Mini: When a Schizophrenic Austrian Army Lost to Alcohol
One of the most hilarious military blunders in history, and one more reason to not be an alcoholic...
Europe had been fighting the Ottoman Empire for five or six centuries by the time the Austro-Turkish War of 1788-1791 rolled around. Sometimes they were large coalitions such as the Holy League, and other times they were mere rebellions like Skanderbeg and his Albanians. But, no matter the method, the Ottoman Empire was Eastern Europe’s greatest rival.
This specific war was similar to the many before it — vigorous, never-ending fights over control of the Balkans. The Ottomans had been an unstoppable war machine, gobbling up Eastern Europe at a scarcely believable rate until their defeat at the Battle of Vienna (1683), shifting the momentum in favor of the Christians, and beginning the slow Ottoman decline. By 1788, the Austrians were fighting to regain what had been lost to the Ottomans in the centuries prior.
During one such expedition, a 100,000-strong, multi-ethnic force (Austrians, Romanians, Croats, Serbs, Italians, and many other random minorities, all of whom spoke different languages), led by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, was attempting to cross the Timis River in search of a reported Ottoman army.
When the vanguard of elite Hussar cavalry crossed the river, they found no evidence of the fabled Ottoman army, rather just some Romanian locals who offered to sell them Schnapps (liquor, typically around 80 proof), which the Hussars gladly purchased.
The infantry soon crossed and met with the vanguard. When they saw the Schnapps they demanded some, a request the Hussars refused. Due to their holy Schnapps being at risk of theft, the Hussars (who were immensely inebriated by this point) built fortifications around the Schnapps to defend against their own infantry. Things got heated, and someone shot.
The Austrian Hussars engaging the also Austrian infantry over some alcohol.
As soon as the shot was fired, scuffling broke out between the cavalry and the infantry. It wasn’t intense fighting until some of the Romanian infantry began frantically yelling “Turks! Turks!”—There were no Turks. Hearing this, many of the troops began to flee, fearing the nonexistent Ottoman attack.
The situation was made worse when German-speaking Captains came to restore order, yelling “Halt! Halt!”—misunderstood by many of the troops, who could not speak German, as “Allah! Allah!” leading to further chaos.
Things were made worse yet again when a distant Austrian artillery officer decided “Yeah there’s got to be Ottomans in there somewhere” and began indiscriminately firing into the mass of Austrian troops.
10,000 Austrians were killed.
When word of the disaster reached Joseph II, he was so embarrassed that he ordered his army to retreat back into Austrian territory. The Ottoman army arrived two days later, saw all the dead bodies, probably said something like “Huh that’s weird”, and then stormed the city of Karánsebes that the Austrians abandoned.
So, the moral of the story is: don’t be an alcoholic— and also maybe make sure those are really Ottoman cavalry before firing your cannons.