On 4 August 1870 the German Third Army of the Prussian Crown Prince advanced to the Lauter and fell on the French division of General Abel Douay at Wissembourg, in Alsace. Bavarian guns shelled the town while Douay's men were in camp, and Prussian corps came up on the flank. Douay was killed in the morning, and the sources disagree on how. The Germans broke into the town, took the railway station and the château on the Geissberg, and took about 1,000 unwounded prisoners, while the rest of the division withdrew through the hills to Climbach. The Prussian official history calls it the troops' first victory on French soil. Two days later the same army defeated MacMahon at Wörth.
Battle of Wissembourg
4 August 1870 · 156 years ago
A division alone on the Lauter
At the start of August 1870 the French 1st Corps of Marshal MacMahon was spread across Lower Alsace, and its 2nd Division under General Abel Douay stood at Wissembourg, a former fortress on the Lauter, near the frontier. The Prussian official history adds that on the evening of 3 August General Ducrot, under whose orders Douay had been placed, told him to stay at Wissembourg and to accept battle if necessary.1
According to the army order printed in the Prussian official history, on 3 August the Crown Prince Frederick William ordered his Third Army to advance the next day as far as the Lauter, through the Bienwald forest on four roads, and to drive the enemy back wherever he was found. Count Bothmer's 4th Bavarian Division was to march on Wissembourg itself, with the Prussian V and XI Corps on its left. Douay had only part of his division at hand: the Prussian official history counts 8 battalions, 18 guns and 8 squadrons, because one regiment had been sent that morning toward Climbach and the Pigeonnier pass and other units were detached at Seltz.2
Shells over the camp
Early on 4 August a French reconnaissance found no sign of the enemy. Soon afterward, in the account of the Prussian official history, while the French were busy cooking and fetching supplies for the bivouac, a Bavarian battery came into action on the heights south of Schweigen at about 8.30 a.m. and opened fire on the town. The French documents give earlier times: about 7 o'clock in MacMahon's notes and in the 2nd Division's account, about 7.45 in the division's war diary, while a footnote by the editors of the French official history puts the opening of the Bavarian fire at about 8.15.3
Douay held the town with a battalion of the 74th Regiment and sent Algerian riflemen, the Turcos, with a battery to the railway station. In the Prussian account, the Bavarians attacked the Landau gate but found the drawbridges raised and could not storm it; MacMahon's notes also record that the first attempt to break into the town was repulsed. By 11 a.m., according to the Prussian history, very superior forces of the V and XI Corps were deployed against the front and right flank of the isolated division, and 30 guns had opened fire from near Windhof. Shortly after noon, in the Prussian account, Prussian infantry stormed the railway station and the suburb, catching the Turcos in their hurried retreat. At about 1.30 p.m. a Prussian gun knocked down the pillars of the Landau gate, the Bavarians brought down the drawbridge, and about 500 men of the 74th inside the town laid down their arms. The French history also records that the battalion of the 74th shut in Wissembourg was taken almost entire.4
The death of Douay
Douay saw that he could not hold on and gave orders to retreat. The Prussian official history says he had decided on this soon after 10 o'clock, and that it appears he lost his life in an explosion in the mitrailleuse battery, two of whose limbers had blown up under Prussian fire. The account of the 2nd Division printed in the French official history tells it differently: while placing a battery himself to cover the retreat, Douay "fut atteint par deux balles de mitraille et resta mort sur place" ("was hit by two balls of case shot and fell dead on the spot", our translation). MacMahon's notes put his death at about 10 a.m., and the division's war diary in the same volume speaks of a mortal wound at about 10 a.m. and says he was carried to the Schafbusch farm.5
According to the French documents, General Pellé took command at about 11 and continued the retreat that Douay had ordered.6
The château on the Geissberg
The last French stronghold was the château on the Geissberg, south of the town, which the Prussian history describes as a mass of solid buildings inside a wall 15 feet high. The Prussian King's Grenadiers advanced on it with drums beating and came under very heavy fire in the open. "Twice was the colour shot away, and its bearer placed hors de combat. Major v. Kaisenberg seized the upper part of the standard, and pressed onward, but fell soon after mortally wounded in three places," the Prussian official history records in Clarke's English translation. The commander of the V Corps, Lieutenant-General von Kirchbach, was wounded in the neck by a chassepot bullet during this fight, according to the same history.7
The Prussian history says that no result could be obtained there without artillery; guns were dragged up the steep slope with great effort, and the defenders, hemmed in on all sides and threatened by artillery, gave in. The Prussian history has the garrison of some 200 men surrendering at 2 in the afternoon. The 2nd Division's account describes the defense of the château by the 1st Brigade and gives an earlier time: "2,400 hommes tinrent pendant plus d'une heure 20,000 hommes en échec" ("2,400 men held 20,000 in check for more than an hour", our translation), leaving the château only at 12.30 and the farm at 1 o'clock. The Crown Prince reached the Schafbusch farm soon after 2 p.m. and, in the words of the Prussian history, congratulated the troops upon their "first victory on French soil".8
The cost
On strengths, the 2nd Division's account gives the division barely 4,500 men in 8 battalions, and MacMahon's notes say its infantry numbered no more than 4,500, while the enemy gradually deployed more than 60,000 men against it.9
The Prussian official history gives German losses as 91 officers and 1,460 men, and the King's Grenadiers alone lost 23 officers and 329 men. On the French side, the Prussian history says the losses in killed and wounded could not be determined with accuracy, and counts some 1,000 unwounded prisoners, one gun and the whole camp equipment taken. The 2nd Division's account gives its loss as 1,100 men and 70 officers, while a footnote by the editors gives 60 officers killed or wounded; the 1st Corps war diary and MacMahon's notes give about 1,500 men, counting the battalion of the 74th captured in the town.10
Toward Wörth
The rest of the division fell back in good order through the hills to Climbach, which it reached at 5 p.m., according to the 2nd Division's account; a footnote by the editors notes that the unit histories disagree on where the division halted on the evening of 4 August. At 2.30 p.m. the Crown Prince stopped all further pursuit by the infantry, and the Prussian history records that on the evening of 4 August all contact with the defeated enemy was lost.11
According to the 1st Corps war diary, MacMahon joined Ducrot's division at the Pigeonnier pass; when its troops reached the pass, the 2nd Division was beginning its retreat in good order, and the Marshal decided to concentrate the whole corps on the strong position of Froeschwiller. The next day the Third Army resumed its advance, and on 6 August it attacked MacMahon's corps on the Sauer and defeated it at Wörth.12
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