novelraw Chapter 111: Revolution Defense War - Decisive Battle (3)
Chapter 111: Revolution Defense War - Decisive Battle (3)
“Attack, attack!”
“For the Empire! For the Kaiser!”
The Imperial Army’s morale was higher than ever.
For the first time.
For the first time since the war began, their offensive was safely protected.
The Chasseurs, who had always lurked on their flanks, watching for an opportunity and instilling anxiety, were being held back.
Their Cuirassiers, who would appear out of nowhere whenever it seemed they were gaining ground, wreaking havoc and destroying everything, had retreated.
Instead, friendly Cuirassiers, led by the Empire's finest knight, were protecting them and keeping the intimidated enemy cavalry in check.
While enemy artillery battered friendly forces, that golden barrier that had blocked their artillery had also vanished.
The disadvantages they had faced in every battle until now were visibly resolved, and the news that the terrifying Gaston had fallen instantly boosted the Imperial Army’s morale.So, the offensive itself continued, but…….
“Damned bastards! Why the hell aren’t they breaking!”
Count Baden spat out his frustration, looking at Damien De Millbeau’s flag fluttering in the enemy camp.
Even Nicolas Nere’s vanguard had held on with infuriating tenacity, considering their numbers, before finally being routed.
But Damien De Millbeau’s army was taking it a step further.
It was as if they anticipated everything—where they were faltering, where they would begin to crumble—deploying the Reserve Unit at the most opportune moments and in the correct sequence.
If it had looked like an insurmountable Wailing Wall, it would have been one thing, but even though it was visibly wavering and being pushed back, they repeatedly managed to narrowly overcome crises with timely Reinforcements.
Count Baden, his face etched with anxiety and impatience, watched his army assault Damien De Millbeau’s defense line, which seemed to be torturing them with false hope.
The offensive was underway because it looked like they were winning, but before this campaign, the Imperial Army’s morale had been abysmally low.
It was morale temporarily regained through Grand Duke Leopold's thorough preparations and the tactical maneuver of using assassins.
The Imperial Army commanders, more than anyone, knew that if that morale broke once, it might be irreversible.
If that happened.
Again, yet again.
In Alsace.
In Nancy.
And now, even here in Valois?
To be defeated by that damned Count Milbeau again?
Common soldiers in the Command Tent were already mocking Count Baden’s rashness and incompetence. If he crumbled before Milbeau again here, what face could he show upon returning to the Empire?
Such a thing must never happen.
Count Baden ground his teeth hard, an audible crunch, and spurred his horse forward.
“Your Excellency Count! It’s dangerous!”
“Doesn't their Commander-in-Chief himself fight recklessly on the very front lines! I am a knight too!”
Count Baden brushed off his adjutant's warning and rode to the rear of the advancing soldiers, raising the Imperial Army’s flag high and shouting.
“Soldiers of the great Empire! Press on relentlessly! Victory is before your eyes, glory is not far off!”
It wasn’t just Count Baden.
Duke Gunhild and others, who had suffered a major defeat at the hands of the commoners' Puppet Government despite overwhelming forces, could not escape responsibility unless they redeemed themselves.
As everyone in the Imperial Army desperately pressed the offensive, a horn sounded.
Then, a vibration began to be felt across the battlefield, already filled with shouts, noise, and gunfire.
And soon, the magnificent sound of hooves thundered, drowning out all other noise on the battlefield.
“Enemy Cuirassiers!”
“Hiik-!”
Those who appeared to tear apart the offensive whenever it seemed to gain traction—and who hadn't been seen in this battle—had reappeared.
That alone unsettled the soldiers, and Count Baden hurriedly shouted.
“Focus on the offensive! We too have Count Wittelsbach’s Cuirassiers!”
Sure enough, Count Wittelsbach’s cavalry also began charging towards the enemy Cuirassiers descending the hill.
“Foolish, the assassins are still there—Ugh?”
Count Baden was sneering at the enemy Cuirassiers’ recklessness when he saw the flag at their head and froze in horror.
It was Marquis Lafayette’s flag. The enemy Commander-in-Chief's flag was at the head of the Cuirassiers.
Knowing that Gaston had been struck down by assassins while leading the charge, was the Commander-in-Chief himself leading the vanguard again?
What in the world is this?
While Count Baden’s mind momentarily blanked, a command flag rose from Damien De Millbeau’s position above.
The signal to retreat!
Simultaneously, Damien De Millbeau’s army, which had tenaciously held on until then, began to withdraw like an ebbing tide.
“Haha, hahaha. Muhahahaha!”
Only then did Count Baden grasp the situation and burst into laughter.
They had completely reached their limit.
If they simply routed, they would obviously suffer severe losses from our cavalry, so to buy time, they had no choice but to commit their precious forces, intimidated by the assassins.
And to get those demoralized troops, who had lost Gaston, moving out, the Commander-in-Chief himself was leading by example!
The Imperial Army, unsure what to do amidst the sudden change of situation, stared blankly at the fleeing enemy and the cavalry units approaching each other.
Count Baden, casting aside all noble decorum, gathered all his mana and shouted in an amplified voice.
“Well done! The enemy’s defense line has crumbled! Press on! Victory is ours! For the Empire, charge!”
“Waa, Waaaaah-!”
Count Baden’s shout, echoing across the Rolling Hills, instantly ignited the spirit of the Imperial Army.
“Ch-Charge!”
“Attack, attack!”
Watching the Imperial Army chase the fleeing Revolutionary Army up the hill, Count Baden was overcome with elation.
Finally, finally!
While Count Wittelsbach somehow holds off the enemy cavalry, if we pursue now and crush Count Milbeau’s army completely, this battle is the Imperial Army’s victory!
*
Grand Duke Leopold, observing the enemy Cuirassiers through a telescope from the rear, widened his eyes when he saw the flag at the vanguard.
“Marquis Lafayette himself is taking the field here?”
They too must know that assassins are among the Imperial cavalry. Indeed, hadn't Gaston, said to be Francia’s finest knight, fallen to them?
Yet the Commander-in-Chief himself is taking such a risk here?
“Their Commander-in-Chief has always thrown himself into the most dangerous fronts. Perhaps he has stepped forward to buy time for their retreat? Gaston’s injury might have demoralized their cavalry more than we thought.”
At the words of his Chief of Staff, Duke Heinrich, Grand Duke Leopold narrowed his eyes.
No, that’s not it.
He didn't know what others thought, but the Pierre de Lafayette Grand Duke Leopold envisioned was far from a warm-hearted, virtuous general.
Rather, he was a cold-blooded general who would achieve victory even if it meant sacrificing his soldiers as pawns.
He used himself as a pawn to seize victory, making it appear as though he cherished his subordinates so much that he personally risked danger on the front lines.
At least, every time Pierre de Lafayette risked danger, it had always been to seize victory.
If they were truly at their limit and retreating, betting his precious cavalry and his own life merely to buy them time was uncharacteristic of Marquis Lafayette’s past actions.
That man should be trying to preserve his forces as much as possible to win next time, if anything.
“For now, issue an order for the entire army to halt. Tell them not to pursue.”
There’s something. Definitely, something.
Grand Duke Leopold was lost in thought, watching the charging enemy cavalry and Lafayette’s flag fluttering at the head of the charge through his telescope.
However-
“Your- Your Grace! Our forces are charging!”
“What did you say?”
Grand Duke Leopold, who had been observing the enemy cavalry’s movements, hastily lowered his telescope and was aghast at the sight of the Imperial Army furiously charging up the hill, pursuing the fleeing Revolutionary Army.
“Messenger! Your Grace, the enemy’s defense line has crumbled! Our forces are immediately launching an all-out offensive-”
To the Messenger who had just run up, the Grand Duke roared in fury.
“What in blazes is going on! Who dared to order an offensive without authorization!”
“It- It was Count Baden’s order, Your Grace! He said the enemy has crumbled, so we should pursue and annihilate them at once…….”
From the front lines, looking up the hill, misjudgment was possible.
But from the Grand Duke’s current position in the rear, the movements of the Revolutionary Army along the hill were all too clear.
The Grand Duke was flabbergasted.
Flabbergasted, he pointed at the Francia army rushing up the hill and shouted.
“What army in the world collapses so orderly and retreats in unison like that! Halt the offensive immediately! Right now!”
“Ye-Yes, Your Grace!”
Even as the pale-faced Messenger turned and ran back—the foremost Imperial soldiers were already cresting the hill.
---
A battle where the Imperial Army, through thorough preparation and tactical maneuvers, seized the initiative for the first time since the war began.
It was a frontal Decisive Battle, barely established by forcibly raising morale that had hit rock bottom.
The first time.
If Nicolas Nere’s vanguard had been routed then, the Imperial Army wouldn't have been able to advance so aggressively.
Though the vanguard had held on quite well, the enemy still had sufficient numbers, and the Imperial Army, dazed by their first taste of victory, would have lacked conviction.
But the second time.
When Damien De Millbeau’s defense line—which had tenaciously held on, torturing them with false hope, as if by magic, by committing reserves at the most opportune moments, looking like it would break but never quite breaking—finally seemed to collapse.
The Imperial Army became intoxicated by the belief that the dreadful defense line had finally crumbled. They were captivated by the hope that victory was within reach.
Furthermore, the Commander-in-Chief himself leading out the Cuirassiers—the very force they had been conserving until the very end after the appearance of the assassins—pushed them on, instilling the conviction that the Revolutionary Army was truly desperate.
The moment Count Baden, imbuing his voice with mana, urged the charge, it wasn't just him; indeed, Duke Gunhild and all the Imperial Army commanders thought so too.
No one realized that making them think that way was Marquis Lafayette’s plan from the very beginning.
The shouts of the Messengers urgently dispatched by Grand Duke Leopold, the flag signals ordering a halt under the Grand Duke’s command, with drums beaten frantically from the main camp.
All were drowned out by the hope of victory, so close after long suffering, and the din of the battlefield.
“Hah, hah, Waaah- Ugh?”
The Imperial soldiers, panting heavily as they ran up the hill, were met by the Revolutionary Army, a mere 30 meters away, with muskets aimed uniformly at them.
An ambush prepared according to Marquis Lafayette’s plan, based on Nicolas Nere’s unit, which the Empire had initially routed but redeployed with reserves held back in advance and units from the rearmost lines, which Demian had harried his men into preparing.
“Uh, ugh…….”
At the very front, the light infantry kneeling before the Line Infantry formations opened fire.
Under the volley poured out at a distance where it was hard to miss, the first Imperial soldiers to reach the hilltop fell before they could even grasp the situation.
However, the Imperial soldiers rushing up the hill were unaware of this situation.
Driven only by the single-minded thought of quickly catching up to their bravely advancing comrades, they ran up into the execution ground prepared for them.
At first, the Imperial soldiers who trickled up were cut down by the light infantry’s fire alone, but when they finally began to swarm up in countless numbers—Damien De Millbeau felt a chill run down his spine as he watched the scene.
He'd been half-convinced, yet it was truly unfolding exactly according to Marquis Lafayette’s plan.
'Honestly, I thought we'd have collapsed before then. And it’s also that he assigned me that woman, an officer candidate who reads the defense line so uncannily well. In fact, isn't that bastard Lafayette predicting everything?'
Inwardly swallowing dryly, Demian raised his sword high.
“First rank, aim-”
“Uh, ugh?”
As the Imperial soldiers, seeing a line of muskets with gleaming bayonets aimed at them from point-blank range, panicked-
“Fire!”
The muskets of the lined-up Revolutionary Army Line Infantry erupted in a simultaneous volley.
The Imperial soldiers, who had struggled up the hill, collapsed and met their end. Even those lucky enough to survive, dazed with shock and terror, were finished off by the light infantry’s fire.
“First rank, kneel! Second rank, aim fire-!”
Those of the first rank, having fired, knelt on the spot, and the second rank aimed their muskets.
“Huk-”
The Imperial soldiers who belatedly swarmed up were utterly horrified by the piles of corpses at their feet.
“Fire!”
Before they could even react, the second rank's volley fire poured down, and countless more Imperial soldiers fell without even a scream.
“Second rank, kneel! Third rank, aim fire-!”
By this point, the Imperial soldiers who made it up the hill were tripping over corpses, and a growing number were panicking at the sight of their comrades' bodies strewn across the ground.
That horrific sight alone was enough to completely shatter the Imperial Army’s morale.
“Fire!”
Another volley fire was unleashed, and now, with no space left for bodies on the hilltop, a few corpses of stumbling, fallen Imperial soldiers rolled down the slope.
The Imperial soldiers, who had been rushing up the hill watching countless comrades go over the crest, now stopped as they saw those same comrades, now corpses, rolling back down.
“What, is happening?”
Only after the Imperial Army’s charge halted, their momentum broke, and their fervor cooled, did the frantic drumming from the rear become audible, and the flag signaling a halt come into view.
And at that moment-
“Commence attack! Counter-attack!”
“Revolutionary Army, advance!”
“For Francia!”
“Waaaaah-!”
After Damien De Millbeau’s mana-infused cry, Nicolas Nere gave the order, and the Revolutionary Army, letting out a unified roar, surged forward, running down the hill.
Only at that moment did all the Imperial soldiers realize what had happened to their countless comrades who had gone over the hilltop.
“I-It’s a trap!”
A scream, almost a death rattle, erupted.
As that sound echoed, and the minds of the soldiers, dazed by the incomprehensible situation, finally understood it, terror and panic spread throughout the entire Imperial Army.