- 76 -
67
, or from the bushes a hail of carbine-fire would burst upon us, so that many a man lay dead on the spot and many another was wounded. But when our artillery trained a few cannon on the bushes, then the enemy would run headlong away. This business could not frighten me, I would soon have grown accustomed to it, and often thought: Pah! if it only continues like this, it's not so bad. On the 30th we again marched for the whole day, and not until night did we reach a hillside, where I and my fellows knew the way no better than a blind man would have done. Here we received orders that we were not to pitch the tents, nor to lay down our weapons, but to stand to with them ready loaded, for the enemy was close to us. At last, as the day broke, we saw and heard much flashing and firing in the valley below us. In this fearful night many men deserted, among them Brother Bachmann. But it was not my luck to do the same, glad though I would have been of the chance.5. The battle of Lobositz (1st October 1756):
Early in the morning we had to fall in and march down a narrow ravine towards the main valley. Because of thick mist we could not see far ahead. But when we were come down to the plain and joined the main body of the army, we advanced again in three lines, and from a distance we saw through the mist, as if through a veil, enemy troops on some level ground above the Bohemian town of Lobositz. They were Imperial cavalry; we never so much as saw the infantry, because they had taken up a fortified position close by the town.
At six o'clock the artillery-fire was already thundering from our front line as well as from the Imperial batteries, so fiercely that the humming cannon-balls sped as far as our regiment, which was in the second line. Until then I had always hoped to steal away before a battle, now I saw no way of escape before me nor behind, neither to left nor right. And meanwhile we continued to advance. Now my heart sank into my boots, I would have liked to creep into the belly of the earth, and a like fear, indeed a deathly pallor, was soon to be seen on every face, even of those who had so far feigned courage. The brandy-flasks, such as every soldier carried, flew empty through the air amid the cannon-balls, for most men drank their little store to the last drop, to the tune of: Courage for today, and maybe no need of a dram tomorrow! Now we advanced up close to the cannon, and there had to change places with the front line. Great heavens! How the iron shards boomed over our heads, striking the earth now before us, now behind us, so that stones and turf sprang high into the air, and now and again amongst us, plucking men out of our ranks as if they were straws.
Close in front of us we could see nothing but enemy cavalry, who were making all kinds of manoeuvres, now extending in a line or a crescent, then gathering in a square or wedge formation. Now our own cavalry came up, we made a way for them to come forward and gallop at the enemy. What a thundering, what a rattling and a flashing, as they set to! But it lasted barely a quarter of an hour, and our riders came back, beaten by the Austrians and pursued almost right up to our cannon. That was a spectacle to behold: horses with their riders hanging from the stirrup, or with their intestines dragging on the ground.
We remained under the enemy's cannon-fire until towards eleven o'clock, and our left wing had not yet joined battle with small-arms, though on the right they were going at it very hotly. Many were of the opinion that we should make an assault upon the Imperial entrenchments. I was already feeling less afraid than at the beginning, though volleys were carrying men away from near me on both sides, and the field was already strewn with dead and wounded. Then suddenly at about twelve o'clock the order came that our regiment, with two others (I think the
67
Austrian irregular troops [see extended note below].
| |
Contents | |