Page 349 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE FRENCH CAMPAIGN 1870 - 1871 331

tation of his plan and, in a praiseworthy spirit of comradeship, ordered the
immediate departure of all troops available, by train, from Dôle to Besançon,
and at the same time he launched across the Ognon the units of the Menotti
Brigades that were near Pesmes.
However, this was a false alarm; on that same evening Cambriels
telegraphed again saying that the aid requested was no longer necessary; in
fact, Menotti’s units had arrived at 5 km from Besançon without finding any
sign of the enemy.
But the enemy, taking advantage of the moving away of these units from
the line of the Ognon, had occupied Pesmes without resistance. Garibaldi
then ordered Menotti to come back with his troops to the northern side of
the forest of Serre and, hoping to resume the implementation of the manoeu-
vre he had envisaged, urged Lavalle to take action from Pontailler at the
Prussians’ back and on their flank, or at least, if that was not possible and the
enemy would march on the Saône, to hold the enemy back while Garibaldi
would have attacked him on his left flank.
Unfortunately, Lavalle did not move and Cambriels did not want to leave
the forts of Besançon; Garibaldi was left with the only solution possible: to
keep a vigil watch over the two rivers in front of the forest of Serre, ready to
act on Werder’s flank if he had continued his march on Dijon; this wait posi-
tion could also be used to cover very well the communications between
Besançon and Dijon and the line of the Doubs.
The forward Garibaldian detachments, in the meantime, developed an
intensive activity against the isolated elements of the enemy, troubled the
march of its convoys, seized some of them and took by surprise their escorts.
This was clearly not enough to have a serious impact on the enemy;
Garibaldi’s troops were too small in number and too bad equipped to carry
out operations of some importance. The lack of artillery and cavalry, then,
which, on the contrary, Werder possessed, prevented Garibaldi on the one
hand to oppose a serious resistance and on the other hand to timely know the
situation of the Prussians.
Finally, the lack of a unity of command in that same theatre of operations
made it impossible for the forces operating there to carry out a common
action, and on that circumstance Garibaldi warned Gambetta of this by send-
ing him a telegram on October 27 saying: «Here we need one single com-
mand; two armies cannot manoeuvre on the same terrain with two leaders.
Reflect seriously about it».