Page 347 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE FRENCH CAMPAIGN 1870 - 1871 329

Metz, but its establishment dragged on; in the meantime, bands of snipers,
units of mobile guards and other irregulars had to act in the Vosges under the
lead of General Cambriels and with the support of Belfort and also had to
hamper the communications among the Prussian armies engaged in the two
sieges. The surrender of Strasbourg, however, made available huge amounts
of troops and gave the possibility to the Prussian Supreme Command not
only to keep out Cambriels’ threat but also to besiege Belfort,
General Moltke, while the siege of Strasbourg was still on, had decided to
occupy the High Alsace, put an end to the incursions of the snipers, force the
small Alsatian strongholds to surrender and cover the provinces beyond the
Rhine.
These tasks had been entrusted first to the 4 th Division of the reserves and
then, after the surrender of Strasbourg, to the XIV th Army Corps led by
General von Werder.
Werder had to cross to the western side of the Vosges, eliminate the snipers
from the entire region and reopen the Epinal-Chaumont railway, blocked by
the fortress of Langres, and indispensable for the reprovisioning of the armies
operating in France.
General Werder began the operations on October 2; his vanguard –
General Degenfeld – crossed the Vosges and met General Cambriels at the
th
head of 15.000 men and 12 pieces, against whom he fought on the 6 , 9 th
and 11 th of October with an unfavourable outcome for the French.
Gambriels, outnumbered by the enemy’s forces, decided to withdraw to
Besançon; Werder pursued the French, but, lost the hope of reaching them
before they could find shelter in that stronghold, took the direction of
Vesoule and later of Dijon. While he was manoeuvring, he was informed that
the line of the Ognon had been occupied; he sent the cavalry to scout, on
October 22 he occupied Pesmes, after dislodging 400 snipers. On October
23, reconnaissance patrols sent from Pesmes south-west along the Ognon
reported forward posts in the direction of Dôle; these belonged to the Army
of the Vosges that was being organised, as we already said, in that city.

The operations on the Ognon. - Garibaldi, informed on October 18 by the
prefect of Besançon that the Prussians had occupied the Lure, and apparent-
ly were directed to Gray and perhaps Auxonne and Dijon, despite he had
ready just the first nuclei of the Bosak and Menotti Brigades in full forma-
tion, did not hesitate on the 20 th to send them to face Werder’s troops on the