15. SPECIAL FIELD REPORT NO 8

SPECIAL FIELD REPORT NO. 8

TO GENERAL NEY, COMMANDER OF FRENCH FORCES IN FALMART

Headquarters, Italica, 25 Pluviôse, Year XXI

Citizen General Ney I am pleased to report that I have received your most recent request for a supply train from Italica and two thousand additional auxiliary soldiers. Unfortunately, that is the only thing I can be pleased to report about.

Two thousand additional men? Did you even read my damned report? I caused a fucking riot trying to get eight thousand, and now you want me to just go ahead and raise two thousand more? Right, because it was a walk in the park the first time.

I did it, of course. But I was cursing your name the entire time.

So you, Citizen General Ney, managed to get two thousand of Italica's finest killed in a big trap. I've never exactly had a head for tactics, but I'd say it's safe to presume you screwed up there. So then you came to me, good ole Chaucer, in order to undo that big screw up.

The main issue present was manpower. If you'd read my report (does anyone read these things?) you'd know that I quickly found myself empty of vagrants to conscript for the glorious French army. Slaves then, you say. Well that went just great the first time didn't it. We had a nice big riot intended to oust France from Italica all because I decided that it was a good idea to free some slaves. Why don't I just do that again? Well because you happened to march the army to go fight for some damned monarch and left me here in Italica with a single company of grenadiers to keep the peace. That's why.

So where do I get two thousand new recruits?

Farms, of course.

Listen, I grew up in Paris. My family is a collection of lawyers and the one black sheep that is myself who decided to be unique by becoming a quartermaster. I'm fairly certain that in all my years on this earth, I've only spoken to maybe one or two farmers. And why would I? Farmers are boring people. All they do is sit in the sun all day and inflate the price of grain once people in the cities begin starving so that they can make a quick bit of coin. Then when the Revolution outsmarts them and sets price controls, they decide to be pricks and stop selling their grain to the cities. All this of course while people in the cities are dying of starvation and the nation is under siege by foreign enemies because the stupid, selfish farmers can't think of anything except themselves. Traitors the whole lot of them. We should have sent them all to the guillotine while we had the chance and replaced-

I'm getting off topic. I was on farmers, yes?

Boring people, I'll tell you. But farmers are used to that sort of boring life. You know who's not? Farm boys. They're sick of it all. Every farm boy wants to go somewhere else and live a life of adventure. That's why so many of them join the army. That's why I chose to recruit from farms.

I dispersed messengers to head to every rural town within our official jurisdiction as per the treaty signed with Emperor Molt. Those messengers carried on them a very official looking piece of paper with your signature (forged of course, I couldn't exactly get you to sign it) and a nice long spiel about having a life of adventure. To spice things up, I also promised that the families of any recruits would be hereby exempt from taxes for the next three years.

Not that we're taxing anyone right now, of course. I wouldn't want to start another riot. But I don't think the fine rural folk really knew that.

Believe it or not, the scheme actually worked. Within a week of posting my notice, I got two thousand fresh recruits for the auxiliary division. Isn't that impressive? And they're all volunteers as well. Just don't mind the fact that most of them can't grow facial hair and it's probably more correct to term them as 'boys' rather than 'men'.

You know what's a side effect of all of them being farm boys? A good portion already know how to ride horses. That got me thinking because, believe it or not, I actually do read your reports and I quite clearly remember you moaning about how you didn't have enough cavalry to scout.

So I, Citizen Chaucer, decided that this was a mighty fine time to dedicate half of the two thousand recruits to be cavalrymen (well, cavalryboys at least).

I took another forced loan out from the Galanti bank (at this point Fertus has stopped trying to reason with me) and purchased a thousand horses for the task. Now mind you, these aren't properly trained warhorses. I didn't have quite that much money. These are riding horses who are going to be sort of forced to be warhorses. They're not big. They're not mean. But they can ride fine enough, so that means they'll be good enough for your purposes. Use them like light cavalry, I'd suggest.

The rest of my Galanti money was used to purchase arms and armor for the new recruits. Half of them got the old stuff, pikes, gambesons, metal helmets, and swords. The other half got a bit shafted in this regard. They're light cavalry you see, not infantry, so I decided to cut some costs here and there. They got spears and nice blue armbands to show that they're our boys. Nothing else because I really am trying to avoid overspending these days. Poor Fertus will thank me. The recruits, maybe not so much. Just don't make them do a cavalry charge.

Look, you wanted scouts. You never moaned in your reports about not having enough armored knights. You said that you needed scouts, and these fine cavalryboys will be able to fulfill that role perfectly fine. You might need more Elban translators, sure, but that can be fixed. You are in Elbe after all.

Yeah, yeah. Curse me all you want. Just remember that I was the one who tripled Colonel Feraud's cavalry compliment, no one else.

You'll have plenty of time to think about it during your siege. Enjoy that, by the way. Sieges are long and tough and require a lot of patience. I'm sure that is a trait you have in total excess. After all, everyone knows that Marshal Ney is the most patient Marshal there is.

I'm sending you the new recruits along with the supply train from Italica. Don't get them killed please. I'm not really sure if I'll be able to get another two thousand farm boys.

END OF REPORT

Signed,

Jean-Pierre Chaucer, Head of Requisitions

Short as promised. This was posted only a day after a much longer chapter, by the way, so if you missed that and thought this was all I updated go ahead and check out chapter 13.