Chapter 92: Towards south or north?

On the vast North Sea, a huge fleet was slowly sailing eastward. On both sides of the fleet were dozens of three-masted clutches, and inward were ten huge gunboats. In the middle were more than 300 transport ships.

They were the expeditionary army of the British Empire. This was the first time that Britain had sent troops to intervene in the war on the European continent. Before, they had sent small troops or provided funds and weapons to support other countries, while they themselves were outside the war. But this time they changed their previous position, probably because France under Napoleon had seriously threatened Britain's security.

The commander of this expeditionary legion was the Duke of Wellington who had just returned to England from India. He was born in 1769 and graduated from the Angers Military Academy in France. He joined the British army in 1787. He participated in the war against the French Republic from 1794 to 1795. In 1796, he was ordered to lead his army to launch a war against the Indian princes and kings. After ten years of hard work, he finally completely defeated the Indian princes and kings, making India the largest diamond on the British king's head.

In August 1806, Wellington returned to Britain to report his duties. After the British, Puerto and Russian countries reached an anti-French alliance, Lord Glenville, Prime Minister, went against the opposition and insisted that Wellington was the commander of the Expeditionary Legion. He was very optimistic about Wellington and believed that he would defeat the proud emperor on the other side of the strait. But in fact, his vision was also very correct. In history, although Wellington was defeated by Napoleon in the previous few wars, he commanded the British-Dutch coalition forces against France in 1815, and fought against the French superior forces in the Battle of Waterloo. Finally, with the cooperation of the Puerto army, he defeated Napoleon Bonaparte I, marched into Paris, and led the allies' occupation forces in France. After the war, he participated in many meetings to re-dividate the sphere of influence among the anti-French coalition countries. However, since Xiao Jie came to this time and space, will all these happen?

Standing on the deck of the gunboat King, Wellington was full of confidence. This time he returned to China and was promoted to general and appointed as commander of the Expeditionary Legion. This made him very proud. You must know that on the day when the candidate was decided, many colleagues from the army cast envious eyes on him.

"General Bill, how long will it take to reach our destination?" Wellington was a little unwavering and wanted to land on the European continent as soon as possible so that they knew that Britain not only had the world's top Royal Navy, but also its army was the world's top.

"General, I just asked General Bock, and he told me that we will probably be able to reach our intended destination at noon tomorrow." Lieutenant General Bill, the chief of staff of the Expeditionary Legion, replied.

"General Bock? That proud Admiral?" Wellington looked down on the naval generals like other army officers, believing that they could only brag and speak loudly, and were not worthy of the word royal. But it cannot be denied that the navy is indeed better than their army, and they have been spreading across the ocean for hundreds of years without failure. And what about the army? Although they had just won India, this could not hide their major failure in North America.

"Yes, General," Bill replied. He also disliked Admiral Bock.

"The weather is good today? It's a day suitable for sailing. Are you right? General Wellington, General Bill." When Cao Cao arrived, Cao Cao arrived. As soon as the conversation between Wellington and Bill ended, Bock came out of the side of the ship. This made Wellington wonder if he was there before. If he were there, wouldn't all the conversations they had just heard? Wellington couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed when he thought of this. After all, talking about others behind their backs is not in line with the etiquette of nobles.

"The weather is very good today? By the way, General Bock, why haven't we even seen a French ship after we went to sea for so long?" Wellington began to change the topic.

Bock smiled contemptuously and said, "French ships? I guess they are lying in their home port like turtles, basking in the sun. The ocean belongs to our Royal Navy, and warships from other countries have to stand aside."

Although Wellington and Bill were a little disgusted with Bock's arrogance and arrogance, they believed Bock's words at this time. After all, the honor of the navy is also the honor of the British Empire, and it is also the honor of them, the subjects of the British Empire.

At this time, a young officer walked up to them, saluted and said, "God General, this is the latest information on the battlefield in Prussia." After that, he handed over a piece of information to Wellington.

Wellington sighed after seeing it, then handed over the information to Bill, saying, "It seems that the situation is not very good? Our allies were defeated by France."

Bock asked, "What? Our allies were defeated? How could it be so fast? The war has only started for more than half a month? Did Prussia surrender?"

Faced with a lot of questions from Bock, Bill patiently replied after reading the information: "In the Battle of Jena and the Battle of Alstadt on October 14, Prussia lost almost all its main forces, while the losses of the French army were relatively minor. At present, the remaining Prussian army is gathering in Königsburg, and our ally Friedrich William III is also preparing to continue to fight against the French in the north of Germany."

"The situation is really bad? Then is it appropriate for us to intervene in the war at this time?" Bock asked after hearing Bill's explanation.

"It's not too bad," Wellington replied, "instructing that Prussia has not surrendered yet, the French have to draw a large number of troops to deal with the remaining Prussian troops. Besides, our Russian allies are about to start attacking, so even if we land in the Netherlands, the French cannot draw much force to deal with us. Moreover, the soldiers of this expeditionary army were all selected from the British Empire Army, and their predecessors were equipped with the latest Mickey rifle (since French equipment was obtained).

After the information on the new type of rifle, the UK tried every means to get a lot of data on the Type 1802 rifle, and after improvement, it designed the first British rear-mounted rifle, named Mitchell Rifle. The combat effectiveness is different from the past. The French can draw up one or two legions to the Netherlands, and the strength of the 20,000 troops of the Netherlands itself is not strong, so we still have a great chance of winning. In addition, more troops can be sent to land in the country, so we are still very confident to defeat the enemy."

Seeing Wellington was so confident, Bock didn't say anything. In his opinion, if the situation of the war was not very good, they could just withdraw all the troops with Britain's strong maritime transportation capabilities. Anyway, the war could not burn Britain, so why are there so many other countries on the European continent?

At noon on October 18, the British expeditionary fleet appeared on the sea near the small Dutch coastal town of North Wake. The reason why this small town was chosen as the landing site was because it was between Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands and The Hague, where the government was located, and it was relatively close to both places. If you capture it, you can calmly choose to go south or north. In addition, such a small town has not many troops stationed, which is also conducive to the success of landing. However, there is also a big disadvantage of landing here that the port of North Wake is very small, and it takes a lot of time to get off the 50,000 soldiers and all supplies. However, considering that France does not have many troops in the Netherlands, it cannot pose any threat to the landing British army at all, so it finally chose to land here.

At 12:30 noon, the landing war officially began. First, five of the ten gunboats in the British Expeditionary Legion left the fleet and approached the coast, and carried out destructive shelling of North Wake's coastal defense turrets, removing the nail that might have an impact on their landing.

The North Wake's coastal defense artillery had only ten old-fashioned coastal defense artillery, and the garrison had only two companies, less than five hundred people. During the British artillery bombardment, their coastal defense artillery was destroyed only a few shots, and many artillery soldiers were killed. Next, the British gunboats began to bombard the French coastal positions, almost destroying all the French troops' unsolid positions.

At 1:00 p.m., the landing began. Nearly a hundred small boats carried thousands of British vanguards toward the coast, and the French soldiers guarding the coast were basically injured and killed by British gunboats. After seeing the black ships on the sea, the remaining troops left their positions and fled to their lives. The British troops landed on the landing occupied North Wake without any obstruction.

After getting ashore, Wellington proposed to attack Theatre south, then attack Rotterdam, and finally went south to dangerous French land. But Bill had a different opinion at this time. He proposed to conquer Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, to the north, which would bring great political benefits to the Expeditionary Legion. Later, he entered Prussia eastward to support Friedrich William III's resistance, and supported the Russian army that was about to participate in the war, forming a force of east-west attack on the French army and eventually defeating the French army. Moreover, the French army had just won the victory on the battlefield of Plush. There were still a large number of troops in their country. If they went south, they would definitely be hit by the enemy's superior forces. All of him advocated attacking north.

Neither of the two could convince the other party, so they had to decide that they would lead an army to march towards Amsterdam and The Hague respectively. After conquering these two places, they would make plans to see the development of the battle situation and France's reaction.

First, on the afternoon of the 19th, Wellington led 15,000 soldiers who had disembarked, and began an attack on The Hague. At this time, the garrison in The Hague only gathered 5,000 people. Because the Dutch King Louis escaped at the last battle, the morale of the French army stationed in The Hague was extremely low. Under the fierce attack of the British army, he finally abandoned the city and fled to General Saen's garrison in the evening.
Chapter completed!