Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 542: Nothing goes as planned
Philip was a scholar before he traveled through time, and although he is still growing after more than 20 years, at least when facing failure and setbacks, the willpower he showed is far inferior to Rudolph's.
Fortunately, Tilly was by his side. As a veteran, the Count had a very strong will: in this historical plane, he was defeated by Gustav so many times, but he always got up and fought again, until he died of his injuries, and he never gave up.
Therefore, under Tilly's guidance, Philip recovered quickly after a brief loss of composure: That's right, let alone the European Union, the national strength of Spain alone was far greater than that of the Ottoman Empire at that time, isn't it just a big defeat? It's no big deal. The so-called crisis is an opportunity in danger. According to Tilly's analysis, this big defeat may not be the beginning of a new victory.
Of course, Tilly was just a professional soldier who basically only knew how to fight. In the eyes of Philip, who had recovered, military adjustments could certainly be made according to what Tilly said, but there was still a lot of room for improvement in politics and propaganda.
After Tilly obtained his warrant and led a guard to the Balkan Peninsula, he gave several orders in succession after careful consideration.
First, write to the Asturias laboratory in the country to liberalize the production of mortars, light machine guns and submachine guns.
Secondly, he ordered the two guard divisions in the country to transfer one to Rome. When Rudolf was alive, he and Rudolf had a tacit understanding: the personnel rights of the army belonged to Rudolf, and the personnel rights of the navy belonged to him. However, he prepared a backup plan from the beginning: the navy had two regiments of marines. After Rudolf's sudden death, he formed two guard divisions with these two regiments as the backbone. The equipment of these two guard divisions is the strongest of this era: 75mm breech-loading guns, heavy machine guns and so on. There are also mortars, light machine guns, and submachine guns, but after all, they are not mass-produced, so the equipment rate of these three weapons in these two divisions is not very high. But in any case, when it comes to desperate times, there is no problem in concentrating these weapons and breaking through the enemy's trenches.
Moreover, compared with other new army divisions, the biggest feature of these two divisions is that when the officers and soldiers of the Guards Division go to the battlefield, their helmets are all steel helmets!
In terms of the officer-soldiers structure, all soldiers were pure Castilians, and officers were almost all second sons or illegitimate sons of minor nobles. These people could not inherit the family business, but they were well educated. Their basic quality and loyalty were not a problem at all.
Of course, transferring this division to Rome did not mean sending them to Alexandria: this division was not prepared for the Ottomans.
The third order was given to Osvalles, who was serving as the captain of the gendarmerie in the Balkan Peninsula: "Our army has suffered a great defeat and the northern line needs to be adjusted. Therefore, we will not supervise discipline. Please close the net on the Venetians quickly. We have suffered a great defeat in Jerusalem this time and need someone to take the blame."
Those Venetians who were in charge of our military logistics and transportation have embezzled a lot of military supplies in the past six months. It is also said that they have been secretly connected with the Ottomans and have repeatedly encouraged our army to attack Jerusalem. Aren't these guys the best scapegoats? Throwing the responsibility of the defeat to them can effectively maintain our prestige. We can also take advantage of this opportunity to plunder the Republic of Venice and make up for our astonishing military expenditures in the past six months.
As the Venetians who "will sell anything for the right price", they have a very bad reputation in Europe at this time! It is because the Republic of Venice itself has considerable military power, and European countries are restraining each other, so they can't do anything about them for the time being. And now Philip has thrown such a big blame on them, and then approached Venice with the best-equipped guard division. In this situation, the whole of Europe will be jubilant, and no country will stand up to speak for them.
In this way, he can get away with it in public opinion: Yes, we failed in Jerusalem, but the fundamental reason for the failure is not how powerful the enemy is, but that the Venetians habitually betrayed the Lord and sold out the holy warriors. Otherwise, how could our invincible holy warriors fail? Of course, as the leader of the alliance, I did not discover the problem of Venice in advance, and this is responsible. In order to make up for this mistake, I will completely wipe out this republic!
Well, find someone to take the blame, and then raid his house and make a fortune. This arrangement is perfect!
The fourth order was that Philip was going to take advantage of this defeat to further strengthen the census throughout the European Union and establish a compulsory military service system: Everyone, listen carefully, the holy war is not so easy to fight. The war with the Ottomans is inevitably prolonged. At this moment, every believer of the Lord must be prepared to devote himself to the Lord's cause. Therefore, on the basis of the census, the whole nation will further establish a complete household registration system. In the future, when the alliance fights foreign wars, it will rely on household registration for conscription. What? You don't cooperate? You are not a believer of the Lord, right? We in Spain have a traditional advantage in dealing with pagans!
After issuing these four orders in succession, Philip, who had calmed down a lot, sat down and began to prepare to write an article himself: At this time of great defeat, as the leader of the alliance, I must stand up and take some responsibility, take advantage of the situation to guide public opinion and boost morale.
However, the article had not been finalized yet, and was only a rough draft, and had not yet been published. On the 16th, new news came, which made Philip feel as sick as if he had swallowed a fly.
The latest news from Jerusalem: The Ottomans, along with the Persians, Arabs, and Chinese, have all withdrawn from Jerusalem!
By the way, in the end, the Ottomans suffered heavy losses in the counterattack that began in the early morning of the 5th: of the 10,000 Persian cavalrymen who served as the vanguard, only more than 1,000 were left after the war, and not only were all of them injured, but almost all of their horses were dead.
Since the Spaniards were constantly trying to reorganize their counterattacks in the three days after the 5th, the pursuing Ottoman infantry also suffered casualties. According to statistics after the war, more than 8,000 of the 60,000 infantrymen who participated in the battle were killed, and more than 10,000 were injured.
Of course, the casualties were huge, but the results were also brilliant: the entire Spanish Maurice Corps had eight divisions, 120,000 people. In addition to the early losses, in the three days from the 5th to the 7th, a total of more than 30,000 people were killed and nearly 50,000 were captured (including a large number of Spanish wounded soldiers)!
At dusk on the 7th, there were only 17,000 Spanish soldiers who followed Maurice into Gaza City , but in the following days, several thousand more arrived. In short, there were more than 20,000 Spanish troops gathered in Gaza City, and they could also get the cover of naval guns.
As a result, Richelieu and his men found it very difficult: on the west side, there were more than 20,000 enemy troops in Gaza City, which was difficult to capture for a while. On the east side, there were more than 20,000 enemy troops in Jerusalem, which was also very difficult to capture. After a series of battles, the Richelieu Legion was reduced from a full force of 100,000 at the beginning to less than 60,000 combat-ready soldiers (more than 30,000 were killed and the rest were seriously injured).
Therefore, after discussing with the generals and pashas below, Richelieu decided: I don't want Jerusalem. Anyway, for the Crescent Moon Church, Jerusalem is only the third holy place after Mecca and Medina. Its significance to the Crescent Moon Church is far less important than that of the Christians. On the contrary, I will leave Jerusalem to you, and you must station heavy troops here to guard it. In this way , it can be regarded as a part of your power.
Therefore, after the battle that day, Richelieu and others gathered their troops, sent cavalry to the Sinai Peninsula to search for the remains of Ming soldiers as promised, and sent officers to negotiate prisoner exchange with Spain, and then led the main force to retreat northward with the Spanish prisoners who could walk. The next goal of this army was exactly what Count Tilly analyzed: go to Asia Minor, and then, relying on the Ottomans who still controlled the Black Sea, land on the east side of the Balkan Peninsula and attack the rear of Gustav and Wallenstein.
Richelieu's arrangement was correct: without the Mediterranean Sea supremacy, Alexandria was a dead end, and would be lost sooner or later, with no way to save it. At least now they had so many Spanish prisoners, and even if Alexandria surrendered, they could still get the defenders back. And if they could defeat the EU troops on the northern front, the situation of the war would be completely reversed.
He arranged it this way, but Philip felt uncomfortable: not militarily, but politically.
Because of Richelieu's retreat, Coutinho became famous: he remained unmoved in the encirclement of 100,000 enemy troops, and still held the Holy City after his own reinforcements were defeated, and finally forced the enemy to withdraw! How do you suppress such a world-famous general?
Therefore, although he knew that Coutinho had ulterior motives, Philip had to hold back his disgust and gave Coutinho and others the title of "Restorers of the Holy City". He also promoted Coutinho and Fernando, the two division commanders, to lieutenant generals and conferred them the title of viscounts...
In short, the Battle of Jerusalem, which exhausted the commanders of both sides, ended here, and the war between the EU and the Ottoman Empire entered a new stage.
