I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 1214 The Choice of Vicente IV
Without hesitation, Victor ordered his troops to cross the pontoon bridge that had already been erected and return to the direction of Mantua.

……

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Masson led the Crown Prince's personal guard grenadier battalion to a point 18 kilometers southwest of Trento. The rangers reported to him that enemy forces had been spotted ahead.

Masson immediately ordered the construction of a huge temporary camp on the spot, and then confronted the Austrians.

Well, he only brought 1300 soldiers, and he simply didn't have the capability to attack Trento.

Joseph was certainly not in the army, and he had no reason to take such a pointless risk.

The two sides remained in a cautious stalemate for more than ten days.

The French noblemen were in high spirits and kept clamoring to attack the city, but Masson stopped them all.

Finally, three days later, the Austrians could no longer restrain themselves and launched a probing attack.

Then, Mason led his soldiers back to Mantua as fast as the wind along the mountain road.

The Austrian army was almost instantly outpaced – the Royal Guard grenadiers rode the best horses, the cheapest of which cost two or three thousand francs each, and some even rode Arabian stallions worth tens of thousands of francs.

Austrian officers dared not pursue too far—the mountain roads on the west side of Lake Garda were too narrow, making them easy targets for ambushes.

……

Moro's situation is the most dangerous.

He nearly encountered 20,000 Austrian troops commanded by Prince Schwarzenberg on the upper reaches of the Brenta River.

He dared to confront 3 Austrian troops head-on during the previous surprise attack, but now he had no choice but to retreat.

Austrian hussars were everywhere, and there were bound to be a large number of enemy troops surrounding him. Once he was entangled, it would be difficult to escape.

He had only enough supplies for less than six days. He needed to return to Mantua as soon as possible.

Moro carefully led the Schwarzenberg Army to the north bank of the Brenta River, then crossed the river overnight and moved south at top speed, covering more than 40 kilometers in a single day.

By the time Prince Schwarzenberg realized that the French troops had suddenly disappeared, it was already past ten in the morning.

He hurriedly dispatched cavalry to pursue them south and immediately notified Belegarde and Prince Hesingen.

The three Austrian commanders disagreed again. Bellegaard believed the French were feigning an attack and that their main force was likely still heading north, so they should first establish a defensive line along the Brenta River. The other two, however, favored an immediate pursuit.

They wasted most of the day, and the next day Schwarzenberg's cavalry commander fled back in disarray—they had been ambushed by Moreau south of Marlow and lost more than two thousand soldiers.

Schwarzenberg and the others then hurriedly headed south.

Moro judged that the Austrian army would likely search along an east-west direction, so he decided to risk continuing south, almost hugging the east side of Verona, and forcibly crossing the Adige River.

He covered a distance of over 90 kilometers in just two and a half days, leaving the enemy far behind.

Then, he made a sharp turn east and, at an extremely fast speed, crossed a point less than 15 kilometers from the main Austrian force attacking the Mincho River, finally finding a weak point in the enemy forces at Castelmasa, more than 50 kilometers east of Mantua.

Although the French soldiers had been on a continuous forced march, they were fortunate that they had not yet finished the canned food they carried, and the good diet helped them maintain a minimum level of physical strength.

When Moreau ordered a surprise attack on Castelmassa, the French infantry, still exhausted, charged toward the enemy's defensive positions.

The battle lasted only 40 minutes before the more than 1,000 Austrian soldiers defending Castelmasa were defeated.

Moro immediately ordered a crossing of the river.

It took him nearly a day to reach the south bank of the Po River with his 26,000 soldiers.

Two more hours passed before the cavalry of the nearest Bellegard Legion finally caught up. By then, Moreau, with more than 30,000 men of the French Fifth Army, had circled around Venice, which was controlled by 180,000 Austrian troops, and had eliminated more than 20,000 enemy soldiers before safely returning to his own lines.

……

Turin, the capital of Sardinia.

King Victor Emmanuel IV had dark circles under his eyes, and his bloodshot eyes stared intently out the window.

Yes, he had barely slept for two days after receiving Grand Duke Karl's secret order.

The current situation is completely different from what he initially expected.

He had expected to welcome tens of thousands of Prussian troops, and then join them, along with Archduke Charles's 18-strong army, to conquer Mantua.

Now, however, he must first defeat the more than 1 French troops stationed at the Gotthard Pass.

His mind was involuntarily filled with images of the French army sweeping across northern Italy a few years earlier. Back then, he was the crown prince, living in constant fear, never knowing when the French would storm Turin.

Fortunately, his father reached a compromise with the French.

He grabbed his teacup in frustration, and his eyes happened to catch a glimpse of the secret agreement he had signed with Ying Ao, which stirred a burning desire within him once more.

If he could drive the French out of northern Italy, he could reclaim the Savoy region, which had been ceded to France in the Treaty of Turin. Furthermore, Austria would tacitly allow Sardinia to integrate the northern Italian territories south of Lombardy.

Building a powerful Italian empire was a long-held dream of his and his father.

This may very well be his only chance.

He had repeatedly questioned Field Marshal Baron Staray, who confirmed to him that the French, if caught off guard, would most likely collapse immediately.

Once General Blücher's 6 troops broke through the Gotthard Pass, the outcome of the war was sealed.

King Victor Emmanuel IV went into the prayer room again and did not emerge for a full two hours, but his eyes had become resolute.

“Summon Baron Starai to see me,” he gestured to his servant.

1798 10 Month 30 Day.

Novara, a city in eastern Sardinia.

General Augusto Pilo glanced at the sky, frowned, and asked his staff officer, "Still no news?"

“Yes, General,” the latter said helplessly, “General Adenauer may have encountered some kind of downpour…”

Adenauer's army left Ferrara a week ago to join forces with Pilo in Novara, but he has yet to arrive for the scheduled attack on Gotthard Pass tomorrow.

Little did he know that Adenauer was stopped by more than a thousand Modena soldiers as soon as he left Ferrara.

Then the General Staff of the Mediterranean Security Organization issued a transfer order, sending him to Mantua to provide reinforcements.

Ferrara is more than 260 kilometers away from Novara, and Adenauer dared not make any unusual moves there.

Thus, Piro waited until 4 p.m. that day before finally leading 12,000 soldiers to Gotthard Pass.

What he didn't notice was that shortly after he left Turin, 2 French soldiers and 5 Parma soldiers had been following him for more than ten kilometers.

The next morning, Pilo finally saw the mountain pass, still covered with a few specks of snow, in the distance.

(End of this chapter)