Prince Henry helplessly said, "Your Majesty, the Allied Army Headquarters believes that if we disperse our troops to defend the southern part of our country, we will not ensure absolute superiority over France, so we have no choice but to..."
The young King of Prussia suddenly flushed with anger, waving his arms and shouting, "Troops? The Blücher Corps got surrounded in Glarus because they were helping Austria regain Italy!
"The British promised they would definitely rescue them, but in the end, they only sent 20,000 n to appease !"
He sneered, "Ha, Picton was annihilated just after leaving Basel. Now they’re scheming against my Brandenburg Guard!"
Prince Henry remained silent for a while, and when the king cald down a bit, he softly said, "Your Majesty, but the French Army indeed might threaten Potsdam."
William III suddenly froze like a wound-up puppet, waited for a while, and nodded, "Yes, please order Marshal llendorf to assemble the troops."
Then he straightened his chest forcefully, "Tell him, I will go with him to Weimar."
Prince Henry was surprised, "Your Majesty, you need not do this..."
But William III firmly gripped the sword on the table, "I want to fight side by side with all the soldiers like my grandfather. The King of Prussia should never just sit in the palace! [Note 1]"
He was well aware that after losing Blücher’s more than 60,000 soldiers, Prussia was in danger of falling to a second-rate country in Europe at any ti.
He must achieve dazzling victories on the battlefield like Frederick the Great did back then to lead Prussia to turn the tide.
Moreover, he had always looked down on his father, who had never been to the battlefield. This ti, he wanted to prove to all of Europe that the warlike King of Prussia had returned!
Since Prussia was in a state of war readiness, within just two days, William III had left Berlin with the veteran Marshal llendorf.
At the sa ti, the Magdeburg Corps and the Frankfurt Corps left their stations and headed south. [Note 2]
...
The Duke of Brunswick gently pulled the reins and looked back at the now indistinct Doyitz Fortress, feeling sowhat uneasy. [Note 3]
Although he had repeatedly confird before leaving that the main force of the French Third Army had already departed from the west bank, and with 15,000 troops led by Prince Hornlow, they should be adequate for the defense task.
Even Nassau had provided 1,300 soldiers as reinforcents. Yet, he still felt that sothing might go wrong.
Perhaps truly old, having lost his once razor-sharp willpower. He shook his head and sighed, contemplating retiring back to Göttingen to enjoy his retirent after this war ends.
He tapped his mount’s waist with his riding whip, marched into the mid-section of the marching formation and shouted loudly to the soldiers, "Our mission this ti is to reach Kassel as soon as possible, then we can await the news of the Allied Forces attacking Strasbourg there. So move your legs vigorously!"
At the sa ti, Lefevre, passing through ipen, was loudly encouraging the recruits who had recently arrived from Brussels:
"How far could you march in a day? 15 kiloters? Oh, soone said 20 kiloters, I heard that, it’s quite good.
"But do you know what the normal marching speed of the old Guard is?"
He pointed to a sergeant not far away, "Gaspar, you tell them."
"Yes, General. It’s 30 kiloters."
"And a forced march?"
"38 to 40 kiloters, General."
"Very good!" Lefevre waved to the recruits again, "I know, you all want to beco real Guard soldiers, don’t you?"
Imdiately, a burst of excited shouts erupted around: "Yes!"
"Then start with walking," Lefevre said, "Today we will walk 30 kiloters, and everyone who doesn’t fall behind, their nas will be collected and reported to ."
The recruits cheered again, "Okay!"
"30 kiloters, that’s nothing!"
"I want to join the Guard!"
Only the soldiers of the Wallon Local Army under Jiaya’er looked at this group of youngsters with affectionate eyes.
These forr Walloon Police Force mbers had fought alongside the Guard Corps and knew well enough what marching 30 kiloters every day ant. Well, perhaps it ant their legs would ache as if they were about to break in three days.
However, when the troops passed by Munster — exactly 90 kiloters from ipen — the recruits, though no longer sporadically shouting slogans like "Fight for the motherland" or even singing, had no one complaining of sore legs and their marching speed had never slowed down.
By noon the next day, a person dressed as a German farr was brought before Lefevre by the French cavalry.
The visitor took a secret letter from his trouser leg and handed it to him, standing at attention, "General, General Surt has already entered Hesse. He asked to tell you that enemy troops were detected near Winterberg."
Winterberg is at the west side of Hesse, less than 70 kiloters from Kassel.
After consulting the cipher key to read the letter, Lefevre loudly said to the order officer beside him, "Order the entire army to turn south imdiately. Wait, the new recruit camp should stay in place..."
...
Central Switzerland.
Blücher had roughly determined that reinforcents would not appear in the short term.
Naturally, he was unaware that the Picton Corps had been annihilated four days earlier.
Looking at the number of supplies sent by staff officers in the morning, he was already sowhat numb, with only 11 days of food left. Even at the lowest standards, they couldn’t last half a month.
He frowned and sighed, perhaps the only option was to take the gamble and launch a full attack.
The cavalry continued their daily routine of scattering to collect food. In fact, sparsely populated Glarus had already been scoured dozens of tis by the Prussian Army, at most bringing back so vegetables and potatoes hidden by Swiss farrs in the vicinity.
However, this ti all cavalry returned to camp empty-handed by dusk.
Blücher knew that Glarus no longer had anything to eat.
He gritted his teeth and solemnly said to the staff beside him, "Summon all senior officers, we will launch a breakthrough tomorrow."
On the next morning, nearly 30,000 Prussian vanguards launched a fierce attack on the French Army in the western and southern directions.
What Blücher did not expect was that the attack went unusually smoothly, as the French just symbolically fired a few shots and abandoned their positions.
By late morning, the Taunqian Corps had already advanced to a position 10 kiloters west of Glarus and established a defensive line.
Riding out of the mountains of Glarus, Blücher finally let out a long breath and said to his staff, "It seems that reinforcents have tied down the main French force."
The latter hurriedly asked, "General, what should we do next?"
"First, try to connect with the reinforcents," Blücher brushed away the previous gloom and said loudly, "We head to Zurich, perhaps we can still form a pincer attack on the enemy."
Reinforcents could only co from Basel and St. Gallen directions, so heading north to Zurich was certainly not wrong. At least so supplies could be obtained there.
That afternoon, when the main Prussian forces gathered and were preparing to head northwest, they suddenly heard gunfire from ahead.
Although the shooting wasn’t dense, Blücher was still taken aback, fearing the French were luring him out of Glarus for an ambush here.
He hurriedly ordered them to establish defensive positions in place, leaving the rear in Glarus to ensure that, in the worst case, they could still retreat.
After several hours of such struggle, the attacking French withdrew quietly without engaging with the Prussian Army.
But by then it had grown completely dark, and a frustrated Blücher cursed for a while before ordering the troops to rest on the spot and continue moving to Zurich the next day.
The next day, as the Prussian Army started to form ranks and had not yet set off, gunfire appeared ahead again.
[Note 1] William III was actually the grandson of Frederick the Great’s brother.
[Note 2] This Frankfurt refers to the Prussian city located by the Oder River. The other Frankfurt is on the Main River, being the capital of Mainz.
[Note 3] Cologne is a city spanning both banks of the Rhine River. The left bank is the main district, currently belonging to French territory. The right bank is known as Doyitz, far smaller than the left bank but has fortress groups built.
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