If so, he nearly succeeded.  The Germans were quite taken aback by the extent and strength of his lines.  Their intention was to outflank his right wing, which was believed to stretch no further north than Amanvillers; but the rather premature advance of Manstein’s 9th corps soon drew a deadly fire from that village and the heights on either side, which crushed the artillery of that corps.  Soon the Prussian Guards and the 12th corps began to suffer from the fire poured in from the trenches that crowned the hill.  On the German right, General Steinmetz, instead of waiting for the hoped-for flank attack on the north to take effect, sent the columns of the First Army to almost certain death in the defile in front of Gravelotte, and he persisted in these costly efforts even when the strength of the French position on that side was patent to all.  For this the tough old soldier met with severe censure and ultimate disgrace.  In his defence, however, it may be urged that when a great battle is raging with doubtful fortunes, the duty of a commander on the attacking side is to busy the enemy at as many points as possible, so that the final blow may be dealt with telling effect on a vital point where he cannot be adequately reinforced; and the bull-dog tactics of Steinmetz in front of Gravelotte, which cost the assailants many thousands of men, at any rate served to keep the French reserves on that side, and thereby weaken the support available for a more important point at the crisis of the fight.  It so happened, too, that the action of Steinmetz strengthened the strange misconception of Bazaine that the Germans were striving to cut him off from Metz on the south.

The real aim of the Germans was exactly the contrary, namely, to pin his whole army to Metz by swinging round their right flank on the villages of St. Privat and Raucourt.  Having some 40,000 men under Canrobert in and between these villages, whose solid buildings gave the defence the best of cover, Bazaine had latterly taken little thought for that part of his lines, though it was dangerously far removed from his reserves.  These he kept on the south, under the misconception which clung to him here as at Rezonville.

The mistake was to prove fatal.  As we have said, the German plan was to turn the French right wing in the more open country on the north.  To this end the Prussian Guards and the Saxons, after driving the French outposts from Ste. Marie-aux-Chenes, brought all their strength to the task of crushing the French at their chief stronghold on the right, St. Privat.  The struggle of the Prussian Guards up the open slope between that village and Amanvillers left them a mere shadow of their splendid array; but the efforts of the German artillery cost the defenders dear:  by seven o’clock St. Privat was in flames, and as the Saxons (the 12th corps), wheeling round from the north after a long flank-march, closed in on the outlying village of Raucourt, Canrobert saw that the day was lost unless he received prompt aid from the Imperial Guard.  Bourbaki, however, brought up only some 3000 of these choice troops, and that too late to save St. Privat from the persistent fury of the German onset.