Novels online

Chapter 451: Defeat is Just a New Beginning

Heine, all in a fluster, took the telescope from his attendant and saw a dense mass of soldiers gathered before the Prussian lines, their line formation stretching as far as the eye could see.

"Quick! Sound the alarm!" he exclaimed at once. "The Prussians are about to attack!"

Fortunately, although the front lines at Liegnitz had remained calm, it was still a state of war between two nations, so the soldiers were all routinely kept in a state of readiness.

Soon, sharp whistle blasts and assembly drum rolls echoed all around.

Austrian soldiers grumbled as they queued up near the defensive line, then heard dense cannon fire from the opposite side.

Accompanied by the shriek of shells, nearly twenty cannonballs landed near the Austrian artillery positions, kicking up vast clouds of dust.

The Austrian artillery also hastily returned fire, but after firing only a dozen or so shells, they were dismayed to find their ammunition nearly depleted.

The Prussians began to risk pushing their cannons forward, and upon discovering the weak counterattack from the other side, they immediately grew bolder. Even several 24-Pounder Fortress Guns were huffing and puffing dragged to the front lines by more than a dozen horses.

The Duke of Brunswick had already mobilized all the surrounding cannons, nearly double the number of the defenders' artillery. With ample ammunition, they soon bombarded the Austrian artillery into submission.

What he saw was only four cannons still holding the line in his sector, but their rate of fire was so low it made him want to swear.

Meanwhile, the Prussian infantry opposite had fully deployed, covering Davidoff's entire sector. The first infantry line alone comprised roughly fourteen thousand men!

At the same time, numerous skirmishers had already used the terrain for cover, creeping to within less than 150 meters of their defensive line.

On his side, there was only a rather thin infantry line, numbering at most around ten thousand men. Although a number of newly informed units were rushing to both flanks, they were in forced march and couldn't be committed to battle immediately.

Cold sweat beaded on Marshal Lacy's back. Removing Davidoff's and Conrad's corps had indeed been a gamble, but he hadn't expected Ferdinand, the Duke of Brunswick, to launch such a targeted assault so swiftly.

Lacy hadn't neglected to reinforce the defenses here, but he had less than 100,000 troops remaining, and the entire defensive line needed to be covered. As a result, this particular section had been allocated just over fifteen thousand men.

The roar of the Prussian cannons gradually subsided, followed by a succession of lingering bugle calls.

Lacy quickly scanned with his telescope, only to see Prussian skirmishers already beginning to harass his line formation. This meant that the enemy would soon launch a full-scale assault, with large numbers of infantry pushing forward.

'Damn it!' he muttered under his breath. 'If it weren't for that French boy, how would my defensive line have such a massive vulnerability!'

He had completely forgotten that he had come to Silesia to defeat the Prussians and reclaim their homeland, not to establish defensive lines.

If defense was the goal, Austria could have retreated to the Bohemia region and relied on the Sudetes Mountains for defense, achieving twice the result with half the effort.

But there was no use complaining now. Marshal Lacy could only desperately urge his messengers to accelerate the arriving reinforcements, then, disregarding his subordinates' attempts to stop him, he personally went to the very front line, moving back and forth to bolster morale.

Before long, a 12-pounder cannonball whistled past his side, tearing a massive gap in the infantry line, and nearly rolling into the second line formation before being stopped by an earthen mound.

The attendants, seeing the blood and flesh mingled with the dirt on the ground, hastily escorted the Marshal to the rear.

Immediately, the Prussian army, with its four most elite grenadier regiments at its core, slowly advanced its narrow infantry lines towards the Austrian positions.

Marshal Lacy's encouragement had some effect; the Austrian soldiers, with the support of skirmishers, actually managed to withstand the grenadiers' close-range volleys. Then, under their officers' orders, they returned fire with a volley from a distance of just over twenty feet.

In the era of infantry line formation combat, as long as the soldiers could hold their ground, there was a fight to be had.

The two sides quickly devolved into a shooting match—tens of thousands of soldiers, arrayed in tight formations along a front over three kilometers long, stood ramrod straight, mechanically loading and firing without pause.

Killing the enemy soldiers, or being struck down by their bullets.

This was what people often called "standing in line to be shot."

After seven or eight volleys of mutual fire, the numerically superior Prussian army was the first to falter, with some soldiers beginning to cautiously retreat.

The Prussian army of this era was no longer the fearsome, wolf-like force under Frederick the Great. In terms of individual soldier quality, they even fell short of the Austrians.

The first wave of Prussian infantry gradually fell back, and a cheer of excitement immediately erupted from the Austrian positions.

However, Marshal Lacy dared not allow his soldiers to pursue, for he knew the Prussians held a significant numerical advantage.

Sure enough, the Duke of Brunswick swiftly ordered the second infantry line formation to advance, giving the Austrians no chance to catch their breath.

Marshal Lacy, for his part, ordered several skirmisher battalions to harass the Prussian army's left flank at all costs, and with the aid of their last three cannons, they barely managed to hold their defensive line.

The two sides remained locked in this stalemate until nightfall, then each withdrew to their respective camps.

However, after most of the day's fighting, the Austrian army had suffered heavy casualties, with their elite skirmisher battalions particularly depleted.

After inspecting the wounded, Lacy had already begun making arrangements to establish a second defensive line to the west.

Early the next morning, the Duke of Brunswick launched a relentless assault without hesitation.

Under the successive attacks of over fifty thousand Prussian troops, the Austrian army held out until around two in the afternoon, when a Prussian detachment of Hussars finally found an opening and cut into the left flank of their infantry line formation.

With the cavalry's continuous harassment of the flank, the Austrian defensive line instantly collapsed.

The Duke of Brunswick decisively ordered his cavalry to press inward on the Austrian corps from both sides, while simultaneously dispatching a large number of infantry to establish defensive lines to the north and south, blocking Austrian reinforcements.

Marshal Lacy, for his part, desperately directed his soldiers to retreat, but a day later, they were still cornered by Prussian cavalry in a depression fifteen kilometers from the front line.

Fortunately, he himself slipped out of the encirclement before the enemy forces closed in. But as he gazed at the enormous gap in his defensive line on the map, his heart sank significantly.

At present, the best-case scenario was to stall the Prussians, await the return of his troops from Ratibor, and then attempt to stabilize the front.

However, after this crushing defeat, reclaiming Silesia had become almost an impossibility.

As for the more than ten thousand encircled soldiers, he no longer held any hope.

However, just as he sat on his horse, looking through his telescope at the encircled soldiers, his eyes suddenly widened—

In the far distance, a cavalry unit was charging with extreme speed towards the Prussian flank, and those men appeared to be wearing white uniforms.