Hungarian Sketches in Peace and War Part 38

Damjanics' army halted opposite Szolnok during the night, after two hours' march, and awaited in battle order, and without watch-fires, the signal to resume the march.

The roar of cannon on the opposite side of the Theiss was the expected signal.

The Hungarian General had seen several campaigns. Whenever he came up with the enemy, his quick glance discovered as if by instinct their strongest point, and there he directed all his force, crying, at the head of his troops, "Follow me!"

His system, however, was not generally approved of in the army. Many of the Generals affirmed that it was not enough to gain a battle: attention must be paid to the rules of war, various obligations attended to for which every General is responsible, proclamations issued, harangues made, &c.--with all of which Damjanics dispensed. He was neither a statesman nor a student--he was simply a soldier.

On quitting the Banat, however, he issued the following proclamation to his enemies:--

"Dogs!

"I retire at present, but I will return.

"If in the meantime you dare stir, I will sweep you from off the face of the earth, and then shoot myself through the head as the last Raczien, that no remnant of our race may be left!"[59]

[Footnote 59: Damjanics was by birth a Racz or Raczien, who were the bitterest enemies of the Hungarians, and committed many excesses and cruelties during the rebellion of 1848-9. The proclamation is here translated word for word.]

The results of this first attempt so much encouraged the General, that he determined, of the many necessary things required of him, to harangue his troops before the next action, and actually made a vow to that effect.

It was the night before the battle of Szolnok.

"Singular!" muttered the General, as he paced up and down his tent; "my spirits were wont to rise before a battle, and now I feel as anxious as if the thought of to-morrow were unwelcome!" And he strove to solve in his own mind the cause of such unusual gloom.

Some time after, an _officier de corps_ remarked within the General's hearing, that to-morrow they should have the famous harangue.

"The tartar take it!" exclaimed the General; "it was that made me feel as if I could creep out of my skin. But never fear--they shall have it, and the enemy shall pay for it!"

The General had finished his plans of battle in a quarter of an hour;--the speech was not ready late in the morning.

Having arranged his troops in order, he rode out before them. They all knew that he was to harangue them that day, and they knew that it was as great a sacrifice on his part as if he were to deliver up his battery to a parliamentary tribunal for half a day.

Halting before the standard of the ninth battalion, he lifted his csako, grew very pale, and began:--

"Comrades!"

At that instant, the guns thundered across the Theiss.

The General's countenance suddenly brightened--diction and phraseology were forgotten; and drawing his sword, he cried in a voice of thunder,--"There is the enemy! Follow me!" which was answered by a tremendous cheer, while the whole army dashed after their gallant leader towards the cannon's roar.

Meanwhile, Vecsey's _corps d'armee_ stormed the ramparts on the opposite side of the Theiss.

The attack, however, was only apparent: the manuvre of either party frustrated the other.

The imperial troops endeavoured to entice the enemy within their cross fire by charges of cavalry and feint retreats; while the hussars, seeing the cuira.s.siers turn in good order, gave the command "right about," and quietly returned to their stations.

And now the Hungarians prepared to storm the entrenchments; and when the battalions were almost within gunshot, they advanced their cannon, and without any impediment poured a vigorous fire on the ramparts--appearing to expend their whole strength before the enemy, while their real aim was totally different.

They were only answered here and there by a gun from the ramparts; but the battery concealed in the wood did not give the slightest intimation of its existence, it being expected that the enemy would make an attack, as the place was apparently feebly defended, and the imperialists engaged on all sides, and, purposely, giving them every advantage.

But the attack was not made. This continued till about noon. The distant spectator could observe nothing but the continual motion of regular ma.s.ses. One or two troops of heavy cavalry marched quietly up to the field of action, their helmets gleaming in the bright sun of a cloudless day. A division of hussars galloped by with drawn swords: long lines of infantry suddenly formed into squares, and fired on the pa.s.sing cavalry. At another point, the treacherous gleam of bayonets in the moat betrayed the stealthy approach of troops, upon which the adjacent battery suddenly galloped to a little eminence, from whence they began to fire. But no regular engagement had taken place; the "On, Magyar! on!" and the hussars' "Ha! on!" were not yet heard. The whole was a mere animated play of arms. Trumpets sounded, drums beat, cannon fired; but they were unaccompanied by battle-cries or dying groans--death still greedily awaited the onset.

Suddenly the great guns thundered across the Theiss.

Swift and unexpected, like the descent of lightning from heaven, was Damjanics' appearance at Szolnok, and it was hailed by a tremendous cheer from the besieging party--life announcing death! Again the cannon roared.

The besiegers did not find the imperial army unprepared, although this attack was unexpected; but there were not many troops on that side of the ramparts, which was princ.i.p.ally protected by cannon.

The Hungarians advanced in a semicircle, the Szeged battalion in the centre, composed chiefly of recruits armed with scythes, on the right the red-caps, and the hussars on the left.

The enemy's guns opened a deadly fire from every side, and yet they advanced like the tempest-cloud through which the lightning pa.s.ses, changing its form without impeding its course. The b.a.l.l.s made fearful inroads among them--they fell right and left, covering the place with the dead and wounded; and many a dying soldier, raising his head for the last time, gazed long and earnestly after his standard, till it disappeared amidst the fire of the enemy--when, cheering yet again, he sank to rise no more.

The Szeged battalion came up first with the foe, rushing impetuously on--for their arms were useless till face to face with their enemy.

They stormed the battery of the terminus, from which the cannon fired incessantly--one ball sweeping off fourteen at a time; but they only hastened the more furiously over the dead bodies of their comrades.

One moment more--several guns opened at once, and a hundred mangled bodies and headless trunks rolled in the dust and smoke. The next instant, the troops which guarded the battery were scattered on every side: the artillery stood valiantly by their guns to the last man. As the besiegers advanced, they were a.s.sailed by a hot fire from the windows of the houses, and from behind the barricades. The conflict was long and desperate. At last, the tricoloured banner waving from the windows announced that the besiegers were victorious.

This was the first action in which the Szeged battalion had been engaged, and for numbers among them it was the last.

Meanwhile the red-caps marched steadily on to the flying bastions.

Unlike the young corps, these troops knew how to give place to the enemy's b.a.l.l.s, and never fired in vain; nor did they cover their eyes from the fearful carnage around them, as most of the young troops did, for death was familiar to them in all its forms. This was their seventeenth engagement, and in each they had been foremost in the attack.

The entrenchments were guarded by a body of _cha.s.seurs_, who kept up a constant hara.s.sing fire on the advancing troops.

The latter quickly thinned their lines, and forming into chain, rushed on the entrenchments, heedless of the musket fire--their standard-bearer foremost in the attack. A musket ball cut the staff of the standard in two, and the soldier, placing the colours on his sword, rushed on as before--another ball, and the standard-bearer fell mortally wounded, holding up the colours with his last strength, till a comrade received it on the point of his bayonet.

They reached the bulwarks, and, climbing on each other's shoulders, their bayonets soon clashed with those of the enemy. An hour later, they were in possession of the ramparts. The _cha.s.seurs_, repulsed by their desperate attack, retreated to the _tete de pont_, where they rallied, under cover of some troops which had come to their a.s.sistance. The red-caps were soon engaged with these fresh troops, and their battle-cry was heard on the opposite side.

Meanwhile Vecsey's troops advanced impetuously to the redoubt, part of the garrison of which had hurried towards Szolnok, where the action had begun; but the most desperate engagement was below the chapel. A regiment of _cha.s.seurs_ were drawn up _en carre_ on the plain, and were twice charged by the hussars, and twice repulsed; the third time they succeeded in breaking the square, the horses dashing in among the bayonets, and in an instant all was confusion. The _cha.s.seurs_ retreated to the chapel bulwarks, where they endeavoured to rally, but were pursued by the artillery, and, cut off from all possible retreat to the town, they fled in disorder, and were pursued to the Zagyva; there, although the most desperate once more made a stand, the rest were driven into the stream, and many an empty csako was borne down the blood-stained water.

Suddenly a cuira.s.sier regiment was seen galloping from the opposite side, towards the scene of action, their helmets and swords gleaming through clouds of dust. The hussars quickly formed to receive the new enemy, and, without waiting for their attack, dashed forward to the encounter.

It was like the meeting of two hurricanes: one a mighty, moving bastion, advancing in such exact order, it seemed as if the thousand men and steeds had but one pulse; the other troops, light and swift as the wind, their spirited little horses neighing and dashing on before, as if each wished to be first in the encounter; the various coloured pelisses and plumes of their riders tossed about in the wind, and their swords flashing over their heads.

"Hurrah! hurrah!--Rajta! rajta!"

The mutual collision broke the order at once. The troops on either side divided into parties, fighting man to man; here a cuira.s.sier was surrounded by the hussars, and there a hussar in the midst of cuira.s.siers; the attacking party now advancing, now retreating, as the antagonists on either side gained strength.

For some time only the two standards waving high above, and here and there a soldier's face, and the gleam of straight and curved swords, were seen through the smoke and dust; and now the wind blew the dust aside, and exposed the bright helmets, the excited countenances, the maddened horses, many of which galloped about with empty saddles, while their riders lay trodden on the field.

The clash of swords resounded on all sides, mingled with cries of victory and the groans of death.

A tall and powerful cuira.s.sier galloped about like the genius of battle--death seemed in each flash of his sword; he rode his third horse, two having already been shot under him.