Camp Conlie

Major General Émile de Kératry was made responsible for establishing a camp at Conlie in the region of Le Mans and mobilized volunteers from the west of France to form an "army of Brittany".

Because of a history of anti-republicanism in Brittany, Gambetta doubted the reliability of these troops, and Kératry was suspected of separatist inclinations.

As visiting English journalist Ernest Vizetelly noted, The most appalling rumours were current throughout Brittany regarding the new camp.

I visited it and prepared an article which was printed by the Daily News ...So far as the camp's defences and the arming of the men within it were concerned my strictures were fully justified.

I find on referring to documents of the period that on November 23, the day before Gambetta visited the camp, as I shall presently relate, the total effective was 665 officers with 23,881 men.

[2]Gambetta decided to send 12,000 men from camp Conlie, armed with only 4000 badly maintained rifles, against the forces of the Duke of Mecklenburg.

Given the repeated refusal of the Government to properly arm his men, Kératry resigned in protest on November 27, leaving the command to his deputy, General Le Bouëdec.

On the eve of the Battle of Le Mans (10 and 11 January 1871), these 19,000 troops were sent to the front line, bearing poor quality arms.

The report of a commission of inquiry prepared by Breton historian Arthur de La Borderie was overwhelmingly critical of the French army, which demonstrated a total lack of organization.

After publicity following the death of the German entrepreneur who claimed have invented them, Léon Besnardeau (1829–1914) announced that the first cards had been created by him for soldiers in the camp to communicate with relatives.

They had a lithographed design printed on them containing emblematic images of piles of armaments on either side of a scroll topped by the arms of the Duchy of Brittany and the inscription "War of 1870.