Fox of France

"The British are indeed stronger than the Austrians and Prussians." Looking at the approaching British army, Napoleon said to Augereau.

"If it's a field battle, these guys can bring us a lot of casualties." Augereau nodded and said, "Look, if you were an Austrian, you should have turned around and went home to find your mother. gone."

"Austrians? In Valmy, only a round of shelling killed hundreds of people, and the rest of the tens of thousands were too scared to move. Look at the British, they bumped into each other abruptly like this. ’ Napoleon exclaimed.

"Fortunately, we have the initiative now." Augereau said sincerely, "General, you told us before that in most cases, defense is a more powerful way of fighting than offense, but war must rely on offense. Victory. So a good general, even in offensive operations, should be able to seize the most critical moment on the battlefield, seize the most critical position, and then force the enemy to attack our solid defense. A strategic offensive The battle is a tactical defensive counterattack. I used to think, how is this possible? Now that I think about it, haven’t we achieved this? Now we are the one who wants to attack, but because we occupy the key Instead, the defending enemy had to leave the solid defense facilities and attack us actively. General Bonaparte..."

Augereau gave a thumbs up in admiration: "Tall, it's really tall!"

Napoleon was naturally very proud of it. He knew that Augereau was not a flatterer. Although he did not propose this principle, why did the brothers divide each other? Besides, Joseph is just talking on paper, and if this battle is to be replaced by Joseph, he may not be able to grasp the key. So he is actually very satisfied with his operation, and now that he is praised by Augereau, he is naturally even more proud. However, he didn't show any more expressions on his face, but said: "Let's talk about it after repelling this round of British attack!"

The British were already close to the range of the shot, and the cannons on the fort began to switch to shot like the British. The lobster soldiers were knocked down row by row. But the lobsters behind them were still lined up neatly, continuing to approach at the same speed without firing a single shot.

It's different from those coquettish sluts in Europe who walk a few steps and shoot one shot, or play three-stage shooting. The rule of the British Army has always been that we don't play those tricks, just go straight forward, until the gun in your hand can reach under the nose of the enemy on the opposite side, and then everyone shoots a volley, and then a bayonet charge. The sluts on the opposite side were taken away in one wave. The British army is small in number, but in terms of combat effectiveness, it is indeed a higher level than those guys the French were familiar with before.

The British dropped a lot of corpses, but they still came up close. An army can always make progress as long as it is brave enough. According to their habits, they would keep approaching to a distance of more than ten steps, then stop and shoot a volley, followed by a bayonet charge.

But this time, the situation has changed. The British just stopped, and a large piece of stone-like things were thrown from the French. It's just that after these things hit the ground, they exploded violently.

This is the special weapon given to Joseph to let Napoleon take a detour-the grenade.

In fact, in combat, throwing explosives at each other is not a new practice. Someone did it earlier. But at that time, the grenades they used were filled with black powder. If they wanted to ensure the power, they had to be made very large. If they were not big enough, they would not go out at all, and even if they were strong, they would not be able to throw them far. If the size is made so that ordinary soldiers can throw it very far, then its power is really not much different from that of a big firecracker.

But the grenades of Napoleon's soldiers were not filled with black powder, but Lavoisier's new gadget-nitrated starch.

Digested starch is much more stable than nitroglycerin, and mercury fulminate is needed to detonate it effectively. Of course, there is a problem with this thing, that is, the consistency of the product is difficult to control. Some nitrated starches are more powerful than TNT, while some nitrated starches are only half as powerful as TNT, so the power of each grenade is different. . However, even so, the power of these grenades is not comparable to the old gadgets filled with black powder. In addition, Joseph frantically placed prefabricated fragments on the casing of the grenade, so their killing effect exceeded everyone's expectations.

This round of grenades blew up a row of British who rushed up, and the British queue was completely finished.

Seeing this situation, Napoleon immediately issued an order to countercharge!

"For France, go!" The French army rushed towards the British with their bayonets upright.

To say that there is still an obvious difference between the French Army and the British Army in this era, that is, the British need formations to fight effectively, while the French do not need formations at all, the more chaotic the better.

This counter charge knocked the British back. After repelling this round of British counterattacks, the British army quickly withdrew to Toulon. Napoleon judged that it was impossible for the British to attack Mulgrave Fort again in a short time. Now his target can turn to those ships in the port of Toulon.

Of course, it would take some time to fire on the port of Toulon, because the soldiers had to turn the cannon on the fort and send more cannon to the fort of Mulgrave, and this would take time.

"Anyway, before dark, these things are not well prepared, why don't you just beat Lucien again!" Although he was in a good mood because he had just won a decisive victory, Napoleon still decided to Go and take on the responsibility of an older brother, and educate your younger brother seriously so that he knows why flowers are so popular. Besides, beating children on rainy days is idle anyway.

But after all, Napoleon was not too angry anymore. Anger is like a storm, it comes and goes quickly. In addition, Lucien was good at running, and Paulina made troubles. As a result, Napoleon failed to fulfill his responsibility as a brother.

By the next morning, the cannons in the fort were in place, and Napoleon ordered the bombardment of the port of Toulon to begin. The bombardment lasted all day and did not stop until the port of Toulon was engulfed in darkness, causing the French's bombardment efficiency to drop significantly. During the bombardment on this day, more than a dozen ships were damaged to varying degrees. Hundreds of crew members were killed or injured. What is more painful than this is that Toulon has no means of counterattacking the bombardment from the fortress of Margrave.

"Toulon can't be defended anymore." The Spaniard first made such a judgment, and then after nightfall, the Spaniard left his guard position and planned to board the ship and leave first. Then they were blocked by a large group of British on the dock-the British were getting on board! ——When things cannot be done, the British are always very good at retreating.

The British and Spaniards spent two nights and one day retreating from Toulon under fire from the fortress of Mulgrave.

In fact, by the daytime of the second day, more than half of the British had already left. Davout wanted Napoleon to take the opportunity to attack and recapture Toulon. He believed that attacking at this time would surely enter Toulon and wipe out all the invaders who had not had time to retreat.

Napoleon, however, vetoed this proposal. He felt that it would not be worthwhile to attack the enemy's strong position when he had already won, which would cause many unnecessary casualties.

This reason convinced Davout. His only worry is: Will those traitors of the motherland run away with the invaders?

"It's too late for the British and Spaniards to rescue themselves. There is no air traffic control for these traitors. Don't worry, they can't escape!" Napoleon said.

The last few boats began to leave the pier, but the pier was still full of people-those were the Toulonites who had served the British, and now the British and the Spaniards were leaving, and they They also knew that if they stayed in Toulon, they would definitely go to the guillotine, so they ran here, hoping that the British father would show mercy and give them a chance to leave Toulon by boat.

Napoleon could see all this clearly from Fort Mulgrave, so he ordered: "Attack these guys on the dock, hit hard! Davout, you are ready to enter the city!"

Davout responded with a belt, and ran down. Napoleon continued to hold up the binoculars to admire the results of the artillery.

A shell fell on the crowd at the pier, and a bloody alley flowed out in the crowd. More people screamed and jumped into the water, trying to swim to the British boat.

Napoleon saw that a British officer shouted something to the people below, but those people still swam towards the boat. The officer drew out his command knife and shouted something, and then there was a cloud of gunpowder smoke on the side of the ship—the British soldiers on board began to shoot at the royalist elements swimming towards them.

One by one, the royalists were shot and sank. Napoleon smiled.

At this time, a person appeared in Napoleon's field of vision. The man took a breath, dived, dodged the salvo, and swam alongside the Englishman's boat, and climbed up like a spider.

"He's a good fellow," said Napoleon, "but it's a pity..."

At this time, the man finally climbed to the side of the boat, and he stuck his head out, and seemed to shout something, maybe it was "God save my king", maybe it was something else. But it doesn't matter, because in the next second, there are several bayonets on his stomach, and then a few British soldiers threw him into the sea with force. This time, he sank and never rose again.

"This is the end of the traitor!" Augereau, who was also watching, sighed.