King's Landing in France

Chapter 191 Veteran Beaulieu's Last Battle

On December 1792, 12, Anning launched a battle to cross the Mincio River.

He handed over all the command of the battle to Davout, and he rode a horse to watch the scenery by the river.

A great mass of white smoke from the rumbling of the guns clung to the surface of the Mincio River, echoing the snow-capped banks.

In An Ning's impression, it seems that she learned in high school geography class that northern Italy has a Mediterranean climate, and the Mediterranean climate should be above zero all year round. I don't know if I have misremembered or this era is colder than the future.

Anyway, the banks of the Mincio River are now covered with snow, but the river is not frozen, and it is still flowing.

The French soldiers could only wade across the icy water and board the opposite bank.

Fortunately, the morale of the French army was high, and the mere cold water was not enough to stop them.

On the other side of the river, there was only one regiment of the Austrians. Seeing the vast number of French troops crossing the river, this regiment seemed to be shaking.

An Ning was observing the front line, when La Salle beside him suddenly said, "Look! That reflective one is Davout's head?"

An Ning laughed.

Napoleon: "Don't be embarrassed, Davout still has a lot of hair, making him look like a priest."

In this era, many priests like to shave a kind of priest head, which is a bald head surrounded by a circle of hair like kappa hair.

Generally speaking, in this era, when you see this hairstyle, there are nine out of ten people who are facing a priest.

This is the same as when you saw Tsukiyotou in the Warring States Period in Japan, you knew that most of the people you encountered were samurai.

Napoleon and La Salle had a heated discussion about Davout's head shape, and no one cared about the ongoing battle to cross the river.

There is really no need to care. The first wave of people brought by Davout has two brigades. It is not too easy to form a regiment.

The two brigades Davout brought over, one of which was the brigade that guarded the ridge with Lafayette a year ago, was considered as Davout's direct descendant.Afterwards, An Ning awarded them a flag of "Knight of the Windmill", also known as "Don Quixote's Sigh".

The morale of this brigade, even in the generally high morale of the French army, can be regarded as the top echelon. In Diego before, this brigade rushed all the way screaming, trying to grab as many military flags as possible, but was defeated Lasalle's cavalry took the credit, and the soldiers were all suffocated.

At this moment, it happened to vent their anger on the defensive Austrians.

And behind Davout, there are still many French troops crossing the river with their trouser legs rolled up.

From the perspective of the Austrians, seeing the vast number of blue-clothed troops rushing towards them, the fighting spirit should disappear all of a sudden.

The fact that the Austrians were not defeated immediately shows that they are indeed well-trained and elite troops.

However, they were completely defeated the moment they came into contact with the French army holding the flag of the Windmill Knight.

An Ning watched the scene with satisfaction.

Napoleon scolded: "I thought they would fight with bayonets for a while, but I didn't expect them to run away like that."

Berthier curled his lips: "Colonel Bonaparte, you may have some illusions from fighting side by side with Your Excellency. Your Excellency's troops often engage in resolute hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. Your Excellency even draws a knife to join the battle. So You think this is the norm.

"But in fact, based on my military experience, this is not common! Be it the North American War of Independence or the Seven Years' War, the bayonet charge usually decides the winner at the moment of contact between the two sides, or even before the contact.

"Before contact, one side's morale will not be enough to maintain their courage, and then it will lead to a rout, as you are seeing now."

An Ning raised his eyebrows. He vaguely remembered that it was Grand Duke Karl or some famous general who mentioned it in his battlefield memoirs. He said that he had been in the army for so long, and he had only seen one hand-to-hand combat between the two sides. At other times, he basically started charging. Sometimes one side will lose.

An Ning still remembered that in the Soviet version of "War and Peace", Bagration's charge at Austerlitz was depicted as the French army starting to run as soon as the Russian army pulled up.

The Soviet version of War and Peace is very sophisticated and has done a lot of research. The director team should have really studied the wars of that era and tried to fit the facts as much as possible.

An Ning recalled the performance of the Austrian army in Diego. It seemed that the Austrian army in the west of Diego was defeated once Davout and La Salle attacked.

In addition, while the Austrian army was routing, the troops in front of the French army were engaged in bloody hand-to-hand combat with the Austrian army.

Just as An Ning was thinking about it, Davu rode his horse across the river and came to An Ning.

"Your Excellency General, I have captured the bridgehead, and the rest will be handed over to Lasalle's cavalry."

La Salle took a big puff of smoke: "Leave it to me, I will definitely cut down all the broken regiments."

An Ning: "No, no! Your task is to immediately launch a flank attack on the scattered Austrian troops on the east bank of the Mincio River! Who told you to chase the scattered enemy?"

LaSalle: "I was just kidding."

"Instead of joking, you might as well think about how to capture Beaulieu alive." An Ning replied.

La Salle suddenly became serious: "Catch Beaulieu alive, I accept this task! Last time you asked me to block the bridge, so I captured him alive!"

An Ning wanted to change his words, but it was too late, La Salle had already turned his horse and ran towards his cavalry unit.

Maybe he would really raid Beaulieu's headquarters and capture the old man alive.

Seeing that there was no way to stop it, An Ning let out a long sigh: "Whatever."

Anyway, almost all the Austrian cavalry troops were lost in the first two battles. Now the Austrian troops are arranged like snakes on the mountain, and they might really break out of Lasalle.

It was Davout's direct line infantry brigade who was going to be scolded, and after a long time of hard work, it was the cavalry unit's first achievement.

Davout looked at the cavalry troops that were beginning to advance, and muttered worriedly: "Is it okay to just let him charge like this?"

An Ning: "You can rest assured that La Salle is very capable of commanding brigade-level cavalry units."

Davout: "I've seen it, in Diego."

At this time, Napoleon suddenly poked An Ning on the shoulder: "Hey, look over there, you seem to have a little Italian fan."

An Ning turned her head to look in the direction Napoleon pointed, and found that the Italian Sequoia Army was approaching from Milan.

Originally, An Ning planned to use all the Italian troops to defend the supply line and use them as a transport team, but the gentlemen in Milan strongly demanded that the Sequoia Army play some role on the battlefield, so An Ning had to bring a brigade of the Sequoia Army.

In addition to the red uniform of this brigade, another notable feature is that their officers wear a kind of iron helmet from the Spanish phalanx era, with long feathers on it.

It is said that this is the tradition of Italian mercenary captains.

Yes, Italy had a tradition of martial arts in the Middle Ages, and Italian mercenaries even monopolized European war affairs to a certain extent, so there is a chapter dedicated to Italian mercenaries in "War Guidance" written by British Major General Fuller.

However, in a revolution-era army, the appearance of this Italian mercenary commander's iron helmet can only be said to be a bit nondescript.

An Ning looked at the Italian team repeatedly, but didn't see the person Napoleon mentioned, so she asked, "What are my fans?"

Napoleon had no choice but to get closer to An Ning, and pointed at a child in the team: "Look, that! Ever since that child came into my sight, he hasn't looked away from you."

An Ning: "Is it your illusion?"

"Absolutely not! I said, why don't you take an Italian boy to be your orderly. You can also deepen the relationship between the two sides. The gentlemen of Milan will be very happy to see you have an Italian by your side."

"I have Julian." An Ning replied.

Napoleon: "There's no rule that you can only have one orderly... Wait, isn't Julian a stable boy?"

An Ning: "I also let him work as an orderly."

At this time, a messenger galloped over on a horse, and after approaching An Ning, he reported loudly: "It's the report from Commander Lanady!"

An Ning took the note and glanced at it, and couldn't help being speechless.

Napoleon and Berthier asked in unison: "What's wrong?"

An Ning: "Wumze moved, and the spies reported that Wumuze's soldiers came down from both sides of Lake Garda in two ways."

(End of this chapter)