early November 1870, Manteuffel received orders from the Prussian Army chief of staff Generalfeldmarschall Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, to move northwestward into northern France, marching through the Oise and the Somme between Compiègne and Saint-Quentin, and to occupy Amiens and then march towards Rouen in order to strengthen the defenses along the northern flank of the German forces that had begun the Siege of Paris in September 1870. The Prussian staff believed that all the French troops in northern France were under the command of Bourbaki and formed a single, unified army covering the railroad which connected Rouen, Amiens, and Lille — in particular the section from Rouen to Amiens —with its right at Rouen, its center at Amiens, and its left at Lille. Opening moves Manteuffel's army halted at Rheims on 9 November 1870, but resumed its advance on 17 November, reaching Soissons on 19 November and Compiègne on 21 November. On 22 November 1870, Manteuffel sent a reconnaissance force forward which pushed as far as the Gentelles Wood near Amiens and reported that Bourbaki was present at Amiens. Bourbaki had, in fact, spent the previous day there before heading for Rouen. The Prussians had learned from the newspapers that Bourbaki had been relieved of his command of the Army of the North, but apparently believed that he would remain in command of it at least until the arrival of his successor, rather than turn over provisional command of the army to the relatively junior Farre. The Prussians supposed that, in his journey from Lille to Amiens and from Amiens to Rouen, Bourbaki had no other goal than to bring the left and right wings of his supposedly unified army together to concentrate around Amiens at the center of the line the Prussians thought he was maintaining in northern France. Leaving behind the 4th Brigade (under Generalmajor Karl von Zglinitzki) of the I Corps's 2nd Division to begin a siege of the French fortress at La Fère on 25 November, and without waiting for the rest of the 1st Army to concentrate its forces fully along the line of the Oise, Manteuffel decided to attack what he thought was Bourbaki's concentration of the Army of the North at Amiens with a portion of the 1st Army totaling 40,000 men. It consisted of the Prussian VIII Corps, a portion of the Prussian I Corps, a cavalry division, and 180