When Metz capitulated in October 1870, Lecointe escaped and joined the Army of the North, led first by "Général de division" Charles-Denis Bourbaki and then provisionally by "Général de brigade" Jean-Joseph Farre. On 14 November 1870, he was given command of a brigade of the 22nd Corps. After the defeat of the Army of the North in the Battle of Amiens on 27 November 1870, its retirement from Amiens, and the appointment of "Général de division" Louis Faidherbe as its new commander, Lecointe took part under Faidherbe in the Battle of Hallue on 23–24 December 1870, the Battle of Bapaume on 3 January 1871, and the Battle of St. Quentin on 19 January 1871. German forces having cut off all communications between the Army of the North and the rest of France, the 22nd Corps, which still had 18,000 men and 60 guns, received orders to embark at Dunkirk to rally at Cherbourg for operations in Normandy.