The Austrian army defeated itself in the middle of the night — no enemy required. A schnapps argument spiraled into thousands of self-inflicted casualties.
On the night of September 21–22, 1788, the Austrian army — nearly 100,000 strong — was camped near the town of Karánsebes during a campaign against the Ottoman Empire. Not a single Ottoman soldier had appeared yet.
It started with schnapps. Hussar scouts crossed a river, found no Turks, but did find Romanian villagers selling alcohol. When infantry arrived and demanded a share, the hussars refused. A fight broke out, a shot was fired, and chaos ensued.
Romanian soldiers in the Austrian ranks began shouting 'Turcii! Turcii!' ('Turks! Turks!') — either as a prank or out of genuine panic. The cry spread through the camp like wildfire, and hussars fled, convinced the Ottomans were attacking.
The Austrian army was a multinational force speaking German, Romanian, Serbian, Croatian, and Italian. When officers shouted 'Halt! Halt!' in German, soldiers who didn't speak the language heard 'Allah! Allah!' — and panicked further.
General Colloredo, seeing cavalry charging through camp, assumed it was an Ottoman attack and ordered artillery to open fire — on his own fleeing troops. Emperor Joseph II himself was reportedly knocked off his horse into a stream during the stampede.
Two days later, the Ottoman army arrived to find the battlefield strewn with Austrian dead and wounded. They captured the city of Karánsebes without a fight. The Austrians had done the Ottomans' job for them.
Casualty estimates range from a few hundred to 10,000 — the higher figure comes from a single 1968 historian and is disputed. Austrian official records suggest most 1788 campaign deaths came from disease, making the true toll of the friendly fire incident hard to pin down.