United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I galloped off like the wind, on a big hard-mouthed brute. Just as I was nearing the spot where the Duke stood, a dozen Bavarians suddenly blocked my path and levelled their muskets. I was on a bit of a slope and above their heads, in a manner, so I kicked up my nag and in an instant I flew over them, guns and all. It was a clean jump, and not a shot hit me, by good luck.
In the madness of grief he vowed vengeance against all Bavarians who might fall into his hands. He was fighting then in the Legion; but shortly after he was gravely wounded. His left foot had to be amputated; and from serving France as a soldier, he began to serve as a surgeon.
Yonder, at the extremity of the plain through which the soldiers were now marching; yonder, on the bank of the Eisach, was seen a motley crowd ascending the slopes of the mountains on both sides of the river. "Yes, there are the Tyrolese, there are our enemies," cried the Bavarians and French, with grim satisfaction; and they marched at the double-quick toward the bank of the river.
The cannonade was returned by the Bavarians with equal vivacity for two hours, though with less effect, as the Swedish batteries swept the lower opposite bank, while their height served as a breast-work to their own troops.
Instead of taking possession of this and holding it until reinforcements came up, he fell back, drew up his troops on the plain, and allowed the Bavarians to occupy the wood without resistance. With the troops which arrived with him, the marshal had now under him some three thousand infantry and seven regiments of horse.
Turenne, who had separated from Conde, and taken the direction of Suabia, had, in the year 1645, been totally defeated by Mercy, near Mergentheim; and the victorious Bavarians, under their brave leader, poured into Hesse.
It was also at Erfurt that the Emperor learned of the audacious scheme of the Bavarians, his former allies, who, after deserting his cause, and joining with an Austrian Corps and several groups of Cossacks, had set off under the command of General the Comte de Wrède, whose ambition it was not only to stop the French army, but to make it captive, along with its Emperor.
But even this second barbarous sacrifice of life had little effect either on the course of the war, or on the negociations for peace. The French army, exhausted by this bloody engagement, was still farther weakened by the departure of the Hessians, and the Bavarians being reinforced by the Archduke Leopold, Turenne was again obliged hastily to recross the Rhine.
He stands in the foremost rank of conquerors and rulers. His prodigious energy and activity as a warrior may be judged by the number of his campaigns, in which he was uniformly successful. The eastern frontier of his dominions was threatened by the Saxons, the Danes, the Slaves, the Bavarians, the Avars.
This time, however, the Tyrolese were not victorious; the Bavarians expelled them from Innspruck, and, on the 29th of October, the crown prince Louis of Bavaria made his triumphal entry into the city, after a bloody battle of four days' duration on Mount Isel and near the Judenstein.
Word Of The Day