We often dwell on our mistakes, are antagonized by them and these mistakes always live in the minds of our enemies, perhaps even our friends, as means of mockery. However, when you feel down and are depressed by these mistakes remember this story.
After several days of struggling to overtake the town of Karansebes, the Ottoman empire marched towards it only to find dead and injured Austrian soldiers everywhere. It seemed as though the battle of Karansebes had already taken place, without the Ottoman army!
Austrians killing Austrians, likely the talk of the common folks on September 22nd, 1788. In a 'vicious" battle of Karansebes, the Austrian army fought and defeated itself- thanks to alcohol. In the midst of the Austro-Turkish war, the Austrians engaged in a self-inflicting combat, owed to too many schnapps!
The Austrian army, being 100,000 men strong, composed of soldiers from different ethnicities, was trying to set up camp at a small town called Karansebes. The army's chief, crossed the Timis river to scout for the presence of the Ottoman soldiers. While doing so, he came across a group of Romani people, who offered to sell schnapps
(a strong alcoholic drink) to the tired soldiers. The tired soldiers quickly started slugging down the schnapps only to meet another infantry from the same army that had just crossed the river. They refused to give them any of the schnapps, and while they were still drunk, they set up makeshift fortifications around the barrels. A heated argument ensued, and one soldier fired a shot.
Instantly, as you might've guessed, a brutal fire commenced between the first army and the infantrymen. These Infantrymen started shouting 'Turci!, Turci!", which translated to "Turks!, Turks!".
Some officers, who were presumably not drunk took an attempt to stop the scuffle by yelling "HALT, HALT!", which got misheard by non-germans as "Allah, Allah!"
As the first army fled through the camps, a corps commander, General of Artillery Colloredo, believed that this event was a cavalry charge by the Ottoman army, and commanded artillery fire. Meanwhile, the entire camp awoke to the sound of action and, rather than waiting to see what the situation was, everyone fled.
The troops fired at every shadow, thinking the Ottomans were everywhere; in reality, they were shooting fellow Austrian soldiers. The incident escalated to the point where the whole army retreated from their own army.
Coming back to the start, where the Ottoman Empire marches to the town of Karansebes, only to find a several hundred (Some sources suggest even more), dead.
If you had any advice for the Austrian Army before setting up their camp at Karansebes, what would it be? Comment down below!
*A very important point to note is that the battle took place over 200 years ago. I've personally tried my best to provide the most accurate story based on the historical data."No part of history can be recited accurately, grain by grain." -Dhruv NairThanks for reading, hope you learned something new! :)
Stay sober stay safe!
One who schnapps shoots!
Seriously, lovely piece of history Dhruv, thanks for bringing it to us
Nice article Dhruv. Well the lesson would be to think a dozen times before dealing with strangers and not to buy anything with half baked knowledge.
Nice reading a page from history and the utter folly of Austrians!! Well my advice to the Austrians would have been , never take decisions when DRUNK :)
Love the way how you involved memes... Way to go!
"Don't buy alcohol from random people on the road" lesson learned.