Chapter 299: Persistence and Defeat (Asking for Monthly Votes)
Chapter 300 Persistence and Defeat (asking for monthly votes)
More than 10,000 Dutch rebels formed two long and narrow infantry lines on the gentle slope, with three rows in front and back of each line, and the soldiers were closely arranged, which seemed to be in good shape from a distance.
However, their messy clothes and the flintlock rifles of different models in their hands all proved that they were just a temporary gathering of ragtag troops.
In fact, their infantry lines started from the early morning of today, and it took a full 6 hours to barely line up. The Dutch commanders were so tired that their legs cramped.
When these ragtag troops saw the Austrians' dense lines in the distance begin to move, and a large number of ant-like stragglers flexibly approached them, their hands almost began to tremble uncontrollably.
Behind them, more than a thousand Prussian soldiers kept shouting loudly: "Keep calm, don't do anything!"
The priest in the Dutch queue also whispered to the soldiers beside him, "Don't think about anything later, just reload as quickly as possible. Then listen to the drums."
When the fastest Austrian skirmishers appeared 80 steps in front of the Dutch line, they began to hide behind weeds or rocks and shoot at the Southern Dutch.
A few bullets streaked through the air and landed on the line, and immediately some soldiers wailed and fell to the ground, twisting and twitching in pain.
The Prussian soldiers behind them immediately shouted: "Don't move! Move the dead! Keep the formation tight! Quick!"
However, the untrained Dutch people didn't seem to hear it, just followed the wounded and shouted randomly, or subconsciously raised their guns to aim at the Austrians in the distance.
As the main force of Austria continued to approach, the skirmishers began to disperse to both sides, giving up the front battlefield.
The Prussian officer estimated that the distance between the infantry lines of the two armies was less than 100 steps, and ordered the Dutch to start loading.
The messenger rode on horseback to pass on the loading order, and the drummer beat the specific drum beat when loading - the soldiers operated their weapons according to this rhythm to maintain the highest loading efficiency.
The Austrians continued to advance, and when they were 60 steps away from the enemy, they still had no intention of stopping shooting.
The Dutch line formation finally couldn't hold on. The huge pressure of nearly 10,000 people rushing in front of them made the soldiers' minds blank, and they just wanted to do everything they could to drive these people away.
Sporadic gunshots appeared in various places in the line formation. The Prussian officer in charge was worried that this group of miscellaneous troops would waste all their ammunition, so he had to order the whole army to fire.
After a half-minute "volley" in a mess, the Dutch position was shrouded in black smoke, but the results were very limited. The Austrians were still maintaining a neat formation and continued to advance.
The Austrian army stopped only when the two sides were 50 steps apart. With a burst of dense drumbeats, the soldiers raised their flintlocks.
"Shoot!"
Under the command of the Austrian commander, large flames burst out from the endless infantry lines, and the fierce volley fire "knocked" hundreds of small gaps in the Dutch line.
The Dutch pastor screamed: "Don't be afraid! Keep loading! For your family, to drive away the Habsburg tyrant, everyone hold on!"
It seemed that their encouragement worked. Although the miscellaneous soldiers were trembling, they still barely completed the loading, and then gritted their teeth and raised their guns, waiting for the order of the Prussian officers.
On the hill in the distance, General Wurmser frowned and looked at the battlefield in the telescope.
His brave grenadiers fired more than ten rounds of volleys at the Dutch, killing at least thousands of people, but the other side still showed no signs of collapse.
And behind the Dutch infantry line, there was another line of defense composed of infantry. There should be Prussians further behind.
"These damn rebels! Why are they still standing there?" He cursed inwardly, and was thinking whether to send more skirmishers to tear apart the enemy's two wings, when he suddenly heard the hurried sound of scouts approaching quickly.
He just turned his head and heard the man shouting breathlessly: "General, the Prussians are outflanking our right wing."
Before Wurmser could react, his staff officer came over with a telescope and said in surprise: "General, there is a commotion on the left wing cavalry, there may be enemy troops there."
Wurmser's face suddenly turned pale. It seems that the Prussians are not behind the Dutch infantry line. Brunswick actually used the main force to sneak attack his two wings!
He waved his cane vigorously and shouted to the messenger: "Order Schroeder to break through the enemy's front at all costs and as quickly as possible! As long as we are the first to defeat their infantry line, victory will belong to us!"
For the decisive battle of large corps in this era, the front line of defense is like the waist and abdomen of a person. Once it is broken, the commander will have nowhere to stay. Trapped by poor communication capabilities, if the commander must move at high speed to get rid of the enemy's attack, the messenger will immediately not be able to find him, and then the entire army will lose command.
In addition, after losing the front battlefield, it means that the artillery and cavalry have no safe space for preparation. For these two types of arms that require a lot of preparation, this is equivalent to losing combat effectiveness.
So as long as the head-on confrontation can win, the loss of the two wings is nothing at all.
The grenadier regiment on the right side of the Austrian infantry line approached more bravely and fought back against the bullets of the Dutch.
Finally, after paying a large number of casualties, they tore a gap on the left side of the Dutch line.
The Austrian skirmishers rushed towards the gap like sharks smelling blood, and kept shooting at the sergeants and drummers to increase the chaos of the enemy.
When Wurmser saw the first infantry line of the Netherlands disintegrate, he clenched his fists excitedly, and then looked to the right nervously, where the sound of Prussian cavalry hooves could be faintly heard.
The combat effectiveness of the Austrian cavalry was not as good as that of the Prussians, and he had just assigned some of them to the left wing, so they could not resist the Prussians for too long.
He turned the telescope again, anxiously urging Schroeder to tear open the second line of defense of the Dutch as soon as possible.
On the other side, the Duke of Brunswick put away the telescope and said to the herald with a relaxed look: "Go tell the Dutch that if they hold on for another 15 minutes, the Austrians will get out of this land."
He could estimate the speed of his main force, which should have been in contact with the right wing of the Austrian army at this time.
Yes, his cavalry was just a cover. He put all 14,000 Prussian main forces into the Austrian right wing, which was his trump card!
After this period of contact with the Southern Netherlands, he was deeply impressed by their tenacity.
Although these miscellaneous troops had low combat effectiveness and even the teams were not neat, their morale was ridiculously high - perhaps it was the pursuit of so-called freedom that made them prefer death to drive away the Austrian emperor. Especially those priests, each of them was like waiting to ascend to heaven, and they were not afraid of any enemy.
So he made a judgment that although these Dutch people could not defeat the Austrian army at all, they could probably do it just by letting them hold back Wurmser.
On the battlefield in the distance, the second line of Dutch infantry, which had been riddled with holes, seemed to be shaky, but it always insisted on not collapsing.
Many of the Prussians supervising the battle behind them were killed by stray bullets, and chaos began to set in, but they still stood there, clumsily reloading their bullets with trembling hands, and randomly shooting at the Austrians until they were killed by bullets, but they never moved...
The Austrians' right wing had been crushed to pieces by the absolutely superior Prussian army.