The First Disasters

It was taken for granted by military opinion in Europe, informed and uninformed, that the war would begin with a French thrust into Germany, either northwards into the Palatinate or eastwards across the Rhine. With the advance on Saarbrucken on 2nd August the initiative of the main French forces had been exhausted. The inability of their army to take the offensive left the French commanders bankrupt of ideas, and reports of the German army’s advancing through the Palatinate began to paralyse the initiative of the commanders at every level. The first intention of Napoleon and Leboeuf after their easy triumph at Saarbrucken was to repeat it further downstream with an advance by 4th Corps on Saarlouis, to consolidate the French hold on the entire valley of the Saar. At Froeschwiller the Third Army was pulled into battle like a workman whose clothes have been caught in the cogs of a machine.