Lieutenant General Infantry Werder along with Baron Kolmar von der Goltz of Germany, after the Siege of Strasbourg at September 1870, was marching westward. Werder's first task was to wipe out the French forces from the Vosges range, and on October 1, the advance of the German 14th Army, led by General Degenfeld, began marching through the Vosges. Through the passes, German soldiers did not have to fight, and the first major clash between the German and French armies took place on the western slopes of the mountain range, ending with Degenfeld's victory over the newly formed French "Eastern Army". As Cambriels was the commander of the Eastern Army who had made efforts to restructure his army, Werder believed that he must first face the enemy, before embarking on a series of adventures within France, contrary to the original order from the Chief of the General Staff of the Prussian Army, General Helmuth von Moltke.