Page 365 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE FRENCH CAMPAIGN 1870 - 1871 347

The French, later, may well cross the Rhine and invade the region of
Baden, thus bringing war into the enemy’s territory.
Freycinet and Gambetta liked this plan, and for a moment the minister of
war even thought of entrusting its implementation to Garibaldi, but this idea
was nipped in the bud since Gambetta, as he had explicitly declared, would
have never given the command of a regular army Corps to the «Italian» and
would never put at his orders some French generals. However, Garibaldi’s
idea inspired the plan that was devised some days later by Freycinet, as we
will now explain.
On December 18, Freycinet sent a letter to Gambetta in which the gen-
eral overview of his plan of operations in the east was laid out. The XVIII th
st
and XX th Corps of the 1 Army operating on the Loire had to be transport-
ed to Beaune; strengthened by Garibaldi and Crémer, these forces had to take
Dijon, while Bressolles from Lyon, by train, had to reach Besançon, take 15-
20.000 men from that garrison and then cut the communication line of the
Prussians with the Rhine; but he did not say how and in which direction,
after taking Dijon, that mass had to act.
However, in Freycinet’s idea, the action on the communications and the
conquest of Belfort constituted a single target, whereas in reality they were
well different and irreconcilable operations and if they had been put togeth-
er, considered the attraction exerted on the French general at that time by the
strongholds, the entire troops would have risked to manoeuvre from Dijon
to Belfort along an oblique line running almost in parallel with the Prussian
communication line they had to cut, and they would have probably been
threatened on their flank and on their communications by the prompt and
inevitable action of the enemy .
De Serres, Freycinet’s representative, went immediately to Bourges to meet
General Bourbaki, explain to him the above mentioned plan and invite him
to accept the command of the new Army. The general objected, discussed
and then accepted, provided that, however, 100.000 men taken from the
provinces of central France and that in Besançon ammunition could
strengthen his troops and food supplies for 39 days were provided. But it
seems that de Serres, in explaining Freycinet’s plan, substantially modified his
main idea: the Army, protected on its left flank by Garibaldi’s and Crémer’s
troops, had to cross the valley of the Saône, liberate Belfort on its way, and,
giving its right flank to the Vosges, had to threaten the enemy’s communica-