_Progress of the Action._ For two hours, that is, between four and six o’clock, the front of battle swagged to and fro, for the French fought valiantly, and, by repeated forward rushes, compelled their pertinacious assailants to give, or repelled their energetic attempts to gain, ground. A German company would dash out from cover, and thrust the defenders to the rear; then, smitten in front and flank, it would recede, followed by the French, who, taken in flank by the opportune advent of a hostile group, would retreat to the woods, or the friendly shelter of a depression in the soil. Nevertheless, in the centre, and on their own left, the Germans made some progress. A battalion of the 5th Division mastered the defence in the Pfaffen Wald on the French right; a group of companies crowned the highest point in the Giffert Wald; and the new arrivals, drawn alike from the 8th and the 3rd Corps, pushed up the ravine on the east, and the slopes on the west of the Red Hill, until their combined fire and frequent rushes forced the French out of their second line of intrenchments on the neck of high land which connected the Red Hill with the heights of Spicheren. The French strove fiercely, again and again, to recover the vantage ground, yet could not prevail; but their comrades below, in the south-west corner of the Giffert Wald, stoutly held on, so that the fight in this quarter became stationary, as neither side could make any progress. On the German right, during the same interval of time, there had been sharper alternations of fortune. Here the French held strong positions, not only in the village of Stiring-Wendel, but on the hillsides above it, and especially on the tongue of upland called the Forbacher Berg. The assailant had succeeded in taking and keeping the farmsteads on the railway, the “Brême d’or” and the “Baraque Mouton,” but the efforts of General von Woyna to operate on the French left had been so roughly encountered that he drew back his troops to a point far down the valley. In fact, General Frossard had strengthened Vergé, who held fast to Stiring, by Valazé’s brigade, and General Bataille had also sent half his division to support his comrade. The consequence was that the German projects were frustrated; while, on the other hand, their heavy batteries on the Folster Höhe had such an ascendancy that the French could not secure any advantage by moving down the vale.