Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Chapter 336 This is the unfortunate Mark
Denisov knew the situation in Ulm. He was the one who had exchanged fire with the French on the way. There was always trash talk among the Hussars. At this moment, Denisov and Nikolay both heard the French on the opposite side shouting, "The Austrians were defeated in Ulm, why don't you surrender quickly?", and they knew the general situation.

"This is not easy to do, but we still need to send someone to verify it."

Bagration asked Solovyov to return to Kutuzov's headquarters, and he would continue to send scouts to gather intelligence and try to capture the French alive.

Kutuzov and Schmidt in the headquarters looked unhappy. They never thought that Mark would be defeated so thoroughly. It was too easy.

"Dude, this isn't good. We should adjust our deployment."

Although Kutuzov was very calm, as he had seen a lot in battles, the current situation made it impossible for him to make up his mind, so he had to talk to Schmidt.

"I think at this time, we should deploy the rear guard troops on the east bank of the Inn River. Of course, I don't advocate transferring all the withdrawn Austrian troops to the rear as a reserve, which will disrupt the deployment."

Schmidt actually knew that there was no point in moving the Austrian army backwards. It would be better to place these defeated soldiers on the side of the Russian rearguard.

He was experienced and knew that the French had a bad habit of loving to kill people and picking on the weak first. Moreover, when the Allied forces fought together before, the French always wanted to attack the Austrian army first.

Especially in the encounter at Marengo in 1799, they completely ignored the Russian troops hiding in the bushes and focused only on pursuing the defeated Austrian army, which resulted in their retreat being almost cut off.

"Commander-in-Chief, what do you think of this deployment? We will still follow the method used in the Italian campaign, with the Russian and Austrian armies each occupying one side and supporting each other."

"We can do this, but this time we should have unified command."

Schmidt nodded in agreement, and then he began to dictate orders, asking all his adjutants to pass them on.

While many of the adjutants went downstairs to pass on the orders, Schmidt sat there and began to think about a new plan.

He thought about fishing, taking advantage of the fact that some French troops were too aggressive in pursuit, and trying to catch a unit and severely damage or annihilate it. However, this operation was not easy to do. After all, the French should be chasing them very quickly, unless the first few rear-end battles could delay the speed of the pursuit of the enemy, and then find a few suitable places for counterattack.

Although Kutuzov advocated running away, he did not simply play the role of a long-distance runner. Instead, he delayed time and waited for friendly forces to arrive from various battlefields.

However, at this time, it was still very unfavorable for the Russian army. The follow-up troops led by Buchholden, as well as the guards led by the Tsar himself and Grand Duke Constantine were still on the northern border of Austria. Because of the previous strategic deployment, many Russian troops had reached the northern Prussian border, or were preparing to board ships and go to Hanover with the British army, so their forces were very scattered.

As for the Austrian army that had already gone to the battlefield, Archduke Karl was currently entangled with the old soldier Massena in Italy. Both sides had won and lost alternately, and neither could do anything to the opponent in their haste. The fate of Archduke Ferdinand and Mark's corps could be imagined. Nearby were only the troops led by von Kimmayer and the troops led by Archduke John into the mountains.

The front of Vienna was already very empty, and this failure was even worse than Napoleon's first expedition to Italy.

On the Austrian side, it was even difficult to mobilize follow-up troops. When the news of the defeat came, many citizens of Vienna had already begun to leave the city, and the defeatist sentiment had shifted back to the Allied side.

Just a month ago, when the Austrian army entered Munich, Vienna was still very optimistic and believed that the coalition forces would win this time. The front pages of major newspapers were all arguing that this battle would drive the French back to their lair.

If you read the British newspapers, it would probably be even more exciting.

The Russian nobles who had come to Vienna for recuperation before the war now began to head towards Hungary. Firstly, the war should be far away from the Habsburg's Hungarian territory; secondly, the Russian Tsar's large troop would soon arrive from Moravia; and thirdly, there were many recuperation places in Hungary.

Their life seems to be a state of continuous music and dancing.

The Russian army was a little worried about the ladies whose husbands were away on the expedition. Bagration received a letter from his wife.

Although she had gone out to play and had completely forgotten her husband and three daughters at home, at this time, she still remembered that her children's father was in the army, and this letter was sent from the military's mail system.

It is not surprising. After all, the Princess is the Tsar's cousin and the goddaughter raised by the Empress. It is not surprising that she has this advantage in communication.

Of course, Solovyov knew that the age gap between Bagration and his wife was too big. One was 40 years old and the other was only in his early 20s. It would be troublesome for them to separate in the future.

Therefore, when he came back to convey Kutuzov's order and encountered this incident, he kindly reminded him.

"It's okay. The letter says that all the Russian expatriates in Vienna have gone east. Katish and several young ladies are going to a hot spring in Hungary for recuperation. She also said that if the war is over, she will..."

It was the first time that Solovyov saw his senior brother, the toughest of the Russian tough guys, blush like this.

"What will happen?"

"Misha, I think you should be able to understand what this is about."

Solovyov was also a little embarrassed when he saw it.

After all, what the "little goblin" meant was that if she won the fight, she would "reward" her husband well.

He knew this word. When she was in Paris, Polina loved to use this teasing tone, but she just said it out loud.

"Haha, this is your family's business, it's not convenient for me to comment on it."

"Let's not talk about that for now. I think we can take advantage of the gap in the French pursuit to give them a blow."

"But it's hard to know. We are fighting abroad, and we are not laying signal machines like the French."

This is a problem. Without a radio station, micro-management is obviously impossible.

However, there are a few monarchs who really like micro-management.

Even Napoleon himself tried to use the same tactics as Emperor Taizong of Song in the naval field, but the plan was too complicated and ultimately failed.

Although Nelson is gone now, the French naval fleet is also gone.

As for what happened in Trafalgar, the French were unaware of such a great defeat because of the long distance and Napoleon's news censorship.

At this time, the French army had encircled and annihilated most of the Austrian Danube Corps in Ulm. At this juncture, Napoleon issued a new order to pursue Kutuzov's corps. If the Russian army west of Vienna could be destroyed, it could be said that there would be no coalition forces between Vienna and Moravia, and Napoleon could ride into Vienna on a white horse in early November.

But the Russian army obviously would not let him have his wish. The new order issued by Kutuzov and Schmidt required Bagration's column and von Kimmel's Austrian column to cover each other's retreat.

"Among the orders I brought, there are instructions to negotiate with the French army to delay time. But there is a problem. If we negotiate with the French, there will always be cunning guys."

"Misha, I know what's going on. Why can't we take advantage of the situation?" Murat, who was leading the cavalry in pursuit, was about to sneeze.

As they were thinking about this, they could already hear the sound of gunfire in the distance.

It was the Austrian army that was retreating and had an exchange of fire with the French army.

The French were still very proactive in their pursuit. Davout's Third Army and Beaumont's two dragoon regiments encountered the Austrian army here, but did not notice the Russian army hiding behind them.

But the Austrians collapsed at the first blow. Although the Austrians were not responsible for the defeat in Ulm, they were also frightened and were quickly defeated by the French cavalry.

This time, the French army only lost dozens of people in the initial exchange of fire, but the Austrian side captured five or six hundred prisoners.

The subsequent cavalry troops sent by Murat repelled another group of Austrian cavalry. At least the Austrian cavalry resisted for a few times, but they did not expect that the Austrian infantry in front would also surrender.

At the same time, because these Austrian infantrymen were too incompetent, the Russian army that was preparing to come to support and the Austrian cavalry that had been confronting each other for a while had to withdraw from the battlefield and did not have much contact with the French army.

Although the battle was insignificant, the French still trumpeted their victory in their newspapers.
This is a bit strange, but the newspapers here in France are doing a really good job.

There was not even a need for a copy of L'Information. As long as the Allied forces did not enter Paris, no one would ever know about the French army's defeat.

The Russian army was still vigilant and ready for battle, but the French did not come.

After all, Davout's head had no hair, so the heat dissipation performance was still good. He had already learned from the report of Beaumont's dragoons that the Russian army was well prepared.

Although he had strong command ability and his soldiers were highly motivated and well-trained, he would not rashly charge the Russian lines, but would find another way.

For example, cutting off the Russian army's retreat, but now when Bagration retreated, he was able to control the main road, and he had no way to find a gap to make a detour.

This should be considered the first time that the two enemies Davout and Bagration met on the battlefield, but there was no result, and those who got beaten today were all Austrians.

The Russian army withdrew from the battlefield in an orderly manner, joined up with the Austrian cavalry, and continued to retreat eastward.

Solovyov saw that the Austrian cavalry looked indignant, obviously because his own infantry performed so poorly.

On the way of retreat, they also encountered a group of Austrian officers, who looked bandaged and dejected.
From the expressions of some Austrian officers, it can be seen that these generals and officers were probably the main figures who behaved as war criminals during the siege in Ulm.

For example, General Mark mentioned above.

Of course, Solovyov had no intention of mocking him. After General Mark introduced himself, Bagration asked him to accompany General Mark and his entourage to Kutuzov's headquarters.

It just so happened that Solovyov also had to go back to report to Kutuzov and Schmidt, and had met Mark before that.

As for Archduke Ferdinand, he successfully broke through with a small number of cavalry and fled to Bohemia.

However, Solovyov also noticed that Mark's luggage was missing.

When he first went to Marc as an observer, Marc actually appreciated him as a theorist and even took away the first edition of the new book he co-authored with Archduke Karl.

I hope this book doesn't fall into the hands of the French general.

But Solovyov could not fulfill his wish, because Napoleon himself entered Ulm with this book in his hand.

"Interesting, there are people in the coalition who have studied our actions so thoroughly."

"Your Majesty, do you mean Archduke Karl?"

"Yes, but this Grand Duke is responsible for commentating and translating these Eastern military theories mentioned above, which is also very interesting."

Berthier was a little curious. After all, Napoleon's comments on the Allied generals were usually rather harsh.

Even Suvorov and Archduke Karl received fluctuating evaluations.

"Let me see. Your Majesty, this surname is Russian."

"Yes, it was the military attaché of the former Russian Embassy. But it seems that this book is only in the Austrian Army Headquarters. It's really strange."

Moreover, what Napoleon got was not a gun version, but a complete version with translation, analysis and evaluation, which could even be copied in large quantities and used as a military teaching material.

But here, the analysis is all about what the French are doing.

Not only did Mark give away his life, but he also left such a precious little notebook in the hands of Napoleon.

Napoleon had already considered pretending to be unable to attack when he was able to do so. In his abstract thinking, he had already formed a brilliant plan.

But he wants to use a trick, and now someone needs to take over.

As for the small victory of Davout and Murat in pursuing the Austrian army today, he did not care. What was more important was to severely damage or even destroy Kutuzov's Russian army.

Of course, having such a booklet, published in French, did make it easier for him to read.

But he didn't know that one of the co-authors was his wife's distant nephew, and was thinking all day about how to deal with his uncle.

Since the content of the book was so exciting, when he took a break on the way, he asked Rustam to prepare the bath water and bed, while he took out a small notebook and wrote down his own sharp reviews and put them inside the title page.

It seems to be a mockery of the coalition forces' lack of military strategy and inability to support new theories and strategies.

And Marc's loss of the book did indeed broaden the French emperor's thinking. He had always been able to crush his opponents strategically, and now his advantage was even more obvious.

(End of this chapter)