Fox of France

So those Dutchmen confidently launched an attack on Cape Town. As far as these Dutch people are concerned, luck is good. Because their British opponents have always had inferior weapons and equipment, and even their combat methods are very old-fashioned. Facing the attack, they did not put on a Joseph defense that is very popular in Europe and the United States today. Instead, he came out directly to line up and fight the Dutch.

If there is no trench digging, barbed wire, and Joseph defense, it may be because of the lack of supplies-after all, the British did not care much about Cape Town, the guy in the hands of the Cape Town colonial army, before the war with the Anti-French Alliance Basically nothing has changed. (Of course, it is not completely unchanged. For example, the number of fortress guns has increased, and the caliber has also increased a lot-the British Navy has decommissioned too many sailing warships, and the naval guns on them are basically thrown into various fortresses. The waste is used.) There are no such things as rifled guns, barbed wire, grenades, and landmines.

However, there are only two possibilities for actually using the line infantry to fight against others. One is because of ignorance, because the world is far away and ignorant of the progress of the world. Another possibility is arrogance, thinking that the militia is just a mob, and I am a regular army no matter what, and I can beat the mob outside—they can’t even line up!

However, what happened next was like a nightmare for the British. Seeing the British lined up, the Dutch militiamen rushed forward in a chaotic manner without formation. Major Hilton, the commander of the British army, felt that if he had a few lighter copper cannons in his hands, he could kill a lot of rebels with solid shells alone.

However, he did not have a light copper cannon in his hand. He didn't bring cannons out at all, because while the British transport ships brought in the heavy iron naval guns eliminated from the navy, they also brought a few light copper cannons from the British army in Cape Town. Towed away—you know, at that time, the price of copper was going up all over Europe.

Therefore, there were no cannons in the team brought out by Major Hilton.

The militia, ah, no, it should be the rebels getting closer, but Sir Hilton felt that as long as a volley was fired, these mobs could be defeated. However, more than 200 meters away, these rebels shot at them, and then the British army was knocked down by a large row.

"Damn it! They all use rifled guns!"

It wasn't that Major Hilton didn't know about rifled guns—he wasn't closed to this point either, he just didn't expect that the rebels had so many rifled guns. But this is very natural, people buy their own guns to protect their own lives, of course they can buy whatever guns they want, unlike them, they use whatever is eliminated.

At a distance of more than two hundred meters, the whole team must push up to one hundred and fifty meters, and then shoot down the rebels with a salvo? It's good to think about it this way, but considering the distance and considering that the number of rebels is much larger than them, doing so will only wipe out the entire army.

So Major Hilton quickly made a decision: "Retreat! Withdraw to the city! The cavalry is responsible for breaking the rear!"

So the British army began to retreat, and the militiamen chased them all the way. Fortunately, the British army came out not far away, but even so, after escaping back, Major Hilton counted the number of people and found that only one battalion he had taken out was left. Half of them are gone.

But the next ones to suffer are the militiamen. After winning this victory easily, the militiamen were full of self-confidence. They said that the British were actually vulnerable.

"Even the Zulus are better than them!" said one militiaman.

And this view has also been endorsed by more militiamen, and everyone has said that the British are not as good as the Zulus.

"If we knew this, we should have done them!"

As for Babel, although he is their leader, in fact he can't control the mob at all. After all, they are not organized at all.

As for Treville, he naturally fulfilled his duty of reminding everyone. He told everyone that attacking a fort and fighting in the field were two different things. Although the British cannons on the fort were older, they were not vegetarian. So he suggested that everyone should not attack the city by force, as long as the British dare not go out.

To say that Treville's eloquence was good, he really convinced some of them. So everyone has different opinions, and in the end, we can only adopt a democratic way to solve military problems-one person, one vote, and vote to solve it.

Crowds are a very strange thing. Many times, when faced with the same problem, the crowd will always be much more radical than the individual. If you discuss this issue with someone alone, he may seem very rational, and may even follow the wishes of his heart, but once he is in a group, his opinion will change immediately, and the more people who originally followed his heart , it tends to become more radical at this time. It's like some girls are always very reasonable when they are with other people, but when they are with their boyfriends, they are a different person immediately.

So it is no surprise that everyone made the decision to attack Cape Town immediately in this very democratic way.

Facts have proved that the consequences of not listening to professional advice are very serious. Although the British did not have Joseph's defense, the bastion and enough cannons were still impossible for those militias without cannons to deal with.

It should be said that the Dutch militia also made some preparations. They elected Babel as the commander-in-chief, and then organized 14 companies according to the region, each with more than 100 people. They also made some tactical preparations. For example, they noticed that the British army lacked long-range rifled guns, so they specially arranged cover echelons and assault echelons. The soldiers in the cover echelon used long-range rifled guns to suppress the British army, while the assault echelon took the opportunity to rush up.

Many times, the guys who talk about war on paper always think about the situation very well, but when they actually arrive on the battlefield, they are shocked to find that the situation is different from what they imagined. Those Dutch militiamen encountered such a problem.

First of all, their cover echelon cannot suppress the British very effectively. Because the British were protected by the city wall, they usually huddled behind the wall, only showing their heads and shoulders when shooting. This target is too small. At a safe enough distance—iron cannons can be hit with solid shells, but the efficiency is not high, and shotgun shells are not enough to hit such a small target. It is difficult to accurately hit such a small target. , The shells fired by the dozens of cannons on the fortress are really terrible.

Therefore, the cover echelon could hardly suppress the British army in the fortress, and the assault echelon was naturally easily caught in the crossfire of the fortress. They were the assault echelon, and had to rush forward, so naturally they came within range of the British and the shot from their muskets and artillery. And the performance of the British army in defense is much better than they are in field battles, because this is the old-fashioned offense and defense carried out according to their vision, and the opponent does not even have cannons.

So the British held their breath and kept the militiamen in front of the fort before firing violently at them. The militiamen of the assault echelon were immediately caught in the crossfire of the bastion from several directions. Dozens of cannons were spewing shotgun shells together, coupled with the close-range shooting of musket guns, almost instantly, more than half of the militiamen in the assault echelon were knocked down, and some of the rest were also injured, and they fell on their own. In the pool of blood, there was a loud wail.

But at this time, the British stopped shooting.

"Let's go up and rescue him!" A young man said.

"No, it's a trap there. The British didn't shoot them, they just hoped that we would save them." Philip Treville said coldly.

The young man froze for a moment, and then said: "If, I mean, if it was your French army, in such a situation, would you go to rescue them?"

"Our French army? We don't fight like this at all. But we certainly don't give up our brothers," Treville replied.

"So what do you suggest now?" Babel also asked.

"The best thing to do is to retreat now." Treville said, "If it doesn't work, we can only let the covering echelons continue to approach and enter the range of the shotgun shells of the opponent's cannon. This will cause a lot of casualties, but only in this way Only then can the wounded be rescued. As for the siege, Commander, I once again suggest that you abandon this plan, at least suspend the implementation of this plan, and revise the combat plan according to today's situation. Of course, it is best to give up this plan directly. "

So the people in the covering echelon began to press forward. Of course, they adopted a looser formation to reduce the damage caused by artillery shells. Even so, their losses were heavy because of the sheer number of cannon on the fort.

Under their cover, the assault echelon launched an attack again. Of course, their purpose was not to take down the fort, but to rescue the injured.

In the end they did save some of the wounded, but for this they killed several times as many people as they saved.

In these two rounds of attacks alone, the militiamen suffered more than 200 casualties, but the British defense was still strong. Apart from the consumption of some ammunition, the British had almost no losses.

After this attack, the militia stopped their attack. Immediately afterwards, in the democratic discussion and voting, everyone expressed their willingness to follow the voice of the soul and not to storm Cape Town for the time being, but to siege Cape Town for a long time.

Of course, some people also hope that France can give them more help, for example, sell them some cannons. Others simply proposed that the French army could come here to help them fight.

"Mr. Treville, you mentioned last time that it is almost inevitable for France to declare war on Britain. If so, can you contact the country and send a French army to guide and support us in the battle?" Even Barbados Bell also made such a request.