Chapter 40 The war begins

On the morning of September 25, 1805, Marshal Rana's Fifth Army crossed the Rhine in Karl and camped between Rastad and Aitlingen. Prince Mura's cavalry legion and reserve cavalry in Strasbourg followed closely... Marshal Sirte's Seventh Army crossed the Rhine in Speyer... Marshal Rei's Sixth Army crossed the Rhine in Durah... Marshal Ransh's Third Army occupied Mannheim...

The Second Legion of Marmont crossed the Rhine in Mainz, and now the First Legion of Bernardot, which occupied British Hannover, gathered with the army in southern Germany. Finally, the Seventh Legion of Ogero came from Brest to join the war after 29 days of forced emergency marches. "Due to the lack of supplies, the marshals have been authorized to collect the military rations and military supplies needed by their respective occupying countries, which has increased the burden on the people of the occupying countries, and has caused the favorable feelings of various countries towards France to drop sharply, or even hostile..."

The combat plan was both magnificent and risky. Except for Marshal Brüne's Fourth Legion's 30,000 troops stayed in France to guard the English Channel, Napoleon transferred almost all his troops from France. Neither Louis XV nor Louis XVIV had such a bold move. The British could easily conquer Paris, France without encountering any resistance. However, thanks to Napoleon's strict censorship system, no such news was revealed in the newspapers, nor did any articles criticizing the government.

In the temporary command of Aitlingen in the Principal of Baden, Xiao Jie watched Napoleon standing in front of a huge military map, marking the position of the thousands of troops he dispatched on the military map through the messages from the various legions.

In fact, Napoleon decided on the plan to fight this battle shortly before leaving Paris. Berthier, who was loyal and under strong pressure from Napoleon, made great contributions to the complex deployment process of this large-scale battle. Napoleon made many adjustments to the army, including putting all the cavalry under the command of Murah alone and artillery under the command of Domartin.

The army's legions divided their troops to advance from different paths to the battlefield to avoid road blockage and logistical support problems. Cannons, ammunition and military rations followed the brigade. Napoleon, who had originally planned to attack Britain, ignored the necessary logistics preparations for combat on the European continent, and paid the price from the beginning: the army lacked large four-wheeled carriages and had to temporarily requisition 3,500 carriages and 14,000 horses, and Berthier was responsible for urgently replenishing the weapons and equipment that were still lacking in the army. Winter clothes came late, and old-fashioned firearms were urgently needed to be replaced with new equipment due to excessive use of excessively frequent and outdated old-fashioned firearms. The army was often short of food, resulting in a large number of fallen and fugitives along the way in the first few weeks. Cold, hunger and lack of military pay were still obstacles to the launch of this battle.

This battle is like the Egyptian expedition and all the battles Napoleon has since been fought, and it is completely unnecessary. If Napoleon withdraws French troops from the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, this battle is completely avoidable, and no one will die in the battlefield. However, Napoleon is a conqueror, which means war. His ambition is to put the entire Europe and the world under his rule, and this has just begun. This war will trigger new wars, and thus continue to war for years. "It is said that a genius is often destroyed by his own hands." A famous historian once said. At present, Napoleon is forcing Austria and its Russian allies to attack him, especially after he became king in Italy.

Although Napoleon trained a well-trained army in the Straits, he was still caught off guard when facing the avalanche of the army and wanted to cross the European battlefield to fight against the coalition forces. In order to break the enemy's gradually formed encirclement against the French army, he even let his deputy General Bertrand and the Imperial Marshal Prince Mura take on the most dangerous task of crossing the Rhine and entering the enemy's hinterland, which could be taken by people much lower than their rank. Only Napoleon would make such a bold decision.

Napoleon's primary goal was to strike the powerful but scattered Austrian army, but to save his rear first. Therefore, on October 1, he forced the Duke of Baden to sign a defense treaty. In exchange, Napoleon promised not to destroy and rob the University of Heidelberg and to compensate the Duke himself in the future. Four days later he wrote to the electorate of Bavaria and Vuldenburg, demanding that they form an alliance with France, and these little princes were fighting.

Jingjing had to accept Napoleon's request. In particular, Bavaria not only signed a treaty with France, but also Italian Governor Eugen Boarne also married the eldest daughter of the Bavarian king. Russian Emperor Alexander I tried his best to win over Prussian King Friedrich William III and encouraged him to join the third anti-French alliance. As a result, on November 3, Prussia and Russia and Austria signed the Potsdam Treaty, which made France's situation even worse.

Faced with the approaching armies of various countries, the morale of the French army had become unstable, and even a few soldiers began to flee. Napoleon urgently needed a victory to boost the morale of the army, otherwise he would not be able to face the increasingly severe situation. Similarly, due to the unoptimism about the war, the French financial market was moving at this time, a large number of stocks began to fall violently, and people jumped off buildings and committed suicide every day, prices soared, and people's lives were miserable. Especially after the news of the French Navy's disastrous defeat in Trafalgar reached Paris, it caused a new round of panic. "There are more and more people in front of the bank gate. The order there is hard to maintain... The already very scarce cash has become even scarce, and the value of government bonds plummeted." Prime Minister Conbasseres wrote in his diary, "The situation in Paris is unsettling."

So, after careful consideration, Napoleon targeted General Kienmaier in Nuremberg. They were originally attacking Napoleon with 150,000 main forces of the Austrian army across the Danube and Ile Rivers. There were 120,000 people from Munich to Ingolstetta to prevent the French attack on Austrian land. At this time, nearly 200,000 Russian troops were still nearly 1,000 kilometers away. Because the distance between them was too large, Napoleon could take advantage of it.
Chapter completed!