Then once again, instead of following up its success, the French army disappeared from view. The victory had emboldened the "fog of war" to make renewed efforts, and resistance to the pressure of the German cavalry grew day by day. The Bavarians were reinforced by two Prussian divisions and by all available cavalry commands, and constituted as an "army detachment" under the grand-duke Friedrich Franz of Mecklenburg-Schwerin to deal with the Army of the Loire, the strength of which was far from being accurately known. Meantime the capitulation of Metz on the 28th of October had set free the veterans of Prince Frederick Charles, the best troops in the German army, for field operations. The latter were at first misdirected to the upper Seine, and yet another opportunity arose for the French to raise the siege of Paris. But D'Aurelle utilized the time he had gained in strengthening the army and in imparting drill and discipline to the new units which gathered round the original nucleus of the 15th and 16th corps. All this was, however, unknown and even unsuspected at the German headquarters, and the invaders, feeling the approaching crisis, became more than uneasy as to their prospects of maintaining the siege of Paris. The Orleans campaign. At this moment, in the middle of November, the general situation was as follows: the German III. and Meuse armies, investing Paris, had had to throw off important detachments to protect the enterprise, which they had undertaken on the assumption that no further field armies of the enemy were to be encountered. The maintenance of their communications with Germany, relatively unimportant when the struggle took place in the circumstances of field warfare, had become supremely necessary, now that the army had come to a standstill and undertaken a great siege, which required heavy guns and constant replenishment of ammunition and stores. The rapidity of the German invasion had left no time for the proper organization and full garrisoning of these communications, which were now threatened, not merely by the Army of the Loire, but by other forces assembling on the area protected by Langres and Belfort. The latter, under General Cambriels, were held in check and no more by the Baden troops and reserve units (XIV. German corps) under General Werder, and eventually without arousing attention they were able to send 40,000 men to the Army of the Loire. This army, still around Orleans, thus came to number perhaps 150,000 men, and opposed to it, about the 14th of November, the Germans had only the Army Detachment of about 40,000, the II. army being still distant. It was under these conditions that the famous Orleans campaign took place. After many vicissitudes of fortune, and with many misunderstandings between Prince Frederick Charles, Moltke and the grand-duke, the Germans were ultimately victorious, thanks principally to the brilliant fighting of the X. corps at