CHARLES VI. AND THE TURKISH WAR RENEWED.
From 1735 to 1730.
Anxiety Of Austrian Office-Holders.--Maria Theresa.--The Duke Of
Lorraine.--Distraction Of The Emperor.--Tuscany Assigned To The Duke Of
Lorraine.--Death Of Eugene.--Rising Greatness Of Russia.--New War With
The Turks.--Condition Of The Army.--Commencement Of Hostilities.--
Capture Of Nissa.--Inefficient Campaign.--Disgrace Of Seckendorf.--The
Duke Of Lorraine Placed In Command.--Siege Of Orsova.--Belgrade Besieged
By The Turks.--The Third Campaign.--Battle Of Crotzka.--Defeat Of The
Austrians.--Consternation In Vienna.--Barbarism Of The Turks.--The
Surrender Of Belgrade.
The emperor being quite unable, either on the Rhine or in Italy,
successfully to compete with his foes, received blow after blow, which
exceedingly disheartened him. His affairs were in a desperate condition,
and, to add to his grief, dissensions filled his cabinet; his
counsellors mutually accusing each other of being the cause of the
impending ruin. The Italian possessions of the emperor had been thronged
with Austrian nobles, filling all the posts of office and of honor, and
receiving rich salaries. A change of administration, in the transference
of these States to the dominion of Spain and Sardinia, "reformed" all
these Austrian office-holders out of their places, and conferred these
posts upon Spaniards and Sardinians. The ejected Austrian nobles crowded
the court of the emperor, with the most passionate importunities that he
would enter into a separate accommodation with Spain, and secure the
restoration of the Italian provinces by giving his eldest daughter,
Maria Theresa, to the Spanish prince, Carlos. This would seem to be a
very simple arrangement, especially since the Queen of Spain so
earnestly desired this match, that she was willing to make almost any
sacrifice for its accomplishment. But there was an inseparable obstacle
in the way of any such arrangement.
Maria Theresa had just attained her eighteenth year. She was a young
lady of extraordinary force of character, and of an imperial spirit; and
she had not the slightest idea of having her person disposed of as a
mere make-weight in the diplomacy of Europe. She knew that the crown of
Austria was soon to be hers; she understood the weakness of her father,
and was well aware that she was far more capable of wearing that crown
than he had ever been; and she was already far more disposed to take the
reins of government from her father's hand, than she was to submit
herself to his control. With such a character, and such anticipations,
she had become passionately attached to the young Duke of Lorraine, who
was eight years her senior, and who had for some years been one of the
most brilliant ornaments of her father's court.
The duchy of Lorraine was one of the most extensive and opulent of the
minor States of the German empire. Admirably situated upon the Rhine and
the Meuse, and extending to the sea, it embraced over ten thousand
square miles, and contained a population of over a million and a half.
The duke, Francis Stephen, was the heir of an illustrious line, whose
lineage could be traced for many centuries. Germany, France and Spain,
united, had not sufficient power to induce Maria Theresa to reject
Francis Stephen, the grandson of her father's sister, the playmate of
her childhood, and now her devoted lover, heroic and fascinating, for
the Spanish Carlos, of whom she knew little, and for whom she cared
less. Ambition also powerfully operated on the very peculiar mind of
Maria Theresa. She had much of the exacting spirit of Elizabeth,
England's maiden queen, and was emulous of supremacy which no one would
share. She, in her own right, was to inherit the crown of Austria, and
Francis Stephen, high-born and noble as he was, and her recognized
husband, would still be her subject. She could confer upon him dignity
and power, retaining a supremacy which even he could never reach.
The emperor was fully aware of the attachment of his daughter to
Francis, of her inflexible character; and even when pretending to
negotiate for her marriage with Carlos, he was conscious that it was all
a mere pretense, and that the union could never be effected. The British
minister at Vienna saw very clearly the true state of affairs, and when
the emperor was endeavoring to intimidate England by the menace that he
would unite the crowns of Spain and Austria by uniting Maria and Carlos,
the minister wrote to his home government as follows:
"Maria Theresa is a princess of the highest spirit; her father's losses
are her own. She reasons already; she enters into affairs; she admires
his virtues, but condemns his mismanagement; and is of a temper so
formed for rule and ambition, as to look upon him as little more than
her administrator. Notwithstanding this lofty humor by day, she sighs
and pines all night for her Duke of Lorraine. If she sleeps, it is only
to dream of him; if she wakes, it is but to talk of him to the lady in
waiting; so that there is no more probability of her forgetting the very
individual government, and the very individual husband which she thinks
herself born to, than of her forgiving the authors of her losing
either."
The empress was cordially coöperating with her daughter. The emperor was
in a state of utter distraction. His affairs were fast going to ruin; he
was harassed by counter intreaties; he knew not which way to turn, or
what to do. Insupportable gloom oppressed his spirit. Pale and haggard,
he wandered through the rooms of his palace, the image of woe. At night
he tossed sleepless upon his bed, moaning in anguish which he then did
not attempt to conceal, and giving free utterance to all the mental
tortures which were goading him to madness. The queen became seriously
alarmed lest his reason should break down beneath such a weight of woe.
It was clear that neither reason nor life could long withstand such a
struggle.
Thus in despair, the emperor made proposals for a secret and separate
accommodation with France. Louis XV. promptly listened, and offered
terms, appallingly definite, and cruel enough to extort the last drop of
blood from the emperor's sinking heart. "Give me," said the French king,
"the duchy of Lorraine, and I will withdraw my armies, and leave Austria
to make the best terms she can with Spain."
How could the emperor wrest from his prospective son-in-law his
magnificent ancestral inheritance? The duke could not hold his realms
for an hour against the armies of France, should the emperor consent to
their surrender; and conscious of the desperation to which the emperor
was driven, and of his helplessness, he was himself plunged into the
deepest dismay and anguish. He held an interview with the British
minister to see if it were not possible that England might interpose her
aid in his behalf. In frantic grief he lost his self control, and,
throwing himself into a chair, pressed his brow convulsively, and
exclaimed, "Great God! will not England help me? Has not his majesty
with his own lips, over and over again, promised to stand by me?"
The French armies were advancing; shot and shell were falling upon
village and city; fortress after fortress was surrendering. "Give me
Lorraine," repeated Louis XV., persistently, "or I will take all
Austria." There was no alternative but for the emperor to drink to the
dregs the bitter cup which his own hand had mingled. He surrendered
Lorraine to France. He, however, succeeded in obtaining some slight
compensation for the defrauded duke. The French court allowed him a
pension of ninety thousand dollars a year, until the death of the aged
Duke of Tuscany, who was the last of the Medici line, promising that
then Tuscany, one of the most important duchies of central Italy, should
pass into the hands of Francis. Should Sardinia offer any opposition,
the King of France promised to unite with the emperor in maintaining
Francis in his possession by force of arms. Peace was thus obtained with
France. Peace was then made with Spain and Sardinia, by surrendering to
Spain Naples and Sicily, and to Sardinia most of the other Austrian
provinces in Italy. Thus scourged and despoiled, the emperor, a humbled,
woe-stricken man, retreated to the seclusion of his palace.
While these affairs were in progress, Francis Stephen derived very
considerable solace by his marriage with Maria Theresa. Their nuptials
took place at Vienna on the 12th of February, 1736. The emperor made the
consent of the duke to the cession of Lorraine to France, a condition of
the marriage. As the duke struggled against the surrender of his
paternal domains, Cartenstein, the emperor's confidential minister,
insultingly said to him, "Monseigneur, point de cession, point
d'archiduchesse." _My lord, no cession, no archduchess._ Fortunately for
Francis, in about a year after his marriage the Duke of Tuscany died,
and Francis, with his bride, hastened to his new home in the palaces of
Leghorn. Though the duke mourned bitterly over the loss of his ancestral
domains, Tuscany was no mean inheritance. The duke was absolute monarch
of the duchy, which contained about eight thousand square miles and a
population of a million. The revenues of the archduchy were some four
millions of dollars. The army consisted of six thousand troops.
Two months after the marriage of Maria Theresa, Prince Eugene died
quietly in his bed at the age of seventy-three. He had passed his whole
lifetime riding over fields of battle swept by bullets and plowed by
shot. He had always exposed his own person with utter recklessness,
leading the charge, and being the first to enter the breach or climb the
rampart. Though often wounded, he escaped all these perils, and breathed
his last in peace upon his pillow in Vienna.
His funeral was attended with regal honors. For three days the corpse
lay in state, with the coat of mail, the helmet and the gauntlets which
the warrior had worn in so many fierce battles, suspended over his
lifeless remains. His heart was sent in an urn to be deposited in the
royal tomb where his ancestors slumbered. His embalmed body was interred
in the metropolitan church in Vienna. The emperor and all the court
attended the funeral, and his remains were borne to the grave with
honors rarely conferred upon any but crowned heads.
The Ottoman power had now passed its culminating point, and was
evidently on the wane. The Russian empire was beginning to arrest the
attention of Europe, and was ambitious of making its voice heard in the
diplomacy of the European monarchies. Being destitute of any sea coast,
it was excluded from all commercial intercourse with foreign nations,
and in its cold, northern realm, "leaning," as Napoleon once said,
"against the North Pole," seemed to be shut up to barbarism. It had been
a leading object of the ambition of Peter the Great to secure a maritime
port for his kingdom. He at first attempted a naval depot on his extreme
southern border, at the mouth of the Don, on the sea of Azof. This would
open to him the commerce of the Mediterranean through the Azof, the
Euxine and the Marmora. But the assailing Turks drove him from these
shores, and he was compelled to surrender the fortresses he had
commenced to their arms. He then turned to his western frontier, and,
with an incredible expenditure of money and sacrifice of life, reared
upon the marshes of the Baltic the imperial city of St. Petersburg.
Peter I. died in 1725, leaving the crown to his wife Catharine. She,
however, survived him but two years, when she died, in 1727, leaving two
daughters. The crown then passed to the grandson of Peter I., a boy of
thirteen. In three years he died of the small-pox. Anna, the daughter of
the oldest brother of Peter I., now ascended the throne, and reigned,
through her favorites, with relentless rigor.
It was one of the first objects of Anna's ambition to secure a harbor
for maritime commerce in the more sunny climes of southern Europe. St.
Petersburg, far away upon the frozen shores of the Baltic, where the
harbor was shut up with ice for five months in the year, presented but a
cheerless prospect for the formation of a merchant marine. She
accordingly revived the original project of Peter the Great, and waged
war with the Turks to recover the lost province on the shores of the
Euxine. Russia had been mainly instrumental in placing Augustus II. on
the throne of Poland; Anna was consequently sure of his sympathy and
coöperation. She also sent to Austria to secure the alliance of the
emperor. Charles VI., though his army was in a state of decay and his
treasury empty, eagerly embarked in the enterprise. He was in a
continued state of apprehension from the threatened invasion of the
Turks. He hoped also, aided by the powerful arm of Russia, to be able to
gain territories in the east which would afford some compensation for
his enormous losses in the south and in the west.
While negotiations were pending, the Russian armies were already on the
march. They took Azof after a siege of but a fortnight, and then overran
and took possession of the whole Crimea, driving the Turks before them.
Charles VI. was a very scrupulous Roman Catholic, and was animated to
the strife by the declaration of his confessor that it was his duty, as
a Christian prince, to aid in extirpating the enemies of the Church of
Christ. The Turks were greatly alarmed by these successes of the
Russians, and by the formidable preparations of the other powers allied
against them.
The emperor hoped that fortune, so long adverse, was now turning in his
favor. He collected a large force on the frontiers of Turkey, and
intrusted the command to General Seckendorf. The general hastened into
Hungary to the rendezvous of the troops. He found the army in a
deplorable condition. The treasury being exhausted, they were but poorly
supplied with the necessaries of war, and the generals and contractors
had contrived to appropriate to themselves most of the funds which had
been furnished. The general wrote to the emperor, presenting a
lamentable picture of the destitution of the army.
"I can not," he said, "consistently with my duty to God and the emperor,
conceal the miserable condition of the barracks and the hospitals. The
troops, crowded together without sufficient bedding to cover them, are a
prey to innumerable disorders, and are exposed to the rain, and other
inclemencies of the weather, from the dilapidated state of the caserns,
the roofs of which are in perpetual danger of being overthrown by the
wind. All the frontier fortresses, and even Belgrade, are incapable of
the smallest resistance, as well from the dilapidated state of the
fortifications as from a total want of artillery, ammunition and other
requisites. The naval armament is in a state of irreparable disorder.
Some companies of my regiment of Belgrade are thrust into holes where a
man would not put even his favorite hounds; and I can not see the
situation of these miserable and half-starved wretches without tears.
These melancholy circumstances portend the loss of these fine kingdoms
with the same rapidity as that of the States of Italy."
The bold Commander-in-chief also declared that many of the generals were
so utterly incapable of discharging their duties, that nothing could be
anticipated, under their guidance, but defeat and ruin. He complained
that the governors of those distant provinces, quite neglecting the
responsibilities of their offices, were spending their time in hunting
and other trivial amusements. These remonstrances roused the emperor,
and decisive reforms were undertaken. The main plan of the campaign was
for the Russians, who were already on the shores of the Black sea, to
press on to the mouth of the Danube, and then to march up the stream.
The Austrians were to follow down the Danube to the Turkish province of
Wallachia, and then, marching through the heart of that province, either
effect a junction with the Russians, or inclose the Turks between the
two armies. At the same time a large Austrian force, marching through
Bosnia and Servia, and driving the Turks out, were to take military
possession of those countries and join the main army in its union on the
lower Danube.
Matters being thus arranged, General Seckendorf took the command of the
Austrian troops, with the assurance that he should be furnished with one
hundred and twenty-six thousand men, provided with all the implements of
war, and that he should receive a monthly remittance of one million two
hundred thousand dollars for the pay of the troops. The emperor,
however, found it much easier to make promises than to fulfill them. The
month of August had already arrived and Seckendorf, notwithstanding his
most strenuous exertions, had assembled at Belgrade but thirty thousand
infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry. The Turks, with extraordinary
energy, had raised a much more formidable and a better equipped army.
Just as Seckendorf was commencing his march, having minutely arranged
all the stages of the campaign, to his surprise and indignation he
received orders to leave the valley of the Danube and march directly
south about one hundred and fifty miles into the heart of Servia, and
lay siege to the fortress of Nissa. The whole plan of the campaign was
thus frustrated. Magazines, at great expense, had been established, and
arrangements made for floating the heavy baggage down the stream. Now
the troops were to march through morasses and over mountains, without
suitable baggage wagons, and with no means of supplying themselves with
provisions in so hostile and inhospitable a country.
But the command of the emperor was not to be disobeyed. For twenty-eight
days they toiled along, encountering innumerable impediments, many
perishing by the way, until they arrived, in a state of extreme
exhaustion and destitution, before the walls of Nissa. Fortunately the
city was entirely unprepared for an attack, which had not been at all
anticipated, and the garrison speedily surrendered. Here Seckendorf,
having dispatched parties to seize the neighboring fortress, and the
passes of the mountains, waited for further orders from Vienna. The army
were so dissatisfied with their position and their hardships, that they
at last almost rose in mutiny, and Seckendorf, having accomplished
nothing of any moment, was compelled to retrace his steps to the banks
of the Danube, where he arrived on the 16th of October. Thus the
campaign was a total failure.
Bitter complaints were uttered both by the army and the nation. The
emperor, with the characteristic injustice of an ignoble mind,
attributed the unfortunate campaign to the incapacity of Seckendorf,
whose judicious plans he had so ruthlessly thwarted. The heroic general
was immediately disgraced and recalled, and the command of the army
given to General Philippi. The friends of General Seckendorf, aware of
his peril, urged him to seek safety in flight. But he, emboldened by
conscious innocence, obeyed the imperial commands and repaired to
Vienna. Seckendorf was a Protestant. His appointment to the supreme
command gave great offense to the Catholics, and the priests, from their
pulpits, inveighed loudly against him as a heretic, whom God could not
bless. They arraigned his appointment as impious, and declared that, in
consequence, nothing was to be expected but divine indignation.
Immediately upon his arrival in Vienna the emperor ordered his arrest. A
strong guard was placed over him, in his own house, and articles of
impeachment were drawn up against him. His doom was sealed. Every
misadventure was attributed to negligence, cupidity or treachery. He
could offer no defense which would be of any avail, for he was not
permitted to exhibit the orders he had received from the emperor, lest
the emperor himself should be proved guilty of those disasters which he
was thus dishonorably endeavoring to throw upon another. The unhappy
Seckendorf, thus made the victim of the faults of others, was condemned
to the dungeon. He was sent to imprisonment in the castle of Glatz,
where he lingered in captivity for many years until the death of the
emperor.
Charles now, in accordance with the clamor of the priests, removed all
Protestants from command in the army and supplied their places with
Catholics. The Duke of Lorraine, who had recently married Maria Theresa,
was appointed generalissimo. But as the duke was young, inexperienced in
war, and, as yet, had displayed none of that peculiar talent requisite
for the guidance of armies, the emperor placed next to him, as the
acting commander, Marshal Konigsegg. The emperor also gave orders that
every important movement should be directed by a council of war, and
that in case of a tie the casting vote should be given, not by the Duke
of Lorraine, but by the veteran commander Konigsegg. The duke was an
exceedingly amiable man, of very courtly manners and winning address. He
was scholarly in his tastes, and not at all fond of the hardships of
war, with its exposure, fatigue and butchery. Though a man of perhaps
more than ordinary intellectual power, he was easily depressed by
adversity, and not calculated to brave the fierce storms of disaster.
Early in March the Turks opened the campaign by sending an army of
twenty thousand men to besiege Orsova, an important fortress on an
island of the Danube, about one hundred miles below Belgrade. They
planted their batteries upon both the northern and the southern banks of
the Danube, and opened a storm of shot and shell upon the fortress. The
Duke of Lorraine hastened to the relief of the important post, which
quite commanded that portion of the stream. The imperial troops pressed
on until they arrived within a few miles of the fortress. The Turks
marched to meet them, and plunged into their camp with great fierceness.
After a short but desperate conflict, the Turks were repulsed, and
retreating in a panic, they broke up their camp before the walls of
Orsova and retired.
This slight success, after so many disasters, caused immense exultation.
The Duke of Lorraine was lauded as one of the greatest generals of the
age. The pulpits rang with his praises, and it was announced that now,
that the troops were placed under a true child of the Church, Providence
might be expected to smile. Soon, however, the imperial army, while
incautiously passing through a defile, was assailed by a strong force of
the Turks, and compelled to retreat, having lost three thousand men. The
Turks resumed the siege of Orsova; and the Duke of Lorraine, quite
disheartened, returned to Vienna, leaving the command of the army to
Konigsegg. The Turks soon captured the fortress, and then, ascending the
river, drove the imperial troops before them to Belgrade. The Turks
invested the city, and the beleaguered troops were rapidly swept away by
famine and pestilence. The imperial cavalry, crossing the Save, rapidly
continued their retreat. Konigsegg was now recalled in disgrace, as
incapable of conducting the war, and the command was given to General
Kevenhuller. He was equally unsuccessful in resisting the foe; and,
after a series of indecisive battles, the storms of November drove both
parties to winter quarters, and another campaign was finished. The
Russians had also fought some fierce battles; but their campaign was as
ineffective as that of the Austrians.
The court of Vienna was now in a state of utter confusion. There was no
leading mind to assume any authority, and there was irremediable
discordance of counsel. The Duke of Lorraine was in hopeless disgrace;
even the emperor assenting to the universal cry against him. In a state
almost of distraction the emperor exclaimed, "Is the fortune of my
empire departed with Eugene?" The disgraceful retreat to Belgrade seemed
to haunt him day and night; and he repeated again and again to himself,
as he paced the floor of his apartment, "that unfortunate, that fatal
retreat." Disasters had been so rapidly accumulating upon him, that he
feared for every thing. He expressed the greatest anxiety lest his
daughter, Maria Theresa, who was to succeed him upon the throne, might
be intercepted, in the case of his sudden death, from returning to
Austria, and excluded from the throne. The emperor was in a state of
mind nearly bordering upon insanity.
At length the sun of another spring returned, the spring of 1739, and
the recruited armies were prepared again to take the field. The emperor
placed a new commander, Marshal Wallis, in command of the Austrian
troops. He was a man of ability, but overbearing and morose, being
described by a contemporary as one who hated everybody, and who was
hated by everybody in return. Fifty miles north of Belgrade, on the
south bank of the Danube, is the fortified town of Peterwardein, so
called as the rendezvous where Peter the Hermit marshaled the soldiers
of the first crusade. This fortress had long been esteemed one of the
strongest of the Austrian empire. It was appointed as the rendezvous of
the imperial troops, and all the energies of the now exhausted empire
were expended in gathering there as large a force as possible. But,
notwithstanding the utmost efforts, in May but thirty thousand men were
assembled, and these but very poorly provided with the costly
necessaries of war. Another auxiliary force of ten thousand men was
collected at Temeswar, a strong fortress twenty-five miles north of
Peterwardein. With these forces Wallis was making preparations to
attempt to recover Orsova from the Turks, when he received positive
orders to engage the enemy with his whole force on the first
opportunity.
The army marched down the banks of the river, conveying its baggage and
heavy artillery in a flotilla to Belgrade, where it arrived on the 11th
of June. Here they were informed that the Turkish army was about twenty
miles below on the river at Crotzka. The imperial army was immediately
pressed forward, in accordance with the emperor's orders, to attack the
foe. The Turks were strongly posted, and far exceeded the Austrians in
number. At five o'clock on the morning of the 21st of July the battle
commenced, and blazed fiercely through all the hours of the day until
the sun went down. Seven thousand Austrians were then dead upon the
plain. The Turks were preparing to renew the conflict in the morning,
when Wallis ordered a retreat, which was securely effected during the
darkness of the night. On the ensuing day the Turks pursued them to the
walls of Belgrade, and, driving them across the river, opened the fire
of their batteries upon the city. The Turks commenced the siege in form,
and were so powerful, that Wallis could do nothing to retard their
operations. A breach was ere long made in one of the bastions; an
assault was hourly expected which the garrison was in no condition to
repel. Wallis sent word to the emperor that the surrender of Belgrade
was inevitable; that it was necessary immediately to retreat to
Peterwardein, and that the Turks, flushed with victory, might soon be at
the gates of Vienna.
Great was the consternation which pervaded the court and the capital
upon the reception of these tidings. The ministers all began to
criminate each other. The general voice clamored for peace upon almost
any terms. The emperor alone remained firm. He dispatched another
officer, General Schmettan, to hasten with all expedition to the
imperial camp, and prevent, if possible, the impending disaster. He
earnestly pressed the hand of the general as he took his leave, and
said--
"Use the utmost diligence to arrive before the retreat of the army;
assume the defense of Belgrade, and save it, if not too late, from
falling into the hands of the enemy."
The energy of Schmettan arrested the retreat of Wallis, and revived the
desponding hopes of the garrison of Belgrade. Bastion after bastion was
recovered. The Turks were driven back from the advance posts they had
occupied. A new spirit animated the whole Austrian army, and from the
depths of despair they were rising to sanguine hopes of victory, when
the stunning news arrived that the emperor had sent an envoy to the
Turkish camp, and had obtained peace by the surrender of Belgrade. Count
Neuperg having received full powers from the emperor to treat, very
imprudently entered the camp of the barbaric Turk, without requiring any
hostages for his safety. The barbarians, regardless of the flag of
truce, and of all the rules of civilized warfare, arrested Count
Neuperg, and put him under guard. He was then conducted into the
presence of the grand vizier, who was arrayed in state, surrounded by
his bashaws. The grand vizier haughtily demanded the terms Neuperg was
authorized to offer.
"The emperor, my master," said Neuperg, "has intrusted me with full
powers to negotiate a peace, and is willing, for the sake of peace, to
cede the province of Wallachia to Turkey provided the fortress of Orsova
be dismantled."
The grand vizier rose, came forward, and deliberately spit in the face
of the Count Neuperg, and exclaimed,
"Infidel dog! thou provest thyself a spy, with all thy powers. Since
thou hast brought no letter from the Vizier Wallis, and hast concealed
his offer to surrender Belgrade, thou shalt be sent to Constantinople to
receive the punishment thou deservest."
Count Neuperg, after this insult, was conducted into close confinement.
The French ambassador, Villeneuve, now arrived. He had adopted the
precaution of obtaining hostages before intrusting himself in the hands
of the Turks. The grand vizier would not listen to any terms of
accommodation but upon the basis of the surrender of Belgrade. The Turks
carried their point in every thing. The emperor surrendered Belgrade,
relinquished to them Orsova, agreed to demolish all the fortresses of
his own province of Media, and ceded to Turkey Servia and various other
contiguous districts. It was a humiliating treaty for Austria. Already
despoiled in Italy and on the Rhine, the emperor was now compelled to
abandon to the Turks extensive territories and important fortresses upon
the lower Danube.
General Schmettan, totally unconscious of these proceedings, was
conducting the defense of Belgrade with great vigor and with great
success, when he was astounded by the arrival of a courier in his camp,
presenting to him the following laconic note from Count Neuperg:
"Peace was signed this morning between the emperor, our master, and the
Porte. Let hostilities cease, therefore, on the receipt of this. In half
an hour I shall follow, and announce the particulars myself."
General Schmettan could hardly repress his indignation, and, when Count
Neuperg arrived, intreated that the surrender of Belgrade might be
postponed until the terms had been sent to the emperor for his
ratification. But Neuperg would listen to no such suggestions, and,
indignant that any obstacle should be thrown in the way of the
fulfillment of the treaty, menacingly said,
"If you choose to disobey the orders of the emperor, and to delay the
execution of the article relative to Belgrade, I will instantly dispatch
a courier to Vienna, and charge you with all the misfortunes which may
result. I had great difficulty in diverting the grand vizier from the
demand of Sirmia, Sclavonia and the bannat of Temeswar; and when I have
dispatched a courier, I will return into the Turkish camp and protest
against this violation of the treaty."
General Schmettan was compelled to yield. Eight hundred janissaries took
possession of one of the gates of the city; and the Turkish officers
rode triumphantly into the streets, waving before them in defiance the
banners they had taken at Crotzka. The new fortifications were blown up,
and the imperial army, in grief and shame, retired up the river to
Peterwardein. They had hardly evacuated the city ere Count Neuperg, to
his inexpressible mortification, received a letter from the emperor
stating that nothing could reconcile him to the idea of surrendering
Belgrade but the conviction that its defense was utterly hopeless; but
that learning that this was by no means the case, he intreated him on no
account to think of the surrender of the city. To add to the chagrin of
the count, he also ascertained, at the same time, that the Turks were in
such a deplorable condition that they were just on the point of
retreating, and would gladly have purchased peace at almost any
sacrifice. A little more diplomatic skill might have wrested from the
Turks even a larger extent of territory than the emperor had so
foolishly surrendered to them.