midday
With a despairing presentiment of impending disaster he was spurring as fast as he could to the right , when he encountered Dumont 's division , flying in disorder , broken and tangled in inextricable confusion with the debris of the 1st corps . The latter , which , after its retrograde movement , had never been able to regain possession of the posts it had occupied in the morning , leaving Daigny in the hands of the XIIth Saxon corps and Givonne to the Prussian Guards , had been compelled to retreat in a northerly direction across the wood of Garenne , harassed by the batteries that the enemy had posted on every summit from one end of the valley to the other . The terrible circle of fire and flame was contracting ; a portion of the Guards had continued their march on Illy , moving from east to west and turning the eminences , while from west to east , in the rear of the XIth corps , now masters of Saint-Menges , the Vth , moving steadily onward , had passed Fleigneux and with insolent temerity was constantly pushing its batteries more and more to the front , and so contemptuous were they of the ignorance and impotence of the French that they did not even wait for the infantry to come up to support their guns . It was midday ; the entire horizon was aflame , concentrating its destructive fire on the 7th and 1st corps . Then General Douay , while the German artillery was thus preparing the way for the decisive movement that should make them masters of the Calvary , resolved to make one last desperate attempt to regain possession of the hill . He dispatched his orders , and throwing himself in person among the fugitives of Dumont 's division , succeeded in forming a column which he sent forward to the plateau . It held its ground for a few minutes , but the bullets whistled so thick , the naked , treeless fields were swept by such a tornado of shot and shell , that it was not long before the panic broke out afresh , sweeping the men adown the slopes , rolling them up as straws are whirled before the wind .