I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 758: Victory in the First Battle (Please give me double the monthly ticket!)

The extremely unfair exchange of fire lasted for six rounds - to be precise, the French army fired six rounds and the other side only fired four rounds.

Coupled with the fierce bombardment of French artillery, a large number of gaps soon appeared in the Austrian army's line formation.

I don't know who was the first to turn around and run, and immediately attracted the surrounding Austrian soldiers to run with them. In just a few minutes, the rout spread to the entire infantry line.

Prince Coburg hurriedly ordered the second infantry line behind him to push forward, but what he did not expect was that the French army's horizontal column immediately gathered into more than ten columns, passed through the fleeing Austrian soldiers, and rushed directly to the front of the Austrian line behind.

The Austrian soldiers behind were not prepared at all. Until the French column was deployed, many of them were still carrying out the previous order - moving forward to take over the defense line of the defeated soldiers. More soldiers stopped and prepared to counterattack.

So, at this time, a crooked line of infantry appeared in front of the French army.

The battle was without suspense.

The neat Austrian infantry lines could not withstand the fierce attack of the French Royal Corps, not to mention the chaotic formation.

In less than 20 minutes, the infantry line that Prince Coburg had just organized collapsed again.

Prince Coburg originally wanted to hold out until the elite troops led by Gruber were withdrawn - he gave Gruber an order to retreat as soon as he discovered the French army - but he did not expect that the French army was so fierce that they defeated him in just an hour and a half.

A dozen guards carried Prince Coburg onto his horse without any explanation and covered his retreat towards Brussels.

However, after they ran two or three kilometers, they saw chaos ahead. It should be that Davidovich's Dutch Legion was also attacked.

Prince Coburg suddenly felt a darkness before his eyes.

I don't know where the French got so many troops from. Now Brussels may be in danger.

He hurriedly ordered to turn southeast and run towards Leuven.

He had no idea that the army attacking the Dutch Legion consisted of only four cavalry companies, or more than 4 men - all the cavalry Joseph had brought to the Southern Netherlands.

When Prince Coburg's main force was attacked, he immediately ordered the Dutch to move closer to him. However, the quality of the Dutch army was worse than that of the Austrian army. After Davidovich urged them to speed up the march, they soon broke into more than a dozen pieces.

When the French cavalry appeared, the Dutch immediately fell into panic, did not organize any defense, and began to flee in all directions.

The fleeing soldiers spread the news that "the French launched a general attack" to more people.

In this way, Davidovich's vanguard of nearly 4 soldiers were chased everywhere by four cavalry companies.

This also gave Prince Coburg wrong information, making him mistakenly believe that the Dutch army following behind him had also encountered a large number of French troops, so he decided to flee to Leuven.

On the other side, Lefebvre finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the Austrian soldiers running around like headless flies. At the same time, he admired the decision of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

If his plan of defending Wavre to the death had been followed, even if it had gone very smoothly, they would now be fighting with the Austrian army that had completed its assembly.

He was confident that he could command 2 French troops to defeat the more than 4 Austrian-Dutch coalition forces, but if a positional battle was engaged, the battle would last at least a week or even longer as long as Prince Coburg did not make any mistakes.

And now, including the march, it took him only half a day to defeat the Austrian-Holstein coalition forces.

He then said to the herald: "Let Renault's regiment stay to pursue the defeated enemy, and the others will gather immediately and return to Wavre."

"Yes, General!" Lefebvre knew that Wavre had less than 2 French troops, all of whom were exhausted, and 4 Walloon police.

Prince Coburg's vanguard might not return to support this side, but continue to risk attacking Wavre.

Therefore, at the moment, the safest course of action for Lefebvre is to immediately lead the main force back to support Wavre. Although this may allow many Austrian troops to escape, at least the Austrian army attacking Wavre can be blocked and the safety of Wavre can be ensured.

When Lefebvre's main force had gone less than 4 kilometers to the south, the scout cavalry suddenly reported to him that there were nearly Austrian troops coming towards him...

Five hours later, Lefebvre finally defeated the 5 Austrian troops led by Gruber with great difficulty.

The reason why the battle took so long was that the Austrian army had a large number of cavalry, but Lefebvre had no cavalry.

Once Gruber fell into a disadvantage, he would use cavalry to harass from behind, causing Lefebvre a lot of headaches.

The battle was finally ended only when four cavalry companies attacking the Dutch Legion arrived to reinforce.

This was also due to the contribution of Gruber's 1,000 Dutch cavalrymen - if they had not suddenly fled and opened up the flank of the Austrian cavalry, the battle would probably have continued until tomorrow.

Wavre.

In a room in the Chamber of Commerce's administrative building, Joseph was reading the military report sent by the Rhine Front. He raised his hand and gestured to Emman: "Please make me a cup of tea. Thank you."

Csaud and Emmanuel looked at each other, then anxiously looked out the window, and bowed to Joseph and said, "Your Highness, perhaps you should go to Namur or Mons first, where it will be safer."

It was no wonder that he was so anxious. At that time, there were only 300 of the Crown Prince's personal guards and 2 soldiers who were too tired from the journey to fight in Wavre.

If Lefebvre fails to defeat Prince Coburg's main force, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince will be in a very dangerous situation when the Austrian army moves south.

Joseph took the teacup from Emmanuel and smiled, "I have absolute confidence in my army."

It's not like he has to play with heartbeats.

First, he knew the level of the Austrian-Dutch coalition, especially the 2 Dutch troops, who were probably no match for the 3 French new troops. He had made so many arrangements to confuse Prince Coburg, and with Lefebvre launching a surprise attack, victory was almost certain.

Secondly, he also deployed a lot of reconnaissance cavalry around Wavre. If the Austrian army really approached Wavre, he would have time to leave immediately, as there were no enemy troops in the southwest anyway.

Just as Quesode was about to persuade him again, an officer pushed the door open excitedly, saluted Joseph and said, "Your Highness, General Lefebvre has won the victory.

"The general defeated the Austrian army south of the town of Uccle, and Josias led about 5 defeated soldiers to flee to Leuven.

“Vidovic’s Dutch regiment fled back to Brussels.

"General Lefebvre also defeated Gruber's Corps on his way back to Wavre. More than 4 people were killed or captured..."

Joseph looked at the clock in surprise. It was just half past five.

He originally thought that the battle would last at least until the day after tomorrow, but he didn't expect to win so soon!

(End of this chapter)