I Am the Crown Prince in France

Chapter 870 Mantua Offensive and Defensive War: Encirclement and Assistance Interception

Würmser felt a "buzz" in his head.

He had clearly confirmed that there were no French troops near Mantua before daring to come to Limone to pursue Napoleon.

Then where did the enemies surrounding Mantua come from?!

If Beaulieu were present at this moment, he would probably pat him on the shoulder with empathy and sigh, "You have finally experienced the nightmare I once had."

Würmser's war meeting started quickly, but the topic of discussion had changed from "getting rid of Napoleon's entanglement" to "rescuing Mantua."

Early the next morning, Würmser, who had barely slept all night, left Rainier with 6,000 men to cover the rear, and he himself led the main force to retreat to Mantua in a hurry.

Napoleon learned of Desaix's encirclement of Mantua even earlier than Würmser. Last night, he had already ordered Marmont's army, located on the south side of the battlefield, to disengage from the battle and wait for the Austrian army directly in the northwest direction of Mantua.

As for himself, he leisurely launched an attack on the 6,000 enemy troops covering the rear.

Just past noon, the French army, with its superior forces, completely defeated Rainier's army, and then relentlessly pursued Würmser.

At two o'clock in the afternoon the next day, Würmser's main force encountered Marmont's troops near the Mincio River, west of Mantua.

Anxious to rush back to Mantua to relieve the siege, Würmser had no intention of fighting. He divided part of his forces to push these thousands of French troops to the north, while the other troops quickly crossed the river from the space they had fought for.

Marmont did not desperately resist either. A messenger had notified him half an hour earlier that Napoleon's main force had arrived 6 kilometers away to the northwest.

Just as the Austrian army had set up a pontoon bridge and began to cross the river, they were suddenly attacked by fierce artillery fire from the rear—Napoleon had arrived.

Würmser had no choice but to respond hastily, and the banks of the Mincio River were immediately in chaos.

In the rear of the French army, Grouchy watched the enemy soldiers constantly crossing the river through his telescope, and anxiously said to Napoleon: "General, please allow me to lead the cavalry to intercept the enemies crossing the river. I am worried that if we delay any longer, Würmser will escape!"

Napoleon glanced at him and shook his head calmly: "No, the cavalry battalion should have no mission today. You can take a rest."

"But..."

Napoleon smiled: "If I wanted to capture Würmser, I would have had Marmont complete the encirclement from the south yesterday, instead of having him come here to intercept."

Grouchy was stunned: "Why did you do this?"

Napoleon handed the telescope to an attendant, turned around and sat down on a chair, and said: "It is His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's order. We are not allowed to occupy the Mantua fortress within half a year."

Grouchy's eyes widened. He had only ever heard of orders to capture fortresses within a time limit, and this was the first time he had encountered such a thing.

Napoleon was in a good mood. Without waiting for him to ask, he explained: "Although I believe that directly attacking Vienna is the best option, using Mantua to constantly consume Austria is also a good strategy.

"You see, this time we were able to eliminate twenty to thirty thousand soldiers of the Würmser army without much effort.

"Although the Mantua fortress itself is very strong, the surrounding Lombardy and Venice are crisscrossed by waterways and have no terrain conducive to concealment. We can easily carry out surprise attacks on passing troops.

"You wait and see, in the next six months, we will also annihilate many enemies."

The reason why Joseph gave him such an order was because he knew very well how much blood the Battle of Mantua in history, as an "unhealable wound," had drained from Austria.

Mantua, known as the "Key to Italy," is the strongest pass from Italy to Austria. If the French army breaks through here, their advance will point directly at Vienna.

This led Austria to spare no effort to protect this fortress.

Napoleon was not capable of swallowing Mantua in one bite back then, but he inadvertently promoted the situation of encircling the point and fighting for aid. Austria invested 120,000 troops to reinforce here, and Napoleon eventually devoured at least half of them, suffering heavy losses.

Now he is letting Napoleon deploy directly according to the goal of encircling the point and fighting for aid, and the effect will only be better.

When Austria's national strength is strong, possessing the ruling power over the Holy Roman Empire is a huge strategic advantage. But if Austria weakens to a certain extent, the numerous small states of the Holy Roman Empire will become his burden.

This is like a gang boss. When he is strong, he wants to get involved in everything, big or small, and take advantage of it. But when he is seriously ill, even if his underlings beg him to stand up for them, he will only find it annoying.

Eventually, the underlings will find that the boss "can't protect" them, and they will naturally quit the gang while cursing.

Joseph's mid-term goal is to dismantle the German region as much as possible, and consuming Austria is the most important step in this.

"And we will break through here sooner or later, and it will not be too late to capture him then."

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Beside the Mincio River, the French horse artillery, through continuous maneuver, searched for gaps in the battlefield and continuously bombarded the pontoon bridge on the river.

In fact, long-range artillery fire is difficult to hit the narrow pontoon bridge, but even if the shells land fifty or sixty meters away, it can make the Austrian soldiers on the pontoon bridge feel frightened and tremble under their feet.

Those who have not yet crossed the river are even more nervous, ignoring the officers' obstruction and desperately squeezing onto the pontoon bridge.

Soon, the soldiers on the bridge were pushed down by their comrades behind them, and screams and the sound of "plops" falling into the water were endless.

About one soldier would reach the other side for every three or four people who fell into the river.

The French army was just calmly firing from the periphery, and the Austrian army drowned most of themselves.

Würmser looked at the chaos of the Austrian army and realized that it was impossible to repel the French. He immediately stepped onto the pontoon bridge under the cover of his guard.

Near dusk, the French army finally stopped its offensive.

The panicked Würmser counted the troops on the south bank of the Mincio River and found that only less than 4,000 of the 30,000 troops who had set out remained.

He then thought of another terrible thing—with the little strength in his hands, he might not be able to break through the French encirclement outside Mantua and enter the fortress.

Fortunately, he was "lucky." The French army had concentrated its main force on the southeast side of the fortress early in the morning, attacking a watchtower there, leaving a gap behind him.

Würmser decisively led his army through the gap and successfully escaped back to the fortress.

However, the French reacted quickly and immediately launched a counterattack, capturing all of the latter half of his army.