In the autumn of 1724, this year's Empire had failed in the westerly part of Anatolia due to a hot summer, and the Empire's defeat in Germany was accompanied by bad news in Constantinople.

The Duke of Bourbon was very clever not to choose the Austrian army cowering in the Bohemian mountains, they knew that the defeat of the Empire would completely break the confidence of Austria to resist, and once the French attacked the Empire, Austria would not help, so the Duke of Bourbon led the French army in Germany to fight three battles with the more than 60,000 Imperial legions under the command of General Sviatos.

Of the three battles, one began with Saxony's entry into and out of Austria's Jena region.

Jena is near Leipzig, and in history it was the place where the French dwarf Napoleon led more than 200,000 troops to fight the 300,000 troops of the Austrian and Russian coalition forces and was forced to retreat, symbolizing Napoleon's military defeat. So before I left Germany, I specifically instructed Svyatos to place a heavy garrison here and build a fortress.

In the battle of Jena, the French did not lose, but they did not win, because it was not Napoleon the French who led the French this time. The two sides committed more than 40,000 troops each in the towns and districts around Leipzig and Jena, and fought each other for more than two months, culminating in a French retreat. Although the end is that the French retreated, the victory did not belong to us, and if the French continued to stay in that place, it would be Sviatos who would lose the most in the end. Because after more than two months of entanglement, Sviatos could only continue to invest troops to exhaust it.

It is estimated that five or six thousand people have been defeated on Svyatos's side, and the empire wants to protect Svyatos and the imperial legions under his command. A new strategy had to be discussed.

Then the strategy of sending the Imperial Corps, stationed in the mountains of Hungary in the Austrian rear, was proposed.

At this time, the French were moving north, aiming at the Sviatos army group with all their might, and even if we were prepared, we would never have imagined that we would boldly abandon the fortress and attack from behind, and perhaps we would be able to flank the French and cut off the entire French army with the Hungarian Roman corps and Sviatos.

For this war. I took the initiative to fight, because if the operation was successful, the left and right flanks could indeed play a role in keeping the Duke of Bourbon unable to take care of each other. Once the two armies had triumphantly joined forces, we would have been able to draw the French with the result of defeating the main French army.

But the military department did not choose me as commander-in-chief because they were afraid that I would fail. But they still let me give some advice in it as a reference. No way. Isn't it because there will be failures that we need experienced people to take charge? Really, what thinking.

In this regard, I can only ask them to expedite the two corps [sent] into Bratislava before sending their troops, and to prepare for the evacuation of the people after Bratislava.

After a month of hasty preparations, this Imperial Legion of Hungary stationed at the border emerged from behind the French. Winning the first battle, this Hungarian side still had quite a success. Then it didn't take long for them to encounter the French in the Baden region on the Danube.

The two sides will attack and defend each other for a period of time. Originally, according to my assumption, and with my strength, I could contain the Duke of Bourbon's forces by sending troops, even if I could not cut off the French army of the Duke of Bourbon, I could withdraw and save my troops.

However, we failed.

And it was a big defeat.

Perhaps they had long been trying to beat Sviatos and force the Empire to station heavy troops on the Hungarian border, attack the French behind their backs, and take advantage of the Empire's troops to leave the fortress and beat them bitterly. It is also possible that the generals who command the army are really that stupid.

Anyway, we had a general battle with the French.

Then, in the battle named the Battle of Baden, the seven imperial legions that hastily dispatched troops nearly 50,000 Imperial troops and 8,000 Austrian allied troops faced the French army, which had a geographical advantage and almost the same strength, with more than 15,000 casualties and more than 10,000 prisoners.

At the same time, the French fought a battle at Nuremberg against the German princely states of Hanover and Braunschweig, and there was no doubt that the French won another great victory.

The Duke of Bourbon won three battles and three victories, defeating two of the three main forces of the German resistance to the French, and more than 40,000 people were routed, missing, killed, wounded and captured, and now only an army of about 120,000 troops of the Russian Front of Svyatos and the army of the Kingdom of Prussia remained. However, at this time, it was pointless for the French to attack them again, and it was just a waste of troops.

For a time, the French army had the full support of most of the German princes, and sure enough, the wall was on both sides.

Then, faced with the fact that Sviatos's entire army was quite strong and the Hungarian border army was weak, the French army actively adjusted their strategy.

The French army deployed 30,000 troops, controlled by the Duke of Luxembourg, to establish a defensive line to defend Sviatos and Prussia in the Erz Mountains, and then deployed 20,000 troops at the entrance and exit of Plzeň in the Bohemian mountains, which completely stifled the Austrian attack on Vienna and attacked the back of the Duke of Luxembourg and served as a reserve for the Duke of Luxembourg. To the west of Germany, near France, the French army raised a coalition of 20,000 German princes in a vain attempt to flank Sviatos' army.

Since the French army turned from offensive to defensive in north-central Germany, then they must have the main goal, and it seems that they perceived that the fighting army of the empire was a rabble in addition to the legions under Svyatos, and the Duke of Bourbon decided to lead an army of 130,000 into the territory of the empire.

At this moment, the shortcomings of the Ministry of Military Affairs' lack of experience in war were once again exposed.

Yes, I asked them to prepare two corps in the rear, but they only prepared one! the reason was that they thought that one corps would be enough, and that there was only one corps in Hungary at that time, and that there was a high probability that something would go wrong when it was drawn from other regions.

In other words, the army guarding Bratislava was less than 30,000 people, and more than 20,000 were soldiers who had just lost the battle and were demoralized!

Go next door to him, they thought the pride of the Romans would help in the demoralized defense of the city?

Now, I can only hope that Bratislava is strong enough and can prepare us for the fall of Bratislava.

Bratislava was founded as early as the 10th century by the Bulgarians and Bulgarians gradually taking advantage of the decline of the Roman Empire, and in the 15th century, Bratislava was the gateway to the Hungarian plain and the southern border of Germany, and became a territory contested by the empire and the German princes, especially Austria, because of its strategic location.

If it weren't for the fact that Austria was awakened by the rise of France and realized that perhaps only by joining forces with Rome could France be contained, it is estimated that at this time, the empire would still fight with Austria for Bratislava, and it can be said that the Austrians completely ruined the idea of seizing this strategic place because of the strong French.

Since the geographical location of Bratislava is so critical, the city defense facilities in Bratislava are naturally very good, so I can only hope that these city defense facilities can withstand it!

In the face of defeat, a march broke out in Constantinople, and some people organized in the square to demand that the generals who led the troops be severely punished and killed as an example.

Of course, at such a time, it is natural that there are people who settle accounts after the autumn, and these voices accuse the empire of acting recklessly, and the spearhead is pointed at the cheap daddy who asked the military minister to send troops rashly. They say that if it had not been for the defeat at the Battle of Baden, which led to heavy losses in the defense of Bratislava, and the extreme lack of French defenders facing the siege later, the French army would not have been able to attack. Therefore, the person who gave the order to call for the help of Sviatos needs to be fully responsible.

However, what these angry Romans did not know was that as early as February, when the French army was besieging Győr, the Polish king of the Russian kingdom actually placed troops in the eastern frontier of the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russians' intention was to take advantage of the critical moment when the Kingdom of Prussia and the Imperial Army were being held back by the Germans and the French to attack Sviatos.

I don't think the Russians have left the War Department scrambling for this, but I find it tricky that Alexander is being held back by the Duke of Marçon on the Italian peninsula.

The Duke of Marson, who had an army of 70,000, changed the way they used to divide and garrison troops and disperse the attack in the Italian peninsula, gathered 50,000 French troops and 20,000 Italian city-state troops, and then killed the Empire's fortresses and ports in Naples.

In order to prevent Alexander from using the sea cavalry again, the Duke of Marson actually invented the train cannon to deal with Alexander's sea cavalry charge.

They unloaded the cannon wheels and set them on low planks, with the muzzles pointed at the sea, and the thick wheels on both sides of the planks horizontally rather than vertically, and the artillery slowly pushed against the harbor every day, which prevented Alexander from making a sneak attack on the sea in the face of the iron hedgehog Duke Marson. Wanting to cut off the supply lines, the French did not have this statement at all, because they were all eating Italians, using Italians, and after being unable to speak for a while, Alexander chose to conduct a defensive war in South Naples, because he was afraid that the French would capture the ports and supply points of the Light Empire in South Naples and force us to lose our foothold in the Italian peninsula. However, if the empire were to fight on land, Alexander would lose a lot of money if he could win, thus losing his significance as a mobile force.

So, at such a time of crisis, I was writing a book in Constantinople at this time.

This book, called Saving Private Leo, Saving Private Ryan's Roman version. (To be continued......)