A Blow From God The Battle of Saint Gotthard

[00:00:00]save it. [music] By 3:00 in the afternoon, something happened that the chroniclers would remember for the rest of their lives.

[00:00:06]A thunderstorm broke [music] over the valley.

[00:00:09]Ottoman sources describe it as a blow from God.

[00:00:12]European sources [music] describe it as the mercy of the Virgin.

[00:00:16]Modern historians describe it as the hydrology of a narrow valley after a week of summer rain.

[00:00:22]However you describe [music] it, the Raab arose.

[00:00:25]The ford that had been passable in the pre-dawn darkness, 3 hours of slow crossing, fascines bearing the weight, became a race against [music] water climbing the bank.

[00:00:34]At the same moment, Montecuccoli gave his last order of the day.

[00:00:38]The general advance.

[00:00:40]The entire Allied line stepped forward.

[00:00:43]The French and Imperial infantry closed on [music] the cops with the bayonet and the sword.

[00:00:48]Hohenlohe's recovered regiments pressed the Ottoman right toward the river bend.

[00:00:52]The Reich's army pivoted toward the crossing, cutting off retreat. And in from the east, under the dust of the afternoon, the Hungarian and Croatian hussars, who had spent the morning riding unseen around the battlefield, slammed into the Ottoman rear at the gallop.

[00:01:13]The collapse took less than 90 minutes.