Corps served to form the highest rung, while the lowest was
occupied by the IX. Corps. If they faced N., the lowest step
would be the VI. and V. Corps, then the IV., then the II.;
such would be the following steps, each rising higher and higher.
When Gen. Joffre launched his rigid formation brutally to the N., the German deployment was not yet effected; thus it was that the German III. Army, entangled behind the IV. Army, did not appear upon the battlefields of the Ardennes; it was a wasted force. The offensive, which drew such criticism against the French general-in-chief, thus produced this happy result, that a battle was brought about at a time when the enemy could not avail themselves of all their resources.
The battle of the Ardennes was to take place between the French III. and IV. Armies on the one side, and the V. Army, commanded by the German Crown Prince, the IV. German Army, under the Duke of Wurttemberg, and the III. German Army, under Gen. von Hausen, on the other; but the German III. Army was not destined to fire a single gun, either against Gen. de Langle de Gary's troops, or against those of Gen. Lanrezac; its cavalry alone took part in the Dinant skirmish.
On Aug. 16 1914 Gen. Ruffey's army moved slightly north- wards. The IV. Corps advanced to Jametz, the VI. Corps pushed forward as far as Etain, the V. Corps took up its posi- tion between these two localities. As this army left the Hauts- de-Meuse region it was replaced by the reserve divisions of Gen. Pol Durand. Fresh reserve divisions arrived shortly, and on Aug. ig they formed the Lorraine army, under Gen. Maunoury. The mission of the Lorraine army which consisted of the reserve division groups of Gens. Pol Durand and Beaudenom de Lamaze and the mobile reserve divisions of Toul and of Verdun was to invest Metz, should the III. Army be victorious near Longwy; its defensive mission was to stop any German troops attempting to force the Hauts-de-Meuse.
The Lorraine army was not under Gen. Ruffey, but it cov- ered the rear of the IV. Army. No army, when fighting is carried on in the same theatre of war, is truly independent; each must communicate with and help its neighbour as far as possible. This solidarity was not to be found to a desirable degree between the III. Army and the Lorraine army; but if one realizes that, in spite of its small population, France man- aged in Aug. 1914 to face the Germans with forces nearly equal to those of the Kaiser's army, it is easy to understand that the French reserve divisions were composed of elderly men, slow to acclimatize to war, and that their cadres and staffs needed considerable time to acquire the desirable manoeuvring qualities.
On Aug. 20 1914 the French III. and IV. Armies faced N.; they were ordered to keep in touch with each other on the axis Marville-Virton-Etalle, during the advance northward. They formed a strict whole, and yet there was no army group com- mander to impart unity to this ensemble.
To the right of the bloc was the VI. Corps, whose direction of attack was the neighbourhood of Audun-le-Roman and Longwy. This army corps, commanded by Gen. Sarrail, consisted of three divisions, and was to advance in echelon and to the rear of the V. Corps with two divisions, while the third was to be a flank guard, facing the fortified region Metz-Thionville.
The Lorraine army, as has been said, prolonged the flank guard of the III. Army through the Woevre to Toul; in the E., it was in touch with the II. Army (Gen. Castelnau). Thus in proportion as one advanced farther W. the initial dispositions gained ground towards the north. At the extreme left the IX. Corps was disembarking near Mezieres-Sedan; taken away from the French II. Army it retained only one of its divisions, the J. B. Dumas Div., which, even before all its troops had been able to join it, was to launch advanced guards between the Semoy and the Lesse. A Moroccan division was soon to ree'n- force the IX. Corps. Gen. Lanrezac was obsessed by fears for his right flank, whereas his real danger lay in front and on his left flank. By a spirit of camaraderie for the commander of the V. Army, Gen. de Langle de Gary sent advanced guards, dis- posed somewhat at random, to occupy Gedinne, Houdremont and Bievre; the 6oth Res. Div. was ordered to hold the crossings
of the Semoy, from below Bohan to its confluence with the Meuse at Montherme, while the 5 2nd Res. Div. was to keep watch on the Meuse as far as Revin, where the operation zone of the V. Army began. The 4th and gth Cav. Divs., forming one cavalry corps, reconnoitred in front of the IX. and XI. Army Corps, to the left of the IV. Army; and the 7th Cav. Div. reconnoitred to the right of the III. Army. On Aug. 22, on the extensive front from Bertris to about Audun-le-Roman, there was only the cavalry of the French army corps.
In the night of Aug. 20-21 the whole French system moved forward; the day's march was long for all; for some it was a forced march. The only instructions given by the French High Command were " to attack the enemy wherever they were encountered"; and as the marching directions were pro- longed very far northwards in the orders many unit com- manders supposed the enemy to be far in the north. Although, here and there, they came violently into touch with the enemy, as for instance the gih Cav. Div. at Neufchiteau, that was not enough to raise the alarm; and the following day, in the night of the 2ist to 22nd, the same illusions caused the same impru- dences to be repeated. The advance was all the more unhesitat- ing in that it was expected that the enemy would be caught manoeuvring. The Germans were not ready; von Kluck's great enveloping movement was only in a fair way of being carried out; von Hausen's army had not yet disengaged from the right of the Duke of Wurttemberg's army. Hence the sole task of the German army was to remain in readiness behind the trenches it had dug for itself.
One of the belligerents was waiting along a large battle-line extending from the Moselle, near Thionville, to the Meuse near Dinant. The other was advancing in countless columns, along all the roads leading from S. to N. between the Moselle and the Meuse. Engagements might be expected between cavalrymen everywhere, then between advanced guards and outposts; neither side would be surprised. Division battles would take place side by side with one another, thus forming one great battle without any break on the front, since the III. and IV. Armies were contiguous. The IV. Army was to push ahead; the III. Army " to cover the right flank of the IV. Army against forces which might still be in the Luxemburg region."
On Aug. 21 the higher formation vanguards of the IV. Army were on the Semoy, and between Semoy and Lesse on the left; but the vanguards of the II. Corps were farther S., at Meix- devant-Virton, the cavalry regiment only being at Bellefontaine. On the evening of that same day the III. Army reached Virton with the IV. Corps, Tellancourt with the V.; as for the VI. Corps, although its most advanced division was at Beuzeville, its 4oth Div. (Gen. Hache) occupied Monaville in the rear, facing Briey, forming a flank guard to the S4th and 6;th Res. Divs., disposed in echelon relatively to the 4oth Division. The IV. Army had been engaged in action, and reported strong enemy forces to be in the Neuf chateau region; the III. Army declared it had seen no other enemy than a few small detach- ments, whereas the whole army of the Crown Prince of Germany was within its reach.
The orders for Aug. 22 were as follows: The IV. Army was to advance northwards and the III. Army was to cover the right of the IV. Army and face any attack from the N. and the E. Two of Gen. Pol Durand's reserve divisions were to occupy Spin- court and Monaville, by 8 o'clock on the 22nd, and be ready to counter-attack " everything that debouched from Briey."
Directly it debouched from Virton, the left division of the IV. Corps was driven sharply back to the S. of the Basse-Vire. Thus, as early as the morning of the 22nd, the III. Army failed in its mission to cover the right flank off the IV. Army; it knew nothing of the enemy, and its cavalry division remained inert. Badly commanded, it did nothing on that day, and neither its army commander nor the commander of the VI. Corps brought it into action. The V. Corps neglected to put itself in touch with the IV., and stormed the enemy positions without making use of guns to support the infantry. This soon led to a panic, and Gen. Grossetti was obliged to take the place of the army
