Page 378 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

360 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

Garibaldi was in a very bad mood. Used to rapid actions, to leading his
operations with that resoluteness that he rightly considered the main basis for
a good success, he was now forced to immobility and this in a moment so
critical for the operations underway in the east, of which, however, he did not
know the exact development. Powerless to contrast the progress of the
Prussian troops, due to the disproportion between his forces and those of the
enemy which he by then was in contact – II nd and VII th Prussian Corps –
and obliged by the government of Tours to defend Dijon at all costs; annoyed
for the loss of Lobbia’s Brigade that had been blocked, for its incapacity, in
Langres together with 2 Squadrons, which reduced even more the already
small number of the fighting elements of his Army; not having any confi-
dence in the thousands of mobilisés that formed it, mostly ill-disposed
towards complying with his orders, Garibaldi deplored the lack of under-
standing of the rulers of Tours that had left him in Dijon, ignoring the real
needs of the present situation.
His proposal to use the Army of the Vosges where for its characteristics it
could have a rational and useful advantage, in the region of the Vosges,
beyond the enemy’s lines, where it would have faced just second line troops,
had gone unheeded. Those who decided the conduct of the war continued
to fool themselves and to think that improvised Corps of snipers and mobil-
isés could fight with profit in the open against powerful regular Armies. The
events of November, and, most of all those of December, should have taught
something on the matter and should have pushed those who decided the des-
tiny of France to use that Army in accordance with its characteristics and not
to keep it in an absolutely unfitted environment for its operative possibilities,
ordering the carrying out of unrealizable missions such as to stop the march
of an entire Prussian Army.
In these conditions, the Army of the Vosges could be of little or no use at
all against Manteuffel’s Army; yet those decision makers did not hesitate to
accuse Garibaldi of inaction, since in their view he should have attacked
Manteuffel. Despite all this, Garibaldi decided not to continue that exasper-
ating wait so opposed to his nature and on the 19 th ordered a reconnaissance
on Is-sur-Tille where a strong Prussian column had been reported.
All his really fighting elements, about 6000 men, were gathered and divid-
ed into three columns, of which the central one was the strongest – two
Brigades and the artillery – and with the 4 th Brigade as vanguard they
marched on Til-Châtel, Is-sur-Tille and Messigny, respectively.