Chapter 152: Small Trend Has Been Established

Selim looked at the news from France and couldn't help but sigh.

It must be said that Napoleon's efficiency is indeed high. Marseille is basically his now.

With the advantage of the army stationed, Napoleon quickly dealt with the local administrative officials and placed his own people.

While the Sultan was sighing, great changes were also taking place in southern France.

In Toulon, General Lapop was defeated once.

But he didn't lose at the gate of Toulon. General Lapop was a very distinctive person.

In his opinion, Napoleon's exhortation was a manifestation of the other party's cowardice. In order to show his bravery, he ordered the army to advance at full speed towards Toulon.

However, General O'Hara, the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces in Toulon, immediately had a plan after learning that Lapop, a fool, dared to march alone with only a few thousand people. He wanted to annihilate the other party.

Considering the threat of the French army in the west, General O'Hara did not bring many people with him. He only took 4,000 British troops and 2,000 troops from the Duchy of Piedmont and set off.

O'Hara, who had the advantage, led 7,000 troops (one thousand of which were royalist troops) to ambush by the river long before General Lapope crossed the Leijande River.

The specific situation was that the French army was crossing the river, and then the rebels and the coalition forces suddenly appeared, using artillery and muskets to destroy batches of French troops that were halfway across the river.

This made General Lapope very angry, and he ordered the French army to speed up the crossing of the river and defeat the French intervention forces on the other side.

Unfortunately, as soon as the French army landed, they died in batches. In order to shock the French army, the British army stripped the captured French soldiers naked and cut their flesh piece by piece.

It happened that this scene was seen by General Lapope, and it happened that his adjutant died beside him.

This self-proclaimed brave but actually cowardly general was deeply shocked. Isn't it just a battle? Why is it so tragic?

General Lapope, based on the principle of not being able to bear to see the soldiers suffer, rode away directly on his horse, leaving the remaining more than 4,000 French troops in place.

When everyone saw that the commander had run away, they threw away their guns and raised their hands. O'Hara then signaled the royalist leader who came with him to deal with the prisoners.

Not long after, O'Hara led his men back to Toulon.

But there was a little accident on the way.

"So, what's going on? Why are there so many French troops here?

Answer me, Louis-Matthew!"

O'Hara was shocked and angry. He came out to ambush others, not to be ambushed himself.

You know, the royalists are the local bosses here, otherwise he would not have been able to lead the coalition forces to take Toulon so easily, nor would he have led the coalition forces to ambush General Lapope.

But now he is being ambushed, which makes O'Hara unacceptable.

"Sorry, General, I haven't received any news of large-scale French mobilization.

In this case, there is only one possibility, you know."

"Fuck!

There are still more than 10,000 people in Toulon. They can be abandoned. I have been out for less than four days."

General O'Hara cursed directly in Mandarin.

Louis-Matthew said immediately.

"General, it is not necessarily that Toulon has been captured, but it is more likely that it has been besieged.

We must break out as soon as possible, otherwise once Toulon falls, we can't go back.

After all, although your navy is powerful, it can't drive to the shore."

O'Hara said with a cold face.

"Okay, I know.

How about this, you take your people to walk on both sides, I will deploy the army in the middle, quickly pass the order, and we will break out directly in two quarters of an hour."

Louis-Matthew didn't say anything else, but nodded and walked out of the tent. He was a little confused.

"It's not easy to let my people be on both sides.

How could O'Hara suspect me? I obviously have no reason to betray him.

No matter what, we must help Napoleon take this place.

According to the agreement, Toulon will be ours. That's enough. With the help of this person, I can complete the Duke's mission and gain a foothold again."

Louis-Matthew returned to the tent, wrote a secret letter and passed it to a man in black. Under the night sky, the direction this person went was exactly the French camp.

Not long after, there were flames and explosions from the coalition camp. The violent explosions frightened the surrounding villagers.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the French army immediately launched a massive attack.

"Damn it, I knew there was something wrong with Louis-Matthew. It was impossible for the other party to solve the fortifications outside Toulon so quickly."

Looking at the flames in the direction of the ammunition depot, O'Hara was extremely angry. He had been prepared to deal with Louis-Matthew, but the other party actually destroyed the ammunition depot directly.

O'Hara looked at him with hatred, and then ordered his adjutant to lead the army to retreat, and he left first with a few guards.

"Caught, caught."

Ney looked at O'Hara, who was tied up like a dumpling, and couldn't help feeling proud.

He was not the commander of the French army this time, but the commander of a small cavalry unit, and the fleeing O'Hara happened to run into him and ended up like this.

If Emperor Ser saw this scene, he would definitely complain that this was the end of the world line, after all, in another time and space, O'Hara was also captured alive.

Back to the coalition camp, Louis-Matthew's betrayal did not get the result he wanted, because the French army treated all enemies they saw equally.

Several muskets were aimed at Louis-Matthew who was trying to explain. After a burst of gunfire, Louis-Matthew fell straight down, with doubts in his eyes, as if he didn't understand how the agreed things turned out like this.

A few days later, Napoleon chuckled after seeing the battle report.

"You still want Toulon, you are not worthy. Provence is an important area of ​​Mediterranean trade. This is not a place to negotiate."

Napoleon then walked out of the tent and found his adjutant.

"Tell the army to prepare for the attack."

In fact, Napoleon's tactics are not complicated. The core idea of ​​his military theory is fire suppression, frontal feint attack, and flanking.

This idea has a far-reaching influence, and its excellent practitioners include but are not limited to Moltke, Schliemann, Manstein, Guderian, and Rommel.

In fact, the so-called blitzkrieg still uses Napoleon's theory, but the fire suppression has changed from cannons to dive bombers, and the task of detours has changed from cavalry to tanks.

During the Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese used this method to fight. They used heavy artillery to bombard the positions of the National Army, and some of them made a feint attack in front of the positions, while the main force went around to the side and rear of the positions to launch an attack.

In history textbooks, there are many cases where hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops attacked the positions guarded by hundreds of thousands of National Army troops, and the National Army collapsed across the board. They were all subject to this method of fighting.

Now, this method of fighting is about to be staged.

After the general attack on Toulon officially began, the French army used 45 large-caliber artillery to concentrate on fiercely bombarding the Little Gibraltar Heights, and the bombardment lasted for two days and two nights.

In the early morning of the third day, 6,000 French troops were divided into four columns. Under the command of Napoleon, they launched an attack from the north and south wings and headed straight for the Little Gibraltar Heights.

The first and second columns closely monitored the whereabouts of the enemy forces in Baraquiere and Eguillette;

The third column was the main force, commanded by Laborde, and focused on attacking Little Gibraltar;

The fourth column was the reserve, commanded by Napoleon, ready to deal with emergencies at any time.

The battle was not smooth at the beginning. The enemy relied on complex terrain and remaining fortifications to resist stubbornly and fought back fiercely, causing heavy casualties to the French army.

In addition, a whole company of French troops lost their way in the darkness and chaos.

Despite this, the French army was still able to break through the enemy's first line of defense and capture the Little Gibraltar Fort. However, when attacking the second line of defense, the French army suffered a fierce counterattack from the Little Gibraltar artillery.

At this critical moment, Napoleon sent General O'Hara to the front line, and the coalition forces were immediately panicked. The previous rumors about the capture of the commander-in-chief had been confirmed.

The coalition forces were defeated, and Napoleon took advantage of the situation to let the reserve troops rush up, and ordered the artillery captain Milon to lead a battalion to launch a roundabout attack, unexpectedly attacking Little Gibraltar from the back door of the bastion.

Around 3 o'clock in the morning, the battalion broke into the Little Gibraltar battery, opened a gap for the follow-up troops, and then the French army captured the entire Little Gibraltar.

In the morning, the French army adjusted its deployment and launched another attack.

Perhaps because the commander-in-chief was captured, the coalition forces did not resist fiercely. After half an hour of fierce fighting, the French army recaptured Cape Ker.

In this battle, the French army suffered 5,000 casualties, while the anti-French coalition suffered 8,000 casualties.

But more importantly, the French army took only more than ten hours to achieve the key step of Napoleon's plan to recapture Toulon: capturing Little Gibraltar and Cape Ker.

After occupying Little Gibraltar and Cape Kerr, the French army began to transform fortifications and quickly mobilized artillery to completely put the British fleet under the control of French firepower. On the same day, they began to bombard the British fleet in Toulon Harbor.

British Admiral Duke Hood was forced to order the fleet to hoist the sails and anchor, and fled Toulon Harbor that night despite the strong southeast wind.

The escape of the British fleet terrified the Toulon defenders and royalists.

On this dark night, royalists crowded on the dock in groups, loudly wailing to the British, Spanish and Naples ships, asking for help to escape from the city that was about to fall, and the coalition forces also lost the confidence to resist stubbornly.

The next afternoon, the anti-French coalition held a military meeting and decided to abandon Toulon.

That night, the coalition forces withdrew from the Fallon Battery and the Malbosc Battery, and abandoned some multi-faceted forts such as Rouge.

The French army immediately recaptured all the batteries and positions outside Toulon.

That night, the French vanguard rushed into Toulon, and Napoleon occupied it. He looked at the Mediterranean and couldn't help thinking.

"I have basically succeeded, Sultan, how about you?"

Adding the 3,000 words from the day before yesterday, it can be considered as making up for yesterday.