Chapter 899 This is not Sparta
city of venice.
Franz calculated that the 180,000 troops that could be mobilized at this time already accounted for one-third of the total strength of the Austrian Imperial Army.
After completing the internal cleaning, he finally got rid of the shackles of the great nobles in the country for the first time.
Although Albrecht and Friedrich are also great nobles, at least they don't have the idea of being moths yet.
At least one-third of the so-called Italian coalition has fled. After all, after losing the banner of the Pope, the appeal of nationalism does not seem to be that strong.
This is still under the premise that La Boer adopts tough control methods. If it were not for the deterrence of severe punishments, the Italian coalition at this time may no longer exist.
But even so, with a lack of weapons and supplies, their morale was extremely low. Now Lapore occupies the dangerous Hukou terrain, so it can barely hold on.
In fact, Albrecht had already found a way to break through, but Franz felt that no matter how exciting the performance was without an audience, it lacked a little bit of feeling.
The audience Franz was referring to was, of course, Pius IX. Although he himself did not understand military matters, his advisers told him so.
At this time, the terrain occupied by La Boer was like Thermopylae. The Spartans used only three hundred warriors to withstand the attack of the Persian army of one million.
This greatly shocked Pius IX. You must know that the traitor Lapore was the party with more people at this time.
In fact, behind the so-called three hundred warriors were more than five thousand servants and coalition forces from other countries, and the Persians were far from millions.
"Dear Archduke Franz. How many men do you plan to use to attack the Bereny Valley?"
Pius IX pretended to be calm, but his twitching lips and trembling hands could not deceive others.
The Pope's acting ability is really poor, but Franz still has to try his best to cooperate and pretend not to notice.
"His Majesty the Pope, there are still remnants of bandits operating in the Venetian region at this time. We still need some troops to maintain order."
"Dear Archduke Franz, I hope you know that there are still hundreds of thousands of enemies, and they occupy a favorable terrain.
And those treacherous people in Rome are persecuting innocent people. I hope you can take back the Holy City as soon as possible.
Can you tell me the total force you can mobilize now? "
It was a bit difficult for Pius IX to describe and call Franz, a child under the age of eighteen, with "respectful" and "you", but he still did so, which shows that he was really at the end of his rope.
"fifty thousand."
Franz answered simply.
"Is it too little?"
This was completely different from what Pius IX had in mind, but he still thought of the raid on Rome from the sea that Stefan Capella mentioned before.
"Is Austria going to attack Rome from the sea? What about the traitor Rapole?"
"No, Your Majesty the Pope. The Austrian Imperial Navy will not participate in this operation. We will directly defeat Lapore's rebels from the front and liberate the Holy City."
Pius IX and his advisers stared closely at Franz, hoping that this was just a bad joke.
But Franz looked very serious, and they all began to doubt the correctness of coming to Venice to seek help from Austria.
But in fact, except for Austria, Pius IX had no place to send reinforcements at this time. There were only a few Catholic powers on the European continent.
Spain had no time to take care of itself, and the French provisional government came to power. When they started a revolution, they even beheaded their own king, let alone the foreign pope.
After excluding France and Spain, Austria became the only option.
In fact, there was originally Naples, but at this time Fernando II also sent troops to participate in the "Holy War", and he also formed a liberal government.
Pius IX was afraid that the same thing would happen to Naples as in the Papal States, so he did not go to Naples first as historically.
Now Austria has sent such a young archduke. Although the world thinks highly of him, in the opinion of Pius IX, this child is probably a fool. He can only lament his bad luck.
In the reverse battle of Thermopylae with 50,000 people versus 150,000 people, Pius IX really didn't know how Austria was going to win this war.
However, when he arrived at the battlefield, he realized that what he saw was beyond his imagination.
Lapore's army defended the Hukou terrain. No matter how many people there were on the attacking side, the number of troops fighting the other side at the same time could not exceed 2,000.
On the other side of the pot mouth is a fan, where the defender can deploy several times the offensive force and firepower.
No matter how you look at it, Austria, as the attacking party, will be crushed by an absolute disadvantage. Even if it wins the final victory, the casualties must be astronomical.
LaBoer thinks the same. He just hopes that more people can be buried with him.
For some reason La Boer thought of a country called Qin in the far east, and the first king of that country created an underground army for himself.
"Maybe he thinks so too."
Lapore said to himself, he couldn't help but feel a little sympathy for the emperor who was thousands of miles away and thousands of years apart.
"Damn Austria, damn the Pope, damn Italy, go to hell!"
Lapore cursed and drove the soldiers toward their positions with a crack of his whip.
The geology in the mountainous areas of Central Italy is very hard and not suitable for digging, but Lapore couldn't care less. He just wanted to dig a trench, and no one could stop him.
But the soldier in front of him suddenly stopped and didn't react even if the whip hit him. He just looked straight towards the sky.
"Damn it! Sluggard!"
Lapore cursed and looked up. He was so surprised that he couldn't close his mouth.
A huge oval-shaped monster was floating in the sky. It had no wings or feathers, but it could fly in the air, and fire would shoot out from behind its butt.
"Oh my God! Oh God! What a monster that is!"
At this moment, all the soldiers of the original Italian coalition exclaimed that this was the first time they had seen such a huge aircraft.
When there was no concept of aircraft before, one can imagine the shock when seeing an airship for the first time.
Some people were so scared that they urinated, some tried to bury their heads in the soil so that they might not be discovered by the monsters in the sky, and some knelt down to pray. They always like to connect unknown things with gods.
Lapore was so frightened that he collapsed to the ground and kept making the famous cross on his chest, as if someone would come to protect him.
But this novel thing can also arouse the curiosity of some people, and they find that there is someone in the monster's "belly".
"Look! There's someone! There's someone! That's a person!"
As the first airship soldiers of the Austrian Empire, they were very proud. Especially when they saw the crowd of people looking up below, they really felt like they had become gods.
It's just that they were playing the God of Destruction, and a barrel was pushed off the airship.
Then a loud bang resounded in the valley, and sawdust, smoke, and minced meat flew everywhere.
"This is not Sparta."