a shrug of the
shoulders, "Ah, yes; we're going to have a warm time of it now with `Old
Blood and Iron,' we are!"

And they had!

Fritz had barely dropped to sleep on the evening of the 17th, when,
towards midnight, he was aroused by the wild music of military trumpets,
blown apparently from every bivouac in his neighbourhood for miles
round.

"Who goes there?" he exclaimed, raising himself up on his elbow, but
half awake and dreaming he was on sentry duty.

"Rouse up! rouse up!" shouted a comrade in his ear, and then he
recollected all at once where he was. As he sprang to his feet, the
noise throughout the camp told without further explanation that an
important crisis was at hand, for the measured tramp of marching
battalions pulsated the ground like the beat of a muffled drum, while
above this sound could be heard the roll of wheels and dragging of gun
limbers, and the ringing of horses' hoofs, all swelling into a perfect
roar of sound.

Bazaine, having been driven back from the forward positions his army had
attained on the Verdun and Etain roads, in its progress of retreat
towards Chalons, by the intervention of the German forces, now sought a
fresh vantage-ground during the brief respite allowed by his enemy--one,
that is, where he would be able not only to offer a determined
resistance, but also retain his lines of retreat; and whence, if
victorious, he might be able to break forth and make good his intended
movement on Chalons. Such a position he found in the range of uplands,
which, intersected at points by ravines, with brooks and difficult
ground in front and with belts of wood in the near distance, extends
from the village of Gravelotte on the north-east to Privat-la-Montaigne,
beyond the road that runs from Metz to the whilom German frontier; and,
throughout the whole of the previous day the Marshal had been busily
engaged in stationing his troops along this line collecting every means
of defence which could add to its natural strength.

The arrangements of Bazaine certainly gave proof on this occasion of
that tactical skill for which he had previously been renowned.

The French left, occupying Gravelotte at the junction of the roads from
Verdun and Etain and thence extended along the high-road to Metz, held a
range of heights, with a wood beneath, which commanded all the
neighbouring approaches. This position, besides, was protected in front
by lines of entrenchments, with rifle-pits and a for