Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796

Chapter 336 038 This is the unfortunate Mark

Denisov knew the situation in Ulm. He was also the one who exchanged fire with the French on the way. There was always trash talk among the Hussars. At this moment, Denisov and Nikolay heard the French on the opposite side shouting "The Austrians were defeated in Ulm, why don't you surrender quickly", and they knew the general situation.

"This is not easy to do, but we still need to send someone to verify it."

Bagration asked Solovyov to return to Kutuzov's headquarters. He would continue to send scouts to inquire about intelligence and try to catch the French alive.

Kutuzov and Schmidt in the headquarters looked unhappy. They would not have thought that Mark would be defeated so thoroughly. It was too straightforward.

"Brother, this is not good. We should adjust our deployment."

Although Kutuzov was very calm and had seen a lot of battles, he could not make up his mind in the current situation, so he had to talk to Schmidt.

"I think at this time, we should put the rear guard troops on the east bank of the Inn River. Of course, I do not advocate the transfer of all the withdrawn Austrian troops to the back as a reserve, which will disrupt the deployment."

Schmidt actually knew that it was meaningless to put the Austrian troops back, so it would be better to put these defeated soldiers on the side of the Russian rear guard troops.

He was still experienced and knew that the French had a bad habit of swiping heads and picking the soft persimmon first. In addition, when the coalition forces fought together before, the French always wanted to fight the Austrian army first.

Especially in the encounter at Marengo in 1799, the Russian army squatting in the bushes was completely ignored, and only the defeated Austrian army was chased, and the retreat was almost cut off.

"Commander-in-chief, what do you think of this deployment? We should still follow the method used in the Italian campaign, with the Russian and Austrian armies occupying one side each and supporting each other."

"We can do this, but this time we should have a unified command."

Schmidt also nodded in agreement, and then he began to dictate orders to all the adjutants to pass on.

While many of the adjutants went down to pass on the orders, Schmidt sat there and began to think about new plans.

He thought about fishing, taking advantage of the fact that some French troops were more aggressive in the pursuit, and trying to catch a unit and severely damage or annihilate it, but this operation was not easy to do, after all, the French should be chasing very quickly, unless the first few battles at the rear could delay the speed of the pursuit of the enemy, and then find a few suitable places for counterattack.

Although Kutuzov advocated running away, he did not blindly play the role of a long-distance runner, but delayed time and waited for friendly troops to arrive from various battlefields.

But at this time, it was still very unfavorable for the Russian army. The follow-up troops led by Buchholden, as well as the guards led by the Tsar himself and Archduke Constantine were still on the northern border of Austria. Many Russian troops had reached the northern Prussian border due to previous strategic deployments, or were preparing to board ships and go to Hanover with the British army, so the troops were very scattered.

As for the Austrian army that had already gone to the battlefield, Archduke Karl was entangled with the old soldier Massena in Italy at this time. Both sides had wins and losses, and neither could do anything to the opponent in a hurry; the fate of Archduke Ferdinand and Mark's corps was also imaginable. There were only the troops led by von Kimmel and the troops led by Archduke John into the mountains nearby.

The front of Vienna was already very empty. This failure was even worse than Napoleon's first expedition to Italy.

It was even difficult for Austria to take out follow-up troops. When the news of the failure came, many citizens of Vienna had begun to leave the city, and the defeatist mood had returned to the coalition side.

Just a month ago, when the Austrian army entered Munich, Vienna was still very optimistic and believed that the coalition would win this time. The front pages of major newspapers were all arguing that this battle would drive the French back to their nests.

If you read the British newspapers, it would be even more exciting.

The Russian nobles who came to Vienna for recuperation before the war also began to go to Hungary. First, the war should be far away from the Habsburg's Hungarian territory, second, the Russian Tsar's troops will soon come from Moravia, and third, there are many places for recuperation in Hungary.

Their life seems to be a state of continuous music and dance.

The Russian army was a little worried about the noble ladies whose husbands were out on expeditions. Bagration received a letter from his wife.

Although she disappeared when she went out to play and completely forgot her husband and three daughters at home, at this time, she could still remember that the child's father was in the army. This letter was still transmitted from the army's mail system.

It was not surprising. After all, the princess was the cousin of the Tsar and the granddaughter of the empress. It was not surprising that she had this advantage in correspondence.

Of course, Solovyov knew that the age gap between Bagration and his wife was too big. One was 40 years old and the other was only in her early 20s. It would be more troublesome to separate them in the future.

Therefore, when he came back to convey Kutuzov's order, he encountered this matter and kindly reminded him.

"It doesn't matter. The letter said that the Russian expatriates in Vienna have gone east. Kadish and several young ladies are going to a hot spring in Hungary for recuperation. She also said that if the war is over, they will..."

This was the first time Solovyov saw his senior brother, a tough guy among Russian tough guys, blushing like this.

"What will happen?"

"Misha, I think you kid should be able to understand what this content is."

Solovyov was a little embarrassed when he saw it.

After all, the meaning of "little fairy" is that if she wins the fight, she will "reward" her husband well.

He knew this word. Polina liked to use this provocative tone when she was in Paris, but she said it out loud.

"Haha, this is a matter of your family. It's not convenient for me to comment."

"Let's not talk about this first. I think we can take advantage of the gap in the French pursuit to give them a break."

"But it's not easy to control. We are going abroad to fight, and we are not like the French who have been laying signals."

This is a problem. When there is no radio station, it is obviously impossible to do micro-management.

However, there are a few monarchs who really like micro-management.

Even Napoleon himself had done Song Taizong's strategy of laying out formations in the naval field, but the plan was too complicated and ultimately failed.

Although Nelson is gone now, so is the French naval fleet.

As for what happened at Trafalgar, the French were unaware of such a great defeat due to their distance and Napoleon's press control.

At this time, the French army also encircled and annihilated most of the Austrian Danube Army in Ulm. At this moment, Napoleon issued a new order to pursue Kutuzov's army. If they can destroy this army west of Vienna, It can be said that there is no allied army between Vienna and Moravia, and Napoleon can ride a white horse into Vienna in early November.

But the Russian army obviously would not let him do what he wanted. The new order issued by Kutuzov and Schmidt required Bagration's column and von Kimmeier's Austrian column to cover each other's retreat.

"Among the orders I brought, there was also an instruction to delay negotiations with the French army. But there is a problem. If we negotiate with the French, there will always be cunning guys."

"Misha, I know what's going on. Why can't we use it to our advantage?"

Murat, who was leading the cavalry in pursuit, might have sneezed.

As they were thinking about it now, they could already hear the sound of gunfire exchanged in the distance.

It was the Austrian army that was retreating and had a firefight with the French army.

The French were still very proactive when pursuing the pursuit. Davout's Third Army and Beaumont's two dragoon regiments encountered the Austrian army here, but did not find the Russian army hiding behind.

However, the Austrians collapsed at the first touch. Although this part of the Austrian army was not responsible for the defeat in Ulm, they were also frightened and were quickly overwhelmed by the French cavalry.

At this time, the French army only lost a few dozen people in the initial firefight, but the Austrian side took five to six hundred prisoners.

The follow-up cavalry unit sent by Murat repelled another group of Austrian cavalry. At least the Austrian cavalry resisted for a few times, but they did not expect to surrender like the Austrian infantry in front.

At the same time, it was also because these Austrian infantry were so unsatisfactory that the Russian army, which was preparing to come to support, and the Austrian cavalry, which had been confronting for a while, had to withdraw from the battlefield and did not have too much contact with the French army.

Although the battle was painless, the French trumpeted their victory in newspapers

This is a bit weird, but the newspapers in France do really well.

There was not even a need for a copy of Izvestia. As long as the Allied forces did not march into Paris, the French defeat would never be known.

The Russian army was vigilantly prepared for battle, but the French did not come.

After all, there was no hair on the top of Davout's head, and the heat dissipation performance was still good. He had already learned from the report of Beaumont's dragoons that the Russian army had been prepared.

Although he has strong commanding ability and the morale of his soldiers is high and well-trained, he will not rush into the Russian army's front recklessly, but will find another way.

For example, the Russian army's retreat was cut off, but now that Bagration can hold the main road when retreating, he cannot find a gap to make a detour.

This should be regarded as the first time that the enemies of Davout and Bagration met on the battlefield, but there was no result. The ones who got beaten today were all Austrians.

The Russian army withdrew from the battlefield in an orderly manner, joined the Austrian cavalry, and continued to retreat eastward.

Solovyov saw the expressions of indignation on the faces of these Austrian cavalry, apparently because his infantry was so poor.

On the way to retreat, they also encountered a group of Austrian officers. They looked like this, wearing bandages and being dejected.

It can be seen from the expressions of some Austrian army officers that these generals and officers were probably surrounded by several major figures in Ulm, who were war criminals.

For example, the General Mark in front.

Of course, Solovyov did not mean to ridicule him. After General Mark reported his home, Bagration asked him to accompany General Mark and his party to Kutuzov's headquarters.

It happened that Solovyov also had to go back to report to Kutuzov and Schmidt, and met Mark before.

As for Archduke Ferdinand, he led a small number of cavalry to successfully break through and fled to Bohemia.

However, Solovyov also noticed that Mark's luggage was gone.

When he went to Mark as an observer, Mark appreciated him as a theorist and took the first edition of the new book he co-authored with Archduke Karl.

I hope this book will not fall into the hands of the French general.

But Soloviev still could not fulfill this wish. Napoleon himself, who entered Ulm, was holding this book in his hand.

"Interesting, there are people in the coalition who study our actions so thoroughly."

"Your Majesty, are you talking about Archduke Karl?"

"Yes, but this archduke is responsible for commenting and translating the previous Eastern military theories, which is also very interesting."

Berthier was a little curious. After all, Napoleon's evaluation of the coalition generals was generally harsh.

Even Suvorov and Archduke Karl's evaluation was erratic.

"Let me see. Your Majesty, this surname is Russian."

"Yes, it's the military attaché of the former Russian embassy. But it seems that this book is only available in the Austrian headquarters. It's amazing."

Moreover, what Napoleon got was not a gun version, but a complete version with translation, analysis and evaluation, which can even be copied in large quantities and used as a military textbook.

But here, the analysis is all about what the French are doing.

Not only did Mark give his head, but he also left such a precious little book in Napoleon's hands.

Originally, Napoleon had already considered showing that he couldn't attack, pretending that he couldn't attack when he could. In his abstract thinking, he had formed a wonderful plan.

But he wanted to use a plan, and now someone had to take it.

As for Davout and Murat's small victory in chasing the Austrian army today, he didn't care. What was more important was to severely damage or even destroy Kutuzov's Russian army.

Of course, with such a booklet, published in French, it was indeed convenient for him to read.

But he didn't know that one of the co-authors was his wife's distant nephew, who was thinking about how to deal with his uncle all day long.

Since the content of this book was so exciting, he asked Rustam to prepare the bath water and bed while taking a small notebook to write down his sharp comments and put them inside the title page.

It was a bit like mocking the coalition's poor military strategy and inability to support new theories and strategies.

And Mark's loss of this book did broaden the French emperor's thinking. He was originally able to crush his opponents in strategy, and now his advantage is even more obvious.