171: 164 General Frost rushed to the frontline overnight 171: 164 General Frost rushed to the frontline overnight After personally leading the charge, Laharpe finally led the troops into Montenotte.
The remaining Austrian Army was trapped in the valley southeast of Montenotte.
Laharpe climbed up the bell tower of the church in Montenotte—generally, in this era, the bell tower was the highest point in the town—and from there, he could clearly see the situation on the other side of the valley.
He estimated that there were more than three thousand Austrians trapped in the valley, and Davout’s blue battle lines had advanced to less than a hundred ters from Montenotte.
On such a small piece of open ground, three thousand Austrian soldiers were squeezed.
These three thousand n, surrounded on all sides, quickly surrendered.
Through his telescope, Laharpe saw Davout’s bald head, which was rather easy to spot as the sun was setting in the west.
Laharpe said: “I’m going to congratulate Davout; this is a great victory.
Three thousand prisoners!
And with the killed and wounded, at least five thousand Austrian troops have fallen here!
This is an extraordinary victory.”
Having said this, he turned and climbed down the bell tower.
Fifteen minutes later, he t Davout outside the city of Montenotte.
For so reason, Davout seed very unhappy.
Upon eting, Davout imdiately questioned: “Why didn’t your skirmishers just charge directly?”
Laharpe was shocked: “Charge with skirmishers?
Are you crazy?”
Skirmish formations are too loose; it’s common military knowledge that charging standard infantry formations with skirmishers is suicidal.
After all, there’s a difference in troop density per unit area.
So, in the military theories of this era, skirmishers were only suitable for harassnt, vulnerable to both cavalry charges and standard infantry charges.
Davout said: “My troops were still at the front!
By that ti, the enemy was already in chaos!
Even if they were skirmishers, if you had charged, the enemy would have broken.
In that case, we could have taken more than these three thousand prisoners!”
As Davout spoke, he looked back; at this mont, his troops were capturing scattered enemies across the landscape.
Many Austrians, exhausted from a day of fighting, simply chose to give up resistance.
After all, in this era, European armies rarely massacred prisoners of war, and often after disarmant, the POWs would be released after so ti.
POWs of this era didn’t have the initiative of later tis, like escaping from prison.
Moreover, the Austrian Army was still a Kingdom Army, with little national consciousness, rely fighting for the noble lords.
Davout let out a long sigh while watching his troops apprehend POWs: “It’s my fault, I revealed my strength too soon.
I should have only taken a brigade to guard the mountain, failing General Frost’s expectations.”
A sergeant next to Davout interjected: “Commander, it is not your fault; changing the guard on ti to prevent the troops from becoming too fatigued was the right thing to do…”
Davout: “Enough, order the troops to prepare torches; tonight, we will pursue the scattered enemy through the night.”
“Yes!”
The sergeant left, and Davout took out paper money, quickly wrote a note: “ssenger Soldier!
Deliver this to General Frost!”
**
At this ti, Austrian General Argento was leading the three thousand remnants retreating towards Diego.
Thanks to their swift retreat, they could no longer see the pursuing French Army—after all, the French Army had just crushed a few thousand n left by the Argento Division, and could not so quickly reorganize to pursue.
But Argento always felt it wouldn’t be so easy to escape fate.
So he called over a trusted aide, stuffing the reins of his beloved horse into the aide’s hands: “You, mount my horse and rush to Diego imdiately!
Order the guards there to imdiately light campfires around the city!
The more, the better!
Take out all the stored torches and light them around the periter of the city!”
The aide imdiately understood: “Is it to confuse the French Army?”
“Yes, I heard that Frost conducts night raids.
If the pursuing enemies also co for a night raid, we’d be done for.
We need to make them fear our numbers, and not dare to act rashly!”
The aide saluted, mounted the horse, took a torch, and galloped away down the road.
Argento shouted at his departing figure: “Be careful riding at night!
Don’t fall off!”
“Rest assured!” ca the distant reply.
**
Anning was not at all worried about the progress of Davout’s troops, having sent both Davout and Napoleon, both formidable n; he couldn’t imagine that the Austrian Division commander called Argento could overco the collaboration of these two.
The ssage from Davout arrived just as night fell.
Napoleon did not make it to the battle and was leading the artillery team on the road; Davout’s arrival imdiately frightened the enemy away.
Although he tried hard to engage the enemy, they eventually retreated to Montenotte.
Laharpe ran so fast he was exhausted, and in the end, he could only block half of the Argento troops.
After reading Davout’s letter, Anning’s expression turned into that of a grimacing emoji on an old man’s phone.
How could this happen?
With strong troops and brave generals, two factors that should combine for victory, one would expect double the success…
Why did it end up like this?
However, after reading the letter, Bertier seed to have a different opinion.
He joyfully said, “To annihilate half of the enemy’s division is a significant victory to brag about.
The Argento Division has already lost its combat effectiveness and will likely be sent by Marshal Boliue to guard the rear.”
Clearly, Bertier’s viewpoint was the prevailing one at the ti; routing half a division was already considered a massive victory.
But Anning ca from the future, where “great victory” conjured images of the Kyiv encirclent, thinking, “No matter how you look at it, we had an advantage of eight hundred thousand to six hundred thousand in the battle…”
Capturing three thousand seed too trivial to Anning.
Anning took the letter from Bertier’s hands again and read it carefully once more.
At the end of the letter, Davout wrote, “I am preparing to pursue the enemy throughout the night, striving to defeat the remaining enemies near Diego.” Anning then asked Bertier, “Is this not a problem?
Won’t many people fall behind during a night march?”
Bertier: “Indeed, that would be the case if we do not light any torches.”
Anning fell silent.
He suddenly realized that his previous knowledge of night marches was flawed.
Before he traveled through ti, when Anning read military history, he assud that the French Revolutionary Army marched throughout the night as if they were marching at night, identical to a certain army from later tis, hence he marveled at the army that had undergone the revolution, constantly marching at night.
Many of Napoleon’s victories in Italy were indeed won with forced marches and night marches.
The Austrian Army seldom marched at night.
When they fought against Lafayette, organizing a night attack was so strenuous with great losses; his explanation to himself was that after all, the revolution had just begun, and the invincible Citizen Army had not yet ford.
Now, Bertier’s words had uncovered Anning’s blind spot: night attacks ant marching without torches, fumbling in the darkness, but if it was just traveling at night, torches could be lighted!
This was not the nocturnal onslaught of the military forces from later eras!
Damn, misled by modern concepts!
Anning: “Great, then I’ll just wait for Davout’s ssage.”
So Anning bathed and prepared to sleep, but he had hardly lain down when soone outside shouted, “Report, urgent ssage from Division Commander Davout!”
Anning sprang up and sat: “Bring it in!”
Monts later, a ssenger Soldier limped in: “General!”
Anning quickly went forward to support him: “What’s happened?”
“The horse slipped on the road and fell, the horse died, and I was injured.
If it weren’t for eting our army’s logistics team, I might have been done for.” The ssenger Soldier said with a wry smile, then handed a note to Anning, “General, there’s nothing wrong with the ssage, it’s completely fine!”
Anning: “You’ve worked hard, go rest.
Have a doctor look at your leg…”
After speaking, Anning suddenly hesitated; the doctors of this era were all quacks, they might end up amputating this poor man’s leg.
So Anning changed his mind: “You go to my Coachman, he’ll use strong spirits to clean your wound, trust , it’s more reliable than a doctor!”
ssenger Soldier: “I might as well have a drink of those strong spirits.”
“You can have a drink, too.
Now go.”
After speaking, Anning’s attention turned to the note in his hand.
Davout wrote very briefly: “There are many campfires near Diego, it is presud to be Boliue’s main force.
I am having the troops who fought all day set up camp to rest, preparing for a decisive battle tomorrow.”
Anning slapped his thigh forcefully: “Good!
I’ve finally located Boliue’s main forces!
Vanni!”
Vanni imdiately ca in through the door: “I am here.”
“I need to change clothes, and also, wake Bertier and the staff, we’re moving to the front line overnight.”
Anning did not distrust Davout’s ability, but he wanted to be personally present at such a battle.
After all, it was a main force engagent!
How could he not be there to see it!
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