On September 10, 1683, the papal legate sang a great outdoor mass on the Kahlenberg, west of Vienna, for King Jan III Sobieski and his 16,000 troops. The king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had been named commander of the field army of some 85,000 troops, including not only the Polish–Lithuanian contingent, but also troops of the Habsburg Monarchy, Bavaria, Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the Zaporozhian* Cossacks — collectively: the Holy League. (Note that only Louis XIV of France had refused the Pope’s rally call and was using the opportunity to seize Hapsburg territories in the Elsass and other parts of southern Germany. The Elsass (Alsace) would eventually become part of France, and we all know where that lead.
Besieging Vienna, which had been holding out since the sixteenth of July with a garrison of some 11,000 soldiers and 5,000 citizens were 150,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire, including 70,000 Janissaries led by Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha. This was not the first time the Gates of Vienna had been attacked by the world’s then-superpower. The first bombardment had been in 1529, and there had been others since; but Vienna still stood. The strategic purpose of all of these efforts was to uncork the Danube Valley and open the way into the rich heartlands of Central Europe. Hungary has already fallen, and the Balkans, and years had been spent planning and organizing this campaign.
The 11th of September was actually spent in final preparations for battle and the Polish King launched his attack from the Kahlenberg on the night/early morning of September 11/12th. The Austrians and Germans attacked the right flank and centre of the Turkish army. A counter-attack was mounted by the Turks but they made an operational error by keeping back a large part of their force to assault an expected breach in the city walls. A sap had been driven under the walls and the fuse in a mine in the chamber at the end of the sap was actually burning when Austrian engineers broke into the chamber and an heroic Austrian Sapper rushed forward and extinguished it.
Timing his move perfectly, Jan Sobieski, leading his men from the front** launched the charge of 20,000 Polish Winged Hussars, rolling up the Turkish army and crushing it in upon itself. After three hours of desperate fighting, during which the besieged Viennese also launched a sally into the Turkish rear, the Ottomans broke and ran, abandoning their tents, weapons, battle standards, provisions, and slaves. Europe was saved and Jan Sobieski was rightly feted as the saviour of Christendom. The commander of the Turkish forces The Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha, on the other hand, was executed in Belgrade on 25 December. He was strangled with a silk rope pulled by several men on each end. Ouch.
The Battle of Vienna marked the high water mark of the advance of islam into Europe – until today, that is. We live with the results to this day, with the states that endured longest under the ebb of the muslim tide through the Balkans and Greece and back into Asia Minor still the poorest and most backward regions of Europe and an illustration of what the rest of Europe might be like.
* From the region around Zaporozhye in the Ukraine.
**The only place to lead 🙂
Boadicea's Chariot 
Sorry, missed the acknowledgements – much C&P from here: http://m-francis.livejournal.com/167807.html and here: http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/09/other-september-11th.html I did some rewriting to make it flow and read more easily. Lazy on a Sunday morning 🙂
Bravo, at school I couldn’t get my head round all those forged and broken alliances on Le Continent. It was bad enough trying to follow the home team’s plots and counterplots. But anyway, I take it that this is another oracular warning about Islam? 🙂
Too much concentration on’topics,’ and not enough on what actually happened, perhaps?
Thanks very much for this very interesting post, bravo. I’d heard of Sobieski’s defence of Vienna, but didn’t know all the details. Especially the fact that Louis XIV was busy preparing years of trouble for his own country. So bad deeds do finds you out!
Thanks, it filled some gaps. Would be a good subject for primary school children, I think. A romantic tale with a hero and a moral.
In 1954 – 1961 there were no topics! Just the facts, man!
Thanks for this Bravo – this event would probably be quietly ‘buried’ in today’s PC curriculum… 🙂
Nice to be reminded that some always did see the ragheads for what they are.
And, more to the point, did something about it!
With any luck it will happen again and the sooner the better.
Difficult not to notice when they’re blasting freakin’ great holes in your town walls 🙂
Well, what do you expect from an egomaniac frog midget obsessed with high-heeled shoes?
It’s funny how some things never change.
Nice One Christopher! Made me dribble beer down my nose 🙂
Brilliant analysis, Christina. Your erudite observations overwhelm me. The Turks invaded, they fought, and then they lost. The Arabs some centuries before invaded, fought, and lost. Ferdinand and Isabella made sure to take care of the last remnants in Grenada some centuries after the Portuguese took care of the problem themselves. If someone wants to cause problems, if someone refuses to integrate I am all for freeing them of their citizenship or any status they might have and deporting them. If they do not, however, let them be. Some of us have learnt the lessons of the 1930s, others have not.
As you say yourself, nothing changes!
Humanity never does. It will end in a physical war again, it always does, the only way to stimulate economies. All societies throughout history have always picked on other groups to persecute and if you think ‘lessons have been learnt’ try telling that to the muslims!
There are 1.3 billion Muslims. Not all are alike. Some are right pieces of poo that require flushing. Some are very decent people. Treat a person like a person — don’t blame, condemn an individual for the crimes of another. I will acknowledge, however, that there is a rather higher than usual number of nutjobs in the Muslim world.
I don’t think that wars stimulate economies any more – the cost of modern-day fighting far outweighs any possible returns.
Bo only because the winners refuse to take the spoils!
Imagine winning in the Saudi Peninsula, turfing them all out into tents in the desert.
A la Darius II or even better doing a Genghis Khan on them!
PS Fighting wars for so called democracy has to be the biggest mug’s game out, especially when they don’t actually want it. Highly unprofitable.
I hope you are right. Ghere are times when I think it is too late.
There