The Battle of Karansebes: A Spectacular Failure in Communication

In management, discipline and communication is key.  Size alone, and an abundance of resources is meaningless without control.  Having people, no matter how talented, without discipline, is worthless.  Organisation without cohesion is chaos waiting to be unleashed.  There is no greater example of perceived strength falling apart to failure that the Battle of Karansebes.  This was the most spectacular friendly fire incident during the Austro-Turkish War of 1787–1791. 

Even prior to this conflict, the Austro-Hungarian Empire could not manage its diversity.  It was a polity of Germans, Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs, Poles, Italians, Romanians, Bulgars, and every other ethnicity, with their own language and their own culture.  This meant that while the empire could draw upon huge manpower reserves, it could not integrate them into a cohesive whole.  The army was like a conglomeration of regional units with multiple chains of command, all in their own regional languages.  They even had their own uniforms and colours.  It was a circus with guns and cannons. 

It was 1788, as the Turks advanced, the Austro-Hungarian Empire mobilised an army that was approximately 100,000 strong.  They set up camp around the town of Karansebes.  In the current age, it is the city of Caransebeș, in Caraș-Severin County, part of the Banat region in southwestern Romania. The vanguard of the Austro-Hungarian army was a contingent of hussars.  They crossed the Timiș River to scout for the presence of the Ottoman army.  They found no sign of the Ottoman forces. What they did find was a group of Romani people, who sold then schnapps. 

Hours later, a group of infantry crossed the river.  They encountered the hussars, and the alcohol.  They wanted some of that schnapps.  An argument ensued because the drunken hussars refused to share what they had bought.  It escalated.  The hussars set up makeshift fortifications around the barrel, and both sides raised their weapons.  Somewhere in all that, a shot was fired.  Both groups started fighting. 

Amidst all that, it was alleged that some of the infantry began shouting “Turci!”, meaning “Turks!”.  They wanted to scare the hussars off to steal their schnapps.  It worked.  Too well.   The hussars fled the scene, thinking that the Ottoman army had arrived.  The infantry also retreated.  The fleeing groups went through the camp, which alerted the other portions of the army, comprising people from other parts of the empire, who barely understood each other’s language.  In an attempt to restore order amidst the chaos, the Austrian officers, who spoke German, started shouting, “Halt!”, “Stop!”.  In all that din, some of them heard “Allah”, the war cry of the Muslim Turks. 

As the hussars fled through the camps, a corps commander, it is said that General Joseph Maria von Colloredo-Mels und Wallsee, thought that it was a cavalry charge by the Ottoman army and ordered artillery fire.  The entire camp awoke to the sound of battle.  Thinking the Turks had overrun the camp, the troops started firing at each other, thinking they were the enemy.  The entire army retreated in disarray. 

Two days later, the Ottoman army arrived.  They discovered dead and wounded soldiers, and surveyed the scene of a battle in wonderment.  Someone had routed the mighty Austro-Hungarian army to flight, and it was not them. 

This story illustrates in spectacular manner the importance of communication.  It does not matter how big your team is, how much resources you have, and how grand your plan looks.  When different parts do not communicate effectively, it does not take much for it all to fall to pieces.