Chapter 57 The Battle of Arnhem (please follow up)
It would obviously be much more comfortable to fight with the Duke of Swabia.
I don't know whether it was due to his strong record before or Otto's financial offensive. During the march, he was not asked to do any dirty work by the Duke of Swabia.
In this way, we arrived in East Friesland smoothly.
Although there were troops defending the northeastern part of the Kingdom of Lotharingia, their numbers were small and their combat effectiveness was not strong. Facing the 15,000-strong army led by the Duke of Swabia, they basically did not put up any decent resistance.
When the Duke of Swabia's army advanced to the vicinity of Arnhem and was approaching the Netherlands Counties, they encountered a sniper attack by the 20,000 Lotharingian army led by the Count of Arnhem.
After all, the Dutch Duchy is behind them, and there is no way to retreat.
This time, both sides were the main force, and even the Duke of Swabia did not dare to be careless.
Otto saw many familiar flags from the Count of Arnhem's army, such as the flag of the Count of Neuchâtel, the flag of the Count of Sundegaard, etc.
Perhaps, this is the few mobile troops the Duke of the Netherlands has at his disposal.
After all, the Kingdom of Lotharingia itself is not as powerful as the Kingdom of East and West Frankia, and there are many nobles at both ends. It can not assemble many troops, and it still has to defend several important towns. Does the Duke of the Netherlands still have five troops?
A universal army is not necessarily available.
This is still based on the fact that the Principality of the Netherlands itself is powerful and extremely wealthy, and it uses Laman. Otherwise, it would not be surprising to say that the 20,000 people in front of it are the final main force of the Duke of the Netherlands.
After the Duke of Swabia launched several tentative attacks, at the end of April, the main forces of both sides fought fiercely in the forest east of Arnhem. Since the gap between the generals of the two sides was not large and the soldiers were all elite, the battle situation was very tense for a time.
The battle lasted from noon to the afternoon. When the sun set and the sunset appeared, the two sides were about to lead their troops to retreat regardless of the outcome. The Duke of the Netherlands personally arrived with 10,000 fresh troops, which broke the balance of the battlefield.
When he saw the opponent's reinforcements, Wade, who was already furious, calmed down instantly.
"Master, our army is defeated, retreat quickly."
When Otto saw the Duke of the Netherlands, he also understood that the situation was over. Without further delay, he quickly gathered his troops and became one of the first nobles to flee from the battlefield.
The fastest one was not Otto, but the Duke of Swabia. After all, he was commanding the overall situation from behind.
When he saw the Duke of the Netherlands personally leading his troops, he knew that the battle was destined to be lost. After decisively issuing the order to withdraw, he ran away first.
On the battlefield of fierce fighting, what does the commander's retreat mean? It means that the morale of the entire army is shaken.
When they saw the flag representing the Duke of Swabia retreating first, the soldiers of the East Frankish Kingdom quickly panicked, and the retreat turned into a rout.
Soon, the situation on the battlefield was completely out of control. Even if the nobles wanted to control the army, they found that they couldn't do it.
The nobles sadly discovered that now they could only run away.
The price for the nobles' escape was that the East Frankish Kingdom's army on the battlefield no longer had any resistance, and it completely turned into a massacre.
From the moment the Duke of the Netherlands appeared with his troops to the time when the army of the East Frankish Kingdom was defeated, it happened in an instant.
Things are like this on the battlefield, no one knows what will happen in the next second.
Otto looked back at the purgatory-like battlefield and couldn't help but smile bitterly and shake his head. He clamped his legs tightly on the horse's belly to make the horse run faster under its buttocks.
In war, there are winners and losers, and no one can guarantee victory all the time.
It's just that the losses this time were a bit heavy. Even though Wade responded quickly, more than half of Otto's soldiers from the territory were lost.
Fortunately, his subordinates were all cavalry, otherwise it would not be impossible for the entire army to be annihilated. When defeated, the power of the defeated army is no joke.
After defeating the army of the Kingdom of East Francia, the Duke of the Netherlands did not give in when the situation was good. Instead, he led his army to pursue them for nearly a hundred miles, causing Otto and a group of nobles of the Kingdom of East Francia to suffer miserably.
After running for a few days, the Duke of the Netherlands was sure that the Duke of Swabia and his troops could no longer gather together, so he retreated with his money.
At this time, there were less than two hundred troops following Otto, most of them were "quasi-knights", and very few ordinary soldiers were left alive.
Otto didn't even have a good meal because of his escape. He was really tired and hungry. After hearing that the pursuers had left, he breathed a sigh of relief and took the soldiers to find a woodland to rest.
Just as the attendants brought water and food from nearby villages, they discovered that Otto himself had fallen asleep leaning against a tree.
Everyone looked at each other, looking at their embarrassed looks, relatively speechless.
Otto was woken up by the aroma of barbecue and his hungry stomach. When he woke up, he found that several nobles who had also escaped had gathered near the woodland.
After everyone chatted and shared some food, Otto asked the key question.
"How is the Duke doing? Where is he now?"
In Otto's memory, he did not know the specific process of this war. He only knew that in the end, the Kingdom of East and West Frankia divided the territory of the Kingdom of Lotharingia.
Therefore, Otto naively thought that there was no danger in participating in this war, and it was just a matter of gaining military merit and reputation.
It wasn't until this defeat that Otto realized that this was not a game, nor was this history, this was the real world, and no one could guarantee what would happen in the next second.
Even if the Duke of Swabia later unified the Carolingian Kingdom again, even if he had the aura of the protagonist, he would still fail and die on the battlefield.
If a person is killed, he will die!
At this moment, Otto no longer had the idea of playing games in his heart, and he became much more cautious.
What he is most concerned about is the safety of the Duke of Swabia. This is his biggest asset in the future. It would be interesting if he died like this.
Unfortunately, Otto could not hear the answer he wanted from the mouths of several other nobles.
Like Otto, they all only cared about escaping, not caring about where the Duke of Swabia had gone.
Now that it's safe, it's time to find the Duke.
Several people walked together, barely enough to form a team of 500 people, and searched for traces of the Duke of Swabia along the northeast direction.
Soon, several people knew where the Duke of Swabia was and joined him.
Compared to the tragic situation of other nobles, the situation of the Duke of Swabia was much better. As the first Duke to escape and escape with his elite bodyguards, his escape process can be said to have gone smoothly.
Not only was there delicious food and drink along the way, but there were also many nobles at the rear who helped him block the pursuers.
In this way, he ran all the way to a castle in Groningen, where he left a thousand garrison.
After entering the castle and having an army in hand, the Duke of Swabia felt a lot more at ease and began to send out cavalry to collect the remaining soldiers.
By the time Otto and others arrived, the Duke of Swabia had gathered about two thousand troops in the castle, almost all of them nobles and their guards.
The Duke of Swabia, who was enjoying a sumptuous lunch, seemed very happy when he saw Otto.
"Ah, Baron Otto, God bless you, it's great that you are still alive, but you don't look too good. It seems that you have suffered a lot along the way. It doesn't matter. The days of fear are over.
Already.
I have notified my brother and the Principality of Swabia that reinforcements will arrive soon, and I will lead you and everyone to defeat the Dutch Duke and wash away the shame of this defeat!"