Chapter 900: Complete Victory

The Pope said something that he himself did not understand, but he was sure that the war was won, and Archduke Franz was indeed as extraordinary and transcendent as the rumors said.

No, this was completely beyond his imagination.

Airships rose into the sky one by one, drifted over the ridge, and then dropped barrels of terrifying bombs on the rebels.

These barrels were mixed with nitroglycerin, which was thirty times more powerful than the commonly used black powder. The instability of nitroglycerin became its advantage at this time because it did not require a fuse.

The impact of falling from a high altitude was enough to detonate this terrifying explosive, but the reality was that some of them detonated under the continuous action of gravity acceleration before they even hit the ground.

Although they did not explode on the ground as expected, after experiments by the Austrian military, nitroglycerin bombs were more powerful when detonated in the air, and the killing radius could be expanded by at least 1.5 times.

Austrian airships kept throwing explosives over the heads of La Poer's troops. Faced with this unprecedented air strike, the rebels were at a loss for a moment.

Some people raised their guns and then put them down. They doubted whether their guns were useful in the face of such a huge monster.

The air wave from the bomb landing directly blew away all the people around, and at the same time, gravel and wood chips were flying everywhere.

The originally inconspicuous gravel became a deadly weapon. When it hit the nearby soldiers, the bones and tendons were broken. Some unlucky stones directly hit the eyeballs or penetrated the head and burst into a blood mist.

"Help! Monster!"

"My hand, my hand is gone!"

"I can't see, I can't see anything!"

"Ahhhhhhhh."

Wailing, screaming, and explosions came one after another. The gods were also very busy that day because there were so many people praying.

However, the gods are always more reserved. They will not make miracles happen because of these people's begging.

As the head coach, Lapoll had never seen such a huge monster. His performance was no better than those ordinary soldiers from farmers and citizens.

Lapol frantically tried to get under the horse's belly, but the chaos and explosion at this time also frightened the warhorse.

Moreover, the new thing of the airship was too scary. Just the shadow cast from the high school aroused the instinctive fear of human beings.

Lapol shouted loudly to his confidants, but no one wanted to care about him at this time. Everyone was busy running for their lives.

Lapol had no choice but to escape to another carriage, but with a loud bang in his ears, he and the carriage were blown away.

Accompanied by strong tinnitus and dizziness, Lapol saw that some soldiers finally started to raise their guns to fight back.

But before he could laugh, the soldiers were petrified. Lapol was very angry. His subordinates were not noble and brave Roman soldiers, but a group of cowardly slaves.

Lapol barely supported his body and climbed up, but he soon petrified on the spot. Because there were a constant stream of airships floating over the hills and attacking the coalition forces on the other side of the mountain.

At the same time, the ground forces of the Austrian Empire also began to move. The soldiers walked into the valley with neat drum beats and encountered no resistance at all.

In addition to the deterrent power of the monsters in the sky, the skirmishers of the Austrian Empire on the ground also made great contributions.

Because they were fully equipped with new lever-action rifles, their firepower and accuracy far exceeded those of the Italian Confederation.

Only more than 200 skirmishers entered the valley mouth where only a thousand-man team could be deployed, which greatly reduced the area of ​​attack.

Moreover, skirmishers could cause the greatest damage to the enemy in the shortest time, which was conducive to the entry of follow-up troops.

The skirmishers were actually just bait to attract the enemy, and then the rocket troops concentrated their firepower to cover the enemy, and finally the battlefield for the decisive battle of the infantry battalion.

The reason for relying on rocket troops was that, on the one hand, the rockets had a fast firing rate and could deal tons of damage in a short period of time, and on the other hand, it was no problem for soldiers in the Italian mountains to carry rockets, but it was too difficult to push heavy artillery over.

According to the estimation of Albrecht's frontline command, the battle will last for three to four hours, and the Italian Confederation's troops will collapse.

However, the actual situation is that the Italian Confederation collapsed the moment they saw the airship, and the scattered soldiers did not encounter any resistance when they entered.

The infantry battalion behind was basically here to hunt rabbits, and the mountains and plains were full of deserters from the coalition. Franz's order was not to kill indiscriminately, and he didn't care about the devils and angels.

Franz only knew that these people were valuable labor and could accept lower living security.

Whether they were devils or angels, throwing them into the factory for a few months would guarantee that they would become social animals.

To be honest, most of the Austrian army actually saw the airship for the first time. This shock was beyond words, and the powerful power made people feel like a punishment from God.

However, the soldiers of the Austrian army were also very fortunate that such a terrifying war weapon was on their side.

The Italian coalition forces only put up sporadic resistance. Marshal La Poule, who was called a follower of the devil by Pope Pius IX, was found hiding in a crevice between mountains.

La Poule did not want to surrender, let alone come out. In the end, two Austrian soldiers used a lasso to lasso him and forcibly pulled him out.

The other coalition officers had already fled, but their soldiers did not want to let them go.

The surrendered Allied soldiers almost unthinkingly pointed out the direction of the officers' escape, and even said whether the other side had weapons, how many subordinates they had and what their personalities were like.

With the help of this group of qualified prisoners, the Austrian army's post-war handling work was much easier. It is rare for prisoners to help capture prisoners.

This battle had a great impact on Pius IX, especially those "monsters" that could fly in the sky, which completely broke his previous cognition.

The Pope began to believe the words of the chief exorcist. Perhaps Archduke Franz was really different.

Pius IX had begun to consider the outrageous deal proposed by Franz before.

The statistics of the war soon came out. Only 37 people were killed on the Austrian side, but an airship was lost.

In fact, this new type of war weapon was inevitably problematic when it was put into complex terrain for the first time. This time, the airship lost control due to unknown reasons and eventually crashed into the mountain wall.

However, the tactical effect was surprisingly good. The power of the airship explosion was far greater than that of the bomb. The huge explosion almost caused a landslide, and the rubble directly buried nearly a hundred coalition soldiers.

The losses of the Italian coalition forces were also smaller than expected, with only more than 3,000 people killed, half of whom were trampled to death by their own people while fleeing.

The army, which was once known as a million-man army, only captured less than 80,000 prisoners at this time.

These people would be simply identified and sent to Austria or overseas colonies, or they would pay their debts and redeem themselves according to the old rules.