I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 960: Queen Mary's Gift

Hahnmayer was stunned for a moment, until he saw the Ottoman emblems on the soldiers' hats through the telescope, and then he was sure that they were not French troops.

It really looks like a military uniform.

He hesitated for a moment, divided out four squadrons to hold back the Turkish infantry behind him, and led the rest of his men to continue attacking the newly appeared gap.

However, just as he tore through the Turkish army's western defense lines as easily as a hot knife through butter, and almost saw Mustafa's golden sedan chair, two cavalrymen chased him from behind, waved and shouted at him: "Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Koenig, please withdraw immediately. He can't hold on any longer!"

Hahnmeier pulled the reins and turned his head, but the dust obscured his vision.

He frowned. There were only more than 1 Ottoman soldiers in white clothes, but they actually defeated Koenig's four cavalry squadrons?
He hurriedly ordered the cavalry to turn back and ran more than a thousand steps. Sure enough, he saw that the white line of infantry had almost blocked the previous gap.

If he had been ten minutes later, he would have been surrounded by the Turkish infantry...

Hahnmayer broke out in a cold sweat. He had participated in the Turkish-Austrian War a few years ago, but he had never seen such a ferocious Ottoman army.

He chose the right direction, and when the white-clad native army was only two or three hundred steps away, he finally led the Hussars out.

However, hundreds of Koenig's men were blocked in the array of tens of thousands of Turkish infantry.

Mustafa was at a loss when he suddenly found that the defense line on the left had stabilized, and then he saw those white military uniforms through the telescope.

"The Sixth Battalion of the New Army?"

He was overjoyed and quickly ordered Topiz's new army to go to the north to defend, while commanding the main force to retreat two kilometers to the south and reorganize the defense.

Little did he know that after defeating the Austrian army's surprise attack on the west, the Janissary Guards, in order to grab the credit, blocked the new army from pursuing the enemy.

The new army was so angry that they retreated, just in time to meet Archduke Karl's surprise attack on his own central army.

More than 1 new Topizian troops, under the French command of their officers, quickly turned to the northern defense line and opened fire on the oncoming Austrian army.

The right side of the long Austrian infantry line suddenly stopped advancing.

In fact, the Ottoman New Army could not match them in terms of formation or shooting skills. However, most of these Austrians had fought in the Italian battlefield and had a psychological trauma from the white uniforms, so they hesitated for a while.

In this way, it was not until the Oedenburg Grenadiers Battalion came up that Topiz's new army was finally defeated.

But after just a brief delay, Mustafa's main force had already withdrawn from the battle and retreated southward towards the Belom River.

Archduke Karl was extremely anxious and wanted to launch a pursuit, but the Hussars had just experienced a chaos and had not yet completed their assembly.

Although the Ottoman infantry in front of them was weak in combat effectiveness, there were still 20,000 to 30,000 of them. It would take several hours to drive them away from the battlefield.

Sure enough, it was not until dusk that the last group of Turkish soldiers finally surrendered.

Archduke Karl rode past a large group of prisoners, and his staff officer reported the battle situation to him: "We captured more than 1 Ottomans, and the number killed is unknown.

"But according to the captured officers, there are more than 5 enemy troops retreating to the Belom River."

Archduke Karl frowned, but was not too worried. After today's defeat, the Ottomans must be in low morale.

There are large plains nearby, which are very suitable for large-scale decisive battles.

As long as we continue the fierce attack tomorrow, we can completely wipe out this Ottoman army in five or six days at most.

He signaled to Argentau: "Please tell the soldiers to have a good rest tonight. We will launch the attack early tomorrow morning."

"Yes, Marshal." Argentao was about to turn around, but suddenly remembered something and said hurriedly, "Marshal, I'm afraid our ammunition can only last for another half a day.

"Especially the cannons. They have run out of ammunition this afternoon." Archduke Karl's heart suddenly tightened.

The reason why he was able to appear in Isperih so quickly was because he abandoned most of his baggage, including ammunition.

According to his original plan, today's raid should be able to defeat the main force of the Turkish army, and he would only need to leave it to the Hussars to hunt them down.

As a result, the sudden appearance of the Ottoman elite disrupted Hahnmayer's rhythm, causing tens of thousands of enemy troops to retreat successfully.

Next up is a head-on decisive battle, which will definitely not be over in one day.

If they waited here for the baggage train to catch up - which would take at least four days - the Ottomans would most likely retreat into the city of Isperih or even directly withdraw to Targveshte.

Then the war will become protracted.

He had every confidence that he could defeat the Ottomans, but he only had less than a month.

Archduke Karl sighed and said to Argentau, "Send someone to collect the enemy's ammunition. Let the soldiers melt the bullets overnight."

In this era, flintlock bullets were small lead balls. Soldiers had a clamp-like mold in their standard equipment. In between battles, they would melt the lead blocks, pour them into the mold, and solidify them into small balls of the same size as their gun muzzles. They would then polish them and use them.

At this moment, several soldiers' voices were heard not far away, "Where did these infidels get the M1722?"

"Damn, this gun is even newer than the one I use!"

"Look, those too. They seem to have quite a few M1722s..."

Archduke Karl pulled the reins in surprise and walked towards the soldiers.

Soon, he looked at the pile of M1722s on the ground and said to Agentao, "Check immediately how many of these guns are left."

"Yes, Marshal."

Two hours later.

Argentau rushed into Archduke Karl's tent with several soldiers and said excitedly: "Marshal, more than one-third of these prisoners are using M1722.

"And even better news: we found dozens of Ottoman baggage wagons.

"Although we haven't counted them yet, there are at least three thousand boxes of M1722 ammunition! And a large amount of artillery shells and gunpowder."

He said, motioning to the soldiers behind him.

Someone immediately carried two wooden boxes to Archduke Karl and opened them.

The latter saw at a glance the neatly stacked ammunition in the box, and even the style of the ammunition bags was exactly the same as that used by Austrian soldiers.

"Thank God!" Archduke Karl was so excited that he made the sign of the cross on his chest.

With these ammunition, he could immediately launch an attack on the enemy. Three thousand boxes of ammunition would be enough for his 4 soldiers to consume for at least two days.

Moreover, if the Ottomans were equipped with a large number of M1722s, he could continue to seize this ammunition in subsequent battles.

Agentao suddenly turned the wooden box around, pointed to a line of words on the back and said to him, "Marshal, look here."

The servant immediately moved the candle closer, and then Archduke Karl saw that it was a line of Latin words: Marie Antoinette's sincere blessings to you.

(End of this chapter)