[18] The dragoons were mounted infantry, using horses to reach the scene of action only. They carried the infantry weapons, sword and musket, but not pikes. The bayonet was just coming into use, but was still fixed in the muzzle of the gun, and had to be removed before firing.
[19] Count Thürheim, "Starhemberg," p. 163 and seqq.; and Sobieski to his wife, September 13.
CHAPTER VII.
The position of the Christian army on the Kahlenberg was, from the left wing, the nearest point, about four miles from Vienna. The centre and right were further removed. The intervening country, far from being a plain, as Sobieski had been led to believe when he formed his first plan of battle, is broken up into hillocks and little valleys, intersected by streams, full of vineyards, and interspersed with the ruins of numerous villages burnt by the Turks. Beyond these lay the Turkish encampment and approaches, mingled with the vestiges of the suburbs destroyed by Starhemberg at the beginning of the siege.
The Turkish army was stretched over a front of about four miles from point to point, but slightly curving with the convex side towards the attacking force. Their right rested upon the Danube, and held the Nussberg before the villages of Nussdorf and Heiligenstadt; their left reached towards Breitensee near the Wien, and the Tartars swarmed still further on the broken ground beyond. Their camp straggled in an irregular half-moon from the river above Vienna to beyond the Wien, and their troops were, at the beginning of the action, drawn up before it. Some hasty entrenchments had been thrown up by them here and there, of which the most considerable was a battery between Währing, Gerstorf and Weinhaus;[20] but the bulk of their artillery remained in their lines, pointed against the city, and the clamour of the ensuing battle was swelled by the continuous roar of their bombardment, kept up as on previous days. In the trenches lay a great body of Janissaries; and the Turkish army was further weakened by the dispersal of Tartars and irregulars on the night before the fight, doubtful of the event, and anxious at any rate to secure their plunder. As the king had said, the Turks were badly posted, their camp was long and straggling, too valuable to be abandoned and not easy to defend. In case of a reverse, their right wing would run the risk of being driven into the Danube, or else have to fall back upon their centre and left, to the confusion of the whole army. Fighting with a river and a fortified city upon their flank and rear, repulse for them would mean certain disaster. But the incapacity of the Vizier could not be fully fathomed till the attack began. We have the assurance of Sobieski himself that he hoped upon the first day merely to bring his army within striking distance of the enemy, and to establish his left well forward near the bank of the Danube, ready to deal a decisive blow, or to throw succour into Vienna on the morrow or following day. He closed his letter to his wife in the grey of the windy morning of the 12th of September, ignorant that the decisive moment, bringing a victory greater than that of Choczim, was at hand.
The Turks had pushed their outposts forward up the banks of the river, and soon after daybreak Lorraine upon the left was engaged, and the fight thickened as his attack towards Nussdorf and Heiligenstadt was developed. Eugene of Savoy began his distinguished career in arms by carrying tidings from Lorraine to the king that the battle had commenced in earnest. Eugene, barely twenty, had left Paris that year, slighted by Louis, and had entered the service of the Emperor. His memoirs dismiss briefly this his first essay in war. "The confusion of that day can be but confusedly described. The Poles, who had clambered up to the Leopoldsberg—I know not why—went down again like madmen and fought like lions. The Turks, encamped where I threw up lines in 1703, did not know which way to front, neglected the eminences, and behaved like idiots."[21] The young aide-de-camp, carrying orders through the hottest of the fire, could not yet penetrate the system which underlay the apparent confusion of the march and battle. Advancing in columns with a comparatively narrow front down the difficult slope of the hills, the infantry gradually deployed right and left upon the lower ground, while the cavalry of the second line advanced to fill the gaps thus left in the foremost The Turks resisted gallantly, but they were principally dismounted Spahis, not a match for Lorraine's favourite troops, the German foot, though regaining their horses they would retreat with great rapidity, to again dismount, and again resist, as each favourable position offered itself. The fighting was obstinate, and the losses heavy upon both sides, but the tide of fight rolled steadily towards Vienna. The Germans carried the height of the Nussberg, above Nussdorf, and their guns planted there disordered the whole of the Turkish right with their plunging fire. Osman Ogoli, Pasha of Kutaya, the Turkish general of division, pushed forward three columns in a counter-attack, boldly and skilfully directed. The Imperial infantry were shaken, but five Saxon battalions, inclining to their left from the Christian centre, checked in turn the onset of the Ottomans, and restored the current of the battle. But had the whole force of the enemy been commanded as their right wing, the allies would scarcely that night have been greeted in Vienna. No false move in the advance escaped the skill of Osman. As the Turkish attack recoiled, the Prince of Croy had dashed forward with two battalions to carry with a rush the village of Nussdorf. Checked and overwhelmed, he fell back again, himself wounded, his brother slain. Louis of Baden, with his dismounted dragoons, came up to the rescue, and checked the pursuing enemy. As they recoiled slowly the fight grew fiercer, and then more stationary about Nussdorf and about Döbling. Houses, gardens, and vineyards formed a series of entrenchments, sharply attacked and obstinately defended. A third time the fiery valour of the Turks, charging home with their sabres among the pikes and muskets, disordered the allies, and all but regained the summit of the Nussberg. Again the superior cohesion of the Christians prevailed, and the Turkish column outflanked fell back, still stubbornly contesting every foot of ground. From the long extended centre and left of their line no support came to them, as the Vizier in anxious irresolution expected the advance of the centre of the allies and of the Poles upon their right. His infatuation, moreover, had kept in the batteries the bulk of his artillery, and in the trenches the best of his Janissaries. In dire want of the guns, which roared idly upon the already shattered defences of the city, Osman was driven through Nussdorf and through Heiligenstadt, upon the fortified defiles of Döbling, where at last a battery of ten guns and a force of Janissaries opposed a steadier resistance to the advancing Germans. It was now noon. Lorraine had already won the position which had been marked out for his achievement for the day, and slackened his attack while he reformed his victorious battalions. The centre and right of the Christian army, separated by a longer distance from their foes, had been slowly gaining the field of action, and had scarce fired a shot nor struck a blow, except for the support accorded to the left by the centre. The whole of the infantry and cavalry had at mid-day gained the positions assigned to them, and, in the absence of most of his artillery, Sobieski would have hesitated to continue his advance had not his lines, upon the left especially, become so deeply involved that it was difficult to suspend the conflict for long. Yet a momentary lull succeeded to the sharp sounds of close combat. A sultry autumn day had followed the boisterous night and morning, and the heat was oppressive.[22] The Poles upon the right halted and snatched a hasty meal from the provisions they had brought with them. But as the rattle of the small arms and the clash of weapons died away, the roar of the battering guns and the answering fire of the city rose in overwhelming distinctness. Behind the smoky veil, Starhemberg and his gallant garrison could perchance barely guess, by sounds of conflict, the progress of their deliverers. Tidings from the watch-chair on St. Stephen's would spread alternate hope and despair among the citizens. The fate of Vienna trembled in the balance. The garrison stood ready in the breaches, the rest of the inhabitants cowered upon the housetops to watch, or knelt in the churches to pray; but to the Vizier came swiftly tidings of the foe with whom he had to deal, the foe whose presence he had obstinately refused to credit.
Reforming after their brief delay, the Polish cavalry in gorgeous arms came flashing from the woods and defiles near Dornbach on his left. Those who had before fought against him, knew the plume raised upon a spear point, the shield borne before him, the banderolles on the lances of his body guard, which declared the presence of the terrible Sobieski. "By Allah, but the king is really among them," cried Gieray, Khan of the Crimea. And all doubt was at an end as the shout of "Vivat Sobieski" rolled along the Christian lines, in dread and significant answer to the discordant clamour of the Infidels.