Descending On France 1780
Chapter 160 - 153 Go ahead and declare war, God’s War!

Chapter 160: 153 Go ahead and declare war, God’s War!

On October 15th, news finally came from the north: General Bouyé began his march towards Paris.

Anning was delighted upon receiving this news, believing that Leopold II would soon declare war.

However, after waiting for several days, there was no action from Leopold II.

Anning had already ordered the troops to prepare for an advance to Italy, just waiting for the declaration of war to confront Austria’s Marshal Boliue.

But even as Bouyé advanced to Verdun, the Holy Roman Emperor had not yet declared war, and Anning paced back and forth in front of the map daily, thinking, "What are you doing, Leopold II? Hurry up with the God’s War, how much longer must we wait?"

Every day from Paris came several letters, urging Anning to quickly head north to defend Paris.

Anning was in a difficult position. Without a declaration of war from the Holy Roman Empire, marching into Italy would be tantamount to an undeclared war, dishonorable.

If he headed north, and war was declared halfway through, that would be embarrassing. Heading north meant facing the forces of Bouyé and Austria with only thirty thousand men.

Besides, heading north offered no pay; there was no money for blood transfusions to allow Lazar Kano to recruit soldiers; Anning could only fight with these thirty thousand men to the end.

During Anning’s hesitation, several officers who came to pledge allegiance to Anning brought back the latest news from Paris: Paris was mobilizing, and the revolutionary Parisians, refusing the already treacherous Royal Family’s return to Paris, were enlisting en masse.

Some bankers, worried about the possibility of a Royalist restoration settling old scores, funded the National Assembly, providing the troops with fairly substantial military salaries.

The number of the Paris National Guard had expanded to over eighty thousand.

A few days after this news arrived, more news followed: the French Army, led by Demure, had defeated Bouyé’s Royalist Army at Verdun and inflicted heavy casualties during the pursuit.

The letters pleading for help from Paris stopped all at once, and a few days later, new news came through: Demure had received an award and was promoted to Vice Admiral—a title of honor.

Messages kept coming in quick succession. Paris’s National Assembly fired up its propaganda machine, apparently aiming to promote Demure as a "French War God" on par with Anning.

General Bouyé, together with the remnants of his forces, had fled across the national border, taking Louis XVI and the Queen into exile in Austria.

All this time, Leopold II still had not declared war.

Anning could only sullenly lie low in Southern France.

Aside from reviewing various intelligence reports, his daily activities included visiting the engineers and scientists he had recruited to observe their work on the steam engine.

After all, it was only half a century until the completion of the First Industrial Revolution in 1840; many of the foundational technologies of the Industrial Revolution had already surfaced, and most of the technical bottlenecks limiting development had been overcome.

Anning wanted a "qualified transmigrator" who knew how to make cement and soap, someone who could really take bold steps forward at this time.

Regrettably, he was not one.

He could only watch as the recruited engineers tinkered.

Nonetheless, Anning did have some gains in this area. On December 4th, 1791, a British infantry major, admiring his achievements, brought Anning a Ferguson-style rear-loading rifle.

The major had only heard that the General favored new weapons and brought it as a gift without any further thought.

After all, the British military generally believed that such difficult-to-manufacture rifles would hardly be of significant use.

But Anning treasured this rifle as soon as he got it, and immediately handed it to the artisans gathered at Conte for replication.

The replication was quickly completed, but by this time, the craftsmen still thought it was just a whim of the General.

However, soon after, Anning gave the craftsmen a new order: redesign the rifle into a series of parts more suitable for production, and then begin to attempt assembly line production.

Yes, Anning did not know how to manually mix cement and soap, but he understood what assembly lines were.

The method of assembly lines could be used to reduce the labor hours for producing Ferguson rifles and to lower production costs.

It was at this time that the craftsmen and generals realized that Anning was truly planning to equip the army with rear-loading rifles.

Davout was the first to raise objections, reasoning that the loading process of rear-loading rifles was completely different from that of muzzleloaders, rendering existing training invalid and requiring retraining.

Bertier believed that the rear-loading rifle was all flash and no substance, adding difficulties to supply and having no other merit.

Napoleon, on the other hand, was very enthusiastic about the new technology, specifically requesting a rear-loading rifle and playing with it every day.

Then he put forward a request to the engineers, hoping for artillery that could be loaded from the rear.

Napoleon proclaimed confidently, "Hey, just enlarge the rifle by twenty times, how hard can it be? Put some effort into it!"

Then the engineers indeed produced rear-loading artillery; however on the day of the test firing, due to the terrible sealing of the breech, the serious leakage caused burns to the gunners, and Napoleon himself also suffered arm burns.

In summary, in the last few months of 1791, Anning was almost ready to abandon the idea of going to Italy, preparing to focus on pushing technological innovation in his own territory.

But at this time, the situation quietly started to change.

The first change came from the Girondists.

After Demure repelled General Brissot’s Royalist Army, the Girondists began to believe that after the Great Revolution, France already possessed an invincible army, and the citizen-composed French Army was unbeatable.

They even started propagating that Frost could defeat Farayet’s army, which was three times larger, because the troops under Lafayette were not revolutionary enough.

In short, Frost’s victory was not because of his exceptional military ability, but because the revolutionary French Army was invincible.

With this belief, Brissot, one of the leaders of the Girondists, began advocating war.

He shouted in Parliament: "Who says Leopold’s throne cannot be overthrown? Who says the bravery of the French army will meet its end? Who can guarantee that French people will be bound by borders?

"If the kings want to wage a war against the French people, then let the French people give them a war against the kings!

"Volcanoes ready to erupt are everywhere, just needing a spark to ignite! Worrying about consequences is unpatriotic, war only poses a threat to the kings!

"We must fight all the way to Vienna, force him to hand over the traitor Louis XVI and his Austrian Woman! Capture them and bring them back to face the people’s judgment!

"Our answer is, war!"

The Girondists of Paris fell into fervor; only a few friends of Anning in the entirety of Paris remained rational.

Robespierre was clearly against the war, but now in the Jacobin Club only a few people like Marat were in Parliament, unable to stop the spread of war fever.

The second change was that, soon after entering the year 1792, Leopold II, who had always been restrained, passed away.