The sortie was planned to take place on January 19th. On that day, as we have seen, General Faidherbe advanced as far as St. Quentin on the way to Paris, and the army which was to make the sortie stood on the eastern and northern fronts of the capital. The attempt to break through was, however, made in the opposite direction. But in fact, the peninsula of Gennevilliers was now the only ground on which large masses of troops could still be deployed without being exposed for hours while they were being assembled, to the fire of the German artillery.

Two days previously the mobilized National Guards had already relieved the three Divisions of the sortie-Army from the positions they had held; and those Divisions, collectively 90,000 strong, were to move to the attack in three columns simultaneously. General Vinoy on the left, supported by the fire from the enceinte, was to carry the height of Montretout; General Bellemare in the centre was to push forward through Garches; General Ducrot on the right by way of the ChÂteau of Buzanval.

The attack was set to begin at six in the morning, but blocks occurred at the bridges of AsniÈres and Neuilly, as no specific orders had been issued for regulating the crossing. When at seven o'clock the signal to advance was made from Mont ValÉrien, only the advance of General Vinoy's force was ready, the other columns had not yet deployed, and the last detachments tailed back as far as Courbevoix. Before they had reached their rendezvous-points the left wing was already marching on St. Cloud with fifteen battalions.

These at first met only isolated posts and patrols, eighty-nine men in all, who rushed into the open gorge of the redoubt of Montretout, and there made a stand for some time; they then fought their way out with great bravery, but some of them were taken prisoners. There, and in the northern part of St. Cloud, the French promptly prepared for defence.

The centre column under General Bellemare also took possession without difficulty of the height of Maison du CurÉ.

Not till now, at nearly nine o'clock, did the first supports of the German forepost line appear on the scene. Till within a short time the observatories had been able to report nothing but "thick fog;" but reports from the right and left wings announced that a serious attack was threatened on the whole front from St. Cloud to Bougival. The Vth Corps was now alarmed, and General von Kirchbach betook himself to the 9th Division. On the German right, in the park of St. Cloud, stood the 17th Brigade; on the left, behind the Porte de Longboyau, the 20th; the other troops of the Corps marched from their quarters in Versailles and the villages to its north, to Jardy and Beauregard. The Crown Prince ordered six battalions of the Guard Landwehr and a Bavarian Brigade to Versailles, and himself rode to the Hospice of Brezin; the King went to Marly.

The French meanwhile had seized the foremost houses of Garches, and made their eastward way here and there through the breaches in the wall into the park of the ChÂteau of Buzanval. The 5th JÄger Battalion, supported by single companies of the 58th and 59th Regiments, hurried forward and drove the enemy back out of Garches, occupied the cemetery on its north, and still reached the advanced post of La Bergerie just at the right time. The other bodies under General von Bothmer (commanding 17th Brigade, 9th Division, Vth Corps), by order from the commanding General, maintained a stationary fight on the skirts of the park of St. Cloud, to gain time. About half-past nine they repulsed an attack by Bellemare's column, arrested the advance of the enemy along the Rue ImpÉriale of St. Cloud, and themselves took the offensive from the Grille d'Orleans and the Porte Jaune. Five French battalions unsuccessfully assaulted La Bergerie. A section of Engineers tried with great devotion to demolish the wall surrounding the court, but the frozen dynamite did not explode, and the JÄgers held the position steadfastly throughout the day.

The attacks of the French had hitherto been undertaken without assistance from their artillery. The batteries of General Vinoy's advance had been seriously delayed by crossing with the centre column, and were now detained at Briqueterie to meet the contingency of a repulse. General Bellemare's batteries tried to get up the slope of the height of Garches, but the exhaustion of the teams made it necessary to take up a position at Fouilleuse. Meanwhile the batteries of the German 9th Division came up by degrees, and by noon thirty-six guns had opened fire. In St. Cloud a hot street-fight was going on.

Only General Ducrot on the French right wing had opened the battle with his strong force of artillery, which came into position on both sides of Rueil. The tirailleurs then advanced and made their way through the park of Buzanval to its western boundary-wall, but were driven back by the 50th Fusilier Regiment which had hastened forward.

At half-past ten the chief attack ensued at this point, supported by part of the central column. It found only an under-officer's post at Malmaison, but at the eastern exit from Bougival near La JouchÈre and Porte de Longboyau, it encountered the already reinforced line of posts of the 20th Infantry Brigade. General von Schmidt (commanding 10th Infantry Division) still held back at Beauregard the reserve of the 10th Division. A murderous fire from the well-covered German infantry broke the onset of the French, and converted it by mid-day into a stationary fire fight, in which the German artillery also took part with great effect. Two batteries of the 10th Division at St. Michel were reinforced by two Guard batteries brought up from St. Germain to Louvenciennes; a third came into action near Chatou and forced an armour-plated train halted at the railway station north of Rueil to retire rapidly to Nanterre. Four batteries of the IVth Corps finally opened fire from CarriÈres, heedless of the fire of ValÉrien, and shelled the dense masses of hostile infantry halted in rear of Rueil.

At two o'clock the French decided on renewing the attack. When two of their batteries had shelled Porte de Longboyau a brigade marched on that point, and a second on the western wall of the park of the ChÂteau Buzanval; a third followed in support. Not less bold than unsuccessful was the attempt of a section of Engineers, one officer and ten men, to blow up part of the wall; they all fell together. The attacking columns had advanced to within 200 paces, when thirteen German companies at the moment met them, broke and stopped their rush by pouring fire into them at short range, and presently routed the hostile columns in disorder, in spite of the devoted exertions of the officers.

The French, however, still found a strong protection in the park-wall, which had been prepared for defence with great skill and with the utmost rapidity; and the advance of several companies from Brezin and La Bergerie on this wall was repulsed with heavy loss.

But the strength of the French attack was already broken. So early as three o'clock a movement of retreat was observable in their left wing, and as dusk fell the French centre began to withdraw from the heights of Maison du CurÉ. When Colonel von KÖthen pursued, with a small force, several battalions indeed fronted, and even threatened a sharp counter-attack; but timely support arrived from La Bergerie, Garches, and Porte Jaune, and, backed by the fire of the batteries, the pursuit was followed up. The King's Grenadiers drove back the enemy to the vicinity of Fouilleuse.

The Germans, however, had not yet succeeded in repossessing themselves of the Montretout redoubt. The chief hindrance arose from their having been unable to advance through the town of St. Cloud. As, however, the possession of this position was indispensable for the protection of the right wing, General von Kirchbach gave orders that it was to be retaken either that evening or early next morning.

General von Sandrart (commanding 9th Infantry Division) decided on immediate action, and at eight that evening five battalions went forward on this duty. Only a few French were found in the redoubt and were taken prisoners; but in the town the struggle was severe. Finally the Germans had to restrict themselves to blockading the houses held temporarily by the enemy. The French also clung to the outer park-wall of Buzanval throughout the night. The Guard Landwehr and the Bavarian Brigade were therefore assigned quarters in Versailles, to form a strong reserve at hand in case of need on the following day. The remainder of the troops withdrew into their former quarters.

At half-past five General Trochu had issued the order for a retreat. He perceived that the prolongation of the struggle could afford no success, especially as the National Guards were becoming insubordinate. The brave defenders of St. Cloud were forgotten in these directions. They did not surrender till the day after, when artillery was brought against the houses they occupied. And the park-wall was not relinquished till the following morning.

The French attack of January 19th was wrecked even before it had reached the main position of the defenders. The reserves in readiness on the German side had not needed to be brought into action. The Vth Corps alone had driven back an enemy of four times its own strength. It lost 40 officers and 570 men; the loss of the French in killed and wounded was 145 officers and 3423 men, besides 44 officers and 458 men taken prisoners.

When the fog lifted at about eleven o'clock on the morning of the 20th, their long columns were seen retreating on Paris across the peninsula of Gennevilliers.