| The Ottomans were initially just one of many nomadic Turkish tribes. After being introduced to Islam, they developed great fighting traditions and expanded their rule through the clever acquisition of land and wealth. Their expansion had a serious impact on the European continent and its people, who feared the virtual downfall of Christendom. Although Europeans mounted crusades against them in 1366, 1396, and 1444, the Ottomans continued to conquer territory after territory. |
| The Ottoman Empire lived for war. They were the first state to maintain a standing army in Europe since the Romans, and they ran a tight, successful ship. While Western military camps were often scenes of disorder, debauchery and drunkenness, Ottoman camps were quiet, efficient and orderly. Each winter, the previous year's campaigns were stringently reviewed with complete reports sent from a network of spies. Methodically, plans were crafted for the coming year. |
| Their Ghazi warriors were skilled and well trained. They had once usually been tribal leaders or emirs under the Seljuk sultans, but the common bond between them was their fierce devotion to Islam and urgent desire to spread that influence through warfare. Along with the Gazi warriors, the Ottomans also used "Sipallis", invariably Muslim Turks who were scattered across the empire, always moving from billet to billet, and from billet to the front line. There was even a mentally ill regiment called the Deli, or maniacs, who allowed themselves to be used as human battering rams. The Janissaries were the real elite of the Ottoman Army, however, and for centuries were ranked among the finest infantry in Europe. Janissaries were Christian captives from conquered territories who were educated in Islam and trained for war. |
| The conquest of Thrace on the northern frontier of the Byzantine Empire gave the Ottomans the capital Adrianople in 1366, from which they embarked upon their vast forays into Christian lands, developing an increasingly larger empire over the next century. Many European leaders of a large crusading army were taken hostage at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1394. After swallowing large sections of Byzantine territories in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor, by the late 14th century Ottoman expansion into Europe was well advanced. |
| tUnder Tamerlan early in the fifteenth century, the Tatars temporarily delayed the Turkish advances but the Ottomans soon recommenced attacks on Byzantium and Eastern Europe. In 1444, a Polish- Hungarian army was destroyed at Varna by Murad the Second. By 1453, the year that Gutenberg produced an edition of the bible using movable type, they seemed almost invincible. When the Turks managed to capture Constantinople, shock and fear swept Europe. By 1482, the Ottoman Empire had conquered the lands of Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By 1493, the Ottoman army successfully raided Croatia and Styria, at the same time starting sea campaigns. Then, starting with the Venetian Republic over maritime control, there were continuing maritime wars after the fall of Constantinople, in 1463-1479, and after Cyprus fell to Venice, in 1499-1503. The Kingdom of Hungary was seriously impacted by Ottoman conquest, finally crumbling in the Battle of Mohács of 1526, after which much of Hungary was placed under 150 years of Turkish Occupation. Parts of the Hungarian Kingdom were occupied from 1421 until 1718, or three hundred years! In 1529, the Ottomans mounted their first major attack on the Austrian Monarchy trying to conquer the province of Styria, laying waste to the country. |
The Siege of Vienna of 1529
| In 1529, the Ottomans had moved up the Danube and besieged Vienna. The army which Suleiman the Magnificent sent against Vienna in 1529 consisted of 325,000 men, 500 artillery pieces and 90,000 camels. Providing for the camel’s daily diet of barley and straw was often forced upon locals by corrupt Ottoman dignitaries, locals who then levied taxes to pay for camels hired by the state. There were different jobs for camels and the wagons drawn by horses or oxen, the camels usually being used for longer trips and even preferred for use over sea routes at times. While drenching rains made it impossible for most of the Ottoman camels to maneuver, and many of their soldiers lay ill, the sight of tents as far as they could see still terrified besieged Vienna. Operational command of the defence was given to a 70 year-old German mercenary named Nicholas Graf von Salm who had arrived with 1,000 German Landsknechte, a formidable group of mercenary pikemen, and another 700 Spanish musketmen. He would be taking charge of the garrison of 23,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and 75 cannon. He faced a fierce and despised adversary against great odds. Salm had previously ordered 4,000 women, children, and elderly out of the city with escorts, but most of the group was slaughtered at Traismauer, with many impaled on stakes and some young women taken to be sold as slaves. Now, at the moment of truth, von Salm brilliantly defended the city and frightened the Ottomans with his cunning. Through various clever maneuvers, the Turks were led to believe they were outnumbered and, sensing hopelessness, they surprisingly and quickly packed their campsites that night, throwing their captured Austrian prisoners into a large fire. Many Austrian captives managed to escape to the walls of the city, where ladders were lowered for them; the Viennese were still not sure if it was all over. The next day it snowed, and Vienna's defenders carefully emerged from their fortress; Ottoman casualties were thought to have been around 20,000 to 25,000, many more than those of the city's, although most of Austria south of Vienna was brutally de-populated. Each man let into Vienna after the siege was examined for circumcision, believing the Turks had smuggled in spies, and those that failed the test were hanged. Although the Ottomans continued to instil fear well into the sixteenth century, internal struggles began to deteriorate the once overwhelming military supremacy of the Ottoman Empire. European confidence increased as they began to score victories against the Turks, yet the Ottoman Empire invaded Moldavia in 1538 and took Buda and Pest in 1541. The surviving Ottoman army of 35-40,000 men was not enough for Suleiman to take on Vienna again, and in 1547 a temporary truce was signed between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires. Suleiman, with his empire which expanded greatly both east and west, was the most significant ruler in the world, threatening the very heart of Europe. A brilliant military strategist, great poet and shrewd politician, he was also a cultivator of the arts. By 1570, the Holy League of Venice, the Papal States, Spain and (initially) Portugal opposed the Ottoman Empire, and the 15-Year War with Austria (1593-1606) ended with no gains. After a war with Venice from 1645 to 1669, and at the same time another campaign against Austria from 1663 to 1664, there was war with Poland in 1672-1676 after Poland beat back a Tatar invasion, and here Jan Sobieski first distinguished himself and became the King of Poland. |
| The Battle of Vienna 1683; also known as The Second Siege of Vienna |
| The Great Turkish War began in 1683 with a grand invasion of 200,000 troops marching toward Vienna, supported by Hungarian noblemen rebelling against Habsburg rule. Another Holy League comprised of Austria, Poland, Venice and Russia was formed to stop them. On July 16,1683, the Turks were standing in front of Vienna's gates again. Horrible stories were told in Vienna about the people who were not able to escape from the enemy. All of the inhabitants of Perchtoldsdorf were beaten to death by Turkish soldiers, and in the villages of Lilienfeld, Wilhelmsburg, Hainfeld, and Türnitz most of the citizens were murdered, while hundreds of women were kidnapped and taken to Turkey as slaves. The Turkish soldiers were likewise motivated, not from self defense, but by the rich booty Vienna offered. Turks were attacking the terrified city in wave after wave, and the situation inside the city became dire, with a scarcity of ammunition and food combined with rampant dysentery. Turks were shooting with artillery day and night and there were fires everywhere. Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, 1638-1701, was the military commander of the city of Vienna. Left with less than 20,000 men against 300,000 besieging Turks he refused to capitulate, relying on the army of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor to relieve him and on the strength of the Vienna city walls, which were soon breached by the Turkish Sappers who had dug tunnels underneath the wall and detonated explosives. Vienna was soon teetering on collapse, but Von Starhemberg's troops were well organized and disciplined. He organized companies of firefighters to defuse bombs and concentrated the city's artillery at the point of Ottoman attack. However, the Ottoman siege cut virtually every means of food supply into Vienna, and the garrison and civilian volunteers suffered extreme misery and high casualties. Fatigue was such a problem that von Starhemberg ordered any soldier found asleep on watch to be shot. On September 5th, rescue was close. Kara Mustapha expected to take Vienna in five hours, but made several tactical errors. He did not fortify his army or secure the hills of the Viennese woods. The main battle took place at "Kahlenberg" hill. The siege itself began on July 14, 1683, with the Ottoman Empire army numbering approximately 150,000 men, including 12,000 Janissaries with an observation army of approximately 70,000 men watching the countryside. The decisive battle took place on September 11-12 , after the united relief army of approximately 80,000 men had arrived. On September 12, 1683, Christian forces included Duke Karl V von Lothringen with 8,000 men on foot, 12,000 men on horses and 70 cannons. The Saxons under the command of Duke Johann George III brought 7,000 men on foot, 2,000 on horses and 1,400 men with 16 cannons. The Bavarian Count Max Emanuel came with 7,500 men on foot, 3,000 on horses and 26 cannons. The Franken and Swabian troops under Count Georg Friedrich contributed 7,000 men on foot 2,500 on horses and 28 cannons. The total Christian forces had 75,000 troops and 150 to 170 cannons. The Turks had 30,000 men in the trenches around Vienna and 107,000 troops and 300 cannons to oppose the Christian armies. Lastly, King Jan Sobieski III of Poland arrived with a force of 10,200 men on foot, 14,000 on horses and 28 cannons. At four o'clock in the morning the Imperial soldiers were praying in a ceremony in open field. They had been fighting for hours with grave losses while the Polish King waited on high ground watching, the Germans having failed to persuade him to move forward and intervene earlier. Finally, the army was divided into three groups: Imperials and Saxons on the left wing, Bavarians center, and the Polish taking the right. Ibrahim, the Pascha of Ofen, broke forth upon the Poles and several troops ran away. Count Ludwig of Baden then attacked with two of his Imperial dragoon regiments, and succeeded in rolling back the Turkish line thanks in part to brilliant Prinz Eugen von Savoyen. Duke Charles of Lorraine gained the victory by undertaking a daring wheeling movement with doubling and flanking movements. They totally destroyed the Turkish Army and the road to Vienna was now opened. Rüdiger von Starhemberg had heroically defended the city of Vienna with 10,000 men. The Turks lost at least 15,000 men with at least 5,000 men captured and all cannons, while the Habsburg-Polish forces lost approximately 4,500 dead and wounded. Kara Mustafa was executed in Belgrade later that year by order of the commander of the Janissaries. From this point on, European confidence grew and the battlefield success of the Turks waned. After winning the Battle of Vienna, the Europeans gained advantage and led the reconquest of Hungary which ended with the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Within the Ottomans, infighting developed, however, they still had immense power as they had gained great wealth by their control over shipping and trade routes. Saxony, Bavaria, Baden, Franconia, Swabia and (eventually Poland Jan III Sobieski) all answered the call for a Holy League supported by Pope Innocent XI. to save western civilization. Only Habsburg rival Louis XIV of France declined to help, thus weakening the Emperor's forces in the east. Instead, he used the opportunity to ruthlessly and greedily annex territories in western Europe such as Luxembourg and Alsace with Strasbourg, just as France had done in the Thirty Years' War. Had the Ottomans won, France would have immediately been the strongest nation in Europe. Because of the ongoing war against the Turks, Austria could not lend support to her German allies in the West, and France pounced at the opportunity. It was not until later, when the combined Austrian and German forces of the “Empire of German Nations” under the leaders Karl V von Lothringen, Max Emanuel von Bayern and Ludwig Wilhelm I von Baden defeated the Turks at Harsany (Harschan) near Mohács in 1686-1687 that the Islamic threat to the Christian Civilization finally came to a halt. Once again, France took advantage of the situation to further raid, burn and plunder Germany (link). The repulsion of the Turks constituted the climax of the Turkish Wars and to most Europeans, the salvation of Christianity. To commemorate, church bells rang daily at noon and six throughout parts of Europe for many decades. |
| Prinz Eugen von Savoyen-Carignan. Quelle: Wikimedia Commons - Lizenz (CC-BY-SA 3.0) |
| Prinz Eugen von Savoyen-Carignan. Linkes Bild: Kürass des Prinzen Eugen im Heeresgeschichtlichen Museum. Quelle: Wikimedia Commons - Lizenz (CC-BY-SA 3.0) |
| Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg Gemälde um 1683 |
| Oben: Die Grabplatte Marco d'Avianos in der Kapuzinerkirche in Wien. © www.klostergeschichten.at Untern: Statue des sel. Marco d’ Aviano vor der Kapuzinerkirche in Wien. © Rainer Lenius / austria-forum. org |
| The Ottoman threat was met head on by several intrepid military men from a host of European nations bound together by a common enemy. Prinz Eugen von Savoyen (1663- 1736) headed for Austria under Count Ludwig of Baden. He would become one of the greatest generals to serve the Habsburgs. When the Ottoman Empire began expanding westward into Europe in the middle of the 14th century, its first significant opponent was the young Serbian Empire, which had been weakened by a series of battles, especially in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 in which the leaders of both armies were killed. The Ottomans went on to conquer the lands of the Second Bulgarian Empire. However, Ottoman gains in Catholic Europe slowed for 70 years following their defeat in 1456 at the Siege of Belgrade, although in 1493 the Ottoman army successfully raided Styria and Croatia. Fierce Albanian highlanders managed to head off Ottoman attacks for more than 30 years. The Kingdom of Hungary, which included the area from Croatia in the west to Transylvania in the east, finally collapsed with the Battle of Mohács of 1526, placing most of the Kingdom under an 150 year long Ottoman Occupation with parts of the Hungarian Kingdom occupied from 1421 and until 1718.Transylvania, having won semi-independence from the Ottomans in 1526 by paying tribute, decided in 1657 to attack the Tatars, the Empire's vassals to the East and later the Ottoman Empire itself as it came to defend the Tatars. War lasted until 1662, ending again with a Hungarian loss. The Western portion of the Hungarian Kingdom was annexed and placed under direct Ottoman control. After winning the Battle of Vienna, the Holy League gained the upper hand, and conducted the re-conquest of Hungary ending with the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Prince Eugene remained the most important Austrian commander. After the victorious Battle of Vienna of 1683, Austria enjoyed great success. Eugene's valor lead to his promotion as Major-General in 1685 and he was wounded twice in the eventual capture of Buda the following year. By 1688, the Habsburgs occupied Belgrade and most of the Pannonian Plain. But as the war with the French demanded more troops, and the Ottoman Army was strengthened and renewed by the new grand vizier, Belgrade was recaptured by the Ottomans in 1690. Austrian war effort increased in 1697, led by Eugene in his first independent command. He was made commander in chief of the Army in the Kingdom of Hungary on July 5, 1697. Out of his 70,000 man army, only 35,000 were battle ready, and he had to borrow money in order to pay wages and to create a medical service. When news arrived that the Sultan and his army were in Belgrade, Eugene concentrated all available troops, numbering about 50,000 to 55,000 from Upper Hungary and Transylvania, and began moving them toward Peterwardein. After the Sultan abandoned the idea of a seige of Szeged, he planned to return to winter quarters near Timişoara. Eugene learned of these movements and decided to force a battle. The Imperial army surprised the Ottomans as they were in the process of fording the river Tisza near Senta. After an intense artillery bombardment, Imperial Dragoon regiments dismounted, encircling the Ottoman camp. Ottoman troops from behind the entrenchments ran back to the bridge in confusion where they were slaughtered. Inside the camp, the battle was just as horrific and barely a thousand of the Ottomans escaped. More then ten thousand of their troops drowned in the Tisza river and up to twenty thousand Ottoman soldiers were killed on the battlefield. Austria lost only 500 men to the Ottomans' 30,000, including the 10,000 or so that drowned. They captured 87 cannon, the sultan's harem, the royal treasure chest and the Ottoman Empire's state seal. The main Ottoman army was scattered. This victory was decisive and lead to the Treaty of Karlowitz 1699, in which the Hapsburgs gained all of Hungary and Transylvania. Eugene’s reputation was exulted across Europe. Sultan Mustafa II was forced to cede, except for the Banat of Temesvar, Transylvania and the Ottoman occupied areas of Buda, Eger and Kanizsa, which were later transformed or integrated into the Habsburg realm as the Principality of Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Slavonia, and the Military Frontier. After another war with Austria and Venice began in 1714, Austria conquered the remaining areas of the former Kingdom of Hungary. In 1716, 150,000 Ottomans under Grand Vizier Damad Ali began to gather at Belgrade. They crossed the Sava at Zemun at the end of July and moved on the right bank of the Danube towards Sremski Karlovci. On the morning of August 5, Prince Eugene began his offensive. He soon had the Ottomans completely encircled. After he wiped out the Ottoman forces here, he led his troops against the encampment of the Grand Vizier. The battle was won by two o'clock, with the Grand Vizier himself among the dead. Barely 50,000 Ottomans returned to Belgrade. Austrians lost over 3,000 men and the Ottomans more than double that. Hungary was liberated from the Ottomans and the Stronghold of Belgrade was soon captured by Eugene at the victory of Peterwardein (a town that was taken away from Austria at the Peace of Versailles), a monumental event embodied in the traditional song Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter (Prince Eugene, the noble knight) and commemorated with the founding of the Timişoreana brewery. By June, 1717, Belgrade and its 30,000 Ottoman garrison commanded by Mustapha Pasha was encircled by Imperial forces: additional mercenary troops, Bavarians and 45 princely German volunteers of 100,000 strong besieged Belgrade. The Ottoman relief army, allegedly 200,000 strong under the command of the Grand Vizier Halil Pasha, encircled and bombarded the Imperial besiegers from high ground and it was brought near collapse. Eugene, with weakened forces numbering around 60,000, therefore decided to break out on August 16, 1717 with his men and in the early hours they advanced. The Ottomans lost 20,000 men and the Austrians suffered over 5,000 casualties. Two days later the Fortress caved. The victory was celebrated across Europe. After a few skirmishes, all sides were ready for peace by 1718. The Treaty of Passarowitz in May of 1718 added northern Serbia and the Bosnian bank of the Sava river to the Austrians and finally and forever ended the Turkish threats to Vienna. Prince Eugene’s Balkan campaigns had halted Ottoman expansion for good. In 1714, Eugene began construction of the Belvedere, a baroque palace in Vienna. Construction of various parts of the palace complex continued until 1723. Eugene never married, but he had a relationship with the beautiful and much younger Hungarian Countess Eleonora Batthyány during the last 20 years of his life, and although they lived apart, most of his associates referred to her as his mistress and they were constant companions almost every day until his death. There is a story that he and the countess always played Whist at her place, and one evening he stayed so long that his coachman was sleeping when he finally came out. Eugene let him sleep....the evening ritual was so familiar to the horses that they knew their way back to the Belvedere on their own. Before Elenora there have also been references to another woman in Eugene's life, Countess Maria Thürheim. |
| More background history of the Ottoman threat, Islam and the invasion of Europe and the resilience of Europeans Uniting under the banner of our Lord Jesus Christ! Deus vult! |
| Prinz Eugen von Savoyen-Carignan. Im linken Bild "Prinz Eugen als Türkensieger" von Jacob van Schuppen entstand 1718. Van Schuppen war von 1716 bis 1726 Direktor der k. k. Hofakademie der Maler, Bildhauer und Baukunst. Quelle: Wikimedia Commons - Lizenz (CC-BY-SA 3.0) |
| The Ottoman Invasion |
| Letzte Ruhestätte Prinz Eugens in der Kreuzkapelle im Wiener Stephansdom. Quelle: Wikimedia Commons - Lizenz (CC-BY-SA 3.0) |