Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Chapter 889 009 How many days does it take to catch pigs in France? (IV)

After the defeat, Sarken was not very excited.

"I should have listened to you, sir. Without your cavalry and chasseurs arriving on the battlefield, we would have been defeated."

"But you are still here, and the army is still largely intact. We just lost a lot of people when we retreated. But we can still fight here."

York said as Sarken pointed to the castle.

"Look there, sir. We have a castle, but it's more like a palace with thick walls. There are some houses outside, which is a big village with some farmhouses around it. It's not easy to defend this place."

"If not, we can only go in the direction of Reims."

"The commander-in-chief gave us such instructions, but who should we join up with?"

"Given the commander-in-chief's temper, he probably will."

"If our old gentleman were still alive, he would probably be in Reims. But your old cavalryman is different. He may attack the troops who are left behind to guard while Bonaparte is chasing us."

“It is indeed possible, but now”

York wanted to say something, but the French cannons arrived much faster than the people.

"They're coming so fast!"

But the Prussian army had already made their preparations in advance and even planned an escape route. It would not be easy to catch them now.

What's more, when the vanguard cavalry arrived, they also found that the enemy was large in number.

They would not launch reckless attacks on towns, as the Russian cavalry often did in Germany.

As a result, Davydov was unlucky and was punished by Baron Winzengorod. If it weren't for his many friends and connections, he would probably have been brought to a military court.

Another unfortunate guerrilla leader, Fegener, was not so lucky. After being surrounded by French cavalry, he did not want to be captured, so he jumped into the river and drowned.

It is a pity that among the captains who chased the French army at the beginning, only Seslavan is still leading the light cavalry to fight on the front line.

At this time, the Prussians did not act too aggressively. They were always keeping an eye on what the French were going to do and were not in a hurry to take action.

But as the scouts left, they saw the French Guards lined up on the gentle slope, and the situation was not good at this time.

When Motier saw this situation, he also gave the order for the Young Guards to line up and launch an attack.

The more elite East Prussian Regiment in the Prussian Army now collided head-on with the French Guards.

However, when these young guards came up the gentle slope, the bearskin hats at the back became more obvious, but strangely, there were also some French soldiers wearing caps but the same uniforms.

There were such things before, because it was also part of the Guards, but no one wore such a big hat on their head while marching. The environment in France and Russia is still different.

Not really. If you don’t wear this hat, you will be cold.

And if it's too hot, when the British wear bear-skin hats, some of them will suffocate every time there is a parade in the summer.

Therefore, it is normal for such a strange group of soldiers to appear here.

Moreover, Napoleon himself was not far away. After seeing this situation, he ordered an attack and approved of Mortier's method.

The Prussians now realized that something was wrong, and York hurriedly ordered the baggage train to cross the river, leaving only some infantry to cover them behind.

It was obvious that he had no intention of resisting here, so he moved more flexibly.

This is much better than Saken, at least his brain is online.

While the infantry were fighting head-on, the cavalry of both sides appeared on their flanks.

Although there were many new recruits among the French cavalry, they won consecutive victories under the leadership of Napoleon. In addition, the morale of the opposing team was high as they also had the "defeated general" who "escaped" yesterday.

Another important issue is that, thanks to Blücher's actions, the Allied forces, which had always had an advantage in cavalry size, were now at a disadvantage in every battle and were always surrounded by their opponents.

The two sides engaged in a fierce cavalry clash around the farm, and the Russian dragoons were defeated first. Of course, there was no need to expect them to do anything. If they were unlucky enough to encounter some dragoon regiments with relatively average combat effectiveness, one regiment might not be able to defeat a Turkish squadron-sized combat unit - this has been verified in actual combat.

Now the pressure was on the Prussian dragoons, but they were unable to resist for too long and eventually chose to retreat.

But Ney was following the dragoons today. When he discovered this situation, he ordered his troops to continue the pursuit and not give the opponent a chance to reorganize.

So after the defeat, the coalition cavalry was quickly driven off the battlefield.

The unfortunate Prussian infantrymen behind, after seeing the main force of their own cavalry being defeated, also began to retreat one after another. However, it would have been better if they could form a strategy after losing the cover of the cavalry.

Some Prussian infantry fell behind and were soon surrounded by the French army, with hundreds of them simply laying down their weapons.

"Well done. Ney did a great job in the pursuit today. But where is MacDonald? If he can get there in time, even if it's just some cavalry."

"Your Majesty, because of the destroyed bridges, the cavalry sent by Marshal MacDonald can only take a detour to get here. According to our estimate, it will take until night at the earliest."

Napoleon was not angry, he just expressed regret. When MacDonald retreated, he did not expect to have the opportunity to capture the enemy so soon, and Sacken destroyed the bridge purely because he was afraid that the French army would use the bridge when pursuing.

"Okay, once again."

Napoleon had often failed to realize his strategic ideas, but now he was very close to victory.

The Prussian troops on a farm soon laid down their arms, and now there were only more than 400 people left on this side of the river still resisting.

But they fought and retreated, and when they reached the river, they found that the bridge had been destroyed.

At this time, if they swam across the river in groups of three or two, the gunpowder would become ineffective, the formation would be dispersed, and they would only become prisoners of the French.

Then, at Château-Thierry, some more Prussian troops laid down their arms.

This time, these prisoners were to be sent back to Paris so that the citizens of Paris could see that these Prussians had once again set foot on French territory.

Strangely, the Prussians seemed to always be able to enter the enemy's capital, just using different methods, but there were also many times when they took prisoners into the city.

Napoleon wanted to take further action, but Sacken and York were running too fast, and he didn't want to continue chasing this group of enemies. Blücher was entangled with Marmont's rear guard at this time, and even went to Chamberbert. I don't know what was in his mind.

Of course, he was aware of York's actions, and the general quickly took action, first reminding Sacken to escape from Montmirail, and now informing Blücher of his situation.

The Prussian marshal then decided to take action, Blücher was going to move forward!
At least a strike against Marmont would attract Napoleon's attention.

More importantly, his side was probably the main force of the Prussian army with more people. If Napoleon had not had Paris, he would probably have continued to adopt mobile warfare and then looked for opportunities to annihilate some of the enemies.

Unfortunately, he has a Paris. It would be better if the battlefield could be wider.

At the same time, Blücher did not act rashly and took this action without even slapping his thigh.

He also remembered that there was Solovyov behind him. His headquarters had more than 10,000 people. In addition, he had asked the Tsar for two divisions of reinforcement, but they were still on the way and were behind his troops.

In addition, Schwarzenberg had 150,000 troops available for action, including a considerable number of elite troops, including Russian Guards and Grenadiers, and Austrian Hungarian Hussars and Grenadiers.

However, when Blücher arrived in Chamberbert, Gneisenau introduced him to it in this way.

"Marshal, judging from the current situation, York and Sacken are retreating towards Reims, and Napoleon's Guards are behind them, pursuing in this direction. Solovyov's troops are approaching us, about two days away. They have not encountered any enemies along the way, but their advance is slow because of the muddy roads."

"It doesn't matter. As long as Schwarzenberg's troops come closer to us, everything will be fine."

"Your Excellency Marshal."

Well, at this time Gneisenau had to look at Kleist next to him, and Kleist looked at him.

"Your Excellency, Marshal, Schwarzenberg is very far away from us now, and he has no time to send reinforcements."

Blücher was not angry, because he knew that Schwarzenberg was a coward and always kept his distance from him.

Previously, Barclay had transferred away the cavalry responsible for guarding. This was how the coalition forces were deployed.

Sure, he had a lot of guts and a big beard, but he just didn’t have enough brains.

Moreover, he often didn't listen to what Gneisenau said to him these days, and might even take wrong actions.

"We must continue to pursue Marmont. As long as the usurper doesn't come back, we can win!"

Having said that, in Europe, the fastest runner was Napoleon. Probably only the late Suvorov and several of his disciples could run close to his speed.

This time, Solovyov was among Blücher's men, but he was always at the back. Blücher also hated this young man because of his previous suggestions that he always suggested guarding against attacks from his uncle, so he put him at the back.

Moreover, he had also lost the 9th Division that he had personally led, and now there are only a thousand or so people left in this division.

Blücher didn't think too much. Since Napoleon "couldn't come back", he continued to pursue Marmont.

Marmont is no longer like he was in Saxony in 1813. The quality of the soldiers trained by him at that time was quite good. The fact that the emperor brought him along this time was also due to the fact that he retained more backbones of the 6th Army.

However, the Guards are now understaffed, and it is inevitable that troops will be drawn from him to provide assistance.

Although the 6th Army was not drained like some other units, it was still limited in numbers.

Now Marmont could only think of himself as a cat, with Blücher, a big dog, chasing him from behind, and he had to keep a distance.

Of course, it is not ruled out that he has to be downgraded to a mouse, and then Blücher, as a cat, touches the hammock with a stick.

Then he swung the stick down.
On the morning of February 2, the Prussian Hussars of Zieten's Brigade, which had been pursuing the enemy, discovered Marmont who was retreating.

Marmont had been on the run for the previous day or two, but this time, things were clearly different.

Marmont He's not running anymore!
Even on the way of retreat, they built a simple position and used 6-pound cannon shotshell to repeatedly attack the approaching Prussian troops.

These Prussian cavalry now realized the problem.

When Blücher received the report, he initially felt that nothing would happen.

After all, the fact that they stopped suddenly and dared to open fire and counterattack meant that Marmont might have received reinforcements.

At first, before he could even start to move towards Napoleon, he suddenly braked and turned around to think about his own direction.

Blücher only wanted Kaptsevich and Kleist to assist Zieten and strike at Marmont.

He could not have imagined that Marmont now had four cavalry squadrons of the Guards at his disposal, in addition to support troops that were arriving one after another.

Moreover, Grouchy, who had fought a cowardly battle in the past few days, has now reorganized his troops and is leading his cavalry units to launch a counterattack.

It was not until the afternoon that Blücher realized that something was wrong.

"That usurper might be back!"

He said this while still relatively calm, unlike most generals who were often defeated in battles, but when it came to deployment, it was a familiar formula.

Run away, run away again.

The Prussians had been pursuing the outnumbered Marmont the day before, but today the situation was reversed.

Obviously, the big dog just showed up like that, glaring and baring its teeth, just to get back at the enemy. Isn't the French bulldog also a kind of vicious dog?
Blücher wanted the main force to flee to Chambébert, while he arranged for the artillery and convoy to flee to Etoges under cover.

When Marmont saw this situation, he did not ask the emperor for instructions. When he saw that the Prussian army was about to escape, he sent out all the cavalry that could run.

Obviously, this was because they didn't want Blücher to escape, and they also wanted to regain the face they had suffered from being chased for the past two days.

After receiving the report, Napoleon was very satisfied and ordered his troops to follow up.

Moreover, not only the Young Guards commanded by Mortier and Ney at this time, but also the Old Guard 1st Division led by Friant at this time had to be deployed.

Napoleon was also very angry with Blücher. He had escaped many times before, but today he finally caught him here.

He won't stop until this old man's pants are kicked open.

(End of this chapter)