The Franco-German War of 1870-71Moltke, Helmuth, Graf von
History
The Franco-German War of 1870-71
Moltke, Helmuth, Graf von
Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871
The various feigned attacks of the Parisian garrison were without
effect, and produced no alteration in the dispositions made on the
German side. An advance from St. Denis against Stains was repulsed, and
two gunboats on the Seine had to go about in consequence of the fire of
four field batteries on Orgemont. The trivial sortie on Chatou was
scarcely heeded. General Vinoy indeed led forward a large force along
the right bank of the Marne, but that was not till the afternoon, when
the fight at Le Bourget was over. The Saxon outposts retired into the
fighting position near Le Chenay. One of the battalions massed there
drove the enemy out of Maison Blanche that same evening, another made a
grasp at Ville Evrart, where fighting went on till midnight; it lost
seventy men, but brought in 600 prisoners. Next morning the French
abandoned Ville Evrart, under heavy fire from the German artillery on
the heights on the opposite side of the river.
Paris had now been invested for three months. The always distasteful
expedient of a bombardment of a place so extensive could not of itself
bring about a decisive result; and on the German side there was the full
conviction that only a regular siege could accomplish the wished-for
end. But the operations of the engineers had to be delayed till the
artillery should be in a position to co-operate with them.
It has already been shown that the siege-artillery had been first
employed against those fortified places which interrupted the rearward
communications of the army. There were indeed 235 heavy pieces standing
ready at Villacoublay; but it had proved impossible as yet to bring up
the necessary ammunition for the attack which, once begun, must on no
account be interrupted.
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