Swift and unexpected, like the descent of lightning from heaven, was Damjanics' appearance at Szolnok, and it was hailed by a tremendous cheer from the besieging party—life announcing death! Again the cannon roared.
The besiegers did not find the imperial army unprepared, although this attack was unexpected; but there were not many troops on that side of the ramparts, which was principally protected by cannon.
The Hungarians advanced in a semicircle, the Szeged battalion in the centre, composed chiefly of recruits armed with scythes, on the right the red-caps, and the hussars on the left.
The enemy's guns opened a deadly fire from every side, and yet they advanced like the tempest-cloud through which the lightning passes, changing its form without impeding its course. The balls made fearful inroads among them—they fell right and left, covering the place with the dead and wounded; and many a dying soldier, raising his head for the last time, gazed long and earnestly after his standard, till it disappeared amidst the fire of the enemy—when, cheering yet again, he sank to rise no more.
The Szeged battalion came up first with the foe, rushing impetuously on—for their arms were useless till face to face with their enemy. They stormed the battery of the terminus, from which the cannon fired incessantly—one ball sweeping off fourteen at a time; but they only hastened the more furiously over the dead bodies of their comrades. One moment more—several guns opened at once, and a hundred mangled bodies and headless trunks rolled in the dust and smoke. The next instant, the troops which guarded the battery were scattered on every side: the artillery stood valiantly by their guns to the last man. As the besiegers advanced, they were assailed by a hot fire from the windows of the houses, and from behind the barricades. The conflict was long and desperate. At last, the tricoloured banner waving from the windows announced that the besiegers were victorious.
This was the first action in which the Szeged battalion had been engaged, and for numbers among them it was the last.
Meanwhile the red-caps marched steadily on to the flying bastions. Unlike the young corps, these troops knew how to give place to the enemy's balls, and never fired in vain; nor did they cover their eyes from the fearful carnage around them, as most of the young troops did, for death was familiar to them in all its forms. This was their seventeenth engagement, and in each they had been foremost in the attack.
The entrenchments were guarded by a body of chasseurs, who kept up a constant harassing fire on the advancing troops.
The latter quickly thinned their lines, and forming into chain, rushed on the entrenchments, heedless of the musket fire—their standard-bearer foremost in the attack. A musket ball cut the staff of the standard in two, and the soldier, placing the colours on his sword, rushed on as before—another ball, and the standard-bearer fell mortally wounded, holding up the colours with his last strength, till a comrade received it on the point of his bayonet.
They reached the bulwarks, and, climbing on each other's shoulders, their bayonets soon clashed with those of the enemy. An hour later, they were in possession of the ramparts. The chasseurs, repulsed by their desperate attack, retreated to the tête de pont, where they rallied, under cover of some troops which had come to their assistance. The red-caps were soon engaged with these fresh troops, and their battle-cry was heard on the opposite side.