Darkness had set in, and the last shot had been fired, when Marshal Bazaine rode back to his head-quarters at Gravelotte. There he became impressed with the scarcity—“penury”—of munitions and provisions; there he acknowledged to the Emperor that the direct road to Verdun had been closed, and that he might be obliged to retreat by the north; and there he wrote the order which was to move his entire Army the next day nearer to Metz. The troops began their retrograde march as early as four o’clock, by which hour Prince Frederick Charles was up on the hill above Flavigny, intently watching his antagonists. Rezonville was still occupied by infantry, a cavalry division was drawn up between that village and Vernéville until late in the forenoon, and the marches of troops to and fro kept the cautious German Commanders, for some time, in a state of uncertainty. It has now to be shown how they had employed the 16th outside the area of the conflict, where the several Corps stood in the evening, and by what means the Great Staff, on the 17th, acquired the knowledge that the “Army of the Rhine” had retired upon the line of hills immediately to the westward of Metz. The movement of troops comes first under notice. On the extreme left the 4th Corps having crossed the Moselle at Marbache, had pushed forward in a south-westerly direction, part of the Corps making a dashing but fruitless attempt to intimidate the garrison of Toul, so important because it barred the railway to Chalons, and at the end of the day was still under orders to march upon the Meuse. The Guard, preceded by its cavalry, advanced from Dieulouard to several points half-way between the Moselle and the Meuse, the right being at Bernecourt and the left about Beaumont. The 12th Corps, Saxons, crossed the Moselle at Pont à Mousson, and had one division there and one about Regnièville en Haye. The 2nd Corps, still approaching the Moselle by forced marches, had attained villages east of the Seille. It will be readily understood that, as the 4th and 2nd Corps were so far distant from the centre of action west of Metz, they could hardly be moved up in time to share in the impending struggle; and they, therefore, for the present, may be omitted from the narrative. It was otherwise with the remaining Corps, and it was the aim of the Great Staff to bring them all up to the Verdun road.