Chapter 532： Sevastopol in panic

After receiving the invitation from Marshal Saint Arnault, the three kingdoms of Yingsatu immediately realized that this meeting would decide the next move of the coalition forces.

In the end is to attack the northern part of the Sevastopol fortress, or there are other plans.

Therefore, the commander of the three kingdoms of England and their adjutants went to the French headquarters together.

The slanted rays of the setting sun shone into the open window of the French headquarters, illuminating the room and the bird's-eye view of the Sevastopol fortress facing the window.

The commander of the British Tussars, led by French officers, sat at a circular fir-wood conference table, which represented the equal (surprisingly) status of all countries in a coalition war.

Marshal Saint Arnault, who was the initiator of the entire meeting, and Marshal Saint Arnault, who also acted as the host of the coalition meeting, sat on the circular conference table with his back to the map.

After everyone was seated, Marshal Saint Arnault said, "On behalf of the French army, I would like to thank you all for coming to this meeting concerning the future of the coalition!"

As soon as Marshal Saint Arnault's voice fell, the commander and adjutant at the round table quickly raised their hands to applaud Saint Arnault.

This is the influence of the world's No. 1 army and the world's No. 2 navy, even if St. Arnault himself scolded his mother directly at the meeting, countries other than the Kingdom of Britain must accompany a smile, and even some countries (lick the dog Sardinia Kingdom) and have to shout "Well cursed"

The applause continued for a long time, until Marshal Saint Arnault signaled that he could stop, and the applause stopped.

Then the smiling Marshal Saint Arnault continued: "To tell you the truth, the reason why I chose to invite you at this time is mainly because I received a telegram from Paris! The owner of the telegram is France. His Majesty Napoleon, great monarch of the Empire!"

When Jerome Bonaparte's name appeared in the mouth of Marshal St. Arnault, the expression of the commander of the three forces of the Intuza army immediately became solemn.

They understand that this coalition meeting is very likely... No, it should be said that it must be related to the emperor who is far away in Paris! However, everyone present still did not know which direction the emperor supported the attack.

"The Emperor congratulates us on our decisive victory in the Alma region, and he hopes that we can make persistent efforts to win the North Shore of Sevastopol in the shortest possible time!" Marshal San Arno continued.

Everyone present immediately understood that Marshal San Arno's strategic goal had been determined, that is, the northern part of the Sevastopol fortress.

The commanders of Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire subconsciously looked at Raglan, the commander of the Kingdom of Britain. If anyone present could overthrow Marshal Saint Arno's opinion, then it would be Commander Raglan.

After all, if the fortress of Sevastopol is easy to defend and difficult to attack and forcibly besieged, I am afraid that huge casualties will be incurred.

To say which of the four commanders present was most afraid of the power of the newspaper.

That should be Commander Raglan, because Sardinia and Ottoman have no room for public opinion to ferment. Since the beginning of the war, the French Empire has implemented strict newspaper control measures. It is difficult for huge casualties to appear in mainstream newspapers. As long as the government is willing, the citizens of Paris will only see the French army from one victory to another victory.

The Kingdom of Great Britain is a more free country than France. People can criticize the British government and politicians unscrupulously. Generals like Wellington will inevitably be thrown eggs after the Battle of Waterloo.

It is conceivable how unfriendly the public opinion environment in England is for a general. The general must not only carefully maintain the safety of the army in his hand so as not to suffer great losses, but also pay attention to his own army at all times. The movement of journalists in China to prevent them from sending reports to London that would be unfavorable to the British Army was a real ordeal. (Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire did not know about the lack of defenses on the north shore)

What Osman and Sardinia didn't expect was that Commander Raglan, who thought he would hold an objection, actually agreed with Marshal Saint Arno's suggestion.

Afterwards, Marshal Saint Arno symbolically asked Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire for advice.

The commanders of the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire could only agree with St. Arno's opinion.

Seeing that the four countries agreed, Marshal Saint Arnault said again: "Since everyone agrees with the plan to attack the Sevastopol fortress, then I will ask General Pelissier to assign you your own tasks!"

Perissier, who was sitting next to Marshal Saint Arnault, got up and stood in front of the bird's-eye view, assigning their respective tasks to everyone present.

In the upcoming battle of Sevastopol, France and Sardinia will be the main force to conquer the most difficult star fortress (in fact, the star fortress built in 1818, which is known as the most difficult to crack, has not been repaired for more than 30 years. The wall collapsed because of disrepair, and the cannons installed in the fortress were also pulled by Prince Menshkov to the Alma River to become the trophy of the British and French forces). The Ottoman Empire and Britain were responsible for cleaning up the Russian army near the north bank of Sevastopol.

The time to attack the Sevaspol fortress was scheduled for the morning of the day after tomorrow.

After the deployment was completed, everyone present got up and left, and they had to formulate corresponding tactics according to their assigned tasks.

Looking at the sunset in the distance, Marshal Saint Arnault silently prayed that the attack on the Sevastopol fortress would proceed smoothly: "I hope he doesn't lie to me, otherwise..."

There was a trace of killing intent in the eyes of Marshal Saint Arno

...

While Marshal St. Arno and others were actively preparing for the plan to attack the north bank of the Sevastopol fortress, in the naval barracks on the south bank of the Sevastopol fortress, Vice Admirals Nakhimov and Kornilov were fighting against each other. Concerned about the imminent coalition attack on the fortress of Sevastopol,

The failure of Menshkov in the Alma River made the Sevastopol fortress lose more than 43,000 living forces. Today, there are only more than 6,000 soldiers and more than 3,000 sailors left in the Sevastopol fortress. There are 3,000 militiamen, which can be said to be extremely weak.

If it was just a lack of troops, it would be fine, but what was even worse was that there was also instability inside the Sevastopol fortress.

With the defeat of Prince Menshkov in the Alma River, the residents of the fortress who thought they could sit back and relax were suddenly pushed to the brink of war. Panic began to spread in the city, and the residents of the fortress kept fleeing the fortress of Sevastopol. , Nakhimov and Lieutenant General Kornilov had to bite the bullet and ordered all the residents living in the Sevastopol fortress not to leave all the way.

Who would have thought that this order not only did not stop the residents of the Sevastopol fortress from fleeing, but instead intensified the spread of panic.

This panic not only spread in the residential areas of the fortress, but also began to panic in the military camp.

The Russian soldiers who were instilled with various strange stories by the missionaries have long been regarded as cannibals by the coalition forces, and now the monsters have arrived at the fortress, and their commanders have also been defeated by the monsters.

As a result, the image of the coalition forces in the military camp changed from cannibal monsters to invulnerable cannibal monsters, and the reason why they attacked the Russian Empire also evolved from occupying the Sevastopol fortress to eating up the Russian army in the fortress.

In the face of invulnerable monsters, any Russian soldier has no choice but to escape.

On the third day after Prince Menshkov was defeated by coalition forces, a part of the militia and the regular army began to flee the Sevastopol fortress.

Faced with soldiers who had no intention of fighting, Kornilov and Nakhimov had no choice but to use harsh criminal laws to make them understand the horror of running away.

Under Kornilov's instruction, only the Cossack cavalry regiment (600 people) in the fortress was dispatched, and hundreds of soldiers who wanted to escape were directly headed by the Cossack cavalry.

The heads of the soldiers were built into a temple and piled up on the Malakhov Bastion, and the soldiers did not dare to escape in any way.

However, Kornilov and Nakhimov understand that this method can only maintain temporary stability. If Russia still fails in the next war, the Sevastopol fortress will inevitably suffer a backlash.

At that time, let alone resisting the coalition forces, it is unknown whether they can go out alive.

Therefore, Kornilov and Nakhimov have been thinking about how to make the Sevastopol Fortress through the difficult time.

"Should we abandon the north bank? How about concentrating all our troops on the south bank? This will strengthen our control over the south bank!" Lieutenant General Kornilov asked Nakhimov next to him.

"Have you ever thought that this will cause even greater panic! There are a lot of residents on the North Shore!" Nakhimov asked Kornilov back.

"This is indeed a big problem!" After a moment of silence, Lieutenant General Kornilov responded decisively: "But now is not the time to think about this, the coalition forces have arrived on the north shore! If the trouble is bad, they will Attack in the near future! Our fortress on the north bank has no way to resist their attack! The failure of the north bank is a certainty, and we must not let the south bank have an accident!"

"What method are you going to use to transport the soldiers from the North Shore back?" Nakhimov asked again.

"We can build a pontoon bridge between the north bank and the south bank! Use the ships we have to build it!" Lieutenant General Kornilov replied In this case...it will take a lot of time to complete ! Do we really have that long? Nakhimov said a little pessimistically, "I'm afraid we haven't waited for our pontoon bridge to be erected, and the coalition troops have already marched to the north bank!" "

"At least we are trying to protect this fortress!" Kornilov said firmly.

"Yeah!" Nakhimov also sighed: "How ironic it is for two admirals to protect an army fortress!"

Poor Kornilov and Nakhimov didn't know that if it wasn't for some unscrupulous monarch who disrupted the normal historical timeline, they wouldn't have to worry about the coalition forces at all.

The coalition forces in history knew that the Battle of the Alma River ended on September 23, and then hesitated for nearly half a month in the offensive plan on the north bank and the south bank. It was during this half month that Kornilov and Nakhimov completed the fortification of Sevastopol within the time limit.

Relying on the fortification and the three-month cold winter (late October to February) until the spring of the second year, this time they did not have such good luck.