Leopold looked at the Austrian camp in the distance, which looked like a bonfire. The anxiety in his heart gradually faded away with his intensive charge, and was replaced by excitement.
He didn't believe that after his own side invested 100,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry, a total of 300,000 troops, the opponent's 50,000 to 60,000 people could still defend it as solidly as a rock.
Especially at night, the opponent's artillery fire advantage cannot be used. Although one's own side will also be affected by the line of sight, relatively speaking, the benefits obtained are far better than the release of smoke during the day.
As his infantry gradually approached the target, Leopold even believed that if all the day's troops were devoted to the night attack, the enemy's camp would have been captured by now.
But this is just his daydream and speculation. The actual situation is what is happening in front of him, which seems to be more beneficial to himself.
Although the night attack was unexpectedly discovered by the enemy at 500 feet, our infantry had already reached a close enough distance, and with a little effort, we would achieve results.
The newly transferred 100,000 infantrymen had never seen the tragedy during the day, so they had no psychological shadow and showed no fear when attacking the Austrian positions.
Although Jamal's troops need to fight continuously and appear very tired, they are also working hard. As long as they win again, the opponent will lose their offensive ability.
Half of the cavalry who had not participated in the battle during the day had already replaced their companions and began to defend in place together with the Guards soldiers.
However, facing the influx of infantry from the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian army's firepower was no longer as powerful as it was during the day.
On the one hand, due to night, the accuracy of hitting long-distance targets is greatly reduced. In order to save ammunition, the target can only be hit closer.
On the other hand, sixteen of the fifty machine guns have been destroyed. Even if the barrels of the remaining machine guns can still spit fire, they are not far away from being scrapped.
When they rushed to a distance of sixty or seventy feet, the soldiers of the Divine Army began to prepare to drop bombs, and the Austrian army had already released its long-hidden killing move.
Oil barrels were exploded by rockets one after another, and fireballs rose into the sky one after another. Huge flowers of death instantly bloomed on the battlefield that was always bright and dark.
For this sudden change, the soldiers of the Divine Army had no convenience at all, and many of them were swallowed up by the expanding fireball in an instant.
Many guys covered in fire stood there howling and waving their arms.
But soon the sound stopped suddenly, and the person fell to the ground, motionless.
The slightly better unlucky ones had no time to retaliate immediately and were rolling back and forth on the ground, trying to put out the fire on their bodies.
More people were hit by the iron beads erupted from the explosion. They were lying or sitting on the ground regardless, shouting and screaming, just like the noise in a slaughterhouse.
One oil barrel can kill or injure about ten people. After about two thousand oil barrels were detonated one after another, it was equivalent to losing all the divine soldiers at the front in a short period of time.
In particular, oil that cannot burn instantly formed a wall of fire nearly ten feet high in some places under the influence of the wind.
The terrifying heat wave hit their faces, making it impossible for the following divine army soldiers to continue their attack, and instinctively retreated back.
The Austrian army took the opportunity to fire and drop bombs, using the light generated by the explosion to kill many enemy soldiers.
how so?
Leopold, who was supervising the battle at the rear, was speechless when he saw this...
The front-hand night raid was half the success, while the second-hand victory in the chaos was not a success at all.
Tens of thousands of troops were lost, but they failed to break into the enemy's camp.
For Leopold, this was an unacceptable outcome.
Once the night attack fails, it means that the siege of this enemy must continue after dawn.
So no matter what, as long as it's not dawn, we must continue to fight!
Having already paid such a heavy price and attacked the opponent's defense line, there was no reason to retreat.
But the actual situation was not as easy as Leopold imagined. The soldiers on the front line had been frightened by the explosion just now.
They have no idea when the enemy may come again, and they will definitely be the ones who die.
Especially seeing the burnt ground and the wailing companions nearby made everyone feel frightened.
Even though the officers frequently gave orders to the soldiers to continue the attack, everyone's resistance did not diminish at all.
In this case, the advancement speed became extremely slow, almost equivalent to shooting at the Austrian army while walking.
Obviously, the Austrian army really likes this mode of combat that does not require hand-to-hand combat.
Not to mention one night, even ten days in a row is completely acceptable.
There is another reason that can inhibit the advancement of the divine army, that is, the Austrian army still has more than twenty usable machine guns.
The soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire who participated in the night attack had no idea of the power of this weapon, and were knocked to the ground in pieces.
Naturally, the officers have not seen it, but the commander has told them that this is a weapon that is much more terrifying than artillery in close combat.
Jamal also knows how to protect technical units. As long as the machine gun team runs out of bullets or the machine gun is disabled, there is no need to participate in subsequent battles.
Once one's troops are finally able to retreat, the combat experience gained by these machine gun crew members will undoubtedly be an extremely valuable asset, much more powerful than those unreliable recruits.
The revolvers and muskets carried by the tanks have been divided up by the infantry. The Guards have priority. If there are any left, they will be distributed to the general's guards for use.
Even guards have to go into battle. Except for coolies, everyone who enlists as a soldier must be ready to fight at any time.
The oil drums were almost used up. As for what would happen after dawn, Jamal no longer cared so much.
I originally thought I could just watch the fun, but now my unit is being targeted by the enemy.
Judging from the situation, the opponent seems determined not to give up until his own body is eaten.
If we have to face such a fierce siege in the next few days, Jamal plans to break out south, at least not to be annihilated by the opponent on the spot.
After the Divine Army tasted artillery shells, bullets, grenades, and oil barrels one after another, their offensive dropped sharply because they suffered considerable losses.
After reorganizing the attack, there was not much improvement. In the end, after being beaten by Austrian artillery fire, they had to choose to retreat across the board.
Leopold had nothing to do about this. He originally thought that a weapon that could fire continuously would not continue to fire after the day's battle, but he did not expect that he would suffer a second loss.
More than one-tenth of the 30,000 infantrymen in the frontal attack fell in front of this weapon, which was an obvious error in judgment.
The coalition forces lost more than 31,000 Polish cavalry during the day, and the infantry had previously lost more than 29,000 people.
After the whole team returned from the night attack, it was found that only about 65,000 people had returned, which meant that the number of people missing during the war was as high as nearly 35,000.
This means that after a day and night of attacking, we have lost approximately 95,000 people, which is very close to the 100,000 mark.
Perhaps less than 20,000 of them were directly killed in battle, and the rest were injured or missing, but they were unable to rejoin the battle in a short period of time, which equaled direct combat losses.
300,000 people besieged 50,000 to 60,000 enemy troops, and they were able to fight like this, which greatly disappointed both Leopold and Sobieski. valley
The problem we are facing now is that there is no doubt that the other party has also suffered a significant reduction in personnel.
So should our side continue to besiege, or besiege and not besiege?
Sobieski said his troops could still participate in the battle, but could not continue to carry out assault tactics on enemy positions.
It is possible to pursue or ambush the enemy. Because of the new weapons in the enemy's hands, the cavalry can just engage in positional combat.
The loss of more than 30,000 cavalry in the first battle has already made Sobieski heartbroken. These are all elites in his hands.
Unlike infantry, cavalry can be supplemented by farmers. Without training, the so-called cavalry is actually just a group of grooms.
You can let them feed the horses or ride them, but it is far from actual combat or even victory...
After daybreak, Jamal ordered his troops to move half a mile south in order to avoid the corpses on the battlefield.
Bodies exposed to high temperatures can cause plague, especially those lingering flies, which are really disgusting and terrifying.
At the same time, a group of prisoners of war were released and the other party was asked to send people to carry the bodies so that they could be buried nearby and the Austrian army would not attack them.
Apart from some fresh horse meat and trophies obtained from carcasses, the Austrian army had little interest in anything else on the battlefield.
A lot of flintlock guns and matching ammunition were seized, but they could only be used as auxiliary tools.
After tasting the benefits of fixed-load ammunition, Jamal and a group of his men looked at flintlock guns that were loaded at a slow speed as if they were worthless.
If the military equipment were all revolvers, or if there were 200 machine guns, Jamal believed that the results of the battle might be doubled.
It is bound to kill the opponent until their corpses are everywhere, but in that case, I'm afraid they won't dare to come over and die at night...
Now he has decided to give up as soon as possible. If he stays any longer, it will be very dangerous.
Even if you move half a mile south in a day, you can move fifteen miles in a month.
On July 22, Jamal got some very happy news.
It was not that Hussein led the main force to defeat the enemy on the other side, but that Saleh led his troops to come under orders.
Saleh's command consisted of 10,000 cavalry, 5,000 infantry, 200 steam tanks, and a month's supply of rations for 50,000 people.
Half of the steam tanks were new tanks equipped with machine guns, which made Jamal very happy after his victory.
After receiving Hussein's letter, Ibrahim I realized the seriousness of the problem and decided to massively increase his troops in Budapest.
We can voluntarily abandon Krakow, but we must never give up again or allow the enemy to capture Budapest, which will inevitably lead to threats to the Balkans.
The cavalry of the Ottoman Empire has always been brave and good at fighting, and the infantry is world-famous as the Praetorian Guard.
After obtaining a large number of tanks and heavy artillery from the Ming Empire, there was no need to fear confrontation with the enemy.
The arrival of Saleh's troops just made up for Jamal's previous loss of troops.
Of course, Sobieski would not allow the two enemy armies to merge easily.
Still, 50,000 Polish cavalry were dispatched to harass Saleh's troops for a long time. However, due to the presence of tanks, little effect was achieved. Instead, nearly 4,000 cavalry were lost.
Sobieski only had about 60,000 cavalry left under his command, and he no longer planned to confront the Austrian army head-on.
I originally wanted to make up for the previous losses with a small group of enemy troops, but I didn't expect that the third Austrian army was also equipped with tanks.
This time, it was equivalent to breaking up two battles in a row, losing 40,000 cavalry, and achieving very few results, which was considered a huge loss...
Leopold also wanted to bypass Jamal's troops and go south to first surround Saleh's troops who were going north for reinforcements.
However, considering that Hussein's troops on the other side might launch an attack on Schaumberg's troops after hearing the news, they could only give up temporarily.
On the battlefield in Budapest, Hussein's troops had the largest number of troops and the strongest combat effectiveness. The combined combat effectiveness of the two enemy forces in the south was not as good as the former.
Leopold still had more than 130,000 infantry, but their mobility was much worse than Sobieski's cavalry.
Once out of the main battlefield, fight dozens of miles south.
Even if the Austrian reinforcements were eliminated, what would he do if Schaumberg asked Leopold for help?
Schaumberg had 350,000 troops, but Hussein had no less than 200,000 troops.
Calculated based on the previous two-to-one strength comparison, Schaumberg's troops were at a disadvantage.
The trenches and the battleships on the Danube could delay the enemy's attack to the greatest extent, but Leopold did not know how long Schaumberg's troops could hold out.
Three days or five days?
Or seven days?
Even ten days?
If everything goes well, it will take at least three days for 130,000 infantry to go south to annihilate the enemy and then come back.
This means that Schaumberg's troops must persist for more than three days, preferably five days, which will leave more time for their own troops to maneuver.
The key is, assuming that Schaumberg's troops and Hussein's troops are both defeated, can they still achieve their tactical goals when their own troops counterattack?
In the previously formulated combat plan, besieging Budapest was not the purpose. The purpose was to attract Hussein to lead his troops to rescue them. It was best to severely damage them and even eliminate them outside Budapest.
With Hussein's troops suffering heavy losses, with 50,000 Polish cavalry and 100,000 infantry, it should be possible to recapture the Pest Castle on the other side.
As for the Buda Castle, which is located on the west bank and is easy to defend and difficult to attack, we have to make some calculations again...
Attacking Buda Castle cannot be captured directly by superior force. It must be equipped with enough heavy artillery.
Now about half of the heavy artillery of the West Bank troops had been lost in the exchange of fire, and the remaining part was no longer enough to destroy the walls of Buda Castle.
It can be said that after the siege of Jamal's headquarters, the development of the Battle of Buda Castle has deviated from Leopold's original intention and developed in another direction...
It is indeed difficult for the opponent's steam tanks to cross the river, but the result of staying in large numbers on the west bank of the Danube is difficult for the coalition forces to swallow.
Even if they stay put and defend themselves, it will be a huge trouble.
These were iron-clad things with cannons, just like giant toads.
It's okay if you don't touch it, but you may be poisoned if you touch it...
