To exploit this opportunity, it would be essential to concentrate our efforts in this zone where the German device seems to yield and to reinforce our infantry there to conquer the crests between which passes the small road of Bresse. But a real fatality seems to be dogging our undertakings, because far from being able to concentrate, the 2nd corps must, once again, disperse in order to respond to a new extension of its front towards the north.
This extension did not take General de Monsabert by surprise, who on the 9th created a new group intended to cover his left to deal with it. This group, commanded by Colonel Lecoq, is mainly composed of F.F.I. supported by the 2nd regiment of Algerian reconnaissance spahis.
He will have to hold the additional ten kilometers of front. This means that, with little support and deprived of any reinforcements, I will no longer be able to fuel the attack in the direction of Bresse. I will therefore have to confine myself to the essential actions to cover the conquered positions and protect the precious road from Remiremont to Saulxures, my only supply axis. In other words, I can't do more than secure the ridges north of the Moselotte.
It's a terrain that the heroism of the Vosges guerrillas has just made sacred. Three weeks earlier, 83 of them fell at La Piquante-Pierre, at Noire-Goutte and at the head of Rondfaing, after a desperate fight sustained for four days at one against ten.
Where they fell, skirmishers now fight to avenge them. From October 11 to 14, attacks and counter-attacks follow one another. The cold and the rain continue to add their sum of suffering and difficulties to those imposed by the fierce resistance of the Wehrmacht. The bulk of the 3rd D.I.A. and the tabors end up solidly seizing Piquante-Pierre, Rondfaing, Tête-des-Cerfs and Droit-de-Cornimont. At the same time, the 3rd R.T.A. of Colonel Agostini puts his hand on the head of Chapechatte, completes, in concert with the 1st R.C.P., the terrible conquest of the forest of Gehan and liberates the locality of Cornimont.
We are therefore on the balcony overlooking, to the west, the upper course of the Moselotte, but the extreme fatigue of the 3rd D.I.A. forbidden to ask him to provide, again, the main effort.
To relay it somewhat, the 6th R.T.M. of Colonel Baillif, taken from the 4th D.M.M. back from the Alps, is made available to me.
We are a few days away from celebrating a new anniversary of the Independence of Peru and, beyond the advertising campaigns that are now dressed in red and white to sell more of their products (from beers to toxic television programs that contribute to the mediocrity of our childhood and youth), we