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Updated: May 1, 2025
"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.
The treaty being definitively settled, both Marshal Wallis and Count Neuperg were arrested and sent to prison, where they were detained until the death of Charles VI. Care and sorrow were now hurrying the emperor to the grave. Wan and haggard he moved about his palace, mourning his doom, and complaining that it was his destiny to be disappointed in every cherished plan of his life.
The treasury of the Austrian court was so empty that but meager supplies could be provided for the troops. A ridge of mountains, whose defiles were blocked up with snow, spread between Silesia and Moravia. It was not until the close of March that Marshal Neuperg was able to force his way through these defiles and enter Silesia.
The warlike character of the Prussian king was as yet undeveloped, and Neuperg, unconscious of the tremendous energies he was to encounter, and supposing that the Prussian garrisons would fly in dismay before him, was giving his troops, after their exhausting march, a few days of repose in the Vicinity of Molnitz.
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.
The emperor published a circular letter, addressed to his ministers at all the courts of Europe, blaming count Wallis for the bad success of the last campaign, and disowning the negotiations of count Neuperg; nay, these two officers were actually disgraced, and confined in different castles.
The emperor, dreading the loss of this place, seeing his finances exhausted, and his army considerably diminished, consented to a negotiation for peace, which was transacted under the mediation of the French ambassador at the Ottoman Porte. The count de Neuperg, as Imperial plenipotentiary, signed the preliminaries on the first day of September.
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.
While Neuperg was thus resting, all unconscious of danger, twenty-seven battalions, consisting of sixteen thousand men, and twenty-nine squadrons of horse, amounting to six thousand, were, in the smothering snow, taking their positions for battle.
On the morning of the 10th the snow ceased to fall, the clouds broke, and the sun came out clear and bright, when Neuperg saw that another and a far more fearful storm had gathered, and that its thunderbolts were about to be hurled into the midst of his camp.
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