Promoted general of infantry, and assigned to command the new XIVth Army Corps, Werder defeated the French at Dijon and at Nuits, and, when Charles-Denis Bourbaki's army moved forward to relieve Belfort, turned upon him and fought the desperate action of Battle of Villersexel, which enabled him to cover the Germans besieging Belfort. On 15, 16 and 17 January 1871, Werder with greatly inferior forces succeeded in holding his own on the Battle of the Lisaine against all Bourbaki's efforts to reach Belfort, a victory which aroused great enthusiasm in southern Germany. In the course of this ethustiastic prevailing mood, a monument - the Siegesdenkmal - was erected in Freiburg im Breisgau to honor his services and the victory of the German people in the Franco-Prussian War.