I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 356 Going deep behind enemy lines
Napoleon was stunned when he heard this. He had seen the "flanking and interspersed" tactics in the officers' textbooks of the Paris Police Academy, but he only had a general understanding of it and had no idea how to use it.

He looked at the regimental commander again: "But if we ignore the Hanoverian army, once they join forces with the Prussians, it will be difficult for General Leo to resist."

Colonel Dumont nodded slightly: "In fact, I had the same question as you during the last staff meeting."

He immediately smiled and said, “But you have to think about it, whether it is the Hanoverians or the Prussians, the reason why their armies were able to set foot in the Southern Netherlands is because of the rebellion of the Dutch.

"If we capture Antolf, the Dutch rebels' parliament will be destroyed. Even if the Prussians defeat General Leo, what can they do? Just occupy the Southern Netherlands? I'm afraid neither the Dutch nor the British will agree to that."

Napoleon suddenly realized: "So, Charles II must rescue Antolf."

"Yes. His Royal Highness says that if we can march faster than the Hanoverians and threaten Antolf before they reach Liege, the Austrians will be safe."

"But," Napoleon pondered, "it doesn't seem to be a wise decision for us to go deep into the Southern Netherlands and fight the enemy in the rebels' lair. Charles II could even cut off our supply lines and then wait for us to surrender."

Colonel Dumont shook his whip and said, "Who said we have to fight a decisive battle in Antorf?
"Your understanding of the 'circumvention' tactic is still not deep enough."

He paused and felt a little ashamed. In fact, he himself did not know much about this kind of tactics. He just attended the staff meeting and listened to the prince's explanation, so he could instruct Napoleon word for word.

"Well, 'detour' and 'penetration' are actually two tactics, the goal of which is to manipulate the battlefield situation and put the enemy in a disadvantageous position.

"After mobilizing Charles II to return north, our army will..."

He suddenly stopped. The military deployment behind this was top secret and Major Buwanaba's rank did not seem to allow him to access it.

"You will soon find out. After all, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is definitely a tactical genius."

When it comes to commanding troops in combat, Joseph, who had only attended military school for a year and a half, may not be as good as any colonel-level officer in the Guards Corps, but his mind is filled with advanced tactical theories of later generations for hundreds of years, and he has a huge number of actual combat cases to refer to.

Many tactical theories are like this. In fact, they are very simple to explain. Just apply any tactic to the current battle situation and you can suppress opponents who don’t understand this tactic.

For example, on the current European battlefield, generals are focusing on how to deploy their battle formations in the best way possible and from which angle to attack most advantageously, and rarely think about large-scale roundabout tactics.

Even a genius like Frederick the Great could only make moves within a war zone, and he would be able to defeat his contemporaries.

What Joseph brought was the theory of "the king of detours" in the East in later generations, which was enough to make Charles II very upset.

Of course, even if they faced the Hanoverian army head-on, Joseph believed that the Guards Corps still had a greater chance of winning.

Although the Guards Corps had less than 1 soldiers available to fight against Charles II - two regiments were reserved for Leo to prevent him from being defeated by Blücher, and Joseph would have to rush back to fight the Luxembourg Defense War. Soldiers from the Moulin Corps stayed in Luxembourg to maintain law and order, and minus the casualties from the previous battle, only these soldiers were left - but considering the training, morale and equipment level of the Guards Corps, it still had a better chance of winning against the 4 Han-Dutch coalition forces.

However, fighting with the enemy with superior forces would probably cause the Guards Corps to suffer heavy casualties, which Joseph was unwilling to accept. There were also many favorable conditions for making a roundabout move in the Southern Netherlands.

For example, in the French-speaking areas of the southern Netherlands, the French army was even more popular than the Brabant rebels and could obtain logistical supplies more easily.

In addition, Austria had ruled the Southern Netherlands for decades and had laid deep roots. There were Austrian officials everywhere, and even if they were driven out of office, they could still provide Joseph with intelligence, supplies and other support.

The most crucial thing is that there are too many places in the Southern Netherlands that must be saved for Prussia and Hanover, which gives Joseph a lot of tactical leverage.

……

North of Brussels.

At the Southern Netherlands Parliament, Van der Nott's liberal MPs were pointing at Onck, who was sitting in the front row, with red faces: "The Hanoverian army is heading to Liege right now, and we should cooperate with them to defeat the Austrians in one fell swoop! But you let the army hide!

"This is the battle of us Southern Netherlands people, our fight for freedom and democracy. You are destroying the future of the Southern Netherlands!"

Wengke was not moved at all, and his fellow parliamentarians responded skillfully: "Freedom and the people must first be alive. Our army has been very tired after the fierce battle. When the time is right, they will join the battle again."

The conservative core members of the parliament had been informed by Onck that he had reached a secret agreement with the French - as long as the Southern Netherlands did not intervene in the war between France and Prussia and other countries, after the war, France would support the Southern Netherlands to establish an independent country as long as it had the southern province of Nemunas.

Unck never thought that the weak Southern Netherlands alone could challenge Austria. The only thing left was whether to join Prussia or France.

As far as he knew, Prussia and Britain agreed with the Netherlands' annexation of the Southern Netherlands.

In comparison, Namun's appetite for France is much smaller. Moreover, a considerable number of conservative MPs come from the French-speaking region and are more willing to cooperate with France.

After learning about the agreement between Unck and France, some conservative MPs even wanted to mobilize forces in the southern region to assist France in driving out the Prussians.

Just as the liberal congressmen were preparing to refute, they saw an officer push aside the guards on both sides of the door and rush into the meeting room like a frightened buffalo.

VanderNott frowned. The military was becoming more and more outrageous recently.

He was about to attack when he heard the officer shout in fear: "The main force of the French army has passed through the east of Brussels and is less than 10 miles away from Antolf!"

10 miles is about 16 kilometers, and it would take a day and a half to reach the destination under normal circumstances.

The entire Southern Netherlands Parliament Hall suddenly fell into silence. After seven or eight seconds, Van der Nott suddenly shouted, "Quick! Ask for help from His Excellency Charles II! His army should not have gone far..."

(End of this chapter)