The Battle of Amiens, also known as the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, was fought on 27 November 1870 between French and Prussian forces during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). It ended in a Prussian victory, forcing the French to retreat and allowing the Prussians to capture Amiens, France.
Background
After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War on 19 July 1870, the Prussian Army and the armies of its allies — the other states of the North German Confederation and the independent states in southern Germany — scored a series of victories over the French Army in eastern France. These culminated in the Battle of Sedan and the Siege of Metz. At Sedan, German forces encircled and destroyed the French Army of Châlons on 1–2 September 1870 and captured Emperor Napoleon III, prompting a Government of National Defense to form in Paris on 4 September 1870 and declare an end to the Second French Empire and the foundation of the French Third Republic. The capitulation of Metz on 27 October 1870 after a 70-day siege resulted in the annihilation of the French Army of the Rhine and completed the defeat of the Second Empire's army. The Government of National Defense vowed to raise a new army for the Third Republic and fight on.
Colonel Jean-Joseph Farre, was present at Metz but escaped when Metz surrendered and made his services available to the Government of National Defense, which appointed him military governor of Lille in the north of France. At Lille, he set to work raising units for a new French army in northern France. By the time Général de division Charles-Denis Bourbaki, the general-in-chief of the northern region, arrived to take command of the new army, named the Army of the North, Farre had raised 14 battalions of troops and six artillery batteries. Bourbaki and Farre continued to expand and train the army; promoted to général de brigade on 31 October 1870, Farre became its provisional commander — pending the arrival of a more senior officer to take command — when Bourbaki transferred to the Armée de l'Est at Rouen on 10 November 1870. The French hoped that the new Army of the North could advance successfully on Beauvais.
Among the German forces freed up by the capitulation of Metz was the Prussian First Army, a force of 43,000 men and 180 guns under the command of Generalleutnant Edwin Freiherr von Manteuffel.Howard, p. 373. In early November 1870, Manteuffel received orders from the Prussian Army chief of staff, Generalfeldmarschall Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, to move northwestward into northern France, marching through the Oise and the Somme between Compiègne and Saint-Quentin, and to occupy Amiens and then march towards Rouen in order to strengthen the defenses along the northern flank of the German forces that had begun the Siege of Paris in September 1870. The Prussian staff believed that all the French troops in northern France were under the command of Bourbaki and formed a single, unified army covering the railroad which connected Rouen, Amiens, and Lille — in particular the section from Rouen to Amiens —with its right at Rouen, its center at Amiens, and its left at Lille.
Opening moves
Manteuffel's army halted at Rheims on 9 November 1870, but resumed its advance on 17 November, reaching Soissons on 19 November and Compiègne on 21 November.Hozier, p. 158. On 22 November 1870, Manteuffel sent a reconnaissance force forward which pushed as far as the Gentelles Wood near Amiens and reported that Bourbaki was present at Amiens. Bourbaki had, in fact, spent the previous day there before heading for Rouen. The Prussians had learned from the newspapers that Bourbaki had been relieved of his command of the Army of the North, but apparently believed that he would remain in command of it at least until the arrival of his successor, rather than turn over provisional command of the army to the relatively junior Farre. The Prussians supposed that, in his journey from Lille to Amiens and from Amiens to Rouen, Bourbaki had no other goal than to bring the left and right wings of his supposedly unified army together to concentrate around Amiens at the center of the line the Prussians thought he was maintaining in northern France. Leaving behind the 4th Brigade (under Generalmajor Karl von Zglinitzki) of the I Corps's 2nd Division to begin a siege of the French fortress at La Fère on 25 November, and without waiting for the rest of the 1st Army to concentrate its forces fully along the line of the Oise, Manteuffel decided to attack what he thought was Bourbaki's concentration of the Army of the NorthHoward, p. 375. at Amiens with a portion of the 1st Army totaling 40,000 men.Howard, p. 374 It consisted of the Prussian VIII Corps, a portion of the Prussian I Corps, a cavalry division, and 180 artillery pieces.
After Manteuffel's army left Compiègne, the French lost track of it until 24 November, when a large French force made up mostly of members of the Garde Mobile defeated a detachment forming Manteuffel's advance guard in a sharp skirmish in the Santerre region in the eastern Somme. The same day, French forces reported Prussian scouts in the vicinity of Amiens. The skirmish and the arrival of Prussian scouts made it clear to Farre that Manteuffel was advancing on Amiens. Farre's Army of the North was still forming and by late November consisted of only the 22nd Corps, which in turn was made up of only three brigades — a total of only between 17,000 and 17,500 regular troops — and an additional 8,000 Garde Mobile troops and 12 guns from the Amiens garrison under the command of General Antoine Paulze d`Ivoy de la Poype and charged with the defense of the city. In additional to its numerical advantage, the Prussian 1st Army also had better equipment and better-trained and more experienced troops than the Army of the North. Nonetheless, to prevent the Prussians from occupying Amiens without a fight, Farre did not hesitate to place his army in front of the advancing Prussians.
Entrenchments existed just outside Amiens, but Farre deemed them too weak and too close to the city. He chose to make his stand east, southeast, and south of Amiens along a line about in length. It ran south from the left bank of the Somme at Corbie and Villers-Bretonneux — about east of Amiens — and the Hangard Wood, a good defense position facing southeast in which Farre deployed a strong force. The French line then ran southwest to Boves (southeast of Amiens), and from there west to Hébécourt (south of Amiens) and then to Pont-de-Metz (southwest of Amiens).Hozier, pp. 158, 159. Along this line, the Army of the North constructed strong earthworks and artillery emplacements. On the evening of 26 November 1870, Farre completed the concentration of his troops along the line. On the French left wing, Colonel Joseph Arthur Dufaure du Bessol's 3rd Brigade held the bulk of its forces at Villers-Bretonneux (commanding the road southeast to Tergnier), with detachments at Gentelles and Cachy. In the center, Colonel Joseph Derroja's 2nd Brigade held a line extending from the Montdidier road to Saint-Fuscien, passing through and centered on Boves (which commanded the road south to Paris). Farre originally intended to deploy General Alphonse Lecointe’s 1st Brigade to defend the entrenchments on the French right south of Amiens, but instead deployed Lecointe’s brigade in a position to support Bessol's 3rd Brigade around Villers-Bretonneux. The French right, centered on Dury — which lay west of Boves, south of Amiens, and north of Hébécourt and commanded the road south to BreteuilHozier, p. 159. — therefore was defended by a mixed force consisting of three battalions of Garde Mobiles deployed from Pont-de-Metz eastward to the main road from Amiens through Dury and Hébécourt; a battalion of the 43rd Regiment, the 19th Chasseur Battalion, and two Fusiliers Marins companies in the vicinity of the road; and four Garde Mobile battalions to the east of the road. Behind the troops on the French right, the National Guard from Amiens formed a reserve. A 12-gun artillery battery, which had barely disembarked after arriving from Arras, occupied a shoulder which cut the road north of Dury, soon reinforced by a battery of four guns from the National Guard.
Manteuffel established his headquarters at Thennes, near the middle of the French line. He planned to attack with a force of 30,000 troops on the morning of 27 November 1870. His plan called for his I Corps was to advance beyond the Luce, a tributary of the Avre and a subtributary of the Somme, screened by the 3rd Cavalry Division, while his VIII Corps, under the command of August Karl von Goeben, was to protect the Prussian left flank. During the battle, the swampy valley of the Avre would preclude mutual support between the Prussian left wing, facing the French center and right at Boves and Dury, and the Prussian right wing, facing the French left at Villers-Bretonneux.
The battle
The battle began on the morning of 27 November 1870 when the Prussian VIII Corps began an artillery bombardment of the French positions. Fighting quickly spread along the entire line.
On the Prussian left wing, the VIII Corps under Goeben advanced to attack the French center and right. In the center around Boves, the main body of the Prussian 15th Division under General Ferdinand von Kummer advanced between the Celle and the Noye, moving its advance guard forward directly from a line stretching from west of Ailly-sur-Noye to Dommartin to the line Fouencamps–Sains-en-Amiénois on the left bank of the Noye. The Prussians appeared around 10:00 in three columns between Boves and Gentelles. The Prussian 9th Hussar Regiment charged a French artillery battery manned by marine volunteers. The Hussars cut the French defenders to pieces but themselves suffered heavy losses, including the death of Prince Hatzfeld. The Prussians cleared Gentelles and Cachy of French troops. Lecointe then regrouped part of his 1st Brigade for a counterattack, which retook first Cachy and then Gentelles and chased the Prussians back to the woods at Domart-sur-la-Luce, where the French stopped.