Catalano spat out the blood foam in his mouth, looked up and looked around, and couldn't help but feel a wry smile in his heart.
Although he knew that his soldiers were definitely no match for the Burgundians, and he and other allied generals did not hold out much hope, if they could gain a reputation and defeat the Burgundians' cavalry, they would be able to defeat them. It's a proud thing.
But it backfired, or strictly speaking, the strength of the two was indeed not on the same order of magnitude. The entire defense line had been riddled with holes by the opponent, and it seemed that it could no longer defend like this. After all, if we continue to hold on, the Italians will be locked in a fight with this trapped beast. It is not cost-effective and will disrupt the previous arrangements.
This is less than half an hour after the head-to-head confrontation! Even if there are three thousand pigs here, it will take half an hour for the Burgundians to clean them up.
Catalano knew that this was not the time to lament. If they did not order a retreat, their troops would become a laughing stock of the coalition forces.
"Retreat!" Following Catalano's order, the expected orderly scene of fighting and retreating did not appear. After the supervising team took the lead in withdrawing from the battlefield, the remaining Italian soldiers retreated in a swarm. Everyone just hates their parents for losing two legs.
On the battlefield, how to attack is a science, and how to retreat is also a science. Obviously, the Italian soldiers failed in this subject.
Originally, Catalano planned to block here for a while, then arrange for all the troops to retreat in an orderly manner. After letting the Burgundians leave the mountain pass, he would then assemble his troops, pursue them one after another, and achieve victory. But the current situation is that Catalano too underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Burgundians, or overestimated the combat effectiveness of his own men. He never expected that with just one wave of offensive, the mountain pass where he was stationed would almost be taken by his opponent. After coming down, this is still the case where someone else's front-line commander was killed. It can be said that the opponent has no command and no rules in this area. However, the difference in the quality of the soldiers on both sides is indeed obvious. This is no longer what the commander can rely on to command. Something to make up for.
In the end, the Italians failed to resist and could only flee in disarray.
"Sir Viscount! The enemy soldiers in front have been penetrated by us, but Lord Abel has also been killed." The officer reported to Dahal.
"This idiot!" Dahal cursed secretly, even though Abel was also considered his enemy - competing with him for the deputy position of this cavalry unit. If Abel dies, he won't feel sad at all. But the key point is that he and he are an internal conflict in Burgundy, which can be resolved behind closed doors at any time. And now that he is dead here, who can effectively lead the thousand-man team under him?
"Tell the soldiers in front not to pursue, and to evacuate here as soon as possible."
"Yes, sir."
Of course, Dahal did not dare to let his troops pursue the obviously "vulnerable" troops in front of him. He didn't know that there was such a weak brigade nearby. In his opinion, this force was more likely to serve as bait. I can fully imagine the combat effectiveness of the Western Qin soldiers. It is impossible to be so weak. They captured a defensive position in one wave of offensive, which made Dahal feel that it was too smooth - except for Abel's Death in battle is considered a failure.
It has to be said that the Burgundians¡¯ caution saved the Italians¡¯ lives.
Because the mountain pass was full of corpses and the troops could not pass normally, the Burgundians had to stop and start clearing the mountain pass. Although it didn't take long, it finally gave Catalano and his troops a breath of relief and a chance to reorganize the troops that had been disrupted.
"About 400 people were lost, and most of them were probably injured and fell behind." The adjutant obviously did not expect that the battle would end like this, and he seemed quite downcast. However, he had made up his mind from the beginning to try his best. To preserve their strength, the loss of four hundred people was not considered small at all.
For those soldiers who fell behind due to injuries, the adjutant must be helpless. In the current situation, the Burgundians do not need prisoners. Falling behind means death.
Now these defeated soldiers retreated to a small road. This road was not the road that the Burgundians took when they retreated. Therefore, as long as the other party did not insist on killing them, it was still very safe here.
"How many of them should we kill?" Catalano sighed. Although he was a little reluctant, his morale was obviously low now, so there was no need to pursue the opponent again. He had to swallow this defeat, but even if he swallowed the defeat, he still wanted to know how many enemies he had killed.
¡°There were about two to three hundred people, most of them were driven by ourThe arrow was shot to death. "The adjutant said slowly, leaning against a tree.
The Italians rely on geographical location for defense and have powerful long-range firepower offensive. If the battle is fought like this, it will definitely not even be called a draw.
In fact, the battle that Bai Zhou originally envisioned was not fought like this. The Italians' advantages and disadvantages are very obvious - they have strong long-range attack, but poor hand-to-hand combat ability.
In this case, it is undoubtedly a very unwise thing to forcefully defend a temporary position. They can send multiple small troops along the road armed with strong crossbows and bows to harass and attack, even if they can only kill a few people at a time, but As long as there are more times, the results that can be achieved will definitely be more than two or three hundred people, and the effect on the enemy's morale and spirit will definitely be good; at the same time, because Burgundy wants to retreat, it is unclear. The coalition forces were weak, so they certainly did not dare to rashly divide their forces to clear out the Italian sneak attack troops. So if you do this, even the losses will be minimized.
To take a step back, even if Catalano is worried that the tactical literacy of his small force is not that high and cannot fight alone, and he must adopt the form of overall combat, he can temporarily let the main Burgundian force withdraw, and then continue Attack from the rear.
The Burgundians who want to escape as soon as possible have no intention of entangled with the Italians here, and will inevitably choose to leave some soldiers behind, while the main force continues to retreat. In this way, with Catalano's three thousand troops, there should be no problem in taking down the Burgundians in the rear. Moreover, by acting in this way, those Burgundians were thinking about how to save their lives (because the main force had already left, but they, the cannon fodder troops, may not necessarily have the consciousness of being cannon fodder), instead of choosing to fight to the death (being killed by The way forward is blocked, and they must be attacking with a life-threatening attitude).
This is not because Bai Zhou has a good idea and does not tell the Italians, but because Bai Zhou feels that if he does this, it seems a bit "long-handed". After all, the Italian troops are not under his control. How they fight is their business. If he not only arranges the grand strategy, but also arranges the execution of small tactics by the other party, think about it, a slightly arrogant nobleman, They don't think that Bai Zhou is doing it for their own good, but think that he is looking down on them, and most likely they won't appreciate it.
Like this time, with Catalano's temperament, although he was not the kind of person who couldn't listen to suggestions, before he faced off against the Burgundians, he always believed that even if his troops could not stop the opponent's attack, But there is no problem in delaying and blocking one or two waves of offensives. Moreover, he does not expect that his troops can completely block the opponent. He just wants to block a few waves of offensives and take advantage of the Burgundians' loss of vigor to attack again. Evacuate, and then consider pursuit and further expand the results.
¡°If Bai Zhou had told him his thoughts at the beginning, Catalano, even if he didn¡¯t say it, would have thought that Bai Zhou looked down on his soldiers.
This has nothing to do with the size of your mind, but is human nature.
Therefore, this battle only resulted in the current result because Catalano adopted a relatively wrong method. It cannot be said that the Italians did not try their best. After all, a force of 3,000 people lost more than 400 people in one battle. This loss was beyond their acceptable range.
"Da, da, da!" There were faint sounds of horse hooves in his ears. Catalano understood that this was the Burgundian army, which had begun to move out of their attack range. In other words, the remaining In the battle, it seemed that the Italians would no longer need to take action. Their mission was completed, although the quality of the completion was not very high.
The sound of horse hooves gradually faded away, and after about ten minutes, the Italians finally breathed their last, and Burgundy did not send anyone to trouble them anymore, but retreated all the way.
"My lord!" an Italian scout ran to Catalano and shouted.
"What's the matter? What's the matter?" Catalano was a little surprised. At this time, what else would happen to the Italians?
"Not far from there, His Highness the Third Prince of the Holy Roman Empire was at war with the Burgundians again. Their scouts found me and said they hoped we would go there as soon as possible and provide support!" The scout, panting, finally put the matter into perspective. It's probably explained clearly.
"Really! Okay, you go over now and tell them that I will lead the troops there immediately." When Catalano and his adjutant heard the news, they immediately stood up and ordered the scouts.
"Yes, sir!" The scout accepted the order and turned to leave.
"Haha, I didn't expect that our second interception force was not far away from us." The adjutant smiled. The reason for his expression was because he believed that the Italians had an opportunity to "revenge".
Although the morale of their troops is low and they are unable to pursue any pursuit on their own, nowThere are allies on the front who are resisting the pressure, and they choose to harass from the rear. The adjutant feels that his troops still have this capability.