The Day of Doom: The Battle of Gravelotte/Saint-Privat
By Dennis Showalter

Military History  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

As the advance stalled and II Corps’ bugles sounded the cease-fire, the Mance Ravine burst like a boil. Men, horses and wagons poured out of its western end, while officers sought vainly to stop the rout, beating panic-stricken soldiers with the flats of their swords. A by-now-exhausted William and his discomfited Chief of Staff Moltke had earlier exchanged harsh words on the behavior of the soldiers in the ravine. Now they worked to convince each other to resume the attack the next day.

Later that night, news from the north, where Prince Frederick Charles’ 2nd Army faced the French right at Saint-Privat, brought a measure of reassurance: Shortly after noon, Frederick Charles and his staff had finally agreed that Saint-Privat was the anchor of a French position that extended well to the north of where he and Moltke had believed it to be at 10:30 in the morning. Saint-Privat was also directly in the path of the guard’s advance. A frontal attack uphill against a reinforced strong point was not part of Frederick Charles’ tactical doctrine. As the guard reached the lower slopes of Saint-Privat around 2 p.m., it received new, blunt orders: wait for the Saxons of the XII Corps to come up on the left. It took another hour for the XII Corps to reach the first defended obstacle in its path. A dozen-battery gun line blasted the village of Saint-Marie-aux-Chênes into rubble before Saxons and guardsmen stormed and cleared it. In the process, the Germans took heavy losses from a diehard French garrison that held its ground to the last at some 20-to-1 odds, then fell back to the main position in a model holding action.

Their fingers thus well burned, neither corps commander—the guards’ Prince Augustus of Württemberg or the Saxons’ Crown Prince Albert—was eager to throw his men directly against Saint-Privat. Instead the Saxon infantry pushed north and east, looking for a way around, and their corps artillery deployed on the left of the guards. For the next three hours, some 200 German fieldpieces tore up the French position. Canrobert, commander of the 6th Corps, repeatedly called for support, but received only a few hundred rounds of artillery ammunition.

At their combat range of 1,000 meters, Prussian rifled cannons were most effective when kept under central control, deployed at the earliest possible moment in the largest possible numbers, and left in position to maximize their accuracy. Instead of the outdated practice of seeking first to silence enemy artillery, Prussian gunners concentrated on the infantry, softening it up for a decisive attack. On August 18, they inflicted almost three-fourths of the French casualties.

Prince Augustus decided in late afternoon to send the guards forward. The guns had done what they were going to do; at least the French artillery was silent. The Saxons seemed to be making no progress against the French flank, and the day was waning. Frederick Charles agreed with Augustus’ decision to attack, and just before 5 p.m. one brigade mounted a diversionary attack to pin down the right division of the French 4th Corps. Its heads-down charge over open ground diverted the French for a few minutes—at a cost of 2,500 casualties in three-quarters of an hour, including so many officers that one battalion was commanded by a cadet. Then at 5 p.m. Augustus sent in the corps’ three remaining brigades, one after another.

The Prussians attacked in columns of half-battalions. They were carrying full packs and equipment, close to 100 pounds, and thus encumbered faced 3,000 yards of open slopes. The French infantry had to do no more than set their sights and open their cartridge pouches. By 6:30, the Prussian assault force of 18,000 had taken almost 8,000 casualties. Successive attacks collapsed at a common distance of around 1,000 yards from the French main position—approximately the chassepot’s effective killing range. It says much for the courage of the men, and for the initiative of the junior officers and NCOs who took command of the shattered companies, that the guardsmen continued to inch forward, working their way in some sectors to within 600 yards of Saint-Privat.

Tags: 19th Century, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, Weaponry

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.