On 19 January 1871, during the Franco-Prussian War, General August von Goeben's German First Army defeated General Louis Faidherbe's French Army of the North at Saint-Quentin in Picardy. On the same day a great sortie from besieged Paris failed at Buzenval, and on 28 January Paris surrendered and an armistice was concluded.
An army of recruits
After the defeat of the imperial armies in the summer and autumn of 1870, the new Government of National Defense raised fresh armies in the provinces to break the siege of Paris. In 1870 command of the Army of the North passed to General Louis Faidherbe. Much of his army was made up of hastily raised troops, among them brigades of mobile guards.1
Even so, Faidherbe gave the Germans serious trouble. His army fought at Pont-Noyelles on the Hallue in late December (the French Ministry of the Armed Forces dates the battle to 22 December, the Universalis encyclopedia to 23 December) and at Bapaume on 2 and 3 January 1871. After Bapaume both sides drew back: Goeben began to pull his corps behind the Somme while Faidherbe led his army back toward Arras. The French could not save the fortress of Péronne, which fell on 9 January.2
The battle
In mid-January the government told Faidherbe that the army in Paris was about to make one last great sortie and that he should draw as many German troops as he could away from the capital. He marched east toward Saint-Quentin. Goeben, who now commanded the German First Army, had expected the move and brought his divisions together against him. After skirmishes on 18 January, the Germans attacked on 19 January and, after a day of hard fighting south and west of the town, drove the French back into Saint-Quentin and beyond. Both the French Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Universalis encyclopedia record the battle as a French defeat.3 › Siege of Paris, 1870-1871
Faidherbe had about 40,000 men. Casualty figures differ between the sources. Moltke's history puts German losses at 96 officers and 2,304 men, and says 3,000 wounded Frenchmen were found on the field and more than 9,000 unwounded French soldiers were taken prisoner. The history of the battle published by the Aisne departmental council counts about 3,500 French killed and wounded, with a few thousand stragglers captured on the road to Cambrai, and gives German losses as an estimated 4,000 to 5,000.4
Beaten but not destroyed
The French broke off the battle in the evening. One corps fell back on Le Cateau and the other on Cambrai, and the Germans took guns and many prisoners in the streets of the town. Goeben did not pursue closely: Moltke's history says the pursuit began only the next day, and an 1871 report in the Revue des Deux Mondes also notes that the Germans did not follow the beaten army hard. The Aisne departmental council's history says the Army of the North could no longer take the offensive, but that its campaign had kept the Germans out of the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments, a point the Universalis encyclopedia also makes.5
It no longer mattered. The great sortie from Paris toward Buzenval on the same day ended in failure. Paris surrendered, and an armistice was concluded on 28 January 1871. A painting by Émile Breton from 1871, shown above, captures the battlefield on the night after the fighting.6
