Fox of France

Early the next morning, the sun had just risen, and General Dracotelli's troops had already finished their breakfast and started their battle formation. As for Napoleon, naturally he already knew the enemy's actions, and carefully observed the enemy's formation with a telescope from the commanding heights.

This commanding height is a castle outside the city of Le Mans. The castle built on the small high ground is still a relic of the Hundred Years War. Perhaps many years ago, French knights fought against British longbowmen here. Now the castle has long been abandoned, and the straight walls are covered with various green vines. But after all, this is still a fortress built of rocks, and it has not yet become a crumbling dangerous house. Because of the good view here, Napoleon put his headquarters here.

"It seems that the rebels are preparing to attack today." Napoleon said to himself as he handed the binoculars to the orderly next to him.

Then he looked towards the front line again, and said to himself: "Today should be the time for our general offensive."

At this time, a flash of light could be seen on the side of the rebel army from a distance - this is the rebel army firing towards Le Mans.

The artillery of this era mainly uses solid shells, and the threat of shelling is still far from that of later generations. The shelling of the rebels was mainly aimed at the temporary defensive earth walls outside Le Mans City. And some obstacles such as rejecting horses are set up. If you can't cause some damage to these earthen walls and rejecting horses, then the soldiers will suffer a lot when they come forward to attack.

The shelling lasted for quite a long time, and the rebels made such artillery preparations under the difficult logistical supply conditions, which shows that they really wanted to complete their efforts in one battle.

At about eight o'clock, the horses and earthen walls on the battlefield had been destroyed a lot, so the rebel soldiers began to press up.

One of the major characteristics of the French army after the revolution in terms of tactics is the use of a large number of skirmishers. This is mainly caused by two factors. One is that the post-revolutionary French army had been poorly trained, so that they were poorly equipped to perform complex formation changes in combat. Another reason is that their morale is generally quite high.

The first factor made them poorly queued, so they simply reduced the queue. The second reason is to ensure that even if they don't have a queue, the soldiers will not run to where they don't know when they are fighting like in some countries. (It’s you, Austria! Although Archduke Karl recognized the various advantages of skirmishers early on, Austrian skirmishers are always poorly used. One of the reasons is that these Austrian soldiers, once dispersed It really fell apart.)

When the morale of the Vendée rebels was high, they also mainly relied on skirmishers to fight. But the attack a few days ago showed one thing, that is, the Vendée rebels no longer have such morale. Once they dispersed, they immediately disappeared from the battlefield. In short, until it's time to eat, you don't want to see them again.

Therefore, in this general offensive, General Dracotelli had to abandon skirmishing tactics and advance in formation instead—at least, the soldiers were all in formation, and whoever dared to run could enforce battlefield discipline on the spot.

However, due to insufficient training, the formation of the rebels was very irregular. They lined up in a long horizontal line, looking from a distance, but it was not a straight line, but a wavy line. Many times, this wavy line will be disconnected from time to time because some people walk fast and some people walk slowly.

The horizontal team actually evolved from the phalanx, but it changed from a square to a rectangle, and the length of the rectangle gradually increased, and the width gradually decreased, becoming the current horizontal team. This change, in many cases, is also to reduce the damage caused by artillery to the army formation, and to increase the firepower output during salvo. However, the ranks of the rebels now have a tendency to return to ancient times, and their ranks have actually reached six rows in thickness.

This is actually a last resort, because the smaller the thickness of the horizontal line, the longer the formation and the more difficult it is to control the formation. Moreover, the relatively thick formation can also prevent the demoralized soldiers caught in the middle from easily escaping on the battlefield or falling down and pretending to be dead. (There are too many people behind, if you fall down, you will be trampled to death)

But as a price, when such a formation is hit by artillery, the casualties will be even greater.

Sure enough, when they approached the first earthen wall of the defenders and were more than 300 meters away, they began to be bombarded. Unlike the situation a few days ago, this time, the defenders' artillery fire was not only fierce but also had a high hit rate. The artillery barracks of the defenders were further back, seven or eight hundred steps away from them, but this round of salvo successfully drove dozens of shells into the ranks of the rebels.

Among these shells, except for a limited few, which fell directly into the ground, the others all formed ricochets, directly piercing the six-story formation.

Just one round of shelling caused hundreds of casualties to the rebels. Such bombardment accuracy has never appeared in previous battles.

But in fact, this is not luck favoring Napoleon, because a few days ago, the artillerymen who manipulated the cannons and fired at the rebels were mainly the artillerymen of the National Guard. In order to avoid premature exposure of their strength, Napoleon prohibited his artillerymen from joining the battle.

Of course, even the more well-trained artillery under Napoleon, under normal circumstances, it is actually difficult to shoot such a precise salvo. But it's different here, because this is also a preset battlefield. In the battlefield, all positions within the range of the cannon have been accurately mapped. The guns were tested at these positions. So even the first round of shelling can achieve such a high hit rate.

The rebels were overwhelmed by this round of shelling. Some of them wanted to rectify their formation, some wanted to rush forward, and some wanted to turn around and run, and they suddenly became a mess.

In such chaos, the second round of shelling accurately sent dozens of shells into the ranks of the rebels. Now, the ranks of the rebels were completely in disarray, they scattered in all directions, and most of them turned around and ran back. The officers in charge of controlling the queue could no longer control them, and could only be dragged back by them.

"It's time." Napoleon had already left the headquarters at this time and came to the front line. At the side of the artillery barracks, he watched the rebels fleeing in disorder, then turned around, and said to the orderly next to him: "Go and inform Commander Augereau, let him attack immediately!"

Then Napoleon got on his horse, took a few guards, and quickly rushed to the team of the National Guard next to him. Fouche was there awaiting his orders.

"Commander Fouché," said Napoleon, "and now, please place the National Guard under my command."

"You are the chief military officer, and you can give orders at any time," Fouche said.

"Very well," said Napoleon.

Then he rode on his horse and shouted to the National Guards: "You know what happened in Angers. Now, the beasts that destroyed Angers are in front of you. You tell me that they came here to What are you doing? Are they here for an outing? No, they want to rob us of the fruits of our labor, and want to take away our wives and children from our arms! Can we let them succeed?"

"No! Can't!"

"Let them die!"

"Kill them all!"

The soldiers shouted one after another.

Napoleon went on to shout: "Soldiers, warriors! Because of our heroic resistance these days, now they want to escape. We can let them flee back to their lairs like this, heal their wounds, and find a Is there an opportunity to threaten our wives and children again?"

"cannot!"

"cannot!"

"Yes, we can't let them escape like this!" Napoleon shouted, drawing out his saber, "We must not let them go, and let them have the opportunity to harm our relatives in the future. So, soldiers, you are willing to follow me, Are you going to wipe out those poisonous snakes and beasts?"

"willing!"

"willing!"

The shouts of the soldiers became one.

Napoleon looked at the soldiers with satisfaction, and then imitated Du Maurier's way (he had practiced this action for a long time in private) pulling the rein with his hand, causing the horse to lift its two front legs, and the man stood up, and then Shouted: "Soldiers, follow me, go forward!"

General Dracotelli was stunned by the previous defeat, but he soon realized that something was wrong. The rout ran towards the camp in a panic, and the enemy took advantage of this opportunity to chase and kill them. Moreover, the number of enemy troops far exceeded his expectations. He knew that the current situation was very critical. If he could not stop the chaos and the enemy took the opportunity to rush into the barracks, then his army would completely collapse.

"Pack up the gangplank, shoot at the rout, and drive them aside!" General Dracotelli shouted.

The soldiers panickedly put away the gangplank on the ditch, hid behind the parapet, and raised their guns towards the comrades who had retreated to the edge of the ditch and were yelling at them frantically, asking them to get on the gangplank and open the door to let them in. . Some people jumped directly into the ditch and came towards this side, and then more people jumped into the ditch, trying to climb into the barracks again.

"Shoot! Shoot!" General Delacortri shouted.

"Bang! Bang!..." The gunshots rang out immediately, and the gray-blue gunpowder smoke rose, and soon everyone's eyes were blurred.

"Bang! Bang!..." The rebels outside the wall also shot into the barracks, and many people screamed and fell to the ground.

Those who were comrades-in-arms a while ago were shooting at each other indiscriminately in this chaotic gunpowder. After a while, the gunfire finally gradually subsided.

"Those guys outside have run away?" General Dracotri thought this way, and at the same time opened his eyes wide, trying to see through the thick gunpowder smoke and see what was behind the gunpowder smoke. However, there was no wind on the battlefield, so the thick gunpowder smoke had not yet dissipated. But he suddenly felt that the ground seemed to start to vibrate, and then the rapid sound of horseshoes reached his ears.

"It's cavalry..." General Dracotri shouted, "Get ready..."

At this time, a steed rushed out of the gunpowder smoke, jumped over the ditch with one leap, and jumped over the parapet with another leap. Army soldiers fell to the ground...