The Great Sieges of History

by William Robson

FIRST SIEGE, A.D. 1529.

After having subdued Asia, Soliman II. determined to make Europe tremble by the terrors of his constantly victorious arms. In 1529 this redoubtable conqueror entered Hungary with fire and sword; he pillaged, ravaged, and destroyed everything in his passage, and marched over these melancholy ruins to lay siege to Vienna, the capital of Austria and of the whole Western empire, since the house of Austria was said to occupy the throne of Charlemagne. The Ottoman army was immense, and was composed of the brave Janissaries who had just subdued Persia. But Vienna contained within its walls both warlike citizens and intrepid soldiers. The sultan commenced his operations by mining the walls. This immense labour was frequently interrupted by the counter-mines of the besieged; but at length some of these concealed volcanoes burst forth all at once, and threw down a great part of the walls. In an instant the Viennese, men, women, and children, flew to construct a new rampart; and when the infidels came to the assault, they were surprised to find themselves stopped, at a few paces from the breach, by this barrier, which twenty pieces of cannon and tens of thousands of defenders rendered impregnable. They then turned their attention to another side, where there had been only time to intrench with palisades. At this point the bodies of the inhabitants served as bulwarks. The combat here was terrible; rivers of blood and heaps of slain rolled beneath the steps of the warriors. Twice the Turks were repulsed with loss; twice the sultan and his officers rallied them and led them back against the enemy, and twice were they on the point of carrying the city. During four hours they fought and immolated each other, without being able to imagine to which side victory would be favourable. At length the thunders which were incessantly launched from all quarters of the place crushed whole ranks of the infidels, and the invincible courage of the inhabitants drove off an enemy who had more than once shouted clamorous cries of victory. This first check only seemed to inflame the valour of the Turks; on the 12th of October, Soliman harangued them, and gave orders for a general assault. They were preparing for it during a great part of the night; and on the 13th, at break of day, all the bodies of the Turkish army advanced in good order, armed, some with blazing torches, others with muskets, arrows, and axes, and a great number with ladders, and all sorts of machines to force or to get over the walls. But they were expected: the Austrians had placed on the walls all their artillery, all their mortars, and all their soldiers. The city was attacked on more than twenty points at once, and from every one the infidels were obliged to retreat with great loss and disgrace. The fight lasted for twelve hours, without either side thinking of food or rest, and night alone put an end to the fearful slaughter. Soliman, in despair, sounded a retreat: he had vainly consumed forty days before Vienna, and had lost more than forty thousand men in his different assaults upon that city. As a crowning misfortune, snows, frosts, and tempests made still greater havoc with his army than the enemy had done. Even Soliman the Great, the invincible Soliman, could not overcome these obstacles—he raised the siege, and Vienna was saved.

SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1683.

The grand vizier, Kara Mustapha, charged with the humiliation of the empire and Leopold its master, advanced towards the capital of the states of that prince with terrible preparations. Very unlike what we have seen in the former siege, at the approach of the enemy’s legions the emperor quitted Vienna, with two empresses, his mother-in-law and his wife, with the archdukes and archduchesses, and sixty thousand inhabitants. The country round exhibited nothing but fugitives, equipages, carts laden with goods, the laggard of all which became the prey of the Tartars, who pillaged, ravaged, burnt, slaughtered, and led them away into slavery. On the 7th of July, 1683, the city was invested, and all Europe tremblingly watched the issue of this famous enterprise.

Vienna, bathed by the Danube on the north, was fortified by twelve great bastions in the remainder of its inclosure. The curtains were covered by good half-moons, without any other outworks; the ditch was partly filled with water, and partly dry, and the counterscarp was much neglected. The side of the city which was bathed by the river had no defence but strong walls, flanked by large towers, the whole well terraced. In a plain of three leagues, environed by a circle of mountains, the vizier fixed his camp, which he had the audacity to leave undefended, except with lines of circumvallation and countervallation. Everything was in abundance in the camp—money, munitions of war, and provisions of all sorts. The different quarters boasted pachas as magnificent as kings, and this magnificence was effaced by that of the vizier; to use the phrase of an historian, “he swam in luxury.” The court of a grand vizier generally consists of two thousand officers and domestics; Mustapha had double that number. His park, that is to say, the inclosure of his tents, was as large as the besieged city. The richest stuffs, gold and precious stones, were there contrasted with the polished steel of arms. There were baths, gardens, fountains, and rare animals, as well for the convenience as the amusement of the general, whose effeminacy and frivolity did not in the least relax the operations of the siege. His artillery, composed of three hundred pieces of cannon, was not the less formidable; and the bravery of the Janissaries was not at all enervated by the example of their leader.

The count de Staremberg, a man perfect in the art of war, the governor of Vienna, had set fire to the faubourgs, and to save the citizens, he had destroyed their buildings. He had a garrison estimated at sixteen thousand men, but which in reality consisted of about eleven thousand at most. The citizens and the university were armed; the students mounted guard, and had a physician for their major. Staremberg’s second in command was the count de Capliers, the emperor’s commissary-general, one of those men whom knowledge, vigilance, and activity point out as fit for the highest posts.

The approaches to Vienna were easy. The trenches were opened on the 14th of July, in the faubourg of St. Ulric, at fifty paces from the counterscarp; the attack was directed against the bastion of the court, and that of Lebb. Two days only advanced the works as far as the counterscarp, where the ditch was dry. The duke of Lorraine, who had posted himself in the isle of Leopoldstadt, using every exertion to preserve there a communication with the city, then found himself obliged to retreat by the bridges he had thrown over the Danube, and which he broke down behind him. The country houses, of which the island was full, then lodged the Turks. This proceeding has been considered a great mistake; but if it was one, the duke thoroughly repaired it by his behaviour during the whole siege. With an army which never amounted to thirty thousand men, he covered Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Bohemia; he protected Vienna; he checked Tekeli; and he stopped the progress of more than forty thousand Turks and Tartars, who scoured and devastated the country.

But he could not prevent the infidels from carrying on the siege with vigour. With the Turks, there were daily mounds raised, works advanced, new batteries, and a fire which augmented every instant; with the Austrians, it was, in an equal degree, a display of the most intrepid valour and firm resistance. Staremberg, who at the first approaches had been wounded by a fragment of stone struck off from the curtain by a ball, though only half-cured, animated the whole defence by his looks, his actions, and his humanity. He treated all his soldiers like brothers; he praised and recompensed all distinguished actions; and, not content with being with them during the day, he passed the night upon a mattress in the corps de garde of the emperor’s palace, which adjoined a bastion of the court comprised in the attack. By the 22nd of July, the besiegers were at the palisade, which was only defended by the sword. They were so near, that they grappled each other across the pikes in death-struggles. The count de Daun, a general officer of distinguished merit, had scythes fastened to long poles, which destroyed a vast number of the infidels, but which could not diminish the presumptuous confidence which animated them. So certain were they of victory, that they came forward to make bravadoes similar to those of which we read in ancient wars. A champion of extraordinary stature advanced with a threatening air, insulting with both voice and sabre. A Christian soldier, unable to endure this affront, sprang out to encounter him: he at first was wounded, but quickly wounded and disarmed his enemy, cut off his head with his own scimitar, and found fifty gold pieces stitched up in his vest. One would suppose that this brave fellow would be rewarded; not so: he remained a private soldier, and his name, which the Romans would have consecrated in the fasti of history, is not even known to us. The besieged, who beheld the action from the top of the ramparts, drew a good augury from it; it redoubled their constancy and courage.

The enemy did not obtain possession of the counterscarp before the 7th of August, after twenty-three days’ fighting, with a great effusion of blood on both sides. The count de Serini, nephew of the famous Serini whom Leopold had brought to the scaffold, had retarded the taking of this work by a thousand actions of bravery. There was no sortie in which he was not conspicuous. His ardour on one occasion prevented his feeling that he had received an arrow in his shoulder. The Turks had come to the descent of the ditch; no people equal them in turning up the ground. The depth of their work was astonishing: the earth they threw out was carried to the height of nine feet, surmounted by planks and posts in the form of floors, beneath which they worked in safety. Their trenches differ from those of Europeans in shape: they are cuttings in the form of a crescent, which cover one another, preserving a communication like the scales of fish, which conceal a labyrinth from whence they fire without inconveniencing those who are in front, and whence it is almost impossible to dislodge them. When the Janissaries had once entered them, they scarcely ever left them. Their fire became progressively more active, whilst that of the besieged relaxed: the latter began to husband their powder, and grenades were short. The baron de Kielmansegge invented a powder-mill and clay grenades, which proved of great service. Industry employed all its resources; but the hope of holding out much longer began to diminish. The enemy’s mines, the continual attacks, the diminishing garrison, the nearly exhausted munitions and provisions, everything conspired to create the greatest anxiety; and not content with so many real evils, they invented imaginary ones. A report was spread that traitors were working subterranean passages by which to introduce the infidels. Every one was commanded to keep watch in his cellar; and this increase of fatigue completed the weakness of the defenders of Vienna, by robbing them of their necessary rest. Others spoke confidently of incendiaries hired to second the Turks. A young man found in a church which had just been set fire to, although most likely innocent, was torn to pieces by the people. But the Turkish artillery was more to be dreaded than all these phantoms. The inhabitants were incessantly employed in extinguishing the fires which the bombs and red-hot balls kindled in the city, whilst the outworks were falling in one continued crash. The half-moon had already suffered greatly; the ramparts presented in all parts vast breaches; and, but for the invincible courage of the inhabitants and the soldiers, Vienna must have been taken.

In this extremity, Leopold turned his eyes towards Poland. John Sobieski, the terror of the Ottomans, and perhaps the only sovereign of his age who was a great captain, was supplicated to come to the assistance of the empire and the whole Christian world. This monarch instantly responded to the summons by marching thither at the head of twenty-five thousand men. He traversed two hundred leagues of country, and on the 5th of September he crossed the bridge of Tuln with his army, five leagues above Vienna. The Polish cavalry was remarkable for its horses, uniform, and noble bearing. It might be said that they were equipped at the expense of the infantry: among the latter, there was one battalion extremely ill-clothed. Prince Lubomirski advised the king, for the honour of the country, to order them to pass in the night. Sobieski judged otherwise; and when that troop was on the bridge, he said to the spectators,—“Look well at them; that is an invincible troop of men, who have taken an oath never to wear any clothes but those of the enemy. In the last war they were all clothed in the Turkish fashion.” “If these words did not clothe them, they cuirassed them,” pleasantly observes the Abbé Cayer, whose account we follow.