“The battle began about one o’clock in the afternoon; the cannon of the King’s army did dreadful execution among the rebels, while theirs was totally unserviceable. One of the great errors in all the Pretender’s war-like measures, was his subjecting wild and undisciplined troops to the forms of artful war, and thus repressing their native ardour, from which alone he could hope for success. After they had kept in their ranks and withstood the English fire for some time, they at length became impatient for closer engagement; and about 500 of them made an irruption upon the left wing of the enemy with their accustomed ferocity. The first line being disordered by this onset, two battalions advanced to support it, and galled the enemy with a terrible close discharge. At the same time the dragoons, under Hawley, and the Argyleshire militia, pulling down a park wall feebly defended, fell among them, sword in hand, with great slaughter. In less than thirty minutes they were totally routed, and the field covered with their wounded and slain, to the number of 3000 men. The French troops on the left did not fire a shot, but stood inactive during the engagement, and afterwards surrendered themselves prisoners of war. An entire body of the clans marched off the field in order, while the rest were routed with great slaughter, and their leaders obliged with reluctance to retire. Civil war is in itself terrible, but much more so when heightened by unnecessary cruelty. How guilty soever an enemy may be, it is the duty of a brave soldier to remember that he is only to fight an opposer, and not a suppliant. The victory was in every respect decisive, and humanity to the conquered would have rendered it glorious. But little mercy was shown here; the conquerors were seen to refuse quarter to the wounded, the unarmed, the defenceless; some were slain who were only excited by curiosity to become spectators of the combat, and soldiers were seen to anticipate the base employment of the executioner. The Duke, immediately after the action, ordered thirty-six deserters to be executed. The conquerors spread terror wherever they came; and, after a short space, the whole country round was one dreadful scene of plunder, slaughter, and desolation; justice was forgotten, and vengeance assumed the name.”
CUNNERSDORF, BATTLE OF.—The King of Prussia with 50,000 men attacked the Austrian and Russian army with 90,000 men (in their camp). At first he gained considerable advantages, but pursuing too far, the enemy rallied and gained a complete victory. The Russians lost 200 pieces of cannon and 20,000 men in killed and wounded. Fought August 12th, 1759.
CUSTOZZA, BATTLE OF.—Fought Sunday, 24th June, 1866 between the Austrians and Italians. “The Italian army, divided into three corps and a reserve, making up a force of from 80,000 to 90,000 combatants, after crossing the Mincio at Gotto, and on the other points, on Saturday afternoon, June 23rd, 1866, and sending reconnoitering parties towards Peschiera and Verona, encamped for the night at some place beyond Roverbella, equidistant from the two fortresses. On the ensuing morning an attempt was made upon those high positions of Sona, Somma Campaigna, and Santa Ciustina, which commands the fifteen miles railway line joining the two strongholds, positions which played a conspicuous part in the campaign of 1848. The object of the Italians was evidently to take possession of the railway, so as to isolate Peschiera and secure a basis of operations against Verona. The Austrians, however, who were massed in great force at Verona, sallied forth from that place at daybreak, and, anticipating the Italian movements, took up their position upon those hills, which are now everywhere bristling with bastions and redoubts, and may be looked upon as mere outworks of the two citadels, extending from the gates of one to those of the other. After a severe and bloody, or, as the Italians describe it, “desperate struggle,” which lasted nearly the whole day—that longest of summer days—the Imperial army was victorious along the whole line. They stormed the summit of Montevente, where the Italians held out the longest, and at the close of the engagement, at five o’clock in the afternoon, they also carried the position of Custozza, a spot fatal to Italian arms in their encounter with Radetski, in July, 1848. The victors captured several guns, and about 2000 prisoners, and behaved, as the Archduke Albert’s bulletin assures us, and as we may readily believe, with even more than their ordinary bravery and endurance. On the same evening the Italian army was obliged to re-cross the Mincio.
The Italian accounts of the engagement present no points of material difference. According to them, the first army corps was sent forward to occupy some positions between Peschiera and Verona, but being surrounded by superior numbers, it “failed to effect its purpose,” and the description given of its losses in the contest leaves us little doubt that it was all but annihilated. The second and third corps, unable—it is not said for what reason—to advance to its rescue, were still in the evening “almost intact.” It was also stated from Brescia that the army had maintained its position; but there is little doubt that it had to withdraw across the Mincio later in the night. The Italians had several of their Generals wounded, among others the King’s second son, Prince Amadeus, who has arrived at Brescia.
There is every probability, also, that the Italians were, on this occasion, outnumbered by their enemies: for the Austrians have from 200,000 to 250,000 men in Venetia, and as they had in their hands the most formidable of all engines of modern warfare—the railway, they had probably massed three-fourths, at least, of their troops in Verona, ready for the long-expected Italian inroad. The Archduke’s bulletins, in fact, never speak of garrisons, but tell us that the “imperial army” was in the field.
The Italians, we are assured, behaved with great heroism, and, no doubt although they lost the day, they came off without loss of honour. An advance across the Mincio, right into the heart of the Quadrilateral, is an enterprise which no other European army would, under such circumstances, have ventured upon, but a frenzy to do something seems to have possessed the whole Italian nation, and the men in command could think of nothing better than dashing their heads against those formidable stone walls. There may be bravery in so desperate an attempt to take the bull by the horns, but we believe it would be impossible for the king or La Marmora to say what results they expected from their ill-conceived and worse-executed attempt. It was a battle in which they staked the very existence of their army, while their enemies, in the worst event, ran no other risk than that of a safe and leisurely retreat behind the shelter of their bastions. The least that may be said of it is, that like the Balaklava charge, “C’était beau mais ce n’était pas la guerre.” Ever since 1848 and 1849 the Austrians have strained every nerve to strengthen these four citadels, and have extended their outworks, so that the line between Peschiera and Verona, especially, is a vast intrenched camp.”
CYZICUM, BATTLE OF.—Fought during the Peloponnesian war. Plutarch states that Mindarus was slain in this battle. The Athenians gained a complete victory over the Lacedæmonian fleet. Fought B.C. 410.
D.
DAMASCUS.—Taken by the Saracens, 633. Again by the Turks in 1006, and was destroyed by Tamerlane in 1400.
DANTZIC.—It surrendered to the French, after a siege of four months, May 5th, 1807; and, by the treaty of Tilsit, was restored to its former independence under the protection of Russia and Saxony. It was besieged by the Allies in 1812, and surrendered to them January 6th, 1814. By the treaty of Paris it reverted to its former status.