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The Battle of Vienna, continued
Major I. I. Ivanov

We left Lacy and the Austrian right facing a doomed fight. The situaton was not improved when the Major in charge of the supporting Hungarian grenadiers advanced too boldly. They were charged in the flank by the 2nd Kuirassier regiment and routed.. Lacy himself was with an Austrian Kuirassier regiment in a drawn out melee with the 9th Kuirassier. The Prussian Garde De corps continued its envelopment on the far right.

The struggle became confused. Half the Bayreth dragoons, having captured a battery unwisely charged on into the serried ranks of the Austrian Kuirassier behind, and we driven off in disorder.

The relief was only momentary, though, with the Austrian infantry in the center starting to take unacceptable losses, compounded by militia in the rear taking to their heels as the grenadiers streamed by.

Detached from his staff in the swirling meleé, Lacy started thinking the day was lost, unknowing of the Russian progress on the left.

And then what his hopes suffered what appeared to be the coup de grace . The Garde De corps swept around onto the flank of the Austrian Kuirassier, already engaged to their front. The Austrians scattered like quicksilver, and Lacy was carried away in the rout.

While gallant, this was a mistake. Col. Hardie's Yellow Hussars were clearly visible on the edge of the wood, mostly dismounted, some squatting on the ground. mostly drinking looted wine. The Colonel of the Garde was heard to observe that "those cossack scum won't bother us".

Hardie's wits were unfuddled by the quantities of riesling he had swigged. He mounted his men and, disdaining the panicked fire of the Prussian flying battery, which dropped some hussars in the back ranks, lead them into the flank of the Garde. Despite the fact that a sizable minority of the hussars were swinging wine bottles (both broken and unbroken) rather than sabres, they were giving a good account of themselves against their elite opponents when the Junker carrying the banner of the Garde was smitten on the ear with (fittingly) a bottle of Imperial Tokay and fell from his mount. A hussar snatched the banner from his limp grasp. This was too much for even the garde and they fled, pursued by catcalls and hussars.

The pursuit brought the hussars into contact with the 9th Kuirassier, with General Seydlitz at their head. The generals' indomitable example made the Kuirassier hold; but as he was in the thick of the fighting in the front rank he was assailed from two sides and felled, expiring soon after. The hussars were stopped; soon the 2nd Kuirassier would sweep round on their flank, and drive them from the field with heavy losses. But the indomitable Col. Hardie survived, and the banner of the Garde de Corps was held by the small band of survivors against all comers. They may have fled in the end, but their contribution to the war was great.

Frederich, in a fit of pique after the battle (and possibly to distract attention from his own flight from the field in the midst of the broken Bayreuth Dragoons) broke up the regiment and cashiered it's surviving officers.

Almost at the same instant as this victory the Austrian infantry centre crumbled and the Russians were left alone, with about 3 hours of daylight remaining in the short winter day. The shadows were growing long on the field.

 

Indeed, we left the fusileers of IR 39 facing overwhelming odds. As the Russian Dragoons charged, accompanied by Toomitov, and bombarded by artillery, the Fusileers stood firm. Later the Major v. der Stahl, a Westphalian in charge of the battalion, said he was tired of being sneered at by the Grenadier and Foot Garde officers in whose brigade he served, and decided to show them up.

In any case, their fortitude dismayed Col. Smirnoff and he disgracefully fled from the front rank of his regiment. The discouraged troopers followed him, belaboured by the flat of an enraged Toomitov's sword.

The stand just delayed the inevitable though. The Russian infantry swept around the Prussian right and battalions started to break. As news of the death of Seydlitz and the loss of the Garde de Corps filtered though the lines, and in the absence of Frederich, the Prussians began to leave the field. The Russian Corps stood alone as the guardians of Vienna.

 

(I hope everyone forgives my fictionalisation and any detail I may have forgotten. I was not paying all that much attention to parts of the battle. A very good game, gents)