WI: Mars-la-tour, 1870 August 16th

[galileo-034]

At the battle of Mars-la-tour, two prussian corps encountered the entire French army of the Rhine. Although at the day's end, the French were victorious, Marshal Bazaine ordered a retreat. Two days later, the prussian victory of Gravelotte trapped the 180.000 men of Bazaine in Metz.
What if, instead to retreat to Metz, they continued, as ordered by the Emperor, the retreat towards Châlons?
I doubt that the Germans could inflict to a French army of 260.000 men a fatal blow, as at the OTL battle of Sedan.

[galileo-034]

The battle of Mars-la-Tour was the greatest opportunity to inflict a serious setback upon the Prussians that the French missed.

After the French suffered several defeats at the hands of the Prussians. Napoleon III and the Army of the Rhine retreated to Metz. There, the Emperor gave the command of the Army of the Rhine to Marshal Bazaine, ordering him to bring back it to Chalons. But Bazaine wanted to deliver a battle under the walls of Metz, thinking to be able to smash the ennemy here, and delayed the retreat. Thus, he accepted to deliver battle at Borny while the Prussians crossed the Moselle south of Metz. The Prussian vanguard, von Alvensleben's 3rd corps, skirmished with French detachments near Mars-la-Tour in the night of the 15 to 16 August (it was during this very night that Napoleon III and Prince Napoleon left Metz, passing close to Prussian outposts). Von Alvensleben believed then to have in front of him a rearguard, believing the main French army to be heading for Verdun, more at west, and decided to engage. However, the Army of the Rhine, delayed by Bazaine, was still near Metz. Thus, the French brought their entire army on the battlefield by the afternoon of August 16th, while the main Prussian forces weren't to arrive before the following night.



From what I've found, the best occasion of the day to have a great Prussian defeat was with the fights of the 'Ravine of the pears', in the western part of the battlefield.
At 5.00 pm, von Schwartzkoppen's 38th brigade launched an attack on which was believed to be the right flank of the French, in fact the left flank of de Ladmirault's 4th corps. After having crossed a plateau, the brigade had to cross a ravine before arriving on the French positions.

Once at the bottom of the 'ravine of the pears' as it was called at the time, they took heavy losses but were about to overrun the French position when de Cissey's corps arrived, reversed the situation and routed the 38th brigade.

The Prussian cavalry, already strained by important fights more to east, attempted two counter-attacks which both failed.

At this moment, the 38th didn't exist and nothing stood between the French 4th corps and Tronville. However, de Ladmirault halted the pursuit, believing to face the Prussian 3rd Army (which was in fact near Bar-le-Duc); it's surprising for such an agressive general (relatively to the other generals and marshals of Napoleon III).
Had he pursued, the von Alvensleben's 3rd corps could have been surrounded.


My main objective by making this thread is exploring the ways possible to have the Army of the Rhine make junction with the army gathering at Chalons, preventing the disaster of Sedan.
Even if we can't make the French win this battle, we can eliminate Bazaine. Indeed, at the beginning of the afternoon Marshal Bazaine was surprised by a charge of Prussian hussars and escaped in extremis to capture. Earlier, he also had his horse shot under him.
With Bazaine removed, Marshal Canrobert would have taken command. He would have two choices for the following day:
> he begins immediatly the retreat towards Verdun;
> he reorganizes after the removal of Bazaine, waits for the reaction of the Emperor to head for Verdun and uses the following day to entrench, but on an west-east axis to keep open the road to Verdun instead of the north-south axis chosen by Bazaine (who wanted to deliver a great defensive battle under the walls of Metz, not to head for Chalons).

If the Army of the Rhine and its 150,000 men (once a garrison of 20,000/30,000 men let in Metz) successfully make their way to Chalons, Mac Mahon could retreat to Paris as originally planned, with 250,000 men, enough to prevent a siege. By autumn, with general mobilization decreed and completed, the Germans should face around 1,400,000 French soldiers. Given the difficulties they had with the siege of Paris IOTL, the Germans would face great difficulties. What's more, there would be the threat put on the supply lines of the German armies by the lot of fortresses still resisting: with 20,000 men instead of 180,000 men to feed, Metz should resist longer, while Strasbourg would not be demoralized by the disaster of Sedan.

[wolf_brother]

I'll be watching this with interest.

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I don't have the knowledge to comment on your analysis, but I hope you make a timeline of this.

[galileo-034]

I plan to do a mini-TL on the Franco-Prussian War to gain experience in writing of wars.

I'm looking for a detailed map of the French railway network in 1870; I've already found one but this map is not detailed enough:


Politically, the consequence of a retreat to Chalons of the Army the Rhine would be the end of the Regency. IOTL, Empress Eugenie did a lot to keep her husband far from the capital because his return would put an end to the reasons justifying the regency (in fact, since the Emperor had decreed the regency as he departed to personnaly command the army, the Regency should have ceased when Napoleon III abandoned the command of the Army of the Rhine to Bazaine).
We should also see the importance of Prince Napoleon growing as he was considered more able than the Emperor himself by many officers; to give you an example, general Trochu once said after a meeting at Chalons with the Emperor and his cousin: 'there is only one Napoleon in this camp'.

When we consider that Gambetta had almost nothing, because of the capitulations of Sedan and Metz, when he began to organize the resistance, we can only imagine which could do an army without a lack of experienced officers. Since the Imperial Army fought at the time with a defensive doctrine, it should be advantaged at the battle of Paris; in my mind, Paris would look as Richmond-Petersburg but at a gigantic scale (400,000 soldiers to defend the city IOTL, and add the 250,000 of the Army of Chalons ...).

[Xgentis]

Interesting if the Prussian are defeated at Paris they'll have troubles holding onto french territory and that would give the french army a much needed moral boost. The conflict might end up in statu quo ante bellum. For the map of the french railway I don't know what you are looking for there are nothing more to it the network was still in construction at the time all the map I found on french site are bassicaly the same as yours.

[King of Rome]

I like the concept, and you seem to have research the battle well. If you have an orderly retreat to Paris, bloodying the Prussians along the way, it would be a large moral boost to the French Armies (as opposed to what happened) and would maybe preserve the Imperial Government, giving an ounce of stability to the situation. Please continue, I would read it.

[galileo-034]

Thanks for the support. Alas, if strategy isn't a problem for me, tactics is one. Currently, I could write immediatly an ATL battle of Mars-la-Tour as I've found an online very complete report wrote in 1885 (http://www26.us.archive.org/stream/franaisalleman002lonl/franaisalleman002lonl_djvu.txt). However, I fear for the next battles.
I will have to amass documents on the OTL war, however I am already busy with beginning the reading of books I've bought for some months for my TL War and Peace (originally, I wanted to do a TL with the Second Empire surviving and I choose to give the French a victory in the War of 1870, but I later took the POD in 1858 which prevented this war from happening; recently, I've decided to do the mini-TL on my initial idea to train for writing war chapters which should be numerous in War and Peace
).
Before the end of this year, I should have bought two books, one on the War of 1870, and one on the siege of Paris.
So, the mini-TL is not to be released before summer 2013.

I hope than you can help me by your suggestions to make this TL detailed.
Currently, I'm focusing on the battle of Paris. I try to find which positions would adopt the Imperial Army to defend Paris while keeping contact with France. I've only identified Creil as a crucial point as the town was an important railroad junction between Picardy and Paris as you can see it on the map I've posted, not too far from the capital (45 km), but I'm still debating with myself using a map of the Parisian region and of northeastern France.

[King of Rome]

Well dang, sounds like you are gonna pump-out when in-depth and detailed piece. Let me know if you need assistance.

[Remicas]

There were the fortification line built around Paris in the 1830/40s, plus some fortresses on the hills surronding Paris (one of the more famous being the Mont-Valérien, from which the Congress start retaking Paris in 1871 against the Commune).



In term of weapons, it should have been discussed at lengh but the Chassepot rifle was a superior to the german equivalent, especially in rate of ire. To compensate this the German tactic was to send powerful waves of infantry (three wave if I'm correct ?). The german cannon Krupp howhever was, in steel and armed from behind was more powerful and accurate than the bronze-made french ones. The French had some early machinegun, alas didn't efficiently used them due to the poor reach of that weapon, but when they were deadly when they succed to ambush some german.

It is well that you get rid of Bazaine. When I studied the Franco-Prussian war I was thinking he was kinda the best german general during that conflict.

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Remicas

The French had some early machinegun, alas didn't efficiently used them due to the poor reach of that weapon, but when they were deadly when they succed to ambush some german.

Poor reach?

The Mitrailleuse had an effective range of nearly 4,000 yards. To put that in perspective, the Gatling, the supposed pinnacle of early machine gun technology, only had a range of 500 yards.

[Remicas]

Sorry, I was too simplistic. I didn't know the specific of the weapon, only how the french used it : with the artillery, on the second line instead of first line with infantry. the reach of the mitrailleuse was shorter than cannon, so the german could destroy it before their troops were in range.

[sloreck]

Problem with mitrailleuse was it was a volley weapon, not really a machine gun & not as quick reloading as should be. The artillery difference was very important, artillery always a big killer.

BTW an interesting fact is that while the French had major problems with disease in the army, including many deaths & casualties from smallpox, the Prussians had very few - this war on Prussian side at least was first one with good statistics where casualties from enemy exceeded disease

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by sloreck

Problem with mitrailleuse was it was a volley weapon, not really a machine gun & not as quick reloading as should be. The artillery difference was very important, artillery always a big killer.

BTW an interesting fact is that while the French had major problems with disease in the army, including many deaths & casualties from smallpox, the Prussians had very few - this war on Prussian side at least was first one with good statistics where casualties from enemy exceeded disease

Were the French inoculating their troops yet?

[Remicas]

I thought that the last war where the diseases were the major cause of casualties in the French army was the Crimean war.