Lavalette had long grown accustomed to the Crown Prince—ah, His Highness the Regent's—unfathomable maneuvers. He did not ask further and continued his report instead:
"Your Highness, Austria's Mikhalevich Legion passed through Innsbruck three days ago. It is expected to reach Zurich before the end of the month." Joseph nodded. "I have already handed this matter over to the General Staff Headquarters. You need to continue advancing our operations within Austria." The French military naturally had its own intelligence network. It might not react as swiftly as the Security Bureau in other matters, but when it came to the movements of such large legions, its channels were far broader.
Not long after the twenty thousand Austrian Intervention Force had left Klagenfurt, Joseph had received a report from the General Staff Headquarters.
According to his arrangements, by this point nearly a thousand "free volunteers" from France, Württemberg, Augsburg, Bavaria, and other countries should already have arrived in the northern Jura Mountains.
They had "voluntarily" gathered there to help the Swiss people of Basel, Schwyz, and other states resist Vienna's brutal invasion. Together with nine hundred Basel Militia and twenty-five hundred mercenaries recruited from the mountainous regions of southeastern Switzerland by Württemberg officers, they would block the Austrian Army amid the dense forests stretching from the Jura Mountains to the Bern Mountains.
Unlike before, the Resistance Army would be commanded this time by a retired French officer named Pelletier. Through his personal connections, he had obtained quite a bit of "outdated" weaponry from France, which would greatly strengthen the Resistance Army's combat power.
Joseph knew that this motley force of fewer than five thousand men could never defeat an Austrian Army several times its size. But they could use the mountains, river valleys, and other terrain to harass the Austrian Army without end.