I learned about the battle of Karanberes by chance while going through the archives of my local web analytics company. There will be no mistake, if I call the this battle one of the most bizarre thing that ever took place on a battle field. The Ottoman army was victorious without even making a single shot or facing the enemy. It all happened during Austrian-Turkish war of 1787-1791.

Gigantic Austrian army which exceeded a hundred thousand men set up a camp new the town of Karansebes, that is located nowadays in modern Romania, on September of 1788. Naturally, Austrian army represented all nations of the empire. There were Italians from Lombardy, Balkan Slavs, Austrians, Germans and other minorities that could not understand each other.

Several units of hussars were scouting for the presence of the Turks and crossed the nearby river. Hussars did not find the Turks but they met a group of Gypsies that had in their possession a lot of hard liquor. They decided to have a little party and helped themselves to a drink. While they were having fun relaxing from the horrors of war, a contingent of infantry men crossed the river too. They were war-weary too and wanted to join the party as well. Hussars refused to share schnapps with them and got into the argument that got to its peak when one of the infantry guys fired a shot.

This led to an open combat between infantry and hussars. For some unknown reason, some infantry men started screaming the word “Turks” in Romanian. This scared the hussars who promptly left the scenery thinking that infantry spotted an approaching Turkish army. Galloping men rushed into the peacefully resting camp shooting and waving sabers.

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It seems that somehow, Chinese crossbows found their way to Greece. This might have happened even before the establishment of the empire of Alexander the Great. Anyways, some type of crossbows called gastraphetes were widely used in 397 BC by ancient Carthaginians in Sicily. And during siege of Tyre in 332 BC by Alexander the Great, reliable sources describe the use of these weapons by the Greek besiegers.

Romans borrowed Greek crossbows and utilized it in their military campaigns to a certain degree. After the fall of Roman empire when the Dark Ages came, there is not much evidence related to crossbows. Obviously, they were used by medieval soldiers, because we have extensive evidence on fights with crossbows during the battle of Hastings.

Crossbow soldier had numerous advantages in comparison to longbow archer. It was one of the reasons why European armies used crossbows extensively till sixteen century. It was extremely easy to train anybody to use a crossbow within a week or so, while it took years of practice and for an archer to master shooting from a longbow.

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