The Turkish Empire, Its Growth and Decay

by Baron G. Shaw-Lefevre Eversley

Warriors and friends, yonder on the plains are our enemies, in numbers greater indeed than at Choczim, where we trod them underfoot. We have to fight them on a foreign soil, but we fight for our own country, and under the walls of Vienna we are defending those of Warsaw and Cracow. We have to save to-day not a single city but the whole of Christendom, of which the city of Vienna is the bulwark. The war is a holy one. There is a blessing on our arms and a crown of glory for him who falls.... The infidels see you now above their heads, and with hopes blasted and courage depressed are escaping among the valleys destined to be their graves. I have but one command to give—Follow me! The time is come for the young to win their spurs.[27]

Kara Mustapha, when he saw the Christian army on the heights above him, made immediate preparations for battle. He gave orders for the massacre of thirty thousand Christian captives, mostly women and children, taken prisoners on the route to Vienna and destined to be sold as slaves. Leaving the best of his men, the Janissaries, in the trenches before the city, he concentrated the main part of his army to meet the attack of the Poles from the rear. Sobieski ranged his army in a great semicircle and made a general advance against the Turks. The Tartar irregulars fled and carried confusion to the rest of the army. Sobieski then led his best troops direct against the centre of the Turks. The mass of the Ottoman army was broken and routed. Terrible slaughter followed, and the whole of the Turkish camp, with immense booty, fell into the hands of the Christians. The Janissaries in the trenches before the city were then attacked on two sides, by the victorious Poles from the rear and by the Viennese garrison on the front. They were cut to pieces and annihilated. The victory of Sobieski was complete and final. Three hundred guns, nine thousand ammunition wagons, and twenty-five thousand tents were captured.

The Turkish army was driven from the field and, panic-stricken, took to flight. Untold thousands of them were killed, together with great numbers of pashas and generals. Kara Mustapha escaped with the mob of fugitives, carrying with him the sacred banner of the Prophet. The débris of the army found its way to Raab, and thence to Buda, where the Grand Vizier ordered the execution of some of the best officers of the army, whom he falsely accused of being responsible for the disaster. He himself then made his way to Belgrade, where, in his turn, he was put to death, with much more justification, by order of the Sultan. His immense and ill-gotten wealth was confiscated by the State. He had lived in unprecedented splendour. In his harem were fifteen hundred concubines, attended each by a servant, and seven hundred eunuchs to guard them. His own personal servants and horses were counted by thousands.

The second siege of Vienna, thus brought to so glorious an end by its brave garrison and by Sobieski, differed essentially from that undertaken by Sultan Solyman in 1529. Solyman was compelled to raise the siege and to retreat by the failure of food and munitions. He met with no reverse in the field, and he was able to withdraw his army intact. Mustapha fought a pitched battle against a very inferior army coming in relief of the city, and was defeated, and his army was routed and broken up. There never was a greater disaster to an army or to a general. It brought most serious results to the Ottoman Empire. It broke once for all the prestige of the Turks as a conquering nation. It removed the fear of an Ottoman invasion which for two centuries had been a nightmare to the Central States of Europe.

The attack on Vienna was practically the last effort of the Ottomans to extend their Empire into an enemy’s country. Henceforth they were almost always on the defensive. It will be seen that the defeat of the huge army by Sobieski resulted in the loss to the Turks of the greater part of their conquests in Hungary, and that, in a few years, it led to their being driven across the Danube.

Sobieski and Lorraine, after their great victory in front of Vienna, followed it up with vigour. At Paskenay they fell into an ambuscade prepared for them by the retreating Turks and lost two thousand men, but two days later they attacked the enemy and defeated them with great slaughter. The bridge of boats across the Danube by which the Turks retreated was broken by the rush of fugitives and seven thousand were killed or drowned. The Christian army then pressed on to Gran and invested and captured that important fortress. It had been in possession of the Turks for many years. Henceforth it was a rampart of Austria and Hungary against them. This concluded the year’s campaign. The Austrians and Poles went into winter quarters.

Meanwhile the effect of the great victory at Vienna was to stimulate other Powers to join the combination against the Turks. The Pope preached another crusade against them—the fourteenth. The Republic of Venice fitted out a fleet, which was joined by galleys of the Pope, the Knights of Malta, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In the following year this fleet attacked and captured the island of Santa Maura and the city of Prevesa, at the entrance to the Gulf of Arta. A Venetian army also invaded Bosnia and Albania.

In this year also (1684) the Austrians, under Lorraine, issuing from Gran, crossed the Danube and attacked and defeated the Turks at Warzen, and again in another battle before Buda, and then besieged that fortress. But after some weeks they were compelled by the rainy season and disease in the army to raise the siege and retreat. Meanwhile another Austrian army advanced into Croatia and fought and defeated the Turks. As a result of this the province of Croatia, which had been for one hundred and fifty-one years under Turkish rule, was freed from it, and was thenceforward an Austro-Hungarian possession.

In the following year, 1685, the Austrians made further progress. The important stronghold of Neuhausel, which twenty-two years previously had been captured by the Turks, was now recaptured after a desperate resistance. Of its garrison of three thousand men only two hundred survived. The women and children of the Turks were sold to landowners in the Austrian Empire. The capture of this city was the cause of great rejoicing throughout Europe. In 1686 the siege of Buda was renewed. The Imperial army consisted of ninety thousand men—Germans, Hungarians, and Croats. It was under the command of the Prince of Lorraine. The siege was commenced on June 18th. Three attempts to relieve it under Grand Vizier Solyman failed. After six weeks of siege the Austrians assaulted and captured the city. Its brave defender, Abdi Pasha, and its garrison perished, and the city was given up to ruthless sack. The city had been in possession of the Turks for a hundred and forty-five years, and during this time had resisted successfully six sieges. It now passed finally into the hands of the Hungarians.

The campaign of the following year, 1687, was opened on the Drave. The Grand Vizier led an army of fifty thousand men and sixty-six guns. It met the Austrians at Mohacz on the very field where, a hundred and sixty years previously, the Hungarians had been defeated in the battle which gave one-half of their country to the Turks. The Ottomans were now in their turn defeated and routed. Twenty thousand of them were killed, while the loss of the successful army was only a thousand. Slavonia was in the same year cleared of all Turkish forces, and was permanently restored to Austria, while in Transylvania the Voivode Apafy, who owed his position to the Turks, now turned against them.