Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

The Cossacks were in pursuit, and they noticed that there were many gaps and flaws in the sparse marching columns of the French.

But they couldn't deal with any French army in person.

The first team of Cossacks sent by Miloradovich saw the old guards lined up in neat formation and did not act rashly.

Everyone knows that these guys are all carefully selected veterans. In this situation, Napoleon still ensured their supplies. When there was enough space between the three French armies for several cavalry squadrons to run through, he assembled a lot of Russian cavalry, but he did not act easily.

Some people's dissatisfaction with Kutuzov is probably that he always expresses his opinions but does not take the initiative to attack actively.

Instead, it was Bennigsen, who had been fighting for power and had not left yet, who spoke fair words.

"Our troops are already very tired. We are close to the limit of preventing the enemy from escaping. We can defeat the enemy in battle, but it seems unlikely that we can inflict a decisive blow."

Those generals in their prime never expected such a saying to exist.

Prince Eugene of Württemberg and Ostermann-Tolstoy are both here, and they are eager to attack.

On the other side, Kutuzov sent Solovyov and most of the heavy cavalry, and most of the remaining troops were still in his hands.

Laevsky wanted to protest this, but seeing the current situation, he took his words back.

"This is the situation, and you can see it clearly. I have nothing to say, except that I hope to defeat these French and drive them out completely."

"It is not that easy to defeat Napoleon. This is what an old cavalryman like me would say. It is a good idea to send Solovyov to Yelnya. If the French want to secure their flanks, they will probably suffer a serious defeat there. Before I left the army, I was still the Chief of the General Staff, Nikolai. Take a look at this intelligence. The 7th Army was paving the way before, so you should not have seen this news."

Laevsky took a look and saw that the message was from Sergei Volkonsky. Although he was on the north side of the Smolensk Road, he was able to detect the enemy's situation.

Of course, Laevsky didn't know that this man would be his son-in-law in the future, and he also made a lot of entanglements.
"Are there any reinforcements coming from the French?"

"If I'm not mistaken, the French are now trying their best to secure their two wings, especially several important supply points. In addition, they want to prevent the 3rd Army and the Danube Army from getting close to us."

Tormasov has arrived at Kutuzov's headquarters. When he arrived here, Bennigsen knew that he could not cause any trouble. When he wanted to work seriously, even if it was only for the next period of time, he still had strong business capabilities.

"So the French have made arrangements?"

"Yes, I understand your eagerness to defeat Napoleon. But only now?"

"Now what?"

Bennigsen was not being mysterious. He was addicted to fighting for power and gain. This was just a relapse of an old habit, which he mentioned again in passing.

"No matter how much the emperor disagrees with our commander-in-chief, he will guarantee his control over the army. You know, if we go against the commander-in-chief now, it will not only be the emperor's opinion, but also the opinions of the nobles in Petersburg and Moscow. This is something none of us can bear."

Bennigsen probably knew the crux of the matter. This time he had not calculated Alexander's intentions correctly. He wanted to take advantage of the Tsar's greater trust and thus gain control of the army.

But Alexander's thoughts could not always be guessed.

This time Bennigsen failed, but he also knew the Tsar. At his age, he probably still had one more chance, and he just had to not make any mistakes then.

As for the current deployment of the Russian army, it quickly entangled Eugene's 4th Army in the pursuit.

Now, when they saw a group of Cossacks riding towards them, many of them began to disperse, without even the intention to organize themselves into formation.

Eugene felt so embarrassed when he saw it, but there was nothing he could do.

Of the Italian troops under his command, soon only the Guards were able to maintain their formation, but it was hard to say how strong their combat effectiveness was.

The French army had never collapsed so quickly before.

After the snow, the combat effectiveness of the French cavalry will be reduced.

Napoleon's losses in Russia were now serious enough.

But this was not fatal, the losses of the cavalry were particularly severe.

Even if the artillery lost a cannon, as long as the artillery could run back, new cannons would always arrive at the troops.

As for the infantry, even the old guards have been almost wiped out. As long as there are some officers and soldiers as a foundation, an army composed mainly of recruits will be able to recover its combat effectiveness quickly.

But the loss of cavalry, both experienced cavalry and horses, was difficult to make up for. Even in subsequent wars, the gap in French cavalry combat effectiveness prevented Napoleon, who had gained the advantage in many battles, from achieving a decisive victory.

From this perspective, his failure was inevitable.

As for the problem of horseshoes, it is not so obvious on the snow, but it is a disaster when crossing a river.

Seeing the 4th Army suffer such a blow, the other French troops seemed powerless to do anything.

This attack by just a few thousand Cossacks caused heavy losses to the French.

It is hard to imagine what would happen to the French if a large number of troops were to engage in a battle here.

Seeing this situation, Miloradovich also decided to use the remaining troops to attack both Davout and Ney, in order to eliminate as many enemies as possible and capture as many prisoners as possible.

Even greater results of this attack were that, because the 4th Army under Eugene's command collapsed like an avalanche, Poniatowski's Polish Army now had less than 1 remnants, and Davout's st Army was isolated.

But the Cossacks had a problem: they always liked to attack the enemy's baggage trains, especially the baggage carts of the French army, because there were always some good stuff in them.

In addition to these, some young and middle-aged Cossacks who have been single always care about the civilians and their families in the French army.

Think about it, Gregory's Turkish ancestry came from his ancestors who kidnapped Turkish women.

Although French women have many problems and often spend money lavishly
If she was kidnapped by these Cossacks and became their "concubine", it might be a good thing because the snowstorm has not yet arrived.

Of course, these women were not afraid when they saw the Cossacks. Some of their fiancés or husbands died in the war, and many officers came here with their families. There were not only French women, but also women from Poland. After the carriages were surrounded, the Cossacks simply dispersed the soldiers guarding the convoy.

The women whose husbands were still alive were lucky. As long as their husbands were not beheaded by the Cossacks, at least these barbarians in the eyes of the French still had some chivalrous spirit and would reunite the couples.

As for some officers who don't even care about their own wives, they deserve it.

In this respect the Cossacks were very similar to their Tatar neighbors.

On the other side, the situation for Davout is not optimistic either. He is barely able to maintain the formation of his troops.

Guidan was killed in the previous battle and was replaced by Gerard. In fact, the "perfect formation" of Davout's army was no longer there.

Although it sounds like Dawu is the leader of the Ginyu Force.
Their resistance was already the most tenacious, allowing the Russian cavalry to only attack the lagging French troops from the periphery.

Although Davout had strict military discipline and often had strained relations with his colleagues, he was very calm on the battlefield.

He now maintained the formation and was able to allow some of the lagging and escaping soldiers to run into the square formation, so that they could still resist for a while.

Now the Russian attack had formed a circle, and Davout tried hard to recall what he had learned in military school.

It seems that there were several disastrous defeats in which isolated infantry were defeated by cavalry in this way.

Fortunately, the Russian Cossacks were always attacking the baggage train and capturing more prisoners, instead of sending in cavalry to directly attack or divide them.

The Guards Cavalry and Uvarov Cavalry, who were actually doing this, were still on the Yelnya-Vyazma Road. If they came, it would be even more troublesome for the French.

Russia's terrain was on Napoleon's side, with swamps and muddy ground, which limited the directions of the Russian army's attack.

In an environment where it was impossible to stand after the snow, the Russian army achieved great results on both sides of the road, but the same could not be said for the main force of the French army.

Davout still held out until the afternoon, and at noon he sent an envoy to Napoleon, saying that he could no longer hold on and requested permission to retreat.

Napoleon was well aware of Davout's abilities. If he began to collapse, then the battle would be meaningless. Even if there was still a chance of winning, it would only mean that the army had completely lost its combat effectiveness.

Therefore, he also changed his deployment and finally sent out the Guards. They had previously driven away the Cossacks, and now they had to support the 1st Army which was fighting hard, and accommodate the defeated 4th Army and the Polish army that was already fleeing.

The remaining task was to be carried out by Ney's 3rd Army.

Ney was helpless when he saw this situation.

Even the French Guards, who were still maintaining discipline, were now in a state of panic.

The last time the French army was chased around by the Russians was during the battles in 1799 when Suvorov launched an expedition to Italy against the French Italian Corps.

But the French army did not collapse so miserably at that time. An army collapsed without any fighting.

The Cossacks in cloaks were waving their sabers and rushing towards the fleeing French, taking prisoners and hacking people to pieces.

During the retreat, several infantry regiments that fell behind also suffered bad luck. Their marching columns were broken up by the Cossacks, and they even abandoned the carriages carrying the remaining supplies and dumped many cannons on the roadside.

It was hard to believe that such a disorganized army was in such a state that many of them were veterans of the army that swept across Europe.

Everyone was scrambling to escape, and many of them abandoned unnecessary things in order to avoid being caught by the Cossacks.

Some people even threw away their weapons.

The unfortunate Ney stayed behind, and because he did not suffer any impact at the beginning, he was able to maintain his formation for a while.

But with Eugene's defeat and Davout's retreat, although his rearguard troops could ensure their own retreat, they still had to face the Cossack cavalry rushing from all directions.

It was because of his usual bravery that he even stood on his horse with his sword in hand at the most intense fighting area to boost morale, which enabled his soldiers to regain their fighting spirit and dare to fight back. Some soldiers even dared to stop the charging cavalry.

But the more this happens, the more miserable things will be in the future.

The Württemberg Division had collapsed, and the Portuguese regiment under Ney had also lost its combat effectiveness. Only the veterans of his 10th and 11th Divisions were still resisting. These thousands of people formed regimental and battalion-level phalanxes and fought while retreating. They finally passed through the Vyazma city area and resisted for a while with the help of the ruins.

It was not until nightfall that the Cossack cavalry, which had been chasing for a whole day, stopped their attack.

Ney seized this opportunity and led his remaining troops out of the battlefield.

He was not called a loser because he was still able to maintain order.

That's how it was. During the night retreat, many of the exhausted French soldiers fell behind.

Now when Martial looked at his men again, he found that there was only one prancing soldier left, who had no strength to walk, and the rest had fled to who knows where.

Even the unfortunate fellow he was carrying had to be thrown onto the cart, otherwise he would not have been able to move away.

As for the French army that withdrew from the battlefield, the losses they suffered that day were staggering.

At the beginning of the battle, the French army seemed to have 40,000 to 50,000 combat-capable troops, in addition to a large number of wounded and disabled personnel, as well as French expatriates and civilians taken away by them.

When Ney was retreating, he looked at his soldiers and saw that they only had about 4,000 men left. It was easy to imagine how heavy their losses were that day, except for the Guards.

But it is still an army now. He took in escaped soldiers along the way, so it only retained a pitiful bit of combat effectiveness.

Seeing this, he also appointed his adjutant to send a letter to Berthier, describing the tragic situation of the French army after the battle of Vyazma.

After sending the letter, he finally ordered the destruction of the remaining passable bridges on the river near Vyazma to delay the Russian pursuit as much as possible.

It seems that the French have actually failed. (End of this chapter)