Super Harbaugh Rivalry Bros: The Battle of Karansebes

Jim, I bet you’re getting excited for your spring game already. Nothing like a little in-team offence vs. defence rivalry to get the blood flowing on a new season.

You said it, brother of mine. I will say that the one downside is that they won’t let us incorporate fireworks into our game plans anymore… seems like the administration and I have differing ideas of what “good, clean fun” means these days.

Soft. They’ll never get it. If your offence and defence can’t get pissed off at each other, they’ll never be able to get mad at others.

This is why I make sure the team knows that if you’re going to fight yourselves, make sure you go far enough off-campus to do it. I don’t want to be held responsible. I just hope if it comes to blows again, it goes better than when an army decides to battle itself…

THE BATTLE OF KARANSEBES

Combatant 1: The Imperial Austrian Army

Combatant 2: The Imperial Austrian Army

Location of Conflict: Karansebes, Romania

Reason for Conflict: Somebody got drunk as fuck off of schnapps.

What happened? In September 1788, in the middle of the Austro-Turkish War between the Habsburg monarchy and the Ottoman Empire, the Austrian army was out scouting some possible locations for the opposing Ottoman army; the objective of both sides was to control the Danube River, a key waterway required for securing control of much of eastern Europe. The hussar cavalry rode around the region, looking for Turks, but came up empty-handed; tired, they encountered an encampment of Romani outside the town of Karansebes, who sold them a few bottles of schnapps to help them relax at the end of the day. Later that night, some infantry, who had been out in a separate scouting party, encountered the hussars, and seeing the schnapps, demanded some for themselves. When the hussars refused to share, an argument broke out, and in anger, one soldier fired a shot. As the hussars scrambled to the rudimentary fortifications they’d built while shithouse drunk, somebody else shouted “Turci! Turci!”, mistakenly believing the Ottomans had arrived. The hussars fled, and the infantry, also confused, rushed away as fast as they could. To compound the matter, the Austrian army was comprised of soldiers not only from Austria, but also from Serbia, Croatia, and Lombardy, most of whom could not understand each other. When German-speaking officers apparently shouted “Halt! Halt!” to try and stop the violence, the soldiers, most of whom could not understand German, believed them to be saying “Allah! Allah!”, meaning that the Ottomans were attacking them.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the river, the sober, sleeping forces, woken up by the din, believed that the Ottomans had arrived and they were in the midst of an attack.

The Aftermath: In the darkness of the night, amidst all the confusion, somebody called in an artillery strike on the battle that had sprung up out of nowhere. The Austrian army was pummelling itself into submission. As it turns out, things got so bad that soldiers were just shooting at random shadows, which, of course, were their fellow soldiers. The soldiers tried to retreat, but the pull-back happened too quickly; amidst all the chaos, even the Austrian Emperor, Joseph II, was pushed off his horse and into a creek.

The battle raged on through the night, and when morning boke, the army was shattered; the town of Karansebes lay vulnerable to attack, due to the army’s retreat. When the Ottomans arrived in Karansebes two days later, they found hundreds of dead and wounded soldiers, and, while extremely surprised, took the town with ease.

The exact casualties from the Battle of Karansebes are unclear – some historians claim that it was as high as 10,000, though this seems unlikely – this number is probably based off of the epidemics of malaria and dysentery that were ravaging both Austrians and Turks alike over the years of fighting. More probable is that the number lies somewhere between a low estimate of 150 casualties, t0 somewhere around 1200. Another account also stated that the Austrian army lost three cannons and the chest containing the payroll for all 100,000 men in the army, which would be hilarious if it could ever be properly confirmed. One of the reasons for the discrepancy in figures is due to the apparent lack of citations; the first written accounts of the battle only happened 40 years after the battle, possibly due to the fact that the Austrians were so embarrassed about the whole incident that they simply refused to talk about it.

Whatever the exact nature of the Battle of Karansebes was, it didn’t ultimately have a lot of impact on the final outcome of the war between the Austrians and the Turks. When hostilities concluded in 1791 with the signing of the Treaty of Sistova, the Austrians hadn’t really gained any new territory, and the Turks hadn’t been been able to stop the Russians from conquering a lot of new territory in the Caucasus and Black Sea region. The war also racked up gigantic national debt for Austria, turned public opinion strongly against the Emperor, and stirred up strong Serbian nationalist sentiments in the Habsburg empire. In Turkey, the war was just another example of the slow, steady decline of the Ottoman Empire, stuck between being unable to conquer Europe and unable to defend themselves against other rival powers.

You know, John, the Turks being in a slow, steady decline reminds me of how the Steelers are just a husk of themselves these days. You think you can win the AFC North for the second year in a row?

Jim, all I can tell you is that if those towelheads are scheming something up this season…

Uhhh… even though I know you’re talking about the Steelers’ fans, John… I don’t think you’re allowed to use that word anymore.

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Information for this article taken from here, here, here and here. Banner image by The Maestro.