Bazaine for a long time could not believe that a single corps would throw itself against one of the two roads by which his great army was about to retreat.

He believed that the northern road might also be in danger, and therefore did not launch at Alvensleben the solid masses that must have swept him back towards the Meuse.

At noon four battalions of the German 10th corps struggled up from the south and took their share of the hitherto unequal fight.
But the crisis of the fight came a little later.

It was marked by one of the most daring and effective strokes ever dealt in modern warfare.

At 2 o'clock, when the advance of Canrobert's 6th corps towards Vionville threatened to sweep away the wearied Brandenburgers, six squadrons of the 7th regiment of Cuirassiers with a few Uhlans flung themselves on the new lines of foemen, not to overpower them--that was impossible--but to delay their advance and weaken their impact.