The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-08-20 00:00:00

'SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1870.

many—leo,ooo men. They all fouilit well, hut if the
Bavarians had marched as well as our men we should have
bad it all over by noon instead of fighting until after all
o'clock. I should not give battle to your army unless I was
superior in number—otherwise I would prefer to retire.'
• You have one great advantage, Prince, In the precision
Cf
the movement of your troops. From the tower of Woerffi
we admired, though With the grief caused by witnessing
your success, the two flanking movements which you
effected upon our position.' 'The hills of Vreischweller
are real fortitlcitions, and I did not care to Su tosk them
direetly. By turning them I lost fewer men' We are les7
touch obliged, Prince, for the few minutes you have been
pleased to devote to Ls, brt we do not see with you the Duke
of Coburg, whom we desire to thsek, for it was he who raved
us yesterday, and, notwithstanding bls 'many anxieties, he
has not forgotten the promise which he mad, to arse to
you about us.' ' I will perform your COMIDIBBI,OII. We
now ask that we may be taken te,le to the advanced posts '
'loon no objection ;' and then, having courteously saluted
on he withdrew."
M. Emile Cardon gives a briefer account of the in
terview, in which he CID& Ma the chief points in
M. Chabrillart's statement. Both routtlemen were
subsequently taken to the rear an. cooveyed under
escort through Germany to Basle, rh. re they 'cure re-
leased, and whence they subseouehtly prooseckd to
Paris.

wess
In which • sister or a mother expressed the least satisfaction
at the procpect of her brother or hereon dying for his country.
YOUT friend Lords Bar:cart," says a letter from the
mother of a private Soldier to her son, "has prop clod for
Modeste. Let us know at soon as possible whether you
accept him for your brother-In-law " A certain number of
French s ,Idiers, whose knapsacks bad he, n emptied, seemed
to have carried religious nooks with them, generally of the
simplest kind, from " L'Alphabet Chittien" upwards I saw
an "Atlas du Maitre de la Coerce lying 11 the ade of one
poor Cello w, and by the side of another a manuscri;d c PY
of
the " Air des Dpnns'f ,sedante con inotO, from AUber's
Premer Jour du Bonheur.

Tile WRENCH TAKING UP THEIR STARE,.
The French had melt their stand on two hills, divided by
a narrow valley, and Weil behind an entrenchment on a plain,
extending trout the side of the mieond of these hills up to
Wood, which marked the left of the Frecch position. the
right being equally marked by a wood on the top of the fleet
mentioned tiol most inaccessible of the two hills. My
description of the ieene of battle is mathematically imeceurete,
but it is in the mhen torrent, arid it is intangible, whieb •
strictly accurate description Wohld not be. Or the second
hill, in the middle of the pmition the French seem to have
sufferid More than on the Nod. Behind a fragment of
hedges twenty yards in I,ngti;', twenty-four Frenchmen
were lying. Rome had fired from behind regular entrench-
ments, others from behind little ioiprovised mounds of
earth, others from behind a few large stones piled one
above the other. Toe use of the new akmot of Precision
has developed in Ow sho employ them a Velelmlete love
of cover In a atend•up 11,4 ht at close quarters, eueb as was
possible enough in the last century, troops who Ole steed
Up to receive the fire of their enemy would have ve.rY little
chance indeed of returning it.
THREE TIMES ASSAELTeD„ AND THEN TAKEN!
The most Inaccessible of the two hilt,, ilia Spickier Berg,
as the Darman! call it, with its natural f conies sit or of forest
on tne fight, was assaulted three times before it sv.s taken.
Two reginlonfit h,d exhausted themselves in attacking the
portion, Mid hail retired. leaving long lines of deed and
wounded on the slow, wile. the 40th the moot putoulaz
es"tei me
meendi , i
advanced,B r'
' tinderr‘ad one
norie of t nioet he
juste,e
with a heavy musketry ore falling upon it Ili front and from
above, rushed up the beights end enued hy scaling them.
This exploit cost the 40th no less thao IG officers and 1300
men.

A DESPERATE ENCOUNTER.
ir Of the sealing of the second hill I will say nothing, knoW-
Ing no one who took part In It—not knowing even whether
It was sealed at all until after the French had been generally
beaten. It aes down below, OD the plain extendlt g trona the
side of the second hill to the wood which closed hi the
French position on the left, that the dect.ive movement wag
made which terminated the artion in favour of the Pruestang.
On this plain, lying down behint their eterenchmerit, the
French had an impregnable poiition, which the Premises
after being engaged from soon after tea In the morning until
MX In the afternoon, did not attempt to storm. Bet fresh
troops were cornice up during the action, and General
Z,trow, whose COrpd ct armee, or part of it, was within
reach, on the fine of railway which connects SaarMecken
with Treves, had been informed by telegraph of the state
of affair, Beyond Volklingen, a distance of some eight or
nine miles L out Searle tidier, the disposable r.-gimente of the
Z astrow corps—ernoug them the beet and the 77th—crossed the
lofty range of hills which hereemmoutit lisle!' bank, hurried
oust a run for two miles turd a half, and, reachit g the wood
which closed in the Feeuch position on the left, entered it,
and, attacking the French in flank and In rear, inflicted ter-
rible loses upon them. TM. decided the day; but the
French still did not retire withont maklne the most vigor-
ous resistance. The Journal Officiel has published a lint of the
French regiments engaged. but without counting the 1711 i reel-
meut of Artillery, Whose shakos and uniforms t iliserved behind
! the entrenchment on the plain. The Prueeiatis do not pun-
fish the names of regiments engaged at all, on the perfectly
sound priucipe, that by so doing they cannot benefit them-
selves, and might perhaps give some useful information to
the enemy. ills kerma, however, that tt.e two Prussian
regiments which buffered the most—arid a regiment must
suffer to .ditain glory—were the 40.11, which to k the Spiche-
ren heights by storm, with a lose of about 600 men and sixteen
officers, alai the 67th, winch was the first to break in *Wen
the French behind their entrenchments, and lest abeut 600
men and twenty-five officers.
MARKS OF BULLETS AND BALLS EVERYWHERE.
What was the meaning of this battle, in which the Prus-
sian killed and wounded amounted to nearly 8 tlOO men, the
French losees beteg estimated by the PCIPOiI.II9 at nearly
double that number ? The Prussian official bulletin says
snooty that the Prussians stormed the heigets, atiatkei the
French position everywhere, and beat have the enemy
towards Fornach. But the French must have been ill retreat,
before the battle began ; aunt that no doubt, will be the
French verelou of the affair Even after their posi-
tion had been turned the French kept on fighting
until late at night, and by the account of the Prus-
sians themselves made their assailants pay eet
dearly fir their victory. But the Prussians do m
not mind
payiug dearly for victory. They can bfforti it, and it
seems to be the principle on which they are carrying oa the
war that the expenditure of blood is nothing, provided only
:hat in the end they gain the d ty. As the French gave way
the victorious Proemsnis gradually made far the high road
which leads to Foreaeh, and the marks of bullets end balls
on the trees which line the road on each e,de, and on a
few small houses which had the misfortune to find them-
selves placed along the path of retreat, thew what ehe
struggle here muit have been. Some of the Frencln
took refuge in a weyeide inn, the walls of which show
She marks, not figuratively, but almost literally, of ta
hailstorm of bullets. Quite literally, there Is not a
spot on thoie walls againet which a matt could have
rested his body during the action without beteg hit a
zen times. The whitlows being smashed, the mhappy
Fret•chwoman to whim the inn belongs. sir m reaps I should
tap belonged, has closed the shutters. Everything beim ging
to her has been destroyed, and I saw her eitt ng on the door-
step of her artificial ruin the he ege of desolation. The last
deeperaie stand made by the French was at a factory, a few
hundred yards ou their own side of the frontier, liere the
slaughter was frightful, and it ouly cearied with t 1 e de:kneel
of night.
The next morning the Prursians pursued the enemy far be-
yond Ferhach, and tip to this time have n ade upwards of
Leoo prisoner.. I sew about 100 of them brought be yester-
day, including a colonel, a lieutenant-colenel, and several
efficers disey were wounded, many m. re were footsore,
others agent were in tolerably good c edition, and did
out seem at all sorry to hive been taken. The betarieg of the
prisoners genera% was excellent ; neCewatily not haughty,
bet thoroughly d g deed all the tame. One private, who, to
judge from its manners aid demeanour, must have been a
volunteer of good position, was asked tat turn hie pockets
out, when, with the bed air in the world, he produced ft
remarkably neat revolver arid handed it to the Staff officer
who had been questioning hint, arid who, aft, a few words
of cella:teflon, shook hands with his prisoner very cordially.
I good many cigars were offered to the c-ptivee, and more
wine than they would accept. This afternoon I saw some
of yesterday's prisoners again. They were dandies at the
door re a public building set apart for their reception, and,
after the manner of their nation, were entertaining a number
of servant girls and market women with an account of Shalt
heroic exploits, and with plea:ant ry of all Muds.

A DISCONSOLATE WOMAN— ENOUGH TO HAKE HER SO!
The heights taken by the French on the 2,id are in Ger-
many. The heights taken by the Germans on the tth are in
France; and both the tiatte a fought b_tween SAarto ticten
and Forbach were fought across the frontier, si hick is
imaked only on the high road by a milestone. Ever since
the morning of the 7th troops have been passing in one un-
broken stream through &nicht thiken towards Forbsch and
•t. Avoid. Tne aulciers telieve the hutposts to be
in the immediate beighhowhood of Metz, awl are
counting the number if days that it will take them
to got to racist But, In spite rt their marvellous
success, the Fraisians are still a long distance from the
French capital—l forget how many marches; and then there
are obstacles in the way which may or may net trove lit-
citable. the tirit t enion loam on entering the enemy'S
country 1,11 that tlisconsoatf woman who sat maul g on
the threshcld of her ru ned inn. I hope the st.te if this
poor woman is not to be looked upon as typical of that of all
France. As to the people of Forbach I can say nothing,
they having, for the most part, left the town, The shops are
shut, most of the ea,Cs are turned into hospitals, and there
are no French, except prisonert under escort, to be seen in
the streets.