Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/604

 5 66 Readings in European History 472. Vienna retaken by the emperor's troops under Windisch- gr'atz (October 31, 1848). and planted with cannon. This was strewn with the dead bodies of men and horses ; but they, and the pools of blood all about, did not strike us so much as the horrid smell of roast flesh arising from the half-burned bodies of rebels killed in the houses fired by Congreve rockets, which we saw used by the troops with terrible effect. Half of the houses in this beautiful suburb are thus burned down, while the other half are riddled with shot and shell. On every side we may see weeping wives, sisters, and daughters, picking, literally piece- meal, out of the ruins the half-consumed bodies of their relatives. On Sunday evening, the 29th, the city, dreading a bom- bardment from the Belvedere, agreed to surrender; but the capitulation was shamefully violated when early the next morning the approach of the Hungarians to raise the siege was signaled from the tower of the cathedral. Then came the real crisis. . . . We were fired upon continually from the ramparts ; and I for the first time literally tasted blood, which was dashed over my face and clothes, when a round shot carried off the head of an artilleryman by my side. All this time the roar of cannon, the whizzing of rockets, and the roll of musketry in our rear told us that the Hun- garian army had joined battle ; while in our front, from all the ramparts, tops of houses, and churches, the rebels were firing signal guns and waving flags to cheer them on. It was a beautiful clear, sunshiny autumn day ; and all felt that there were trembling in the balance not only the fate of the grand old Austrian empire (an Siegen und an Ehren reicJi) — the monarchy of Charles V and Maria Theresa, and so long the bulwark of Christendom against the Turk — but with it the peace and safety of Europe. At length the firing behind us gradually slackened and then died away ; and towards sunset the victorious imperial- ists marched back from the field of battle, having utterly routed the Hungarians and driven three thousand of them into the Danube, which will roll their bodies down to Pesth, a fearful tiding of their defeat. You may fancy what cheers