The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-08 00:00:00

THE DETAILS OF THE TWO BATTLES

The Standard sums up the various facts bearing upon
the two engagements, as they have yet reached us: It
appears by the present accounts that, after the defeat of
Weissenburg, on Friday, the sth, the troops under
MacMahon must have retired from their first positiop on
the Pigeonnier in a south-westerly direction, on Lembach,
and from that point, finding probably that the
Prussians were not pursuing towards Bitsche, but were
taking the road to Soultz, that they struck off South-
wards down the valley of the Saar, and took up a position
at Woerth, a small town at the junction of the Saar
and the Saltzbach, on the direct road from Soultz
to Niederbronn and Bitsche. It is probable
that the Crown Prince moved south by the road
and railway as far as Soultz, and then turned due west tc
meet MacMahon. By this means he would turn that spur
of hills which commencing with the Col du Pigeonnier,
on the bank of the Lauter, runs in a southerly direction,
till it terminates a little north of Woerth. Here,
on Saturday, the 6th, he encountered not only
the troops driven back from Weissenburg, but others,
brought up to reinforce them, including, doubtless, the
other divisions of MacMahon's corps. The telegram
to the Foreign Office from the headquarters of the
Crown Prince simply states that MacMahon was totally
defeated, and that the losses on both sides are considerable.
The Crown Prince's own despatch says—" Marshal
MacMahon, with the greater part of his army, is com-
pletely defeated. The French were driven back to
Bitsche." But there is yet another telegram from Count
Bismarck to the North German embassies, des-
patched from Mainz yesterday morning, which de-
scribes a brilliant victory as having been won by
the Crown Prince, at Haguenau, over the united armies
of MacMahon, De Failly, and Canrobert ; and adds that,
up to that hour, 4,000 prisoners have been brought in, and
that -over 100 officers, more than 30 cannon, six mitrail-
leuses, and two eagles, had been taken from the French.
We must suppose this despatch to have been penned after
the prisoners had been examined, and from them it would
have been ascertained what regiments, and thus what
corps, were present on the field. If this despatch is
correct the corps of De Failly, which we yesterday stated
was concentrated at Bitsche, must have marched
on the night of Friday to join 111`Mahon. For the pre-
sence of Canrobert's corps we are unable to account,
except by supposing that it had quite recently been
brought by rail to Metz, and then dispatched into a posi-
tion where it was able to support either wing of the army.
If these three corps were present at Woerth, there
cannot have been much less than 100,000 French engaged.
MacMahon's corps has four divisions, De Failly's three,
and Canrobert's either three or four. But the latest dispatch
from the Emperor states, on the other hand, that MacMahon
had only five divisions engaged, and that De Failly's
corps was unable to join him. But the Emperor admits
that his communications with MacMahon are severed,
and that only vague details have been re-
ceived. On the other side, we may suppose that
at least the same corps were present with the
Crown Prince which were engaged in the action of
Weissenburg. These were officially announced as
being the Fifth, or Posen Corps, and the Eleventh,.
or Hesse and Nassau Corps, of the North German
army, and the second Bavarian corps. These three corps
would amount to not less than 90,000 men ; and it ifT not
improbable that they were assisted by some of the troops
of Baden, for it was announced by telegram on
Saturday that a Baden division had crossed the Lauter,
and fixed its headquarters at Lauterburg. In this case
the Crown Prince's army would have been about 100,000
strong ; so that if Count Bismarck's despatckdoes not ex-
aggerate the French forces, the Prussians appear to have
gained a victory over equal forces, holding a position
which we must suppose to have been strong, or it
would not have been chosen by such a commander as
Marshal MacMahon. The Crown Prince admits very heavy
losses, but that makes his victory none the less valuable.
The action near Saarbruck, adds the Standard, was
scarcely less important. It appears that on the night of
the sth, the day of the action of Weissenburg, the French
centre began to fall back from its advanced position. It
will be remembered that after the affair at Saar-
bruck, to which we attrched but little importance,
the French occupied the heights immediately abo vi
the town, on the left bank of the Saar, *with the advanced
posts of General Froissard's. corps. A telegram from
Count Bismarck dated Mains, just before midnight on
Saturday, says that the French army retreated, and that
the heads of the pursuing Prussian columns overtook
them on the 6th ; that early on the morning of Satur-
day the Prussian General Von Kamers attacked the
French west of Saarbruck in a strong position on the hills
near Speicheren ; that at the sound of the guns detach-
ments from the divisions Barnekow and Stulpnagel ad-
vanced to the support of Von Kamer; General Von Goe-
ben took the command, and after a fiercely-contested battle
drove the French from the position occupied by General
Froissard, carrying it by storm. General Steinmetz
arrived on the field in the evening and assumed com-
mand. It will be remembered that it was from
these very heights of Speicheren, a village almost
due south of Saarbruck, that the French first brought
their guns into action against the Prussians, who occupied
the lower heights on the left bank of the Saar, and if
General Froissard's corps still held their position,
it is evident that the first retreat was merely from the
untenable position on the bank of the Saar to the superior
position on the heights of Speicheren. This position
appears from the French staff map to be very strong.
The left of an army would be protected by wooden defiles,
the villages of Speicheren and of Alsting would form
strong posts for defence, and the stream of the Saarbach
would cover the right flank. From this strong posi-
tion the French were driven by the Prussians.
The latter were probably superior in numbers, but not to
any very marked extent. If, as we gather, the whole of
Gceben's corps, and one division of another corps, were
engaged, about 40,000 Prussians must have attacked
30,000 French. We give these numbers merely as con-
jectural from the slight information at our disposal.
We hear nothing from Prussian sources of any other
troops being engaged than the corps of Frossarch
Woerth, says the Post, is about twelve miles from
Weissenburg, seven miles from the railway junction at
Hagenau, five miles from Niederbronn, on the Hageuau--
Bitsche Railway, seventeen miles as the crow flies from
Bitsche, and 25 miles from Strasburg. Woerth 18 also
about three miles to the west of the Weissen-
burg - Hageneau Railway, so that MacMahon
must have taken up the position with the
double object of covering Hagenau and the
passes of the Vosges Mountains, especially that by.
Niederbronn to Bitsche. Holding the position, there was
no alternative for the Crown Prince in advancing but to
attack MacMahon. The French army at Woerth
barred the passage between the Vosges and the Forest
of Hagenau, and covered the railway from Strasburg
to Bitsche, and the defeat of that army was a necessary
preliminary movement, either south or west, by. the
Crown Prince from his Weissenburg-Lauterburg posi-
tion. MacMahon seems to have stationed his army with
strategic skill—he was beaten by either superior tactics or
superior force.

The Telegraph considers the probable future movements
of MacMahon, who has been driven back on Bitsche.
The road runs upwards into a rugged part of the Vosges ;
:lie narrowness of the gorge leaves him but a sin-
tile route and that route leads, not south-
westward, towards the point where the French,
driven hack from the frontier, would naturally

concentrate, but north-westward, right into the teeth of
the triumphant Prussians of the centre and right, advanc-
ing along the whole line from Saarlouis to Sarreguemines
We learn that Prince Frederick Charles has advanced.
from Homburg to Bliescastel, while the bulk of
Steinmetz's army lies between Sultzbaeh and Saarbruck.
Both points are equidistant from Sarreguemines, within
the French frontier, from which they are only sepa-
rate by 12 miles of territory, traversed by several good
roads, and totally clear of an enemy. Upon Sarreguemineg
leads the road from Bitsche by which, on Saturday after-
noon, MacMahon's beaten army retreated. But from
Worth to Sarreguemines the distance is at least 25
miles, through a broken and difficult hill country ;
and it remains to be seen whether, victors at Saar-
bruck at nightfall on Saturday, Steinmetz and Von
Goaben pushed forward towards St. Avoid and Sar-
realbe in time to cut , off MacMahon's retreat whe-
ther he proceeded from Bitsche to Sarreguemines
or struck off at Bitsche due southward into the mountains
upon Phalsbourg, or, choosing a middle cour6e, continued
his march past Bitsche to Rohrbach, and there turned
south-westward upon Bouquemont and Marsal. It
would be simply preposterous for him to seek to sustain
himself in the bleak, rough upland about Bitsche
where he would k)/M have to surrender to the superior
forces pressing on him on both sides ; and by any of the
lines of retreat we have indicated he would take about
three times as long to reach a point of safe communica-
tion with the Centre as tie Prussians from Saarbruck
and Bliescastel would require to anticipate him. He
-cannot, in fact, resume communication with the
corps retiring from Saarbruck and Forbach, save
by a march across the front of a victorious, a
numerically superior, and an enterprising enemy ; and we
shall look with much interest for intelligence as to the
result of this race against time. Meanwhile it is not to
be concealed that, on the face of our present advices, the
French right wing is in grave jeopardy.