Chapter 758 Victory in the first battle (begging for double monthly tickets!)
The extremely unfair exchange of fire lasted for 6 rounds - to be precise, the French army fired 6 rounds, while the other side only fired 4 rounds.
Coupled with the fierce bombardment of the French artillery, a large number of gaps soon appeared in the Austrian line array.
I don't know who was the first to turn around and run away, immediately attracting the surrounding Austrian soldiers to follow him. In just a few minutes, the rout spread to the entire infantry line.
The Prince of Coburg hurriedly ordered the second infantry line behind him to move forward, but what he did not expect was that the French army's horizontal line immediately gathered into more than ten columns, passed between the fleeing Austrian soldiers, and rushed directly to the rear line. The front of the Austrian line was arrayed.
The Austrian soldiers behind were completely unprepared until the French column had been deployed, and many of them were still executing the previous order - to move forward and take over the defense line of the defeated soldiers. More soldiers stopped and prepared to fight back.
So, at this time, a crooked infantry line appeared in front of the French army.
There was no suspense in the battle.
The neat lines of the Austrian infantry could not withstand the fierce attack of the French Royal Legion, let alone the chaotic formation.
In less than 20 minutes, the infantry line just organized by the Prince of Coburg collapsed again.
The Prince of Coburg originally wanted to hold out until the elite troops led by Gruber withdrew - he gave Gruber a retreat order as soon as he discovered the French army - but he did not expect that the French army would be so fierce. , defeated him in an hour and a half.
More than a dozen guards lifted the Prince of Coburg onto his horse without any explanation, covering his retreat towards Brussels.
However, as soon as they ran two or three kilometers, they saw chaos ahead. Davidovich's Dutch Army was probably also attacked.
Prince Coburg suddenly felt his eyes darken.
The French did not know where to get so many troops, and now Brussels may be in danger.
He hurriedly ordered to turn southeast and ran towards Leuven.
He had no idea that there were actually only 4 cavalry companies, or more than 450 people, attacking the Dutch Army - this was the entire cavalry force that Joseph brought to the Southern Netherlands.
When the Prince of Coburg's main force was attacked, he immediately ordered the Dutch to move closer to him. The quality of the Dutch army was worse than that of the Austrian army. After Davidovich urged to speed up the march, it quickly fell into more than a dozen pieces.
When the French cavalry appeared, the Dutch immediately fell into panic, did not organize a defense at all, and began to flee in all directions.
The fleeing soldiers spread the news that "the French had launched a general offensive" to more people.
In this way, Davidovich's vanguard of nearly 10,000 soldiers was driven around by four cavalry companies.
This also gave the Prince of Coburg wrong information, making him mistakenly believe that the Dutch army following behind had also encountered a large number of French troops, so he decided to flee to Leuven.
On the other side, Lefebvre looked at the Austrian soldiers running around like headless flies and finally breathed a sigh of relief. At the same time, he admired the decision of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.
If he follows the plan he proposed to defend Wavre, even if it goes very well, he should be fighting with the Austrian army that has completed its assembly now.
He was confident that he could command 20,000 French troops to defeat the more than 40,000 Austro-Dutch Allied Forces. However, if there was a positional battle, as long as the Prince of Coburg did not make mistakes, the battle would have to last at least a week or even longer.
But now, including the march, he defeated the Austro-Dutch Allied Forces in just half a day.
He immediately said to the herald: "Let Renault's regiment stay to pursue and defeat the enemy. The others will gather immediately and return to Wavre."
"Yes, General!" Lefebvre knew that there were currently less than 2,000 French troops in Wavre, and they were all exhausted soldiers, as well as 4,000 Walloon policemen.
The leading troops of the Prince of Coburg may not return to support here, but continue to take risks and attack Wavre.
So at the moment, Lefebvre's safest approach is to immediately lead his main force back to support Wavre. Although this may allow many Austrian troops to escape, at least it can block the Austrian army attacking Wavre. and ensure Wavre's safety.
When Lefebvre's main force walked less than 4 kilometers south, the reconnaissance cavalry suddenly reported to him that nearly 10,000 Austrian troops were approaching from the front...
Five hours later, Lefebvre finally defeated the 9,000 Austrian troops led by Gruber with great difficulty.
The reason why the battle lasted so long was that the Austrian army had a large number of cavalry, but Lefebvre had no cavalry.
Once Gruber was at a disadvantage, he would use his cavalry to surround and harass him, causing Lefebvre a great headache.
It was not until the four cavalry companies attacking the Dutch Army arrived for reinforcements that the battle finally ended.
This is also due to Gruber's thousand Dutch cavalry - if they had not suddenly fled and given up the flank of the Austrian cavalry, the battle would probably have continued until tomorrow.
Wavre.
6◇9◇Book◇Bar
In a room in the administrative building of the Chamber of Commerce, Joseph looked through the military report sent by the Rhine Front and raised his hand to signal to Emang: "Please make me a cup of tea, thank you."
Kesoud and Eman looked at each other, then looked out the window anxiously, and bowed to Joseph: "Your Highness, maybe you should go to Namur or Mons first, it will be safer there."
No wonder he was so anxious. At this time, there were only 300 crown prince guards in Wavre and 2,000 soldiers who were too tired to fight due to the rush.
If Lefebvre fails to defeat the main force of the Prince of Coburg, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince will be in a very dangerous situation when the Austrian army moves south.
Joseph took the teacup from Eman's hand and smiled: "I have absolute confidence in my army."
It’s not like he had to play with the heartbeat.
For one thing, he knew that the level of the Austro-Dutch Allied Forces, especially the 20,000 Dutch troops, might not be able to defeat the 3,000 new French troops. He had made so many arrangements to confuse the Prince of Coburg. When Lefebvre launched a surprise attack, victory was basically a sure thing.
Secondly, he also scattered a lot of reconnaissance cavalry around Wavre. If the Austrian army really approached Wavre, he would have time to leave immediately. Anyway, there were no enemy troops in the southwest.
Just when Kesoud wanted to persuade him again, an officer excitedly pushed in the door and saluted Joseph: "Your Highness, General Lefebvre has won the victory.
"The general defeated the Austrian army south of the town of Uccle, and Josias led about 5,000 defeated troops to flee to Leuven.
"Vidovich's Dutch Legion fled back to Brussels.
"General Lefebvre also defeated the Gruber Army on his way back to Wavre. He killed and captured more than 4,000 people in total..."
Joseph looked at the clock with some surprise. It was just half past five.
He originally thought that the battle would last at least until the day after tomorrow, but he didn't expect to win so quickly!
(End of chapter)