Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/86

 on with them, and not knowing what had become of him I thought I should have died of grief. I was very near losing my life; my hands, my thighs, all my body is as black as coal, bruised by the press of the flyers. The poor palatine of Pomerania was pushed off his horse and fell with many others near me. A cavalry soldier saved my life; two Turks were close upon me; he killed one and wounded the other. I had hoped to recompense the man largely, but he did not come alive out of the fight. Let particular mention be made of him in the service for the dead. I was supposed to be among the dead, and it is almost a miracle it was not so. Almost all my pages perished in the action, and I can hardly sit on my horse from the fatigue and grief I have endured. The body of the poor palatine has been found, but headless — these barbarians make no prisoners.

Two days after, however, he had his revenge: Kara Mustapha returned in great force from Buda, with troops, inspirited by the false news of the death of the king, and gave battle at Parkany, on the 10th October, with the usual results.

Oh, how good God is, my dear Mariette, to have given us in compensation for a little confusion, a victory greater than that of Vienna! In the name of your love for me do not cease thanking him, entreat him to continue his mercies to his faithful people. I am quite well, thank God, and feel twenty years younger since our victory — everything is repaired.

Kara Mustapha had been promised the aid of Tekeli and forty thousand Hungarians; the Ottoman army had recovered its vigor, and was posted so as to stretch from Parkany to the foot of the mountains, the right resting on the gorges by which the Hungarians were to arrive. By this time, however, King John had received his contingents and Cossacks. Before day he had arranged his army in three lines; he led the first himself, the Duke of Lorraine the second, and Jablonowski the third; the Turks charged this last furiously as usual, but were driven back in disorder. The king meantime advanced on the walls of the fort; the broken squadrons were alarmed; the two wings of the Christian army, forming a vast crescent, rested on the Danube; Sobieski came down on the disordered troops and drove them into the river. "It was a diverting spectacle(!)," said an eyewitness; "those who would not dare this dangerous passage were cut to pieces on the banks, and heaps of them, a fathom high, formed a sort of parapet on the edge." The bridge below broke, five pashas and a number of generals perished there, and the slaughter was tremendous. The Hungarians arrived too late, purposely it was said, and that Tekeli grieved equally over the check to Sobieski, which left him at the mercy of the Turks, and at the destruction of the Turks, which left him at the mercy of the Austrians. The king attempted in vain to save him from the consequences of his own indecision. When Sobieski heard that Kara Mustapha had fled to Belgrade his joy was great. "Here is Hungary at last delivered from the infidel after three hundred years. Belgrade is not in Hungary but in Servia," he explains. "I know you are not strong in geography," he observes several times. "The Turks now have only five or six of the principal fortresses left, and it would only require fourteen days to deliver this great and beautiful kingdom entirely." He had all along desired to attack Buda, but was persuaded by the Duke of Lorraine to besiege Gran. It was the first time that the Turks had had to defend places since the foundation of their empire, and a new art for them to learn; they had hitherto done nothing but attack, but now, after three hundred years, they were conquered and invaded in their turn. He writes from within the town, October 21st: —

Although pressed by the bad weather and the want of forage, I resolved to attack the fortress against the advice of every one. The town has yielded; the garrison, two pashas, and five thousand troops have marched out with arms but without baggage or artillery; it was the strongest place in Hungary. Mass has been celebrated for the first time these one hundred and fifty years in the church, which had been converted into a mosque. We have taken five mosques in this way from the pagans during the year. No one, however, speaks either of our present or our past. God and glory are our reward.

We see nothing but sickness, pillage, towns on fire, and ruined churches, ill this miserable country, where every sod of earth would yield blood, it seems, if it were pressed.

We are bivouacking in the open air, we cannot even use our tents, the ground is so frozen that it is impossible to drive in the tent-pegs.

Desertion, brigandage, and sickness were ravaging the ranks on both sides; but still Sobieski went on with his selfimposed task, and the Turks had such confidence in his honor that they would surrender to him at discretion, as at Schetzin, when they would trust no one else.

The rain had made the roads now impracticable; the snows which followed determined the end of the campaign for Ithe allies, although Sobieski yet desired