Chapter 1207: A Narrow Encounter
Hotze's voice had barely faded before the marching column beside him came to a sudden, jarring halt.
He knit his brows in annoyance and growled, "Damn it, what is it now?"
A messenger came gallopng from the front, shouting his report as he approached. "General! French troops have been spotted on the south bank of the Aare River. Our engineering battalion has come under attack!"
"The French?!" Hotze exclaimed in shock. "How could there be Frenchmen here?"
"I... I'm not sure, sir... but the engineering battalion reports that the enemy force might be over ten thousand strong."
Hotze was momentarily stunned.
When he left Zurich, there had been no word of France deploying troops to Switzerland. It had been less than five days, and the French army had already appeared in the Swiss heartland?
The Jura Mountains stood between France and Switzerland. To bypass the range from the south, reach Lausanne at Switzerland's southern tip, and then head north toward Biel should have taken at least half a month of hard marching.
What he didn't know was that as early as the third day after Austria declared war, Masséna had already begun leading his army through the Roches Pass, scaling the Jura Mountains exactly as the operational plan dictated.
Drawing on his professional military discipline, Hotze quickly regained his composure and began issuing deployment orders. He then personally rode toward a tributary of the Aare River to survey the enemy situation.
Even before he reached the riverbank, the distant, rhythmic thunder of cannon fire reached his ears.
A staff officer beside him hurried to report, "General, the Hussars say the French force on the opposite bank is likely thirteen thousand strong. However, they have deployed at least fifteen cannons. They seem to be here to block our advance toward Lausanne."
Hotze rode up to a small hill and peer through his telescope. Sure enough, he saw a well-arranged artillery position on the southern side of the Aare.
"The French certainly react quickly," he remarked, a disdainful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "But look at this meticulously prepared defensive line and their aimless shelling. It is clear they are extremely nervous, thinking I might launch a forced crossing at any moment."
"However, they are mistaken. I won't waste a single moment here."
He gestured to his adjutant. "Order the Vogel Regiment to stage a feint here. The rest of the army will move downstream tomorrow morning, bypass the river there, and then strike the French flank."
"Yes, General!"
Meanwhile, on the south bank of the Aare River...
Gazan listened to the constant roar of the cannons around them and finally couldn't help but complain to Masséna. "General, the Austrians are still well out of range. We shouldn't be wasting our precious ammunition."
Masséna nodded calmly. "But this shows them we are serious about our defense."
Gazan opened his mouth to argue further, but a Hussar captain reined in his horse nearby. "General, after repeated confirmation, there are no other enemy forces within a twelve-kilometer radius."
"Very good." Masséna rose from his small wooden stool and turned to Oudinot. "You may tell the men to begin their preparations. Oh, and move dinner up by two hours. Open up more of the tinned rations; they’re going to be busy very soon."
At four o'clock in the afternoon, in the camp of the French Third Infantry Division, corporals distributed warm bread just collected from the field kitchens to the soldiers.
On a patch of withered grass, an Honor Representative reached out to feel the glass jars soaking in hot water, an excited expression on his face. "The temperature is just right. Dig in, everyone!"
The soldiers scrambled to grab the jars, prying them open with their bayonets. Instantly, the savory aroma of fish wafted through the air.
The cans contained stewed tuna, prepared with a broth recipe created by the royal chefs at Versailles. The taste was impeccable.
The men began to feast greedily. In less than ten minutes, most had polished off the better part of a sixty-centimeter baguette.
By five o'clock, well-fed and high-spirited, nearly ten thousand soldiers of the Third Infantry Division quickly formed their ranks along the riverbank.
A series of orders began flashing from the mobile Chappe Signal Vehicle, and almost all companies moved in unison.
A regiment of soldiers boarded hastily constructed wooden rafts, crossing rapidly to establish a bridgehead on the opposite shore. The rest shouldered their rifles, held their boots high, and began wading through the water.
October marked the dry season in Switzerland. At its deepest point, this tributary of the Aare River only reached a soldier's waist.
At that same moment, the Coalition soldiers on the north bank were listlessly setting up camp, waiting for their own dinner to be served.
By the time the patrolling Hanoverian Hussars sounded the alarm of an enemy attack, half of the French Third Infantry Division had already reached the northern bank.
Piercing bugle calls suddenly erupted throughout the Austrian camp. Most of the soldiers ran about in a confused daze, while the shouting and cursing of officers rose in a chaotic cacophony.
By the time the French assault force's war drums began to roll, the Hanoverian soldiers had still failed to form a proper defensive line.
Immediately afterward, Oudinot personally led a swarm of four thousand skirmishers in a fierce charge against the Austrian right wing.
As one of the most elite units in the French army, the Third Infantry Division possessed marksmanship skills that were unrivaled in all of Europe.
Aided by their rifles, the first volley of thousands of Minié balls inflicted three to four hundred casualties on the enemy instantly.
Following the volley, the French soldiers expertly sought out the nearest cover, ducking behind obstacles to reload. This rendered the Coalition's sporadic return fire almost entirely ineffective.
Soon, the French soldiers emerged from cover simultaneously, advanced ten paces in a disciplined line, and raised their rifles to fire again.
In this manner, after only four rounds of firing, the Hanoverian Legion on the far western flank completely collapsed under the weight of their staggering losses.
Over a thousand surviving soldiers screamed in terror as they bolted along the riverbank, plowing through the ranks of the Coalition troops behind them who still hadn't grasped what was happening.
However, the sound of dense gunfire soon followed, and even more soldiers joined the panicked flight.
"The French have surrounded us!"
"Run! We've been ambushed!"
"There are tens of thousands of Frenchmen! We're finished!"
All sorts of frantic cries echoed across most of the Austrian camp. As the sky began to darken, the soldiers' sense of dread only intensified.
Within twenty minutes, Hotze received half a dozen conflicting reports. Some said the French were charging down from the northern slopes; others claimed the enemy force numbered thirty or forty thousand.
Hotze dispatched three successive waves of officers, but they utterly failed to stabilize the line.
Finally, as the sound of gunfire drew closer, he was forced to order a retreat toward the nearest town, Solothurn.
There was no rear guard because he could no longer find a single intact regiment to command.
At that moment, the sun vanished completely below the horizon.
The retreating Coalition troops scrambled like headless flies. Countless men were trampled to death, tripped and fell, or tumbled into the river.
The wails and screams of agony continued until midnight before finally fading away.
The following morning, when Masséna arrived at the north bank of the river, he saw a constant stream of prisoners being marched past by his soldiers. There were at least three or four thousand of them—the poor wretches had fled all night, but because of the pitch-black darkness, they had spent the entire time wandering in circles within a two-kilometer radius. Once dawn broke, they were easily rounded up by the French cavalry.
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