Chapter 906: Battle of Trento
Alvinczy couldn't help but feel a lingering sense of dread.
Fortunately, his orders hadn't been fully dispatched yet. If Quosdanovich had launched his offensive only to be struck from the rear, everything would have been lost.
However, he quickly forced himself to regain his composure.
The reason his main army had progressed so slowly was precisely to maintain a tight, orderly formation.
This meant that even if the right wing suffered a surprise attack, the rest of his forces could respond swiftly, preventing the situation from spiraling out of control.
Alvinczy turned his gaze back to the map and questioned the staff officer beside him.
"Which corps is closest to Quosdanovich?"
The officer flipped through his notes. "That would be General Zweig's Galicia Corps, Marshal."
Alvinczy nodded and issued instructions to the messenger. "Zweig has just over seven thousand men, which might not be enough. Have the Berlad Cavalry Battalion coordinate with him and reinforce the right wing immediately."
"Yes, Marshal!"
As the messenger hurried off, Alvinczy's attendant arrived, leading a man dressed in civilian clothes.
The man, disguised as a common woodsman, bowed to the commander-in-chief. He fished a small slip of paper from a hidden seam in his collar and handed it to the attendant.
"Marshal, General Bajzáth encountered the French army at the Avisio River this morning."
"The enemy has over fifteen thousand men. Currently, the General is using the terrain to stall them, but he requests that you send reinforcements as soon as possible."
Alvinczy’s brow furrowed instantly.
The French had launched simultaneous surprise attacks on both his left and right flanks.
Luckily, Bajzáth had reacted in time, granting him the breathing room to respond methodically.
Yet, a sense of inconsistency struck him.
How could Bajzáth's corps have encountered the enemy at the Avisio River? He had strictly ordered the left wing to stay within half a day's march of the center, and the Avisio River was over ten kilometers away.
He couldn't afford to dwell on that for now. He turned to another messenger. "Order the Buch Corps to reinforce the left wing. Remind them to stick to positional warfare as much as possible."
Bajzáth's messenger remembered something else and added quickly, "Marshal, Archduke Charles asked me to remind you that the Avisio River is likely not the main thrust of the French attack. They will probably strike from other locations. You must expand your reconnaissance range..."
Alvinczy dismissed him with an impatient wave of his hand. That young royal relative had barely seen a few battlefields, yet he was already trying to lecture a veteran.
The French had already begun their assault on the right wing—did he really need a reminder for that?
To the east of the town of Molveno.
Quosdanovich was already locked in a desperate struggle.
He had originally intended to steady his formation and slowly retreat toward the nearby Paganella Mountain to set up a defense.
With twenty thousand soldiers under his command, holding out for a day or two would be simple if he utilized the mountain slopes. By then, Marshal Alvinczy's reinforcements would have arrived to help him crush the French forces.
However, the three regiments he left behind to cover his retreat—numbering over four thousand men—hadn't lasted even thirty minutes before being shattered by a combined assault of infantry and artillery.
This forced him to abandon his plan and set up a defensive line where his army stood.
But then, French cannons suddenly appeared on his flank, opening up a thunderous, relentless bombardment.
Quosdanovich watched through his telescope as his soldiers, terrified by the shells, threw their hands over their heads and crouched in the dirt. The veins on his forehead pulsed with fury. 'God! Those cannons were two miles away only ten minutes ago. Did they have wings?'
"Go and see how much longer the reinforcements will take!"
He bellowed at his staff officer, but then the roar of the cannons at the front suddenly ceased.
He hurriedly raised his telescope again, only to see waves of French assault columns piercing through his messy infantry lines like a barrage of dense arrows.
Then, thousands of French troops deployed into line formation in less than a minute. Musket fire began to flicker continuously along a front over a kilometer long.
Almost instantly, the right side of his defensive line, already weakened by the shelling, collapsed.
A mass of soldiers screamed and scattered in every direction. Panic spread as rapidly as the French volleys, and soon, even the lower-ranking Austrian officers joined the flight.
To be fair, Quosdanovich's tactical response after being ambushed hadn't been flawed.
However, the time his corps managed to hold out wasn't even a fifth of what he had anticipated.
This was an unavoidable reality. Beaulieu and Melas had already squandered the bulk of Austria's elite forces. More than half of the soldiers sent to Northern Italy this time were serfs recently conscripted under Vienna's mobilization order.
These men had received less than three months of training. They barely knew how to handle their flintlock muskets, and the mere sound of heavy artillery was enough to make their knees buckle. How could they possibly stand their ground against the veteran French regulars?
Before long, Quosdanovich saw a troop of French cavalry galloping toward his position in the distance. He scrambled into his saddle and, surrounded by his personal guard, retreated toward the southeast.
And so, before the sun had even reached its zenith, Napoleon suddenly found that there were no organized enemy forces left in front of him.
He frowned as he looked at the Austrian Model 1722 flintlock muskets discarded across the battlefield. He gazed into the distance, momentarily wondering if this was a trap set by Alvinczy to lure him deeper.
He turned to Lucien. "Have Lieutenant Colonel Grouchy personally lead the cavalry battalion to confirm the enemy's movements."
"Yes, General."
An hour and a half later, Grouchy returned to report. He had encountered Zweig's Corps, which Alvinczy had sent to reinforce the right wing. They numbered about ten thousand men, but beyond them, no other Austrian ambushes were found.
Napoleon lashed his riding crop in frustration. By not immediately pursuing the routing troops, he had likely allowed Quosdanovich's corps to flee back to Alvinczy in a semi-coherent state.
Just as he was about to arrange the attack on Zweig, a messenger from Desaix arrived in a hurry to report.
"General, at noon the day before yesterday, Wurmser led nearly twenty thousand Austrian troops in a breakout from Mantua..."
Napoleon's expression darkened instantly. "What happened? Why is this only being reported now?"
The messenger lowered his head. "Wurmser broke out from the east, which is General Thaon's sector. Colonel Desaix only realized something was wrong last night."
The perimeter of the Mantua Fortress was immense, and the southern sector managed by Desaix was over four kilometers away from the Sardinian sector. If the Sardinian army didn't take the initiative to report, it was difficult for Desaix to know what was happening on the other side.
"Dammit! Those foolish Sardinians!"
Napoleon cursed under his breath, then suddenly looked at the map in his hand. "Wait, Augereau has been unable to arrive for the pincer maneuver. Could he have run into Wurmser?"
'Damn it! It looks like the battle plan must be adjusted...'
However, this time, his guess was wrong.
Augereau hadn't encountered Wurmser—given the speed of the Austrian army, two days wasn't enough time to march from Mantua to this location.
His troops were currently engaged in a fierce battle on the banks of the Avisio River against the Austrian forces commanded by Archduke Charles.
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