The war between France and Austria broke out in 1805. This book does not intend to deal with the causes of political alliance during the significant campaigns, nor does it intend to deal with military operations of the great Battle at Slavkov and other battles. We will leave it to the historians of Europe and of our own dear country. This document will merely mention these great events, and only when they are relevant to Žačany and its surrounding areas. We would like to describe to our descendants the terrible days that Žačany and Třebomyslice and their inhabitants lived through, and the unbelievable despair resulting from enemy invasion, to ensure that future generations may understand the invaluable happiness of the serenity granted by God’s providence and the peacefulness of owning one’s own property.
Russia allied with Austria against France. In September, the Russian army campaigned through Moravia to fight against France, and was led by General Kutuzov. In order to advance more quickly, the soldiers were transported on peasant carts. This campaign continued without interruption until the end of October. The Austrian army had already left Austria and they united again on French borders.
Not long after this, there came news that the French army, led by Emperor Napoleon, had conquered Ulm and charged into Austria. The enemy immediately penetrated all the way up to Vienna, and because its citizens wished to avoid the terror of being surrounded by a French encampment, they surrendered. The arrogant enemy entered the Emperor’s city without a single cannon shot. Ours and the Russian army then retreated to Moravia, towards Brno. The French penetrated Moravia and our soldiers followed them. On 17 November, Austrian soldiers accompanied a military safe through Měnín, where they stayed for one night.
On 18 November, the entire Austrian army, numbering about 30,000 men, led by Vice Marshall Kienmayer, campaigned through Měnín and the rear sections of the army stayed in Měnín, Žačany, and Telnice for the night. This evening would mark the beginning of our sorrows. Because our homes and barns were unable to house the army, they settled themselves into the streets and set more than one hundred fires very close to the buildings, creating a bright day in the dark of night. Although it was an almost magical view, it was a horrifying one at the same time. It looked as though Měnín, itself, were engulfed in flames. Blučiny’s and Křepice’s vineyards, the hill near Pratec, and the surrounding flatlands seemed all to be ablaze. The entire sky was aglow with a deep red color. On this night alone, inhabitants lost a large part of their wood supply, straw, fences, gates, and doors that the soldiers used to feed the seemingly unquenchable fires. All through the night, only the cracking of the gate doors, fences, and the cries of anxious citizens could be heard.
On 19 November, the Austrian army set out for Jiříkovice, and left about 20 hussars to guard the towns. They remained there until approximately 3 pm, and at the point where the road leading from Němčice started turning blue from the Austrian uniforms and glittering with metallic weaponry, they turned from Měnín, whereupon directing their army toward Jiříkovice. We were enveloped by unspeakable terror, shock, and utter confusion. We witnessed the last Austrian soldiers disappearing behind Telnice and immediately following, we could hear thunderous tramping and the distinct clatter of weapons and the violent army songs of the French. Panicked citizens, who had never seen an enemy in their lives, ran to and fro, wringing their hands in despair. Many of the local inhabitants tried to take cover from the enemy, and a lot of them set forth toward Otnice and Lovčičky so that they might have a chance to save themselves. However, the more courageous ones stayed in the village. In their anxiety, Měnín’s citizens set forth toward the enemy in order to meet them and appeal to their enemy’s compassion and grace. Unfortunately, this plan’s intended effect lasted only for a brief time. In the meantime, the French forged onward from Měnín to Telnice without interruption. When the enemy finally arrived at the fields owned by lords, near the border of Telnice, they suddenly halted, put their rifles into make-shift pyramids, and rushed, en masse, into Telnice, Měnín, Žačany, and Třebomyslice, charging into buildings and stealing anything they could lay their hands on: food, clothing, beds, furniture (tables, chairs), and so on, and used all of these acquired possessions to feed their fires. This violence continued all throughout the night. You could see almost nothing other than the constant comings and goings of the enemy with their booty.
On 20 November, the French departed towards Slavkov. On that and the following three days, one could see nothing but the enemy army on the march from Měnín to Telnice.
On 24 November, an entire regiment of French soldiers marched from Slavkov to Žačany and Měnín, and stayed there until 29 November. It is not possible to sufficiently describe what horrors the inhabitants were forced to endure in those 5 days. They hardly had any basic material left with which to survive themselves, but were still expected to supply the soldiers with food, horse feed, and other amenities; any non-compliance would have led to the people being killed or burned out of their homes and towns. However, they were relatively fortunate that the local pond was full of fish and so they could comfortably supply the enemy with food. Day after day, cows were slaughtered, and as soon as they were carved up, the next immediate thought was where to find more cows and food for the following day. Suddenly, on the night from 29 November to 30 November, a drummer beat his drum and in five minutes the entire regiment disappeared. This momentary respite, however, did not last long, as the regiment returned in one short hour to reclaim its place in the settlement. After about half an hour, another noise could be heard. According to the chaos and extremely vivid discussions of the officers, one could judge that something big was going to happen. Soldiers packed their kits hurriedly and with much disarray, and with pale faces informed the inhabitants, “The Russians are coming.” After this point, they quickly departed Žačany. At approximately 3 am, more French hussar regiments came, probably from Kyjov, where they had been defeated by the Russians. However, these immediately left for Měnín.
30 November was the first day since the arrival of the enemy when we actually experienced a feeling even close to relief, if this could be at all possible in our situation. In the evening, we were surprised by several Austrian dragoons, who were accompanied by several Russian Cossacks. We abandoned all of our previous sorrows and anxieties as soon as we saw the glistening white uniforms and heard our mother tongue being spoken by an officer. We hoped that we would be delivered from the horror of our enemies. But the regiment galloped away again after an officer questioned us about the distance and power of the enemy, about which we were not able to answer very accurately. Sometime after 4 pm, the same Russian regiment met in combat with the French front guard, behind Žačany’s mill. The battle was furious, and lasted well into the night. In Měnín, we were able to hear all the orders of the Russian hussars. 31 November and 1 December were completely without event and rather peaceful, and we did not see a single soldier, be it a French one or one of ours. But, as usual, a calm always precedes a storm.
On 1 December, after a prolonged absence from it, we were gathered in our Lord’s Cathedral. Oh, how devoted our prayers were. We thought that we had endured the worst of the war, oblivious to the fact that the worst lay just ahead of us.
On 2 December, at 5 am, we were terrified by the noise of a very raucous fight between front guards on the fields over Telnice and Újezd, which we witnessed from the tower. There were more and more shots, and when dawn finally broke, the first cannon shot hummed from Újezd Hill, by the small Chapel of St. Antonín, and after that, a second shot rang out, followed by yet a third. After this, very intense rifle fire started, so loud and rapid you could not separate one shot from another, and cannon shots thundered in brief successions. The ground shook and the tower itself seemed to tremble with us. We all turned pale and looked to each other silently, because we were unable to speak with the fear that we were feeling. Finally, when the bright day began, it was possible to see many rows deep of soldiers, who were running against each other on the fields between Telnice and Újezd. Eventually, smoke and dust completely clouded the horrifying theatre that surrounded us, and one could only hear the thundering of cannons, the clatter of rifles, and the war cries of soldiers. The Russians penetrated up to Telnice five times, and five times they were pushed back to Újezd. The French barricaded themselves with carts in Telnice. There were fights in houses, barns, and basements. At 9 am, several French calvary regiments came from Rajhrad and directed and arranged the men on the fields behind Telnice’s mill, but because of several shots from Russian cannons, were forced to abandon their position. Before noon, wounded soldiers without rifles or helmets were trying to slowly make their way to Žačany and Třebomyslice, searching for cover against passing guards. We witnessed the capture of many French by the Russian Cossacks. So far, Žačany and Měnín were spared this chaotic battle, and we thought that we might just be lucky enough to remain mere bystanders. But, at 4 pm, Russians began to leave their positions on Pratecký Hill and retreated, dumping over 200 cannons, many carts, packages, and ammunition in the slightly frozen water of Žačany’s pond, and set forth for Měnín and Otnice. Suddenly, Vinohrádek and the road below it was covered with fleeing Russians. A strange fear twisted itself around everybody. “Save yourselves!” could be heard everywhere. We ran down from the tower, women grasped their children, men grabbed the elderly, and we all fled for cover! As soon as we were behind “Půllány,” Russians both on foot and on horseback had overtaken us, and we were are jostled around with the confusing notion that we were fleeing together with them. French cannon balls being fired from Stará hora zinged above our heads, making our hair stand on end and our brows drip with perspiration. Many of Měnín’s inhabitants escaped to Opatovice, others to Blučina. There even appeared amongst them the local priest, teacher, and administrator, and suddenly Měnín was left, for the first time in our memories, completely devoid of people!
On 4 December, the enemy had departed from Měnín and Žačany, and their citizens crawled with fear and caution toward their houses. The first things we saw were our devastated dwellings, full of stiff corpses and dying emaciated people, some of whom were trying to push their wounded insides back into their broken torsos, unable, and with a final rasp, dying right in front of our eyes, others asking us for a single sip of water, wanting only to quench their unbearable thirsts, which we could not satisfy, which appeared to burn deeper than their mortal wounds. Crying, the inhabitants greeted each other, once they had gathered again in the evening, and they told one another about the anxiety and danger that they had survived. Our beloved monarch, together with the Russian Czar and Prince Constantine, spent the night following the Battle at Slavkov in a peasant dwelling in Heršpice, which is a small village near Slavkov, where elevated guests were honored by simple cumen and potato soup, with an ordinary upturned bucket serving as a table.
On 8 December, we visited the deserted battle field. The horror that we were to discover is absolutely undescribable. Thousands of corpses were lying both individually and in piles, each with a terrified expression on its face. There was a hand lying here, a leg lying there, a decapitated body, a torso. There was a horribly disfigured man who raised his bloody hand toward us, crying for help. There was another one who was digging deep into his own infected wounds, frozen up to his hips in mud, pleading with us, in his despair, to kill him. Terrified, we left this terrible bloody place of death, and returned to our deserted dwellings with the most heightened emotions of revulsion and shock.
On 9 December, all the war’s fallen were buried and the wounded were taken to hospitals in Brno, Sokolnice, and Rajhrad. At the beginning of January 1806, the French army gathered by Brno, and on 13 January, they finally left Moravia. In 1809, after the great battle by Asper a Vágram, the French charged back into Moravia, once more. On 14 July, they rushed into Žačany and Měnín, but this time performed no violence, merely demanded food, horse feed, and so on. Soon after this, the Peace Treaty was signed, and the French left. In memory of the event, there are five cannon balls, which were found in the aftermath of the battle, built into the front wall of the former mill.