6.10.1982 Treasure from the monument

The treasure was placed in the monument to the Napoleonic battle at Přestanov in 1835 by three monarchs. Historians retrieved the box more than a century later. They were surprised...

Emperor Ferdinand V of Austria and Tsar Nicholas I Pavlovich of Russia and King Frederick William III of Prussia placed the box in the Russian cast-iron monument. What exactly was not really known. There was no record of it.

Although thousands of people flocked to the monument over the years, no one got to the treasure. It was hidden in a 26-ton, 14-metre-high obelisk with a statue of the goddess Nike. Historians took a look inside in 1982.

They hoped to find more than just documents inside. Karel Matějka, a conservator at the Ústí Museum, opened the box and found two tubes of zinc sheeting inside. "The tubes were already very fragile, I had to open them carefully so they wouldn't fall apart. I took out the papers. They were completely crumpled and glued together. The tubes contained only the deeds," he revealed.

At the bottom of the tube was crumpled wet brown paper, which at the time had been used to line the layers of coins. These had turned into greenish plumes. "The silver ones still had some legible inscriptions, the copper ones no longer. But the gold coins were as good as new," Matějka said.

The most beautiful in the tube was a large gold medal, which was issued especially for the occasion of the monument's construction. It bore the inscription "The brave Russian Guards Regiment was victorious at Chlumec 29. August 1813" and on the other side "Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, by the grace of God, carried out the idea of his father Franz and ordered the monument to be built in 1835".

In the box there was the same coin also in silver, as well as a sevenct of Austrian coins and a silver plate with an engraved description of the laying of the foundation stone.

It is estimated that the French lost eleven thousand soldiers (dead, wounded or missing) in the Battle of Chlumec and Prestanov, the Allies about nine thousand men. The statistics do not include the suffering of the locals, which was far from over. For one thing, Napoleon himself, between the 15th and 18th. September, Napoleon again unsuccessfully attempted to penetrate the Subcruz Mountains, but the entire region hoped...acted as a supply rear for the Allied armies and was also their great lazarette. In the ruins were left the war-affected villages...

The French retreating from Ústí nad Labem were not allowed to reach the border without a fight. They hid from their Austrian cavalry pursuers in a seemingly inaccessible place in the vicinity of Tisza.

"They thought that their position was inaccessible to the cavalry and therefore secure. However, they were greatly disappointed. Major Simonyi ordered one squadron to dismount and rush the very inaccessible position on foot. No one will doubt that the attack on foot by the hussars is very difficult, but the hussars obediently and unhesitatingly complied with the order, attacked the French and in a little while they scattered them completely," Jan Kvirenc describes the events of that time in his book Famous Battles of Czech History.

Jan Kvirenc: Famous Battles of Czech History, www.turistika.cz, www.idnes.cz