That kind of sensitivity, however, was not Steinmetz’s problem. Beginning around noon he concentrated some 150 guns around Gravelotte. The Prussian breech-loaders far outranged the French cast-iron muzzleloaders and bronze smoothbores converted to rifles, and they were far more accurate. Thus farms with names like Moscou and Saint-Hubert crumbled into blazing ruins as Prussian batteries hammered French positions along the high ground on the far side of the ravine.

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But not all of the defenders were burned or buried alive: French infantry in camouflaged positions scattered the Prussian skirmish lines and pinned down Prussian infantry columns with heavy losses. Steinmetz ordered his guns to close the range by advancing to the side of the Mance Ravine that was in Prussian hands. When that ground turned out to be well within chassepot range, he ordered the VIII Corps to cross the ravine and drive away the French riflemen. Three brigades advanced up the slope, only to stick fast in tangled woods and underbrush and get scourged by French fire. The focal point of their attack was the farm of Saint-Hubert, a forward position blocking the only decent road across the ravine. A dozen companies from a half-dozen regiments managed to work close enough to rush Saint-Hubert around 3 in the afternoon, prevailing against a French garrison that went under in a no-quarter fight to the finish that left the victors as exhausted as the few prisoners they took.

Communications were a problem everywhere on the field of Gravelotte/Saint-Privat that day, but nowhere more than around the Mance Ravine. Information that did get through was so out of date that commanders tended to disregard it in favor of their own observations or intuition. Steinmetz, convinced by mid-afternoon that he had the French on the run, ordered the VII Corps into the ravine on the VIII Corps’ right. Prussian drums beat the charge shortly before 4 p.m.—and within minutes their leading skirmish lines were fleeing before some of the heaviest French fire of the day. They crashed into the rest of the corps, coming up in company columns that in turn melted away like sugar lumps in hot water.

As the afternoon wore on, the floor of the Mance Ravine became a tangled mass of dead and wounded men and horses, destroyed wagons, disabled guns. An oblivious Steinmetz next sent a full division of cavalry down the western slope, with orders to pursue the French to the gates of Metz. He also sent forward the VII Corps’ artillery. Only a single Prussian cavalry regiment and four batteries got across the causeway at the bottom of the ravine. Everything else bogged down in a gully that became a killing ground.

Had the French mounted anything like a counterattack, the German positions lay wide open to disaster. But Bazaine took no action. His extraordinary passivity attracted wide attention both during and after the battle and remains inexplicable today, except on the grounds that awareness of his own incompetence drove him into a comfort zone of inertia. Generals kept to their headquarters. Exhausted regimental officers were unwilling to risk advancing across ground where blood stood in pools and ran in streams and fragments of men made obscene noises.

By early evening, moreover, the French faced other concerns: The Prussian II Corps was among the second wave of formations transported to the theater of war. Since then, it had been marching hard to overtake the advance. Its men were tired, their canteens and stomachs empty, when they began reaching the field around 7 p.m. Steinmetz nevertheless asked not Moltke but King William for permission to use them in a last charge. William agreed, over Moltke’s eloquent silence and pointed turning of his back on his monarch.

When the II Corps began its advance down the western slope of the Mance ravine, it did so in columns. Its commander, like Steinmetz, believed the French could be finished off by one more blow, delivered by closed formations. But the French had re-formed their lines. The muzzle flashes of hundreds of chassepots reached for the Prussian columns. The leading files returned fire—and shot into the backs of their comrades still holding out around Saint-Hubert. Those sorely tried men about-faced and confronted what seemed a new enemy. For perhaps 30 minutes the Prussian forces tore each other to pieces. Around 8 p.m., enough proved enough. The men at Saint-Hubert broke, running through ranks that only then discovered the nature of their ostensible enemy.

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