I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 817: Northern Italy’s New “Big Brother”

The reason why Joseph did this was naturally not because he "admired General Melas's heroic performance on the battlefield", but because Melas was weak enough.

If he is still reused after returning to Austria, he will give France a big gift next time on the battlefield.

This would be more advantageous than detaining him and allowing a more capable officer to command the Austrian army.

At the same time, this also shows that France "respects the spirit of chivalrous tradition", that is, the nobles have the right to use ransom to exchange for freedom.

Firstly, it can undermine the enemy generals' will to fight to the death in future wars.

Secondly, if any important French general was captured, he could be redeemed in this way.

Of course, if he had captured heavyweights like the Duke of Wellington, Archduke Karl, and Kutuzov, Joseph would not hesitate to throw "chivalry" into the trash.

Alexandria.

Representatives from seven or eight Italian states, including Genoa, Parma and Sardinia, were invited here to observe the French surrender ceremony in the Fountain Square.

In fact, even Tuscany and the Papal States received invitations, but neither of them responded.

Sardinian people crowded the roads on both sides of the square, looking anxiously at more than a thousand Austrian prisoners walking past them, with some nervousness on their faces.

After all, they were allies of the Austrians two months ago. If His Majesty the King had not changed sides in time, there would probably be quite a few Sardinians among these prisoners.

The Italian girls looked at the majestic figures of the French Hussars escorting the prisoners, with smiles that were either shy or intoxicated.

Behind the group of prisoners was a convoy of more than ten horse-drawn carriages.

At the front of the convoy was a French officer holding up the surrender document signed by Melas and showing it to the surroundings.

The curtains of the carriage behind were drawn, so the people inside could not be seen, but according to well-informed sources, Melas and 12 other Austrian officers were sitting in the carriage.

After the surrender ceremony, these people will be "courtesy" sent back to Vienna. They paid a total of 390 million francs for this journey.

Behind the prisoner column were hundreds of tall French hussars, and behind them were the artillery battalion and the grenadier battalion, all of whom were carefully selected handsome young men, each of them tall and imposing.

This grand surrender ceremony shocked the whole of northern Italy.

When newspapers in various countries began to report the details of the ceremony and related battles in great detail, the influence that Austria had accumulated over hundreds of years of operation in northern Italy disappeared almost overnight.

Instead, the various states recognized French power.

Parma and Modena also sent people to the Palace of Versailles to express their intention to increase bilateral trade, and privately congratulated the French king and queen on the great victory of the French army many times.

Half a month after the surrender ceremony, the French Royal 4rd Infantry Division, two Royal Cavalry Artillery Companies, and more than recruits who had just completed training also arrived in Milan.

A total of 1 soldiers.

After receiving these troops, the Italian Front had expanded to more than 3 people.

After discussing with his ministers, Amedeo III decided to send Lieutenant General Taon to lead 1 Sardinian troops to join the French army's combat sequence.

Napoleon also recruited more than 3 Lombard Legion troops on the basis of the Milan City Guard, commanded by Sérurier.

In mid-September, 5 Franco-Saharan troops left Milan in a mighty procession and followed Napoleon to the fortress of Mantua. …

At the same time that Napoleon defeated the Melas Corps, the British Mediterranean Fleet also ended its pursuit of the French Toulon Fleet and returned to the Gibraltar naval port.

However, the Royal Navy's return journey seemed a bit embarrassing.

In the commander's cabin of the fleet's flagship, the Victory, Lord Hood could hear the faint sound of cannon fire. He shook his head irritably and shouted to the attendant at the door, "How far is it?"

The latter knew that he was asking about the distance to Gibraltar, so he hurried to the cockpit to ask a few questions, then quickly came back and said, "General, there are only 60 nautical miles left."

Lord Hood glanced at his pocket watch. It was already half past one in the afternoon. It seemed that he would not be able to enter the port today. He would have to be tortured by those damn steamships all day tomorrow.

Yes, since the French merchant ships completed the supply to Genoa, Commodore Di Ciajera commanded the "Mediterranean Fast Squadron" to the Barbary Sea to join the main force of the Toulon fleet.

However, they did not directly mix together. Instead, the Toulon fleet continued to lead the British fleet in front, and Di Chayela followed behind the British.

It seemed that the French fleet was being chased like a stray dog. For more than a month, they did not dare to enter the port, for fear of being stuck inside and unable to get out.

But in reality, only the British fleet themselves knew how depressed they were.

Those French steamships were like hyenas that had smelled carrion. They followed them all the time, and from time to time they would use their speed advantage to rush up and fire a few shots at the rear of the rearmost battleship, and then immediately turn around and flee.

After a while, another ship came up, fired a few shots and fled away...

At first, Lord Hood sent ships to drive away these "hyenas", but he soon found that this was of no use.

When they sent third- and fourth-level battleships, the French steamships circled around the main force of their fleet, and those heavy battleships could not catch up at all.

Moreover, after being teased, these battleships will face the problem of difficulty in returning to the main fleet.

Hood also had to slow down the main fleet to wait for them.

This gave the French Toulon fleet a chance to catch its breath.

They took advantage of this opportunity and successfully re-supplied at the port of Tripoli.

Even if the warships trying to disperse the "hyenas" have problems with their formation being not neat enough, they will be bitten hard!
A month ago, the third-class battleship "HMS Bold" was trying to seize the opportunity to sink the French frigate - in retrospect, this so-called opportunity was probably a trap set up by the French - which resulted in it failing to approach other warships in time and being besieged by a large number of steamships.

In the end, it was not sunk thanks to its strong hull, but it was badly damaged. There was almost no intact wooden board on the rear half of the side, and it basically lost its combat capability.

Afterwards, Lord Hood tried to use faster galleys to drive away the French warships, but the result was that two galleys were sunk.

The French steamboats were far more durable than the galleys. After 20 minutes of fighting, the galleys could no longer keep up and were beaten.

From that time on, Hood never sent a warship to drive off the steamers again.

The latter continued to follow and harass the main force of his fleet.

Although the firepower of these small boats was not strong, they could not withstand the repeated "biting" over a period of more than 50 days, and almost none of Hood's main battleships were not damaged.

(End of this chapter)