I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 447 Encirclement and reinforcements
Drissen was riding his horse forward with the winding marching column, turning his head from time to time to talk to his staff, when he suddenly heard the faint roar of cannons coming from the front and side.

The entire Prussian army's column stopped immediately, and the soldiers looked around in panic.

Driesen's face also darkened. He was very cautious along the way, and even when marching on Prussian territory, he still sent out a large number of cavalry for reconnaissance.

Previously, all the Hussars reported that they had not found anything unusual ahead, so what was going on with the artillery noise?
He hurriedly ordered his troops to gather around him and form a defensive formation.

Then, he looked at the staff officer beside him and said loudly: "Leon, send someone to find out what happened!"

"Yes, General!"

Before his order was passed down, two messengers came rushing over. After seeing him, they immediately reported anxiously: "General, our front team was attacked, and General Brecht's two regiments have been defeated..."

"How is this possible?" Drissen frowned, "Who is attacking us?"

"It seems to be French."

"Damn, where did they come from?" Drissen was puzzled. Logically, the artillery must have set up an ambush on the road ahead, but why didn't his hussars find it?

Of course he didn't know that they were the cavalry artillery of the Guards Corps, which had been hiding 6 kilometers away. After discovering his troops, they quickly approached and opened fire on their flanks and front.

"How many people are there in the enemy army?"

"It's not clear yet. The bombardment came too suddenly..."

After all, Drissen was an experienced commander. He quickly calmed down and made a quick judgment.

If the enemy has artillery, then it may be a large troop group, so the first thing to do is to delay the enemy's attack.

He immediately ordered the Fane Corps to set up a defense line on the spot to block the enemy, while the other troops assembled near the woods in the north.

Most of the Fein Corps were elite Prussian guards, and they moved very quickly. After just over half an hour, they had already begun to gather on the south side of the main force. The Prussian army's winding marching column slowly moved northward.

However, the French army that ambushed them obviously did not intend to give them a chance.

Soon, a hussar reported to Driesen that he had discovered tens of thousands of French infantrymen on the southwest side, heading towards this side.

A cold sweat broke out on Drissen's forehead. His main corps was at least three or four kilometers apart. It would take at least three hours to gather together and form a formation.

He immediately personally commanded the two grenadier regiments around him, joined Fein, and together they built a temporary defense line. He also ordered Krokov to lead all 12 hussar squadrons to delay the French army at all costs to buy time for himself.

On the high ground beside the Bühl River, Joseph saw through the telescope that nearly two thousand Prussian cavalry were rushing towards the infantry lines of the Guards Corps.

He was not nervous at all. After two years of military training, he could see that the Prussian cavalry was not prepared at all, their formation was scattered, and they were out of sync, but they launched the attack in a hurry.

This is basically suicide.

Don't think that cavalry can crush infantry just because they are well-equipped, fast, and have strong impact. In fact, cavalry is not used for head-on battles. Their advantage is to use mobility to quickly raid the enemy's weak links and then drift away. But if they fight against infantry, especially charging into neat infantry lines, they really can't win unless they have equal numbers. Sure enough, when the Prussian cavalry rushed in front of the French infantry line, they were immediately hit by a volley of fire. The 20 or so horses in the front cried and fell, and many cavalrymen behind them were tripped.

Then, the soldier who had finished shooting inserted his bayoneted gun diagonally into the ground and squatted down. The soldier in the back row raised his gun and fired, then raised his percussion cap gun horizontally with the bayonet pointing forward.

Then the third volley...

When the Prussian cavalry rushed to the front, they were faced with three rows of dense bayonets in front and behind. They had no choice but to pull the reins and turn to the sides.

The fearless bayonet-piercing cavalry in movies and TV shows is meaningless - even if you can overwhelm two or three infantrymen, someone will immediately fill the gap. And your body and the horse's body will become a stumbling block for the teammates behind you, slowing down the speed of the entire team. And the cavalry who stopped running would be a target for the infantry.

The infantry line of the Guards Corps was very long, and it was impossible for the Prussian Hussars to complete the task of bypassing the two wings and outflanking. Moreover, the cavalry of the Guards Corps was on standby behind the infantry to provide cover.

The Prussian cavalry had no choice but to circle and gather in the distance. Just this unsystematic attack had caused them to lose at least one squadron, or more than 150 people.

But Driesen's order to Krokov was to fight to the death to delay the French army, so he had to raise his sword again and shout to his men to charge at the Guards Corps.

After the third such attack, the Prussian cavalry became timid due to the heavy casualties and hesitated to move forward.

In fact, these Junker noble cavalry were already very good. If it were a unit with slightly lower morale, they would have started to flee as early as the second charge.

Berthier again suggested that the cavalry of the Guards Corps go to meet the enemy. Joseph looked at the shaky Prussian cavalry in the telescope and finally nodded in agreement.

Cavalry was the most lacking branch of the Guards. Only the cavalry obtained from the Paris Guard had strong combat effectiveness, and most of those trained later could only serve as rangers. Therefore, Joseph was very careful when using them, and a little casualty would make him feel distressed for a long time.

However, after several rounds of consumption, the Prussian cavalry now found it difficult to even gather the troops together.

When 700 Hussars of the Guards Corps suddenly appeared on their left, even though Krokov personally went to greet them with his attendants, almost no one followed him.

Immediately, the Prussian cavalry was split in two from the middle. Most of them fled north, while the others were hit by a volley of fire from the French infantry that had caught up with them, and soon abandoned their horses and surrendered.

The infantry line on Driesen's side was still in disarray when he saw some hussars fleeing back.

He had a small group of defeated soldiers brought to him, and heard several of them panicking:

"General, the enemy is only eight or nine hundred steps away from here."

"General Krokov? We don't know where he is either."

"The enemy's defense is dense and their firepower is very fierce..."

Drissen's heart sank. He had tried his best to remedy the situation, but he couldn't even delay for an hour... It seemed that the enemy army had at least 30,000 to 40,000 people.

Damn it, such a large army entered Oberon for at least two days, and no one noticed!

(End of this chapter)