Battle of Orléans

Battle of Orléans

Part of: Franco-German War

date	3rd to 4th December 1870
place	Orléans, Arrondissement Orléans , Loiret department
output	German victory

Parties to the conflict
North German Confederation	France
Commander
Friedrich Karl Friedrich Franz II.	Louis de Paladines
Troop strength
30,000 men	80,000 men
losses
approx. 1,300 dead and wounded	7,000 dead and wounded, 12,000 prisoners

The Battle of Orléans on December 3rd and 4th, 1870 was a battle of the Franco-German War . The French Loire army under de Paladines with a strength of about 80,000 men met the second army of Crown Prince Friedrich ( III. , IX. And X. Corps ) and the army division of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg ( I. Royal Bay. Corps , each two Prussian infantry and cavalry divisions) with a total of around 30,000 men. The battle ended in a German victory. The German troops succeeded in taking the city, dividing the French army in two and preventing a relief from Paris from this direction.

First battles for Orléans

After the Battle of Sedan , new corps were set up in various places in France. The troops who had escaped from eastern France, reservists who had not yet been drafted, former soldiers and volunteers gathered here. The main meeting point was on the Loire in the Orléans area. By the end of September 1870 there were around 60,000 men here. A total of four new corps (XV. To XVIII.) Were set up in this room.

In order to secure the German siege of Paris against these units, the I. Bavarian Corps was marched together with the 22nd Division , 17th Division and several cavalry units at the beginning of October 1870 . The goal was the conquest of Orléans. After the battle at Artenay , the French withdrew behind Orléans, which was captured on October 11, 1870 after fierce fighting against the French rearguard. The Germans suffered losses of 60 officers and 1,200 soldiers, and 3,000 French soldiers alone were taken prisoner.

The Bavarians kept the city occupied, while the Prussians to further secure the siege of Paris other places such as z. B. Occupy Chateaudun and Chartres. These conquests would have made it possible to capture a relief army at an early stage and react.

Orléans remained occupied until November. The newly formed Loire Army had meanwhile grown to a total of 200,000 men. On November 7th, parts of this army were noticed east of Orléans. A large part of the Bavarian troops left the city to face the French at Coulmiers . After the Bavarian defeat in the Battle of Coulmiers on November 9, 1870, Orléans had to be evacuated by the Bavarian rearguard, with around 800 to 1,000 Bavarian soldiers being taken prisoner.

Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Fight on the Loire

The French troops did not immediately take advantage of Coulmiers' victory to advance in relief on Paris . First, the organization and training of the volunteer army should be improved.

Meanwhile, the Prussians assumed the main strength of the French in the area of Le Mans and proceeded in this direction. The troops under the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg , released after the sieges of Toul and Strasbourg , were used for this purpose. This advance did not result in a major battle, but in many small skirmishes with irregular franc-tireurs . The German units still standing between Orléans and Paris behaved defensively.

At the end of November there was again major fighting on the Loire. After a meeting on November 24 at Ladon and Maizières, a French advance on Paris became apparent for the German high command. The German units of the 2nd Army brought in from Metz had only just arrived in the area south of Paris and the Grand Duke's army group had returned from Le Mans.

The advance of the French took place with the individual divisions side by side over a width of approx. 80 km. This advance was stopped on the French right wing on November 28, 1870 in the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande . After a success in the battle at Villepion on December 1, the center of the Loire Army suffered a serious defeat on December 2 in the battle of Loigny and Poupry and had to retreat towards Orléans.

On December 3rd, Prince Friedrich Karl's German 2nd Army launched a general attack in the Orléans area. It was clear that the main force of the French was in front of them, and they had plenty of rested reserves. At this point in time the second army had about 80,000 men at its disposal, of which about 30,000 intervened in the immediate battles around Orléans. Opposite them were around 80,000 French soldiers from the Loire Army. This had a total of almost 200,000 men; but the individual corps were so far apart that not all could intervene in the fighting.

Battle at Orléans, situation on December 2nd

Second attack on Orléans

3rd of December

The Prussians stood around Toury and advanced in a southerly direction via Artenay and Chevilly in the direction of Orléans, with fierce fighting again, especially around Artenay. So Artenay could not be taken until the afternoon of December 3rd after a lengthy artillery battle. After these battles the French withdrew to the forest of Orléans. In this the Prussian IX. Corps under von Manstein in the center, while the III. Corps General von Alvensleben together with the 6th Cavalry Division secured the left side of the center against the forest of Orléans (where the French XVIII and XX Corps were still located).

The battles on December 3rd had especially the French XV. Corps, which had suffered considerable losses. The other corps had suffered great losses in the fighting of the previous days and were no longer in a position to attack themselves. In spite of this, the government in Tours forbade further withdrawal. Orléans should definitely be kept as a rally point for a possible counterattack.

December 4th

On December 4, the attack continued in the direction of Orléans. A defensive line hastily built by the French between the places Gidy and Cercottes could not be taken by the Prussians for the whole day despite several attacks. The city itself was not reached that day.

On the German extreme left flank, the III. Corps against the two corps under Bourbaki standing there and at the same time attacked the city itself. Alvensleben himself assumed that he would walk into a trap in the forest of Chilleurs-aux-Bois with open eyes and never leave the forest alive. In fact, quite weak German security troops (one division) faced superior French units. However, Bourbaki hesitated with an attack of his own. On the night of December 3rd to 4th, the first fighting broke out in the Chilleurs-aux-Bois forest. These fights without uniform leadership in confusing terrain were too much for the only half-trained French, many of them fled after their first contacts. That night the Prussians captured five cannons. The security division was attacked several times on December 4th and was already in a critical position when the French broke off their attacks and withdrew. With this withdrawal, the two Bourbaki corps lost contact with the rest of the Loire Army.

The German right flank formed the Bavarian Corps, which had been in action since the first occupation of Orléans (see above) and had been in the field without interruption since the Battle of Coulmiers on November 9th. The Bavarians had suffered considerable losses and could hardly actively intervene in the fighting themselves, but had to be content with flank protection. However, the 2nd Cavalry Division was able to carry out a successful attack against the French, who were retreating over open terrain. This retreat quickly turned into panic and more units were swept away.

Only the French XV. Corps still stood in and in front of Orléans. The XVIII. and XX. Corps stood east of Orléans and three other corps (XVI., XVII. And XXI.) Were retreating west of it. The eastern units broke the ongoing fighting against the flank of the III. Corps finally abandoned it when it became clear that a retreat to Orléans was not possible without a fight, and reports of the retreat of the left wing were received. The center now also withdrew from Orléans.

Taking the city

General von Manstein with his IX. When the night of December 4th fell, the Corps no longer expected to be able to take Orléans that day. Therefore, the Commander-in-Chief Prince Friedrich Karl , who was with the corps, ordered the fighting to be stopped . Soon afterwards, however, the first units of the III. Corps (army division of the Grand Duke) in the city already evacuated by the enemy. 77 artillery pieces were captured in the city, among which, however, many were heavy naval artillery , which were set up for defense and could not be taken.

consequences

The planned French relief attack on besieged Paris had finally failed with the loss of Orléans. The French had been able to take the initiative in this area at short notice, but had been defeated everywhere and had to withdraw.

When they withdrew from Orléans, the French army was divided into two parts. Three corps (XV., XVIII. And XX.) Were now under the command of Bourbaki and retreated in a south-easterly direction towards Bourges. They were able to distance themselves from their German pursuers, so that the German high command soon no longer had any information about the whereabouts of the three corps. On December 8th, the Eastern Army was formed from these corps , which was moved by rail to Nuits and then to relieve the siege of Belfort. This army was defeated in the Battle of the Lisaine in front of Belfort and in the subsequent persecution was pushed to the Swiss border , where 87,000 men had to be interned.

The XVI., The XVII. and the XXI. Corps formed the so-called second Loire Army under the command of Chanzy , which retreated westwards towards Le Mans in a long series of retreat battles , in particular the battle of Beaugency . General Chanzy succeeded very quickly in restoring order in the army, and on December 8th he even went back to the attack at Beaugency and had to retreat here too, in order to avoid an impending containment. This army was decisively defeated by a German offensive in the Battle of Le Mans at the beginning of January and pursued almost to the Atlantic coast. After the losses of almost 100,000 out of a total of 150,000 men in this battle, half of them deserters, the Loire Army no longer posed a threat to German troops for the rest of the war.

For the Germans the danger of the siege of Paris from the south was now over. The pursuit of the retreating French did not begin immediately, however, and then only the second Loire Army was pursued. Orléans remained occupied until the peace agreement.

The German advance reached Vendôme on December 17th , where it was interrupted until January 6th, 1871. After the Battle of Orléans, the strategic initiative on the Loire rests only with the Prussians.

literature

• Battles of the World (= Compton's Home Library. )
• Orléans . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 12, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 444.
• Frederic Natusch Maude, Charles Francis Atkinson: Franco-German War . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 11 : Franciscans - Gibson . London 1910, section The Orléans Campaign , p. 6–14 (English, full text [ Wikisource ] - here pp. 12–13).

Web links

• German - French War 1870–1871, “Revenge for Sadowa” - Part 2, the war as far as Paris . Private website.
• The Franco-German War of 1870/71 Subheading The further course of the war in France Private website preußenweb
• Army de Loire French website about the army and the battles.
• Song about the events (folk song archive)

Historical sources

• Friedrich Engels: About the war , transcription of a text from The Pall Mall Gazette No. 1824 from December 17, 1870
• Official press of November 16, 1870
• Official press of December 14, 1870

annotation

1. ↑ Note on redundancy: The battle of Artenay and the first occupation of Orléans are listed here to make the context of the content understandable.
2. ↑ The losses in the battle of Artenay and the first occupation of Orléans are not included in the overview.
3. ↑ Canton Meute-sur-Loire (Canton) Arrondissement Orléans , Département Loiret .
4. ↑ about 5 km north of Orléans halfway to Chevilly.
5. ↑ Canton Pithiviers , Arrondissement Pithiviers , approx. 18 km northeast of Orléans.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Orleans . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 20 : Ode - Payment of Members . London 1911, p. 292 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
7. ↑ Prince Friedrich Karl and the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg were personal enemies. It is not known whether the Grand Duke did not receive the order or whether it ignored it.