Page 346 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

328 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

else was unnecessary for him apart from the will of fighting.
Garibaldi, however, did not limit himself to exhort his soldiers and to
train them; he rightly worked to create a fighting conscience in the popula-
tions among which he had to act, since he knew and appreciated the influ-
ence that the spirit of the environment has on military operations. The pop-
ulations of eastern France were under the constant worry of invasion and did
not dare to react, not even in front of an Ulan patrol; in many towns the
mayors, for fear of retaliation, had even disarmed the municipal police.
And he did not hesitate to issue that vibrating proclamation to all the may-
ors of the Côte-d’Or in which he ordered them to react against the enemy and
warned them that: «a small number of men poorly armed and poorly dressed
are not obliged to fight against regular armies; but these very men, French or
foreigners, remembering that they are members of a nation that will not bend
its knees in front of the foreigner, when an overwhelming enemy approaches,
must withdraw to their woods and forests with their cattle and, experts as they
are of the country, must torment if not the large Corps at least the enemy’s
scouts that go around in small number and plunder the most when they are
disturbed the least in their raids. In this way, no more than a dozen Ulans can
cross an immense country and despoil its inhabitants».
Organising the resistance of the country was not for him a task of minor
importance than that of organizing fighting units: a total idea of war, this
one, such as only a real general could have, and certainly not an ordinary one.

THE OPERATIONS AGAINST WERDER’S CORPS

General situation. – At the end of September, two Prussian Armies
besieged Paris; other two besieged Metz where Bazaine’s army had taken shel-
th
ter; on the 23 rd Toul surrendered; on the 27 , Strasbourg did the same. All
subsequent efforts to liberate Paris attempted by the armies of d’Aurelle de
Paladines that operated from the Loire had failed with the unfavourable bat-
tles of Étampes, Artenay and Orléans (October, 9, 10 and 11); the Prussians
occupied Orléans.
The provisional government launched new appeals to the Country to con-
tinue the fight and new units were formed with the operative elements still
available in central France.
The intention was to form a new Army in Lyon that had to try to liberate