Chapter 99 Carlos's Counterattack

Carlist headquarters in the Pyrenees.

Although the Royal Navy had escorted the French fleet to Texas in 1836, Britain still had a tough attitude on the Spanish issue.

Britain secretly transported supplies and weapons to the Carlist armed forces from the sea. Palmerston was a representative of the hardliners and advocated a heavy blow to the Regent Queen Christina in northern Spain.

The peace advocates in Britain also suggested fighting to promote peace, but did not recommend a direct conflict with the French, because Britain still needed France's support on the issue of the Near East. There was a bottom line that Spain could not side with France.

John George Woodford, a former British Army Lieutenant General, had fought Napoleon in Spain with the Iron Duke Wellington. He liked this land very much because it had brought him countless glory and victory.

At the same time, he was very familiar with the tactics of the French and Spanish, and he made a plan.

Woodford accepted the rank of Lieutenant General awarded by Carlos, and he decided to fight Lieutenant General Pierre's French Corps first.

In order to lead away the main force of the Spanish government army, he sent two small troops to break out of the encirclement, burning, killing and looting all the way to the Bilbao area, destroying roads and bridges along the way, and spreading rumors that Bilbao was in danger.

At the same time, the second small force set up an ambush on the road to harass the Spanish reinforcements in the rear.

Upon hearing the news that Bilbao was besieged, Espartero and Count Sabir immediately believed it to be true, because according to their estimation, the food of the Carlos faction had reached its limit, and they would definitely fight to the death.

But they didn't expect that the other party would go to Bilbao to die, and the task entrusted to them by the regent queen to preserve their strength could not be completed.

Their expedition almost emptied Bilbao. There were no troops or food in the city, but there were tens of thousands of angry hungry people. If these people joined the Carlos faction, then the whole of Spain would be in turmoil again.

The news that the Carlos faction was besieging Bilbao made Lieutenant General Pierre breathe a sigh of relief. He decided to open a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Now he could finally relax and let the Spaniards fight each other. He only had to watch the show. Not only did he not have to fight, but he could also complete the task assigned by the cabinet.

Count Sabir led the cavalry vanguard to return to the rescue, but was ambushed on the road. Count Sabir fell off his horse and was seriously injured.

Once the commander is lost on the battlefield, it is a heavy blow even for the regular army, let alone a ragtag army like the Spanish government army.

Count Sabir's vanguard fought on their own and was in chaos. Some even surrendered to the Carlos faction's guerrillas.

Soon this defeat was reported as a disastrous defeat. After receiving the news, Espartero actually decided to take every step carefully to prevent another sneak attack by the Carlos faction.

Among the intelligence obtained by Espartero, the information obtained was contradictory, fragmented, and difficult to distinguish between true and false.

Some said that the Carlists had 10,000 men, some said that the Carlists had 20,000 men, and there was even intelligence that the local militia had joined the Carlists, and that the Carlists had gathered a 100,000-man army. This war was a trap set by the Carlists.

After Count Sabir's troops were dispersed, the Espartero army in the rear did not move, and some people started to have evil thoughts.

These defeated soldiers lied that they were Carlist rebels, burned and looted along the way, and burned down the city to destroy evidence.

For a time, the entire northern Spain was filled with smoke, and the Carlist army was everywhere. Of course, it was not only the defeated soldiers who could think of this, but also the nearby bandits, bandits, and armed landlords who joined in.

It was naturally difficult for the well-known gentlemen to rob their own village, after all, rabbits don't eat grass near their nests, but the village next door was none of his business.

The snowflake-like war reports were thrown on Espartero's table, which made him even more unable to believe what he saw, but Bilbao had to be saved.

Thus, a farce of 50,000 troops moving forward 500 meters every day began.

Madrid, the Royal Palace.

Regent Queen Christina looked at the secret letter in her hand and a pile of war reports on the table. She felt that she had been deceived by Maroto.

But she handed the secret letter to the liberal Prime Minister Otterdur calmly to show her trust in him.

After receiving the letter, Otterdur cursed Maroto as a conspirator, saying that the Carlos faction would not die well, and he was willing to go to the front line to supervise the battle in person.

The regent queen wanted Otterdur's words. She was ready to send Otterdur and his supporters to the front line. Spain did not need a prime minister, but it needed cannon fodder.

French camp in the Pyrenees.

After several months of sit-in war, the French army had long become numb, not only did they not respond to the sounds in the mountains.

Lieutenant General Woodford personally led people to surround Lieutenant General Pierre's camp. This time, the Carlos faction could be said to have gone all out, with a total of nearly 30,000 troops.

But what Woodford didn't expect was that the French were not prepared at all, and he easily completed the encirclement.

The battle lasted all night. Although the French army was not prepared and the commander was drunk, the combat effectiveness of the two sides was obviously not at the same level.

The French army actually broke into small groups and broke through Woodford's encirclement under the command of several colonels.

This made Woodford very angry. The French army in front of him was not an elite army at all, but this group of Spaniards was not an army at all. Thirty thousand against ten thousand, it was a sneak attack at night. As a result, more than 3,000 people were lost. The French army only More than 2,000 people were lost, but the French army lost almost all supplies and heavy weapons, as well as their commanders.

When Lieutenant General Pierre woke up and saw Woodford, he thought he had returned to the Napoleonic War, and that was the first thing he said.

"you're old."

This sentence made Old Woodford burst into tears. He invited Lieutenant General Pierre to have another drink to sober up.

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

Franz looked at the "biscuits" served by Thalia and said.

"This isn't a cookie, it's a cake!"

"It's obviously biscuits!" Thalia said.

"Is this a palace practice? This is too extravagant!" Franz said.

"No, all pastry shops do it this way! That's why I asked you if it could be made into noodles or macaroni, and you actually said I'm Italian!"

Thalia was very dissatisfied. During this period, Italian civilization had declined, and the Italians were second-class citizens of the Austrian Empire. This made Thalia very unhappy.

In fact, biscuits in the modern sense should have been invented in the 1850s. Biscuits at this time were a luxurious pastry in Vienna. The almonds and chocolate on them alone discouraged many poor people.

Franz had no choice but to do it himself, made some dough, threw it into the oven, and it was baked in a short time.

Facing the black goo in front of her, Thalia found it a little hard to accept, but she picked one up and tasted it and felt it was pretty good.

"It's fluffy and crispy, and tastes delicious, but a little dry." Thalia commented.

"Cookies! Of course!"

Although this biscuit cannot be used as pastry, it can still be used as rations for the poor.