Chapter 100 All Parties Are in Danger

The Polish Winged Hussars easily tore through the Austrian infantry phalanx. Under the charge of 3,000 heavy cavalry, the Austrian army's defense line seemed so thin.

The infantry was quickly trampled into pieces, and the threat of the lance made it difficult for the Austrians to resist.

If Austria still had pikemen, they could actually resist the Winged Hussars.

After all, Gustav II of Sweden, Gu Erye, had already demonstrated how to operate.

But the pikemen had long been eliminated, and the fate of the Austrian army was doomed.

At the same time, the Austrian artillery's artillery coverage effect was not good.

The opponent's sprint speed was too fast, resulting in a lot of artillery fire missing. When it got close, the artillery had to be restrained because of their own infantry.

Seeing his own infantry being annihilated by the Polish infantry who once again put away the white flag, Franz was heartbroken. These were all the elite light infantry of the Habsburgs.

Franz calmed down at this time. He had withdrawn a lot of infantry, and the losses that the enemy could cause had been reduced to the extreme.

Now he had to block the enemy's heavy cavalry, prevent the enemy from launching a second charge, and then wait for an opportunity to annihilate the enemy.

At worst, he had to withdraw these troops to Krakow.

Franz believed that this time was just caught off guard. After he returned to Krakow to rest and fight again, he was still confident of winning this battle.

Alandar-Mustafa Pasha did not have the opportunity to charge again, and Franz did not find an opportunity to block the enemy. Both sides ended the battle with regret.

In the Battle of Krakow, the Polish side had 50,000 participants and 9,000 casualties, while the Austrian side had 40,000 participants and 6,000 casualties.

But for Austria, this was nothing more than a failed battle, which at most made them pay a higher price in the subsequent division of spoils.

But for Poland represented by Kosciuszko, this had already disrupted their strategic deployment.

According to the idea, in this battle, the main force of the Austrian army should be defeated, making it impossible for the other side to send more troops here in a short time, so that Kosciuszko can withdraw troops to support the Prussian direction.

But the current situation is that the Polish army has successfully repelled the other side, but it is still far from severely damaging or even destroying the main force of the other side, which means that Kosciuszko is destined to be unable to support the Prussian direction.

The hero sighed towards the sky, and the heavy clouds above his head were like the situation of Poland at this time, which made Kosciuszko difficult to let go.

The situation was not only unfavorable in the Austrian direction, but also in the Russian direction.

At the beginning of the war, the Polish army fell into an extremely passive and unfavorable situation. First of all, the Tsarist Russia showed a crushing trend against Poland in terms of manpower and materials.

And the Poles were very poorly prepared before the war due to years of wrangling and local confrontation with the central government.

Although the Polish Parliament temporarily recruited many veterans, many of them were still militias or untrained recruits.

The worst thing was that the Polish army was in the process of reorganization at this time. The distribution of numbers, weapons, and ammunition had not been completed. There was a shortage of military factories, heavy weapons, and sufficient logistical supplies.

In addition, due to long-term infiltration and the active betrayal of the Targowica Party, the Russian army knew the distribution of Polish troops and other strategic intelligence very well, while the Polish army knew almost nothing about the initial movements of the Russian army.

The Polish army could only defend according to Kosciuszko's deployment, but Kosciuszko was just drawing on paper after all.

Fortunately, the commander-in-chief of the Russian side at this time was Prince Joseph Poniatowski, a famous Polish general in the late 18th century and the nephew of the contemporary King Stanislaw II.

After a field investigation, he made changes.

】

The first battle was the Battle of Opsa, where the Russian vanguard crossed the Daugava River and prepared to attack the city of Braslaw.

They were met with stubborn resistance from the Lithuanian defenders in the nearby village of Opsa. The Russian army tried to encircle the village, and the Lithuanian army succeeded in breaking through desperately.

Both sides lost about hundreds of soldiers, and then the Russian army occupied Blasław.

Then, Minsk was occupied.

After that, Prince Joseph Poniatowski arranged for Lithuanian commander Bilak to lead the light cavalry corps and the Tatar cavalry regiment to cover the main force's retreat. They fought a blocking battle with the two Russian vanguard dragoon regiments in Stopitz.

The Tatar corps was the first to collapse, and the troops fell into panic. Seeing that failure was imminent, Bilak selected hundreds of elite cavalry to launch a desperate assault on the main force of the Russian army, and successfully blocked the offensive momentum of the Russian army.

The morale of the Lithuanian army behind was greatly boosted, and they followed the main general to launch a counterattack. The Russian dragoon regiment was forced to the river bank, and many people fell into the water and drowned. However, the follow-up troops of the Russian army arrived, and the artillery fire forced Bilak to stop the pursuit and retreat to Milm, and the Russian dragoons were saved from annihilation.

The next day, the main force of the Russian army and the main force of the Lithuanian army fought in Milm. At the beginning of this encounter, the Lithuanian army had nearly 10,000 people, and the Russian army had only more than 5,000 people.

However, Lithuanian commander Juditsky made a fatal mistake. He did not follow the order of Prince Joseph Poniatowski to take decisive action while the Russian army was not yet stable. Instead, he held a lengthy military meeting that lasted two hours.

During this period, his troops were heavily bombarded by Russian artillery, and the army composed of new recruits began to panic.

The Russian army used this precious breathing time to wait for reinforcements to arrive and repelled the harassment of several small Lithuanian troops.

Later that day, the Russian army had assembled nearly 10,000 troops and tried to encircle the Lithuanian army. Juditsky was forced to announce a breakout. Fortunately, the breakout was successful, and the main force of Lithuania was saved and retreated, with minor losses on both sides.

Due to Juditsky's wrong command, the Russian military operations in Lithuania were relatively smooth, and Vilno was occupied without strong resistance. There, the Russian army was warmly welcomed by the Targowica traitors.

The Lithuanian army did not suffer too many losses in the overall war, but the continuous retreat gave the Russian army the upper hand.

Prince Joseph Poniatowski was very angry about this. He took away Juditsky's position as the commander-in-chief and replaced him with the commander of the army himself.

On the Polish front, generally like the Lithuanian army, the Polish army avoided direct confrontation with the superior Russian army. The Russian general Morkov received Potemkin's command and prepared to attack the southeastern Polish town of Bolony.

Poniatowski decided to block the hill outside the town.

The Battle of Zlenice broke out.

At seven o'clock in the morning, the two sides engaged in artillery battles, and the Polish recruits almost collapsed in the bombing and the attack of the Russian infantry.

Poniatowski stabilized the front line and immediately led the infantry regiment to launch a counterattack. The Russian infantry was suppressed by more fierce firepower and retreated with heavy losses.

Subsequently, Morkov sent the Cossack Cavalry Regiment to attack on the flank, but was blocked by the Polish cavalry, and the offensive of the Russian cavalry was destroyed and retreated.

Morkov invested more troops to attack, but was defeated again in the Polish artillery and infantry counterattack.

This made Potemkin very angry. He gave Morkov a death order, requiring the other party to quickly capture Bolonni and severely damage or annihilate the Polish army that blocked the Russian army.

How dare Morkov neglect the boss's order.

In the early morning of the next day, Morkov launched another attack.

Thanks to Fathead Fish Maxim and book friends for the monthly ticket.

You can watch it with the map