As a matter of fact, he fell back on positions that had been carefully fortified in advance and whence his artillery could bombard at an almost perfectly accurate range.  August 20, 1914, made a violent counterattack on the canal of Salines and Morhange in the Lake district.  The immediate vicinity of Metz furnished the German army with a vast quantity of heavy artillery, which played a decisive role in the Battle of Morhange.  The French retreated, and during this rear-guard movement the frontier city of Luneville was for some days occupied by the Germans.

Thus the First and Second Armies failed in their offensive and saw themselves obliged to retreat, but their retreat was accomplished under excellent circumstances, and the troops, after a couple of days of rest, found themselves in a condition again to take the offensive.  The First Army gave energetic support to the Second Army, which was violently attacked by the Germans in the second week of August.  The German attack, which was first arrayed against Nancy, turned more and more to the east.

The battle, at first waged in the Mortagne basin, was gradually extended to the deep woods on the left bank of the Meurthe and on to Chipotte, Nompatelize, etc.  The battles that have been named the Battle of Mortagne, the Battle of the Meurthe, the Battle of the Vosges, all waged by the First Army, were extremely violent in the last week of August and the first two weeks of September.  These combats partly coincided with the Battle of the Marne; they resulted, at the end of that battle, in the German retreat.  The Second Army renewed the offensive August 25, 1914; it decisively checked the march of the German army and commenced to force it back.

The instructions issued to General de Castelnau directed him everywhere to march forward and make direct attacks.  The day of August 25, 1914, was a successful day for the French; everywhere the Germans were repulsed.  From August 26 till September 2, 1914, the Second Army continued its attacks.

At this point the commander in chief having need of important forces at his center and at his right relieved the Second Army of much of its strength.  This did not prevent it from engaging in the great Battle of Nancy and winning it.  It was September 4, 1914, that this battle began and it continued till the 11th, the army sustaining the incessant assaults of the Germans on its entire front advanced from Grand Couronne.  The German emperor was personally present at this battle.  There was at Dieuze a regiment of white cuirassiers at whose head it was his intention to make a triumphal entry into Nancy.  Heavy German artillery of every caliber made an enormous expenditure of ammunition; on the Grand Mont d’Amance alone, one of the most important positions of the Grand Couronne of Nancy, more than 30,000 howitzer shells were fired in two days.  The fights among the infantry were characterized on the entire front by an alternation of failure and success, every point being taken, lost and retaken at intervals.