The army of Sobieski reached Klosterenburg, Koenigstetten, St. André, the Valley of Hagen and Kirling, where it effected its junction with the Austrians and the Saxons who had arrived there in passing by Hoeflin. On Sunday, September 15th, in the earliest rays of a fine autumnal day, the holy priest Marco d'Aviano celebrated mass in the chapel of Kahlenberg, and the King of Poland served him during the sacrifice. Afterward, Sobieski made his son kneel down and dubbed him a knight in remembrance of the great occasion on which he was going to be present; then, turning toward his officers, he reminded them of the victory of Choczim, adding that the triumph they were about to achieve under the walls of Vienna would not only save a city, but Christendom. Next morning the Christian army descended the Hill of Kahlen in order of battle. A salvo of five cannon-shot gave the signal for the fight. Sobieski commanded the right wing, the Duke of Lorraine the left, under whose orders served Prince Eugene of Savoy, then aged nineteen. The Elector of Bavaria was in the centre. The village of Naussdorf, situated upon the Danube, was attacked by the Saxon and imperial troops which formed the left wing, and carried after an obstinate resistance. Toward noon the King of Poland, having descended into the plain with the right wing, at the head of his Polish cavalry, attacked the innumerable squadrons of Turkish horse. Flinging himself upon the enemy's centre with all the fury of a hurricane, he spread confusion in their ranks; but his courage carried him too far; he was surrounded and was on the point of being overwhelmed by numbers. Then, shouting for aid, the German cavalry, which had followed him, charged the enemy at full gallop, delivered the King, and soon put the Turks to flight on all sides. The right wing had decided the victory; by seven o'clock in the evening the deliverance of Vienna was achieved. The bodies of more than ten thousand infidels strewed the field of battle.
But all those combats were mere preludes to the great battle which must decide the fortune of the war. For the Turkish camp, with its thousands of tents, could still be seen spreading around as far as the eye could reach, and its artillery continued to play upon the city. The victorious commander-in-chief was holding a council of war to decide whether to give battle again on that same day, or wait till the morrow to give his troops an interval of rest, when a messenger came with the announcement that the enemy appeared to be in full flight; and it proved to be the fact. A panic had seized the Turks, who fled in disorder, abandoning their camp and baggage; and soon even those who were attacking the city were seen in full flight with the rest of the army.
The booty found in the Turkish camp was immense: three hundred pieces of heavy artillery, five thousand tents, that of the Grand Vizier with all the military chests and the chancery. The treasures amounted to fifteen million crowns; the tent of the Vizier alone yielded four hundred thousand crowns. Two millions also were found in the military chest; arms studded with precious stones, the equipments of Kara Mustapha, fell into the hands of the victors. In their flight the Mussulmans threw away arms, baggage, and banners, with the exception of the holy standard of the Prophet, which, nevertheless, the imperials pretended to have seized. The King of Poland received for his share four million florins; and in a letter to his wife—the sole delight of his soul, his dear and well-beloved Mariette—he speaks of that booty and of the happiness of having delivered Vienna. "All the enemy's camp," he wrote, "with the whole of his artillery and all his enormous riches, have fallen into our hands. We are driving before us a host of camels, mules, and Turkish prisoners."
Count Starhemberg received the King of Poland in the magnificent tent of the Grand Vizier and greeted him as a deliverer. Next day Sobieski, accompanied by the Elector of Bavaria and the different commanders, traversed the city on horseback, preceded by a great banner of cloth of gold and two tall gilded staves bearing the horse-tails which had been planted in front of the Grand Vizier's tent, as a symbol of supreme command. In the Loretto chapel of the Augustins the hero threw himself upon his face before the altar and chanted the Te Deum. Vienna was delivered; the flood of Ottomans, that had beaten against its walls one hundred fifty-four years previously, had returned more furiously, more menacing still, against that dignified protectress of European civilization, but this time it had been repelled never to return.
Thus vanished the insane hopes of the Grand Vizier. If Demetrius Cantemir may be believed, Kara Mustapha had desired to capture Vienna to appropriate it to himself and found in the West an empire of which he would have been the sovereign. "That subject," says the historian, "who only held his power from the Sultan, despised in his heart the Sultan himself; and as he found himself at the head of all the disciplined troops of the empire, he looked upon his master as a shadow denuded of strength and substance, who, being very inferior in courage to him, could never oppose to him an army like that which was under his command. For all that concerned the Emperor of Germany, he appeared still less to be feared: being a prince bare and despoiled so soon as he should have lost Vienna. It was thus that Kara Mustapha reasoned within himself.
"Already he casts his eyes over the treasures which he has in his possession; with the money of the Sultan he has also brought his own; all that of the German princes is going to be his; for he believes that it is amassed in the city he is besieging. If he needs support, he reckons upon the different governors of Hungary as devoted to his interests; these are his creatures, whom he has put into their posts during the seven years of his vizierate; not one of those functionaries dare offer an obstacle to the elevation of his benefactor. Ibrahim Pacha, Beylerbey of Buda, keeps him in suspense by reason of the influence that his fame gives him over the army and over Hungary; he must be won over before all else, as well as the chief officers of the janizaries and the spahis. Ibrahim shall be made King of Hungary. The different provinces comprised in that kingdom shall be divided into timars for appanage of the spahis, and all the rest of the soldiery shall have establishments in the towns, as so many new colonies; to them shall be assigned the lands of the old inhabitants, who will be driven out or reduced to slavery. He reserves for himself the title of Sultan, his share shall be all Germany as far as the frontiers of France, with Transylvania and Poland, which he intends to render subject or at least make tributary the year following." Such are the projects that Cantemir attributes to Kara Mustapha; the intervention of Sobieski caused these chimerical plans quickly to vanish.
The Emperor Leopold, who returned to Vienna on September 16th, instead of expressing his thanks and gratitude to the commanders who had rescued his capital, received them with the haughty and repulsive coldness prescribed by the etiquette of the imperial court. Sobieski nevertheless continued his services by pursuing the retreating Turks. Awakened from his dream of self-exaltation, the Grand Vizier retook the road toward Turkey, directing his steps to the Raab, where he rallied the remnants of his army. Thence he marched toward Buda, and attacked by the way the Styrian town of Lilenfeld; he was repulsed by the prelate Matthias Kalweis, and avenged himself for that fresh check by devastating Lower Styria. He crossed the Danube by a bridge of boats at Parkany; but the Poles vigorously disputed the passage with him, and he again lost more than eight thousand men taken or slain by the Christians. Shortly after, the fortress of Gran opened its gates to Kara Mustapha. The Grand Vizier barbarously put to death the officers who had signed the capitulation; he threw upon his generals the responsibility of his reverses, and thought to stifle in blood the murmurs of his accusers. The army marched in disorder as though struck with a panic terror. Kara Mustapha wished that a Jew whom he despatched to Belgrad should be escorted by a troop of horsemen. "I have no need of an escort," replied the Jew: "I have only to wear my cap in the German fashion, and not a Turk will touch me."
The enemies of the Grand Vizier, however, conspired to effect his ruin at Constantinople; and the results of the campaign justified the predictions of the party of peace. Mahomet IV, enraged at these disasters, sent his grand chamberlain to Belgrad with orders to bring back the head of the Vizier (1683): it was, in fact, brought to the Sultan in a silver dish.