Chapter 452: The rout is just a new beginning
Heine hurriedly took the telescope handed by the attendant, and then saw a dense crowd of soldiers gathered in front of the Prussian defense line. The line was so long that it could not be seen to the end.
"Quick! Warning!" He shouted immediately, "The Prussians are about to attack!"
Fortunately, although the Lignitz front line has always been calm, it is still a state of war between the two countries, so the soldiers still maintain a state of combat readiness on a daily basis.
Sharp whistles and the beating of drums soon sounded everywhere.
The Austrian soldiers complained and lined up near the defense line, and then heard intensive artillery fire from the opposite side.
Accompanied by the scream of artillery shells, nearly 20 artillery shells landed near the Austrian artillery position, stirring up a lot of dust.
The Austrian artillery also hurriedly fired back, but after only firing about ten shots, they were shocked to find that the ammunition was almost low.
The Prussians began to take risks and push their artillery forward. After discovering that the counterattack from the opposite side was very weak, they suddenly became bolder. Several 24-pound fortress cannons were dragged to the front of the formation by more than a dozen horses.
The Duke of Brunswick had originally mobilized all the cannons in the surrounding area. The number was nearly twice as many as the cannons of the defenders in front of him. With sufficient ammunition, the Austrian artillery was soon unable to raise its head.
Marshal Lacy also got the news and rushed to Davydov's defense area as quickly as possible. It was already 3pm.
What he saw was that there were only four cannons left on his defense line, but the rate of fire was so low that he wanted to curse.
The Prussian infantry on the opposite side has been fully deployed, covering the entire Davydov defense area. There are about 14,000 people in the first infantry line alone!
At the same time, there are still a large number of skirmishers who have taken advantage of the terrain cover to reach a place less than 400 steps away from their own defense line.
There is only a rather thin infantry line on his side, and it seems that there are only 10,000 people at most. There were many troops on both sides who had just received the news, but in the state of rapid march, they would not be able to join the battle for a while.
Marshal Lacy was sweating from behind. It was indeed risky to transfer Davydov and Conrad's legions by himself, but he didn't expect that Ferdinand would launch a targeted attack so quickly. Ferdinand was the Duke of Brunswick's name.
In fact, Lacy did not fail to supplement the defensive force here, but he only had less than 100,000 troops left in his hands, and the entire defense line had to be taken care of, so only more than 15,000 people were responsible for this section.
The roar of the Prussian cannon gradually weakened, followed by bursts of melodious trumpets.
Lacy quickly looked through his telescope and saw that Prussian skirmishers had begun to harass his side of the line. This means that the enemy will soon launch a general attack, and a large number of infantry will press forward.
"Damn it!" He cursed in a low voice, "If it weren't for that French boy, how could there be such a big hole in my defense!"
At this time, he had completely forgotten that he came to Silesia to defeat the Prussians and regain his homeland, not to establish any defense line.
If they want to defend, Austria can completely retreat to the Bohemian region and rely on the Sudeten Mountains to defend, getting twice the result with half the effort.
But it was useless to complain at this time. Marshal Lacy had no choice but to send a herald to desperately urge the reinforcements to speed up. Then, regardless of the obstruction of his subordinates, he personally came to the front line and ran back and forth to boost morale.
Not long after, a 12-pound artillery shell passed by his side, creating a huge gap in the infantry line. It almost rolled to the second line of the line before it was blocked by a dirt bag.
The attendants looked at the flesh and blood mixed with the soil on the ground, and hurriedly carried the marshal to the back.
Immediately, the Prussian army, with the four most elite grenadier regiments as the core, slowly pressed towards the Austrian position with a narrow infantry line.
Marshal Lacy's encouragement played a certain role. With the cooperation of skirmishers, the Austrian soldiers actually withstood the approaching volley of grenadiers on the opposite side. Then, under the order of the officer, they fired in unison at a distance of 40 steps. Shoot back.
In the era of infantry line battles, as long as the soldiers could stand, the battle would be fought. The two sides soon fell into a shooting situation - tens of thousands of soldiers lined up in a tight formation on a front more than 3 kilometers long, standing upright, loading and shooting mechanically.
Kill the soldiers on the opposite side or be knocked down by the bullets from the opposite side.
This is what people often call "queuing to shoot".
After the two sides fired seven or eight rounds at each other, the numerically superior Prussian army could no longer hold on, and some began to shrink back.
At this time, the Prussian army was no longer the tiger and wolf army under Frederick the Great. In terms of the quality of individual soldiers, it was even slightly worse than Austria.
The first group of Prussian infantry retreated one after another, and excited cheers suddenly erupted from the Austrian position.
However, Marshal Lacy did not dare to let his soldiers pursue him because he knew that the Prussians had a huge military advantage.
Sure enough, the Duke of Brunswick quickly ordered the second infantry line to attack, without giving the Austrians a chance to breathe.
Marshal Lacy, on his side, let several skirmisher battalions harass the Prussian left wing at all costs. With the help of the only three remaining cannons, he barely managed to hold on to the defense line.
The two sides remained in a stalemate until dark, and each retreated to the camp.
However, after more than half a day of fighting, Austria had already suffered heavy casualties, especially the elite skirmishers, which were extremely depleted.
After inspecting the situation of the wounded soldiers, Lacy had already begun to make arrangements to deploy a second line of defense in the west.
Early the next morning, the Duke of Brunswick launched an unceremonious attack.
Under repeated attacks by more than 50,000 Prussian troops, the Austrian army persisted until about two o'clock in the afternoon. Finally, a group of Prussian hussars found a gap and cut into the left flank of their infantry line.
As the cavalry continued to harass the flanks, the Austrian defense line collapsed.
The Duke of Brunswick very decisively ordered the cavalry to squeeze the Austrian army inward from both sides. At the same time, he sent a large number of infantry to set up defense lines on the north and south sides to block the Austrian reinforcements.
Marshal Lacy desperately directed the soldiers to retreat, but one day later they were still blocked by the Prussian cavalry in a depression 15 kilometers away from the front line.
Fortunately, he himself slipped out of the encirclement before the enemy troops closed in. But when he looked at the huge gap in his own defense line on the map, he felt a chill in his heart.
At the moment, the best situation is to hold off the Prussians, wait for their troops to withdraw from Ratibor, and then try to stabilize the front.
However, after this disastrous defeat, it has become almost impossible to regain Silesia.
As for the more than 10,000 soldiers who were surrounded, he had no hope.
However, just as he was sitting on his horse and looking at the surrounded soldiers through his binoculars, his eyes suddenly widened——
In a very distant place, a cavalry team was rushing towards the Prussian flank at an extremely fast speed, and those people seemed to be wearing white military uniforms.
(End of chapter)