Chapter 958: 866: The Battle of Offense and Defense in Mantua

Chapter 958: Chapter 866: The Battle of Offense and Defense in Mantua

Boliue dispatched several hundred cavalry to repeatedly confirm that this was not Napoleon’s trap before taking the band and the officers from the fortress to welcome Wilmze.

This was his first departure from the Mantua Fortress in over a month.

When he saw Wilmze being surrounded by guards ahead, he immediately opened his arms to greet him.

However, before he could utter a word of his long-prepared speech, Wilmze asked solemnly, “Marshal Boliue, did my reconnaissance troops not detect any traces of the French Army nearby?”

“Yes, under your prestige, they all fled,” Boliue replied gleefully. “Actually, they began to retreat one after another starting two days ago. This morning, the last group of more than 3,000 also left.

“Now, the line from Mantua to Brescia is back in our hands…”

“Wait,” Wilmze suddenly interrupted, frowning, “You mean the French retreated two days ago?”

“Ah, correct.”

“You didn’t attempt to pursue them?”

“Well,” Boliue seemed a bit embarrassed, “You know, that Napoleon is very cunning, I was worried about an ambush, so…”

Wilmze quickly asked the staff to bring the map and he said, “Where is the right flank now?”

The latter recalled, “It should have passed Limoné by now, General, estimating they’ll arrive by the day after tomorrow at the latest.”

A bad feeling suddenly surged in Wilmze’s heart and he shook his head, murmuring, “The French retreated too quickly, this is quite unusual…”

He turned to the Order Officer and said, “Immediately contact General Cosdanovic, warn him to be careful of any French army attack.”

Cosdanovic constitutes Wilmze’s right flank.

When Wilmze first learned that Napoleon had divided his troops to Verona to intercept, he was overjoyed, and ordered his troops to divide into three units: left, center, and right, to fan out along the east-west direction, attempting to surround the French Army near Mantua.

However, there was no enemy here at the moment.

Boliue hurriedly asked, “How many soldiers does the Cosdanovic Army have?”

The staff replied, “18,000 men, Marshal.”

Boliue immediately smiled, “Then there’s no need to panic, the French Army surrounding Mantua only had more than 17,000, and moreover, they left in batches. This means that at least six to seven thousand soldiers will arrive at Limoné no earlier than tomorrow night.”

Upon hearing this, Wilmze also breathed a sigh of relief.

He was also an experienced veteran general. Behind the three-route army, he had left Mesaros von Soboslo with 4,000 to serve as a reserve force.

Moreover, further behind, there were also 6,000 troops drafted from Venice.

Even if the French dared to launch an attack, as long as Cosdanovic could hold on for a day, reinforcements would continuously arrive from behind.

He said to the cavalry officer beside him, “Major Faber, you are to personally lead three cavalry squadrons along Lake Garda to search for traces of the French Army.

“If they really go to attack Cosdanovic, we’ll launch a pincer attack on them from the south!”

The location of the Mantua Fortress was extremely dangerous, situated at the confluence of the Ming River and Po River, with Lake Garda serving as a barrier to the west.

Limoné was a small town on the northwest side of Lake Garda.

Therefore, if the French Army went to attack Cosdanovic, they would be blocked by Lake Garda, unable to threaten the Mantua Fortress.

This allowed Wilmze to confidently dispatch troops to attack the French Army from behind.

Just half a day later, the reconnaissance cavalry sent by Wilmze returned to report that the French Army’s rear had just arrived at Calchitona, located at the southwestern side of Lake Garda, numbering over 6,000. According to local farmers, thousands more French troops passed by there yesterday.

Wilmze immediately ordered his central route army of 10,000, plus the Argentoratum Legion, totaling nearly 30,000 troops, to promptly march to the west of Lake Garda and pincer the French Army there.

Boliue immediately fretted, “General, if this happens, there will be a serious shortage of defensive forces at Mantua…”

“Don’t worry, General Ulm will arrive by the day after tomorrow at the latest with more than 10,000 troops,” Wilmze snapped irritably, “Our goal is to reclaim Italy, not to just keep guarding here.”

There were nearly 30,000 soldiers in the Mantua Fortress before, yet they were surrounded by less than 20,000 French troops, and Boliue hadn’t actively launched an attack even once.

Boliue sheepishly reminded, “General, that Napoleon is full of deceit, you must be on guard…”

The west side of Lake Garda.

Idro Town.

Napoleon glanced at his pocket watch, turned around, and waved to the soldiers beside him, saying, “Everyone pick up the pace; we should encounter the Austrians before noon!”

Grouchy galloped over, lifted his hat to him, and said, “General, the cavalry scout spotted the enemy rear north of Limoné, numbering over 4,000.”

Indeed, after defeating Melas’ army at Alexandria, Napoleon received the commission personally signed by the Crown Prince, promoting him to Quasi-General.

At this point, less than half a year had passed since his arrival in Italy.

Victor approached upon hearing this, frowning and saying, “General, the enemy’s rear is too close, if we fail to quickly defeat Cosdanovic, we may face the risk of being attacked from both sides.”

At last night’s operational meeting, Napoleon proposed that the Austrian Army from the Mantua Fortress might follow them.

With only 11,000 troops in his attack legion, defeating Cosdanovic alone was already the limit. If an enemy attacked from behind, it would mean almost certain death.

But Napoleon smiled very easily and said, ”

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The failure of the Battle of Arcole still didn’t dissuade the Austrians from abandoning Northern Italy. Given the dire situation in Mantua, the Emperor of Austria issued an edict ordering the military to prepare for a new campaign. To this end, the Austrian Army High Command decided to continue drawing troops from the Rhein River region while broadly mobilizing volunteer battalions domestically to partake in combat. To boost morale, the Queen of Austria personally embroidered military flags for the four volunteer battalions in Vienna. The Habsburg Dynasty envisaged retaking control of Northern Italy before the Mantua Fortress fell to the French Army. In early January 1797, the Austrian Army finally concentrated nearly 100,000 troops, including: sixty-four infantry battalions and thirty cavalry battalions, organized into eight infantry divisions, one cavalry division, and several light cavalry brigades. Additionally, in the Tyrol area, a large number of volunteer forces were mobilized. With these troops, Marshal Alvinczi was determined to try again, leading the army southward in early January, once more attempting to relieve the siege of Mantua. Defeating Alvinczi’s over 40,000 men in battle, the Austrian Army’s third offensive to rescue the Mantua Fortress was shattered.