Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Chapter 331 033 The Bavarians really ran away

The Austrian army's actions seemed to be very secretive. In peacetime, a certain scale of troops would be stationed in Linz. However, when the action began, it lost some of its surprise.

The Bavarian army was mainly deployed around Munich. When the Austrians just came out of the barracks, the Bavarian side had already received the news.

This is not surprising, after all, they all spoke German, sent spies to each other, or had exchanges with each other. This is not surprising.

The pressure came to the Elector of Bavaria, who quickly summoned the commanders of the Bavarian army.

The good thing about the Bavarian army is that it is very close to the capital Munich, and the generals arrived very quickly.

At the gate of the royal palace, General Druid, the commander-in-chief of the Bavarian Army, and General Reid, the deputy commander, were already waiting to be summoned by the candidate emperor himself.

When the palace heard the news that the Austrians were about to arrive, they were not too panicked.

Prior to this, the Elector himself had met with Prince Schwarzenberg, and the Austrian side hoped to win over Bavaria to the coalition side.

However, just as they were always hesitant on the battlefield, they were also half a beat slow in arriving in Munich. By the time the Austrians arrived, Bavaria had already joined the French side on August 8.

Therefore, the Bavarian army was also prepared in advance, but it all depended on how fast the Austrians acted.

"Your Highness the Elector, our six brigades are ready. How would you like to arrange them?"

"We are too far behind in strength. Generals, we should retreat. It is not appropriate to confront the Austrians head-on at this time. We need to wait for our allies to arrive here."

Elector Maximilian Joseph was not wrong to think so. When Bavaria was still relatively strong, it was obviously no match for the Habsburgs, who were much stronger than itself.

Now they had no choice but to retreat. The Austrians were close to their rear in Bavaria and would not recruit troops on the spot like the French did. They might even have to rely on transportation from the rear, so the local losses would not be very great.

Not every war goes against human nature like the Thirty Years' War and brings great disaster to the world.

However, the arrival of Bavaria's allies, the French, was still a troublesome matter.

After all, when the French came and collected money on the spot, it was hard to say what the face value of the thing they distributed was.

Besides, Napoleon represented the interests of France, and these effects only needed to be followed by some benefits.

It's just that when the war just started, both sides were still able to maintain some dignity.

"Your Highness, what should be done then?"

"General Druid, please take charge of the command of the legion and let our army retreat safely to the Main River."

At this time, running away is not shameful.

General Druid and General Reid looked at each other, then nodded to the Elector.

As for court attendants and government officials, many of them were also preparing to evacuate Munich.

Most people would stay here. After all, when the Austrians came, their first targets would be Munich and Augsburg, followed by Ulm and Ingolstadt.

The Bavarians did run very fast, and the Austrians' slow progress did waste time.

Solovyov once again got an excellent seat to watch the battle. The Russian army participated in the anti-French alliance twice, and he was the first to appear on the battlefield as a messenger.

But this time, Archduke Ferdinand and General Mark acted too slowly. If Solovyov had thought in his own way, the Austrian light cavalry might have appeared to the north of Munich by now.

For him, the only logo that is familiar to him in the whole of Bavaria is that one. After all, there is a football club in Munich that is not doing its job properly, and the original team logo has this pattern in the middle.

As for other aspects, they were relatively blank for him. After all, he spent most of his time studying the French, and he didn't study the armies of these German princes much. He might not be as familiar with Louisa's second sister and her daughters.

Caroline of Baden was the grandmother of Princess Sissi. She had the same problem with having children as her third sister, and all the children she raised were girls. However, because she married the Elector as a second wife, Maximilian's first wife had two sons who were about to grow up, which did not affect the Elector's succession.

Moreover, it is particularly easy to give birth to twins. Although the two sons she gave birth to were stillborn and died young, she gave birth to two pairs of twin daughters afterwards.

Now, she was busy directing the court attendants, butlers and servants to arrange the Elector's palace and prepare for evacuation.

As for the children in the palace, Caroline had to take care of her four daughters while also making arrangements for her husband's three children from his previous wife.

As for the Elector's son Ludwig, he is now going to the army with the Elector.

The Bavarian royal family and army moved very quickly. In the last few days of August, after agreeing to join the French side, such action could be said to be very swift.

It can be said that this was forged by the French, Prussians and Austrians in the more than 20 years since the War of the Bavarian Succession.

At the same time, Solovyov was serving as an observer with Count Johann von Klenau's corps as it advanced towards Munich.

The Austrian army was slow to march, delayed in delivering orders, and had a group of junior officers who were at a loss as to what to do, as well as those soldiers who were good at carrying out orders.
It seems that Archduke Karl's military reforms did not seem to achieve any results after Mark took over.

Now that this army has set out from Linz, it is moving very slowly.

Solovyov, who was in the Austrian lineup, was a little anxious.

"General, I think we should have our light cavalry regiment send out a detachment to observe the movements of the Bavarians."

General von Krainau could only shake his head helplessly. He was also a member of the coalition force commanded by Suvorov. During the Battle of the Trebia River, he was in Melas's corps.

But in this situation, facing this young colonel who had performed outstandingly in the previous outpost battle, he could only answer like this.

"You have to adapt to us, young man. After all, it's not your Prince Suvorov who is commanding the army. You have to adapt to the characteristics of our Austrian soldiers."

He was already trying to cover up his own shame by saying this. "Well, I'm just an observer after all. I have to report back to our commander-in-chief. After that, I have to meet our emperor."

Of course, he could not speak carelessly in front of Alexander and could only let the straightforward Grand Duke Constantine and Prince Bagration give him advice.

The Austrian army's course of action is indeed problematic.

If we could quickly launch reconnaissance activities and understand the movements of the Bavarian army, instead of relying solely on political enticement, perhaps the results would be better.

Archduke Ferdinand was the commander-in-chief, and General Mark was the quartermaster general. In fact, the two men's command authority was in conflict with each other.

The orders given by General Mark sometimes even conflicted with those given by Archduke Ferdinand.

Even now it was still good, at least General von Krainau received exactly the same orders from both of them.

This must not be shown to Solovyov either, as the Russian allies must always have more confidence in the Austrian army.

But the performance of the Austrian army could not support this confidence.

They also hoped to win over the German princes, especially Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria.

But Baden's vote was clean and neat. After all, Louisa's grandfather, the old Elector, was a shrewd man and his home was right at the doorstep of the French.

Although he had not yet agreed to any party's solicitation, he had heard that the French were preparing to withdraw from Boulogne-sur-Mer. So he made up his mind, as the leader of the surrender, to sign an alliance with the French.

As for Bavaria, in order to facilitate the escape of their own army, after the Elector and his son arrived at the military camp, they began to spread rumors, claiming that the French army had appeared in Baden.
This made Mark pay great attention to it. It was not surprising that he gave the order for von Kleinausee to enter Munich without any useful intelligence and in the dark.

If the fast-running French could get into his strategic center of Ulm, the battle would then require the Danube Corps to deploy around Munich.

However, Solovyov felt that it might be more advantageous for the coalition forces if they deployed their troops between Munich and Augsburg and destroyed Bavaria.

If the French had been allowed in, the Austrian army would not have suffered such a terrible defeat.

You know, in the north of Bavaria, there are several intersections that are very suitable for troop movements. Once the French army comes in, the food route will be cut off.

Then, there are dumplings.
Not to mention the slow speed of the Austrians' movement. When they arrived in Munich and the mayor of the city handed them the keys, although what they received was not an empty city, it had no practical significance.

As for the previous news that the French had arrived, it was also a FAKE NEWS. The Austrians just took control of Munich.

However, the nearly 30,000 Bavarian troops were wiped out. They had already moved away from the Austrian army along the road from Munich to Ingolstadt from the north.

That was it. After crossing the Inn River, the Austrian army gained nothing except a city, and failed to stop even a single Bavarian soldier.

From this point of view, Solovyov was still a little disappointed. The Austrian army just let 30,000 enemies escape. Even if they caught them by the tail and wiped out an entire brigade of their troops, it would be considered as the destruction of part of the enemy's manpower.

Then, Archduke Ferdinand and Mark remained where they were, still trying to win over Baden and Württemberg.

The Elector of Bavaria is now determined to go against the Austrians. If Napoleon knew about this, he would be quite satisfied. It can be regarded as gaining a staunch ally during the Napoleonic Wars, one with a relatively long validity period.

At the same time, although the Bavarian army was not large in size, the commander-in-chief and deputy commander-in-chief of this army were both talented generals. They trained their soldiers very well and acted very quickly. They were rare helpers who did not dig traps for the French army after entering Germany to fight.

Solovyov entered Munich in von Kleinau's army and was soon joined by Archduke Ferdinand and Mark.

As the quartermaster general, Mark had the power to report secretly to Emperor Franz, and Franz also gave him command.

But what is outrageous is that no matter how poor his military ability is, it is still better than Archduke Ferdinand, but the command authority within the legion is very unclear, and there is no clear order between the commander-in-chief and the quartermaster general.

I'm afraid this will be difficult to change in the future.

Solovyov felt that he had seen enough, but it was difficult to speak out.

After all, many of the Austrian army's problems require a long time to adjust, and they cannot be solved by what he says now.

Moreover, he saw another outrageous scene.

Archduke Ferdinand and Mark received letters from Archduke Karl and Archduke Johann, in which Archduke Karl reminded them that the corps advancing into Italy could set aside two brigades to reinforce the Danube Corps, and that they could come from Archduke Johann's defense zone.

In a letter from Archduke John, who had always dug holes for his brother, he said that he was hiding in the mountains, which also showed that the French would not take any action from the mountains. He said that he could open a passage to reinforce the Danube Army from Salzburg.

However, to Mark, the two archdukes' kind reminders were ignored.

After all, there is no situation on his side at the moment. Even at the previous military meeting, Archduke Karl himself did not object to any action that the French army might take in Italy.

In addition, Schwarzenberg supported his idea that the main force of the French army should come from Italy.

However, times have changed. Napoleon has now mobilized a large army and is advancing rapidly from Boulogne-sur-Mer. The drumbeats representing the rapid march never stop along the way, as he marches non-stop to Strasbourg to join up with part of the French army that had arrived there earlier.

In this era, the French moved faster. Their mobilization was so swift that even the three generations of the Elector of Baden were surprised.

They had just signed a peace treaty with the French when the vanguard of the French army arrived in Strasbourg.

The speed was so fast, which meant they were friendly forces, otherwise the people of Karlsruhe would have been killed by the French by now.

Napoleon also knew that the old Elector was very good at marrying off his granddaughters, but of the five who had already married, three were in the opposite camp, and one was married to Brunswick. Given the situation of Prussia and Brunswick, there was a high probability that they would become rivals in the future.

But Baden's vote was really smooth, and he couldn't find any fault with it. He also had to give this ally some benefits and persuade him with kind words.

There was even a plan to marry Eugene’s cousin Stephanie, Napoleon’s current adopted daughter, to the Elector’s grandson Karl.

(End of this chapter)