Fox of France

Recently, France's military production has also begun to peak, but there is no synthetic ammonia, and Napoleon refused to adjust the distribution of saltpeter in agriculture and the military. Therefore, although France has invested a lot of money to increase the production of Chilean saltpeter, gunpowder and explosives The output growth is still limited. Compared with the consumption of today's war, the gap is getting bigger and bigger.

The widening of the gap will of course stimulate the price of saltpeter. In the international market, saltpeter is basically priceless. Even if you have money, you can't buy saltpeter.

Since saltpeter is so rare, the price of highly processed products of saltpeter, such as various French shells and grenades, will naturally increase accordingly. This made the situation difficult for the Russians. Because the Turks have their own saltpeter, and they can also buy saltpeter from the neighboring Indians. (Although the British banned the sale of saltpeter. However, the rise in the price of saltpeter made this ban almost a joke. In the beginning, the guys from the British East India Company caught smugglers who smuggled saltpeter everywhere, and then put the seized smuggled saltpetre in A small part of it is registered in the warehouse, and a large part is sold to the Turks, and then the money is stuffed into their own pockets. Then their warehouses for saltpeter mines are always destroyed by fire dragons, spies, India Due to various reasons such as human chaos, fires broke out continuously, and then the saltpeter, which is a flammable product, was naturally burned. Of course, after each such warehouse fire, the Turks can always buy a batch of saltpeter. )

The Turks transported these saltpeters to France, and then paid a high processing fee, and then they could take the ammunition produced by these saltpeters back. Although in this kind of "processing with supplied materials", part of the Turkish ships transporting saltpetre will always drift away as usual, and then, when the French are processing, they will naturally lose part of it, and then they will get the products and ship them again. When going back, as usual, part of the saltpeter was lost. In the end, more than half of the saltpeter was lost. But at least the Turks' ammunition can still be replenished.

However, the situation of the Russians is much worse. Russia has a vast land and abundant resources. This saltpetre, hmm, really not much. Saltpeter is mostly produced in arid deserts and semi-desert areas. Although Russia is large, there are really not many deserts. If the Russians want to purchase saltpeter, they can only purchase it from the Far East. But at that time, there was no Siberia Railway, and the transportation was inconvenient. If you want to transport the saltpeter purchased from there, the day lily will be cold.

Therefore, after successive rounds of attacks on the Turks' defensive positions, which consumed a lot of ammunition and lives, the Russian army's offensive came to a standstill. In this series of offensive operations, the Russian army suffered about 40,000 casualties. This number is absolutely terrifying in this era. As for Turkey, although it has a defensive bonus, coupled with the army trained by the French, the loss should be very small. But because of their various internal problems, when it was critical, suddenly for some reason, there were only a little more than 1,000 people guarding the position that should have been guarded by 10,000 people according to the records; why did a fire suddenly break out in a certain warehouse? , (the warehouse manager received an order to send up to such and such a ton of such and such supplies to a certain place tomorrow, and then the warehouse suddenly caught fire due to lightning strikes, meteorites, Armenian Christian sabotage, or other reasons .)

As a result, in this way, although the Turks were relying on Joseph's defense to defend, there should be a lot of deaths, but as a result, the casualties were actually higher than the Russians, with a total of 60,000 casualties. Excluding some cannon fodder troops, Turkey's most elite, fully French-equipped and French-trained troops also lost more than 30,000 troops.

But it doesn't matter, anyway, in Turkey, people are the least valuable, and there are people in Turkey. The Russians can't fight against the dead like this. Besides, it is not a bad thing for some people to let those elites loyal to the Sudan die a little more.

In short, look at the fact that it not only blocks the Russians, but also consumes the direct power of the Turkish Sultan. It's the best of both worlds, how nice of you to say!

In short, after paying such a large amount of consumption and casualties, the Russians made quite limited progress, so they had to prepare to retreat. Even the tough Kutuzov and the brave Bagration have to admit that the Russian army has nothing to do with the Turks' defensive positions now.

"If we can give us one-third more shells and 'little melons', I will definitely be able to tear apart the Turks' defense." General Bagration is said to have said such words.

However, these things are not more than one-third, or even a lot less. So the Russian army can only consider retreating now.

Retreating in front of the enemy is a troublesome thing. If you don't do it well, if you are counterattacked by others, you may suffer a big loss. Especially now, with huge casualties and nothing to gain, the veterans of the division are tired and their morale is low, even more so.

On the other side, His Majesty Sultan Selim III was also full of expectations for the situation on the battlefield. His reforms paid off, and his army crippled the Russian army on the battlefield. Of course, he also paid a huge price, and the army that was truly loyal to him also suffered heavy casualties. So if this battle ends in a draw, because of the double loss of troops and wealth, he may not be able to suppress those conservatives who opposed his reforms as before.

So, he needs a real, unquestionable, brilliant victory.

Therefore, the Grand Vizier Arundar Mustafa Pasha, who was commanding the battle on the front line, soon received an order from His Majesty Selim III Sultan—to pursue the Russian army that might retreat, crush them, and retake the previous Lost ground in the war.

Grand Vizier Arundar Mustafa Pasha knew that his army was in difficulty, but he also knew the significance of victory to the Turks today, especially to the Sudan, so he also made a decision to pursue the Russian army. Decide.

After Kutuzov's Russian army began to retreat slowly, Grand Vizier Arundar Mustafa Pasha led the most elite 40,000 French troops, plus more than 30,000 other troops, The pursuit of the Russian army began.

Kutuzov's retreat was quite well organized, he fought and retreated, and kept the army organized. Although during the retreat, due to morale and supply problems, they suffered a little loss, but it was not a big deal. However, Arundar Mustafa Pasha was not in a hurry. Kutuzov had to retreat to a truly safe position, and he had to retreat a long way. All his previous efforts were in vain.

Kutuzov retreated to the south bank of the Danube, as if he was going to return across the river, and the Turks chased after him, but he didn't want another Russian army, which had been hiding by the side, under the command of General Bagration, Killed from the flank, cutting off the supply lines and retreat of the Turkish army.

The Russian army that cut off the supply line of the Turkish army has fewer than 20,000 people, and there is no time to build a truly indestructible line of defense. The Turkish army has more than 70,000 people, of which 40,000 are capable of fighting. Looking at this alone, it should not be difficult for the Turkish army to break through the interception of more than 10,000 people. But you can't just look at which one on the battlefield. You have to know where the 30,000 troops led by Kutuzov are still there? If they turned around and attacked Bagration, then Kutuzov would definitely not just play soy sauce on one side, and would definitely give the Turks a back and forth attack. Therefore, before turning around and opening up the supply line, Arendar Mustafa Pasha must first prepare for the defense against Kutuzov.

This defensive preparation will of course take a lot of time. When the Turks are ready for defense here, General Bagration is also ready for defense.

"When I was in France, I once had the opportunity to visit His Majesty Bonaparte, the first ruler of France. It happened that the Bonaparte ruler and Bonaparte president were both there, and the two were still studying military issues in front of a sand table. You all know that the two Bonaparte brothers are great military strategists, one is good at attacking and the other is good at defending. So seeing their homework on the map is really a rare learning opportunity for me. It’s just that The time of that visit was limited, and I was not able to see their entire work and the final result. However, I heard a concept from the Bonaparte administration: the best means of attack is through the creation of various situations , so as to force the enemy to attack our defensive positions, the strategic offensive posture and the tactical defensive posture are not contradictory, and can even complement each other. The battle in our last war against Turkey was The practice of this idea..." This is what General Bagration later said when he was lecturing to the students at the Petersburg Military Academy. Just as he said, this battle is a battle under the guidance of this thought.

The subsequent battle situation completely entered the rhythm of the Russians. Arendar Mustafa Pasha's army first launched a fierce attack on Bagration's position, but although the Russians were small in number, they fought very well. Relying on the fortifications, they blocked the first few rounds of the Turks' attacks and inflicted considerable damage on them.

And in the back, Kutuzov's diversionary attack also firmly held back some of the most elite troops in the hands of Arendar Mustafa Pasha, making it impossible for these troops to be devoted to attacking Bagration. During the attack on Ang's position.

Arendar Mustafa Pasha naturally knew that if the supply channel could not be opened in a short time, the army would collapse without supplies for a long time. In the breakout operation on the first day, in addition to some elites, more "other troops" with barely a little combat effectiveness were used for the breakout. Arundar Mustafa Pasha knew that, just as he could not get supplies, Bagration who passed through would also not get supplies, so his abacus was to use cannon fodder to consume Bagration first. Expensive materials, and then use the real elite to launch a general attack the next day.