134 GENERAL BOURBAKVS CAMPAIGN, 
Nos. IT. and VII. for some time about Montargis and Auxerre, 1.e. 
in the main the exact positions varied every few days, and it were 
tedious and utterly uninteresting to describe merely tentative operations, 
as they could not know that Bourbaki might go east. IJ cannot see 
anything very censurable in the Germans’ proceedings. In point of fact 
Bourbaki did cross the Loire, and did go northwards. But why he 
went east after a few days is explained by the man most responsible, 
by Freycinet himself in his book, chapter VIII., of course I have not 
time to read all these details, but some of them will appear in an 
appendix should this lecture be published. 
A new plan of campaign for the French, which we are about to follow 
now for the rest of the evening, was drawn up by Colonel de Bigot, 
who, after drawing it up, refused to fight. ‘To show the confusion which 
existed at that time, the Colonel in question absolutely refused to 
fight out his own plan because, we are told, he would not help a 
Government based on revolutionary principles. There is not the 
slightest doubt that the intrusion of Garibaldi into this business did 
much more harm to the French than good. He was followed by a 
miscellaneous assortment of international atoms who had nothing else 
to do at the moment, and discharged themselves on France, as they would 
on Poland, or wherever an oyster could be opened by the sword. 
Now what was the plan? ‘The plan was to leave the 15th corps about 
Bourges, to attract the attention of Nos. II. and VII.,! and to prevent 
them from going east. At the same time they knew that Von Werder 
had only about 50,000 men about Dijon and Vesoul and at Bel- 
fort. He had not more than about 35,000 men about Dijon and 
Vesoul. I quite admit that he had many more reserve men and a 
few regular regiments near Belfort—perhaps at that time about 20,000 
one way and another ; moreover there was a detachment coming down 
from Strasburg under Debschitz; altogether there might be some 
60,000 men, and a good number of those were investing Belfort. The 
plan was for Bourbaki to leave for a short period, No. 15 to occupy 
the Germans Nos. II. and VII., and to take Nos. 18 and 20 and to 
go with those eastward to Besancon—from Bourges to Besangon is about 
170 miles,—to concentrate with those at Besancon, No. 24, and to throw 
out two wings, a right wing of the 7th military division, and a left wing 
of Cremer’s division. it was supposed that this great movement of 
150,000 men eastward must necessarily have the effect of overwhelming 
Von Werder; that as a consequence the siege of Belfort would be 
raised, they might then leave some behind, and might even make an 
incursion into Germany by the gap of Belfort; and with the rest, 
Bourbaki, having re-provisioned Belfort, could go north and cut the 
line of communications between Paris and Germany-—the Paris and 
Nancy railway, the railways leading across the Rhine to Germany ;—in 
‘other words, that Bourbaki was to move from Bourges and. Nevers by 
Chagny to Besangon, detrain and advance between the valley of the 
Doubs and the valley of the Ognon, raise the siege of Belfort, either 
take Von Werder prisoner or drive him north, send some forces into 
1 French corps are given in Arabic and German in Roman letters. 
