“Immediately after ordering the Tartars to put to death all their prisoners, 30,000 in number, a butchery worthy such a chief, he gave command to march toward the mountain, and at the same time make a general attack upon the city. The latter order came too late: the besieged had recovered courage, and the irritated janissaries had lost theirs. “Meanwhile the Christians continued to descend, and the Turks advanced towards them. The battle began. The first line of the Christians, entirely composed of infantry, charged with such impetuosity, that it cleared the way for a line of cavalry which took its station in the intervals between the battalions. The king, the princes and generals advanced to the front, now fighting with the infantry, now with the cavalry; while the artillery fired langridge at very small distance. The scene of the first encounter was broken by vineyards, elevations, and small hollows, at the entrance of which the enemy had left his own guns, and he suffered severely from those of the Christians. The combatants spread over this uneven ground, fought obstinately till noon; when the Comte de Maligni, brother to the King of Poland, established himself on a hill which commanded the Turkish flank; and they, driven from height to height, retreated into the plain, keeping along their entrenchments.[18] “The whole army, and especially the left wing, highly inspirited, and shouting victory, wished to press on the retreating enemy without intermission: but the king checked this ardour, which he considered dangerous. The German cavalry was heavily mounted, and their horses would soon have been blown in the extent of plain which was to be crossed. Another and a stronger reason was, that the great inequalities of ground had entirely broken the order of battle. Some time was allowed to re–establish it; and the plain then became the theatre of a triumph which posterity will scarcely believe. Seventy thousand men rushed to encounter two hundred thousand. In the Turkish army, the Pacha of Diarbekir commanded the right, the Pacha of Buda the left wing; the Vizir was in the centre, with the Aga of the Janissaries, and the general of the Spahis. “The armies remained motionless for a while; the Christians in silence, the Turks redoubling their cries to the clang of trumpets. At that awful moment, a red flag rose in the centre of the infidels, and beside it the great standard of Mahomet, hallowed by the Mussulman creed. This charm, which at other times has given as much courage to those who fought under it, as the truth of their cause to the Christians, did not play its part now: the Vizir had deprived it of its efficacy.