Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Chapter 436 013 A Battle of the Meat Grinder (III) The French and Russian Sharks Take the Hook

Napoleon's judgment was correct. This night attack was intended to lure the French army near Eylau to Augereau's Seventh Army. And it was too late to stop it now.

Therefore, he considered taking advantage of Augereau's attack to have Davout and Ney split their forces and Soult provide support on the main road in the southwest.

"Since the Russians have made their move, we should attack them and seize their supplies."

"Your Majesty, in this case, I can't help thinking that this is like Hornlinden."

"Langeron came here but didn't leave. It's obvious that someone wants to fight a battle, and it's even inevitable that he will fight with us here. Although his position is very methodical, there is also a problem, that is, we are not the Austrian army. Our soldiers can complete this combat mission. They can overcome difficulties, win, and meet in the city of Eylau."

It is good that Napoleon has this confidence, but Augereau’s counterattack against the Russian army is now difficult to withdraw.

During this night attack, Bagvout's main task was to cover the artillery's arrival at the position. After the three groups of cavalry artillery continued to bombard for a while, when the French army was about to pursue them, they abandoned the mortars they brought with them on the position, and took turns to cover them with light infantry and line infantry.

The group of mortars and two 2-pound cannons that had been firing continuously did not stop firing during the entire battle.

This was also to tie down Augereau, so that he could not focus on the direction of the Russian night attack troops' retreat, and to cause him to misjudge at night.

And Augereau did give them a chance. After being distracted in this way, he did not pursue Bagowut and Yermolov with all his strength, but instead adopted the strategy of dividing his forces to fight the enemy.

However, at night, the Russian army could not see his movements clearly. Solovyov saw that the 4th Jager Regiment under Bagovet returned safely, and Yermolov's artillery also returned.

"How about it?"

"I can only say that the French counterattack was quite swift. If I had been hungry, I wouldn't have been able to run so fast, and I would have been in pursuit."

With Yermolov's physique, it is obvious that he cannot maintain his consumption if he does not eat.

"Well, obviously we have to lure the French into taking the bait. If Augereau comes after us, we can let the artillery of Essen entertain them again here."

At this time, Bagovut was indeed leading his infantry regiment to fight and retreat, in order to lure Augereau into the trap.

Solovyov himself felt that this kind of calculating approach would only work in special circumstances during a war.

The French army's current offensive is a response to the Russian attack, but there is also a serious problem.

That is, the French soldiers were more proactive. Solovyov initially only lured the enemy and disrupted the French deployment by letting Augereau take the bait. Then he launched a battle in the confrontation and consumption, controlled the rhythm, and started the battle when it was advantageous to his side. He was beaten by a big stick and walked away.

But the French soldiers, due to lack of supplies, were now staring with wide eyes. Under the command of the regimental commanders, they did not wait for orders from the divisional and corps commanders at all. After pursuing Bagvout, they directly attacked Essen's position.

The reason, of course, is that he tasted a little sweetness.

This problem arose when Solovyov asked Bagovet to lead a brigade to cover Yermolov's artillery. He always asked the soldiers to set out with rations so that they could eat before fighting.

He came up with this habit when he read some Roman military battle examples mentioned in Frontinus' book. It was also to ensure the combat effectiveness of the soldiers. It was always a good thing to have something to eat.

The French soldiers found unopened glass cans on the bodies of the dead Russian soldiers. For the sake of food, these French soldiers would attack desperately.

Even if you eat canned fruit now, you might get a stomach upset.

"That's great, Misha, you see, the French are heading for my position!"

"Then we have no choice but to fight back and disrupt the situation so that Napoleon's troops cannot be used in a concentrated manner. Instead, they will be sent in one by one to 'burn firewood'. This will be most beneficial to us."

Baron Essen also agreed that in such a melee, even the communications between the various regiments and battalions in the army would often face the problem of inconsistent pace.

What's more, Napoleon had to mobilize his army in four directions, even after the watch.

By the time his heralds reached Augereau's makeshift headquarters, it was too late.

Two divisions of the Seventh Army have launched an attack on Baron Essen's troops, and the impact is extremely fierce.

Fortunately, the Russian artillery's counterattack was very timely. Baron Essen's artillery was scattered in the positions of three brigades and launched a resolute attack on the French army that was attacking them.

The effect seemed quite good, because the Russian night attack force was not Baron Essen's force, but part of the 6th Division brought by Bagovut. This caused the French army to chase too fast in the counterattack, and ended up falling into the enemy's trap.

This blatant "strategy" is just like Zhang Fei's strategy, with a success rate of 100%. Those who fall into it may feel ashamed.

However, because the artillery groups were deployed in dispersed locations, this only caused certain losses to Augereau's frontline troops, but it was still bearable.

We would have been thankful if the artillery had been concentrated and could have inflicted heavy damage on one or two French regiments at a time in a sudden burst of fire.

As for this counterattack, after Augereau was hit hard, he still had time to organize a counterattack.

The French army was more efficient than the Russian army in this regard, and this was also due to the French army's long-standing tradition of staff work. Even when the Scots in the French army went back to counterattack London, their marching speed was much faster than that of the dumbfounded lobster soldiers.

As for the Russian army, although it has gone through several rounds of staff reforms and has regained its staff tradition, the chief of staff himself has high quality but is often dragged down by the command structure.

If Solovyov had not used optical communications during the day, there would have been trouble.

He quickly passed the news to Langgeron from the Essen position, and this problem arose.

Normally, when Solovyov and the staff trained by Sukhteren are present in the general staff, the operation efficiency is quite good.

Today, half of these people went to Baron Essen's defense zone with Solovyov, and some problems arose.

There are always such traditional jokes about bureaucracy in the Russian army, which can be seen as very abstract.

Napoleon changed his deployment at night, in order to properly meet Solovyov's night attack, and then launched an all-out attack on the Russian positions from several directions.

This caused the Russian military staff to be in a state of panic.

Although Napoleon still followed the order and designated Davout, who received the order last, to launch the attack first, and then Ney and Augereau joined the battlefield, as for Soult, he had to launch the attack when the attention of the Russian army was attracted.

In this way, he was going to play a lever pull in war to draw the attention of the Russian army to the east. In the headquarters, Langgeron also felt a headache watching the staff work of these young officers.

The Russian military academies have only recently begun to recruit staff cadets in St. Petersburg and Moscow, which is completely backward. The General Staff has a very advanced head, but when it comes to working downwards, it often faces these strange problems.

But Solovyov went to Baron Essen's position to command the night attack, and he would not be back until the afternoon. After all, Augereau had begun to reorganize the offensive after the setback and launched a series of attacks on the 8th Division's positions.

Yes, literally. Even when the French army was starving, their morale was still high.

I just don't know why His Majesty the Emperor added such a strange word as "slava France" in his opening remarks today.

Some French people with great imaginations are still daydreaming.

Fortunately, Solovyov didn't know, otherwise he would have thought that Napoleon who came here today was played by a comedian.

Although Clavel is also a comedian, that is a French one.

The comedian Soloviev was talking about had the Sumy Hussars, the Kharkov Dragoons, the Mariupol Hussars, the Kiev Grenadiers, and the
The above numbers all existed in 1807, but they had long disappeared by the time he came. As for a bunch of strange things, they are somewhat similar to the Azov Ulan Lancer Regiment, which is not yet in the sequence of the East Prussian Corps.

In the movie, Rzhevsky fought against Napoleon. He knew that there was a Rzhevsky in the Pavlograd Regiment who liked to call others his brothers.

That actor, in another TV series, played the policeman Mikhail Solovyov and his own father.

This kind of thing can't be any more chaotic.

Langgeron felt that something was wrong with the French attack, so he quickly sent a signal to Baron Essen through the communications officer.

Solovyov was able to receive the signal on the battlefield filled with smoke. It was a good habit of his to always keep an observation post watching the direction of the headquarters.

"What? The headquarters is in danger. Come back quickly?"

"It looks like you have to go back, Misha. Leave the command here to me. Most of Bagowut and Yermolov's men have been evacuated, and the rest will depend on us."

"Well, Baron, good luck to you."

But when Solovyov left, he was not very confident about Baron Essen's direction. After all, behind Augereau was probably Napoleon's headquarters, where Murat's cavalry and guards were also located.

At this time, the Guards were divided into infantry command and cavalry command. Murat's best friend and childhood friend, Marshal Bessières, was the cavalry commander, while the infantry of the Imperial Guard, that is, the group of "complaining soldiers", officially known as the Old Guard, was commanded by Lefebvre.

If Napoleon's Old Guard sightseeing group was accidentally attracted from this direction, Baron Essen would be under great pressure.

So he and Bao Hong rushed to Yermolov who was retreating.

"Yermolov, don't send your cavalry artillery back to the 7th Division. Go directly to the position of the Pavlovsk Regiment next to the reserve artillery group."

"What's going on?"

"There may be stronger enemies appearing in the direction of our night attack, such as Bonaparte's Guards!"

"Well, this will always require some method, but where can you mobilize the infantry to cover me? Those grenadiers are very precious!"

The fat man Yermolov had a quick mind and immediately pointed out the problem with Solovyov's iron bucket formation.

"Bagovut should be placed in another route. How about transferring the 20th Chasseur Regiment?"

“Of course this is good!”

Although it's a little bit worse, a hunter regiment that has experienced war is always better than assigning a group of new recruits.

After launching the attack, Napoleon also discovered something was wrong.

His attack method did attract the attention of the Russian army and caused chaos on the battlefield, but the defense areas of every regiment and battalion of the Russian army were reinforced with hot water and ice. Even the ground nearby was not very friendly to the cuirassiers and dragoons of the heavy cavalry series.

When the report from Augereau's troops came in, he noticed this detail keenly.

"This Soloviev has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. Although we have never fought against Suvorov, we can still get a feel for it from his 'disciples.'"

"Not exactly, Your Majesty."

"Gruchy, your dragoons should stop moving in the direction of Augereau and move to Ney's side."

Napoleon did not think about what Grouchy meant at first. He just wanted to change the deployment and transfer all the heavy cavalry under Murat to Ney's direction, or concentrate the attack after the French army drove the Russian army to Eylau.

"Your Majesty, but you mentioned Suvorov. He always took the initiative to attack, not to defend like this."

After hearing this, Napoleon also understood.

At this time, Solovyov wore a monocle instead of a monocle.

As soon as he returned to his headquarters in Langgeron, this look would attract onlookers.

Indeed, the monocle will be fine 50 years later and has almost become a business card for the old Junkers.

But for a young Russian general to have such a look, with something embedded in the eye sockets, is still a relatively new thing.

"Michelle, what's wrong with you?"

"Aha, Count, I just thought of a problem. The French offensive is so fierce now. The defensive strategy we should adopt is to deploy brigades of troops to support any area that may be attacked. However, it will cause chaos. Only the combined grenadier battalions and reserve regiments drawn from various divisions can join the battle at this time."

Solovyov may not have learned offensive skills from his teacher, but he has been trying to improve his defense system.

Napoleon would probably soon find out that if he used a sharp spear to attack this solid shield, neither side would end up in trouble on the streets of Eylau.

(End of this chapter)