duty of a commander on the attacking side is to busy the enemy at as
many points as possible, so that the final blow may be dealt with
telling effect on a vital point where he cannot be adequately
reinforced; and the bull-dog tactics of Steinmetz in front of
Gravelotte, which cost the assailants many thousands of men, at any rate
served to keep the French reserves on that side, and thereby weaken the
support available for a more important point at the crisis of the fight.
It so happened, too, that the action of Steinmetz strengthened the
strange misconception of Bazaine that the Germans were striving to cut
him off from Metz on the south.

The real aim of the Germans was exactly the contrary, namely, to pin his
whole army to Metz by swinging round their right flank on the villages
of St. Privat and Raucourt. Having some 40,000 men under Canrobert in
and between these villages, whose solid buildings gave the defence the
best of cover, Bazaine had latterly taken little thought for that part
of his lines, though it was dangerously far removed from his reserves.
These he kept on the south, under the misconception which clung to him
here as at Rezonville.

The mistake was to prove fatal. As we have said, the German plan was to
turn the French right wing in the more open country on the north. To
this end the Prussian Guards and the Saxons, after driving the French
outposts from Ste. Marie-aux-Chênes, brought all their strength to the
task of crushing the French at their chief stronghold on the right, St.
Privat. The struggle of the Prussian Guards up the open slope between
that village and Amanvillers left them a mere shadow of their splendid
array; but the efforts of the German artillery cost the defenders dear:
by seven o'clock St. Privat was in flames, and as the Saxons (the 12th
corps), wheeling round from the north after a long flank-march, closed