Sobieski had only hoped gradually to fight his way into a position whence he could communicate with the besieged, and he had arranged his plan of battle at Tuln with that idea. But the inequalities of the country between the Kahlenberg and Vienna, broken with vines, villages, small hills and hollow ways, together with the unexpectedly rapid development of the attack when once it began, seem to have interfered with his original disposition.
His army occupied a front of half a Polish mile, or about an English mile and three quarters. It was drawn up in three supporting lines that faced south-eastward.
The first line of the right wing was composed of nineteen Polish (cavalry) divisions and four battalions; the second, of six Polish and eight Austrian divisions, and four Polish battalions; the third, of nine Polish, six Austrian, three German divisions, three Polish and one German battalion.
The centre was composed in the first line of nine Austrian and eleven German divisions, and thirteen German battalions; in the second, of six German divisions, ten German and six Austrian battalions; in the third, of five German and two Austrian battalions.
The left wing shewed in the first line, ten Austrian and five German divisions, and six Austrian battalions; in the second line, four German and eight Austrian divisions; in the third line, three German and seven Austrian battalions.
Lubomirski with his irregular Poles was on the left; the Polish Field-Marshal, Jablonowski, commanded on the right; the Prince of Waldeck, with the Electors of Bavaria and Saxony, the centre; the Duke of Lorraine and Louis of Baden, with Counts Leslie and Caprara, were on the left. The king was upon the right or right centre throughout the day. The total force, including detachments not actually engaged, was 46,700 cavalry and dragoons, 38,700 infantry; in all 85,400 men, with some irregulars, and 168 guns, many of them not in action at all. The dragoons fought on foot in the battle.[18] The army was, roughly, one-third Poles, one-third Austrians, one-third Bavarians, Saxons, and other Germans.[19] The fatigues of the march from Tuln would naturally diminish the number of effective soldiers on the day of battle; and the troops were not all in position when the evening of Saturday, September 11, fell. As the night however wore away, the rear guard gained the summit of the hills, and snatched a brief repose before the labours of the morrow.
But for the king there was no rest. The man whom the French ambassador had described as unable to ride, who was tormented certainly by wearing pains, after three days of incessant toil, passed a sleepless night preparatory to fourteen hours in the saddle upon the battle-field. The season of repose was dedicated to the duties of a general and the affection of a husband. At three a.m. on Sunday, the 12th, the king is again writing to his bien-aimée Mariette. He has been toiling all day in bringing his troops up the ravines. "We are so thin," he writes, "we might run down the stags on the mountains." As to the pomp or even comfort of a king, that is not to be thought of. "All my luggage which we have got up here is in the two lightest carts." He has some more upon mules, but has not seen them for forty-eight hours. He had no thought of sleep; indeed, the thunder of the Turkish cannon made it impossible; and a gale of wind, which he describes as "sufficient to blow the men off their horses," bore the noise of their discharge with redoubled clamour to the relieving army. Moreover, the king writes, he must be in the saddle before daybreak, riding down from the right to the extreme left, to consult with Lorraine, opposite whom the enemy lies in force; not entrenched, he hopes, as on that side he means to break through to the city. A two days' affair, at least, he thinks. Then, "my eighth letter to your sixth," he adds, with other familiar and gentle conversation, with tidings of her son and of other friends, but with no word of fear or of apprehension. He had made his will before setting out from Warsaw, but he entertained no thought of failure. Then closing his wife's letter, the affectionate husband becomes again the heroic king and careful general. He rides from right to left along the lines, in that boisterous autumnal morning, makes the last dispositions with Lorraine, with him and with a few others takes again the Holy Communion from the hands of Marco Aviano before the sun has risen, and then returns to his post upon the right wing, ready for the advance that was to save Vienna. His next letter to his wife was dated "September 13, night. The tents of the Vizier."
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Coyer, "Memoires de Sobieski."
[17] The roll includes the forces of Tekeli, who was not in the Turkish camp at all, and takes no count of the last losses which the Turkish detachments had suffered, nor of the loss from desertion the night before the battle, when many of the irregulars went off with their booty. The Turks had lost, according to this roll, 48,500 men before the battle.—See Thürheim's "Starhemberg," pp. 150 and seq.