I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 1284 The Twilight of the Imperial Legion

The following day, the River Triyson remained a bloody slaughterhouse.

Archduke Karl sent his most elite Royal Moravian Legion, but they barely managed to set foot on the east bank of the river.

Before they could even establish a beachhead, the newly erected pontoon bridge was destroyed by precise French artillery fire. Immediately, intense artillery fire engulfed the thousands of soldiers.

By dusk, the docks of St. Parthenon were blocked by countless Austrian corpses, and the city reeked of a nauseating stench of blood.

On the third day of the battle, an eerie silence fell over both banks of the Treisen River.

In the previous suicidal offensive, the Austrian army had suffered nearly a third of its casualties.

Verother was busy until after 10 p.m. before he could barely muster enough troops from his relatively well-organized forces to launch an attack.

However, to Archduke Charles's surprise, the French seemed to have exhausted their ammunition in the fierce fighting of the previous two days, and only a few cannons were still firing.

This glimmer of hope led him to unhesitatingly commit all his reserves to the battlefield.

Baron Vernec's legion was the first to gain a foothold on the east bank and, with a very brave charge, forced the French defenses back two or three kilometers.

Subsequently, the Bajahazar Legion, the Blanovatsky Legion, and the Count of Coburg's Hussars all successfully crossed the damned river.

Vienna is right in front of us; we can reach it in two days with just a normal march.

The entire Austrian team felt a renewed sense of hope within them...

On a high ground covered by dense trees a few kilometers to the east, Sirte finished reading the report that had just been delivered by hot air balloon and handed it to Lana beside him: "Most of the enemy have moved into their expected positions. The rest is up to you."

"Yes, General." The latter stood at attention excitedly, then turned and jumped onto his warhorse, galloping towards the front line.

Yes, Soult deliberately ordered the French defenses to retreat in order to improve efficiency.

As a series of orders were transmitted from the Sharp signal car to each legion, the entire Franco-Polish coalition forces quickly sprang into action.

Murat's three French cavalry regiments launched the first attack from the direction of Herzoggenburg downstream.

When thousands of cuirassiers charged like thunder into the Austrian infantry who had just crossed the river, the morale that the latter had just mustered instantly collapsed.

With almost no effective counterattack, four or five thousand Austrian soldiers, like rabbits being chased by hounds, turned and rushed into the still-unformed defensive line of Blanovatsky's army.

Grand Duke Karl happened to see this scene through his binoculars on the opposite bank of the river. He immediately felt a chill and a bad thought popped into his head.

He shook his head vigorously and shouted to the messenger beside him, "Speed ​​up the crossing! Let the cavalry go first!"

Twenty minutes later, while Count Coburg was maneuvering with Austrian hussars and Murat, Van Damme and Jouche's two legions launched a surprise attack from the flanks of the Austrian army along the riverbank.

The French artillery, which had previously "run out of ammunition," suddenly seemed to have found a box of ammunition and began a storm of fierce bombardment on the Austrian troops gathered on the east bank.

Rana personally led 5 soldiers, advancing rapidly across a frontal battlefield more than ten kilometers wide.

However, before his skirmisher group could even make contact with the enemy, most of the Austrian infantry lines had already collapsed.

The Austrian pontoon bridge was already packed with people, and cries for help from those who had fallen into the water could be heard at any moment. Meanwhile, many more Austrian soldiers were being driven backward by groups of French skirmishers, and in the end, they had no choice but to turn around and jump into the river.

On the west bank of the River Torison, Archduke Karl was already deathly pale.

In fact, given his military talent, he might have realized it was a French trap, but subconsciously he tried to ignore the possibility, just to gamble on that last chance of survival.

He turned his head with difficulty and said to the messenger, "Send someone to contact Vienna... and have His Majesty strengthen the defenses." Just then, a burst of gunfire suddenly rang out from the southwest.

He raised his binoculars and saw a troop of cavalry in red uniforms rushing past his rear camp like flames.

Those were Polish troops that Soult had deployed in advance on the upper reaches of the Treisen River on the west bank.

Their mission was to prevent the Austrian army from retreating towards Melk.

General Wilczek gripped his lance tightly, tucking the butt of the lance into the leather holster above his boot, and stared coldly at the Austrian infantry ahead, leading more than 3 winged hussars forward.

He had suppressed his feelings for far too long, all for this day of revenge.

Firelight began to flicker on the hastily assembled Austrian defensive line ahead. Wilczek skillfully bent down, trying to hide his body as much as possible in the saddle.

But he quickly frowned and looked up.

The Austrians' firing rhythm was clearly off, as chaotic as the cawing of crows in their homeland.

He then turned his head to look at the soldiers beside him; almost none of them had been shot.

A cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth as he waved his hand and shouted, "Move forward quickly—"

"Place the gun level—"

"charge--"

A red torrent, accompanied by the flapping of wings behind the cavalry, sped past the Austrian army's lines, their 2.7-meter-long lances frequently piercing the infantrymen positioned at the front.

When they regrouped after circling around, Wilczek noticed several gaps in the Austrian defense.

He hadn't expected the Austrian army to be so easily defeated, so he immediately led his newly assembled thousand-plus winged hussars to charge toward the nearest breach.

Archduke Karl was shocked to hear that his rear guard had been routed by a cavalry force in less than 40 minutes.

Velother, who was standing nearby, asked the messenger, "Where did the enemy break through from?"

"The Royal 3rd Infantry Division's defense zone, General."

"Damn it!" Archduke Karl angrily swung his cane and overturned a chair beside him.

This legion was the Empire's elite force previously equipped with the "Wind Lance," but three months into the war, those highly anticipated advanced weapons began to malfunction on a large scale, with a serviceability rate never exceeding 50%.

Later, soldiers discovered that although this gun had an extremely high rate of fire, it could not penetrate the French bulletproof shrapnel at a distance of 20 paces.

Therefore, the Austrian General Staff had to urgently dispatch a batch of flintlock muskets to replace all the wind guns.

This caused the soldiers who had been using the Wind Spear to become very unaccustomed to it, resulting in a significant drop in their combat effectiveness.

The Polish Winged Hussars had just launched their attack from the positions of these corps that were changing guns, resulting in the rare situation of cavalry breaking through the infantry line head-on.

When Bogusławski led the Polish infantry to the scene, they found only enemy corpses strewn across the ground, but no Austrian defenses.

Of course, the winged hussars who were supposed to provide him with cover also disappeared without a trace.

As chaos erupted in the Austrian rear command, large numbers of Austrian troops began to surrender on the east bank of the Treisen River.

(End of this chapter)