by the French advanced guard near the hamlet of St Laurent des
Bois (November 8). The half-heartedness of the Germans, evidenced
by the number of prisoners taken unwounded, greatly encouraged the
“new formations,” who cheerfully submitted to a cold bivouac in
anticipation of victory. Next morning the advance was resumed,
d’Aurelle with the 15th corps on the right wing, Chanzy with the
16th on the left and Reyau’s cavalry to the front. The march was
made straight across country, in battle order, each brigade in line
of battalion columns covered by a dense skirmish line. The French
generals were determined that no accident should occur to shake
the moral of the young troops they commanded.
At Orleans, meanwhile, von der Tann, in ever-growing suspense, had, rightly or wrongly, decided to stand his ground. He had been instructed by the headquarters staff not to fall back except under heavy pressure. He had his own reputation, dimmed by the failure of 1866, to retrieve, and national honour and loyalty seemed to him to require, in the words of his own staff officer, that “ere actual conflict had taken place with the ‘greatly superior’ enemy, no hostile force should enter the city placed under the protection of the Bavarians.” But he could not allow himself to be enveloped in Orleans itself, and therefore, calling upon the far-distant III. Army reserves for support, he took up his position with 23,500 men around Coulmiers, leaving 2500 men to hold Orleans. The line of defence was from St Peravy on the Chateaudun road through Coulmiers to La Renardiere, and thence along the Mauve stream, and here he was attacked in force on the 9th of November. The French approached from the south-west, and when their right had taken contact, the remainder gradually swung round and attacked the Bavarian centre and right. The result was foregone, given the disparity of force, but the erratic movements of Reyau’s Battle of Coulmiers.cavalry on the extreme left of d’Aurelle’s line exposed Chanzy to a partial repulse and saved the Bavarian right. When at last the French stormed Coulmiers, and von der Tann had begun to retire, it was already nightfall, and the exhausted remnant of the L Bavarian corps was able to draw off unpursued. The Orleans garrison followed suit, and the French army, gathering in its two outlying columns from Sologne and Gien, reoccupied the city. So ended the first blow of the Republic’s armies. Coulmiers would indeed have been a crushing victory had Reyau’s cavalry performed its part in the scheme and above all had d’Aurelle, adopting unreservedly either his own plan or Chanzy’s, massed his troops here, economized them there, in accordance with the plan, instead of arraying them in equal strength at all points. But d'Aurelle wished above all to avoid what is now called a “regrettable incident”—hence his advance across country en bataille—and to thin out his line at any point might have been disastrous. And incomplete as it was, the victory had a moral significance which can scarcely be overrated. The “new formations” had won the first battle, and it was confidently hoped by all patriots that the spell of defeat was broken.
But d'Aurelle and the government viewed their success from the standpoint of their own side, and while von der Tann, glad to escape from the trap, fell back quickly to Angerville, d’Aurelle’s only fear was an offensive return. Not even when von der Tann’s defensive intentions were established did d’Aurelle resume the advance. The columns from Gien and the Sologne peacefully reoccupied Orleans, while the victors of Coulmiers went into cold and muddy bivouacs north of the city, for d’Aurelle feared that their dispersion in comfortable quarters would weaken the newly forged links of discipline. The French general knew that he had only put his hand to the plough, and he thought that before ploughing in earnest he must examine and overhaul his implement. In this opinion he was supported not only by soldiers who, like Chanzy, distrusted the staying power of the men, but even by the government, which knew that the limit of the capital’s resistance was still distant, and felt the present vital necessity of protecting Bourges, Chateauroux and Tours from Prince Frederick Charles, who with the II. Army was now approaching from the east. The plan of General Borel, the chief of staff, for a lateral displacement of the whole army towards Chartres and Dreux, which would have left the prince without an animate target and concentrated the largest possible force on the weakest point of Moltke’s position, but would have exposed the arsenals of the south, was rejected, and d’Aurelle organized a large fortified camp of instruction to the north of the captured city, to which came, beside the 15th and 16th corps, the new 17th and 18th.
To return to the Germans. An army at the halt, screened by active irregulars, is invisible, and the German commanders were again at a loss. It has been mentioned that a day or two before the battle of Coulmiers Moltke had created an Army Detachment under the grand duke of Mecklenburg for operations south of Paris. His objects in so doingGerman plans after Coulmiers. must now be briefly summarized. On November the 1st he had written to the II. Army to the effect that “the south of France would hardly make great efforts for Paris,” and that the three disposable corps of the army were to range over the country as far as Chalon-sur-Saône, Nevers and Bourges. By the 7th his views had so far changed that he sanctioned the formation of the “Detachment” with a view to breaking up the Army of the Loire by a march into the west towards Le Mans, the right wing of the II. Army at the same time hurrying on to Fontainebleau to cover the south side of the Paris investment. The king, however, less convinced than Moltke of the position of the Army of the Loire, suspended the westward deployment of the Detachment, with the result that on the 10th the retreating Bavarians were reinforced by two fresh divisions. But the same day all touch with the French was lost—perhaps deliberately, in accordance with the maxim that defeated troops should avoid contact with the victor. The curtain descended, and next day a few vague movements of small bodies misled the grand duke into seeking his target towards Chartres and Dreux, directly away from d’Aurelle’s real position. Once more the king intervened and brought him back to the Orleans-Paris road (Nov. 13–14), but Moltke hurried forward the IX. corps (II. Army) from Fontainebleau to Etampes so as to release the grand duke from covering duties while satisfying the king’s wishes for direct protection towards Orleans.
Moltke’s views of the problem had not fundamentally changed since the day when he ordered the II. Army to spread out over southern France. He now told the grand duke to beat the Army of the Loire or Army of the West near Dreux or Chartres, and, that done, to sweep through a broad belt of country on the line Alençon-Verneuil towards Rouen, the outer wing of the II. Army meanwhile, after recapturing Orleans and destroying Bourges, to descend the Loire and Cher valleys towards Tours (14 Nov). On the 15th a fresh batch of information and surmises caused the leader of the Detachment, who had not yet received orders to do so, to leave the Paris-Orleans road to take care of itself and to swing out north-westward at once. The Detachment reached Chartres, Rambouillet and Auneau that night, and headquarters, having meanwhile been mystified by the news of a quite meaningless fight between German cavalry and some mobiles at Dreux, did not venture to reimpose the veto. The adventures of the Detachment need not be traced in detail. It moved first north towards the line Mantes-Dreux, and delivered a blow in the air. Then, hoping to find a target towards Nogent le Rotrou, it swung round so as to face south-west. Everywhere it met with the sharpest resistance from small parties, nowhere it found a large body of all arms to attack. Matters were made worse by staff blunders in the duke’s headquarters, and on the 19th, after a day of indescribable confusion, he had to halt to sort out his divisions. Moltke gave him the rest day he asked for the more readily as he was beginning to suspect that the king was right, that there were considerable forces still at Orleans, and that the Detachment might be wanted there after all.
This alteration in his views had been brought about by the reports from the 11. Army during its advance from Champagne to the Gatinais. At the time of the first order indicating Chalon, Nevers and Bourges as its objectives this army had just opened out into line from its circular position round Metz, and it therefore naturally faced south. Moving forward, it reached the line Troyes-Neufchateau about the time Coulmiers was fought, and was ordered to send in its right (IX. corps) to Fontainebleau. The II. corps had already been taken to strengthen the besiegers, thereby releasing the two Prussian divisions (17th and 22nd) that joined von der Tann on the 10th. The II. Army next changed front, in accordance with Moltke's directions, so as to face S.E. towards Orleans and Gien, and on the 16th the IX. corps and 1st cavalry division were at Mereville and on the Orleans-Paris road, the III. at Sens and the X. at Tonnerre. The III. and X. from this time onward marched, camped and slept in the midst of a population so hostile that von Voigts-Rhetz kept his baggage in the midst of the fighting troops, and Prince Frederick Charles himself, with an escort, visited the villages lying off the main roads to gauge for himself the temper of the inhabitants.
From prisoners it was gleaned that the French 18th corps, supposed by the Germans to be forming in the Dijon-Lyons region, had arrived on the Loire, and a deserter said that there were 40,000 men encamped at Chevilly, just north of Orleans. Moltke’s faith in his own reading of the situation was at last shaken; whether the Army of the Loire had joined the Army of the West or was still on the Loire, he did not yet know, but it was almost certain that from wherever they came, considerable French forces were around Orleans. He warned the prince to check the southward swing of the X. corps “because it cannot yet be foreseen whether the whole army will not have to be employed towards Chateaudun and Orleans,” and turned to the Detachment for further information, cautioning the grand duke at the same time to keep touch with the II. Army. But, ignoring the hint, the grand duke, thinking that he had at last brought the elusive “Army of the West” to bay in the broken ground round Nogent-le-Rotrou, opened out, in accordance with German strategic principles, for a double envelopment of the enemy. He struck another blow in the air. The “Army of the West” had never really existed as an army, and its best-organized units had been sent back to join the new 21st corps at Le Mans ere the Detachment came into action at all, while the older mobiles continued the “small war” in front of the Germans, and sniped their sentries and . trapped their patrols as before. Almost simultaneously with the news of this disappointment, the prince, who had meanwhile used his cavalry vigorously, sent word to Versailles on the 20th that the French 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th corps (in all over 150,000 men) were round Orleans, At this moment the III. corps was close to the
