Chapter 958: Difficult to Move Forward

Bonno de Couronn noticed something strange on the first day of the siege of Celesta.

Bonno de Couronn didn't believe that the militia could hold out in such a fierce battle, let alone beat his elite troops so badly.

The first two battalions to fight were all elite veterans, but they were almost wiped out in the siege of Celesta.

This was a huge loss that had never happened before. Bono de Couronn did not underestimate the enemy, and the soldiers were even less likely to joke with their lives.

In fact, his guess was basically correct. This mercenary was sent by Franz.

Their specialty is urban warfare, and most of the equipment they use is also specially designed for urban warfare.

At this time, the population of Alsace was mainly German, and the population of the French was so small that it could be ignored.

The Lorraine region was different. Although it was still dominated by the German population, most of the German population gathered in the Moselle region, and the closer to France, the sparser the German population.

Before World War I, the German conscription office counted the total population of Alsace-Lorraine as 1.87 million, of which 1.69 million were German-speaking.

But in fact, what Germany called Alsace-Lorraine refers to Alsace and the northeastern region of Lorraine (about one-third of the province's area).

This also explains why Lamosilier's troops were able to attack the city of Metz quietly, and it was for this reason that he was willing to implement Bellevue's crazy plan.

The plan was half completed by taking Metz, and the rest was to take Strasbourg, and then hold the Rhine defense line and wait for the German coalition to die.

As for why the German coalition did not attack in the direction of Lorraine, because the northern border is half of the Lorraine Plateau and half of the Moselle Valley, there are mountains and rivers everywhere, and the terrain is more complicated.

Moreover, France's imaginary enemy has always been Austria, which is obviously closer to Alsace.

Encircling the point and attacking the reinforcements, and attacking halfway across the river, in theory, this can indeed severely damage the Austrian army, at least to ensure invincibility.

However, when attacking the Alsace region, La Mosilier fell into an unexpectedly bitter battle, and the battle of Sarrebourg was even more tragic.

The morale of the French army was high, howling like mad wolves and rushing towards this small fortress. They thought that the battle would be the same as before, and the enemy would take the initiative to open the gates for them, and then let them be slaughtered.

However, as soon as the battle started, the invincible French army was poured with a basin of cold water, and hundreds of Congreve rockets that had been prepared long ago rose into the sky.

Although the accuracy of this old-fashioned rocket was extremely poor, with a range of two kilometers, an error of one kilometer, and a certain probability of self-explosion, it was too much.

Moreover, the French army also adopted a dense formation at this time, so it was a two-way rush.

The continuous and dense explosions made the French vanguard cry and howl.

However, the Congreve rocket was not invincible. First of all, although this thing had a fast firing rate, it also consumed a lot of rockets, and the defenders could not keep firing continuously.

Secondly, although it looks extremely powerful and sounds shocking, its lethality is actually limited, especially for infantry, unless it is directly hit, the explosion power is not as good as that of the fortress bomb.

The fortress bomb is the original hand grenade, which is about the same size as the mines in the anti-Japanese movies, and weighs more than ten kilograms.

Finally, its touching hit rate. The original Congreve rocket cannot control the direction at all, and the trajectory is completely random.

As a veteran of the battlefield, Lamosilier naturally knows these shortcomings of the Congreve rocket, but he does not want to waste the lives of soldiers in vain.

So Lamosilier came up with a good idea, which is to let the soldiers push the door panels forward.

Although it sounds a bit funny, it has been proven to be effective. The door panels can greatly reduce the impact of the Congreve rocket explosion and can also resist bullets to a certain extent.

However, in this way, the soldiers' mobility is greatly reduced and they become live targets for artillery.

Each large iron ball can take away the lives of a string of French soldiers, and the protection of those wooden doors against bullets at close range is almost zero.

The soldiers left the heavy wooden door and started the most brutal war of attrition. There was almost no possibility of missing the target at a distance of less than ten meters, or even less than five meters.

Even if they missed the target, they would hit other people. Both sides roared and continued to fight. Rifles filled with gunpowder roared and emitted puffs of gunpowder smoke.

The slowly rising gunpowder temporarily obscured the vision of both sides, but how could the god of death stop his pace of harvesting.

The frontline commanders of both sides roared almost at the same time.

"Keep shooting!"

So the soldiers who had loaded the ammunition raised their guns and continued to shoot at the other side behind the gunpowder smoke. From time to time, some soldiers fell and then someone immediately filled them up.

However, shooting at the smoke was unreliable after all. Soon, the French army climbed up the wall of the fortress.

A more bloody hand-to-hand combat began. Unlike the bayonet charge during the Napoleonic period, the French army, which had been "peaceful for a long time", was the least concerned about bayonet training among the great powers.

Some things may go against common sense, but at this time, the British and Russians paid the most attention to bayonet training, while Prussia, with its strong military tradition, did not pay much attention to bayonet training.

However, Austria, as people's stereotypes suggest, attached little importance to bayonet training and did not even have a separate drill manual.

The performance of the militia in Saarburg was even worse. They could barely keep calm when shooting at the French army. Once they got into hand-to-hand combat, the guns in their hands turned directly into sticks.

But this does not mean that the bayonet is necessarily better than the stick. Although the scene was a bit embarrassing, in fact, the two sides were still evenly matched.

After a very tragic fight, the French army finally retreated after leaving thousands of corpses.

However, before the Salbourg militia on the top of the city had time to celebrate, the French artillery bombardment began.

Lamosilier admitted that he underestimated the opponent in front of him, but he did not think that the enemy in front of him could stop him from capturing Strasbourg before the arrival of the German coalition.

Lamosilier was an outstanding soldier and had his own unique insights into war, such as the use of shrapnel.

At this time, most artillery officers believed that the power of shrapnel was too small to cause damage to the fortress walls.

But Lamosilier, who had been on the front line for many years, knew that he did not need to blow up the wall, he only needed to blow up the defenders on the wall.

So Lamosilier became the first French general to use shrapnel on a large scale to attack the city.

The French artillery was the most advanced artillery in the original world line at this time, both in terms of their philosophy and the artillery they used.

The continuous large-scale bombardment was so powerful that the original parapets were almost reduced to rubble, but this did not prevent them from continuing to serve as shelters for the defenders.

Fortunately, Franz had already rehearsed this situation, and the defenders had built shelters similar to anti-gun holes in advance, so they did not suffer too much damage.

But Lamosilier did not know what anti-gun holes were, but instead doubted his own tactics. The military commander doubted his own tactics, not to mention his subordinates.

But the news that made him even more depressed came, Bonnot de Couron was still blocked in Celesta and could not move forward.