War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

On the first day of the siege of Celesta, Bono de Cullen noticed something strange.

Bono de Cullen did not believe that the militiamen could persist in such a fierce battle, let alone beat his elite troops so badly.

The first two battalions to enter the battle were all elite veterans, but they were almost wiped out by the formation during the siege of Celesta.

This was a huge loss that had never occurred before. Bono de Cullen did not underestimate the enemy, and the soldiers were even less likely to take their lives for granted.

In fact, his guess was basically correct. This mercenary was specially sent by Franz.

Their specialty is urban combat, and most of the equipment they use is specially designed to deal with urban combat.

At this time, the population of Alsace was mainly German, and the French population was so small that it could be ignored.

The Lorraine region is different. Although it is still dominated by German-speaking people, most of the German-speaking population is concentrated in the Moselle region, and the German-speaking population becomes sparse the closer to France.

Before World War I, the German Recruitment Office counted the total population of Alsace-Lorraine at 1.87 million, of which 1.69 million were German-speaking.

But in fact, the so-called Alsace Lorraine in Germany refers to Alsace and the northeastern region of Lorraine (probably one-third of the province's area).

This also explains why Lamosilière's troops were able to quietly attack the city of Metz, and it was precisely because of this that he was willing to implement Bellevue's crazy plan.

After capturing Metz, half of the plan has been completed. All that is left is to capture Strasbourg, then hold the Rhine River defense line and wait for the German Allied Forces to come and die.

As for why the German Allied Forces did not attack in the direction of Lorraine, it is because half of the northern border is the Lorraine Plateau and half is the Moselle Valley. There are mountains and rivers everywhere and the terrain is more complex.

Moreover, France's imaginary enemy has always been Austria, which is obviously closer to Alsace.

Encircling the point for reinforcements and attacking halfway across the border, in theory, this can indeed severely damage the Austrian army, or at least ensure that it is undefeated.

However, when attacking the Alsace region, Lamosilière fell into an unexpected hard battle, and the battle in Salburg became even more fierce.

The French army with high morale rushed towards this small fortress howling like crazy wild wolves. They thought that the battle would be the same as before, and the enemy would take the initiative to open the city gate for them and then let others slaughter them.

However, as soon as the battle began, a basin of cold water was poured on the invincible French army. Hundreds of Congreve rockets that had been prepared rose into the sky.

Although the accuracy of this old-fashioned rocket is extremely poor, with a range of two kilometers and an error of one kilometer, and there is a certain chance of self-destruction, it cannot withstand much.

Moreover, the French army also adopted a dense formation at this time, so it was rushing in both directions.

Continuous dense explosions blew up the French vanguard and made them howl like ghosts.

However, the Congreve rocket is not invincible. First of all, although this thing has a fast rate of fire, it also consumes a lot of energy. It is impossible for the defenders to fire continuously.

Secondly, although it looks very powerful and sounds shocking, its lethality is actually limited, especially for infantry, unless it is directly hit, the explosive power is not as good as the fortress bomb.

Fortress bombs are primitive grenades, about the same size as the landmines in anti-Japanese movies, weighing more than ten kilograms.

Finally, there is its touching hit rate. The original Congreve rocket cannot control the direction at all, and the ballistic trajectory is completely random.

As a veteran on the battlefield, Lamosilier naturally knew these shortcomings of the Congreve rocket, but he did not want to waste the lives of soldiers in vain.

So Lamosilier came up with a good idea, which was to let the soldiers push the door panel forward.

Although it sounds funny, it turns out to be really effective. The door panel can greatly reduce the impact of the Congreve rocket explosion and can also resist bullets to a certain extent.

However, as a result, the soldiers' mobility was greatly reduced and they became live targets for artillery.

Each big iron ball can take away the lives of a string of French soldiers, and those wooden doors have almost zero protection against bullets at close range.

The soldiers dropped the heavy wooden door and began the most brutal war of attrition. At a distance of less than ten meters or even less than five meters, there was almost no possibility of the two sides missing the target.

Even if the shot missed, it would hit someone else, and both sides roared and fought. Rifles filled with gunpowder roared and emitted puffs of smoke.

The slowly rising smoke temporarily obscured the sight of both parties, but how could the God of Death stop his harvesting pace.

The frontline commanders from both sides roared almost simultaneously.

"Keep shooting!"

So the soldiers who had loaded their ammunition raised their guns and continued to shoot at the opponent behind the smoke. From time to time, soldiers fell down and were immediately replaced by others.

However, shooting at the smoke was unreliable after all, and soon the French troops climbed up the walls of the fortress.

Bloodier hand-to-hand combat began. Unlike the Napoleonic period, which was very fond of bayonet charges, the French army, which had been at peace for a long time, paid the least attention to bayonet training among the major powers.

Some things may go against common sense, but at this time, the British and Russians paid the most attention to bayonet training. Prussia, which has a strong military tradition, did not attach so much importance to bayonet training.

However, Austria does not pay much attention to bayonet training as people stereotype, and does not even have a separate training code.

The performance of the militiamen in Saarburg was even worse, and they could barely maintain their composure when shooting at the French army. Once they get into hand-to-hand combat, the guns in their hands turn into sticks.

But this does not mean that the bayonet is definitely better than the stick. Although the scene is a bit embarrassing, in fact the two sides are still evenly matched.

After an extremely brutal fight, the French army finally retreated after leaving behind thousands of corpses.

However, before the Salburg militiamen on the city had time to celebrate, the French shelling began.

Lamosilière admitted that he had underestimated the opponent in front of him, but he did not think that the enemy in front of him could prevent him from capturing Strasbourg before the arrival of the German Allied Forces.

Lamosilière was an outstanding soldier and had his own unique insights into war, such as the use of explosive ammunition.

At this time, most artillery officers believed that the power of the explosive shells was too small to cause damage to the fortress walls.

But Lamosilier, who has been on the front line all year round, knows that he does not need to blow up the wall, he only needs to blow up the defenders on the wall.

As a result, Lamosilier became the first French general to use explosive bombs on a large scale to siege a city.

The French artillery was the most advanced artillery in the original world line at this time, both in terms of their concepts and the artillery they used.

The sustained large-scale shelling was so powerful that almost all of the original wall stacks were turned into rubble, but this did not prevent them from continuing to serve as bunkers for the defenders.

Fortunately, Franz had already previewed this situation, and the defenders had built a bunker similar to an anti-cannon hole in advance, so they did not suffer much damage.

But Lamosilier didn't know what anti-cannon holes were, and instead had doubts about his own tactics. The military commanders doubted their own tactics, let alone their subordinates.

But the news that made him even more depressed came. Bono de Cullen was still blocked from making any progress in Celesta.