The war scenes he had experienced passed before the marshal's eyes. In his entire military career, had he ever been afraid of anything, and had he never fought such a useless war?
And the legal battle is destined to become the darkest moment in McMahon's life!
The veterans who fought with him were all his brothers and nephews. When he was the division commander, these soldiers were still young people in their twenties.
Now more than twenty years have passed, and those young men who accompanied him in Crimea and charged against the Russian army with bayonets are no longer young and healthy.
Life is forty years, and who has forty years?
At that moment, McMahon suddenly felt a very serious sense of frustration. He began to deny himself and everything he had done.
Was what I did really just? What kind of future do I want to bring to this world, this country, and these soldiers?
They are all in their forties, and they are still ordinary soldiers. It is considered good to be able to work as a platoon leader, but they have been promoted all the way to the marshal and duke of the empire!
Is it really fair to them? In today's inevitable war, are they still being asked to die and make meaningless sacrifices just in exchange for a war to promote peace?
Is there anything wrong with my strategy? What does war mean to promote peace? It's just using the lives of these veterans to delay time, and using the cruelest killings to exchange for the emperor's last breath!
No, no, no... I can't think like that. What I want to do now is for France. I want to protect my motherland!
The veterans looked at the marshal's face ashen and remained silent. Suddenly one veteran asked, "Marshal! What's the point of us continuing to fight like this? For what purpose?"
"You said you want to use war to promote peace? I am forty-five years old and I have been fighting for half my life. Where is the peace? I just want to know if I will have the chance to die on my bed at home in the future!"
This problem is common to all veterans. All the soldiers present turned their attention to McMahon1
The marshal knew that if he did not give his brothers a reasonable explanation today, the morale of the army would not be maintained at all, and it would be impossible to hold on until nightfall.
McMahon did not use the marshal's style to speak big words, but sat down next to the soldiers. In the distance were the roar of Prussian cannons and the soldiers' shouts of killing.
"Who can die on the bed? I can't answer this question for you, because even I can't guarantee that I can die on the bed..."
"I can only regret to tell you that most of us will not die on our beds, but on the battlefield!"
Listening to the marshal's words, the officers behind him were all shocked and wanted to stop him, but no one dared to speak. They thought to themselves, 'Why is the marshal saying discouraging words at this time? If morale is not boosted, will there be any leakage? '
McMahon had no time to pay attention to the expressions of these subordinates. He glanced at the soldiers in front of him and said calmly, "I don't know your future. I am not a prophet, but I can at least tell you today...who are we for?" And fight!"
"Is it for this empire? Is it for our emperor? Yes before, but no longer. We are only fighting for the motherland at this moment!"
"What is the motherland? The motherland is the place that we still love no matter how the emperors and generals perform in turn!"
"What is France? France is a spirit, and it is the beacon of the entire European world!"
"Think about how our ancestors lived before the Great Revolution. The church, feudal aristocrats, kings... they squeezed our ancestors desperately. They squeezed out every grain of food from us, leaving us forever living in abject poverty. !”
"Once there is a famine, the entire village will starve to death. When a great plague comes, the entire town will be burned down by the king's army, and no woman or child will be able to escape!"
"We have nothing, we can't even protect our wives and children... It's hard for you to imagine! In fact, in many villages in France a hundred years ago, feudal lords still had the right to the first night!"
"Your lover must be given to the lord to sleep with first! You are insulted, but you must also be grateful, because at least the lord just slept with her instead of killing her!"
"What kind of world was that? What kind of environment did your ancestors live in? Have you all forgotten it?"
"I can tell you that although I am the marshal of the empire, I am still the Duke of Magenta! But I can tell you that my ancestors were not very noble!"
"Yes, my family does have aristocratic ancestry, and it is of British aristocratic ancestry, but we are Irish descendants of the Jacobites!"
As soon as these words were spoken, the soldiers present buzzed and whispered among themselves. They never expected that the Marshal's family had such a history.
The Jacobites are very unfamiliar to modern people like Xiao Letian, but in continental Europe at that time, anyone with a little bit of culture knew what they represented.
Because the Jacobites originated from the Glorious Revolution in England!
At that time, the British bourgeois Parliament launched the Glorious Revolution, overthrew James II, and ushered in the daughter of James II, Mary II, and her husband, William of Orange, who was ruling the Netherlands!
After the Co-Prosperity Revolution, Britain gradually embarked on the path of constitutional monarchy. This is definitely a big event for Europeans!
After James II was driven away, many supporters in the UK followed him to France and other European countries. This group of people was called the Jacobites!
The final result of these people was of course miserable. James II was not restored in the end, and these descendants of the Jacobites in exile gradually became impoverished.
This is the case with the McMahon family. In his grandfather's generation, their family's title was no longer recognized by the United Kingdom, and France was not interested in recognizing it. The family had become very ordinary civilians.
Fortunately, they are an aristocratic family that has fallen into the civilian class. They no longer have political rights and money, but they have tutors!
This is very important! The family is full of educated intellectuals, so they can provide high-quality internal education, so McMahon's grandfather eventually became a doctor.
McMahon himself also received a good education since he was a child, so he had the opportunity to enter a military academy!
McMahon smiled bitterly and said, "Do you know now? I am actually not a born aristocrat. Like many French people, I came from the common class!"
"My title of Duke was earned by fighting on the battlefield with my sword and spear!"
"Now I want to tell you, what I protect is not my right to the title of Duke. What I want to protect to the death is actually the rule that a commoner can also become a Duke!"
"If we protect this rule, then our descendants will have hope!"
