On August 2, Frossard's Second Army Corps and Bazaine's six divisions of the Third Army Corps entered Saarbrücken.
Most of the Prussian troops had already withdrawn from the area, so resistance was slight and losses on both sides were small: Prussia suffered 83 casualties, the French 86.
Napoleon III rode into the city with the Crown Prince, accepting the troops' congratulations from horseback. Before this, Emperor Napoleon III had not ridden for a long time because of hemorrhoids.
The French press jubilantly hailed "the victory at Saarbrücken," even accompanying its reports with bloody illustrations.
After taking Saarbrücken, disagreement arose within the French army over what to do next. Bazaine hoped to turn this attack into an operation to wipe out the 40,000 Prussian troops gathering near Saarbrücken, but Napoleon III disagreed.
Reports arriving from all directions, along with the Prussian cavalry seen everywhere in the war zone, had already made Lebeuf and Napoleon III uneasy. Then they learned from prisoners that the Prussian Army was about to launch an offensive. Lebeuf proposed withdrawing the French army from Prussian territory and deploying along the border.
Thus, General Paul de Ladmirault's Fourth Army Corps, originally meant to press onward after taking Saarbrücken and seize Saarlouis, returned under the new orders to guard the corridor through the Moselle Valley toward Thionville. The French troops occupying Saarbrücken also withdrew across the board, returning to the defensible French positions at Forbach and Spicheren. Bazaine's Third Army Corps likewise withdrew from Saargemünd to Saint-Avold.
Fey, who had originally been ordered to lead the Fifth Army Corps to join the fighting at Saarbrücken, was ordered back to his departure point at Bitche Citadel.
MacMahon's First Army Corps remained unchanged, still holding Froeschwiller south of the Vosges Mountains and maintaining contact with Félix Douay's French Seventh Army Corps