Note 22 — Chapter II

Schultes says, in 1740; but this must be a mistake, as Maria Theresa was not crowned Queen of Hungary till the 25th of June, 1741; and it was after that ceremony that, clad in deep mourning, with the crown of St. Stephen on her head, and the scimitar at her side, she made the affecting address to the Diet, which, rousing the whole nation, brought its numerous tribes from the banks of the Save, the Drave, the Teiss and the Danube, to the royal standard. These troops, under the names of Croats, Pandours, Sclavonians, Warasdinians, and Tolpaches, exhibited a new and astonishing spectacle to the eyes of Europe. By their dress and arms, by the ferocity of their manners, and their singular mode of combat, they struck terror into the disciplined armies of Germany and France. Vide Coxe’s ‘History of the House of Austria,’ 8vo. vol. iv. p. 442.—Baron Riesbeck, who also dates the circumstance 1740, says, “When the Hungarian nobility took the field for their king Maria Theresa, the first sight of such troops struck the French army with a panic. They had, indeed, often seen detachments of these ‘Diables d’Hongrie,’ as they used to call them; but a whole army, drawn up in battle array, unpowdered from the general to the common soldier, half their faces covered with long whiskers, a sort of round beaver on their heads instead of hats, without ruffles or frills to their shirts, and without feathers, all clad in rough skins, monstrous crooked sabres, ready drawn and uplifted, their eyes darting flashes of rage sharper than the beams of their naked sabres, was a sight our men had not been accustomed to see.” (It must be remembered that Riesbeck, though a German, writes in the character of a Frenchman.) “Our oldest officers still remember the impression these terrible troops made, and how difficult it was to make the men stand against them, till they had been accustomed to their formidable appearance.” Pinkerton’s Collect. vol. vi. p. 112.