Note 23 — Chapter V
Ernest Alfred Vizetelly translation
In point of fact the Royal Prussian head quarters were at Bar-le-Duc on August 25, and it was there that the Crown Prince heard that MacMahon had made at first for Rheims, and then had struck off in a northerly direction. Count Moltke immediately decided that the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony, which on August 22 had started on its westward march from before Metz by Verdun and St. Menehould, should advance to meet MacMahon, and hold him in the Argonne; whilst the Crown Prince of Prussia's forces hastened northward by forced marches in view of sweeping round the right flank of the French, and hemming them in against the Belgian frontier. On August 26 the Saxons were marching for Stenay on the Meuse and the Prussians to Clermont-en-Argonne and Grand-Pré.—Trans.