It was soon done, and I was made free of the battery, and permitted to share its fate.
I found that this battery was part of the Fourth Army Corps, commanded by the then Crown Prince of Saxony, who became King Albert some years later. The battery was pounding away all day, and I never left it. I had smelt powder previously--at Saarbrücken, when the little Prince Imperial received his “baptism of fire,” and at the battle of Beaumont, at the end of August. Then, however, I was constantly moving about, and at Saarbrücken, when Von Pestel’s 1,000 fusiliers and three squadrons of Uhlans retreated, leaving the Emperor and Frossard’s force of 30,000 (!) masters of the field, I had an hour’s run at top speed with the defeated troops until we were out of reach of the French fire.
It was different on September 1. I was in the best position to see the fighting, throughout the day, until it was all over, and I was cautioned against roving about. On rising ground, near Richter’s battery, were the King, Moltke, Bismarck, Von Podbielski, Von Alvensleben, and others--General Sheridan amongst them. I should have preferred the position of a “galloper” to that of a mere spectator, standing up, hour after hour, as it seemed to me, to be shot at. The firing from this one battery alone deafened me at first, but I soon got used to it. The time dragged on very slowly. I cannot conscientiously say that this period of looking on was particularly exciting. Our battery was engaged in a duel with a French battery on a distant hill. To these Saxon gunners it seemed not to matter what happened elsewhere. They were only an atom of a vast mosaic. What our battery was doing was being done by other batteries all over an illimitable area.
Down in the valley we watched the lines of blue-tuniced Germans always advancing. Havoc in their ranks was made by the mitrailleuses, whose diabolical grinding rattle was terrifying; but the wearers of the spiked helmets seemed to be traversing a field of poppies, so thickly was the ground strewn by the red-trousered killed and wounded. Every now and again our battery took up a fresh position, and as we advanced the closer we got to Bazeilles, Willers-Cernay, and Waldincourt, all in flames.