xymnovel Chapter 108 The Battle of Cooks 15
Chapter 108 The Battle of Cooks 15
Chapter 108 The Battle of Cooks 15
After weighing the pros and cons, no one in the command center raised any further objections.
Compared to the grievances among the people in a single city or region, the complete annihilation of the army would be a truly devastating disaster.
Colonel Decken immediately felt relieved and promptly mobilized the garrisoned military police in the city, dividing them into two groups to fully implement the order for timber requisition.
The first group headed straight for the commercial warehouses in the Cuxhaven port area.
This area was stockpiled with logs, shaped square timber, shipbuilding scraps, and various building materials by local merchants, making it the most concentrated area of timber in the entire port. Faced with heavily armed soldiers, all the merchants' resistance was meaningless.
However, instead of directly robbing them, Decken adopted the wartime requisition system, issuing standardized IOUs to each merchant in the name of the British Army.
The white slips indicated the quantity of timber requisitioned and its market value, promising that the British Treasury would settle and pay compensation after the war.
Although the merchants were dissatisfied, they felt that obtaining an official certificate was the best outcome compared to being forcibly conscripted, so they had no choice but to accept the conscription.
Even so, there is still a huge shortage of timber in the port area, far from enough to make thousands of sets of mud.
Deken then activated the second plan.
Another group, consisting of military police and engineering squads, dispersed to the inner and outer walls of Cooksport to prioritize the demolition of abandoned residences.
The abandoned wooden house fences, old warehouses, and rural wooden bridges were later requisitioned from ordinary civilians for surplus wooden ancillary buildings.
In an instant, the sounds of hammers striking and wooden beams breaking filled the entire city.
Many ordinary people watched helplessly as their livestock sheds and storage huts were demolished one by one, causing widespread resentment and constant complaints in the streets and alleys.
Large quantities of timber were continuously being collected at the temporary workshops in the city. Ken, who was in charge of coordinating logistics, also went all out, recruiting carpenters and carpentry apprentices from all over Cuxhaven, dividing them into teams, implementing a two-shift system, and working through the night to make mud sleds.
This mud sled, modeled after the tools used by peat farmers on mudflats, has a simple structure and no complicated processes. It only requires solid wood to be sanded into a smooth, long board with slightly upturned ends. It is lightweight, sturdy, and has sufficient buoyancy, allowing it to be operated by a single person.
You can glide through shallow mud, puddles, and shallow swamps.
During the three days that Dugan was busy preparing the mud sled in Cooks, the fighting never stopped at the Blexen Marsh Pass on the west side.
After receiving Bernardot's order to attack at all costs, Lacour, like a raging beast trapped in a cage, launched five large-scale attacks on the Blexen Swamp Pass without regard for the consequences.
The brigadier general was completely consumed by anxiety and paranoia. He stopped thinking about tactics or strategies and instead issued the simplest and most brutal orders: to tear through the British defenses with lives and teeth.
The remaining three infantry companies took turns, imitating the sappers' demolition methods. The soldiers, with their bare hands and under the threat of Baker rifles, braved a hail of bullets to dig out the remaining scattered barbed wire stakes.
Von Altenberg and Halkert were completely unaffected by the French.
Relying on the perfect cover of their outposts and their absolute advantage of a 200-yard firing range, they kept French soldiers perpetually exposed to one-sided hunting.
The narrow passages through the swamp meant that every French charge ended in a humiliating retreat amidst a field of corpses.
In three days and five battles, the French army suffered nearly a thousand casualties.
The field hospital was filled with the cries of the wounded. Some French soldiers, who were not killed by the British, sank into the swamp and became part of the mud.
Even after paying such a heavy price, the French army still failed to breach the British's Brooksham Pass.
The heavy casualties severely damaged the morale of the French army.
French soldiers were growing weary of war, junior officers were avoiding combat, and everyone was terrified of this life-threatening swamp pass.
Lakul, however, continued to urge his soldiers to attack.
With morale low, large-scale desertion began to proliferate.
Every night, groups of soldiers would scale the camp fence together, avoid the lax sentries, and venture into the dark swamps and wilderness, attempting to escape this death prison.
At first, it was only a few Dutch recruits who deserted, but later even some French veterans chose to take the risk and escape from the camp.
Enraged, Lakul set up a makeshift gallows outside the camp to deter deserters and restore military discipline. Any deserter captured was immediately hanged without a military court trial, as a warning to others.
Lakul even coldly wrote the following line in his private diary: "I hang at least thirty deserters every day to intimidate the cowards and maintain the military discipline that is on the verge of collapse."
However, the bloody and severe punishments not only failed to deter the soldiers, but also exacerbated the resentment throughout the army, and the morale of the French army continued to decline at a visible rate.
On July 3, a hussar scout brought crucial new military intelligence.
Bernardo da Vinci's main force of 16,000 French troops has arrived in Rothenburg.
The news sent a heavy message through the command center, instantly creating a tense atmosphere.
Dugan walked up to the sand table, his gaze shifting back and forth between the Blexen Marsh Pass and Rothenburg.
"How many days does it take to get from Rothenburg to the Blexen Marsh Pass?"
Colonel Decken replied, "At least three days, or two days if we're marching at full speed."
Dugan nodded and said, "If Bernardot is taking this route, it doesn't seem like he intends to support Lacour."
.
Dugan waved his hand and said, "Order: The 1st Light Infantry Brigade of Von Alten, the 3rd Infantry Brigade of Derryberg, the Longwater Infantry Brigade, plus the 3rd Hussars Regiment and the 10th Hussars Regiment, totaling 5,142 officers and men, will all be equipped with mud sleds. The entire army will depart this afternoon, cross the shallow swamp, bypass the main pass of Blexen, and strike directly at the rear of Lakul's encampment."
"Yes, General!"
Officers at all levels accepted the order in unison and rushed back to their respective units to assemble their forces.
In the afternoon, thousands of polished mud sleds were distributed to the soldiers.
More than 5,000 Allied soldiers dispersed into the shallow mudflats on the outer edge of the swamp, each man on a sled, crouching low and gliding silently into the vast peat bog.
The smooth wooden sleds glided through the soft mud, without the sound of hurried footsteps, only the soft crunching of planks against the silt. The massive army of thousands was perfectly concealed among the swamp mist and wild grass.
About two hours later, as the sun set, the French began preparing dinner.
After days of bloody battles and high-pressure rectification, the entire army was exhausted, and everyone was deeply complacent.
Most soldiers either lay down to rest and recover from their injuries, or gathered in groups to chat and kill time.
The forward sentries rigidly guarded only the direction of the Blexen Pass, but even so, they did not stand guard seriously, instead gathering in twos and threes to chat.
Although mobile sentry posts and hidden sentry posts were also set up on the flanks and rear of the main camp, they were practically useless.
The first to launch an attack was von Altien's light infantry brigade.
Hundreds of light infantrymen equipped with Baker rifles rode in mud sleds and stealthily approached the outskirts of the French temporary command post, launching a surprise attack under cover of darkness.
A series of short, precise gunshots rang out suddenly, and the French guards on duty fell to the ground before they could even raise their weapons.
Chaos instantly engulfed the entire camp.
The French soldiers had no idea where the enemy came from, and could only scatter and flee blindly, causing their already low morale to collapse completely.
"Victory and honor!"
Following closely behind, two German hussar regiments seized the opportunity, bypassed the chaotic infantry battle zone, and headed straight for the French rear heavy camp.
The cavalry abandoned their horses and boarded mud sleds, using the cover of night to break through the logistical defenses and ignite the prepared incendiary materials.
The towering flames instantly illuminated the entire swamp, and all the food, ammunition, medicine, and spare weapons were engulfed in flames.
The already exhausted French troops, without command and supplies, abandoned their resistance and fled in groups into the depths of the swamp. Most of them were eventually trapped in the mud and had no choice but to surrender.
Lakul remained calm. He straightened his uniform, put on his cap, and with his sword at his waist, stood quietly at the entrance of his command post with the few officers he had left. They awaited their fate.
The first to reach the Lacour command post was Augustus Hunstein, commander of the 6th Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Brigade of the German Army.
The young major pushed aside the surrounding soldiers and slowly walked up to Lakul, whose face was ashen.
Augustus Hunstein raised his hand, signaling the soldiers to put away their rifles.
"Brigadier General Lakul, your troops have been completely annihilated. Now, please lay down your sword and surrender formally."
Lacour's lips twitched, and he gave a signal to his adjutant beside him. The adjutant unfastened Lacour's sword and handed it to Augustus Honstädter with both hands.
"We formally surrender to you."
Augustus Hunstedt took the sword, handed it to the soldier, and then said loudly, "Brigadier General Lacour, you and your officers will be treated as equals. However, you will remain in prisoner-of-war camps until your emperor pays your ransom or the war ends."