Funeral Wisdom of the World

I learned about the battle of Karanberes by chance while going through the archives of my local web analytics company.  There will be no mistake, if I call the this battle one of the most bizarre thing that ever took place on a battle field. The Ottoman army was victorious without even making a single shot or facing the enemy. It all happened during Austrian-Turkish war of  1787-1791.

Gigantic Austrian army which exceeded a hundred thousand men set up a camp new the town of Karansebes, that is located nowadays in modern Romania, on September of 1788. Naturally, Austrian army represented all nations of the empire. There were Italians from Lombardy, Balkan Slavs, Austrians, Germans and other minorities that could not understand each other.

Several units of hussars were scouting for the presence of the Turks and crossed the nearby river. Hussars did not find the Turks but they met a group of Gypsies that had in their possession a lot of hard liquor. They decided to have a little party and helped themselves to a drink. While they were having fun relaxing from the horrors of war, a contingent of infantry men crossed the river too. They were war-weary too and wanted to join the party as well.  Hussars refused to share schnapps with them and got into the argument that got to its peak when one of the infantry guys fired a shot.

This led to an open combat between infantry and hussars. For some unknown reason, some infantry men started screaming the word “Turks” in Romanian.  This scared the hussars who promptly left the scenery thinking that infantry spotted an approaching Turkish army.  Galloping men rushed into the peacefully resting camp shooting and waving sabers.

Some Austrian officers quickly figured out that men on horses were hussars and not the Ottoman cavalry. Trying to restore the order they were yelling “Halt!” . This made situation even worse, because non-German speaking soldiers decided these were definitely the Turks because they misheard the word “halt” and thought that it was the word “Allah”.

The army commander got confused too because he though that Turkish cavalry is attacking the camp. He ordered the artillery fire. Without understanding what the situation was, the whole gigantic camp got up and fled in different directions. In the clouds of dust soldiers were shooting at everything that moved, including their shadows.  People were killing each other thinking that they were fighting with the enemy.  During these stampeded even the Austrian emperor Joseph II got hurt. He survived by pure chance when his own soldiers pushed him off his horse into a small creek.

Very soon the whole place was empty except for piles of dead, dying and wounded men and lots of treasure, thrown around ammunition, food and guns.  Only two days later the vanguard of the Ottoman army appeared in the area and took the city of  Karansebes and the surrounding area under its control . Astonished Turks discovered on field of the battle that never took place, over ten thousand troops that were killed and wounded by their own fellows.

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