BAZAINE'S PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 275, 22 November 1870, Page 2

BAZAINE'S PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

' The following is supplied to the Argus by Greville aud Co., Renter's agents : — ■ i We find in the Paris correspondence of J the Gazette de Lausanne a plan of camJ paign submitted by Marshal Bazaiue to ■ the Emperor, at the very beginning of > hostilities, and in fact, immediately after > the declaration of war : — " Military Prussia, said the general, may be compared to a clock — wound and set going, she keeps wonderful regularity and precision ; bufc before being wound and set goiug, she is a body without life. If I can get 40,000 soldiers, a corps d" elite, the greater portion of them good cavalry, with Zouaves and Turcos, I undertake to cross the whole of Germany like a storm, before auy organisation can be effected by the enemy, upsetting everything on my way, railways, telegraphs, and administration of every kind ; burning registers and offices, sowing disorder aud terror wherever I passed, and in fact, destroying the very springs of the Prussian clockwork. It will ba the duty of the remainder of the French army — that is to say, of a ma33 of from 250,000 to 300,000 men, to turn t!ie confusion of the enemy to good account. I do not guarantee the return of one of my 40,000 men ; my sole object will be to disconnect and to destroy, rushing like a devastating torrent towards the Baltic, where our vessels will he ready to receive the debris of my ph-ihnx. Tuis rash, but not impracticable plan, was rejected ; and yet, vvhufc else was it than a repotitiou of Shorman's bol'l inHr«h through Gaorgia, iu the catnpaia of 1854 — a march which brought on the fall of Richmond, the capital of the Slave States. After having taken aud burned several ciiies, left those which were too well fortified to be carried by assault, and having thus accomplished a distance of 300 miles iu 27 days, Sherman, then master of Savannah, combiuing his efforts with those of the Federal fleet, forced Charleston to capitulate, and caused Richraoud to fall. In the same way, Baziue's bold conception, if caried out from the beginning, might have fallen like lightning on Germany surpris3d, and have been productive of most decisive results."