THE BATTLE OF ASCHAFFENBURG
During his dinner, Prince Alexander of Hesse had received this dispatch:
"The Prussian vanguard has appeared at the end of the Vogelsburg pass!"
This news very much astonished the commander-in-chief, who was expecting
the enemy to come by the pass through the Thuringian Forest. He had, in
consequence, immediately sent a telegram to Darmstadt to order a
detachment of three thousand men to come by rail to Aschaffenburg and
seize the bridge. Then he had immediately sounded the bugle-call and the
signal to saddle.
Two steamboats were waiting at Hackenhausen. A hundred railway carriages
were waiting at the station, capable of holding a hundred men each.
We have already mentioned the effect produced by the double trumpet
call.
There was a moment of confusion: for a moment every one ran to and fro,
uniforms were confused, cavalry and infantry were mixed, then as if a
clever hand had put each man in his place, at the end of five minutes
the cavalry were mounted and the infantry had their proper weapons.
Everything was ready for a start.
Again, Frankfort showed its sympathy, not exactly to the Austrians, but
to the defenders of Austria. Beer was handed round in half-pints and
wine in jugfuls. Gentlemen of the first houses in the town shook hands
with the officers. Fashionable ladies spoke cheeringly to the soldiers.
A hitherto unknown brotherhood, born of the common danger, reigned over
the free town.
People called from windows: "Courage! victory! long live Austria! long
live the Allies! long live Prince Alexander of Hesse!"
Marie Louise's son was greeted for his part with cries of "Long live the
Count of Monte Nuovo!" But it must be said that, as they came for the
most part from ladies, they were due rather to his fine figure and
military bearing than to his royal birth.
Karl's Styrian sharpshooters received orders to take their places in the
first carriages. It was they who were to attack the Prussians. They went
gaily into the station with no other music than the count's two flute
players. After them came Count Monte Nuovo's Austrian brigade and lastly
the Allies of Hesse and Würtemberg. The Italian brigade had left by the
steamboats, protesting against what they had to do, and declaring they
would never fire on their friends the Prussians for their enemies the
Austrians.
The train went off, carrying men, rifles, guns, ammunition, horses, and
ambulances. An hour and a half afterwards they were at Aschaffenburg.
Night was beginning to fall. They had not seen the Prussians.
Prince Alexander of Hesse sent a party out to reconnoitre. The party
came back towards eleven at night, after having fired a few shots at the
Prussians at two hours' journey from Aschaffenburg.
A peasant who had crossed the pass at the same time as the Prussians,
said that they were nearly five or six thousand strong, and that they
had stopped because they were waiting for a body of seven or eight
thousand men which was late. The numbers promised to be nearly equal.
It was found necessary to defend the passage of the Main and to protect
Frankfort and Darmstadt by gaining the victory. The Styrian
sharpshooters were placed on the road. Their mission was to do the
greatest amount of damage possible to the enemy and retire, leaving the
infantry and cavalry to work in their turn, and to rally at the head of
the bridge, the allies only means of retreat, and to defend that bridge
to the last.
During the night each man took up his position for the next day, and
supped and slept in the open. A reserve of eight hundred men had been
lodged in Aschaffenburg to defend the town if it were attacked. The
night passed without disturbance.
At ten o'clock, Karl, growing impatient, mounted his horse and leaving
the command of his men to Benedict galloped off towards the Prussians
who at last were beginning to march.
In the course of his gallop Karl went up to Count Monte Nuovo and
brought back the guns, which were put in position across the road. Four
felled trees made a sort of entrenchment for the artillery. Karl got on
to this entrenchment with his two Styrians, who took their flutes from
their pockets, as if on parade, and began to play their sweetest and
most charming airs. Karl could resist no longer. In a minute he took his
pipe from his waistcoat pocket and sent on the wind a last message to
his country.
The Prussians were advancing all this time. At half-range the booming of
the two Austrian guns interrupted our three musicians, who put their
flutes back into their pockets, and took up their rifles. The two
volleys were well aimed, they killed or wounded a score of men. Again an
explosion was heard, and a second messenger of death swept through the
Prussian ranks.
"They are going to try and carry the guns by assault," said Karl to
Benedict. "Take fifty men, and I'll take fifty; we will creep through
the little wood on each side of the road. We have time for two shots
each. We must kill a hundred men and fifty horses. Let ten of your men
fire at the horses and the rest at the men."
Benedict took fifty men and crept along the right of the road. Karl did
the same and crept along the left. The count was not mistaken; cavalry
advanced from the middle on the first rank, and the gleam of the sabres
was soon visible in the sunshine. Then was heard the thunder of three
hundred horses, galloping forward.
Now began a fusillade, on both sides of the road, which would have
seemed a game, if, at the first two shots, the colonel and the
lieutenant had not been shot down from their horses, and if at each shot
that followed those two a man or a horse had not fallen. Soon the road
was strewn with dead men and horses. The first ranks could not advance.
The charge stopped a hundred paces from the two guns, which kept up
their fire and completed the confusion in the column.
Behind them the Prussians had brought forward the artillery, and had
placed in position six guns to silence the two Austrian guns.
But our sharpshooters had advanced to about three hundred paces from the
battery, and, when the six artillerymen had raised the match to fire
with the regularity of a Prussian manœuvre, six shots were fired,
three to the right and three to the left of the road, and the six
artillerymen fell dead.
Six others took the burning match and fell beside their comrades.
Meanwhile the two Austrian guns had fired and demolished one of the
Prussian guns.
The Prussians did what they ought to have done at first; that is, they
attacked the Styrian sharpshooters. They sent out five hundred Prussian
sharpshooters with fixed bayonets.
Then, on both sides of the plain began a terrible fusillade, while along
the road the infantry advanced in columns, firing on the battery as they
came. The artillerymen harnessed horses to the guns and retreated. The
two guns, by retiring, left the Neuberg brigade uncovered.
A hillock a little distance from Aschaffenburg was then crowned by a
battery of six guns, the fire of which raked the Prussian masses.
The count himself seeing that in spite of the fire along the whole line,
the Prussians were advancing, put himself at the head of a regiment of
cuirassiers and charged. Prince Alexander ordered all the Baden army to
support him. Unfortunately, he placed the Italian regiment on his left
wing and for the second time the Italians told him that they would
remain neutral, exposed to the shots of both sides, but would not fire
themselves.
Whether by chance, or because they had been warned of this neutrality,
the Prussians brought their principal effort to bear upon this left
wing, which, by standing still, allowed the enemy to unhorse Count Monte
Nuovo.
The Styrian sharpshooters had done marvels. They had lost thirty men,
and had killed more than three hundred of the enemy. Then, according to
their orders, they had rallied at the head of the Aschaffenburg bridge.
From that spot, Karl and Benedict heard a quick fusillade at the other
end of the town. It was the Prussian right wing which had overthrown
Prince Alexander's left wing and was attacking the suburbs of the town.
"Listen," said Karl to Benedict, "the day is lost! Fate has overtaken
the 'house of Austria.' I am going to kill myself, because it is my
duty; but you, who are not tied to our fortune; you, who are fighting as
an amateur; you, who are French when all is said and done, it would be
folly for you to kill yourself for a cause which is not your own, and
not even that with which you agree. Right to the last moment; then, when
you know that all resistance is useless, get back to Frankfort, go to
Helen; tell her that I am dead, if you have seen me die, or that I am in
retreat on Darmstadt or Würtzburg with the remains of the army. If I
live, I will write to her. If I die, I die thinking of her. This is my
heart's testament, I confide it to you."
Benedict pressed Karl's hand.
"Now," proceeded Karl, "it seems to me that it is a soldier's duty to
give the most service possible, to the last moment; we have a hundred
and seventy men left. I am going to take some, I will take half to
support the defenders of the town. You stay with the others at the
bridge. Do your best here. I will do my best wherever I am. Do you hear
the fusillade coming nearer? We have no time to lose. We must say
farewell."
The two young men threw themselves into each other's arms. Then Karl
hurried into the streets and disappeared in the smoke. Benedict went to
a little hill covered with a thicket, where he could defend himself and
protect the bridge.
He was scarcely there when he saw a cloud of dust rapidly approaching.
It was the Baden cavalry, which had been driven back by the Prussian
cuirassiers. The first fugitives crossed the bridge without difficulty;
but soon the passage was obstructed with men and horses, and the first
ranks were forced to return upon those who followed them.
At that moment, a volley from Benedict and his men felled fifty men and
twenty horses. The cuirassiers stopped astonished, and courage returned
to the Baden infantry. A second volley followed the first, and the click
of the balls on the cuirasses could be heard like the sound of hail on a
roof. Thirty men and horses fell. The cuirassiers became disordered, but
in retiring they encountered a square broken by the lancers, which fled
before them. The square found itself between the spears of the lancers
and the sabres of the cuirassiers. Benedict saw them coming mixed
pell-mell with the lancers and cuirassiers.
"Aim at the officers," cried Benedict, and he himself picked out a
captain of cuirassiers and fired. The captain fell. The others had each
chosen officers, but found it more convenient to choose the officers of
the lancers. Death thus offered a larger target. Almost all the officers
fell, and the horses bounding riderless joined the squadron. Men were
still continuing to crowd the bridge.
Suddenly the greater part of the allies' army arrived almost upon the
heels of the enemy. At the same time, in the street of the burning town,
Karl was retreating with his usual calm. He killed a man at each shot.
He was bare-headed. A ball had carried away his Styrian cap. A trickle
of blood was running down his cheek.
The two young men greeted each other from afar. Frisk, recognizing Karl,
whom he considered an admirable hunter, ran towards him, all delight at
seeing him again.
At that moment, a heavy gallop made the earth shake. It was the Prussian
cuirassiers returning to the charge. Through the dust of the road and
the smoke of the firing could be seen the glitter of their breastplates,
helmets, and sword blades. They made a hole in the centre of the Baden
and Hessian fugitives, and penetrated a third of the way over the
bridge.
With a last glance, Benedict saw his friend fighting against a captain,
into whose throat he twice thrust his bayonet. The captain fell, but
only to be succeeded by two cuirassiers who attacked Karl, sword in
hand. Two shots from Benedict's rifle killed one and wounded the other.
Then he saw Karl carried away among the fugitives crossing the bridge,
in spite of his efforts to rally them. Enclosed on all sides, his sole
path to hope of safety was the bridge. He threw himself upon it with the
sixty or sixty-five men who were left. It was a terrible struggle; the
dead were trodden under foot, the cuirassiers, like giants on their
great horses, stabbed the fugitives with their shortened swords.
"Fire on them!" cried Benedict.
Those of his men who had their rifles loaded fired; seven or eight
cuirassiers fell; the bullets rattled on the breastplates of the rest.
A fresh charge brought the cuirassiers into the midst of the Styrian
infantry. Pressed by two horsemen, Benedict killed one with his bayonet,
the other tried to crush him with his horse against the parapet of the
bridge. He drew his short hunting knife and thrust it up to the hilt in
the horse's chest, the horse reared with a scream of dismay. Benedict
left his knife with its living sheath, ran between the horse's legs,
leapt over the parapet of the bridge and sprang, armed as he was, into
the Main. As he fell, he cast a last look at the spot where Karl had
disappeared, but his gaze sought his friend in vain.
It was about five o'clock in the evening.