Battle of Gravelotte - The Battle

The Battle

On 18 August 1870, the battle began when at 08:00 Moltke ordered the First and Second Armies to advance against the French positions. By 12:00 General Manstein opened up the battle before the village of Amanvillers with artillery from the 25th Infantry Division. But the French had spent the night and early morning digging trenches and rifle pits while placing their artillery and their mitrailleuses, a forerunner of machine guns, in concealed positions. The French, finally aware of the Prussian advance, opened up a massive return fire against the mass of advancing Germans. The battle at first appeared to favor the French, for they had better rifles, the Chassepot, an early bolt-action rifle replacing the musket with a range of over 1,500 yards, far superior to the Prussian Dreyse bolt-action rifle, also called the needle gun, which had a range of only 600 yards. However, the Prussian artillery was superior for they had the all-steel Krupp breech-loading gun, which was to shape the future of artillery on the battlefield.

By 14:30, General Steinmetz, the commander of the First Army, unilaterally launched his VIII Corps across the Mance Ravine in which the Prussian infantry were soon pinned down by murderous rifle and mitrailleuse fire from the French positions. At 15:00, the massed guns of the Prussian VII and VIII Corps opened fire to support the attack. But by 16:00, with the attack in danger of stalling, Steinmetz ordered the VII Corps forward, followed by the 1st Cavalry Division.

By 16:50, with the Prussian southern attacks in danger of breaking up, the Prussian 3rd Guards Infantry Brigade of the Second Army opened an attack against the French positions at St. Privat which were commanded by General Canrobert. At 17:15, the Prussian 4th Guards Infantry Brigade joined the advance followed at 17:45 by the Prussian 1st Guards Infantry Brigade. All of the Prussian Guards' attacks too were pinned down by lethal French fire from the rifle pits and trenches. At 18:15 the Prussian 2nd Guard Infantry Brigade, the last brigade of the two Prussian Guards Infantry Divisions of the Guards Corps, was committed to the attack on St. Privat, while Steinmetz committed the last of the reserves of the First Army across the Mance Ravine. By 18:30, a considerable portion of the VII and VIII Corps disengaged from the fighting and withdrew towards the Prussian positions at Rezonville.

With the defeat of the First Army, Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia ordered a massed artillery attack against Canrobert's position at St. Privat to prevent the Guards' attack from failing too. At 19:00 the 3rd Division of Fransecky's II Corps of the Second Army advanced across Ravine while the XII Corps cleared out the nearby town of Roncourt and with the survivors of the two Guard Infantry Divisions launched a fresh attack against the ruins of St. Privat. At 20:00, the arrival of the Prussian 4th Infantry Division of the II Corps and with the Prussian right flank on Mance Ravine, the line stabilized. By then, the Prussians of the Guards Corps and the XII and II Corps captured St. Privat with von Prittwitz's battery being the first ones to arrive there, forcing the decimated French forces to withdraw. With the Prussians exhausted from the fighting, the French were now able to mount a counter-attack. But then General Bourbaki refused to commit the reserves of the French Old Guard to the battle because he considered it a defeat.

By 22:00, firing largely died down across the battlefield for the night. The next morning, the French Army of the Rhine, rather than resume the battle with an attack of its own against the battle-weary German armies, actually retreated to Metz where they were besieged and forced to surrender two months later (see Siege of Metz).