While I enjoyed the battle itself there is no way for the French to win this one with the victory conditions as listed. Interestingly the scenario designer chimed in a post and said per his notes the conditions had been for the French to hold 3 more town hexes then they started with. I think this would have made for a better game.

The Germans did the obvious/smart thing and charged across the road and assaulted into the town hexes. I manged to do some damage as they charged across but once they got into the town they just sat there daring me to assault them with the -2 town bonus. As the French units and leaders are weaker this was going to be a losing proposition and the French refused to cooperate. Instead I just tried to inflict as much damage as I could while taking the least.

By the end of the game which ended in turn 15 because of a Catastrophe (darn cats) I had inflicted about 21 steps of losses and took 7. The French consider this a moral victory. :)