Fox of France

Speaking of it, the Kingdom of Sardinia was also a member of the Anti-French Alliance, but after the war started, they really didn't really fight the French army seriously. Basically, apart from the fact that their navy followed the British and Spaniards and participated in the blockade of France, what they were responsible for was talking and soy sauce. And their navy, after discovering that they could not deal with the French clippers at all, secretly joined the lucrative business of smuggling supplies to France.

Because it has never really competed with the French on the battlefield, the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia actually has no idea how strong or weak its combat effectiveness is. Regarding the way of fighting that has undergone tremendous changes today, we cannot say that the Italians are ignorant-they are also equipped with the new "small melon" and know the "skirmish advantage" brought by the small melon. Moreover, they have also verified the various benefits of skirmishing tactics in the military exercises they held. But these things have not been verified on the battlefield after all.

The performance of the skirmishers of the Sardinian Kingdom in the exercise was not satisfactory. Although procrastination and laziness often appeared in the exercise, overall, the performance of the skirmishers was no worse than that of the private soldiers. Not even worse than the Austrian skirmishers.

Generally speaking, the Austrians always like to belittle the combat effectiveness of the Sardinian army out of jealousy. But they also said: "The Sardinian skirmishers seem to be doing well."

The ears of the generals of the Kingdom of Sardinia automatically filtered out the "looks like" among them, so they were still very satisfied with their mastery of the new tactics. So they humbly made such a judgment: "Our skirmishers may still have a little gap compared with the French skirmishers who are recognized as the strongest, but they should also be top-notch in Europe."

The 50,000-strong army of the Sardinian Kingdom gradually gathered, and General Corley became the commander-in-chief of this army. Although General Corley always believed that he should wait until the Austrian allied forces were in place before launching a general attack on the French army, the Austrians' actions were really slow. (Marshal Beaulieu believes that the entire Italian army is not elite enough-the elite of Austria are in Belgium and Poland. As for the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Marshal Beaulieu believes that it is not as good as Austria's non-elite army-so it is best to take a defensive position first and wait for reinforcements ) and the pressure from the king and nobles was too great, so General Corley decided to fight a small battle first and fool around a bit.

So General Corley sent a team of cavalry to attack a stronghold of the French army in the manor of the Marquis of Coney. Then this team of cavalry returned to the barracks safely and reported that they regained the lost ground, and killed five or six Frenchmen, and dozens of Italian scum who followed the Frenchmen. In order to prove that they were not lying, they brought them back Took the heads of some Italian scum.

Although General Corley had some doubts about the result of this battle, at this time, he really needed victory to relieve his pressure. It's just that this victory was a little too small. Only five or six Frenchmen were killed, which is a little too little.

So General Corley had the cavalry captain called over, and asked him about the battle process in person. After some conversation, the whole battle situation became clearer:

This team of less than a hundred cavalrymen encountered about a thousand French troops and more than two thousand rebels who shamelessly defected to the French near the Anton Manor belonging to the Marquis of Coney. The cavalry of the Kingdom of Sardinia immediately drew their sabers, shouted "For God and the King", and launched a heroic and fearless charge to these invaders and scum.

The French suddenly became a mess and fled in all directions, while the cavalry of the Kingdom of Sardinia pursued the victory and hacked to death countless invaders and traitors. Won a glorious victory comparable to the Battle of Mengisa (the famous King Baldwin IV - the Leper King - defeated the 20,000 army led by Saladin with hundreds of cavalry in this battle), And successfully regained the manor.

General Corley reported the news to the king and to the nobles who were forced to abandon their estates and flee to the city. So the whole city of Turin was full of joy.

Almost at the same time, Napoleon also received such a report:

Our army found a Sardinian cavalry of about a hundred people at the stronghold of Andun Manor, and shot at them. After our army fired, the cavalry retreated quickly.

Such a report caught Napoleon's attention, because this was the first time they encountered an established Sardinian cavalry.

"It seems that the Sardinians are about to bear it?" Napoleon thought so, and decided to start shrinking his troops to prepare for the possible battle.

The next day, Napoleon received a report from this stronghold again, and along with the report, he also sent several Italians.

It turned out that after the Marquis of Coney knew that his manor had been recovered, because he was eager to know how much loss he had suffered, he asked his nephew to rush back with a team of servants overnight to have a look, and then, including his Everyone, including his nephew Viscount Toldo, became prisoners of the French.

Napoleon handed over the viscount to the "Revolutionary Court", but let back the entourage he brought.

General Corley had to defend himself, declaring that his cavalry had indeed won and recaptured the manor, but when his cavalry returned, the French returned. Therefore, he can't be blamed for this matter, it's just that Lord Marquis is too impatient.

Although General Corley could forcibly defend himself in this way, this matter also made it impossible for him to procrastinate any longer.

At the same time, General Corley also felt that he should still be able to fight a dozen. There are only 30,000 to 40,000 people on the opposite side, but there are a total of 50,000 people on my side; and because of the obstruction of the Alps, the French on the opposite side have no decent cannons, and there are hundreds of cannons on my side; there is also a lack of cavalry on the other side , and the cavalry on their side is several times more than them. Looking at it this way, I still have a great advantage here, and I can definitely fight a battle.

On January 14, 1796, the main force of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Napoleon's Fifth Army formed a position in Cuneo, preparing for a decisive battle.

General Corley knew that his side's greatest advantage was artillery, and he was determined to make the most of it. Therefore, the Sardinian army lined up more than one hundred cannons in front of the position. Then General Corley sent out his own skirmishers.

This set of tactics is a routine that General Corley has practiced many times in the exercise, and he feels that his army has been quite proficient in using this tactic. First use artillery shells to attack the opponent's skirmishers, support your own skirmishers to advance, and then rely on the skirmishers' "little melons" and artillery shells to open gaps in the opponent's formation, and then invest in cavalry to resolve the battle.

In the exercise, this set worked quite well and won General Corley a lot of praise. General Corley hopes that this set of tactics that he has carefully studied can also win him higher honors on the real battlefield.

The stragglers of the Sardinian army began to advance, and General Corley saw through the binoculars that the stragglers of the French army on the opposite side also began to advance.

"Artillery ready! Suppress enemy skirmishers with shotgun." General Corley issued such an order step by step.

But the cannon hadn't fired yet, because the enemy was still far out of range at this time.

The Sardinian skirmishers continued to advance for a short distance before stopping. They could not advance so quickly that they would come within range of the enemy's skirmishers before they were within shot-shot of the artillery behind them. One of their functions was actually to keep the enemy's vaunted skirmishers at a distance where they could threaten their own formations, and to give the artillery a chance to destroy them.

Unexpectedly, the French skirmishers on the opposite side stopped at a place farther away from them, almost three hundred yards away.

"The French can see our arrangement," General Corley explained to the Marquis de Cony, who was watching the battle. "They know that if they continue to advance, they will be attacked by our artillery. Of course, if they continue to approach If we had, I believe, the brave French troops could have endured the bombardment. But our skirmishers held them back, so that they would be wiped out in vain by our artillery, so they hesitate now."

The reason why the Marquis of Coney came here was to urge General Corley's troops to rescue his nephew as soon as possible—that was his brother's only legal heir. He looked at the stopped French skirmishers with a frown, and said, "If they stop like this and don't move forward, what should we do?"

"Simple, if you don't come to the mountain, you can buy Maiti, and if you don't come to Maimaiti, you can go to the mountain. We can move some of the artillery forward, so..."

As General Corley was speaking, he saw puffs of blue smoke rising from the side of the French skirmishers.

"Shoot at such a distance? What can they hit?" General Corley was taken aback.

However, something even more surprising happened. With the shooting of the French skirmishers, the Sardinian skirmishers fell down a lot.

"General, this is?" Marquis Coney asked in astonishment. He also knew that at such a long distance, it was impossible to have such a hit rate.

"Maybe . . . maybe they used rifled shotguns!" said General Corley.

In this era, only rifled shotguns can shoot at such a long distance. However, it is very difficult to reload a rifled shotgun. Don't even think about completing a reload in four or five minutes. If the skirmishers of the French army use this weapon, it means that they will not be able to shoot for a long time. As long as the Sardinian skirmishers press up quickly, they can be fired at very close range and get a better exchange ratio.

General Corley thought of this, and immediately ordered the stragglers to attack quickly. But just as he gave the order to the orderly, before the orderly even had time to mount, the Frenchman on the opposite side fired another round of fire. Then the Sardinian stragglers fell again.

"This... how is this possible?" General Corley was startled at first, and then he became uncontrollably angry. Obviously, it is impossible for a rifled gun to shoot so quickly, and it must be a smoothbore gun that can shoot like this. It was impossible for a musket to achieve such a hit rate at such a distance, and now his skirmishers fell so much. There can only be one explanation for all of this, and that is—those damn cowards are avoiding the fight, they are playing dead!

The third round of shooting by the French skirmishers later confirmed this inference. After this round of shooting by the French army, more than half of the Sardinian skirmishers fell—that is, the salvo fired at a distance of thirty yards. There will be no such effect! And General Corley even saw it with his own eyes. A damn guy stood and looked around. After everyone fell down for a few seconds, he suddenly seemed to wake up and threw the gun in his hand exaggeratedly. , covered his chest with his hands, squatted down slowly, and then lay down on the ground.

"Damn it! These damned guys! After this battle, I must hang them on the gallows to dry!" Facing these guys who didn't even pretend to be dead, General Corley was beyond angry. , He deeply felt the darkness and desolation of this world.

What happened next really made people not only angry, but also sad. Before the French continued to shoot, more skirmishers fell one after another. In the blink of an eye, more than a thousand skirmishers carefully trained by the Kingdom of Sardinia suddenly disappeared on the battlefield.

This change surprised General Corley, but made Napoleon smile. Napoleon naturally knew that his skirmishers had indeed hit the opposite Sardinian skirmishers; however, Napoleon was equally sure that it was absolutely impossible for his skirmishers to kill so many Sardinian skirmishers. So he quickly came to the same conclusion as General Corley on the opposite side: those shameless guys were pretending to be dead and fleeing the battlefield.

However, this is not the first time Napoleon has seen this situation. When he was still in Belgium, and when he was still following Dimouriez, he had seen with his own eyes the Austrians' poor imitation of the French's straggler tactics. The Austrians also sent a large number of stragglers, and as a result, those stragglers disappeared from the battlefield inexplicably almost without firing a shot. Speaking of which, these Italians only started playing like this after being shot three rounds, which can be regarded as very brave.

Now that the enemy's skirmishers had been routed, the French skirmishers naturally began to advance rapidly.

"Don't be afraid, this is just a small technical setback, don't be afraid." General Corley encouraged himself in his heart, "At least, we still have superior artillery, if they dare to come forward again, we will kill them with cannons !"

The French skirmishers quickly advanced to a distance of only about 300 yards from the Sardinian artillery, and they would be able to enter the range of the artillery by walking a few dozen steps forward. But at this time, they stopped and raised their guns...

"This... how is this possible! How can there be such a long-range weapon with such a fast shooting speed!" General Pauly was completely stunned. Now that the distance is closer, he can already clearly see those who fell beside the cannon The blood flowed from the body of the soldier-this is not fake, the enemy can indeed shoot such precise and rapid shots at such a long distance.

The gunners who were lucky enough not to be killed in the first round of shooting by the French skirmishers did not have the courage to continue to stand firm against the hail of bullets. They threw down their cannons and ran away, or simply found a place to lie down and pretend to be dead.

"Cavalry! Cavalry charge up and beat back the enemy's skirmishers!" General Corley shouted.

The Sardinian army has more cavalry, and when the Austrians introduced their experience in fighting the French army, they also specifically pointed out that a large number of light cavalry is the way to restrain the French skirmishers. (Hussars are relatively cheap and run faster - no armor can stop rifle bullets anyway - and relatively dead)

So the last straw of the Sardinians appeared.