Victory of General Bem at Hermannstadt – From the Theatre of War

Ungarn. 21. Februar 1849
Ungarn.
Nr. 227, 21. Februar 1849
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

The Olmütz papers bring the news that Bem has entered Hermannstadt and set up his headquarters there. In the “Breslauer Zeitung” we read the following report, headed: “Victories of General Bem” and dated “from Hungary, 12 February”:

I have before me a number of the Moniteur published in Debreczin, Közlöny, containing a detailed report by General Bem on his victories at Hermannstadt. Bem makes fun in it of the hundred-year-old Aulic War Council method of the Imperial Field Marshal Lieutenant Puchner. The latter had wanted to surround Bem, who, with masterly use of the terrain, grouped his troops in masses. Puchner already believed he could capture the rebel band, when Bem threw himself with all his strength upon the enemy centre, broke it and, supported by the terrain, took the right and left wing in the rear. A very large part of the imperial troops was taken prisoner. Hermannstadt itself, which had fired from the windows upon Bem’s troops when they first approached, was plundered by the enraged soldiers. Bem himself entered the town on 26 January. He deliberately delayed the entry, which was to have taken place on the 23rd, in order to allow the fury of the military against the people of Hermannstadt to cool a little. Yet the Szeklers committed some cruelties, which Bem deplores in his report.

If, then, the Viennese papers are silent about the capture of Hermannstadt, you may regard it as an undeniable fact. You well know how long the capture of Klausenburg was kept secret in Vienna. – From a reliable source I can inform you that the imperial troops have recently been defeated at Zibackhaz on the Theiss. The cannonade was heard as far as Czegled, and individual dragoons fled as far as Pesth. The affair is related by eyewitnesses in this way: the imperial troops wanted to burn down the solid Theiss bridge at Zibackhaz, but the Hungarians prevented this with such force that the imperial troops finally had to take flight. It is noteworthy that the bulletins are also silent about this seven-hour engagement. – In addition to the Polish generals Dembinski and Bem already mentioned, the Polish staff officers Sierakowski, Kaminski and others are also with the Hungarians. A French general presides over the Hungarian Council of War in Debreczin. From Pesth we learn that as a result of the defeat at Zibackhaz the greater part of the garrison has marched away. From Gran many wounded soldiers are brought to Pesth. The Hungarian garrison of the fortress of Komorn, namely, dominates the greater part of the county of Gran and carries on skirmishes against the imperial troops almost daily. Prince Windischgrätz has resorted to a new source of finance. He has issued a proclamation according to which each Jewish community is to pay 20,000 florins C.M. for every individual from among them who is proved to have had dealings with the rebels.

A letter from Tokaj of 9 February, brought by a Silesian coming from that region to the relatives of the writer living in the county, contains the following description of the atrocities committed there: “With what horrible fury the war of the Austrians against the Hungarians is waged, of that we had the opportunity the day before yesterday (7 February) to reach the sad conviction. A band of 150 Austrians had forced its way into the grand wine cellars of Myskolzer. In their manner they had not only drunk inhumanly, but also smashed the casks so that the wine should run out, in the course of which some of the most intoxicated lost their lives. Not satisfied with this, the daughters and maids dragged in from the neighbouring farms, after their clothes had been torn off their bodies, were forced to dance in this condition, not to mention the subsequent abominations. A beardless Austrian lieutenant was so dehumanised as to slit open the lower body of one of the unfortunate girls with his sabre. – While this horde, exhausted by the outrages committed, lay unsuspectingly slumbering, a detachment of Hungarian troops approached, who, outraged at what had happened, took the most cruel revenge. They bound the fast-sleeping imperial soldiers and literally hacked them in two with their sabres while they were still alive. The cries of agony of the unfortunates were horrifying. Wherever Austrians come, the property of their hosts is done for; everything is demolished, the beds are cut open and the feathers poured into the dung pits; women and girls, even children of 6 to 8 years, have to flee if they do not want to be dishonoured in the most outrageous manner.”

– The journey of the bearer of the said letter is, by the way, said to have been fairly safe, apart from frequent searches. The Prussian passport was respected everywhere. (As if that were a miracle!) According to reliable private reports communicated from Vienna, the Szeklers have taken Kronstadt. According to the Wiener Zeitung, Colonel Urban has surprised and defeated a Magyar corps near Miroszny.