French Empire: But Napoleon IV

Chapter 31 Eugène Angrily Confronts the New Prime Minister

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Eugène Napoleon walked in.

Without responding to the surprised looks of the crowd, Eugène first addressed his mother who was present, and then paid his respects to the Earl of Palikao.

Eugénie readily agreed, while Montbont, the Count of Palicago, responded by calling out "Your Highness."

"Mother, Count Montauban."

"Eugene, what brings you here? You're still not fully recovered; you should be resting. This is a military meeting, not a place for you."

Looking at the white bandage peeking out from Eugène's neck, Eugène couldn't help but frown.

When his mother asked him a question, Eugène shook his head and walked straight to the map, focusing his gaze on the two rivers that Montauban regarded as its lifeline.

"At a time of national crisis, I have no right to rest. Mother, Prime Minister, I just overheard your discussion outside. I believe that fighting with our backs to the river was a fatal mistake."

Upon hearing this, the entire operations room immediately fell silent. Cities like Metz and Sedan had most of their main buildings constructed on the eastern side of the river, and their connection to western France required the use of boats and bridges.

By saying this, Eugène essentially rejected Montauban's battle plan entirely. Therefore, everyone present looked at the 14-year-old boy with extreme surprise, and Montauban's face turned ashen.

"Your Highness the Crown Prince."

Unable to bear the rejection of his tactics, Montauban suppressed his anger and spoke slowly and deliberately.

The prime minister, whose tactics were being questioned, spoke with great difficulty, as if his voice was being squeezed out from his vocal cords, filtered through his teeth, and then uttered with extreme difficulty.

"Your Highness, do you know what you're saying? Your Majesty the Queen, a child who has never even been on a battlefield dares to question a tactic that has been proven in war. Isn't that absurd? In my opinion, abandoning river warfare is an extremely cowardly and foolish statement."

Eugène was not intimidated by Montauban. He calmly pointed out the grammatical errors in Montauban's speech and then, addressing the audience, further explained his own ideas.

"I didn't say we should abandon the river; I just said we shouldn't deploy our main forces along the riverbanks, fighting with our backs to the river. Napoleonic-era tactics are no longer suitable for modern warfare."

Times are changing. Even though my great-uncle, Napoleon I, was a brilliant strategist, his tactics are no longer suitable for the warfare of today after half a century of evolution.

Of course, knowing his voice was weak and insignificant, Eugène did not simply emphasize his own opinions, but instead used data to support his views in order to gain more support.

"During the Battle of Austerlitz, the soldiers used smoothbore muskets with an effective range of only 50 meters, and the artillery had a range of only a few hundred meters. Fighting with their backs to the river left the soldiers with no way to retreat, forcing them to fight to the death."

But what about now? Both we and the Prussian army use rifled muskets with an effective range exceeding 300 meters, and breech-loading cannons with a range exceeding 5 kilometers. If we deploy our troops along the river, the Prussians only need to set up artillery on the opposite bank to turn our positions into a sea of ​​fire; our soldiers won't even have a chance to retaliate.

"Moreover, if we fight with our backs to a river, once the defensive line is breached, our army will be forced to the riverbank by the Prussian army, with no room for maneuver and only annihilation. Even Napoleon I suffered a crushing defeat at Waterloo because he had his back to Mount Saint-Jean and no way to retreat."

To support his argument, Eugène Napoleon also cited the spiritual symbol of the Bonaparte family, Napoleon I, as evidence to support his point.

Eugène had to change this habit of fighting with their backs to the river. In the Battle of Sedan, the French army was annihilated largely because the city of Sedan, where they were stationed, was located east of the Meuse River, leaving them nowhere to run.

In Bazán of Metz, a large part of his problem stemmed from his own indecisiveness and pressure from above.

However, Metz faces the same problem as Sedan: moving its defensive line to the west of the Moselle River, or even to the Meuse River defensive line, is what Eugene wants to do.

As long as the defensive line is set up along the west bank of the Meuse River, the French army, relying on the river for defense, even if it is no match for the Prussian army, will suffer casualties and hold out for a period of time that cannot be compared to the collapse that occurred in the past in a month and a half.

Therefore, Eugène paused for a moment, then instead of looking at Montauban, who was about to die of anger, picked up his baton and pointed to Verdun and Saint-Mihiel behind the Meuse River.

"Therefore, my suggestion is to abandon all forward positions along the Meuse River and withdraw McMahon's Chalon Army to the Verdun-Saint-Miille line, relying on these two core fortresses to build a deep defensive fortification."

"As you can see, Verdun and Saint-Miyère are two of the more important fortresses in eastern France, with relatively complete fortifications. The Vauban fortress in Verdun has a polygonal bastion defense and is equipped with 50 cannons, while the Saint-Miyère fortress is equipped with more than 20 cannons."

These two fortresses are strategically positioned, and if the Prussian army were to establish defenses here, it would require at least 10 casualties to break through this line.

The fortresses of Verdun and Saint-Miles, which later became famous, were built by France between 1873 and 1875.

Today, only the Vauban-style hexagonal fortresses preserved in the 17th century are still in use in these two locations. The fortresses that Napoleon III mainly built were in Metz.

In Metz, the Empire planned to build a ring of 12 outer fortresses, but it was not fully completed even with the outbreak of war.

Thanks to this fortress, Bazan was able to stay in Metz without being annihilated by the Prussian army. It was also this fortress that made Bazan hesitate between holding out and retreating.

The fortresses of Verdun and Saint-Miille were not very useful, but they were adequate, at least in Eugène's view, better than nothing. Even if they lost the battle, the French army could still escape faster than if they fled on the east bank.

Of course, Eugene would never reveal the reason for his escape to anyone.

"According to intelligence, the Prussian army's logistics convoys can only advance 20 kilometers per day, and their supply lines are already very long. If we withdraw our defensive line by 100 kilometers, their supply lines will be extended by another 100 kilometers."

Since the Xia Long Legion has already retreated here, why don't we simply set up defenses here? Even if the people of Paris are furious, I think that with a portion of the army already withdrawn to the Meuse River, they won't force the remaining troops at the front to launch a counterattack in place.

Having presented all the arguments he could think of, Eugène left the rest to the judgment of the crowd.

The meeting room was quite quiet, everyone was thinking about Eugène's words.

Several of the younger generals showed expressions of approval, including Troch, who was apprehensive about Putin and pro-republican.

This group of people had one thing in common: they had all participated in the Crimean War and personally experienced some of the power of modern firearms, so they knew that Eugène was telling the truth.

On the other side, some veteran generals frowned and hesitated. They had all grown up or even lived under Napoleon's illustrious name, and naturally believed in the tactics of the Napoleonic era. They found it difficult to accept this new combat concept.