Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/65

Rh visited any locality, and have stayed there some time, induced either by the exigencies of war, or by a wish to assist the inhabitants in organising themselves, or in establishing defensive works, building a redoubt, &c., I have had to contend against the incessant demands of the local authorities, who declared that the departure of our troops would be the signal for cruel reprisals on the part of the enemy, which the inhabitants had no means of resisting.

I cannot accede to all these demands, because it is impossible to allow the army to be scattered, and thus deprive it of its cohesion, which is its principal strength; especially also because it has appeared to me to be indispensable that the population generally should habituate itself to reckon on its own means of defence, and should not lull itself into a false security, due only to the presence of our soldiers.

Your majesty has already received numerous requests for French garrisons. The political prefects, and the chief commandants themselves, have represented to the emperor the necessity for making this or that military operation within the circle of their own individual sphere of action, each one looking only to that portion of territory under his immediate charge.

But the commander-in-chief alone holds the threads of this complicated web, and he alone can judge not only of the opportune moment for undertaking any operation, but also as to the expedient mode for combining all the movements so as to arrive at a definite result without fear of danger in any direction.

I have thought it my duty to warn your majesty against these tendencies, due, as they are, to a sentiment of exaggerated zeal and merely local egotism, and also against the timidity of the population generally, who will not fail to send both addresses and delegates, with a view of obtaining French garrisons.

The examples of Tulancingo, Chapa de Nota, and some other towns which have been fortified by our instrumentality, and are now entrenched and organised for defence, prove that, with good will and energy, the inhabitants themselves ought to be able to defend the towns of their territory. I shall take every pains to develope these two sentiments, and to inspire with