Meantime, in the east of France, Cambriels had failed in his attempt to cut the German communications, and had been compelled to beat a retreat. It must be said for him that his troops were a very sorry lot, who could not be depended upon. Not only were they badly disciplined and addicted to drunkenness, but they took to marauding and pillage, and were in no degree a match for the men whom the German General von Werder led against them. Garibaldi, the Italian Liberator, had offered his sword to France, soon after the fall of the Second Empire. On October 8--that is, a day before Gambetta--he arrived at Tours, to arrange for a command, like that of Cambriels, in the east of France. The little Army of the Vosges, which was eventually constituted under his orders, was made up of very heterogeneous elements. Italians, Switzers, Poles, Hungarians, Englishmen, as well as Frenchmen, were to be found in its ranks. The general could not be called a very old man, being indeed only sixty-three years of age, but he had led an eventful and arduous life; and, as will be remembered, ever since the affair of Aspromonte in 1862, he had been lame, and had gradually become more and more infirm. He had with him, however, two of his sons, Menotti and Ricoiotti (the second a more competent soldier than the first), and several, able men, such as his compatriot Lobbia, and the Pole, Bosak-Hauké. His chief of staff, Bordone, previously a navy doctor, was, however, a very fussy individual who imagined himself to be a military genius. Among the Englishmen with Garibaldi were Robert Middleton and my brother Edward Vizetelly; and there was an Englishwoman, Jessie White Mario, daughter of White the boat-builder of Cowes, and widow of Mario, Garibaldi's companion in arms in the glorious Liberation days. My brother often told me that Mme. Mario was equally at home in an ambulance or in a charge, for she was an excellent nurse and an admirable horsewoman as well as a good shot. She is one of the women of whom I think when I hear or read that the members of the completing sex cannot fight. But that of course is merely the opinion of some medical and newspaper men.
Mme. Mario contributed a certain number of articles to the _Daily News_. So did my brother--it was indeed as _Daily News_ correspondent that he first joined Garibaldi's forces--but he speedily became an orderly to the general, and later a captain on the staff. He was at the battles of Dijon and Autun, and served under Lobbia in the relief of Langres. Some French historians of these later days have written so slightingly of the little Army of the Vosges, that I am sorry my brother did not leave any permanent record of his experiences. Garibaldi's task was no easy one. In the first instance, the National Defence hesitated to employ him; secondly, they wished to subordinate him to Cambriels, and he declined to take any such position; not that he objected to serve under any superior commander who would treat him fairly, but because he, Garibaldi, was a freethinker, and knew that he was bitterly detested by the fervently Catholic generals, such as Cambriels. As it happened, he secured an independent command. But in exercising it he had to co-operate with Cambriels in various ways, and in later years my brother told me how shamefully Cambriels acted more than once towards the Garibaldian force. It was indeed a repetition of what had occurred at the very outset of the war, when such intense jealousy had existed among certain marshals and generals that one had preferred to let another be defeated rather than march "at the sound of the guns" to his assistance.