After Laharpe charged personally, he finally led his troops to attack Montenotte.
The remaining Austrian troops were trapped in the valley southeast of Montenotte.
La Harpe climbed up to the bell tower of Montenotte's church - in this era, the bell tower was usually the highest point in the city - and then he could see clearly the situation in the valley on the other side.
He estimated that more than three thousand Austrians were blocked in the valley, and the blue front of Davout's army had advanced to a position less than a hundred meters away from Montenotte.
In such a small open space, three thousand Austrian troops were crowded.
These three thousand people were attacked from both sides and quickly surrendered.
Laharpe saw Davout's bald head in his telescope. Now that the sun was setting, the bald head was quite easy to spot.
Laharp: "I'm going to congratulate Davout. This is a great victory. There are only 3,000 prisoners!, plus the killed and wounded, at least 5,000 Austrian troops are here! This is an incredible victory."
With that said, he turned around and climbed down from the bell tower.
Ten minutes later, he met Davout outside the city of Montenotte.
Davout looked very unhappy for some reason.
As soon as he met Davout, he asked: "Why don't you just let your flanking skirmishers charge?"
Laharp was shocked: "Skickers charging? Are you crazy?"
The skirmisher formation is too loose. According to general military common sense, if a skirmisher formation attacks a standard line of infantry, it is seeking death.
After all, there is a difference in troop density per unit area.
Therefore, in the military theory of this era, skirmishers were only suitable for harassment and were vulnerable to cavalry charges or line infantry charges.
Davout: "There are still my troops on the front! The enemy was already in chaos at that time! Even if they were skirmishers, they would be defeated if you charged down. In that case, more than just these 3,000 people would be captured!"
Davout looked back as he spoke. At this time, his troops were covering the mountains and plains to capture the defeated enemies. Many Austrians were very tired from fighting for a day and simply gave up resistance.
Anyway, the European armies of this era rarely massacred prisoners of war, and in many cases the prisoners of war were released after confiscating their weapons for a period of time.
Prisoners of war in this era did not have as much initiative as they did later in life, and would escape from prison or something like that.
The Austrian army was still the kingdom's army, and it basically didn't have much national consciousness. They all came to help the nobles and princes fight the war.
Davout watched his troops capture prisoners of war and sighed: "It's my fault that I exposed my strength too early. I should have only led a brigade of guards on the mountain. I failed to live up to General Frost's expectations."
A warrant officer next to Davout said: "Commander, it's not your fault. Your order to change defenses in time to prevent the troops from getting too exhausted was the right thing to do..."
Davout: "Stop talking, order the troops and prepare torches. Today we will pursue the defeated enemy overnight."
"yes!"
After the warrant officer left, Davout took out the banknotes and quickly wrote a note: "Commander! Give this to General Frost!"
**
At this time, Austrian general Argento was retreating to Diego with three thousand remaining troops.
Because they ran away so fast, their army could no longer see the French pursuers - after all, the French army had just defeated the thousands of men left behind by the Argento Division, and it was not possible to reorganize their formation so quickly and pursue them.
.
But Argento always felt that he could not escape so easily.
So he found his cronies and put the reins of his favorite horse into his hands: "You, get on my horse and rush to Diego immediately! Let the guards in Diego build campfires around the city immediately!
The more the better! Take out all the torches stored in the city, light them and stick them on the ground around the city!"
The confidant understood immediately: "Are you trying to confuse the French army?"
"Yes, I heard that Frost will attack at night. If the enemy who catches up also attacks at night, we will be doomed. We must make him fear our numbers and not dare to act rashly!"
The confidant saluted, turned around, mounted his horse, took the torch and galloped away along the road.
Argento shouted to his back: "Be careful when riding at night! Don't fall!"
"Don't worry!" the response came from far away.
**
An Ning was not worried at all about the progress of Division Davout. After all, he had sent Davout and Napoleon, both of whom were fierce men. No matter how hard he thought, the Austrian division commander named Argento could not defeat these two men together.
As a result, Dawu's letter came just after nightfall.
Napoleon did not catch up with the battle and kept leading the artillery team on the way. As soon as Davout came up, he scared the enemy away. Although he tried hard to fight with the enemy, he was eventually retreated to Montenotte by the enemy.
Laharpe was almost exhausted from running, and in the end he only had time to block half of Argento's men.
After An Ning read Davout's letter, she immediately changed into the expression on the phone of the old man on the subway.
How could this happen? With capable troops and brave generals, two things that can bring victory are superimposed. It should obviously bring double victory...
Why does this happen?
But after reading the letter, Berthier seemed to have a different idea than An Ning. He said happily: "We actually annihilated half of the enemy's troops. This is a huge victory that can be boasted. The enemy's Argento division has lost its combat effectiveness. It should be possible in the future."
Sent by Marshal Beaulieu to guard the rear."
Obviously Berthier was the general view of this era. Defeating half of a division was already a huge victory.
But An Ning came from a later generation. When he talked about "great victory" in his time, he would think of the great siege of Kiev and "no matter how we say the battle strength is 800,000 vs. 600,000, I have the advantage"...
To An Ning, capturing three thousand people alive was too childish.
An Ning took the letter from Berthier's hand and read it carefully again.
At the end of the letter, Davout wrote, "I am prepared to pursue the enemy all night long and strive to defeat the remaining enemies in Diego." So An Ning asked Berthier: "Is this okay? Won't many people be left behind if we march at night?"
Berthier: "That's true without a torch."
An Ning fell silent.
He suddenly realized that his previous understanding of night marches was wrong.
When An Ning read the history of war before traveling through time, he had a preconception that the French Revolutionary Army marched all day and all night. It was like a certain army that later marched in the dark, so at that time he lamented that it was indeed an army that had experienced the revolution.
Night march.
Many of Napoleon's victories in Italy were actually won by forced marches and night marches. The Austrian army on the opposite side rarely marched at night.
When he fought against Lafayette before, he organized a night attack with so much effort and suffered so much loss. At that time, he explained to himself that after all, the French Revolution had just begun, and the invincible citizen army had not yet been formed.
Now with Berthier's words, An Ning discovered his blind spot: you can't light torches for night attacks, so you have to march in the dark to discredit them, but if you are just traveling at night, you can light torches!
This is not at all the night attack of the army of later generations!
Damn, I was misled by modern concepts!
An Ning: "Great, then I'll just wait for news about Davout."
So An Ning took a shower and got ready to sleep. Not long after he lay down, someone shouted from outside: "Report, urgent news from Commander Dawu!"
An Ning sat up and said, "Bring him in!"
After a while, a messenger limped in: "Your Excellency, General!"
An Ning hurriedly stepped forward to support him: "What's wrong?"
"The horse slipped on the road and fell. The horse fell to death and I was also injured. If I hadn't run into our army's logistics team, I might have been in trouble." The messenger smiled bitterly, and then handed a note to An Ning, "
General, the news is fine, absolutely fine!"
An Ning: "You have worked hard, go and rest. Let the doctor look at your legs..."
After saying this, An Ning suddenly hesitated. Doctors in this era are all quacks. They might end up amputating this poor man's legs.
So An Ning changed her mind: "You go find my groom, he will wash your wounds with strong liquor. Believe me, this is more reliable than a doctor!"
The messenger laughed and said, "Why don't you give me some strong wine?"
"You can drink too. Go on."
After saying that, An Ning turned his attention to the note in his hand.
Davout wrote very briefly: "There are a large number of campfires near Diego, presumably Beaulieu's main force. I am letting the troops who have been fighting for a day go down to camp to repair and prepare for the decisive battle tomorrow."
An Ning slapped her thigh hard: "Okay! Now I have found Beaulieu's main position! Fanny!"
Fanny immediately opened the door and came in: "I'm here."
"I need to change clothes, and wake up Berthier and the staff. We will move to the front line overnight."
It's not that An Ning doesn't trust Davout's abilities, it's mainly that he wants to be present in person for this kind of battle.
After all, it was the main battle! How could it be done without watching from the side!