German had no unified standard at the time, so from the Austrians' perspective, the Prussians' German sounded very strange. If they spoke slowly, it was manageable, but if they spoke too fast, no one could make out what they were saying.
(The differences have already been explained earlier, so there's no need to go into them here.)
The Prussian veterans had to speak slowly and clearly to get those key words across. They had seen battle and believed it was only natural to exchange a high-ranking enemy officer for military merit.
But ordinary people didn't see it that way. Their simple sense of justice told them that a life should be paid for with a life—that was only right.
In the uproar, they were about to throw Sandor Roy, that high-ranking official, into a cesspit to drown him. A few Prussian veterans refused to give up. They had never come across a prize this valuable in their entire lives.
So the veterans tried putting it another way.
"This Hungarian bigwig must know a lot of secrets! We have to hand him over to His Excellency the Commander, or we'll be jeopardizing the whole campaign!"
That heavy accusation was enough to silence the furious militiamen at once.
"I know a lot of secrets!"
"So do I!"
The two Hungarian Hussars chimed in at just the right moment, speaking German. It was hardly unusual for Hungarians to speak German, after all. House of Habsburg had ruled here for several hundred years.
The veterans finally breathed a sigh of relief. A large group of militiamen then happily marched off, escorting the two "important figures."
At this point, János Damjanich, who was overseeing the troops before the battle, had no idea what had happened inside Imperial Territory. All he knew was that the black