On 2 August, six divisions of the French Frossard's Second Army and Bazin's Third Army attacked Saarbrücken.

Most of the Prussian army had withdrawn from this area, so the resistance was light and the losses on both sides were modest, with 83 casualties on the Prussian side and 86 on the French side.

Napoleon III entered the city with the crown prince and rode on a horse to receive congratulations from the troops. Before that, Emperor Napoleon III had not ridden for a long time because of hemorrhoids.

The French press enthusiastically hailed the "victory of Saarbrücken", and the news reports were accompanied by bloody illustrations.

What to do next after taking Saarbrücken was divided on the part of the French army. Bazin wanted to turn this offensive into the elimination of the 40,000 Prussian troops assembled near Saarbrücken, but Napoleon III disagreed.

The news received from various places, as well as the presence of Prussian cavalry in the war zone, had already made Leboeuf and Napoleon III nervous, and the captives knew that the Prussian army was about to attack. Leboeuf suggested that the French troops be withdrawn from Prussia and then deployed along the border.

The Fourth Army, which had been planned to take Saarbrücken, moved on and captured the Fourth Army under the command of General Paul de Rademoral, who had captured Saarlouis, and returned to defend the corridor from the Moselle Valley to Théonville under new orders. The French forces occupying Saarbrücken also retreated on all fronts, returning to Forbach and Spisherent, which were suitable for defense in France. Bazin's Third Army also withdrew from Salgmina to Saint-Avord.

Feeley, who had been ordered to lead the Fifth Army and had also come to join the battle at Saarbrücken, was ordered to return to his place of departure, Beech Fortress.

McMahon's First Army remained unchanged, remaining at Frøersqueville, south of the Vosges, and in contact with the French Seventh Army at Félix Douy in Belfort. The French reserves, the Guards of Charles-Denis Bourbaki and the Sixth Army of Marshal Conrobert moved forward, the Guards went to Saint-Avord, and the Sixth Army went to Nancy.

Before the war, the "second Jena" that Napoleon III had agreed to turn into a retracted defense, and the attitude of the top brass wavered, which greatly frustrated the enthusiasm of the French army.

The French were on the defensive, and Moltke ordered the Germans to counterattack on all fronts, while ordering the Third Army to take Wiesenburg on 4 August.

……

Wiesenburg.

The army of the Kingdom of Bavaria, which had long been eager to try, took the lead in launching an attack on the French defenders in Wiesenburg.

The commander of McMahon's 2nd Division was 61-year-old General Abel Doy, the elder brother of Felix Dooy, commander of the Seventh Army, and the former principal of the Saint-Cyr Military Academy. Doi led his troops to Wissanburg on the afternoon of August 3.

Wiessenburg is a picturesque old town on the banks of the Lauter River. Since the 18th century, France has built defensive fortresses in Viscentburg, with a series of towers, fortresses, moats, etc. However, in 1867, Marshal Nière abandoned these forts, which were somewhat outdated for the army in the 19th century, and dismantled the cannons to save the budget, after which the fortifications and fortifications gradually became deserted. However, if the Prussians were to attack, it would still be a strategic hub for the transport from Bavaria to Salzburg and Lower Alsace.

After surveying the local situation, General Dooy's engineer suggested: "Fort Wissanburg needs to be renovated so that it can be used as a point to hold." ”

This suggestion was immediately escalated to the command of the First Army. But Dooy was unfortunate, as soon as the telegram was sent, the Germans had already crossed the Laute River and attacked the strategic point of Wiesenburg, giving him no time to react.

The battle that began on 4 August was very sudden for the French army, who were completely unaware that more than 80,000 Prussian and Bavarian troops had been assembled opposite them. For several weeks, the French infantry officers did not let a single French cavalry go over to reconnoiter the Prussian army on the other side of the river, and the French army thought that it was "safe and sound." The previous evening a magistrate had reported that the Bavarian army had seized the customs on the Franco-German border, where a large number of German troops had been found. However, the report was received very late, and the 61-year-old General Abel Dui did not immediately send cavalry to verify the situation. The next morning he sent cavalry to reconnoitre, and the cavalry who went out to reconnoiter were soon driven back by the Prussian cavalry, and there was some skirmishing between the two sides. General Doe didn't pay much attention to it, and normally started drinking coffee at 8 o'clock in the morning, and then reported the results of the reconnaissance to Marshal McMahon in Strasbourg. Marshal McMahon felt that he should send some more troops to the front, and planned to move his headquarters forward to Wissanberg the next day. Just as the telegraph operator sent his plan to Leboeuf in Metz, the battle for Wissanburg began.

The defensive fortress of Wissanburg, although somewhat outdated in the last century, can still be used as a defensive position for infantry. Despite the "surprise attack", General Doe was not in dire straits, and immediately deployed two of his eight battalions, as well as six guns and a few machine guns, in front of Wissanburg along the river, and the other battalion in Altenstadt, a small city next to Wissanburg, with the rest of the infantry, cavalry, and 12 guns on the slope behind the city. With the attack of the 4th Bavarian Division, all the French guns placed in the front line opened fire together, weaving a dense net of fire. The French veterans used their Chasebo rifles to shoot at the rushing Germans, causing severe damage to the enemy.

It was also here that the Bavarians first heard the sound of clattering machine-gun fire. It's just that at this time, the machine gun was not the kind of large-scale killing weapon in World War I, and it could not strafe, but could only hit one target hard. So dozens of bullets were hailed at a person, and the person immediately turned into pieces. The intimidating effect of this new weapon far outweighs its actual lethality. A Bavarian officer said that there are no wounded under this kind of gun, and you will only be dead if you hit you. The French artillery and rifle fire were so accurate that every Bavarian squad involved in the attack was scattered. The Bavarians were defeated, and the Prussian officers shouted loudly to reorganize their forces to attack.

The Bavarian and Prussian infantry hid under the vine man and fired at the French. They could not see the French, they could only hear the guns of the French troops, firing their guns at the bright light of the French troops. The Bavarian and Prussian armies were equipped with Dresser rifles, which were inherently inferior in accuracy and rate of fire to the French Chasepol rifles. In addition, the Germans needed to lie on the ground and shoot covertly, while the French either stood in the trenches or hid behind the protective wall, and the reload speed was much faster, so the disadvantage of shooting the Germans was fully revealed. Fortunately, the Prussian and Bavarian armies also had superior weapons, the new Krupp cannons, and several cannons were pushed across the river to join the infantry in battle. The artillery of both sides began to fire at each other, and the Krupp breech-loading guns quickly showed their superiority over the French breech-loading guns, and the French shells also used very unreliable timing fuses, causing little damage to the Germans. The Krupp cannon used a trigger fuse to explode on the ground, and soon the French artillery was muted, and then the Prussian artillery began to shift its target against the French infantry hiding in the trenches. However, even so, under the fire of the French infantry, the Bavarian army was still full of casualties.

In this battle of great disparity in strength, the 8 battalions of the French army faced the attack of 29 battalions of the German army, and the result of the German victory was not suspenseful, but the number of casualties exceeded that of the French army, showing the combat effectiveness of the French army, especially the opponent was the Bavarians.

(End of chapter)