page_title: Battle of Mars-la-Tour
section_title: Arrival of German reinforcements
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Mars-la-Tour / Battle / Arrival of German reinforcements
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Reiterkampf bei Mars-la-Tour; deutsch-französischer Krieg, 16. August 1870
context_page_description: The Battle of Mars-La-Tour was fought on 16 August 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, near the village of Mars-La-Tour in northeast France. One Prussian corps, reinforced by two more later in the day, encountered the entire French Army of the Rhine in a meeting engagement and, surprisingly, forced the Army of the Rhine to retreat toward the fortress of Metz.
  A cavalry patrol of the 1st Squadron of the 1st Hanoverian Dragoon Regiment No. 9, led by Rittmeister Oskar von Blumenthal, discovered that Marshal François Bazaine's 160,000-man Army of the Rhine was attempting to escape from Metz to join with French forces at Verdun. This intelligence prompted General Prince Friedrich Karl, commander of the Prussian Second Army, to order at 1900 on 15 August a grossly outnumbered group of 30,000 men of the advanced III Corps under General Constantin von Alvensleben to cut off the French line of retreat at Mars-la-Tour and Vionville.
  At 0900 on 16 August, they engaged the French army near Vionville, east of Mars-la-Tour. III Corps routed the French 2nd Army Corps and captured Vionville at 1130, blocking any further escape attempts to the west.
context_section_description: As the French stood poised to overwhelm the heavily-outnumbered III Corps, X Corps 20th Infantry Division under General von Kraatz reached the battlefield near Tronville at 1600, having marched 27 miles (43 km). 20th Infantry Division's staff officers and Kraatz personally reconnoitered the vicinity of Tronville and Flavigny and identified the III Corps center as badly weakened. Kraatz ordered his division to reinforce that position immediately. The roar of cannon fire had caused X Corps commander General von Voigts-Rhetz to investigate it and upon arriving in Tronville, reports from his chief of staff Caprivi and the ongoing battle convinced Voigts-Rhetz to move his entire corps at once to support III Corps at 1130. At Tronville, two batteries of X Corps artillery under Baron von der Goltz were joined by two divisional batteries and they concentrated a highly successful fire on Grenier's French artillery. Major Körber's four batteries nearby were joined by a battery of horse artillery, and the German gun mass then blasted the French skirmisher swarms at 750 meters and sent them running back north in disarray. By 1600, III and X Corps had 210 guns supporting them on the battlefield.
  Two battalions from the 20th Infantry Division's 79th Regiment formed up near Tronville at 1530. They held their positions on the eastern edges of a nearby wood and stood the French infantry fire directed against them. The 40th Brigade deployed at Tronville at 1630. They advanced to secure the ground east and north of it and had to endure only French shell fire. The French still had superior forces available but did not pursue their attack, largely thanks to Bazaine's obsession with the French left flank. He ordered the 3rd Army Corps under Lebouef on his right to merely hold their positions. At 1500, Bazaine sent 3rd Army Corps to his left flank to protect Rezonville. As a result, most of Lebouef's troops did not fight at all on 16 August. Bazaine's order was a great help to Alvensleben's III Corps.
  Prince Friedrich Karl did not become aware of the precariousness of III Corps struggle until 1400, when a report from Kraatz informed him of the situation. He rode 14 miles (23 km) with his staff to the battlefield, gaining the Rezonville plateau at 1600 to the cheers of his troops. The III Corps and French infantry positions on the plateau, reinforced by strong artillery forces, were so firm that frontal attacks would be impossible. Friedrich Karl decided to fight offensively only with X Corps to the left when it arrived, while III Corps, with the help of X Corps 20th Infantry Division, would fight primarily with the artillery. The artillery batteries of the 5th, 16th and 20th Infantry Divisions were concentrated east of Flavigny under the command of General von Bülow, where they maintained a continuous fire on the French artillery north of the Metz-Verdun road. Isolated attacks by French infantry were beaten off by Prussian artillery before the French could even get within range of the Prussian infantry's needle guns. Two German battalions of 78th East Friesland Regiment under Colonel von Lyncker attempted to capture a height (989) south of Rezonville but failed after a few hundred meters. Lyncker was wounded along with all his company commanders. Two grenadier battalions of the 12th Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel von Kalinowski, supported by two 16th Infantry Division artillery batteries, pushed forward a line of skirmishers to a valley below the 989 height. Three battalions from the 20th Infantry Division arrived and also attempted to capture the 989 height, likewise failing under the French fire. They did gain a position on the slope of the height and defeat French attempts to throw them back. Apart from these relatively modest successes and failures, III Corps situation was stable by 1700.
  Meanwhile, half of 19th Infantry Division under General Emil von Schwartzkoppen reached Tronville and Kraatz requested that they attack the French right wing to the north-east. Schwartzkoppen moved out and concentrated his 39th Brigade in an arc north-
caption: The cavalry battle at 1845.
exif: {}