In this engagement Bassompierre again had a narrow escape. He was mounted that day on a magnificent Spanish stallion, for which he had given a thousand crowns; but he was a very mettlesome animal and by no means easy to ride, and, having been wounded below the eye by a javelin in the first charge, while, at the same time, his curb-chain broke, he became quite unmanageable and bolted after the flying enemy at breakneck speed. Bassompierre endeavoured in vain to stop him, and then, seeing that he had far outstripped his comrades and was alone in the midst of the fugitives, he bore hard on the left rein and succeeded in turning him in that direction. But he had only diverted the maddened animal’s course, without checking his speed, and found himself being carried towards a body of some thousand Turks who had not yet been engaged and were retreating in good order. A few seconds more and he would have been in the middle of them, when, happily for him, his equerry Des Essans, who had been riding hard to overtake his master, came up and, seizing the runaway’s bridle, managed to hold him long enough to enable Bassompierre to throw himself out of the saddle, within twenty paces of the Turks. The latter, though very reluctant to forgo the chance of killing and despoiling so magnificent a cavalier—for Bassompierre tells us that he was arrayed that day “in a suit of gilded armour, very beautifully chased, with a number of plumes and scarves upon himself and his horse”—were too hard pressed by their pursuers to turn aside, and continued their retreat, leaving him and Des Essans unmolested. The faithful equerry had, however, not escaped unscathed, as, in seizing the bridle of his master’s horse, he had been somewhat badly wounded in the leg by Bassompierre’s sword, which was suspended from his wrist.
Having procured another horse, Bassompierre continued the pursuit of the enemy to the bank of the river, and then, accompanied by Joinville, made his way to the spot where Rossworm and his staff were gathered, “seated on some dead Turks.” On seeing Bassompierre, the general rose and announced that he wished to say a few words.
“And, after having praised me for what he had just seen me do, and observed that I should not be a member of the family to which I belonged if I were not valiant, he continued: ‘The late M. de Bassompierre, your father, was my master, but he wished to put me to death unjustly. I desire to forget that outrage and to remember only the obligations under which he had previously placed me, and to be henceforth, if you wish it, your friend and your servant.’ Then I dismounted from my horse and advanced to salute him and thank him in the most suitable terms that I could think of. Upon which, turning towards the two princes, the Prince de Joinville and the Landgrave of Hesse, and the colonels and other officers who were with him, he said: ‘Gentlemen, I could not effect this reconciliation or offer these assurances of friendship to M. de Bassompierre in a better place, after a better action, or before more noble witnesses. I invite you to dine with me to-morrow, and him also, to confirm again what has just occurred.’ And this we all promised to do.”
After this victory the Imperialists returned to their camp on the left bank of the river, where Rossworm ordered all the Turkish prisoners taken in the battle to be put to death, “because they embarrassed the army.” “It was a very cruel thing,” adds Bassompierre, “to see more than 800 men who had surrendered slaughtered in cold blood.” Nevertheless, the butchery of prisoners appears to have been an only too common practice in the wars between the Cross and the Crescent, which were conducted on both sides with the most pitiless ferocity.
Next day Bassompierre dined with the commander-in-chief and his staff, when they confirmed “with the bottle and a thousand protestations of friendship, the reconciliation which had been effected on the field of battle.” To do Rossworm justice, he was perfectly sincere in his desire to terminate his feud with the Bassompierre family, and he and the young volunteer soon became firm friends.
The Turks still held the little island, and had preserved intact the bridge of boats by which communication with their army on the right bank of the Danube was maintained. They had mounted on this island six pieces of cannon, which completely commanded the approach from the left bank of the river, so that any attempt to capture it by day would have been out of the question, even if the bridge of boats had not enabled the enemy to hurry reinforcements across at the first alarm. Rossworm, however, considered that, if the communications of the garrison of the island with their army could be temporarily interrupted by the destruction of this bridge, a night attack might very well prove successful.
On the night of October 8-9 he determined to make the attempt, and accordingly dispatched engineers to blow up the bridge, while a large force was brought into the Isle of Adon, and boats and rafts collected to ferry them across. The engineers duly succeeded in destroying the bridge, but the Hungarians, who formed the advance-guard of the attacking force, remained inactive in their boats in the middle of the river, awaiting the arrival of a body of pikemen whom they had demanded as supports, in case there should be cavalry on the island. The consequence was that the Turks were given time to send over reinforcements, and the opportunity was lost.
Rossworm returned to his camp in great wrath, anathematizing the Hungarians, whom he accused of cowardice. The Hungarian chiefs indignantly repudiated such an aspersion, and, to redeem their reputation, volunteered to cross the river and construct a fort in the plain between Buda and the Turkish camp. Rossworm accepted this offer, though it is difficult to understand how he could have countenanced an undertaking which could have no other result than the useless sacrifice of gallant lives; and on the night of October 10-11, some 1,300 Hungarians landed on the right bank, unperceived by the enemy, and began to entrench themselves.
They worked desperately all night, but when morning dawned, a Turkish flotilla appeared upon the scene, and bombarded their hastily-constructed fort from the river; while the enemy in great force assailed it from the land side. After an heroic resistance, the Hungarians were obliged to abandon it, with the loss of some 300 men, and retreat to the caiques which were waiting to take them off. So fierce was the pursuit that some of the Turkish cavalry spurred their horses into the water to attack the caiques, and two were made prisoners with their steeds.
Rossworm had placed a number of cannon in the Isle of Adon to cover the retreat of the Hungarians, but only two of these pieces appear to have come into action, which Bassompierre tells us the general ascribed to the fact that, the day being a Sunday, most of the artillerymen were drunk.