On the first day of Bono de Coullen's siege of Celesta, he noticed something unusual.

Bono de Coullen did not believe that the militia could hold out in such a fierce battle, let alone beat his elite troops so badly.

The first two battalions were all elite veterans, but were almost wiped out in the siege of Celesta.

This was a huge loss that had never been seen before, and Bono de Coullen did not underestimate the enemy, and the soldiers were unlikely to joke with their lives.

In fact, his guess was basically correct, this mercenary was specially sent by Franz.

Their specialty is urban warfare, and most of the equipment they use is specifically designed to deal with urban warfare.

At this time, the population of Alsace was predominantly German, and the population of the French was negligible.

The Lorraine region, on the other hand, is still predominantly German-speaking, but the majority of the German-speaking population is concentrated in the Moselle region, and the closer you are to France, the more sparsely German-speaking the population becomes.

Before World War I, the German enlistment office calculated that the total population of Alsace Lorraine was 1.87 million, of which 1.69 million were German-speaking.

But in reality, the so-called Alsace Lorraine in Germany refers to Alsace, as well as the northeastern region of Lorraine (about a third of the province's area).

This explains why Ramosilier's forces were able to quietly storm Metz, and that is why he was willing to carry out Bellevue's crazy plan.

By capturing Metz, half of the plan was completed, and all that remained was to take Strasbourg and then hold the Rhine line and wait for the German coalition to come and die.

As for why the German coalition forces did not attack in the direction of Lorraine, because the northern border is half of the Lorraine plateau and half of the Moselle Valley, and the terrain is more complicated by mountains and rivers.

And the imaginary enemy of France has always been Austria, which is clearly closer to Alsace.

Encircling the point to send reinforcements and attacking half-crossing, theoretically, this can indeed inflict heavy damage on the Austrian army, at least to ensure undefeated.

However, during the attack on Alsace, Ramosirier was caught in an unexpectedly bitter battle, and the fighting in Saalburg was even more severe.

The morale of the French army roared like wild wolves to the small fortress, expecting that the battle would be the same as before, and that the enemy would open the gates for them and let them be slaughtered.

However, the battle poured cold water on the invincible French army, and hundreds of long-prepared Congreve rockets rose into the sky.

Although the accuracy of this old-fashioned rocket is extremely poor, with a range of two kilometers, an error of one kilometer, and a certain chance of self-explosion, it can't stand it much.

Moreover, at this time, the French army also used a dense formation, so it was a two-way rush.

The continuous dense explosions blew up the vanguard of the French army.

However, Congreve rockets are not invincible, first of all, although this thing has a fast rate of fire, it also consumes a lot of money, and the defenders can't shoot continuously all the time.

Secondly, although it looks powerful and sounds shocking, the lethality is actually limited, especially against infantry unless it is directly hit, the explosion is not as powerful as a fortress bomb.

The fortress bomb is also the original grenade, which is about the same size as the mine in the anti-Japanese movie, and it can easily be more than ten kilograms.

Finally, there is its impressive hit rate, the original Congreve rocket could not control the direction at all, and the trajectory of the ballistic trajectory was completely random.

Ramosirier, as a veteran of the battlefield, was naturally aware of these shortcomings of Congreve rockets, but he also did not want to waste the lives of his soldiers.

So Ramosirier came up with a good idea, which was to have the soldiers push the door forward.

It may sound comical, but it has proven to be effective, as the door panel greatly reduces the impact of Congreve's rocket explosion and provides some resistance to bullets.

However, in this way, the mobility of the soldiers was greatly reduced, and they became a live target for artillery.

Each large iron ball could take the life of a string of French soldiers, and the wooden doors had almost zero protection against bullets at close range.

The soldiers dropped their heavy wooden doors and began the most brutal war of attrition, less than ten meters, not even five meters away, with little chance of the two sides missing.

Even if the shot misses, it will hit the others, and the two sides roar forward one after another. Rifles filled with gunpowder roared and emitted puffs of smoke.

The slowly rising smoke obscured the sight of both sides for the time being, but the Grim Reaper was not willing to stop his harvest.

The front-line commanders of both sides roared almost simultaneously.

"Keep shooting!"

So the soldiers who had loaded their ammunition raised their guns and continued to shoot at the opponent behind the smoke, and from time to time a soldier fell and someone immediately replaced it.

However, shooting at the smoke was unreliable after all, and soon the French army climbed the walls of the fortress.

The bloodier white-knuckle battle began, and unlike the Napoleonic period, which was very fond of bayonet charges, the French army, which had been "peaceful for a long time", paid the least attention to bayonet training among the great powers.

Some things may be contrary to common sense, but at this time it was the British and Russians who paid the most attention to bayonet training, and Prussia, which had a strong military tradition, did not pay so much attention to bayonet training.

Austria, however, was as stereotyped and did not attach much importance to bayonet training, and did not even have a separate discipline manual.

The militia in Saalburg were even worse, barely keeping their cool when firing at the French. Once they get caught up in a white-knuckle battle, the guns in their hands turn directly into sticks.

But this does not mean that the bayonet will necessarily prevail over the stick, and although the scene is a bit embarrassing, in reality the two sides are still evenly matched.

After a terrible battle, the French finally retreated after leaving behind thousands of corpses.

However, before the Saarburg militia at the head of the city could celebrate, the French shelling began.

Ramosirier admits that he underestimated his opponent, but he did not think that the enemy in front of him would prevent him from taking Strasbourg before the arrival of the German coalition.

Ramosilier was an excellent soldier with his own unique views on warfare, such as the use of flowering shells.

At this time, most artillery officers believed that the power of the flowering shells was too small to inflict damage on the walls of the fortress.

But Ramosillier, who has been on the front line all year round, knows that he doesn't need to blow up the wall, he only needs to blow up the defenders on the wall.

As a result, Ramosilier became the first French general to use flowering bombs to attack a city on a large scale.

The French artillery was the most advanced artillery at this time on the original world front, both in terms of their concept and the artillery used.

The continuous large-scale shelling was so powerful that almost all the original battlements were reduced to rubble, but this did not prevent them from continuing to serve as bunkers for the defenders.

Fortunately, Franz had already rehearsed this situation, and the defenders had built a bunker-like anti-artillery hole in advance, so they did not suffer much damage.

But Ramosillier didn't know what the bomb holes were, and instead became suspicious of his tactics. The military commanders were suspicious of their own tactics, let alone their subordinates.

However, the news came that Bono de Cullen was still holding back Celesta.