from the distant mountains of Sclavonia. The Turks, in violation of their treaty of peace, were again on the march, ascending the Danube along its southern banks, through the defiles of the Sclavonian mountains. In a motley mass of one hundred and fifty thousand men they had passed Belgrade, crossed the Save, and were approaching Peterwarden.

Eugene was instantly dispatched with an efficient, compact army, disciplined by twelve years of warfare, to resist the Moslem invaders. The hostile battalions met at Karlowitz, but a few miles from Peterwarden, on the 5th of August, 1716. The tempest blazed with terrific fury for a few hours, when the Turkish host turned and fled. Thirty thousand of their number, including the grand vizier who led the host, were left dead upon the field. In their utter discomfiture they abandoned two hundred and fifty pieces of heavy artillery, and baggage, tents and military stores to an immense amount. Fifty Turkish banners embellished the camp of the victors.

And now Eugene led his triumphant troops, sixty thousand in number, down the river to lay siege to Belgrade. This fortress, which the labor of ages had strengthened, was garrisoned by thirty thousand troops, and was deemed almost impregnable. Eugene invested the place and commenced the slow and tedious operations of a siege. The sultan immediately dispatched an army of two hundred thousand men to the relief of his beleaguered fortress. The Turks, arriving at the scene of action, did not venture an assault upon their intrenched foes, but intrenched themselves on heights, outside of the besieging camp, in a semicircle extending from the Danube to the Save. They thus shut up the besiegers in the miasmatic marshes which surrounded the city, cut off their supplies of provisions, and from their advancing batteries threw shot into the Austrian camp. "A man," said Napoleon, "is not a soldier." The Turks had two hundred thousand men in their camp, raw recruits. Eugene had sixty thousand veteran soldiers. He decided to drive off the Turks who annoyed him. It was

necessary for him to detach twenty thousand to hold in check the garrison of Belgrade, who might sally to the relief of their companions. This left him but forty thousand troops with whom to assail two hundred thousand strongly intrenched. He did not hesitate in the undertaking.

16

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHARLES V I.

FROM 1716 TO 1727.

HEROIC DECISION OF EUGENE.-BATTLE OF Belgrade.-UTTER ROUT OF THE TURKS.— POSSESSIONS OF CHARLES VI.-THE ELECTOR OF HANOVER SUCCEEDS TO THE ENGLISH THRONE.-PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.-STATE OF ITALY.-PHILIP V. OF SPAIN.--DIPLOMATIC AGITATIONS.-PALACE OF ST. ILDEFONSO.-ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. -REJECTION OF MARIA ANNE.-CONTEST FOR THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR.-DISMISSAL OF RIPPERDA.-TREATY OF VIENNA.-PRACE CONCLUDED.

THE enterprise upon which Eugene had resolved was bold in the extreme. It could only be accomplished by consummate bravery aided by equal military skill. The foe they were to attack were five to one, and were protected by wellconstructed redoubts, armed with the most formidable batteries. They were also abundantly supplied with cavalry, and the Turkish cavalry were esteemed the finest horsemen in the world. There was but one circumstance in favor of Eugene. The Turks did not dream that he would have the audacity to march from the protection of his intrenchments and assail them behind their own strong ramparts. There was consequently but little difficulty in effecting a surprise.

All the arrangements were made with the utmost precision and secrecy for a midnight attack. The favorable hour came. The sun went down in clouds, and a night of Egyptian darkness enveloped the armies. The glimmer of innumerable camp-fires only pointed out the position of the foe, without throwing any illumination upon the field. Eugene visited all the posts of the army, ordered abundant refreshment to be distributed to the troops, addressed them in encouraging

words, to impress upon them the importance of the enterprise, and minutely assigned to each battalion, regiment, brigade and division its duty, that there might be no confusion. The whole plan was carefully arranged in all its details and in all its grand combination. As the bells of Belgrade tolled the hour of twelve at midnight, three bombs, simultaneously discharged, put the whole Austrian army in rapid and noiseless motion.

A dense fog had now descended, through which they could with difficulty discern the twinkling lights of the Turkish camp. Rapidly they traversed the intervening space, and in dense, solid columns, rushed over the ramparts of the foe. Bombs, cannon, musketry, bayonets, cavalry, all were employed, amidst the thunderings and the lightnings of that midnight storm of war, in the work of destruction. The Turks, roused from their slumber, amazed, bewildered, fought for a short time with maniacal fury, often pouring volleys of bullets into the bosoms of their friends, and with bloody cimeters smiting indiscriminately on the right hand and the left, till, in the midst of a scene of confusion and horror which no imagination can conceive, they broke and fled. Two hundred thousand men, lighted only by the flash of guns which mowed their ranks, with thousands of panic-stricken cavalry trampling over them, while the crash of musketry, the explosions of artillery, the shouts of the assailants and the fugitives, and the shrieks of the dying, blended in a roar more appalling than heaven's heaviest thunders, presented a scene which has few parallels even in the horrid annals of war.

The morning dawned upon a field of blood and death. The victory of the Austrians was most decisive. The flower of the Turkish army was cut to pieces, and the remnant was utterly dispersed. The Turkish camp, with all its abundant booty of tents, provisions, ammunition and artillery, fell into the hands of the conqueror. So signal was the victory, that the disheartened Turks made no attempt to retrieve their loss. Bel

grade was surrendered to the Austrians, and the sultan implored peace. The articles were signed in Passarovitz, a small town of Servia, in July, 1718. By this treaty the emperor added Belgrade to his dominions, and also a large part of Wallachia and Servia.

Austria and Spain were still in heart at war, as the emperor claimed the crown of Spain, and was only delaying active hostilities until he could dispose of his more immediate foes. Charles, soon after the death of his cousin, the Portuguese princess, with whom he had formed a matrimonial engagement, married Elizabeth Christina, a princess of Brunswick. The imperial family now consisted of three daughters, Maria Theresa, Maria Anne and Maria Amelia. It will be remembered that by the family compact established by Leopold, the suc cession was entailed upon Charles in preference to the daugh ters of Joseph, in case Joseph should die without male issue. But should Charles die without male issue, the crown was to revert to the daughters of Joseph in preference to those of Charles. The emperor, having three daughters and no sons, with natural parental partiality, but unjustly, and with great want of magnanimity, was anxious to deprive the daughters of Joseph of their rights, that he might secure the crown for his own daughters. He accordingly issued a decree reversing this contract, and settling the right of succession first upon his daughters, should he die without sons, then upon the daughters of Joseph, one of whom had married the Elector of Saxony and the other the Elector of Bavaria. After them he declared his sister, who had married the King of Portugal, and then his other sisters, the daughters of Leopold, to be in the line of succession. This new law of succession Charles issued under the name of the Pragmatic Sanction. He compelled his nieces, the daughters of Joseph, to give their assent to this Sanction, and then, for the remainder of his reign, made the greatest efforts to induce all the powers of Europe to acknowledge its validity.