While awaiting the expected success of the out-flanking movement, General Bourbaki's intention seems to have been merely to occupy the enemy along his front and to hold him fast where he stood. Even during the night the Germans were alarmed at Bethoncourt and before Hericourt, while they, on their part, disturbed the French at Bussurel and in the Bois de La Thure. The infantry fire went on for hours, and numerous detachments had to spend the bitter winter's night under arms. In the morning two Divisions of the XVIIIth French Corps advanced on Chagey and Luze, but their batteries, although supported by the artillery of the Army Reserve, they could not advance against those of the Germans, and repeated attacks on those villages were unsuccessful. After one o'clock a cannonade only was maintained here. In front of Hericourt also there was an exchange of shell fire, and Bussurel, held by the French, was set on fire. To drive the French out of Montbeliard, the town was fired on from La Grange Dame and from the Chateau, but ceased when the inhabitants begged forbearance on the assurance that the place was evacuated, which subsequently proved not quite true. Ten battalions of the French XVth Corps advanced from the woods in the forenoon, and tried to push on past Montbeliard, but suffered severely from the flanking fire of the heavy guns at La Grange Dame, and only a handful got into the valley of the Lisaine. The western exits from Montbeliard, and the heights immediately behind it, remained in French possession, but the offensive movements ceased at about two in the afternoon. Further to the south, General von Debschitz's posts in front of Allaine had easily repulsed the French assailants. On the German side there was now the conviction that no further attack would be attempted. The condition of the French troops, not yet inured to war, was, in fact, very critical. They had been obliged to bivouac in the bitterly cold nights, sometimes under arms, and for the most part without food. Their losses were not inconsiderable, and the superior officers whom the commanding General assembled at three in the afternoon, in the neighbourhood of Chagey, expressed their objections to a yet more extensive outflanking attempt to the left, since supplies would be utterly impossible, and the risk would be entailed of the Germans seizing the line of the communications of the army through Montbeliard. Then came the news that the heads of General von Manteuffel's Corps had already reached Fontaine-Francaise, and were also approaching Gray.