#866 - Capture of Cologne
Chapter 862: Occupying Cologne
“The enemy is retreating!”
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“Charge! Occupy the fortress!”
“Follow me, there's a gap on the west side!”
Rapid drumbeats sounded all around, and several teams of French infantry passed by Lieutenant Gérard one after another, surging towards the fortress in front of them in successive waves.
The skirmisher squad he commanded had already silenced the Austrian cannon on the side in front of them. Since the skirmishers were not involved in the task of occupying the fortress, they seemed somewhat idle at this moment.
He was about to order a return to the camp when he suddenly saw several companies rushing north dozens of meters away. But the fortress was on their east side.
Gérard had excellent eyesight—a basic requirement for a skirmisher—and he immediately saw the flags in front of those columns.
“The 9th Infantry Battalion?”
He hurried over to the skirmishers and quickly found a familiar face in the middle of the formation, waving his hand and saying, “Félix, what mission are you on?”
The lieutenant first glanced at his company commander—he was an infantryman, not as unrestrained as a skirmisher—before turning his head and whispering, “Many Austrians are retreating from the north of the fortress, and we are ordered to rush to intercept them.”
Gérard's eyes lit up, and he turned to the members of the skirmisher squad who had followed him and waved his hand vigorously: “Hey, let's rest later, let's go over there and make a fortune!”
The 14 soldiers immediately yelled and followed him north.
Since the beginning of the war, the skirmisher battalion had not had many opportunities to show its skills—the Masséna Corps had previously implemented a tactic of luring the enemy, not daring to defeat the enemy too severely, and the skirmisher battalion was shelved. When the counterattack came later, they hadn't fired a few shots before Duke Brunswick surrendered under heavy siege.
It wasn't until the siege of the Cologne fortress that the skirmishers truly had a battle to fight.
But in the end, the time was too short, and Gérard's squad simply hadn't earned enough military merit. At this time, they were all eager to try and extremely excited.
Since the skirmishers had no requirements for formation, they quickly surpassed the infantry battalion and were the first to arrive at the north side of the fortress.
Then Gérard saw as many as a thousand defeated soldiers rushing towards the northwest like a tide. There was another fortress close to the Rhine River there.
The sergeant of the skirmisher squad hesitated a little and said to Gérard, “There are too many enemies, let's wait for the infantry to come up before we take action.”
They only had 15 people. If the Austrian army sent an infantry company to charge, they would all have to sacrifice themselves here.
Gérard saw that the furthest enemy soldiers were about to run into the artillery coverage range of the northwest fortress, smacked his lips, and said decisively: “The Austrians are already in chaos and will not organize a counterattack. Any man, follow me.”
He quickly ran to a thick pine tree, estimated the distance, and raised the August 1790 skirmisher rifle.
With a “bang,” the Austrian lieutenant 130 paces away fell from his horse in response. The soldiers next to him immediately gathered vigilantly and aimed their guns around.
But soon there was a series of gunshots, and another 7 people were immediately shot and killed.
As Gérard expected, they didn't even figure out where the enemy was, and shouted and turned to flee.
The Austrian ranks in front of them were immediately disrupted by them.
Officers came to maintain order, blowing whistles, but as several soldiers were killed in the second round of shooting by the French skirmishers, the chaos became even more serious.
Gérard excitedly loaded ammunition, habitually reminding the soldiers: “Use the force of cracking a walnut to knock the bullet, not too big or too small…”
As he spoke, he raised his gun and quickly selected an Austrian who looked like a sergeant. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, he suddenly noticed more than a dozen people on horseback approaching from the opposite side.
He narrowed his eyes and judged from the exquisite military uniform on the leader and the tricorn hat with a silver badge that he was a guy with a high military rank.
Maybe even a lieutenant colonel.
Gérard quickly signaled to his soldiers: “Wait! Those people riding horses in the opposite direction at ten o'clock, do you all see them?”
“It's a bit far…”
“Sneak over with me, then aim at the leader and shoot. Go!”
A moment later, a dozen people sneaked to 140 paces away from the officers. Under Gérard's order, they raised their guns at the same time.
The Austrian officer was waving his horse whip and shouting at the soldiers, but his figure suddenly disappeared from the horse's back.
A burst of gunfire came from not far away.
In an instant, the Austrian army burst into terrified shouts. Hundreds of soldiers who had rushed from the northwest fortress surrounded the shot officer, and some people fired back aimlessly.
The entire retreating Austrian column immediately jammed together, several times more chaotic than before.
“We should have caught a big fish.” Gérard grinned, but then saw hundreds of enemy troops rushing towards this side, and waved his hand back in a hurry, “Get out of here, run!”
Ten minutes later, the French infantry battalion where Félix was located finally arrived, and then saw the chaotic Austrian ranks.
The French battalion commander was overjoyed and immediately ordered them to deploy into a line formation, preparing to attack.
The battalion commander heard this and raised his binoculars. Sure enough, he saw people constantly coming out of the fortress on the side in front of him, and there was also chaos near the entrance to the south.
He suddenly had an idea and said to the messenger: “Order everyone to switch to an assault column, we will directly attack the fortress!
“Send someone to contact Major Vassal and request reinforcements.”
On the northwest side of the Cologne fortress complex, large groups of Austrian soldiers were coming and going, and people kept shouting: “Lieutenant Colonel Strauss has been shot!
“Let the grenadier battalion come out to meet us!”
“No, retreat to the fortress as soon as possible, beware of a French attack…”
“The commander is in critical condition, the military doctor, hasn't the military doctor arrived yet?”
At this moment, a dozen French columns suddenly appeared on the south side of the fortress, rushing towards the entrance at an extremely fast speed.
The Austrian defenders were immediately shocked. Some wanted to close the gate, but others tried to stop them, because Lieutenant Colonel Strauss had not returned, and others shouted loudly to organize a defense.
But everyone crowded together like headless flies, and the scene became even more chaotic.
Yes, Strauss, who was shot and killed by Gérard's squad just now, was the commander of this fortress.
Among the Austrian troops retreating here just now was his cousin, Major Mark Strauss.
He was worried that something might go wrong, so he personally led the team to meet them, but he happened to see the soldiers in chaos, so he stepped forward to stop them without thinking.
As a result, he just happened to run into the muzzle of Gérard's gun.
The artillery on the fortress obviously didn't react either, and it took a long time to fire the first shot, while the French infantry had already rushed to less than two hundred paces from the fortress entrance.
Gérard felt a heat in his heart when he saw this, and led people to follow up again, starting to suppress the artillery on the upper slope with fire.
