Setting the Stage

The whole battle was uneventful. The Poles left behind more than a thousand corpses and several hundred mules and horses, while the Austrians suffered only two injuries: one man had a stray bullet punch through his ass, and another had somehow angered a hen, which had left a gash on his head.

Although the Royal Dragoon Regiment inside the fortress had not pursued them, there was no chance the remaining Polish Restoration Army could escape.

Albrecht's flanking force and Haynau's vanguard wiped out the remnants of the Polish Restoration Army, taking more than a thousand prisoners. Everyone else died in the melee.

Albrecht and Haynau weren't as chivalrous as Franz. The two old veterans had chosen to clear the way with cannon and rockets, leaving many Poles no chance to surrender.

The war had been won, but neither Colonel Monta, who had been responsible for defending the city, nor Albrecht and Haynau, who had watched from the sidelines, nor Count Stadion, who was sitting with Bem far away, was satisfied.

Franz was dissatisfied with the battle too. There had been too few enemies—fewer than he'd expected—and it didn't feel like enough to train the troops. It hadn't even been as intense as when they'd fought "bandits" with Albrecht on the Hungarian grasslands.

Tyssowski and Dembowski were relieved to be alive, but they couldn't feel happy about the fate that had befallen them: defeat and capture.

Pons Bock was dissatisfied that he hadn't been able to show off his talents, while Bem was dissatisfied that those people had ignored his advice and suffered a crushing defeat.

The young steward with the gold-rimmed glasses was unhappy that Franz had "claimed" the young lady he'd been longing for, and unhappy, too, that he hadn't managed to kill Franz.

The only one entirely satisfied