On 18 August 1870 the German First and Second Armies attacked Marshal François Achille Bazaine's French Army of the Rhine on the heights west of Metz, between Saint-Privat and Gravelotte. King William I of Prussia was on the field, with General Helmuth von Moltke as his chief of the general staff. In the south the Germans could not break the French left. In the north the Prussian Guard lost thousands of men on the open slopes before Saint-Privat, which it took with the Saxons in the evening. By their own accounts the Germans lost about 20,000, and the French, by different counts, 12,000 to 13,000. Bazaine fell back under the guns of Metz, where his army capitulated on 27 October.
Battle of Gravelotte
18 August 1870 · 156 years ago
Cut off from Verdun
On 16 August, at Vionville and Mars-la-Tour, German troops caught the Army of the Rhine as it marched west from Metz and cut its road to Verdun. The German official history puts each side's losses that day, including a few prisoners, at about 16,000 men, and Moltke gives the same figure. Bazaine gave up the march to Verdun for the time being and drew his army back to the heights west of Metz.1
Moltke describes a front of about seven miles from Roncourt to Rozerieulles, held from the north by the VI, IV, III and II Corps, with trenches and fortified farms before the II and III, while the VI Corps had no engineer park to dig in. In his words, "both parties had to fight with inverted front, and sacrifice for the time their respective lines of communication".2
Schimpff quotes the German series Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften: 166,400 German rifles, 21,200 sabers and 732 guns against 99,500 French rifles, 13,300 sabers and 520 guns and mitrailleuses. Moltke gives the German corps 178,818 men and reckons the French at more than 180,000; his editor Archibald Forbes notes that the 178,818 covers only the infantry and estimates the forces employed at about 232,000 Germans and 133,000 French. Bazaine wrote that at least 250,000 men with 650 guns attacked the 100,000 men and about 450 guns that he could put in line, and Showalter writes of fewer than 200,000 Germans against 110,000 French.3
At royal headquarters
The American general Philip Sheridan, riding with the King's headquarters, watched Moltke explain each report on a map and then sit on a seat of knapsacks or walk about, "kicking clods of dirt or small stones here and there, his hands clasped behind his back, his face pale and thoughtful".4
The plan was for General von Steinmetz's First Army on the right to hold the French and for Prince Frederick Charles's Second Army to swing north and then east around their right. But the French line reached farther north than the Germans believed, and when the IX Corps opened fire from Verneville at noon it struck the French front, not the flank.5
The Mance ravine
On the German right the First Army stormed the farm of Saint-Hubert, below the French main position, at about three. At four Steinmetz sent fresh troops, batteries and cavalry across the ravine into heavy fire; the cavalry fell back, and only a few of the batteries held their ground. Sheridan saw a later advance up the slope meet the full fire of the French line: "Resistance like this was so unexpected by the Germans that it dismayed them; and first wavering a moment, then becoming panic-stricken, they broke and fled".6
At about six the King ordered a renewed advance and gave Steinmetz the newly arrived II Corps. Sheridan writes that Moltke led it into action himself; Showalter, that the King agreed over Moltke's silence; and Moltke's own history, that it "would have been more proper" if the chief of the general staff, who was on the spot, "had not permitted this movement at so late an hour of the evening". Moltke concluded that the French left "could not be forced even by the most devoted bravery and the greatest sacrifices".7
The slopes of Saint-Privat
In the north the Guard and the Saxons took Sainte-Marie-aux-Chênes in mid-afternoon. Shortly after five Prince August of Württemberg, commanding the Guard Corps, sent it up the bare slope toward Saint-Privat before the Saxons could come around the French flank. Moltke writes: "In the course of half an hour five battalions lost all, the others the greater part of their officers, especially those of the higher grades. Thousands of dead and wounded marked the track of the battalions". Showalter puts the losses of an assault force of 18,000 at almost 8,000 by 6:30.8
Bazaine had kept his Imperial Guard in reserve, expecting the main blow farther south. At three he ordered its grenadier division toward his threatened right, but it arrived only after the VI Corps had been driven out. Moltke writes that the Guard Voltigeur Division reinforced the French II Corps on the left, and Bazaine that he had sent the Guard horse artillery to the VI Corps. Around seven the Saxons broke into the French flank from the north, and Saint-Privat was on fire. The Guard and the Saxons then stormed it together. Marshal Canrobert, who commanded the VI Corps, later testified that he held on until seven, adding that the King's report said a quarter past seven; Showalter has the Saxons entering from the north around 7:30; and Moltke writes that the defenders surrendered at about eight, more than 2,000 of them.9
At 7:50 that evening Bazaine telegraphed to the Emperor from Metz: "J’arrive du plateau, l’attaque a été très-vive; en ce moment, sept heures, le feu cesse. Nos troupes sont constamment restées sur leurs positions" ("I have come from the plateau, the attack was very heavy; at this moment, seven o'clock, the firing is stopping. Our troops have stayed in their positions throughout", our translation). Canrobert told Bazaine's court-martial in October 1873 that the King of Prussia, writing to Queen Augusta that evening, said that "la garde de Prusse avait trouvé son tombeau à Saint-Privat" ("the Prussian Guard had found its grave at Saint-Privat", our translation).10
Counting the cost
Moltke puts the German loss at 20,584 men, among them 899 officers. Other German accounts differ: Goltz gives 818 officers and 19,759 men killed, wounded and missing, Boguslawski 899 officers and 19,260 men, Helmuth more than 19,000 and Schimpff about 20,000. For the Guard Corps Goltz gives 288 officers and 7,831 men, Boguslawski 307 officers and 7,923 men, and Helmuth one general, 290 officers and 7,500 men.11
Bazaine wrote that the French lost 12,273 men, among them six generals and 589 officers; Boguslawski lists 589 officers and 12,273 men. Helmuth gives 12,000 on French authority, 9,000 of them in the IV and VI Corps. Moltke writes that the French estimated their own losses at 13,000, and Schimpff and Showalter also give about 13,000.12
Shut in at Metz
Bazaine reported that on the 19th the whole army withdrew between the city and its forts. Marshal MacMahon, ordered from Paris to relieve Metz, was beaten at Sedan on 1 September. Bazaine's army capitulated on 27 October. Moltke counts 6,000 officers and 167,000 men taken prisoner "beside 20,000 sick", about 200,000 in all, with 622 field and 876 fortress guns and 72 mitrailleuses; Forbes notes that the 20,000 sick were included in the total of 173,000. Under article 1 of the preliminary peace of 26 February 1871, the villages of Sainte-Marie-aux-Chênes, near Saint-Privat, and Vionville were ceded to Germany, while the town and fortifications of Belfort stayed French.13
Battle of Staffarda, 1690: Catinat beats the Duke of Savoy
18 August 1690 · 336 years ago
At Staffarda in Piedmont, the French army of Nicolas Catinat met the forces of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, who had just joined the coalition against Louis XIV in the Nine Years' War. Catinat won clearly, and the Savoyard side lost far more men than the French.
Read the full story of Battle of Staffarda, 1690: Catinat beats the Duke of Savoy ›Also on this day
1759: Admiral Boscawen's British squadron from Gibraltar caught M. de La Clue's Toulon squadron off the coast of Portugal. Beatson, whom Clowes follows, dates the main action, in which the Centaure (74) struck, to 18 August, and the end near Lagos to the 19th, when the Océan (80) and Redoutable (74) were burnt and the Téméraire (74) and Modeste (64) taken. The Annual Register for 1759 also dates the action to 18 August, and Boscawen's dispatch of 20 August puts the first sighting at eight in the evening of the 17th and the end on the morning of the 19th. La Clue's letter, printed by Entick, dates the last morning, when he resolved to burn his ships, "the 18th".14
La Clue wrote that he passed the Strait "with twelve ships of the line and three frigates", but that five ships and the frigates parted from him in the night, leaving him seven. Clowes gives him ten of the line, two fifty-gun ships and three frigates, and Boscawen thirteen of the line and two fifty-gun ships, where Beatson and Entick count fourteen of the line and two fireships. Entick, Beatson and Clowes give British losses of 56 killed and 196 wounded; Beatson gives the captain and 200 men killed in the Centaure alone and Clowes about 200, and La Clue, after writing that his own ship fired 2,500 shots, judged "that we had about 100 killed on the spot, and 70 wounded".15
