Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796

In Schmidt's repeatedly revised plan, the success or failure of this battle depended on the actions of Dokhturov's column to cut off the French army's retreat.

However, around 8 a.m., Dokhturov's column did not reach its intended position.

This did not block the French's retreat, and the cavalry sent by Schmidt also captured a French courier.

"Your Excellency, the Frenchman has been captured."

"Ah, it looks like a dragoon. Which army are you from?"

The French are always chatty and they are quick to explain where they are from.

"I am from the 4th Dragoon Regiment, Your Excellency. As for anything else, there is nothing to say. When you see me, you should know what I do."

"Yes, he is a messenger, conveying orders to General Dupont."

"Not 'Pang', but 'Bang', Your Excellency."

"Dupont and Dupont are like Thomson and Thompson. There will always be people who misjudge them."

Solovyov interrupted like this, but he was pinching his words.

"Then the order is for Dupont, Your Excellency."

"It seems that Dokhturov has not blocked the intersection yet. Damn it, at this time we should send the cavalry to urge him, and then ask the adjutant to go there too."

"What shall we do with this prisoner, Your Excellency?"

"Sending it to the headquarters may be of some use."

Schmidt gave the order and the column continued to advance and urged Dokhturov, but there was no response and the movement was very slow.

At this time, Schmidt could only send a reliable liaison officer.

"Michael, what the hell, it looks like I have to trouble you to make a trip."

Dokhturov moved slowly and hesitantly, which was beyond Schmidt's expectation. At the same time, Dupont, who heard the sound of artillery more than 20 kilometers away, now urged his four regiments to speed up their march. .

Speaking of which, the army in 1805 usually had two brigades and four regiments in one division, which was considered a standard configuration.

DuPont has always been braver, more proactive, and somewhat responsible and adaptable.

At this time, the entire division naturally had to advance quickly, and also encountered Dokhturov's column.

Solovyov came to Dokhturov and found that although the cavalry and infantry were still there, the artillery was not among the marching columns.

What a bad thing, he thought, but the soldiers he led were all in the Guards column and were not here. Instead, Dokhturov was the commander.

"Where's the cannon?"

"They are all left behind. The roads are muddy. These artillery vehicles are caught in the ranks, affecting the marching speed."

"Then we also need cannons. At least we can get two cannons to deal with the enemy, but this won't work. Call me a company, and I'll get the cannons."

Solovyov could actually think of why Dokhturov did this. For the Russian army, it was responsible for losing artillery on the battlefield, and during the march, the Russian artillery was often heavier and more powerful. Sometimes it gets in the way.

But what Dokhturov is doing now is indeed delaying things. He also considered that Solovyov has always retained the title of aide-de-camp. Although this man has always been decent, he would not report to the emperor for the sake of fairness. Vague. Although Dokhturov was also an aide-de-camp, he was from the empress's dynasty, unlike Solovyov.

In particular, everyone knows that he is more accepting of death in the military.

Therefore, it was difficult for Dokhturov to confront him, so he had to allocate a battalion to him to fetch artillery.

The battalion left for Solovyov was quite familiar to him, it was the 1st Battalion of the Smolensk Regiment.

"Brothers, you can't fight the French without cannon! We are going to get the cannon now and defeat the French to be worthy of the glory of our Order of St. George!"

Although what he said was not good, the Smolensk regiment was defeated by the Selenga regiment led by him during the "Snow War", so it was still unacceptable to refuse.

In addition to this, another point is that the Russian army has always attached great importance to artillery.

But infantry generals may not necessarily pay attention to artillery.

Until the time of Alexander, cavalry and infantry generals often dominated.

It is indeed more troublesome to lose and run, but it should be even more troublesome to lose the fight.

Especially under such a good fighter plane, leaving the artillery accompanying the army behind, the French army is not like the Russian army. The artillery is still attached to the combat troops, rather than being organized into artillery regiments and artillery battalions separately.

At this moment, Solovyov really got four 1/2 Unicorn cannons, but the fuzes were not very reliable. If they really tried to fire them, they might turn into solid bullets.

But the mud pits on the road were indeed very troublesome. At this time, he even saw the soldiers themselves willing to lay in the mud pits to allow the cannons to pass safely. This kind of thing is rare in other armies, and Russia There are often veterans in the military who do this.

If the gun carriage is too heavy, it may be fatal.

"Brothers, don't let anyone fill the hole. If you have such good brothers, you should use them to deal with the French instead of placing cannons here!"

So he ordered the soldiers to fill in the felled trees and collected straw, thus transporting all the cannons to the battlefield. It was already close to noon.

Just as Schmidt feared, the French army did have reinforcements chasing after them. Dupont's division quickly followed up and also exchanged fire with the Moscow regiment under Dokhturov.

This also put Dokhturov into a crisis surrounded by two sides. Motier was blocked by Miroladovich and Bagration in front. The road behind was finally cut off and he began to struggle to break through.

However, when they turned around, there was also a group of French troops who wanted to seize the boats and flee to the south bank. However, the Danube River had strong currents in this area, causing many boats to capsize one after another. In addition, the river water was freezing cold, and many people drowned. In the Danube River.

In the chaos, the French army's counterattack initially failed to work. The Russian army's own resistance was still very tenacious. Even though the cannon of Dohturov's column was thrown behind by the commander, it still fought with Three infantry regiments and the Mariupol Hussars resisted the French attack from both sides.

At this time, a situation was formed in which the allied forces had an overall advantage and the French army had an advantage locally.

Since there was no means of communicating at the time, Schmidt did not know the situation of each column at this time, so he could only send messengers to urge the three columns on his side to move closer to the north bank of the Danube.

For him, the trouble was that the Austrian column inside had arrived first, but their small strength was unable to block the Dupont Division's retreat, and their combat effectiveness was worrying.

Von Rosen's sixth column was far away from the battlefield and was moving closer under Schmidt's urging. However, whether they could arrive that night was still a question.

In this case, Schmidt decided to personally lead the column through the valley and into the battlefield.

However, this was also the last major order for him to carry out.

After Solovyov brought the artillery back to the battlefield and handed the 1st Battalion of the Smolensk Regiment back to Dokhturov, he returned to Schmidt.

"Your Excellency, the mission is accomplished. It's just that Dokhturov left a lot of artillery and baggage behind, and the artillery fire on the front line was insufficient."

"How did you do it?"

"Leading a battalion of soldiers brought back 4 cannons. In addition, artillery troops are still arriving one after another."

"Ah, that's good. We only have the Von Rosen column that hasn't arrived yet, but the fighter planes are like this, and we have to take action."

Schmidt decided to launch another attack while it was still dark, and in this situation, 20,000 coalition troops faced off against 10,000 French troops, which was a rare move to gain an advantage, especially as the artillery carried by each column arrived on the battlefield one after another, which was very important to the French. The situation is already very bad for the military.

Motier knew that in the current situation, not only his headquarters and Gazan Division were surrounded, but the Dupont Division that came to support was also in a bad situation.

However, at this time, there are no troops that can be dispatched as reinforcements. The remaining division is further away and knows nothing about the battlefield situation. Even if it comes, it is just a refueling tactic.

After all, the Russian army also has a column of four to five thousand people outside the battlefield. The exchange of fire between the two sides at this time is also very detrimental to the French army, and may even be annihilated.

But the French were not thinking about surrendering at this time. They were preparing to mobilize the only troops they had to launch an attack. At the same time, they left the wounded soldiers in the castle and the town of Dilenstein. Even if the coalition forces captured them, they would be treated.

After all, in this era, martial ethics are relatively important.

But if they wanted to run away, Kutuzov and Schmidt would not agree. Even at sunset that day, the exchange of fire between the two sides did not stop.

Schmidt came to the battlefield at this time, and he also wanted to observe the situation on the battlefield.

Unfortunately, when he led his column into the battlefield, he happened to enter the shooting range of Dokhturov's column and was hit by a stray bullet and fell from his horse.

Seeing this, Solovyov jumped off his horse and observed the situation of the Austrian veteran.

When I saw it, I knew that Schmidt was dying. He was hit by four bullets in a row, which was quite unlucky.

At this time, Solovyov was very calm. Among the headquarters attachés, he had the highest military rank. Schmidt did not bring a general to take command here. General von Essen led his column. At the back, he is also responsible for the actions of the column.

"what to do?"

"I'll take command. According to the plan, gentlemen, the second column (von Essen) and the third column (Dohturov) also need to join forces to block the reinforcements. The Austrian army is responsible for containment, and the sixth column (von Rosen) ) You must hurry up and come to the battlefield. The three of you must take the orders and remember the contents. Once you encounter the French rangers, you must destroy the written orders and the method of conveying the message."

Solovyov was also in a hurry and took off all three medals from his chest and gave them to three Austrian heralds.

"If there is no order, I will use my medal to convey the order. And Heinrich, go to the commander-in-chief and tell the right column to attack the French army according to the original deployment, and hope that the left column will seize the time to get closer. !”

His organization was very clear, and these Austrian staff officers were all dispatched under his orders.

If you ask them why they are so obedient, Schmidt admires Solovyov very much, and based on the cleverness of these officers, they all know that Archduke Karl has a good relationship with him.

Now that Mark's battle is over, the Austrian army will still be headed by Archduke Karl, who is experienced in fighting. There will always be some connections there.

And he is also trusted by Schmidt. The veteran has also reserved the command order. In addition, Solovyov happens to be the one with the highest ranking. Even if he is younger, he must obey his orders.

Under such circumstances, the staff left by Schmidt began to work quickly again, and their operation efficiency was even higher.

Schmidt was experienced and had excellent planning and deployment, but when it came to execution, it was better to have someone with a quick mind.

That night, three Russian generals received new orders, and they were written in Russian.

"What's going on?"

The Austrian staff who came to pass the message to them was very smart and said so.

"General Schmidt was shot and wounded. It was Colonel Solovyov who conveyed the order." He also took out Solovyov's three medals. He was a close minister of two generations of tsars, and his name was engraved on the back of the medals.

It didn't say that Schmidt had died in battle, and it was too fast to die.

But he was lucky after his death. Considering that he was a general, Solovyov found a wine barrel and threw him in it, and took him to the rear to be buried alone.

Otherwise, they would be thrown directly into a mass grave. The coalition forces were still quite hasty in their actions because the French were chasing too closely.

However, due to the situation of closing the door and fighting the dog, two of the three infantry divisions of the Eighth Army of Motier were surrounded on the banks of the Danube, and the situation was even worse for the French army.

At the same time, Kutuzov also considered the possible reinforcement of the French army, and issued an order late at night on November 10 to annihilate the French army in the Dürenstein Valley the next day.

If the battle could not be resolved the next day, the follow-up troops of the French army would definitely swarm in, and it would not be so simple at that time.

And the death of General Schmidt did require a new chief of staff to come to Kutuzov's headquarters.

He considered that Solovyov was too young and could command one or two battles, but if he really wanted to coordinate the Russian and Austrian armies, he could not use a Russian colonel.

So he wrote a letter in the headquarters according to past experience, asking the Austrian emperor to send a new chief of staff.

Since Werosser performed well under Suvorov and participated in the joint expeditions to Italy and Switzerland, Kutuzov strongly recommended Lieutenant General Werosser to succeed Lieutenant General Schmidt as the Chief of Military Supply in the future in his letter to the Austrian Emperor.

But on the battlefield, Kutuzov now asked Solovyov to continue to mobilize the right wing columns in Schmidt's command.

Although he was a temporary worker, Solovyov now got a chance. This was the first time he had a legion of more than 10,000 people.

Everyone hopes to have such a day when they can ride on horses on the battlefield.

Moreover, he really needs to test his skills.