three o'clock
When , after Froeschwiller and Spickeren , the 1st corps , routed and broken into fragments , had swept away with it the 5th , the other corps stationed along the frontier _ en echelon _ from Metz to Bitche , first wavering , then retreating in their consternation at those reverses , had ultimately concentrated before the intrenched camp on the right bank of the Moselle . But what waste of precious time was there , when they should not have lost a moment in retreating on Paris , a movement that was presently to be attended with such difficulty ! The Emperor had been compelled to turn over the supreme command to Marshal Bazaine , to whom everyone looked with confidence for a victory . Then , on the 14th -LSB- * -RSB- came the affair of Borny , when the army was attacked at the moment when it was at last about to cross the stream , having to sustain the onset of two German armies : Steinmetz 's , which was encamped in observation in front of the intrenched camp , and Prince Frederick Charles 's , which had passed the river higher up and come down along the left bank in order to bar the French from access to their country ; Borny , where the firing did not begin until it was three o'clock ; Borny , that barren victory , at the end of which the French remained masters of their positions , but which left them astride the Moselle , tied hand and foot , while the turning movement of the second German army was being successfully accomplished . After that , on the 16th , was the battle of Rezonville ; all our corps were at last across the stream , although , owing to the confusion that prevailed at the junction of the Mars-la-Tour and Etain roads , which the Prussians had gained possession of early in the morning by a brilliant movement of their cavalry and artillery , the 3d and 4th corps were hindered in their march and unable to get up ; a slow , dragging , confused battle , which , up to two o'clock , Bazaine , with only a handful of men opposed to him , should have won , but which he wound up by losing , thanks to his inexplicable fear of being cut off from Metz ; a battle of immense extent , spreading over leagues of hill and plain , where the French , attacked in front and flank , seemed willing to do almost anything except advance , affording the enemy time to concentrate and to all appearances co-operating with them to ensure the success of the Prussian plan , which was to force their withdrawal to the other side of the river . And on the 18th , after their retirement to the intrenched camp , Saint-Privat was fought , the culmination of the gigantic struggle , where the line of battle extended more than eight miles in length , two hundred thousand Germans with seven hundred guns arrayed against a hundred and twenty thousand French with but five hundred guns , the Germans facing toward Germany , the French toward France , as if invaders and invaded had inverted their roles in the singular tactical movements that had been going on ; after two o'clock the conflict was most sanguinary , the Prussian Guard being repulsed with tremendous slaughter and Bazaine , with a left wing that withstood the onsets of the enemy like a wall of adamant , for a long time victorious , up to the moment , at the approach of evening , when the weaker right wing was compelled by the terrific losses it had sustained to abandon Saint-Privat , involving in its rout the remainder of the army , which , defeated and driven back under the walls of Metz , was thenceforth to be imprisoned in a circle of flame and iron . -LSB- * -RSB- August .