Fox of France

Although Joseph did not provide any advice to Di Mourier, Di Mourier himself is a very smart person. He soon discovered that his goal is actually similar to that of the Duke of Brunswick on the opposite side. place. So he began secretly discussing with the Duke of Brunswick about the retreat of the Prussian-Austrian coalition forces without leaving words.

After that, the Duke of Brunswick began to retreat slowly, and Di Mourier also pretended to follow. They almost escorted them back through Verdun, and followed them to recover Veron.

The recovery of Verdun is naturally another great achievement. For this reason, Dumouriez has also been highly praised by the parliament and the government. For a while, his reputation almost caught up with Lafayette back then.

The Duke of Brunswick withdrew quickly to Koblenz with the Prussian army. It is said that the young Duke Karl proposed to the Duke of Brunswick that the withdrawal of the army in this direction would give the French complete freedom of action in Belgium, but the Duke of Brunswick did not take his advice. Because if Duke Karl's suggestion is followed, although the Austrian army in Belgium can be given more help, the price is that the Prussian army will have to bear more risks. After all, the old marshal was the marshal of Prussia, and his first consideration was the interests of Prussia.

After the Duke of Brunswick's army retreated, Dumouriez let the whole army rest for two days, and then prepared to join the Belgian battlefield. Everyone seized the time to take a good rest.

Napoleon was a restless person. He spent half a day studying by the map, and then came to Joseph to discuss his views. But when he entered Joseph's temporary residence, he saw Joseph's face was gloomy, as if he had encountered something unhappy.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" asked Napoleon. At the same time, he noticed a letter on Joseph's desk, and asked again, "Could it be that Lucien, the troublemaker, caused something?"

Joseph gave Napoleon a sideways look, and thought: "Isn't it your fault that Lucien became a troublemaker? You taught him every day, 'Don't be cowardly, just do it'. Isn't it your fault that he is like this?"

"Let me tell you, Joseph, Lucien was taught by you to be a troublemaker. You know he is naughty, and you have taught him a lot of skills. It's no wonder he doesn't cause trouble..." Napoleon didn't care whether Joseph was What do you think, just let the villain file a complaint first, and use a beautiful pre-emptive defensive attack to put the cauldron on Joseph's head.

"Lucien is fine." Joseph shook his head, "Since Mr. Carnot promised me, he will take good care of Lucien, so he must be good."

"That's right, it's really not enough to see that silly boy Lucien playing tricks with Mr. Carnot." Napoleon also admired Carnot's ability and character.

"Then why are you unhappy?" Napoleon asked again.

"That guy Clavier took advantage of the Austrian occupation of Verdun to play his trick again and made a lot of money, but we are not in Paris, and Mr. Carnot is too busy to Time to get in the car..."

Napoleon knew that Joseph and Carnot rode for free in Clavierre's stagecoach and made a fortune along the way. I also know how much I can earn when I get on the car. So he also lowered his face and said: "This heartless guy, before we got in the car,... one day, I'm going to hang his head on the lamppost!"

...

After two days of rest, Dimouriez led the army and began to turn towards Belgium.

Because of the high morale, the French army marched very fast. In late October, the main force of the French army entered Belgium. At the beginning of November, the French army reached the vicinity of the Remap heights, Austria's main defense in Belgium. As long as this highland is taken, the whole of Belgium will definitely be in the pocket of the French army.

At this time, the Austrian army guarding the highlands had about 25,000 people and more than 40 artillery pieces of various types. Now, Dimouriez has deducted the troops used in other directions, and the troops that can be directly used to attack the Purema Heights, the total number is about 45,000. The number of cannons is more than double that of the Austrian army.

But this does not mean that they will definitely be able to capture the Purema Heights. Because in the words of Josephus, "in most cases, defense is a more powerful way of fighting than offense".

The French army, especially the French army based on the Volunteer Army, has high morale, but it is indeed not well-trained. It is not an exaggeration to say that military skills are horrible. With such an army, it is not a big problem to use it for defense, but it is quite troublesome to use it for offense. If nothing else, they had trouble even keeping the queue going. If they proceeded according to the conventional method, they would need to stop to regroup every time they took more than 20 or 30 steps forward. This approach means that the army moves slower. If it is not unacceptable in the east with limited artillery and musket firepower, but here, it means that they have to withstand more artillery and rifle salvos. and the resulting greater casualties.

On their way to Belgium, Joseph and Napoleon proposed a new method of warfare, the column attack.

The so-called column attack method means that the army approaches the enemy in a multi-line column instead of a large horizontal line.

The column runs one after the other. From the perspective of the queue, it is much easier to maintain the column than to maintain the horizontal line. Even poorly trained volunteers can move quickly in columns. Moreover, when facing enemy fire, the area of ​​the column directly exposed to enemy fire is much smaller than that of the horizontal line, at least when it is shot by guns, the loss suffered will be much smaller. Of course, if hit head-on by a solid shell, the possibility of the entire column being hit by a single shell is not out of the question. However, the accuracy of the artillery of this era, to achieve such an effect, largely depends on luck.

In addition, the column has another weakness, which is that it requires a relatively high morale to use this tactic. Because in the horizontal line, although the chances of surviving the battle are lower for the soldiers walking in the first row than those in the last few rows, it is not without the chance of surviving. But in the column, the soldiers rushing to the front will definitely be aimed and shot by so many guns in front, and there is almost no possibility of surviving. And the fighter at the front leads the whole team, and his role is quite important. If he can't be brave and resolute, the whole attack may be in chaos.

But the vanguard is almost certain to die. It is not easy to be brave and resolute when you know you will die. But for the French today, this is not a big problem. First, the morale of the Volunteer Army is already high; second, those members of the Volunteer Army lack a real understanding of the dangers of being a vanguard because of their ignorance of offensive operations. And none of Joseph, Napoleon, or Dumouriez would tell them. Instead, they will only emphasize the expectations of their motherland and the glory of being the vanguard.

Of course, it is not acceptable to directly let the soldiers line up in a column and hit them head-on. This kind of one-shot attack must be launched at the right time.

"We must strike this decisive blow when the enemy army is relatively exhausted." Dimouriez prepared a commando of 4,000 people, and then said to Joseph like this.

Early the next morning, the French army launched round after round of attacks on the Austrian army on the high ground. However, relying on the advantages of the terrain and the well-arranged artillery, by around two o'clock in the afternoon, they repelled five or six attacks of the French in a row.

"Joseph, have you counted the number and frequency of firing of each gun on the enemy's emplacement?" Dumouriez sat on a big rock, looking at the Austrian position in the distance, and asked Joseph.

"After counting, if they didn't hide some of the cannons, they should have forty-five cannons. Up to now, each cannon has been fired many times, the least one has been fired twenty times, the most One, which has been fired forty-three times. All the guns are now firing at a reduced rate."

"After firing so many times, their barrels should be boiling hot. It's almost time!" Dumouriez stood up, and his guards led the horses to him.

Dimouriez jumped on his horse and ran towards the commando. Joseph also quickly jumped on the horse, followed behind, and casually gave Napoleon a wink, telling him to come quickly.

Dumouriez rode to the front of the commando and delivered a pre-battle speech to the commandos:

"Children of the fatherland, children of France, before you is the army of the most despicable feudal princes in Europe, who are afraid that the wind of liberty in France will blow into their country, and they are afraid that their people will say: 'Why Can't we be free and equal like the French?' And these wretched fellows banded together, and they said to each other: 'Come on, let's come together, let's destroy France, destroy their revolution, and make them slaves again, Let slavery be in this world for eternity!' My children, they want to overwhelm us, destroy us, trample us underfoot, take from us the fruits of our labor, our wives and children ! Can we agree?"

"cannot!"

"cannot!"

"Down with the feudal princes and destroy all tyrants!"

First, To'er, who was arranged among the soldiers, shouted, and then all the soldiers also shouted.

Dumouriez waited for the shouts to subside a little, and then called out: "Then, children, children of France! For France I command you, France commands you, for the liberty of all Frenchmen, for the freedom of all Wife and sons and daughters of the French, follow me, follow this old French soldier who is before you now..."

After finishing speaking, he yanked the reins with his left hand, and the horseman stood up. Dimouriez clamped the horse's belly with his legs, drew out the saber with his right hand, and slammed forward: "Go forward! Go forward!"