed of several Army Corps. The First Army, on the right, was commanded by General von Steinmetz; the Second, in the centre, by Prince Frederick Charles, known as the “Red Prince,” and the Third, on the left, by the Crown Prince, son-in-law of Queen Victoria.

The Crown Prince was the first to draw blood, on the 4th August (war had only been formally declared on the 19th July), when he won the great battle of Weissenburg, and on the 6th at Wörth, when he completed the defeat of Marshal MacMahon’s army. On this very same day, too, Steinmetz, on the right, had stormed the heights of Spicheren at a very great sacrifice of life, causing Frossard, who held these heights, to fall back on the excessively strong fortress of Metz, which stands in the lovely valley of the Moselle. MacMahon had retreated towards the great training camp—the Aldershot, so to speak, of France—at Châlons; while the rest of the “Army of the Rhine” meanwhile retired on Metz, and thither the Germans now also began to push with might and main.

It was thought probable by Moltke, from all appearances, that the French meant to make a desperate stand in front of Metz. But he met with less resistance there than he expected; and on the 14th August a victory gained by the Germans at Colombey-Nouilly had the effect of making all their opponents in the open field thereabouts withdraw towards the fortressed city. This battle had been fought on the east of Metz, while on the west side ran the high road to Verdun and Paris. On the 15th the Germans came to the conclusion that the French in Metz, not wishing to expose themselves to the risk of being cooped up and rendered useless within their fortress, meant to escape towards Verdun, to join hands with MacMahon’s beaten forces, and then give battle to the advancing Germans in the plain.

For the French were confident that they could give a good account of their hitherto victorious foes, could they but meet them on pretty equal terms in the open. The Germans saw very well that the object of the French at Metz was to escape to the west, and they therefore determined to strain every nerve to prevent this. Yet they sadly feared they would not succeed, for they were on the right, or east, bank of the Moselle, while the French were on the left, or west side; and it was necessary for their pursuers to make a wide sweep in order to cross the river and insert themselves in good time between Metz and Paris, so as to have the retreating Frenchmen face to face.

As early as the evening of the 15th a Division of Cavalry—the 5th, under Rheinbaden—had crossed the Moselle, and pressed round and forward with prying intent as far as the village of Mars-la-Tour, on the Verdun road, where it bivouacked for the night. It had seen certain masses of French troops away in the direction of Metz, but was unable to conclude whether this formed the rear-guard of the French army retreating on Verdun, or only its vanguard. As a matter of fact, this army was still struggling with the difficulties of getting away from Metz.

Early on the morning of the 16th the French Emperor, escorted by two brigades of cavalry, had driven away to Verdun by the Etain road, which was still comparatively safe, leaving the command of the Metz army to Marshal Bazaine.

All the roads from Metz were blocked by heavy baggage, and the French army could not get away from the fortress with expedition and method. The left wing of the army was ready to march, but not the right; and so the left had been sent back to its bivouacs until the afternoon. Thus Bazaine lost much valuable time, and what he lost the “Red Prince” won. For by 10 a.m. on the morning of the 16th August, the 3rd, or Brandenburg, Army Corps—one of the best and bravest in all Germany—had come within sight of the Verdun road, marked at intervals of about a mile by the successive villages (coming from Metz) of Gravelotte, Rezonville, Vionville, and Mars-la-Tour, which the German soldiers punningly called Marche-rétour after the French had been finally beaten back on Metz. It was an excessively hot day, the sun pouring down its rays on field and wood with almost tropical force; and by the time the brave Brandenburgers of General von Alvensleben, who had crossed the Moselle at Novéant the previous night, and resumed their forced march after a brief snatch of rest—by the time, I say, they had threaded the wooded glen of Gorze, leading right on to the Verdun road, they beheld to their great joy that a French force was in front of them.

After some preliminary skirmishing and wood-fighting, Alvensleben came to the conclusion that he had to deal with the whole, or at least the greater part, of Bazaine’s army, which had thus not escaped after all. But before the arrival of Alvensleben’s Corps on the scene, the action had been opened by the horse-batteries of Rheinbaden, which, advancing from Mars-la-Tour towards Vionville, opened a destructive shell-fire on Murat’s dragoons, who, encamped thereabout, were engaged in cooking. A regular stampede ensued, the dragoons bolting through the camp. But the French infantry were quickly on their guard, and opened so heavy a fire on the audacious German horsemen—who had, of course, followed their guns—that the latter were soon driven to seek shelter in hollows and behind copses.

It was at this time that Alvensleben’s Corps made its timely appearance, and began to enter into action, although it could not doubt that it had to contend against desperate odds. But it had been sent forward by its old commander, Prince Frederick Charles—who still wore the scarlet uniform of one of its Hussar (Zieten) regiments, and hence was known as the “Red Prince”—to seek out and hold Bazaine at bay, as a bulldog would a bull, until the arrival of reinforcements; and the doughty Brandenburgers were ready to resist to the very last man, if they must die for it. What would their beloved “Red Prince” say if they allowed the game to escape? Their only chance lay in the hope that Bazaine would not be able to concentrate all his colossal host and hurl it against them at once, and that the 10th Prussian Corps, with other parts of their army which they knew to have been despatched on the same errand as themselves, would meanwhile hurry up to their assistance and save them from complete annihilation.

The infantry part of the battle began on some wooded hills above the village of Gorze, about eight miles south-west of Metz, on a stream running from Mars-la-Tour into the Moselle at Novéant. “The Prussians,” said a correspondent of the Daily News, “pushed into the woods, gradually, by dint of numbers and sheer hard fighting, driving the French skirmishers from them. What happened in this part of the battle no one knows or can know, as it was entirely in the woods and valleys, and no general view of it could be obtained. The French position here was a most formidable one, and the wonder is, not that it took the Prussians seven hours to take it, but that they ever got it at all. The woods above Gorze extend to within about two miles of Gravelotte, behind which village the French lay in the morning, as also at Rezonville, another village higher up on the road from Metz to Verdun. Nearly the whole of the Prussian second position was backed by the thick woods they had got possession of in the morning.

“The plain on which the battle was fought extends from the woods to the Verdun road, about one mile and a half, and is about three miles in length. On the French right the ground rises gently, and this was the key of the position, as the artillery, which could maintain itself there, swept the whole field. More towards the centre are two small valleys, one of which, being deep, was most useful to the Prussians in advancing their troops. In the centre of the field is the road from Gorze to Rezonville and Gravelotte, joining the main road to Verdun between the two villages.[7] From the woods to Rezonville, on the Verdun road, there is no cover, except one cottage midway on the Gorze road. This cottage was held by a half-battery of French mitrailleuses, which did frightful execution in the Prussian ranks as they advanced from the wood.”

The Brandenburg Corps consisted of two Divisions, one (the 5th) commanded by Stülpnagel, and the other (the 6th) by Buddenbrock. The latter was on the right of the German line, and it fought its way to the front with desperate courage, but with varying fortune. One regiment in particular—the 52nd—lost heavily in recovering some ground which had been wrested from it by the French. Its first battalion lost every one of its officers, the colours were passed from hand to hand as the bearers were successively shot down by the bullets of the chassepôts, and the commander of the brigade, General von Döring, fell mortally wounded. General von Stülpnagel rode along the line of fire to encourage the men, while General von Schwerin collected the remnants of the troops bereft of their leaders, and held the most commanding point on the field of battle until reinforced by a portion of the 10th Corps.

But it was Buddenbrock’s Division, on the left wing, which began to be so sorely pressed. This Division had been ordered to advance on the old Roman road, also leading from Metz to Verdun, on the assumption that Bazaine might choose this as his main line of retreat. But on approaching Tronville, near Mars-la-Tour, it was quick to see how matters stood, and then, wheeling to the right, it advanced with the most death-despising courage against Vionville and Flavigny.

It is impossible in the space at my disposal to describe all the ins and outs of the tremendous conflict which now ensued; I can only give its salient points and incidents. When Bazaine had seen the Germans advance from the direction of Verdun, whither he himself was bound, he muttered to himself: “C’est une reconnaissance” (“It is only a scouting affair”). But he was quickly undeceived, and saw that he would have to fight and conquer before he could continue his westward march. The position of the French was one of great advantage, their left flank being protected by the fortress of Metz and their right by formidable batteries along the old Roman road, while they also had at their disposal a very strong force of cavalry (three and a-quarter Divisions to two German ones), so that they could thus afford to wait an attack on their centre.

The two Infantry Divisions of the Germans began to get very much mixed; but, by taking advantage of every rise in the ground for cover, the regimental officers got their men steadily forward in spite of the very heavy fire from the French infantry and guns. Flavigny was taken by assault, and one cannon, with a number of prisoners, fell into the hands of the brave Brandenburgers. Slowly, but surely, the Prussians made their way beyond Flavigny and Vionville, and, assisted by a heavy fire from their artillery, compelled the right wing of the 2nd French Corps to retire on Rezonville—a movement which turned into a perfect flight when the French generals Bataille and Valazé had been killed.

To regain the lost ground, the French Cuirassier Guards turned resolutely on their Prussian pursuers; but their charge was cut short by the schnellfeuer (or rapid fire) of two companies of the 52nd Regiment, drawn up in line (like the 93rd Highlanders at Balaclava), who waited until the rushing horsemen, with their flashing swords and waving plumes, were within 250 yards, and then poured a murderous volley into the teeth of their assailants. The latter, parting to right and left, rushed past and into the fire of more infantry behind, leaving 243 of their horses and riders lying on the plain. These French Cuirassiers barely escaped complete annihilation; for scarcely had they turned to retire when they were set upon by Redern’s Horse Brigade (of Rheinbaden’s Division), consisting of the 11th Black Brunswickers—Prussia’s “Death or Glory” boys—and 17th Hussars, who, emerging from a hollow behind Flavigny, dashed straight at the flying foe and cut many more of them out of their saddles.

But their pursuit was presently checked by a French battery in front of Rezonville, which began to blaze away at them; and for this battery, in turn, they went like the wind. Shots and sabre-cuts are exchanged in the wild mêlée, the gunners are cut down, and only a knot of mounted French officers remain. One of them—a short, broad-shouldered, bull-necked man, with drawn sword—is evidently a general of high rank from the richness of his uniform. As a matter of fact it is Bazaine himself, the commander-in-chief of the French army, who has placed this battery in position. A knot of the Black Brunswickers make a dash at him, but his Staff surrounds him, parrying the sabre-thrusts and cuts of the Hussars, till at last he is rescued by a timely charge of the 5th French Hussars forming his escort, and many of the Brunswickers straightway find death as well as glory.

But now the 6th Cavalry Division of the Prussians—Cuirassiers, Lancers, and Hussars—led on by the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, rushes up in turn to repel this cavalry counterstroke of the French which had the effect of rescuing Bazaine; and then is seen another surging mass of mounted combatants mingling in a “murder grim and great.” Presently the eye is diverted from this dust-enveloped spectacle by the sight of the red-tunicked Zieten Hussars—so called after the Great Frederick’s greatest horse-captain—emerging from the dust-clouds and dashing themselves with a wild cheer at a line of French infantry—Grenadier Guards—in their front. But at about 500 paces distance they are received with a truly infernal fire from chassepôt, field-gun, and mitrailleuse, and their colonel—also a Herr von Zieten—falls dead out of the saddle, while Captain von Grimm is mortally wounded, and the horse of the adjutant, Lieutenant von Winterfeldt, is literally torn to pieces by a shell. The bravest men on earth cannot face such a fire; so the Zieten Hussars wheel round and rush back to their lines, leaving the ground strewn with scarlet uniforms, as if it were an English battle-field. The French fire is too murderous; the Germans must check their advance; the battle for some little time after becomes an artillery duel.

It was now two o’clock. So far, Alvensleben had skilfully deceived the enemy, with regard to the slender number of his troops, by incessant assaults. But the battle was now at a standstill, the battalions visibly thinned by four hours of the hardest and bloodiest fighting, while the infantry had almost exhausted their cartridges. There was not a battalion, not a battery, left in reserve all along the exposed line. Nevertheless the Brandenburgers would not yield a single inch of the ground they had so bravely won.

Presently, however, they were threatened with a new danger. Their left wing at Vionville was very much exposed to the French artillery on the Roman road, and they were threatened with a turning of this weakest flank. At the same time Marshal Canrobert, our old Crimean ally, discerned from his position in the centre the true moment to make a push for Vionville with all his forces. Ruin or retreat stared the Germans in the face. It looked as if they were going to be completely overwhelmed in this part of the field. The reinforcements from the 10th Corps, which they were so anxiously awaiting, had not yet made their appearance, and the French were assuming an ever more threatening attitude. What was to be done?

In a hollow behind Vionville was standing Bredow’s heavy Cavalry brigade, consisting of the 7th Magdeburg Cuirassiers (Prince Bismarck’s regiment) and 16th Uhlans, or Lancers, both of the Old Mark of Brandenburg. The former was commanded by Colonel Count von Schmettow, the latter by Colonel von der Dollen. The regiments were in a reduced condition, having only three squadrons each instead of five. Before them were the enemy’s guns, and behind these, dense masses of infantry, fresh to the front. “That infantry over there must be broken!” said an aide-de-camp to General von Bredow. “That infantry?” echoed the General, in some surprise, as his eye ranged along its bristling front behind the guns. “The fate of the day depends upon it,” was the brief reply.

That was quite enough. Leading his brigade out of the hollow in column, he quickly formed it into line of squadrons—the Cuirassiers on the left and the Uhlans on the right, a little thrown back—and then, with a “Forward!” “Trot!” “Charge!” while their thrilling clarions rang out above the din of battle, away dashed the devoted troopers with a loud and long-continued roar more than a cheer. It is Balaclava over again. In a few moments they are among the first French guns, sabring and stabbing the gunners; and then, in the teeth of a frightful hail of bullets from cannon, musket, and mitrailleuse, they storm across to the next infantry line, with which they play equal havoc. The second infantry line was next broken through by the ponderous horsemen, many of whom had already fallen, and the panic they created by their heroic Todtenritt, or ride to death, even spread to the remoter line of batteries, which prepared to limber up. In its excitement the brigade, like the Scots Greys at Waterloo, rode far beyond its mark, and, like the gallant Greys, it suffered terribly for its excess of ardour.

After charging on thus for about 3,000 paces, it was set upon in the most furious manner by an overwhelming force of French horsemen—the cavalry brigades of Murat and Gramont, and the entire division of Vallabreque. Thinned as Bredow’s ranks now were, and exhausted by their exertions so far, how were they to cope with such hordes of horsemen? Yet cope they did with them stoutly and gallantly, like Scarlet’s Heavy Brigade at Balaclava, riding in and out of the ranks of their assailants and bearing many of them to the ground.

And as “Scotland for Ever!” was the cry of the “Greys,” both at Waterloo and Balaclava, so Scotland is also again to the front on this battle-field of Vionville in the person of one of her adventurous sons. This is young Campbell of Craignish, in the shire of Argyll, who is serving as a lieutenant in the Bismarck Cuirassiers, and who, rushing where the fight is thickest, captures a French eagle after cutting down its bearer. Then he is set upon by a crowd of French troopers, who are determined to win this darling badge of honour back. It is the one French standard which has been captured, and at all costs it must be recovered. A pistol-shot shatters Lieutenant Campbell’s hand, and he has to relinquish his trophy. But some of his men, hewing their way into the circle of his assailants, succeed in cutting him out of the mêlée.

All that the little remnant of the brigade could now do was to rally as well as possible and sabre its way back to its own lines. This it did, pursued by the masses of French horsemen, volleyed at by infantry, and rained upon by mitrailleuse bullets, but game to the last. Less than half of the men returned to Flavigny alive, where they were reorganised into two squadrons—two, instead of six. Of 310 Cuirassiers who had gone into action, only 104 came out of it; while only 90 Uhlans answered to the roll-call. Of our Light Brigade charge at Balaclava, Marshal Canrobert observed that it might be magnificent, but it certainly was not war. But the charge of Bredow’s Heavy Brigade at Vionville, which was equally witnessed by Canrobert, was both one and the other, as the gallant Marshal himself must have been the first to admit. It had been beautiful to look at, and it had entailed a fearful sacrifice of life; but it had achieved its object, which was to save Buddenbrock’s infantry Division and give it breathing-time. The French had received such a shock from the charge of Bredow’s Brigade that, for the present, they abandoned their attempt to encircle the German left and advance on Vionville and Flavigny. The loss of life had been immense, but it had been justified by the result; and, after all, that is the main thing in war.

General Henry, of Canrobert’s Corps, afterwards said: “On taking position with my battery nothing was to be seen of Prussian cavalry. Where in the world had these Cuirassiers come from? All of a sudden they were upon my guns like a whirlwind, and rode or cut down all my men save only one. And this one was saved by Schmettow. The gunner ran towards the Cuirassiers, crying ‘Je me rends! je me rends!’ But the Prussians, not understanding this, were for despatching him, and were only prevented from doing so by their colonel, Count von Schmettow.” The man lived to tell the tale, and to receive the golden medal. General Henry continued: “It was only by the skin of my teeth that I myself escaped as the mass of furious horsemen swept past me, trampling down or sabring the gunners. But it was a magnificent military spectacle, and I could not help exclaiming to my adjutant as we rode away, ‘Ah! Quelle attaque magnifique!’”

On the other hand, Count von Schmettow, who commanded the Cuirassiers, gave the following account of their “death-ride”:—“Every one of the gunners of the first battery on which the troopers fell were cut down or pierced” (the Count himself striking down the captain). “In approaching the second battery my helmet was pierced by two bullets, and my orderly officer thrown from his horse, wounded in two places. Lieutenant Campbell, the Scottish officer, when the French Cuirassiers fell in turn upon us, seized the eagle of the regiment in his left hand, which was at once shattered by a bullet, and he was surrounded by the French horsemen; but some of our own Cuirassiers cut their way desperately towards him, and saved him. Never shall I forget the moment when I gave the order to the first trumpeter I met to sound the rally. The trumpet had been shattered by a shot, and produced a sound which pierced us to the quick.” This incident has been immortalised by the great German poet Freiligrath in the following ballad, entitled “The Trumpeter of Mars-la-Tour”—the spirited English version being by his daughter, Kate Freiligrath-Kroeker:—

Then take the following from a correspondent of The Times, who was a witness of the battle:—“The want of infantry caused a somewhat serious sacrifice of cavalry, which had repeatedly to charge both infantry and artillery to hold them in check. The men do not ride particularly well to look at, but the manner in which they ride into the jaws of death is really quite à la Balaclava. One regiment—the 7th Cuirassiers—was ordered to charge a battery of artillery, and actually got into it, one of the first in, I am proud to say, being a young Englishman, who has taken service in the Prussian army, and has just got his lieutenancy. It went in some 300 strong, and what its loss is I tremble to say. When I next saw it, it scarcely seemed to me a hundred all told. At 2.30 the reserve artillery was brought up, and the cannonade became heavier than ever. The sun, too, at this moment seemed to have come nearer to us, as if to see this fearful butchery of mankind, and the heat became tremendous. Then, wherever you went, came the pleading cry of ‘Water! water! For pity’s sake give me water!’ The Krankenträger, or bearers of the sick, had now more than they could do, admirable as the whole machinery of the corps is worked.... The positions of both the combative forces were perfectly stationary for about an hour, a sort of duel being carried on between them, which, though at some distance, was quite near enough to have fearful results. I saw a whole string of (French) prisoners brought in of every description. There was the burly giant of cuirassiers beside the little French liner, the green-jacketed hussar, and the artilleryman—all chattering away, and seeming to me uncommonly glad to be out of the affair at any price.

“Seeing some of the infantry engaged on the extreme right, I went there, and met one regiment just coming out of action to recruit, being at that moment commanded by a youth of nineteen, having lost thirteen of its officers since the morning. The number of it was the 52nd, and to the usual inquiring glance that all officers who had not seen me before threw over my most unregimental attire, I replied by offering him a drink of some of the dirtiest water I ever saw, which I had procured from a pond, and which to both of us was better than the best iced champagne. There was no inquiring then. I was instantly the best fellow he ever saw, and he told me all about what fun it was to be in command, and that he was sure to get something now, and that he meant to have another go in directly, etc. He was the most thoroughly English-German boy I ever saw. We stood under a tree together, and I gave him some cigars and left him. Two hours afterwards I saw his dead body laid out with others in a row, the cigars still stuck between the buttons of his coat. This one little anecdote—when I say it is but a fair sample of other regiments—will show how fearful the loss has been on the Prussian side.”

At a subsequent roll-call near Tronville it was found that the 24th Regiment had lost 1,000 men and 52 officers, while every officer of the 2nd battalion of the 20th Regiment was killed. It was not till three in the afternoon that the 3rd Corps, which had been fighting singlehanded for five hours against a fivefold force, received any efficient assistance from the 10th Corps, which was now to the Brandenburgers what Blücher’s army had been to Wellington at Waterloo. It was only the devotion of the artillery which had meanwhile saved the infantry from complete annihilation. For, after recovering from the shock of Bredow’s brigade, the French had again concentrated their attack on the German left, and compelled it to retire, fighting as it went.

But presently reinforcements from the 10th Corps began to come up, and these were followed by the arrival of a man who was a host in himself—Prince Frederick Charles. His headquarters were away at Pont-à-Mousson, about fourteen miles to the south; and on hearing rather late in the day that his own Brandenburgers were up to the hilt in action and so hotly pressed, he mounted his horse and galloped away, without ever once drawing rein, to the field of battle. And now let Mr. Archibald Forbes, the famous war-correspondent, give us one of his telling battle-pictures:—

“It was barely four o’clock when he” (the “Red Prince”) came galloping up the narrow hill road from Gorze, the powerful bay he rode all foam and sweat, sobbing with the swift exertion up the steep ascent, yet pressed ruthlessly with the spur, staff and escort panting several horse-lengths in rear of the impetuous foremost horseman. On and up he sped, craning forward over the saddle-bow to save his horse, but the attitude suggesting the impression that he burned to project himself faster than the beast could cover the ground. No wolfskin, but the red tunic of the Zieten Hussars, clad the compact torso; but the straining man’s face wore the aspect one associates with that of the berserkar. The bloodshot eyes had in them a sullen lurid gleam of bloodthirst. The fierce sun and the long gallop had flushed the face a deep red, and the veins of the throat stood out. Recalling through the years the memory of that visage with the lowering brow, the fierce eyes, and the strong-set jaw, one can understand how to this day the mothers in the French villages invoke the terrors of ‘Le Prince Rouge,’ as the Scottish peasants of old used the name of the Black Douglas to awe their children wherewithal into panic-stricken silence.

“While as yet his road was through the forest, leaves and twigs cut by bullets showered down upon him. Just as he emerged on the open upland a shell burst almost among his horse’s feet. The iron-nerved man gave heed to neither bullet-fire nor bursting shell; no, nor even to the cheers that rose above the roar of battle from the throats of the Brandenburgers through whose masses he was riding, and whose chief he had been for many years. They expected no recognition, for they knew the nature of the man—knew that, after his fashion, he was the soldier’s true friend, and also that he was wont to sway the issues of battle. He spurred onward to Flavigny, away yonder in the front line; the bruit of his arrival darted along the fagged ranks; and strangely soon came the recognition that a master-soldier had gripped hold of the command as in a vice.”

With the arrival of the “Red Prince” and of reinforcements, the battle now again took the form of a desperate infantry fight. Let me notice only one of its leading incidents, which was graphically described by Moltke. When General von Wedell’s Brigade, no more than five battalions strong, advanced to the attack by way of Tronville, he found himself in front of the extensive line of the 4th French Brigade. The two Westphalian regiments advanced steadily under the storm of shell and mitrailleuse fire until they suddenly reached the edge of a deep ravine. This, however, they soon crossed; but, after scaling the opposite bank, they were met by a murderous shower of bullets from the French infantry, who were everywhere close upon them. Almost every one of the generals and officers were killed, the remnant of the broken battalions fell back into the ravine, and 300 men—unable to re-ascend the steep southern slope after the fatigue of a twenty-four-miles march, almost at the double—were taken prisoners. Those who escaped mustered at Tronville around the bullet-riddled colours which Colonel von Cranach—the only officer who still had a horse under him—brought back in his hand. Seventy-two officers and 2,542 men were missing out of 95 officers and 4,546 men—more than a half.

And now there occurred another of those magnificent cavalry charges in which the battle of Vionville-Mars-la-Tour was so sacrificially rich. Raising a shout of triumph over the repulse—almost the annihilation—of Wedell’s brigade, the French infantry advanced at the double for the purpose of completing the wreck of the German left, and all seemed lost. But just at this critical moment out rushed the 1st Dragoon Guards in their sky-blue tunics and dashed straight at the pursuing foe, who poured into the ranks of their assailants a murderous bullet-fire, while shrapnel played upon their flanks. But “immer vorwärts!” stormed the devoted dragoons, and plied their sabres on the French fantassins with terrible effect.

Again this cavalry regiment had achieved its object—which was to save its own infantry from destruction—but at a frightful cost. Colonel von Auerswald was mortally wounded, and it was reserved for the youngest Captain, Prince Hohenlohe, to rally the remnants of the brave regiment and lead it out of action. Only about a third of the troopers afterwards answered to the roll-call. The regiment had left on the field 15 officers, 11 non-commissioned officers, 7 trumpeters, 103 privates, and 250 horses. The importance of this great sacrifice of life may be gathered from a remark made by the Emperor William two years later, on the occasion of a visit he paid to the barracks in Berlin. “Gentlemen,” he said, “but for your gallant attack at Mars-la-Tour, who knows whether we should have been here to-day?” This gallant regiment afterwards became the “Queen of England’s Own,” and a higher military compliment could scarcely have been paid her Majesty by her German grandson, William II.

Among the ranks of the 1st Dragoon Guards at Mars-la-Tour were the two sons of Prince Bismarck, riding as private troopers; for this happened to be the year in which they were doing their compulsory term of military service. The Chancellor’s sons—one in his twenty-first, the other only in his eighteenth year—behaved in action with a courage worthy of their father. The elder, Herbert, had received no fewer than three shots, one through the front of his tunic, another in his watch, and the third in the thigh; while his brother William (Count “Bill” he was always called) had come out of the deadly welter unscathed. “During the attack at Mars-la-Tour,” said Bismarck once, “Count Bill’s horse stumbled with him over a dead or wounded Gaul, within fifty feet of the French square. But after a few moments he shook himself together again, jumped up, and not being able to mount, led the brown horse back through a shower of bullets. Then he found a wounded dragoon, whom he set upon his horse, and, covering himself thus from the enemy’s fire on one side, he got back to his own people. The horse fell dead after shelter was reached.”

But the charge of the 1st Dragoon Guards was scarcely over when it became apparent that the French were preparing for another attack on the invincible left wing of the Germans by hurling upon it a stupendous mass of their cavalry. Three regiments of Le Grand’s Division, and both regiments of the Guards Cavalry Brigade, were seen trotting up to the west side of the Grayère ravine. Opposite to them stood the whole of the Prussian cavalry, concentrated to the south of Mars-la-Tour, in the first line being the 13th Uhlans, 4th Cuirassiers, and 19th Dragoons, and behind them the 16th Dragoons and 10th Hussars. The 13th Uhlans dashed straight against the foremost French cavalry line; but the regiment had become somewhat disordered, and the French Hussars rode right through it. Then, however, the 10th Hussars turned up for the second time, and repulsed the enemy’s cavalry. The two evenly-balanced masses of horsemen rushed upon each other in an awful cavalry mêlée. But, as a mighty cloud of dust concealed the ensuing hand-to-hand encounter of 5,000 men swaying to and fro, it was impossible to follow with minuteness the incidents of the conflict.

Fortune gradually decided in favour of the Prussians, for, man to man, they were heavier than their opponents. General Montaigu was taken prisoner, severely wounded, and General Le Grand fell while leading his Dragoons to the assistance of the Hussars. This, the greatest cavalry combat of the war, had the effect of making the French right wing give up all attempts to act on the offensive. But out of this gigantic combat of horsemen the victorious Prussians had again emerged with great loss; and among those who had fallen was Colonel Finckenstein of the 2nd Dragoon Guards, who had been the midnight bearer of Moltke’s momentous message from Gitschin to Königinhof during the Bohemian campaign of 1866.

Darkness was now approaching, and the battle had practically been won by the Germans. The troops were utterly exhausted, most of the ammunition spent, while the horses had been saddled for fifteen hours without anything to eat. Some of the batteries could only be moved at a slow pace, and the nearest Prussian troops on the left bank of the Moselle were a day’s march off. Nevertheless the impetuous Red Prince, desiring to increase the moral impression of the day’s endeavours, and, if possible, destroy altogether the internal cohesion of the French, ordered a general advance against their position. But the poor Prussian troops were too utterly fagged out by their incessant exertions during the day to do much more than make a formal response to this cruel and unnecessary command; and, again, they suffered great loss without inflicting a corresponding one on the French.

Fighting did not entirely cease till ten o’clock—that is to say, the bloody battle had lasted for twelve long hours, entailing a loss of about 16,000 officers and men on either side. But the Germans had won the battle. For they had achieved their object—which was to prevent the escape of Bazaine. Yet, in his despatch to the Emperor, Bazaine had made bold to assert that “the enemy, beaten, retreated on all points, leaving us masters of the battle-field.” Moltke, on the other hand, wrote that “the troops, worn out by a twelve-hours’ struggle, encamped on the victorious but bloody field immediately opposite the French lines.” And Moltke wrote the truth. Bazaine had evidently learned the habit of lying about his reverses from the Great Napoleon, and even from Napoleon the Little.

Yet Mars-la-Tour was only the prologue to the still bloodier and more decisive drama of Gravelotte two days later. “The battle of Vionville,” said the Emperor William II. once, “is without a parallel in military history, seeing that a single Army Corps, about 20,000 men strong, hung on to and repulsed an enemy more than five times as numerous and well equipped. Such was the glorious deed that was done by the Brandenburgers, and the Hohenzollerns will never forget the debt they owe to their devotion.”

Several years later I visited the field of battle just described. Leaving Gorze, with its gilded statue of la Sainte Vierge on the brow of a beetling cliff, I passed up the steep and wooded defile through which the Brandenburgers pressed on the 16th of August, and here the first affecting relics of the bloody strife appeared. In a little, lonely green valley skirted by the road, a few grassy mounds luxuriant with the crimson poppy and the wild fern, each being surmounted by a white wooden cross, told where the tapfere Krieger began to drop from the bullets of the chassepôt. But when the summit is reached, what a touching sight! The rising plateau on every side is dotted with white crosses, which thicken, thicken, thicken as you advance, and the not far distant horizon edge is bristling with obelisks and stone memorials of more pretentious and lasting form, making the whole region look like one colossal cemetery. An involuntary sadness comes over the traveller, and when approaching every tomb and commemorative tablet he feels instinctively moved by the mute appeal contained in the inscription: “Sta, viator, heroen calcas!” The graceful obelisk, with its lengthy death-roll of officers and men, the railing-encircled and ivy-grown mound looking like a well-filled family vault, the silver-edged cross still hung with withered oaken wreaths and immortelles, the slender column snapped in twain to indicate the fate of hopeful youth suddenly cut off, the neatly-trimmed sepulture and the graveyard plot of flowers—conceive all these objects scattered over the summit of a bare plateau facing northwards to the west of Metz, and you will have some idea of the scene.

On an eminence behind Vionville, which formed the centre of the German position, is a pyramidal kind of monument of roughly-hewn stone, surmounted by the Hohenzollern eagle, and surrounded by a railing hung with shield-like tablets bearing the multitudinous names of those officers of the 5th Division who fell on that fatal day. The reverse and coverless side of the plateau—densely dotted with mounds and monuments testifying to the terrible losses of the brave Brandenburgers—leads you down to the village of Vionville, where tombstones on the public highway point to where the dust of Gaul and German is commingled in the reconciliation of death. “Mit Gott für König und Vaterland” is the recorded war-cry on the monument of one Teutonic soldier; while at its side there stands a marble cross, tastefully wreathed with flowers, to the memory of one brave and noble young lieutenant of the Empire who died on the field of honour with these words, preserved in golden letters, on his lips: “Dites à ma mère,” he cried, “que je meurs en soldat et en chrétien. Marchez en avant!”—“Tell my mother that I died like a soldier and a Christian. Forward!”

East of the kingdom of Portugal lie the great plains of Leon, bordered north and south by mighty mountain ranges; and in the short December days of 1808, when wintry winds swept howling through the passes and across the level land, and the red roofs of Salamanca were covered with snow, a small British army, some 23,000 strong, was preparing to assist Spain against Napoleon.

Led by the gallant Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, and wearing the red cockade out of compliment to the nation, we had been received with great enthusiasm, and were given to understand that the country burned with patriotic zeal and had large forces, perfectly equipped; but this was soon found to be untrue, for, while the Spaniards were ready for any amount of castanet playing and looking-on, the English were expected to do their fighting for them.

Their magnificent army dwindled upon investigation to half its supposed numbers, and, with a few honourable exceptions, proved itself one of the wretchedest collections of ragamuffins of which history bears any record, so that Sir John Moore found himself in as awkward a position as ever fell to the lot of a British general. Nevertheless, in spite of the severity of the weather, the impertinent meddling of Mr. Frere, the English Minister at Madrid, the poor equipment of our troops and the absence of Spanish aid, we marched boldly out of Salamanca on the 11th December to attack Soult in the north, and afterwards succour the capital if that should be practicable.

It was a brave little army, and its doings are deeply carved on the pillar of British fame. There were five cavalry regiments, all Hussars, dashing fellows in braided pelisses, and mounted on active nagtailed horses: viz., the 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th, with the 3rd of the King’s German Legion.

Artillery, Engineers, Waggon Train, and a detachment of the scarlet-coated Staff Corps filed out across the plain, white and monotonous under a gloomy sky.

Two battalions of the 1st Guards and thirty-two of the Line completed our force, including amongst others such splendid regiments as the Royal Scots, the 4th, 5th, and the 9th, nicknamed the “Holy Boys,” because they afterwards sold their Bibles for wine; the Welsh Fusiliers and 28th “Slashers,” the Black Watch, the Fighting 43rd, the 71st Glasgow Highland Light Infantry, now the strictest regiment in the service, the Cameron Highlanders, and the green 95th Rifles.

General Baird was hastening from Corunna to join us, and we had already advanced several marches towards the enemy, when a blustering French aide-de-camp got himself murdered in a village; his papers were purchased for twenty dollars, and Sir John Moore learned for the first time the true extent of the overwhelming odds against him.

Madrid, which was to have made such a brave defence, had held out one day; the shops were open and the people tranquil; Toledo, Ocaña, and the whole of La Manche were in the hands of the French; a strong force was about to march on Badajoz, and the Emperor Napoleon was reviewing 60,000 veteran troops, including part of his famous Imperial Guard, at the capital.

Two hundred and fifty-five thousand men were mustering to oppose us; their cavalry alone exceeded our entire army by 12,000, and to linger on the plains with such a horde closing round us would have been absolute madness. There was nothing for it but to show a bold front to Soult, and gain the sea with as much honour as possible before the others could come up; and though the word “retreat” has an unpleasant sound to English ears, when it is attended with as great a display of heroism as upon that unfortunate occasion, it becomes a page in British annals which we could ill afford to spare.

The Reserve, on whom, with the cavalry, most of the fighting devolved until the army reached Corunna, was formed of the 20th and 52nd, and the 28th, 91st, and 95th, under Generals Anstruther and Disney. First blood was drawn at Rueda, where the 18th Hussars took fifty prisoners, and the same evening the band of the 7th Hussars played the Reserve into Toro, on the Douro.

Paget, afterwards Marquis of Anglesea, whose brother, Lord Edward, was in command of the Reserve, marched the 10th and 15th Hussars on a bitter and intensely dark night to Sahagun, arriving in the grey dawn to find the place full of French cavalry. Without a moment’s hesitation the 15th charged and overthrew them, taking thirteen officers and a hundred and fifty-four men in twenty minutes.

The 15th was the Duke of Cumberland’s regiment, and one of the most expensive in the army.

Napoleon heard of our advance on the same day that Sahagun was fought, and, leaving 10,000 men to overawe Madrid, marched with 50,000 to cross the Guadarama range.

Pushing on in the depth of winter—the Spaniards forced to cut roads through the snow for them—they reached the passes, and toiled up for twelve hours without the advance guard being able to gain the summit; but so tremendous was the wind that the Emperor had to dismount and struggle forward on foot, holding on to the arms of Marshals Lannes and Duroc, the staff following linked together, with heads bent before the driving snow.

Half-way up they stopped, the generals exhausted in their heavy jack-boots, and bestriding some brass guns, Napoleon and his officers in that manner arrived at the top, seeing through the whirling flakes the plains of Leon far below them.

Scrambling down, he hurried the jaded troops ten and twelve leagues a day until he came within three miles of the river Esla—only to find that we had already crossed it, and had had two days’ rest at Benevente.

Furious at our escape, he sent his favourite Chasseurs-à-Cheval of the Guard in hot pursuit, with a support of infantry; but without waiting for the foot-soldiers, the gallant Charles Lefebvre Desnouettes splashed through the fords with his horsemen into the open fields full of camp-followers, and drove our pickets back towards the town.

Six hundred of those splendid troopers, in green jackets and red pelisses, careered magnificently over the trampled snow; but behind some straggling houses Paget was waiting with the 10th Hussars, until they should have got sufficiently forward.

Then a line of blue and silver, and curving sabres and brown busbies, tore out of the concealment, gathered up the retiring pickets, and rushed upon the Chasseurs. There was slashing and shouting and riding down, and the French squadrons returned through the fords again at full gallop, leaving fifty-five killed and wounded, and seventy prisoners.

They re-formed on their own side, and for a moment it was thought they would charge us, but a couple of guns put them to the right-about, and their leader remained in our hands.

Private Levi Grisdale, of the 10th, saw him riding for the river, in a green frock, with a hat and feather, and, spurring after him, dodged a pistol-ball and cut him over the left cheek.

Grisdale was promoted, although the 3rd Germans claimed that a private of theirs, named Bergmann, had taken the general; but the uniforms of the two regiments were very similar then, both being in blue with yellow facings and white braid, and it is difficult to distinguish things accurately in the hurry of a combat.

Desnouettes lived at Malvern and Cheltenham, where he made many friends, until May, 1812, when, breaking his parole, he escaped to France, only to be taken again at Waterloo, where Grisdale also fought as a sergeant, and the unlucky general was eventually drowned off the Irish coast in 1822.

At Benevente the 3rd Hussars alone lost forty-six men and twenty-two horses, with forty-seven more wounded; but we had checked the Guard and shown our teeth; and when the night winds were howling among the porcelain friezes and broken porphyry columns of the old castle on the hill, we withdrew cautiously in a thick fog and continued our retreat.

Captain Darby and seventeen privates of the 10th died of fatigue during the march to Bembibre, and they shot sixty horses that could go no farther.

Deep snow lay on the ground, rutted and trampled by the passage of the guns and bullock carts; this had frozen like iron, and then been concealed by another snowstorm, so that men and horses stumbled and lamed themselves at every stride.

One officer lost a boot among the ruts on Christmas morning, and marched all day without it!

Every regiment had received a new blanket per man and a hundred and fifty new soles and heels, but the execrable roads quickly wore out the leather.

Astorga was found to be full of miserable Spanish soldiers, who had eaten up most of the stores, and whose condition was summed up in their own words: “Very hungry—very sick—very dry!”