about eleven o'clock
A French regiment of marines was ridden down by a body of German Hussars , who were almost decimated by the charge -- which resembled that of Balaclava , the `` sea soldiers '' standing behind entrenchments with their guns . Later on , too , Fritz was in a more memorable engagement . It occurred on the morning of the 23rd of December at Pont Noyelles , where the army of General Manteuffel , numbering about fifty thousand men with some forty guns , attacked a force of almost double the strength , commanded by Faidherbe , the last of the generals on whom the French relied outside of Paris . The two armies confronted each other from opposing heights , separated by the valley of the Somme and a small , winding stream , which falls into the larger river at Daours , on the right and left banks of which the contending forces were respectively aligned ; and the combat opened about eleven o'clock in the forenoon with a heavy cannonade , under cover of which the German tirailleurs smartly advanced and took possession of several small villages , although the French shortly afterwards drove them out of these at the point of the bayonet , exhibiting great gallantry . In the evening , both armies rested in the same positions they had occupied at the commencement of the fight ; but , although the French greatly outnumbered their antagonists , being especially superior in artillery , the fire of which had considerably thinned the German ranks , they did nothing the whole of the succeeding day . On the contrary , they rested in a state of complete inactivity , when , if they had but pushed forwards , they might have compelled the retreat of Manteuffel . The next morning was that of Christmas Day .