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Originally Posted by
Shigawire
My vote would go with Krusader. For "Battle of Karansebes" :laugh4:
Well, since you guys don't seem to like reading links, I might as well paste the stuff here. :beam:
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Sounds made up, to be honest.
-The only translation is in the Spanish wiki
-The German wiki article on Joseph II and the Austro-Turkish war doesn't even mention it
-There were no Romanian infantry regiments in the Austrian army (granted, I only looked at the Austrian army during the Napoleonic Wars, but close enough), which means there'd only be few Romanians here and there and not enough to put a whole army to flight by shouting 'The Turks'.
-The hussar regiments were all composed mostly of Hungarians (as is the name of the town), although there is no reference to the battle on the Hungarian wiki and no reference to Hungarians in the English article itself.
-It sounds idiotic to begin with and the inclusion of gypsies selling schnapps to travelling soldiers only further heightens this pretension. No self-respecting Hungarian hussar would drink anything but red wine or palinka.
Edit: Also, the inclusion of idiotic parts like that it was gypsies selling alcohol, Austrians shooting at shadows in the night with artillery, the soldiers who could not understand each other mistaking Halt for Allah, the drunken party and all, makes it sound like it was written by someone with no knowledge of the area in general or the Austrian army in particular, who wanted to make it seem like he knew what he was talking about by throwing in the words: gypsies, Slavs, minorities, etc.
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This is the description given by Joseph II himself in a letter (from M.Z.Mayer monography on the campaign)
"Everythïng was proceeding in the greatest order and we would have arrived
in Caransebes without the enemy's knowledge for it was night All of a
sudden a group of Wallachians.. became alarmed and fired their rifles
which threw a unit of hussars and dragoons into confusion .... They
answered this fire before finally attacking the infantry.... The column in
which I found myself was completely dispersed. Cannons, wagons and all
the tents were turned over, it was horrible; [my] soldiers shooting at each
other! Eventually calm was restored, and we were luckyethat the Turks
were not on our trail otherwise the whole army would have been
destroyed. Nevertheless, we lost not only the pots and tents with
considerable damage to other baggage but also three pieces of artillery."
The loss of 3 pieces is a long way from losing 10.000 men, that is traced back to P. Bernard article on Joseph II, but as he doesn´t mention sources it is probably made up.
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Yeah. I really wondered what happened. It seems to be that articles on Caransebes in Wikipedia offer more information about that battle than just articles about the battle of Caransebes. English, French, Hungarian and Italian wiki webpages on city of Karansebes mention the date of that battle shortly if I translated them correctly. I am certain that something happened there in that date, September 17, 1788.
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Not really. The English article says "during the wars" and "in 1788". Not exactly specific on either account. The Hungarian article also seems to have been copied directly from the English (especially as on the Hungarian pages for Joseph II and the Austro-Turkish war, there's no reference, as well as no specific article for this battle).
Here's what the reference is on the Hungarian wiki that you mentioned:
1788-ban itt zajlott le a karánsebesi csata a császári hadak különböző alakulatai között, amelyek egymást török csapatoknak hitték. Ezután a törökök akadálytalanul törtek be a városba és felégették.
"In 1788, the battle of Karánsebes took place here, between the various elements of the Imperial army, which believed each other to be the Turkish army. After this, the Turks broke into the town and burned it without any opposition."
No mention of the actual battle, the losses, the exact date or anything.
Plus, the Hungarian wiki has a nasty habit of borrowing material, references and all from the English wiki, just translating it.
The German article just mentions how it was part of the Austrian military frontier with no reference to the battle.
The French article mentions the battle as the only bit of history associated with the town. A copying job is most likely the case if that's the only bit of history they have for it.
I think if the battle did happen (which is dubious in the first place), it certainly wasn't 10,000 dead and wounded.
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Geoffrey Regan´s book The Brassey's Book of Military Blunders. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's. ISBN 157488252X. mentions that battle and it was the primary source. I wonder what sources Mr. Regan used in Karansebes issue.
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According to Matthew Z. Mayer, Joseph II and the campaign of 1788 against the Ottoman Turks (a thesis submited in the McGill University in 1997), the history is traced to an article by Bernard, Paul P. 'Austria's Last Turkish War.' Austran History Yearbook. VOL 19-20, 1983-1984, pp. 15-31, where he says that "before order could be restored over 10,000 men had been lost" but he also fails to give any source. In contrast the letter by Joseph II himslef paints a very different picture. Mind that it was a private letter to Archduke Leopold, and in other private letters written in the campaign Joseph II saved no criticism, so in all probability his tale of "3 guns lost" if no other primary source is found should be considered the right one.
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Personally, I find the idea of infantry firing, spooking the calvary and then causing a bit of a ruckus more believable than a drunken party where the calvary erect fortifications (!) around the alcohol and the army misunderstands halt as allah, leading to 10% losses for the army.
One thing that bothers me about the account though.....the infantry became alarmed and fired their rifles. Is it a translation error from German or what? The Austrian infantry used muskets in 1788 and there are seperate words in German for rifle and musket.
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Yes, that also surprised me, could be the translation, or maybe rifled muskets? those were used by light infantry at the time
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I thought about that too, but going by the Napoleonic Wars Austrian army, the only units equipped with rifles were the Tyrolian Jaegars. Apparantely, they accepted only Germans (and later due to the demands for manpower during the wars with Napoleon, Czechs as well) but no Romanians. Considering there were no Romanians in the calvary and no Romanian-specific infantry regiments either, it seems to me the Austrians used them mostly as replacements for the regular line infantry regiments.
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I don't know about others languages but in french we also have a different word for musket and rifle, but as the etymology isn't the same than the english one, the meaning of the french "fusil" is less precise (as it's not necessarilly a "rifled" gun...).
That means, for exemple, that in napoleonic times french soldiers used what we would call "muskets" in the modern english terminology, but those "muskets" were called "fusils" (rifles) in french at the time and even to this day.
So, don't let yourself be overly confused about terminology and translation, that may be the same or something similar in others languages too.
It's a fact i've noticed,that usually english (or maybe just modern english) is very precise about weaponry names while in french and especially in primary sources (modern french try to be more precise too), the names for weapons are used for a wide variety of sometimes quite different weapons (a poleaxe is just an "axe" in french for exemple (that may be because creating composed word is far more difficult in french, or for others reasons linked to the logic of the language).
Sorry guys, but this seems like a prime reason why we shouldn't trust Wikipedia......
