General Farre, with his 17,500 men distributed into three brigades, stood eastward of Amiens on the south bank of the Somme, about Villers Bretonneux and Longueau along the road to Péronne, holding also the villages and copses on his front. Besides these troops there were 8000 Gardes-Mobiles occupying an intrenched position about two and a half miles in front of the city.
In accordance with instructions from the Army Headquarter, General von Goeben (commanding the VIIIth Corps) had given orders for the 27th that the 15th Division should take up quarters at Fouencamps and Sains; the 16th at Rumigny and Plachy and in the villages further back; the Corps-Artillery at Grattepanche. Consequently the VIIIth Corps was to be assembled before Amiens between the Celle and the Noye, at the distance, then, of nearly two and a half miles from the Ist Corps, and divided from it by the latter brook and the Avre. General von Bentheim (commanding the 1st Division, Ist Corps[50]) on the other hand, had sent his advanced guard, the 3rd Brigade, into quarters north of the Luce.
At an early hour that brigade seized the passages of the brook at Démuin, Hangard, and Domart. At ten o'clock it moved forward in order to occupy the appointed quarters, and as the enemy were already in possession, a fight began which gradually increased in magnitude.
The wooded heights on the north bank of the Luce were taken without any particular resistance, and maintained in spite of several counter strokes by the French. The artillery pushed forward through the intervals of the infantry. On the left the 4th Regiment seized the village of Gentelles, on the right the 44th Regiment rushed up to within 300 paces of the left flank of the French position, and by a vigorous onslaught carried by storm the earthworks at the railway cutting east of Villers Bretonneux. Soon after mid-day heavy hostile masses drew up at Bretonneux and in Cachy, directly opposite the 3rd Brigade, which was extended along a front of some four miles.
On the left wing of the Germans the 16th Division had by eleven o'clock already reached its assigned quarters, and had driven the enemy out of Hébecourt, as well as out of the woods north of that village towards Dury. The 15th Division, in compliance with the enjoined assemblage of the VIIIth Corps on the left bank of the Noye, moved westward from Moreuil through Ailly to Dommartin, its advance guard which had been holding Hailles marching direct on Fouencamps. Thus it happened that before noon the roads from Roye and Montdidier between the two Corps were left completely uncovered by troops on the German side, while a French brigade was standing at the fork of these roads at Longueau, though, in fact, it remained absolutely inactive. This interval was at first screened only by the numerous retinue and staff escort of the Commander-in-Chief; and then it was to some extent filled by the battalion constituting the guard of the headquarter. As, however, after ten o'clock the French on their side commenced an attack on the 3rd Brigade, General von Manteuffel ordered the 15th Division to join in the fight as far as possible toward the right wing.