[Footnote 40: Bazaine gave this excuse in his _Rapport sommaire sur les
Opérations de l'Armée du Rhin_; but as a staff-officer pointed out in
his incisive _Réponse_, this reason must have been equally cogent when
Napoleon (August 12) ordered him to retreat; and he was still bound to
obey the Emperor's orders.]

While Metz exercised this fatal fascination over the protecting army,
the First and Second German Armies were striding westwards to envelop
both the city and its guardians. Moltke's aim was to hold as many of the
French to the neighbourhood of the fortress, while his left wing swung
round it on the south. The result was the battle of Colombey on the east
of Metz (August 14). It was a stubborn fight, costing the Germans some
5000 men, while the French with smaller losses finally withdrew under
the eastern walls of Metz. But that heavy loss meant a great ultimate
gain to Germany. The vacillations of Bazaine, whose strategy was far
more faulty than that of Napoleon III. had been, together with the delay
caused by the defiling of a great part of the army through the narrow
streets of Metz, gave the Germans an opportunity such as had not
occurred since the year 1805, when Napoleon I. shut up an Austrian
army in Ulm.

The man who now saw the splendid chance of which Fortune vouchsafed a
glimpse, was Lieutenant-General von Alvensleben, Commander of the 3rd
corps, whose activity and resource had so largely contributed
to the victory of Spicheren-Forbach. Though the orders of his
Commander-in-Chief, Prince Frederick Charles, forbade an advance until
the situation in front was more fully known, the General heard enough to
convince himself that a rapid advance southwards to and over the Moselle
might enable him to intercept the French retreat on Verdun, which might