CHAPTER IV.
Charles of Lorraine, the Imperial commander, had under his orders less than 40,000. The levy en masse of Hungary produced 3000 soldiers only for the Emperor's service, so wide was the sway of the Turks, or so universal the sympathy for Tekeli. Six thousand Hungarians, supposed to be raised for the Emperor, went over to the enemy as soon as they advanced. Yet, contrary to his own opinion, Lorraine began with offensive operations against the Turkish fortress of Neuhausel. A partial success was followed by a disastrous repulse, and the army withdrew south of the Danube, as the main Turkish force approached upon that same side of the river. Lorraine had some idea of making a stand near the Raab to cover the Austrian frontier, but the number of the enemy and the temper of his own soldiers rendered such an attempt too hazardous. He determined to retreat, and await the reinforcements already promised by the Princes of the Empire. Garrisons were hastily flung into Raab, Komorn, and Leopoldstadt.[7] The infantry then recrossed the Danube and fell back towards Vienna along the Schütt island, under Count Leslie's orders. The cavalry marched upon the southern side of the river, but the superior rapidity of their retreat did not save them from molestation. On July 7 at Petronel, some twenty miles below Vienna, 15,000 Spahis and Tartars burst upon their march. For a time Count Taaffe, with the rear guard of 400 men, was in extreme danger. The exertions of Lorraine and of Louis of Baden rallied the cavalry and speedily repulsed their disorderly assailants, but in the confusion several of the officers fell, including Prince Aremberg and Julius Louis of Savoy, an elder brother of Prince Eugene, and much of the baggage became the prey of the Tartars. Altenburg and Haimburg, posts upon the Danube, had been already stormed, after a brief resistance, by the Turkish infantry.
Those stragglers who first leave the field are always apt to cover their own flight by the report of an universal overthrow. So fugitives came galloping to Vienna with a tale of disaster. They spread the rumour that the Duke of Lorraine was killed and the army totally defeated, while their alarm seemed amply confirmed by the glow of burning villages that brightened upon the twilight of the eastern horizon. The Imperial court, which had delayed its flight so far, in the hope that the enemy might linger about the fortresses of Raab or of Komorn, tarried now no longer. "Leopold could never bear to hear plain truths but when he was afraid," says Eugene. He had refused to recognize the imminence of the peril until now; and by his confidence had involved in his destruction others, who had not the same means of escape at the last moment which he himself possessed. Yet means of escape were barely open to him, when at length he understood that he must defend or abandon his capital. The roads to Upper Austria and to Bavaria, along the southern shore of the Danube, were rightly distrusted. The Emperor, his Empress, and the Empress Mother, with all their train of courtiers, of ladies, and of servants, shorn of pomp and bereft of dignity in their flight, poured over the Leopoldstadt island and the Tabor bridge in all the misery of panic fear. The prompt destruction of the bridge of Crems, above Vienna, is said alone to have saved their route from interception by the Tartars. A part of their baggage actually became the prey of the marauders. The whole court, including even the Empress herself, who was far advanced in pregnancy, were driven to seek rest in farms and cottages. Once they passed the night under a temporary shelter of boughs. In the universal panic, small room was left for hopes of a return to the capital and to the palaces that they had quitted. Milan, Innspruck, Prague were thought of as their future refuge. On to Lintz, and from Lintz to the frontier they fled, till their confidence at last returned behind the fortifications of the Bavarian city of Passau. But they were not the only fugitives from Vienna. The bold march of the Vizier upon the city, leaving Raab, Komorn, and Presburg in his rear, to fall an easy prey when once the great prize was captured; this had taken the citizens by surprise. The retreat of Lorraine, and the skirmish at Petronel, had filled them with abject terror.
People from the surrounding country who had taken shelter in Vienna no longer relied upon her as a stronghold, but turned their thoughts to an escape to Bavaria, or to Styria, or even to the distant Tirol. From nine o'clock in the evening till two o'clock in the morning, on the 7th and 8th of July, a never-ending stream of carriages and of fugitives were following in the track of the Imperial cortège. East and south, upon the horizon, the glare of burning villages told that the Turkish horsemen were there. High on the summit of the Kahlenberg, the flames of the Camalduline Convent dreadfully illuminated the track of the fugitives. Sixty thousand persons, it was believed, left the city in the course of a few days. Of those who, crossing the Danube, took the roads into Upper Austria or into Moravia, some fell into the hands of the Hungarian and Tartar marauders. But few of those who attempted to escape into Styria succeeded in reaching a place of safety. They perished by thousands, enveloped by the flying squadrons of the invaders.
In Vienna herself, deserted by her leaders and by so many of her children, violent tumult raged against the Government, and against the Jesuits, who were supposed to have instigated the persecution of the Protestants of Hungary. There was ample cause for terror. The fortifications were old and imperfect, the suburbs encroached upon the works, the number of the defenders was small. Thirteen thousand infantry, supplied by the army of Lorraine, and seven thousand armed citizens formed the garrison; and, besides these, about sixty thousand souls were in the city. The command was entrusted to Ernest Rudiger Count Starhemberg, an officer of tried skill and courage. He had served with Montecuculi against the Turks, and against both Condé and Turenne with the same commander and with the Prince of Orange. He entered the city as the fugitives forsook it. He set the people to work upon the fortifications, organized them for defence, and assured them that he would live and die with them. But while writing to the Emperor that he would joyfully spend the last drop of his blood in defence of his charge, he confesses that the place is in want of everything, and the inhabitants panic-stricken. Fortunately he and others with him were the class of men to restore confidence in the rest. Under him served many noble volunteers, for the example of the Emperor was not universally followed. The Bishop of Neustadt, once himself a soldier and a knight of Malta, was conspicuous among many brave and devoted men for his liberal donations to the troops, and for his superintendence of the sanitary state of the city. In one respect alone the place was well furnished; three hundred and twenty-one pieces of artillery were supplied by the Imperial arsenal for the fortifications.[8] The city was defended after the existing fashion, with ten bastions, the curtains covered by ravelines, with a ditch mostly dry. On the side of the Danube was merely a wall with towers and platforms, and all the works were more or less uncared for and decayed. The work of fixing palisades was postponed till the Turkish army was in sight. It is possible that by a slightly more rapid march the Vizier might have secured Vienna by a coup de main.
On July 13, the Turkish regular cavalry came in sight, preceding the infantry of the main army; and at the last possible moment fire was set to the suburbs, which impeded the defence. A high wind speedily caused them to be consumed. On the 14th, the Turkish army took up its position, encamping in a semicircle, round the whole of the circuit of the defences not washed by the Danube. A city, surpassing in size and population the beleaguered capital, sprang up about the walls of Vienna. The tents of the Vizier were pitched opposite the Burg bastion, in the suburb of St. Ulric. The camp was crowded not only by soldiers, but by the merchants of the East, who thronged thither as to a fair to deal in the plunder of the Christians. The Imperial troops still attempted to hold the Leopoldstadt island; but on July 16, the Turks threw bridges across the arm of the Danube, and shortly drove the Christians to the northern bank of the river. The houses of the Leopoldstadt were given up to fire by the Turks; and the bridge, leading to the northern shore, destroyed by the Imperialists. The investment of Vienna was now completed upon every side. Batteries from the Leopoldstadt, and from the south and west, crossed it with fire in all directions. Trenches were opened, and the elaborate approaches and frequent mines of the Turks, advancing with alarming rapidity, enveloped the western and south-western face of the works from the Scottish gate to the Burg bastion.
Upwards of three hundred pieces of artillery played upon the crumbling defences and the devastated city. The pavement of the streets was torn up, that the balls might bury themselves in the soft earth where they fell. The upper floors and roofs of the houses were barricaded with heavy timber, or covered with sandbags, to guard against the fire of the dropping shells. The streets themselves were blocked behind the walls, chains drawn across them, and the houses loop-holed and prepared for defence to the last extremity. All the gates had been walled up but one, the Stuben gate, which, being partially covered by the stream of the Wien, was left open as a sally-port. Early in the siege, the assailed, frequently issuing forth, returned the attacks of the enemy, frustrated their operations, and even captured provisions in the hostile lines. But as time went on, the diminishing numbers of the garrison forbade the waste of life incurred even in successful sorties.