displayed despondency, contributed to render the result of the battle certain.
It was on Sunday (November 8) that was fought the battle which terminated the existence of Bohemia as an
independent state. Even before the Romanist council of war had decided to attack the Bohemian army immediately, a small Bavarian force—not yet supported by the mass of the allied army—attacked the right flank of the Bohemian position. Count Šlik, who commanded some of the Moravian troops, hastily sought Christian of Anhalt, begging his permission to attack the Bavarians on their march. It was a weighty and fateful moment in the history of the Bohemian people.[1] Anhalt at first favoured the proposal, but on the advice of Hohenlohe—one of Frederick's German generals—finally refused his consent. The whole mass of the Catholics had meanwhile united, and advanced along the whole line, Tilly soon succeeding in driving back the enemies on the right flank of the Bohemian army. The Imperial cavalry attacked Count Thurn's regiment on the extreme left of the Bohemian position. The attack of the Imperialists was bravely repulsed by the Bohemian troops, and the cavalry of the younger Prince of Anhalt[2] made a successful attack on the Imperialist infantry, of which two regiments were put to flight. The situation for a moment became so serious that Bouquoi, who had been wounded in one of the skirmishes before Rakonic, and was hardly able to sit his horse, rode to the front to encourage his soldiers; but the news of the complete success obtained by Tilly and the troops of the "Liga" over the right wing of the Bohemian army soon re-established the confidence of the Imperialists. The Hungarian horsemen on their first onslaught defeated the cavalry of Maximilian, but were soon beaten back by his infantry. Considering the battle as already lost, they fled in great confusion in the direction of the river Vltava, which they attempted to cross by a ford just above Prague—near the present suburb of Smichov, where more than a thousand of them were drowned. The combined forces of the Romanists soon stormed the small redoubts, which Anhalt had hastily erected in the night preceding the battle, and the whole Bohemian army, seized by a wild panic, fled in disorder in the direction of the gates
