open plain on the flank of their line of march. But Alvensleben and his
men held their ground with a dogged will that nothing could shatter. In
one sense their audacity saved them. Bazaine for a long time could not
believe that a single corps would throw itself against one of the two
roads by which his great army was about to retreat. He believed that the
northern road might also be in danger, and therefore did not launch at
Alvensleben the solid masses that must have swept him back towards the
Meuse. At noon four battalions of the German 10th corps struggled up
from the south and took their share of the hitherto unequal fight.

But the crisis of the fight came a little later. It was marked by one of
the most daring and effective strokes ever dealt in modern warfare. At 2
o'clock, when the advance of Canrobert's 6th corps towards Vionville
threatened to sweep away the wearied Brandenburgers, six squadrons of
the 7th regiment of Cuirassiers with a few Uhlans flung themselves on
the new lines of foemen, not to overpower them--that was impossible--but
to delay their advance and weaken their impact. Only half of the brave
horsemen returned from that ride of death, but they gained their end.

The mad charge drove deep into the French array about Rezonville, and
gave their leaders pause in the belief that it was but the first of a
series of systematic attacks on the French left. System rather than dash
was supposed to characterise German tactics; and the daring of their
enemies for once made the French too methodical. Bazaine scarcely
brought the 3rd corps and the Guard into action at all, but kept them
in reserve. As the afternoon sun waned, the whole weight of the German
10th corps was thrown into the fight about Vionville, and the vanguards
of the 8th and 9th came up from Gorze to threaten the French left.
Fearing that he might be cut off from Metz on the south--a fear which
had unaccountably haunted him all the day--Bazaine continued to feed