The fall of Toul and of Strasburg produced a not unimportant change in the military situation. Considerable forces were now free for other services, and the railway transport could be brought up nearer to the armies. The material no longer required at Strasburg could not indeed be at once employed for the artillery offensive against Paris; it needed considerable re-equipment, and was to do duty meanwhile in the reduction of several smaller places. The newly-opened railway line was made use of to bring up the Guard Landwehr Division to the army investing Paris. A new Army Corps, the XIVth, was created of the Baden Division, a combined brigade consisting of the 30th and 34th Prussian regiments, and one cavalry brigade; which, under the command of General von Werder, marched on the Upper Seine. The 1st Reserve Division remained behind as the garrison of Strasburg.
The Government in the now closely-blockaded capital, could not make its behests heard and obeyed throughout France. It therefore decided on sending a delegation of two of its members out into the provinces, their seat of direction to be at Tours. They could quit Paris only in a balloon. One of these delegates was Gambetta, whose restless energy soon made itself conspicuously felt, and lasted during the continuance of the war. Monsieur Thiers, meanwhile, had been visiting the European courts on the errand of inducing them to interpose their good offices in favour of France.
After the mishap of September 19th the feeling in Paris was against any great offensive demonstrations for the present; but the troops of the line still remained outside the walls under protection of the outlying forts. The Divisions of the XIIIth Corps were encamped on the south front and on the plateau of Vincennes; the XIVth was at Boulogne, Neuilly and Clichy behind the loops of the Seine, with Mont Valérien in its front, which was held by two line-battalions, after the flight, on the 20th, of the Gardes-Mobiles from that impregnable stronghold, in great disorder back into Paris. The defence of the northern front of the city remained entrusted to the Gardes-Mobiles.
On the German side the positions of the Army of the Meuse, which were to be occupied and defended to the uttermost, extended from Chatou along the Seine to the heights of Montmorency, and onward along the Morée and the skirts of the forest of Bondy as far as the Marne. In close touch with the flank of the Army of the Meuse at the Marne, the lines of the Würtemberg Division carried on the investment from Noisy le Grand across the Joinville peninsula to Ormesson. The XIth Corps arriving from Sedan on the 23rd filled up the interval from Ormesson to Villeneuve St. Georges, and the 1st Bavarian Corps occupied Longjumeau as a protection against attempts from the direction of Orleans. The VIth Corps could now be entirely transferred to the left bank of the Seine, where the line of defence extended along the wooded heights south of Paris to Bougival.