Bourbaki and Farre continued to expand and train the army; promoted to général de brigade on 31 October 1870, Farre became its provisional commander — pending the arrival of a more senior officer to take command — when Bourbaki transferred to the Armée de l'Est at Rouen on 10 November 1870.

[1] In 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.

[2] Farre's Army of the North was still forming and by late November consisted of only the 22nd Corps, which in turn was made up of only three brigades — a total of only between 17,000 and 17,500 regular troops — and an additional 8,000 Garde Mobile troops and 12 guns from the Amiens garrison under the command of General Antoine Paulze d`Ivoy de la Poype and charged with the defense of the city.

It ran south from the left bank of the Somme at Corbie and Villers-Bretonneux — about 12 miles (19 km) east of Amiens — and the Hangard Wood, a good defense position facing southeast in which Farre deployed a strong force.

On the French left wing, Colonel Joseph Arthur Dufaure du Bessol's 3rd Brigade held the bulk of its forces at Villers-Bretonneux (commanding the road southeast to Tergnier), with detachments at Gentelles and Cachy.

In the center around Boves, the main body of the Prussian 15th Division under General Ferdinand von Kummer advanced between the Celle and the Noye, moving its advance guard forward directly from a line stretching from west of Ailly-sur-Noye to Dommartin to the line Fouencamps–Sains-en-Amiénois on the left bank of the Noye.

[6] The Hussars cut the French defenders to pieces but themselves suffered heavy losses, including the death of Prince Hatzfeld.

Lecointe then regrouped part of his 1st Brigade for a counterattack, which retook first Cachy and then Gentelles and chased the Prussians back to the woods at Domart-sur-la-Luce, where the French stopped.

The Prussian 16th Division under General Albert von Barnekow reached the line Rumigny–Plachy-Buyon, then pushed northward along the road that ran through Hébécourt and Dury toward Amiens.

[6] At one point, the Prussian forces made the mistake of leaving the Montdidier–Roye road completely unprotected, although the French did not take advantage of the opportunity.

Colonel François Pittié led a French counterattack along the Avre and at Saint-Fuscien in attempt to restore the flank, but was pushed back on Boves, where he resisted Prussian assaults for a time.

To wait for his artillery to come up to support a further advance, General von Bentheim ordered his troops to stop, and the French withdrew from the developing firefight at Gentelles.

In the meantime, the Prussian 44th Infantry Regiment penetrated the eastern part of the Hangard Wood and attacked the French position between Villers-Bretonneux and Marcelcave.

The French mounted a counterattack organized by Colonel du Bessol which retook the entrenchments and pushed the Prussians back some 3 kilometres (1.9 mi).

[6] The Prussians having withdrawn, the French assumed they had won the day and began to congratulate themselves and focus on reestablishing their positions rather than on continuing the battle at hand.

Only at Cachy, where a rear guard fought to protect the Army of the North's withdrawal, did the French resist until late evening.

[9] Prussian patrols went forward and found the French earthworks empty except for abandoned cannons and the bodies of men killed the day before.

[9] After Goeben and his troops arrived in Amiens, three battalions of the Prussian 40th Regiment and two batteries of artillery paraded past him in review.

[11] The garrison of the citadel capitulated, having lost four killed and 13 wounded, and Amiens finally fell to the Prussians, who rendered full military honors to Vogel's remains.

[4] Expecting a Prussian pursuit, entire French regiments remained concealed in the forests near Amiens in the days following the battle, hoping to avoid detection and destruction by advancing Prussian troops, but when they realized that the main body of Manteuffel's army had instead moved off in a different direction, they made their way northeastward to the area within the triangle defined by Arras, Cambrai, and Lille.

Manteuffel had received orders from Moltke to move against the French forces gathering in Normandy by advancing on Rouen and then on Le Havre.

Leaving six battalions of infantry, eight squadrons of cavalry, and three batteries of artillery from the VIII Corps behind at Amiens, he moved southwest toward Rouen, which the Prussians captured without opposition on 5 December 1870.

[13] Elements of Faidharbe's army retook Ham and its fortress on 9 December and held them briefly, then began to move toward Amiens.

In mid-December 1870 Manteuffel ordered Goeben's VIII Corps back to the Amiens area to guard against an attack there by Faidharbe.

[14] Commander-in-Chief: Général de brigade Jean-Joseph Farre[15] At headquarters: 22nd Corps Various sniper companies were attached to elements of the army.