French Empire: But Napoleon IV

Chapter 58 Training Issues, Accelerating Training Progress

On August 18, inside the Versailles Fortress in Paris, a formation of new recruits from the 8th Army were doing their morning exercises.

The newly formed 14th Army, with its assembled recruits, and the shouts of battle that echoed during their training reverberated throughout the fortress built during the reign of Louis XIV.

11000 new recruits, dressed in their newly issued blue and white uniforms, practiced bayonet techniques repeatedly under the reprimands of 1100 veterans from the 13th Army who had been assigned to them.

In the sweltering summer, the drills were truly grueling. Sweat streamed down their tanned faces, soaking their shirts, and the ground beneath their feet was turned into mud.

In preparation for the upcoming battles, the army spared no expense in training its troops, leaving broken wooden bayonets and empty bullet casings scattered throughout the training grounds.

After the 13th Army was split up, half of the veterans remained, so Conrobel, who was not too worried about the fighting capacity, stood on the main reviewing stand of the fortress. After all, the 14th and 15th Armies were obviously more worrying than the 13th Army.

The French marshal held a bronze telescope in his hand, his brow furrowed in a frown.

Beside him, Eugene was also dressed in a crisp dark blue officer's uniform, his boots covered in mud from the training camp, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

At the end of July, he didn't have dark circles under his eyes that even foundation couldn't cover. Now, his dark circles have become so thick that they look like two big bags hanging on his eye sockets.

Eugene didn't care about this at all. He just needed to persevere and endure it. Everything would be clear by September. Now was the final sprint stage, and he couldn't afford to be careless.

In order to quickly assemble a sufficiently elite force, Eugene has been sleeping only six hours a day for the past few days. This is extremely sleep-deprived for a child who is still developing, especially considering his high level of physical activity during the day.

As for his exercise, it mainly involved running around various districts of Paris. Apart from distributing bread to the public as usual, he would take turns running between the three main camps of Versailles, Saint-Denis, and Meudon.

Although not overly worried, Eugene was concerned that the overwhelming public opinion that might arise in September could potentially shake the military.

Therefore, Eugene needs to quickly deepen the soldiers' loyalty to the army and ensure sufficient control over this rapidly expanding force.

"Your Highness, it's more troublesome than we anticipated."

Unaware of what Eugène was thinking, Conrobel put down his binoculars. This legion commander had historically been able to fight the Prussian army head-on and withstand their attacks.

Although his command skills are average, he has strong execution abilities, as I said before. However, the current situation is beyond what Cornelius can solve with just execution and loyalty.

The marshal spoke with a sense of helplessness, explaining that this expansion of the army was different from previous replenishments, where retired veterans from Paris could be recruited to fill the positions.

This time, due to the large scale of the military expansion, a large number of the young men who were incorporated into the army were people who had never touched a gun before.

Cornelius was not Moltke, nor was he the kind of German general who was good at training troops and could quickly deploy them. He was a general who excelled only in execution and loyalty, but did not have outstanding talent in training troops.

"Of these new recruits, 70% were farmers and workers who had never touched a gun before, and the remaining 30% were shop assistants and apprentices from Paris."

Yesterday was the third live-fire exercise, and the hit rate on the 100-meter target was less than 40%. Seven people had their shoulders dislocated by the recoil of the Chassepot rifle, and two others were so frightened that they threw their rifles away.

Just yesterday, the soldiers of the 14th Army had already completed their third day of live-fire training, but the results were still dismal.

When reporting to Eugène, Conrober felt a faint sense of shame. Fortunately, Eugène was not angry; the prince simply nodded to indicate that he understood.

Despite not being angry, Eugène, with no more people available, could only try his best to push Conrobel forward.

"I know, but the Prussian army won't wait for us. Today's frontline telegrams say that the Prussian army has completed the encirclement of Metz. McMahon's Challenger Corps can't hold off the Prussians along the Meuse River. In twenty days at most, I think the Prussian army will appear on the outskirts of Paris."

Eugène paused, and after confirming that Conrobel had taken his words to heart, he tapped the stone railing of the reviewing stand a few times with his fingers.

Training was manageable before, but now the number of soldiers has indeed increased. Looking at it this way, I still need to refine the requirements as much as possible, reduce the burden on the soldiers, and strengthen the training with a focus on key areas.

It's quite funny, really. The French reserve force has always emphasized drills and parades, but neglected shooting and individual combat.

This resulted in the Paris Army not improving its combat effectiveness much despite filling its reserves, as evidenced by its 100-meter shooting accuracy.

"I don't want them to be able to confront the Prussian regular army head-on right now. I just want them to be able to hold the trenches, know how to fire a gun, and understand orders."

The training content has been completely simplified. Drill and etiquette training have been eliminated; all time will be devoted to practicing shooting, bayonet fighting, and trench tactics. From today onward, every recruit must fire at least twenty rounds of live ammunition daily, with at least two hours of bayonet training…”

They practiced reloading rhythm with blank ammunition, abandoning line formations and training the French army with skirmish lines and platoon maneuvers, thus adapting to the Prussian army's rhythm, strengthening field endurance, and training non-commissioned officers' ability to temporarily take command.

Eugene emphasized a lot, but in practice, it didn't actually put much of a burden on the soldiers.

The main focus is on rapidly forming an army, enabling soldiers to quickly develop combat capabilities, and strengthening the army's ability to quickly complete command handover after officers are killed in action.

Camrobel's command ability was not strong. French senior officers were generally inferior to Prussian senior officers because they had never commanded large-scale operations.

Then let's just decentralize the power and let the French mid-to-lower-level officers, who are often in battle at the regimental and divisional levels and have extensive combat experience, make the decisions.

Prussian sergeants can independently command their squads to conduct flanking maneuvers, while French officers must give orders. Now, Eugène Jean is training the French army in the same way as the Prussian army.

Although the French soldiers were certainly not as skilled as the Prussian soldiers who had been trained in this way for a long time, the French Chassepot rifle could make up for this disadvantage in small-scale battles.

Aside from this, Eugène also demanded that officers be prohibited from simply sitting in their tents and giving orders, and that battalion and company-level officers be required to participate in training, shooting, and marching, so that junior and middle-ranking officers could become familiar with the situation of their soldiers and make better judgments.

Even if we cut out the clichés and focus more on practicality, it still takes at least one to two months for an army to be formed.

Unfortunately, the French army didn't have that much time. Even if the Xia Long Legion could resist for another ten days, the Paris Legion would only have about a month to train.

Ideally, Eugene might be able to build a more organized legion; otherwise...