#848 - I can't stop at all.

Chapter 844: It Can't Stop At All

Soult felt that everything was as precise as his own pocket watch, except that the soldiers might be more tired - they were originally preparing to have dinner, but now they had to cross the river before resting.

The east bank of the Zeer River was silent, with only a few lights flickering occasionally in the distant villages. Soult felt as if he had returned to the vicinity of the Rhine River.

The next day, Soult and Oudinot's combined army of 16,000 men began to advance towards the city of Trier.

Until this time, the entire Archbishopric of Trier had not realized that France had launched a full-scale counterattack, and that they were the first prey.

Soult lightly shook the reins, turned his head to look at Oudinot, his eyes full of shock: "Are you saying that the Crown Prince himself rode his horse in front of the Prussian position and loudly ridiculed Ferdinand in order to lure the enemy deep inside?"

"Absolutely true, it was Colonel Massena's adjutant who told me personally." Oudinot waved his whip, spraying saliva, "Ferdinand was so angry that he ordered more than 3,000 Prussian Hussars to charge towards His Highness, but His Highness led the Royal Third Cavalry Battalion to counter-charge on the spot, and the Prussian folks were defeated..."

Soult's face was full of admiration: "The Crown Prince's courage is truly admirable. Without a doubt, he is the soul of all French soldiers!"

"May God bless the Crown Prince."

Oudinot made the sign of the cross on his chest, and soon talked to Soult about the deployment to attack Trier: "Our primary target is the Trier Fortress."

"I've been there a few times. If the Trier people are well prepared for defense, we'll have to pay a considerable price to conquer it."

Soult nodded: "And the Roman-era city walls left in the city, with just a few hundred soldiers stationed on them, will cause us a lot of trouble..."

【The Old City Walls of Trier】

Just as the two were discussing countermeasures with serious expressions, two rangers came head-on, shouting excitedly from a distance: "Colonel, the city of Trier has surrendered!"

Soult and Oudinot looked at each other in surprise, their eyes full of disbelief.

"Are you sure they surrendered?"

A cavalry lieutenant gestured: "Our vanguard was still 5 kilometers away from the city of Trier when the Archbishop of Trier opened the city and surrendered."

"The remaining garrison soldiers immediately opened the city gates when they saw our flag."

Trier is an archbishopric, that is, a small state ruled by the church, and its military strength was originally relatively weak. Earlier, at the request of Franz II, the most combat-effective Bishop's Guards and Swiss Guards were sent to Luxembourg, and at this time there were only more than 1,000 soldiers left in the city.

Moreover, the French army came too suddenly.

Archbishop Clemens was enjoying breakfast when he heard the news of "tens of thousands of French troops attacking", and without the slightest thought of resistance, he ordered to give up resistance and surrender.

Soult and Oudinot did not expect it to go so smoothly. Amidst the cheers of the soldiers, the two simply discussed it and reached a consensus - the entire army would continue to march north urgently, and seize Koblenz before the other German states could react!

Koblenz is the most important ferry in the northern section of the Rhine. Occupying it is like holding a sharp blade that can be inserted into the heart of Germany at any time.

Moreover, from Koblenz, it only takes two days to reach Mainz, another major ferry on the Rhine.

After controlling these two ferry, the main channel from the German mainland to the Rhineland will be cut off!

Two and a half days later, the French raid force ran 85 kilometers and arrived in the distant suburbs of Koblenz.

Until this time, no German state had sent troops to reinforce Trier, and the garrison of Koblenz had only more than 1,000 people.

This cannot be blamed on the surrounding countries such as Mainz and Nassau for not helping, it was really that the French army moved too fast.

For example, Nassau, they received a request for help yesterday morning, and now they have just completed the assembly of troops, and they will not be able to reach Koblenz until the day after tomorrow at the earliest.

Soult first asked the adjutant to hand over the letter of surrender written by Archbishop Clemens to the garrison of Koblenz, and waited for a while, seeing no response, he ordered the artillery to start forcefully attack Ehrenbreitstein Fortress - Koblenz, as the most important ferry on the Rhine, had built a large area of fortress complex over the centuries, and this was the most important one.

However, the fortress, which lacked troops to defend, did not play much of a role. The French artillery had just fired seven or eight rounds when a white flag was raised on the fortress.

Soult left Oudinot to garrison Koblenz, and the next day at noon, he led his troops to continue south towards Mainz.

They had already completed their scheduled combat mission, but the battlefield situation was really too good - most of the German states' troops were concentrated in Luxembourg, and the French army was simply entering an uninhabited area in the Rhineland, which made Soult want to stop but he couldn't.

No mistake, no first, no one, no content, no one, no see!

A day later, the Soult Legion encountered a Mainz unit north of Sankt Goar - it should have been heading to Koblenz for reinforcement.

Soult didn't spend much effort to defeat the Mainz army of less than 3,000 people, and then continued south and occupied Mainz, which had almost no defensive forces, without bloodshed the next day.

At this point, eight days after Soult and Oudinot crossed the Zeer River, their legion had swept nearly half of the Rhineland.

Moreover, due to the control of two important ferry, Pfalz and Jülich had been cut off from contact with the east bank of the Rhine, and had almost become fish on the chopping board.

On the same day that Soult and Oudinot joined forces, Massena's main force launched a full-scale counterattack against the Allied forces.

70,000 of France's most elite direct army soldiers attacked simultaneously from the east and south.

The Allied forces, because of their continuous frantic pursuit of the French Crown Prince for several days, resulted in a chaotic formation. Even many legions did not know where Duke Brunswick was.

When the French army, which had been holding back for a long time, suddenly rushed over, the loosely manned Allied forces had no power to resist, and were driven to Wilz in just one day.

Duke Brunswick did not expect a defeat to occur at all, and hurriedly set up a defense line in Wilz, but it was broken again by the French army in less than half a day.

He was already disoriented at this time, and had to leave Tauentzien to cover the rear, and ordered the main force to immediately withdraw to Trier.

Less than ten minutes after his retreat order was issued, a pale-faced messenger rushed to report to him: "Marshal, the French army has controlled the entire territory of Trier, and is now marching towards Mainz."