Battles Of Luzhinsky- Extract 7

Battles of Luzhinsky- Extract 7
-by Robert Fullarton.

Copyright Robert Fullarton 2017

On the 7th of October Von Goetze’s 2nd cavalry division were called up for the assault at Párkány in the Ottoman principality of Hungary. A disastrous Polish cavalry assault that day, occurred, due to the fact that the troops had been caught unawares to the Ottoman forces who lay in advance for an isolated Polish assault. The cavalry charge was cut to shreds for the greater part, as many men were caught in the cross fire of the Janissaries, the Turkish Guns and the Sipahi units which routed them, until the Polish command regrouped and rallied to the main body of the Imperial forces. Sobieski, led his next assault to the right flank of the Ottoman forces, alongside the sweeping charges of the German forces to his left and centre.

Luzhinsky, Lieutenant Kaminski, Captain Marwel and Colonel Von Goetze found themselves once again in the thick of the fighting, canons fired ablaze, the cauldron of the iron machine of war emptied out unto the town, the hinterlands and the positions of the Ottoman army and their Hungarian allies.

Luzhinsky jerked his horse, pulling it by the reins, swinging his sabre into the necks of his foe again and again, until there came a sword fight between actively matched foes. Eyes were bulging, focus given face to face in extreme rage. Luzhinsky fired his pistol point blank into the face of opponent, who had been furious with failing to overturn Luzhinsky from his horse.

A second opponent drew a pistol and fired a shot that just fell short of Luzhinksy’s left ear lobe. Luzhinsky returned the favour with a blow against his quick witted opponent, puncturing his silken garb, which seeped with blood, from the fatal wound to his breast. The heat of the action rested on several battalions, one of which was Luzhinski’s own subordinates under Colonel Von Goetze, all busily engaged, like mongoose in a pit of cobras, tooth and nail, blood and savagery, until the order to regroup sounded out. Their Ottoman counterparts retreated further into the folds and shadows of the countryside, until the firing ceased, the canvass had ceased to move with the colours of various armies and divisions.

All this was part of the alliance forces and their plan to push to Ottoman forces back, even past Hungary, with a Habsburg strategy to conquer territory from the wounded giant that had its back in retreat to the forces of Europe who finally had the confidence to believe they could beat the Turk and throw off the Ottoman yoke of cruelty. Innovations in technology and reform in the European armies had led to these victories which were to become part and parcel of the cultural dominance of the western nations.

-When men were out at war, riding forth from the lines of the cavalry or marching in step with infantry divisions there was a silence, between the great breadth of the conflict and the clashes of the opposing forces, Luzhinsky began to find himself more immersed in the army life, the civilian life was boring to him, he hated being stationed at the local garrisons, at the Austrian frontier with Poland, waiting to be called by his new commanding officer, he hated the childish games of fellow officers, their gambling, their drinking, their dueling, their lack of interest in the serious and deeper matters of life, their worship of sex, or money, or alcohol for that matter. These men were noted for being juveniles in the midst of a more wizened generation. Had suffering made the previous generation a more philosophical and spiritual party to this life? Those who had endured and survived the thirty years war had nearly lost everything, the present generation of wealthy folk lived off the backs of their servants and this too disturbed Luzhinsky for what he had seen in life. He was so sensitive or sensible in the matters of the world that he quickly realised that he did not fit in and that he had lost his so-called "friends" like a wolf that moults in the coming of the summer sun. The sheer physique of Luzhinsky, matched with his sharp intellect made him a match for any officer, and none dared to torment him, though they did sense the difference that had been born between their hedonism and his growing sense of awareness.

That following year with the revelation given on the death of Colonel Von Goetze to the troops of the old 2nd division, whom had succumbed to his wound from a Turkish bullet at the battle of Párkány and whose blood had been infected through the long exposure of the wound, this had devastated Luzhinsky like the death of a second father, one who had taken him under his paternal wing. The old officer lay, in full uniform, draped in both Saxon flag and the red and white emblem of the Polish eagle resting on the breast of his fine cut garb.His face was turning a waxen yellow, his eyes closed in peaceful resolution in the black night. this was the finality of his earthly end, while the soldiers stood over him, with burning torches, stooped, curious, devoted, tearful and sombre. There stood Luzhinsky Prostrated with grief.