Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Both sides were mobilizing their troops at this time. Napoleon had some expectations for Emperor Franz because Austria was relatively submissive even though they were not related by marriage. Metternich came to negotiate, and although his words already showed Austria's tendency to join the coalition, it should be noted that their attitude was very ambiguous.

As for Alexander's unwillingness to start negotiations directly with Napoleon, it was also related to this in-law relationship.

Catherine was in Paris after all, and even if Alexander overthrew Napoleon in the end, he had to make arrangements for his sister and nephew, otherwise he would have some credibility with Russia in terms of royal marriage.

Although the main problem lies with Napoleon, Alexander is well aware of Napoleon's ambitions, so his views and attitudes are very subtle.

If Napoleon agreed, he probably wouldn't be himself anymore.

After Metternich went to Dresden for the second time to meet Napoleon, the situation changed, and Austria seemed to be more positive about preparing for war.

Moreover, the Allied forces attacked Saxony from both wings, which actually made the situation facing Napoleon very difficult.

It was even difficult for him to directly threaten Berlin from Saxony because the Allied forces were attacking Berlin from three sides at that time.

The terrain of the Danube Valley on the Austrian side cannot be utilized. The more open the area, the more difficult it will be for the French side.

After all, in places like this, the coalition forces can always take advantage of their manpower advantages, and even if there are still armies that have not been formed, they can continue to fight.

Since the beginning of the Revolution, nearly 300 million people have served in the French army, not including soldiers from vassal states. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars, 315 million people had served in the French army, and more than one-third of them suffered casualties. If the soldiers from vassal states were included, the losses would be even greater.

In fact, as the size of the Grand Army continued to expand, it was no longer possible to use only the French.

Among them are Poland, Saxony, Württemberg and Bavaria.
These small countries all have their own armies, but their loyalty is a problem.

After Radetzky left Solovyov, he also brought the latest revised plan, which was to add communications staff to the general staff and make it standard at the corps and division levels, and some troops could be assigned to the regiment.

Optical communication equipment can actually be produced in Austria itself, and the quality may be even better than those produced by Russian royal factories.

In terms of handicrafts, Austria still had a lot of capital. Even though northern Italy, which accounted for a quarter of its fiscal revenue, was seized by Napoleon and the Illyria seaport was lost, the Habsburgs were still quite powerful just relying on Austria, Hungary and Bohemia.

This is the case of a lean camel being bigger than a horse, and it’s not completely dead either.

Horses are always afraid of camels, so the Poles have no problem with this.

The Oder Army was stationed just behind the Silesian Army and close to Poland.

What Solovyov was originally worried about was that these forces supporting Napoleon within the Grand Duchy of Warsaw would take action. After all, it was not the first time that the Poles had committed suicide. If they took action, it would even cause considerable trouble to the rear of the Allied forces.

His small army itself consisted of only one Russian division, one Balkan volunteer division, one Prussian brigade, a mixed brigade of Brunswick and Prussia, plus some cavalry units, with a total strength of no more than 35,000, and that was when it was fully staffed.

It's OK for emergency use, but the number of people may not be enough to confront Napoleon's army head-on. At this moment, it is not surprising that a main force corps has 60,000 to 70,000 people.

Since it is a mobile force and can be considered a "panacea", it would be more appropriate to place it in the back to protect the traffic lines before the war breaks out again.

However, the Allied forces from top to bottom were disappointed with the Poles.

The Polish resistance was not fierce, and it was even quiet in many places.

In fact, all of Napoleon's vassal states had a tendency to defect at this time, but countries like Saxony and Bavaria were closer to France because of their shared interests.

The reason why Denmark did not jump ship was because their relatives had great respect for the British Empire, and they even retained some troops to assist Marshal Davout in defending the area around Hamburg.

If Napoleon were to suffer a defeat in the war at this moment, the monarchs of these small countries would probably soon choose to defect.

As for why this period of history does not seem to be more famous than the War of 1812 and Waterloo that preceded and followed it, it has something to do with the fact that these Germans are all fence-sitters.

Even powerful countries like Prussia and Austria were in a dilemma. They were fighting Russia one year and switched sides the next. Prussia even spared no effort in suppressing its own resistance movement, and even cut off the heads of some guerrilla leaders and sent them to the French.

Don't excuse Prussia's behavior. Before 1810, the royal family had not returned to Berlin. It was not under French control at all. It was their own doing. King FW was pretty useless. Even the more outstanding of his sons, old Emperor William, was sometimes crying, and he was already old.
If we look closely at the performance of these European countries, the Spanish people are probably the most respectable. The royal family is like jellyfish and pigs. If they were to rise, it would not be enough to harm the people. If it were France, it would probably be like the Japanese, and they would feel uncomfortable if they didn't grab something. As for the British, their workers would not get any benefits if they wanted something to be proud of.

As for Russia's Solovyov himself, he didn't want to say much. He would definitely be sent as an envoy to the Qing Dynasty in the future. Although he didn't have the language environment, he had not lost his basic skills.

If this feudal country does not take advantage of its victory after the Napoleonic Wars to speed up the resolution of its domestic problems, it will eventually step on the accelerator directly on the top of the cliff.

The situation in Poland is very strange.

When Poland was divided up by Russia, Prussia and Austria, Prussia actually got the fattest share at the beginning and profited from the grain trade in the Baltic Sea.

What Russia initially obtained was only the Belarusian part of eastern Poland, while the part that Austria took away also included areas like Krakow.

Speaking of it, the Russians' attitude towards the Poles may be better than that of the other two. Before the Polish uprising in 1831, the Kingdom of Poland was concurrently ruled by the Russian Tsar, but the actual management was also loose.

Then, the more the turmoil got, the harder the Tsarist Russia hit with its iron rod, and eventually it became a series of Russian provinces.

Looking back further, although the governor of Warsaw was once named Rokossovsky (not the same family as the driver we are familiar with), the freedom of the Poles was actually narrowed.

It is hard to say whether they are making such a fuss in order to buy their own freedom or for some other purpose of the Polish nobles.

Even now, Solovyov could notice that within Poland, civilians did not care about the Russian troops' passage.

After all, they are not like the Prussians, who sometimes have to rob villages - the Prussian army generally has this problem, and the word "Prussian" is just right.

However, when Solovyov was commanding the army, it was obvious that the Prussians under his command also realized what discipline really was.

Solovyov never used corporal punishment, at least not with a whip. But if you made a mistake, such as taking something from someone else, you had to work for them, no matter if you took something from a master or a commoner, or if you ate at a restaurant without paying, you would suffer financial losses.

His management method seemed to be quite effective. At least there were no problems on the line from Poznan to Berlin where he was stationed.

There is no need for any major actions, the locals are still very cooperative.

At this time, Napoleon still hoped that someone in Poland would take action, especially after the war was restarted.

This proposition itself is not very reliable.

In Warsaw, many of the pro-French nobles simply fled, and the new recruits who were being trained in Poland were dismissed from their respective camps without firing a single shot.

Now these people are all in the countryside and there is no way to organize them. In addition, the Russian army has left troops in Poland. The attitude of those Poles is that they hope Napoleon will fight back, but now the Russians have arrived and the Tsar himself has passed by.

Although no formal promises were made to the Poles, it seemed that they did not have to perform military service and could even do their own things, so the Polish resistance was not so strong.

Several governors-general who served in Warsaw successively were all very fair in their conduct, which made the Poles feel that there was no difference between being puppets under the control of the French and being the Russian occupying forces here, and they themselves were even more relaxed.

It turned out that the taxes paid by the Grand Duchy of Warsaw government were all tied to Napoleon's war machine.

During the three months that Soloviev was in Warsaw, he withheld these taxes and used them to repair roads and reclaim land, although they were all spent, and even when he went to Benzlau, he only heard about it.

But this situation changed when Count Palen and Bennigsen arrived one after another.

At least now that summer has arrived and the crops in the fields are growing well, the Poles have nothing to say.

Even the amount of rations paid to the Russian army was not that much, unlike when the French were there.

Among the Russian army's own reserve soldiers, those who were not suitable for fighting on the front lines also started to cultivate the land next to the land of Polish landlords and peasants.

The Poles even felt that the Russians were a little stubborn and that they couldn't always let the army colonize the land they were reclaiming in the future.

In the future, these lands will all be good plots of land if we follow the method of that green-eyed Russian count.

It can only be a good deal for these Poles, who may not even have to spend any money to get these military settlements.

Although these new recruits of the Russian army who were transformed from serfs had backward farming techniques, they were even inferior to their military skills.

But the Russians are working really hard at this moment. In the area where the reserve corps is located, in addition to the 80,000 people who can be deployed to fight one after another, there are also tens of thousands of people farming here.

In those plots, earthworms can also be easily seen.

So much so that after seeing these military farms, Arakcheev still thought Solovyov was a weirdo.

He clearly opposed his own military settlement plan, but he himself practiced this in Poland.

If the land was cultivated within Russian territory, it would probably benefit the country's masters and serfs, or it could directly become the military settlement he advocated.

But in Poland.
The Count also felt that although Solovyov had always been smart, he was not right on this issue.

But when he came to Solovyov's residence near Poznan and mentioned this issue, Solovyov did not take it seriously.

"The Poles are following the French for their own benefit. If France cannot guarantee their interests, independence probably won't matter. Those Poles who are still in the French army with Prince Poniatowski will probably continue to fight, but in Warsaw or Poznan, that's another situation."

"Oh?"

"The Poles are also waiting and watching. If Napoleon can fight back, they may welcome him. However, according to the current supply situation of the French army, if they win, they will probably recruit troops along the way. It is unknown whether the Poles will still support them at that time. As for the current situation in Saxony, some people have already fled to our side."

Although Arakcheev is conservative, he is also a wise man.

He also knew that the local situation in Saxony was not optimistic.

"There is a shortage of meat there now. I knew that the Saxons ate dog meat before, but I'm afraid even dog meat is hard to eat now."

After the French crossed the border, they took away everything they could collect, and sometimes they were too lazy to even write an IOU.

In other words, the Saxon soldiers knew that if they were defeated, they would not be able to survive if they followed Napoleon like they did. In addition, they were reluctant to give up some French officers who had been fighting side by side with them, so they were able to maintain discipline.

Even some Saxon officers and soldiers who fled left their horses and weapons behind.

Napoleon's rule had actually been shaken.

He himself was completely unaware at this time. What made him better than a certain Korean art student was that he could still effectively control the army instead of commanding armies that no longer existed on the map.

The French army was still able to fight at this time, and he also sent some generals to the rear to continue recruiting troops.

But when he fails, it will probably be beyond his control.

By the end of July, although it was still in the armistice stage, even officers in the French army began to flee.

Among them, some French-speaking foreigners also left the French army due to personal treatment issues. (End of this chapter)