He Opened A Matchmaking Agency In 18Th Century London [EN]: Chapter 188

< Napoleon's Strategy >

◈ The 17th Rifle Regiment of the Kingdom of Naples

Bang-

Thang-

From early morning, the firing range of the 17th Rifle Regiment echoed with incessant gunfire.

Pow-

Bang-

A lieutenant of the Kingdom of Naples, overseeing the shooting practice, grumbled to the company commander with a displeased expression.

“Why is the British Commander-in-Chief wasting precious gunpowder on this? If the French army comes, we’ll be short of bullets and gunpowder.”

Last night, Theo’s urgent order came down to select the best marksmen from the 17th Rifle Regiment through live firing. The evaluation criteria were accuracy and reloading speed.

“The Commander-in-Chief seems concerned about the slow firing rate of the rifles. If the first shot doesn’t hit properly, the uninjured enemies can rush in more easily. He’s emphasizing the importance of the first shot.”

Although it was a state-of-the-art long rifle with rifling, imported from the best weapons factory in England, it still took nearly a minute to reload.

If you fail to hit the enemy with the first shot, you’re bound to be counterattacked while reloading.

Therefore, the outcome of a battle often depended on the success rate of the first shot.

“And he wants us to measure the reloading speed too? By the way, why are we picking 2,000 men? Out of 8,000 regiment members, 2,000 isn’t a special marksman, but just someone who shoots a little better.”

“I don’t know either. The higher-ups are tight-lipped about what’s going on. Anyway, we have to pick them by the day after tomorrow and submit the list in order of ranking, so we just have to do as we’re told.”

* *

Dinner time.

Officers who received special instructions entered each barrack and delivered new orders.

The officer pointed to the pile of stained, dark, worn-out clothes and blankets in the middle of the barrack and said,

“From now on, you will take these clothes and blankets and sew them onto your uniforms in palm-sized pieces!”

The soldiers of the Kingdom of Naples were puzzled.

“What do you mean? Surely, you don’t mean we should cut up those rags and attach them to our uniforms?”

“What do you mean, ‘surely not’? That’s exactly what I’m saying! The Commander-in-Chief has strictly ordered that no bright colors should be visible on the uniforms!”

“What? Are you telling us to become beggars?”

“You better do as you’re told without complaining! Unlike the rumors, Count Sanderson, the Commander-in-Chief, is very strict. He said that anyone who refuses or disobeys can be executed on the spot!”

If you had to pick one major difference between 18th-century armies and modern armies, it would be the combat uniforms.

18th-century soldiers went into battle wearing colorful and bright uniforms.

England in red, France in blue, the Neapolitan army in white… the colors were so distinct that they could be distinguished from afar.

At the time, courage and honor as a soldier were valued, and there was a tendency to prioritize unity and organization over camouflage.

Moreover, since line battles, where soldiers advanced in formation, were common, concealment was not very important.

In actual combat, the bright uniform colors were much more convenient for commanders to direct their troops in the thick gunpowder smoke, where they could barely see ahead.

On the other hand, in modern warfare, concealment is the most important basic tactic, and it is taken for granted that soldiers wear camouflage uniforms that match the environment of the combat zone.

Theo was having the soldiers create combat uniforms that would not be easily visible to the enemy by using the old clothes and blankets collected from the residents, and he also ordered them to thoroughly camouflage their faces.

Some commanders and soldiers expressed strong aversion to dishonorable camouflage.

However, no one dared to rebel against Theo’s stern declaration that any disobedience would be met with immediate execution, from that moment until the end of the war.

◈ Ten days later. Early December 1796, Mount Cassino, Italy.

Whoosh- Whee-

The wind blowing down the mountain felt biting in the late afternoon.

A young man wearing a white vest with red trim and a long gray overcoat was staring intently at the rugged mountain range before him.

The man’s name was Napoleon Bonaparte, with a wide forehead, dark brown eyes, a straight nose, thin lips, and a strong jawline.

He was a national hero in France and the protagonist who was plunging all of Europe into terror.

However, he had not always enjoyed such fame.

Even when he set out on his first expedition to Italy, he was a commander who was not recognized by the front-line officers, let alone the soldiers.

He had no proper combat experience other than leading the artillery against the Allied forces, and he was treated as an appointee who had become commander by suppressing a few demonstrations in Paris.

Moreover, the French Directory, the five-member government that appointed Napoleon as the commander of the Italian expedition, had already emptied the national treasury with all sorts of corruption.

Naturally, the subsidies that could be given to the army going on the Italian expedition were woefully inadequate.

The Directory gave Napoleon only 40,000 francs to wage war.

Although they had drafted many soldiers through conscription, the state’s support was so meager that there was an endless shortage of uniforms, shoes, and food for the soldiers.

The support was so poor that hundreds of French soldiers died of malnutrition and epidemics in the month that Napoleon took office as commander.

As commander, Napoleon immediately reformed the quartermaster corps and made efforts to obtain uniforms, boots, and military funds by constantly sending support letters to the Directory.

Unlike the existing listless commanders, his genuine efforts for the soldiers and his subsequent victories in successive wars led not only the commanders who had ignored him but also the soldiers to respect and follow Napoleon.

Swoosh-

Napoleon, who had been staring at the mountain for a long time, pulled out his telescope and began to examine the mountain in detail.

Once he crossed the mountain in front of him, he would reach his target, the Kingdom of Naples.

But for some reason, the French army was not crossing the mountain. They had been waiting at the foot of the mountain for three days already.

The reason why the French army was not advancing was due to Napoleon’s orders.

Napoleon found everything strange.

Clearly, the allied forces of the Kingdom of Naples and England should have been entrenched near the summit of that mountain.

They should have built a fortified position facing the French army from a high vantage point.

But it was too quiet for his comfort.

Considering it a trap, Napoleon could not rashly issue an order to advance.

If the opponent was an ordinary commander, he might have immediately gone up, maintaining strict vigilance.

However, the man who came as the British Commander-in-Chief was none other than Count Theo Sanderson.

Within France, the assessment of him was much greater than what they thought in England.

His courage and brilliant strategies in various crisis situations, such as the confrontation with General Howe, who had launched a rebellion, the early end to the war with North America, and the Sanderson Treaty, were met with both praise and fear among the French aristocrats and intellectuals. Napoleon felt the same way.

‘If we cross that mountain easily, Naples, which is numerically inferior, will inevitably be at an absolute disadvantage. Knowing that, they’re giving us a path? It doesn’t make sense. What is it? What on earth is Sanderson thinking?’

Napoleon, looking at the mountain, thought it was a trick by Count Sanderson no matter how he thought about it.

However, although he had sent reconnaissance teams to search the main routes several times for two days, he had not found anything suspicious.

Thud- Thud-

“Commander! Have some?”

The adjutant handed him a cup full of coffee.

“Ah, thank you.”

Napoleon’s extraordinary love for coffee was well known within the army. He was such a devoted coffee lover that he was the first in modern times to adopt and provide coffee as a military supply.

Ironically, the coffee he was drinking now was the very expensive ‘Jamaica Blue Mountain T&S Juba Collection’ from Theo’s coffee company.

Napoleon, who received the coffee with its fragrant aroma and rising steam, asked,

“Still no intelligence coming in?”

“No, sir. Not a single piece. There’s no intelligence coming in from the residents of the Kingdom of Naples anymore either.”

There were over twenty French spies planted in the Neapolitan and British armies. But no information was coming in from them.

Moreover, the contact had been completely cut off right after the British army arrived in the Kingdom of Naples.

“Could it be that the identities of the informants have been exposed?”

Napoleon shook his head.

“Do you think it makes sense that more than twenty informants would stop sending messages like they had made a promise?”

“Could they have caught them all? According to rumors, the man named Count Sanderson has an incredible eye for spotting people. I heard he even caught a serial killer who was lost in a maze at once?”

“Nonsense! No matter how great a person is, how can they tell whether someone is a spy just by looking at their face?

And there are nearly 10 informants among the ordinary soldiers, not just the officers? Even if the officers face Count Sanderson, how can he distinguish the soldiers hidden among tens of thousands of people?

There should have been some contact from the soldiers, but the fact that there is no contact at all is too strange for me…”

Napoleon, savoring the sweet aroma and taking a sip of coffee, asked again.

“Is the story about the Neapolitan Kingdom’s resident informants the one that came in a few days ago all there is?”

“Yes, sir. There has been nothing since the news that a huge amount of dried food, horse-drawn carts and wagons… old clothes and blankets, and wooden planks were endlessly entering the unit.”

Napoleon, who drank coffee one after another, instructed.

“I’m going to hold a meeting right now, so tell all the responsible commanders to gather!”

“Yes, sir!”

*

Commanders gathered one after another in the French command and control tent, and soon the operational meeting began.

The supply officer said with a tearful face.

“Commander! It seems that our food supply will only last until tomorrow. Moreover, Admiral Nelson of England is completely blocking the vicinity of the port, so it is impossible to receive supplies by ship. It seems difficult to continue to delay like this.”

Napoleon’s army chose to reduce the amount of food to minimize weight in order to increase the speed of advance, and to solve this, they adopted a method of plundering food from the occupied areas.

However, because they had been waiting for three days, they had not been able to obtain food.

The commanders opened their mouths.

“I don’t understand at all. Why didn’t those guys build a base on the summit of Monte Cassino?”

“That’s what I’m saying. Shouldn’t they be waiting for us with artillery positions and infantry firmly entrenched from above? It can’t be that they’re being so quiet for three days like this, as if it’s a trap like the commander is worried about.”

“Could it be that they heard our reputation and ran away in fear?”

Napoleon, who had been silent, opened his mouth.

“The reason I ordered the movement to stop for three days was because of a strong suspicion that it might be some kind of trap. Frankly, I still can’t shake that suspicion.

But if it’s not the kind of trap I thought, I wonder if they’ve deliberately retreated after hearing the news of our victory in the mountain war with Austria.”

The artillery commander chimed in with Napoleon’s words.

“Ah! Now that I hear it, that’s really it! The British army must already know that we completely destroyed and pushed in Austria, which was entrenched on the summit of the mountain, with precise shelling. They must be very scared of the commander’s shelling skills and have retreated.”

Napoleon nodded and continued.

“Above all, the weather is mild, and the ground surface has become muddy as it rained until a few days ago. The mountains are better because there are trees and grass, but the plains entering the Kingdom of Naples will be even more soggy.

Knowing that it is difficult to operate artillery on the soft plains, I wonder if they are trying to induce us to simply cross the mountain.”

The agile maneuverability of the artillery unit operated by Napoleon was famous throughout Europe.

The attack was carried out by pouring firepower with concentrated shelling to shake the enemy, and when the infantry charged into the gap, they quickly moved again and fired the artillery.

However, at this time, the cannon was pushed back severely each time it was fired.

Several dozen artillerymen had to stick to it, move it back to its original position, and fix it firmly in place as much as possible to enable proper subsequent shelling.

Fixing the cannon is very difficult even in normal times, but it was especially difficult on the muddy ground after the rain.

Also, the cannonballs at that time were completely different in concept from modern high-explosive bombs. In many cases, the iron ball bounced off the ground and fatally injured the soldiers, as if a bowling ball was knocking down bowling pins, but if the ground was soft, the iron ball would often get stuck in the ground and become useless.

One of the commanders tilted his head and said.

“But even if we can’t properly deploy artillery tactics on the plains, will they have anything to gain over us? We have at least 20,000 more troops than them.

No matter what, it would be a little more advantageous to take a position on the summit of the mountain and attack us, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ve been waiting for three days with the same thought, but now I think we need to guess why they’re trying to carry out such a reckless operation and make a decision.”

“But what do we guess with? We don’t have any proper information coming in.”

“Since there is no intelligence from the informants at the moment, we have no choice but to guess the situation with the limited surrounding information.”

“The only information we have is from the residents of Naples?”

“Yes. Based on that information, we need to predict what the Neapolitan-British allied forces are preparing.”

“But aren’t food, blankets, clothing, and carts necessary for war?”

“That’s true, but why right after the British army came in? The amount and the contents are suspicious.”

As the commanders just stared at each other blankly, Napoleon said the answer himself.

“Taking a large amount of dried meat and dried fruit is to prepare for a long-term war, and taking carts and wagons seems to be for quickly running away backwards.”

“Quickly run away?”

Napoleon continued to explain.

“According to reports, the performance of the new rifle made by the British military factory is said to be more amazing than expected. The information from the Neapolitan Kingdom’s military informant also said that the average range of the 17th Rifle Regiment is well over 150m, didn’t it? I think they’re trying to use a tactic of shooting and quickly retreating backwards in a carriage.

Blankets and clothing are prepared for the cold at night. The wooden planks also seem to be to avoid the ground being soggy and the cold rising up, as it is difficult to sleep anywhere.”

“Ah! So… they didn’t build a base on the summit of the mountain and deliberately retreated to prepare for a long-term war with us?”

“I think so. They are also imitating our rapid maneuver warfare strategy, but it seems that they are trying to harass and catch us for several days by shooting from a distance using a rifle regiment with high range and accuracy.”

“If that’s really the operation, it will be difficult for us to attack, won’t it? If they keep shooting with long rifles with good performance and range and quickly retreat…”

Napoleon, who had been contemplating, opened his mouth as if he had made up his mind.

“Tomorrow! We will cross the mountain!”

Everyone’s eyes widened at the sudden decision.

“Instead, we will have the cavalry unit quickly cross the summit of the mountain with all its might. There is a possibility that the enemies may be ambushed right behind the summit of the mountain, so we will have a fast light infantry unit and mobile artillery following right behind the cavalry to prepare for any emergencies.”

“The cavalry will quickly cross the mountain first? It’s okay up to the bottom of the summit, but from the vicinity of the summit leading to Naples, the road is steep and the mountain is too rough, so the horses will struggle to climb. In previous battles, many soldiers were injured because the horses struggled violently when they tried to climb the mountain with the horses.

Also, I don’t know about a few, but it will take too much time for more than 10,000 horses to cross the mountain at once! It seems faster to have the infantry and artillery cross the mountain first?”

Napoleon shook his head at his words.

“No. That’s what the enemies are waiting for us to do. They must be thinking that way and entrenching themselves. We can only defeat the enemy by attacking what they think is impossible. How can we win if we go in the direction that they know and are preparing for?”

“······.”

“Even if we push the horses from behind or carry them on our backs, we will cross the mountain in a short time and the cavalry will immediately strike the center of the enemy! No matter how great the new firearms are, they only have a range of 200m.

Also, even if the enemies run away quickly in carriages or wagons, they can never keep up with the speed of the horses.

If our cavalry strikes the enemies and scatters the ranks while they shoot and reload, we will go with a tactic of the infantry engaging in close combat!”

Everyone nodded with determined faces.

Napoleon urged once again.

“This operation is unconditionally a speed war! It was fast until now, but this time we have to show a different level of speed!

The victory or defeat depends on minimizing supplies and passing through the mountain in the shortest time and striking the enemy like lightning, not only for the cavalry unit but also for the infantry and artillery!”

– Yes! Understood!