"If you believe in Victor de Treville, give him this chance. If he fails, then just let him fend for himself. You can still rely on your own prestige to deal with domestic public opinion. Your Majesty has nothing to do with it. How about the damage?"
My poor friend!
Looking at the eager and longing eyes of the Marquis of Treville, Marshal Moncey couldn't help but sigh in his heart.
As time went by, Edgar's story also reached the ears of the marshal. One can imagine how distressed General Treville was about the stain on his family.
So of course he knows why this old colleague is so eager to make contributions - he just wants to use his achievements as soon as possible to quell the ridicule of the Treville family from the outside world and rebuild the family's reputation.
Because he is a full generation older than the Marquis, the Marshal is both his boss and his senior. In the past two people's work together, the Marquis's bravery and decisiveness left a deep impression on him, and also made him and the other party A profound friendship was formed.
If the other party needs personal help from me, I will definitely agree without any hesitation.
But now the situation is completely different. What the other party wants is not financial help, but three thousand officers and soldiers, which also involves domestic politics, which makes it difficult for the old marshal to make a decision.
"Victor, I understand your mood at the moment, but you must understand that the troops stationed here are His Majesty's troops, not yours or my toys. Although I do have the right to mobilize them and appoint anyone as commander, I must serve His Majesty. Do your best to preserve his reputation. I do appreciate you, but I cannot violate principles for the sake of our personal relationship."
"But you have not violated your principles." Although the Marshal declined, the Marquis of Treville still did not intend to give up and continued to fight. "When I was in Paris, His Majesty once told me in private that he wanted me to I have been aggressive in North Africa, accomplished more meritorious deeds, and gained prestige for the empire and your majesty. Now I am following your majesty’s orders, and I don’t think there is anything wrong in this.”
The general's words made the marshal fall into deep thought again.
Is the Marquis de Treville lying?
He believed that it shouldn't be the case. After all, His Majesty suddenly interfered with the army's personnel affairs and sent his favorite general among his party members to North Africa. He must have wanted the Marquis to "gild" it. It would be strange if there was no similar explanation.
However, this does not mean that His Majesty is willing to support risky actions. This is completely different.
The Marquis of Treville is obviously impatient now, and his mental state will inevitably affect his rational judgment - and this is also a taboo when leading troops in war.
"We all know how much His Majesty values you, but because of this, we should first consider the issue from His Majesty's standpoint. Victor, your mood is not very stable right now. I advise you to be patient for a while until you calm down. Let’s discuss further actions…”
In fact, Marshal Moncey had already made concessions and said that he could consider launching military operations. However, this concession did not satisfy the Marquis, and he still insisted on his own opinion.
"Wait, wait! Simply waiting will only make us lose the opportunity!" He waved his hands heavily, showing infinite power of action, "Marshal, have you ever considered that although these tribesmen do not have our Science and technology, but they are not ignorant barbarians. On the contrary, they are cunning and flexible. They are also more familiar with the local geographical conditions than we are. They come and go quickly like the wind, and can gather and be organized at any time. Zero, they are not cowards that we can kill at will. On the contrary, they are brave warriors, and they are willing to pay any price to protect their homeland and their wives and children. They can cause us heavy losses, and I have no doubt about it. !
Of course we have our advantages. In addition to our more advanced weapons and more reasonable organization, our biggest advantage is that our command is smooth and we are a tight group. But they are different. They are scattered one by one. The tribes have historical hatred for each other and are not united at all. Their resistance to us is sporadic and scattered, and this just gives us an opportunity to take advantage of... In fact, we took advantage of their scattered sand, Only then did he conquer Algiers so easily and gain a firm foothold on this land. "
Having said this, Marquis Treville emphasized his tone again, "However, we cannot always count on our opponents to be a mess. They are also very smart. When facing strong enemies, they also understand the importance of unity. They understand even better that we are Fierce opponents who came to seize their homes and the most fertile lands are irreconcilable contradictions, so they will gradually give up their previous hatred and join forces, eventually forming a huge armed force, and then confront us with arms. Let us Suffering all the hardships...This is our imminent crisis now, but you let us continue to wait, wasting precious time so that they can be easily integrated together. Are you bringing glory to His Majesty? Or are you? Are you causing trouble to His Majesty? Your Excellency?!"
The words of the Marquis de Treville did not show mercy to his own people at all, and did not include the high-sounding rhetoric of "spreading civilization" and "helping civilize" that France promoted when it began to conquer Algeria. Instead, it directly made it clear that this was A war between predators and anti-predators.
If these words spread, it will inevitably cause a controversy, but since there are only two generals here, it is okay. At least Marshal Moncey does not think there is any problem with this, because deep down he does not believe this kind of self-deception. Rhetoric.
"Maybe it's true. They will slowly unite... But after all, they are just a group of pagan tribesmen. What's so scary about them?" After the marshal pondered for a moment, he still couldn't help but question in a low voice, but his voice was Much smaller, "They have backward equipment and poor training. They may not be able to cause us any damage..."
"Thank God, what you said is true, but even so, it is scary enough." Marquis Treville sighed, "Have you forgotten Spain? What did we encounter in Spain? We were easily defeated The Spanish royal army occupied their territory, but a group of poorly equipped and poorly trained militiamen resisted us unswervingly to the end. Didn’t we suffer enough at that time? What exhausting disasters we endured at that time , have you forgotten?"
Spain! This word immediately caused the marshal to fall into silence.
Because Marshal Moncey had personally experienced such a nightmare.
In 1808, he personally participated in this war of conquest and led troops to occupy Valencia. However, he watched helplessly as he fell into the quagmire of rebellions that emerged in various places and was exhausted from the guerrilla war.
Because he was not strict enough with the "rebellious people", the marshal was even reprimanded by Emperor Napoleon, so that he was finally dismissed and recalled to France, and Spain became a stain that the marshal did not want to mention again in his life - until 1823 In 2000, he led the French army to recapture Madrid and helped the Bourbons restore order.
Not only for him, but also for other generals who had experienced the bloody Peninsular War, the word Spain was uncomfortable and was simply a nightmare.
Therefore, when "Spain" was mentioned, Marshal Moncey suddenly felt a chill in his heart.
"In Spain, our army is exhausted, fighting fires everywhere. Many soldiers are left behind, attacked and killed or died of illness in this back and forth movement. Although we can burn down villages and massacre towns, we have brought more trouble to the Spanish people than we have. We have suffered serious casualties, but this is not enough to change our situation. We are still running exhausted, and our morale is wearing down in the endless suppression." In the silence of the marshal, the Marquis of Treville continued to speak eloquently, "Marshal, Algeria Can't it become another Spain? Maybe the tribesmen here are indeed poorly equipped, but don't they have the courage to bleed for their homeland? No, in my opinion, they definitely do! They are not afraid of death, they dare to fight with us After all. So let’s get back to it, we are an expeditionary force, we need constant support from the local area, we consume huge amounts of money and resources every day, how many casualties can we sustain? Three thousand? Ten thousand? Three Thousands? Or even more?
I firmly believe that if we just deal with it passively, then in the years of consumption, they will eventually be able to make us pay such heavy losses, paying the price of hundreds of thousands of people, and it does not matter to them, anyway, they will lose After their homeland, they have nothing to care about. They will fight with us as hard as the Spaniards. I am very sure of this - and your Excellency, Marshal, your military career will also be worn out in another Spanish war. Our army will be exhausted while running, and we will once again come to a pit with no end in sight! Because we chose to wait and see! We count on our opponents to be cowards and fools! "
Because of his excitement, the Marquis's voice became louder and louder, and his words became more and more merciless, so much so that the old marshal broke out in a cold sweat.
The marshal didn't know whether this was the other party's scaremongering out of self-interest, or whether it was such a big risk, but he was shocked to find that he seemed to be persuaded by the Marquis of Treville.
Since the Renaissance, Europeans have had smooth sailing, science and technology have become more and more developed, and the corresponding military has become more and more powerful. On this basis, the pace of European conquest of the world has almost never stopped since 1492, so much so that European soldiers have become more and more powerful. There is a subconscious contempt for peoples and armies outside of Europe. The marshal also has a similar mentality towards various indigenous tribes in Algeria, believing that they are nothing more than a group of uncivilized savages who can be easily annihilated at any time as long as the time is right.
However, later facts proved that Marquis Treville's judgment was accurate.
In order to "defend their homeland", various tribes rose up without hesitation to resist the French colonial army, even if their equipment was poor and their organization was backward.
As the French army advanced step by step, these originally scattered tribes began to unite and formed a loose military group. In 1832, these tribal elders elected the 24-year-old Abd al-Kader as " Emir" became the official commander-in-chief of the coalition of tribes. As soon as he came to power, he declared a "holy war" against the French, thus setting off a vigorous armed struggle against the French.
After taking command of the rebel army, he used his familiarity with the terrain and the mobility advantages of the nomadic tribes to defeat small groups of French troops many times, causing serious casualties to the French army. At this time, France itself was also facing domestic politics. The pressure could not be tolerated and the continuous investment was unbearable, so on February 26, 1834, representatives of Abdel Kader and the French Commander-in-Chief de Michel signed the "Treaty of Wachlan". In the treaty, France recognized the western region of Algeria (excluding the three major coastal cities) as an independent Arab country, with Abdel Kader as the leader of this country, and the French army only maintained control of the areas surrounding Algiers.
This treaty greatly angered local nationalists in France. Both monarchists and republicans criticized it, believing that the treaty was too "concessive" and a shame for France.
Therefore, under the clamor of the Parliament, the then Orleans dynasty government decided to tear up the treaty and further increase investment in order to complete the great cause of conquering Algeria.
However, Abd al-Kader also knew that the French would not give up. When he signed the peace treaty, he had already begun to prepare for the next war. But by 1835, this war broke out again, and the French army was still blindly confident. , continued to take the initiative to attack the Algerian army, but suffered another heavy blow.
Later, in the Battle of Taffna alone, the French army suffered more than 3,000 casualties and had to negotiate the peace treaty again. This was a loss of face and one of the major defeats of the European army overseas.
The news spread to the country, and public opinion from all walks of life in France was uproar again. But this time, King Louis Philippe finally couldn't keep it in his face. He could only "raise the stakes" again. He sent more troops to North Africa several times, which once increased the number of French troops in North Africa. When the army reached more than 100,000 people, the coach was changed several times, and finally General Bourow was placed in charge of North Africa.
With desperate investment, the North African army has an overwhelming advantage in terms of numbers and military equipment. Bujo adopted a brutal scorched-earth policy to deal with guerrilla warfare. The French army plundered livestock and grain, destroyed farmland, destroyed crops, cut down trees, and filled up wells to cut off the supply of supplies to the revolting soldiers and civilians. At the same time, a bloody policy of collective massacre was adopted against farmers and herdsmen. The colonial army moved step by step, gradually narrowing the encirclement to annihilate the resistance.
In the end, Abd al-Kader's cause finally failed. All his territory was occupied by the French army, and he himself had to go into exile, but he was defeated gloriously.
The struggle he led lasted for 15 years from 1832 to 1847. It repeatedly dealt heavy blows to the French colonial forces and seriously delayed France's occupation of Algeria.
In the protracted war, the French army naturally suffered heavy casualties, with tens of thousands of casualties. It is no exaggeration to say that it is another "Spain".
Of course, Marshal Moncey could not see what happened next, but he was gradually shaken by the words of Marquis Treville.
The term Spain touched him so much that he didn't want to experience it again.
Therefore, facing the eager look of the Marquis, the Marshal could not bear to say the words of rejection again.
Should we be more decisive and nip problems in the bud? At least expand the occupied area and prepare for the next war?
"Well, Victor, if you want a reconnaissance mission, I'll give you that."
Finally, after thinking for a moment, he whispered.
(End of chapter)
