Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796

Chapter 412 054 The Prussian Army looks as fierce as a tiger, but actually kills people (4)

Soult also had questions at this time, what tricks has His Majesty the Emperor been playing recently?

He could understand Napoleon's new tactics, but this method of mobilizing the enemy was not like his method of defeating the enemy one by one when he took the initiative to attack.

But the order has been given, and he must carry it out, not to mention that his mission is to lure and contain the enemy.

At the same time, the Prussians were in a blind spot on the land of Saxony, as if they were fighting abroad.

Although Saxony may be a foreign country, the French were not familiar with them and even beheaded the king who was related to Saxony.

However, Bernadotte's First Army does seem to be marching north and is not nearby, and Davout's Third Army has actually "hidden" its whereabouts. So far, it is still in a position where the Prussian army can detect it. outside the area.

Hohenlohe was still eyeing Soult even at this time, and moved more than 50,000 of his men towards the French, and sporadic exchanges of fire had already occurred.

Soult's chief of staff, Jean-Dominique Compans, had just received the report of the Saint-Hile Division and handed it over to the corps commander.

"Your Excellency, Marshal, the 55th Line Infantry Regiment of the St. Hilaire Division had a firefight with the Prussians. It was Hozendorff's Cuirassiers and Krafft's Dragoons, but there is no difference. The Prussian Cuirassiers Without the breastplate, it is actually no different from a dragoon."

"Jean, are you still in the mood to joke at this time?"

"You have to have some fun for yourself, Marshal, and this means that Hohenlohe's vanguard troops are coming towards us. I learned from the captured officers that the Prussian army is currently moving towards Weimar. This is just the vanguard of Hohenlohe, followed by the main force of the Duke of Brunswick.”

"It seems that the emperor is right. He asked me to attract the Prussian troops here, and then he can launch an attack."

"Why did Your Majesty do this?"

"Compans, I'm not sure about this. I just guess that this is a strategic deception to lure the enemy. But to lure the enemy over, we should take the initiative and let Lana contain the Prussian army. Then we will assemble the existing troops." The troops swept over."

"If the battle is over, will the Prussians retreat north?"

Compans said unintentionally that Soult was probably connected to Napoleon's brain circuit and was supposed to divide and disintegrate the enemy. Because he had always been in the position of army commander rather than as commander-in-chief, he really did not calculate too much. part.

After all, he had worked as a consultant before, so he could at least understand the leader's intentions.

"We only need to hold the enemy back, and after a day or two of fighting, like Suvorov did against Macdonald on the Trebia River, or we wait for the Russians to take the bait in Zurich, but that cunning The old man ran away."

"Then, shall we report the military information to His Majesty?"

"We must report at this time. The two heavy cavalry regiments are coming together, and there will be a large force coming later."

The next morning, naturally, as Soult expected, Prussian troops wearing black uniforms appeared opposite him, and judging from the width of the infantry array, this force was not a small number.

"Okay, this will make it easier for us to cook. It's too inconvenient to catch chickens around here. If you want to eat meat, the only thing you can eat is dog meat."

There was a hint of sarcasm in Soult's words. The French army did encounter a lot of trouble in logistics. Fortunately, the local Saxons still eat dog meat, so they still obtained it by slaughtering some dogs. Meat supply.

As for these Prussians, they are now arranged in a very neat formation. It can be said that the Prussians can achieve textbook standards in the pre-war layout of the line infantry.

"It's very neat, Your Excellency Marshal. It's just that both Saint-Hilai and Leval requested to take the initiative to attack instead of waiting in formation here."

"Please let the Prussians come first. The terrain we occupy is not bad. There is no need to leave here now. Let the Prussians take action. They may expose their weaknesses first."

Although the armies on both sides saw each other, they were not in a hurry to launch an attack. Instead, they formed their own formations and were making final preparations.

What Hohenlohe saw at this time was indeed only the Fourth Army. It was unlikely that he would have thought that the French would actually let the two armies detour on his left flank. He just thought that Bernadotte was speeding up and defeated the enemy. The French army in front of us is an excellent opportunity.

"Others say that Napoleon was very good at mobilizing troops. I think it was because he defeated the Austrians too many times and was praised by the defeated Austrians for covering up their own defeats."

After he said these words, Colonel Meissenbach's expression turned ugly next to him.

After all, you can't say that, and in the past battles between Prussia and Austria, when the Austrian army commander's ability was above the passing line, there were often times when they were defeated.

The unlucky guy Gneisenau was sent to the 2nd Division of the Saxon Army to serve as a staff officer just because he talked too much.

He no longer cares about innovation and can only act according to Hohenlohe's orders, even if it is a wrong order, he must execute it.

At this time, he had to agree with Scharnhorst's idea. The commander-in-chief was the old man who made the final decision.

While he was still complaining in his heart, Hohenlohe had already issued an order, not only to fire the artillery, but also to have General von Gravotte of the 1st Division, which had already lined up, lead two infantry brigades and one cavalry brigade to join the battle.

Speaking of which, in addition to the commander of the 1st Division, the commander of the 1st Brigade, von Muflin, the commander of the 2nd Brigade, von Simonski, the commander of the cavalry, General von Hotzendorff, the commander of the cavalry brigade, von Henkel, and the commander of the light cavalry regiment, von Ericsson, although the "von" content was high, it did not deter the French.

Not to mention the past experience of the battle between the French and Prussian armies, the Prussian army launched an attack this time, and the French actually experienced a short exchange of fire and then began to slowly retreat.

Hohenlohe was very proud at this time. After all, not long after the start, it seemed that the French retreated a distance due to "lack of troops", and the French were not as terrible as the "cowardly" Austrians widely spread.

Therefore, he also had to command his troops to follow up, and it was his Prussian 1st Division that was to achieve the results.

Soult had a very clear view from the high ground. Although there were always shells falling, his position was very safe.

Since being captured once, Soult was reluctant to command on the front line, but he was also willing to observe the battle situation in front of him from such a back slope.

"Since the Prussians are coming, we will attract them. The farm in front can be given to them after a fight, but the village next to it is called Hof because the German name is too long-winded. We must defend Hof. This is the key to the entire battlefield."

"Yes, Marshal, but which regiment should we send to defend it?"

"Ask the 4th Line Infantry Regiment and tell their commander that the Russians seized the flag from them at Austerlitz, and that incident is over. If we defend Hof, the 4th Regiment will be the hero of the entire Fourth Army. I will ask His Majesty the Emperor for credit for them! Not only the 4th Regiment, but all the meritorious troops will be rewarded."

Soult's words were all left here. After his chief of staff Compans passed the order down, the French front-line troops were in high spirits and launched a fierce battle around the village.

It's just that the Prussian infantry has always been more firepower than direct attack. Due to the wind direction, even the Prussians were shrouded in white smoke caused by black gunpowder.

The battle looked fierce, but the Prussian soldiers in the first row often had to lean over to shoot, and the soldiers in the back row had poor accuracy, often firing into the air or turning it into a projectile.

It was okay for those who turned into projectiles, there was always a small probability that they could fall on the French side, but those who actually shot into the sky were completely wasting gunpowder and bullets.

But if the battle continued like this, the Prussians were now advancing, which would also give Hohenlohe an illusion that the Prussian army was very strong and it was even possible to win this battle.

So he increased the intensity of the attack and even put von Prittwitz's reserve division into the battle.

The two brigades of this division had nine grenadier battalions. Grenadiers always had considerable combat effectiveness, and it seemed that the French had no reinforcements. It seemed that if they captured the village held by the French, they would be able to win the battle.

However, after fighting for a whole morning, there was always something that made him feel good about himself.

For Hohenlohe, he was waiting for von Lücher's reinforcements, but Soult didn't want Davout to come too quickly.

After all, according to Napoleon's own intention, it was probably to attract all the vanguards of the Prussian army and then launch a devastating blow.

But Davout, the bald man, was wearing glasses and reading the war report at this time, and he also received the latest order from Napoleon's headquarters outside the battlefield.

What Davout could see was the order drafted by Berthier himself, and there would definitely be no low-level spelling mistakes made by His Majesty the Emperor himself.

As alumni from the same military academy, Davout still understood what Napoleon meant.

Therefore, he was not in a hurry to directly reinforce the battlefield where Soult was. Direct reinforcement on the battlefield could not achieve the purpose of attacking Hohenlohe.

What he had to do was to advance to the side and rear, use his three divisions to outflank the Prussian army, cut off its way back to Erfurt, and attack the von Lücher Corps that might arrive nearby.

He was still very confident about this mission. At least Friant and Gudin always ran very fast. As for Morand of the First Division, he had the shortest distance to contain Hohenlohe.

Friant's marching distance was about 15 kilometers.

Compared with the trotting of the Third Army in Austerlitz, many soldiers fell behind before joining the battlefield and supporting the right wing of the French army.

This time, he helped Soult again, but he cut off the Prussian army's retreat. It can be said that the results were brilliant. After all, a large number of Prussian troops could be encircled and annihilated at one time, and it might even be possible that 40% of the Prussian army's combat effectiveness would be gone.

On the Duke of Brunswick's side, the loss of Prince Louis Ferdinand's advance division was exchanged for the safe advance of the main force of the Prussian army to Erfurt. If Hohenlohe was lost here again, the situation would still be very bad.

At this time, Davout still resolutely executed the order. He immediately judged that the situation on the battlefield had changed, and it would depend on his thunderbolt.

So before the war, he encouraged the soldiers to establish merits and completely defeat the treacherous and capricious Prussians here, and also let the emperor remember the glory of the Third Army rushing to the battlefield.

At this time, the French soldiers heard the emperor's name and shouted "Long live the emperor", then formed a marching column and quickly marched to the battlefield.

Hohenlohe did not expect this. On the one hand, when the scouts moved to Davout's side, the French army hid better, and fought with the light cavalry sent by Soult in the middle, so that they misjudged the situation in the northeast.

In addition, Davout's position was too good. There were rolling hills in the northwest and west of Weimar, and these hills just hid the position of the Third Army.

Even if Hohenlohe had reconnaissance, it would be difficult to find the whereabouts of these troops, and the roads out of Weimar were blocked by the French army. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar and his family fled to Berlin, and it was even more impossible for someone to tip off here.

You know, Saxony has always been oppressed and coerced by Prussia, and has long been secretly dissatisfied. It is because Prussia is too close and the countries that oppose Prussia are too far away that they have to compromise.

The nobles may still have considerations, but the civilians are different. Even if the French come and write IOUs like robbery, it is much better than the Prussian masters who rob and capture men.

Then, it was Hohenlohe's turn to be blind.

When he first received the news that his left wing was exchanging fire with the French army, he was unwilling to believe it.

It was not until he climbed a windmill and saw the French cavalry from the window with a monocular telescope that he believed the report of his subordinates.

But at this time, it was too late.

Davout's troops moved too fast, and Hohenlohe only saw the Morand Division that was coming to contain him, and Friant had already been behind him.

Moreover, Friant and Gudin had already considered how to deal with it before the battle. Friant's division and cavalry came to cut off the Prussian army's retreat, while Gudin's division resisted von Lücher's Prussian reinforcements in Erfurt.

Due to Davout's action, it can be said that the two Prussian corps were completely separated.

Von Lücher still wanted to pass through immediately, but Gudin blocked the only way out of Erfurt, and von Lücher did not judge the strength of the French army and did not counterattack in time

Hohenlohe was surrounded by the French, and the situation was very bad.