Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1281 Death and Revenge ([-])

"My lord, shall we just do nothing and write our memoirs like dying old men?"

Several younger noble lieutenant colonels expressed their dissatisfaction with Mordaunt who was writing furiously there.

Yet John Mordaunt paused only slightly.

Just like in many stories, his words started from showing off his qualifications and talking about his seniority.

"Young man, I served in the army before you were born. I first set foot on the battlefield with Marshal George Wade. He participated in the War of the Palatine Succession, and the best general of Louis XIV. I have been in battle, and as his aide-de-camp, I have heard many war stories from the marshal."

"From the beginning of my service, I garrisoned Holland against the French; I suppressed the Jacobite traitors in Scotland; at Laufield, I faced Count Hermann Saxony's cavalry charge, which broke the whole army. , The infantry brigade I commanded was one of the few units that persisted to the end and still did not break up-for this, I received a KB, Lord of the Bath Medal."

"I say this because I want to tell you: it is true that my honor has suffered because of the Rochefort problem, but I am still one of the best generals in the army in Britain."

Within the British army, official positions such as regimental commanders and even brigadier generals can be purchased with money.

But the KB medal, at least at this time, has only been set up for more than [-] years, and it is not scarce in general, it is not a bad street, or can be bought with money.

Inside the British Army, of course, is a place where seniority and qualifications are talked about.

With such an opening, he easily suppressed the dissatisfaction of the young officers, and then he walked to the side of the fort facing the coast.

Stretching out his arms to point to the distant sea, the floating fort launched from Port of Spain on the sea has begun to approach the coast.

In the direction of the isthmus, the attacking British army has been completely surrounded, and the combat engineers interspersed through the trenches have basically cut off the isthmus.

"Gentlemen, boys, I have experienced many wars, and I have dealt with the French, the Spaniards, the Russians, the Poles, and the soldiers of the Shinra princes."

"Our languages ​​may be different; we don't agree on what we call guns, grenadiers, artillery, and so on."

"However, the outcome of the war is regular."

"Within this law, I would say that we have failed, and it is an irreparable failure."

"In fact, our victory or defeat does not depend on us, but on the navy."

"Our reactionary counterattack was never about repelling the Chinese and letting them retreat to the east of the Cape of Good Hope."

"From the very beginning, our plan was just to seize the Spanish materials in the isthmus town and the supplies of the Chinese army; to disrupt their attack rhythm; to win our hope-our navy turned the tide of the battle and came to our rescue."

"But when the offensive is blocked, and even the Chinese can launch a counterattack, we should know that we have lost and prepare for defeat."

"The victory or defeat of Gibraltar does not depend on our soldiers who are now fighting for the king; nor are those Chinese soldiers fighting for their emperor."

"And in the Forbidden City, the Palace of Versailles, Parliament Street in London... the moment the Chinese show up off the coast of Gibraltar, we have already lost the victory."

"I can take responsibility for the fall of Gibraltar again, just like Rochefort did last time. Anyway, my honor is running out."

"However, I am not quibbling for my failure, but, gentlemen, please take a look at the tactics used by the Chinese to break through the camp. What do you think of?"

These school officers were too young, and what they saw most was that the grenadiers on Dashun's side conquered the fort very quickly.

As for what they saw, they could only give a basically consistent answer.

"Well trained."

In response to this answer, John Mordant nodded, and said helplessly: "Yes, yes, well-trained. Our infantry is also well-trained. They can walk close enough to see the panic in the enemy's pupils, and then Come to a standstill and destroy the enemy with a thundering volley."

"But why are the Chinese trained ... in this targeted fortress fighting?"

"You should know that the Chinese have been fighting the Tartars for a long time. Do the Tartars have fortresses that require the Chinese to have well-trained grenadiers?"

"If not, then why do the Chinese have such well-trained, professional, and even excellent grenadiers apparently designed to deal with fortresses?"

"Of course they are well-trained, but so are our infantry, as are the French gendarme knights, as well as the Austrian hussars, and so are Frederick's oblique infantry . . . What I want to say is, why are they trained in the direction of fortress warfare and trench warfare?"

"Training is targeted."

"Our expedition in Cartagena was a failure and a laughingstock, so we started to form our own standing army and set up a naval logistics department."

"We can say that our Cartagena expedition was a failure, but could the French, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese, have done better than us? Obviously not."

"Then, in such an empire that did not even have an ocean-going navy 30 years ago, they even allowed the Dutch to occupy Southeast Asia. Why didn't there be a tragedy like the Cartagena Expedition in the expedition 30 years later? Yes Did the French teach it? However, the French themselves cannot do better than the Cartagena expedition, and it can even be said that their expedition logistics is a joke."

"This is actually the same question as why an empire that has been fighting the Tatars all year round has cultivated a well-trained professional standing regiment for fortress and trench warfare."

This way of seeing the problem from a higher angle made the young officers silent.

They could see that Dashun's army was well-trained.

They might think about why Dashun's army is well-trained.

However, John Mordaunt's question is "Why is the direction in which the Dashun army is well-trained?"

"Why does a navy whose strength and tradition are far inferior to that of the British Navy, and even a navy whose total number of battleships may not be as good as it is, the first expedition can span more than half of the world, and it completely avoids the logistics of the Cartagena expedition. question?"

Behind this, it actually points to a very terrible answer.

That is: from the very beginning, the Chinese were planning to participate in this war.

Knowing that the war broke out, it does not require any ability to coordinate the world.

On the day the Treaty of Aachen was signed, it was clear to many that it was a brief, exhausted truce on both sides.

Around the next war, the whole of Europe is engaged in maneuvers, diplomatic revolution, and win over allies.

Scary, not the Chinese knew there was going to be a war.

The scary thing is that the Chinese have been preparing for this war, while the British politicians, the ones who really hold power in Parliament, have never considered the possibility of China entering the war when they think about their diplomacy and strategy.

Things have come to this point, it is already obvious.

In a huge empire whose main military pressure is the Tatars, why should it form an extremely specialized "fortress grenadier"?What kind of superb fortification technology do the Tatars have that require the empire to specially form such expensive grenadiers?
How much the standing army, especially the well-trained grenadiers, cost, as the circle of British officers where the "regimental ownership" and "buying officer system" prevails, it is impossible to know.

Europeans can't imagine why an empire with a legendary standing army of 60 to 100 million would train a fortress-specialized team for no reason?Why should a country that can pull out a standing army of 60 go to fight a bastion?If five thousand soldiers are assigned to watch, or concentrated artillery bombardment, the large army can still maneuver for a decisive battle.Will an imperial army that can pull dozens of battleships and cruisers in Europe lack cannons?
This is the experience given to them by the European war. Applying the experience of the European war to the East will naturally lead to terrible conclusions.

At the same time, how long does it take to prepare in advance for a transoceanic delivery that far surpasses the Cartagena expedition and handles it more perfectly than the Cartagena expedition, regardless of its scale and delivery distance? After experiencing the humiliation of Cartagena It is impossible for the circle of British officers in the British army to be unimpressed.

If it's just for India, it doesn't make sense at all.

France has elite gendarmerie knights and huge artillery. This is the mode of army building that a continental country should choose, and it will not despecialize this super-large-scale fortress grenadier.

In India, Dashun has an absolute naval advantage. As long as it follows a standard army building model of a large army country-elite cavalry, system artillery, and normal anti-line infantry, it can capture any fortress in India.The French were able to capture Madras with no casualties exceeding single digits just by relying on extra artillery and the support of the Mauritius fleet, and of course Dashun could do it too.

India does not need any form of expensive, specialized elite grenadiers that are only suitable for key forts in Europe and key forts in North America and the Caribbean.

Unless, Dashun's finances already have too much money to spend.But the problem is that Dashun had borrowed national debt in Amsterdam before, which shocked the European enlightenment and financial circles for the first time—that wealthy Eastern Empire, which seems to have always been in myth, actually needs to borrow money?So, obviously, Dashun doesn't have a lot of money and can't spend it at all.

John Mordaunt, in the silence of the crowd, tried to see nothing.

"Personally, I can lose my honor, my life and take full responsibility for Gibraltar's failure."

"But who will be responsible for Britain's failure? How should this huge responsibility be taken? The responsibility for this complete diplomatic and strategic failure?"

"Those [Little Patriot Party] who are fanatical in war, when they consider diplomacy, strategy, and the great strategy of William Pitt, the gouty lunatic, do they take the coup that participated in the Dutch coup and the Petersburg coup more than ten years ago into consideration? China, still as a distant, illusory background picture?"

He raised the paper with letters written in his hand, and said solemnly: "This is the most meaningful thing at this time."

"I'm not doing it for myself. Because my honor has been trampled on in Rochefort."

"I am for you, for every British soldier who fought to the last moment."

"They endured hunger, cold, and scurvy, and they still stuck to the artillery positions and fortresses without giving up. But so far, no warship has come here, giving us even a little bit of hope."

"I am responsible for the failure of this counterattack, but I will not be responsible for the siege of Gibraltar."

"In the cabinet, someone must be judged, for the risky gamble that put Britain in, for the terrifying possibility that the state religion may be replaced by Catholicism, and for the four thousand excellent British soldiers who are desperately charging here!"

"So I want to write all this, because I don't want the John Bean story to happen again!"

When John Bing was mentioned, everyone present understood.

The story of John Bing, everyone knows that the failure of a general in the military is obviously insignificant compared with the incompetence of the entire cabinet.

Voltaire sarcastically said [It is wise to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage others], in order for the British to encourage others, it is necessary to often shoot a fleet commander.

As far as the British are concerned, the irony of the French is not what they really care about.

What they really cared about was that during the trial of John Bing, the Admiralty revised John Bing's battle report under the instruction of the cabinet, deleted the crucial facts, and only kept the words that were in the interests of the cabinet.

This is what the circle of British military officers and aristocrats really cares about.

As John Mordaunt said at this time, he is not afraid of death, and he is willing to bear the responsibility of failing to fight back, but whose real responsibility is it?

Will the battle of Gibraltar, like Menorca, be cut out of the part that is unfavorable to the cabinet, and become "the incompetence of the officers and the cowardice of the commanders, leading to the fall of Gibraltar"?
In Menorca, the cabinet executed a fleet commander in order to save itself.

Rochefort, the cabinet rejected the Duke of Cumberland’s request for fleet assistance due to partisanship, and purged the Povor supporters in the army. Many nobles, including John Mordaunt, were left alone Military rank, lost the possibility of being a politician or continuing to be an officer.

In the incident of Povor’s impeachment earlier, even Lord Harden, who was seriously ill at the time and couldn’t get up at all, was carried from Edinburgh to London to participate in the impeachment. After the impeachment, he was carried back to Edinburgh to support the Jacobite rebellion ...

All these things that have just happened have made the British dismissive of the many ridicules of the French: it is not that we do not understand politics, but that you French do not understand Britain at all.

Great Britain has its own national conditions here.

As a victim of partisan struggle, especially the direct victim of the partisan incident in Port Rochefort, John Mordaunt knew that he was bound to die, so he had to do something, so he couldn't just die in vain.

(End of this chapter)