Fox of France

After forcing the surrender of the army of Brunswick, Napoleon rushed with his army to the next target, the Austrian army led by Archduke Karl who was now stationed in Longwy.

In this war, Austria's first goal has always been Italy. Therefore, the main forces of Austria were also thrown into the Italian battlefield. Even after the Russian-Prussian coalition was frustrated in Italy, the Russians betrayed the alliance and withdrew from the war, the Austrians still placed their main strength in Italy. Especially after Napoleon led the main force of the Italian Legion back to France and went north to fight against the British, the Austrians immediately devoted most of their energy to Italy.

Although the Russians have left, most of the French have also left, right? The rest are some Italian servants or something. It should be easy to fight, right? Although the Austrians did not take advantage of the battle with the army of the Northern Italian Republic before. But, the Austrians believed, it was because the Italians were the French in disguise.

Since then, the performance of the Italian army has made the Austrians more and more convinced that what they encountered before was indeed a Frenchman wearing Italian clothes.

Because France has used almost all of its military production capacity to support the northern battlefield. On the Italian battlefield, the northern Italian army can almost only rely on inventory support. However, Joseph's style of play is good for everything, but the material consumption is too large. It is said that when Napoleon commented on ancient and modern military strategists who were out of law in boredom, someone asked how to evaluate his brother Joseph. Napoleon said: "How can Joseph fight? He only fights money!"

So the Italians fought a few beautiful battles at the beginning, but then, as the stockpile became increasingly depleted, the Italians' combat effectiveness began to plummet. It soon fell to the point where it was not much different from the Austrians, and gradually began to be overwhelmed by the Austrians with more sufficient supplies.

So after seeing the hope of regaining North Italy, the Austrians will naturally invest more in North Italy. Therefore, His Majesty the Emperor wrote back to Archduke Karl, and all letters requesting additional supplies were left unsent, and then the weapons and personnel supplies were sent to Italy. If it hadn't been for the consideration that the change of coach would be a humiliation to Archduke John, His Majesty the Emperor would almost have wanted to intercept Archduke Karl and transfer it to Italy.

As a result, the army in the hands of Grand Duke Karl was not elite and lacked supplies, so the combat effectiveness was naturally a pit. Grand Duke Karl himself knew the situation of the army, so in the previous battles, he did not go to places where he had to carry the line desperately. He just led the army to follow the British and Prussians to grab some territory and take advantage of it.

When the British-Prussian coalition forces were blocked under the city of Verdun, they also made a request to Archduke Karl for reinforcements. However, Archduke Karl was keenly aware of the ominous atmosphere in the letter from the Marshal of Brunswick, so he found a lot of reasons to delay it, and then when Napoleon had sent a letter of persuasion to the Marshal of Brunswick At that time, Grand Duke Karl arrived in Longwy.

Although the movement of Grand Duke Karl's large troops was slow, his scouting cavalry was far away, and he even sent someone to watch in Verdun. So not long after Napoleon wiped out the main force of the Anglo-Prussian coalition forces in Verdun, Archduke Karl learned the news.

Now Archduke Karl understands that after the defeat of Marshal Brunswick's coalition forces, the army in his hands must have become a thorn in Napoleon's side. Because if his army is not destroyed, no matter whether Napoleon plans to go to Hanover or Austria next step, his own army is just in a position that can threaten his flank.

Archduke Karl is now faced with a choice, which is to retreat immediately, from Longwy, all the way to Kaiserslautern, to make way for Napoleon to Hanover and Berlin, and to have a "dead wandering dervish and immortal parish priest" . Or retreat to Luxembourg, taking advantage of Luxembourg's easy-to-defend and difficult-to-attack terrain to delay Napoleon and win reactions from all parties in the allied countries, or at least time for peace negotiations.

"After the Battle of Verdun, the French have already won this war. The only suspense now is how this war will end. If the French successfully take Hanover and even defeat Prussia, then Austria will really It is very dangerous. At that time, even if we negotiate peace with the French, we will not be able to get any good conditions. Therefore, even if we want to negotiate peace, we must be the first country to reach a peace agreement with the French. And to do At this point, we must have an exchange condition that allows the French to quickly reach peace with us." Archduke Karl said to General Nostitz, "In order to obtain such conditions, I intend to retreat to Luxembourg immediately. Yes So, what's your opinion?"

Luxembourg is in an important position on the main road from France to the German states. In addition, the terrain is complex, easy to defend and difficult to attack, so it has been a battleground for military strategists since ancient times. In a small area, a large number of forts were built in different periods, so that it is known as "the country of a thousand forts" and "Northern Gibraltar".

Prior to this, France once controlled this area, but because of a series of failures by the Northern Army, the Luxembourg area was abandoned by the French army. The Anglo-Prussian army didn't care about it for the time being, and as a result, this treasure land temporarily fell into the hands of the Austrians who led the paddling team.

Occupying Luxembourg and forcing the French to use more favorable terms in exchange for Austria's withdrawal from the war, this is actually the fact that Archduke Karl rushed to the vicinity of Veron with the main force of the army after he discovered the ominous atmosphere in the letter from the Marshal of Brunswick. s reason.

Just as Archduke Karl led his army to set up a battle in Luxembourg, General Blücher arrived here with hundreds of cavalry. From General Blücher, Archduke Karl learned more about what happened at Verdun. He kept General Blücher for a few more days, so that he could learn more about the new technologies of the French army's defense.

But Blücher couldn't stay here for too long, so he left several of his subordinate officers to Archduke Karl, and then left in a hurry.

Three days after Blücher left, French cavalry began to appear near Luxembourg, and in the afternoon, the vanguard of the French army arrived in Luxembourg under the leadership of Davout.

At this time, Napoleon's army had reached 120,000 people. This includes the original more than 60,000 elites of the Italian Legion, more than 40,000 French soldiers who have experienced the test of war in Verdun, and more than 10,000 German mercenaries that the British have not had time to use. They all surrendered with the coalition forces. Napoleon considered that there was a shortage of manpower in many places, especially the lack of people who knew the terrain and customs of the German region. Just ask their leader Balboa if he is willing to accept his employment to pay the ransom for their freedom.

Balboa was keenly aware that this would be an opportunity for him to climb up and enter the real upper class, so he immediately agreed. So these mercenaries who were almost put to a one-time use turned around and became Napoleon's subordinates.

Of course, Napoleon didn't think these mercenaries would be of much use on the battlefield. He didn't see himself having the same need for a one-off army as the British did. These mercenaries were basically broken up and used for leading the way and the like. By the way, let them receive a little teaching of revolutionary ideas in the French army.

"If we want to truly gain a foothold in the German region, we must implement the agrarian revolution policy we implemented in Italy." This is one of Joseph's nagging explanations when Napoleon left Verdun. Napoleon felt that these German-speaking mercenaries could also be of great use at that time.

Napoleon originally thought that Archduke Karl would give way to the main road and retreat in the direction of Kaiserslautern. If this is the case, Napoleon only intends to leave a partial division in Luxembourg, and the main force of the army will go in the direction of Prussia. Taking advantage of the opportunity that Prussia had just suffered a major defeat and had no time to recover, it defeated Prussia in one fell swoop.

Who knew that Archduke Karl was such a tough guy, he insisted on leading the army to block Luxembourg, causing trouble for him.

Napoleon was full of confidence in defeating Archduke Karl. His army was larger in number, more advanced in equipment, higher in morale, and higher in training. Grand Duke Karl only has about 60,000 soldiers, and most of them are recruits, not even cavalry. The equipment is also relatively backward-at least half of their rifles are still old-fashioned muskets. In addition, the number of cannons is also very insufficient.

Under such a balance of power, Napoleon felt that even if Archduke Karl occupied the difficult terrain of Luxembourg, he could defeat him head-on.

It's just that Luxembourg's terrain is dangerous after all, easy to defend and difficult to attack. Even Napoleon must admit that it will take a lot of time to take Luxembourg from Grand Duke Karl. What's more, Napoleon is now also facing logistical supply problems.

This problem is mainly to be blamed on Joseph, a coward! On the battlefield of Verdun, Joseph spent too much weapons and ammunition unnecessarily, which made Napoleon's current ammunition insufficient. And the tough battle is an exceptionally ammunition-consuming method of combat. The ammunition in Napoleon's hands is no problem for supporting field battles, but if it is used for continuous assaults, it may not be enough.

Of course, in France, the military factories are also working overtime, and more weapons and ammunition are being produced continuously, but now, even in France, the production of weapons has obviously failed to keep up with the needs of the war. If these things are produced and shipped over, I am afraid that Prussia will have mobilized an army of hundreds of thousands of people.

Just when Napoleon was worried about this, someone came to tell him that the Austrians had sent an envoy.