Instead of advancing, the heart-sick emperor was forced to retreat. His artillery was withdrawn to Peterwardein, and the siege of Belgrade entirely relinquished. Disease and death followed the Austrians to their new encampment, and louder grew the mutterings of the men, and more bitter their denunciations of the emperor.
They little knew that while they were assailed by physical infirmities, their hapless chieftain was sick both in body and mind. He shared all their hardships, and watched them with most unremitting solicitude. He erected camp hospitals, and furnished the sick with wine and delicacies which he ordered from Vienna for their use. All military etiquette was suspended; even the approach of the emperor for the time being was to be ignored. Those who were lying down were to remain lying, those who were sitting were to keep their seats.
Meanwhile Joseph walked daily through the hospitals, bestowing care and kindness upon all, and no man there remarked that the deadly malaria had affected him in an equal degree with his troops. Heat, hardships, and disappointment had done their work as effectually upon the commander-in-chief as upon the common soldier; but no one suspected that fever was consuming his life; for by day, Joseph was the Providence of his army, and by night, while his men were sleeping, he was attending to the affairs of his vast empire. He worked as assiduously in camp as he had ever done at home in his palace. Every important measure of the regency was submitted to him for approval; the heads of the several departments of state were required to send him their reports; and many a night, surrounded by heaps of dispatches, he sat at his little table, in the swampy woods, whose noxious atmosphere was fitter for the snakes that infested them than for human beings of whatever condition in life. [In the archives of Vienna is preserved a dispatch of Joseph, written in the open woods on the night before the taking of Sabacz.—Gross-Hoffinger, iii., p. 464.]
One little ray of light relieved the darkness of this gloomy period. This was the taking of the fortress of Sabacz where Joseph led the assault in person. Three cannoneers were shot by his side, and their blood bespattered his face and breast. But in the midst of danger he remained perfectly composed, and for many a day his countenance had not beamed with an expression of such animated delight. This success, however, was no more than a lightning-flash relieving the darkness of a tempestuous night. The fortress won, the Austrians went back to their miserable encampment in the sickly morasses of Siebenburgen.
Suddenly the stagnant quiet was broken by the announcement that the Turks had crossed the Danube. This aroused the army from their sullen stupor, and Joseph, as if freed from an incubus, joyfully prepared himself for action.
The trumpet's shrill call was heard in the camp, and the army commenced their march. They had advanced but a few miles when they were met by several panic-stricken regiments, who announced that the Austrian lines had been broken in two places, that General Papilla had been forced to retreat, and that the victorious Turks were pouring their vast hordes into Hungary.
Like wildfire the tidings spread through the army, and they, too, began their retreat, farther and yet farther back; for, ever as they moved, they were lighted on their way by the burning villages and towns that were the tokens of a barbarous enemy's approach. The homeless fugitives, too, rent the air with their cries, and clamored for protection against the cruel infidel.
No protection could they find, for the Austrians were too few in number to confront the devastating hosts of the invading army. They were still compelled to retreat as far as the town of Lugos, where at last they might rest from the dreadful fatigues of this humiliating flight. With inexpressible relief, the soldiers sought repose. They were ordered, however, to sleep on their arms, so that the artilleryman was by his cannon, the mounted soldier near his horse, and the infantry, clasping their muskets, lay in long rows together, all forgetting every thing save the inestimable blessing of stretching their limbs and wooing sleep.
The mild summer moon looked down upon their rest, and the emperor, as he made a last tour of inspection to satisfy himself that all lights were extinguished, rejoiced to think that the Turks were far away, and his tired Austrians could sleep secure.
Joseph returned to his tent, that is, his caleche. He, too, was exhausted, and closed his eves with a sense of delicious languor. The night air, blowing about his temples, refreshed his fevered brow, and he gave himself up to dreams such as are inspired by the silvered atmosphere, when the moon, in her pearly splendor, looks down upon the troubled earth, and hushes it to repose.