9/28/2023 0 Comments Battle of vienna polish hussars![]() ![]() Leopold, believing it was merely a border incursion, did not evacuate the royal family (or the royal silverware) until the dust cloud of the invaders darkened the horizon. The Ottomans swept across the vast Hungarian plain and approached Vienna from the southeast. Also, I wanted to find out if that was really where and when the croissant was invented (it was not).Īll told, the Ottoman force numbered an astonishing 200,000 men-almost ten times the strength of the Hapsburg armies. After some research, I decided to focus on the siege of Vienna. At one point, he asked, “What is so fascinating about the Ottomans of this period to you?” Basically, I wanted to know why the Ottomans had given up on the dream of ruling the Mediterranean world. David Garrett, we dismissed that topic and started exploring new ones. I turned to my fall-back topic, a vague idea about Istanbul in the Early Modern period. Going into my senior year, I had originally intended to write my thesis about the American war in Vietnam, but by the time I submitted my ideas to the history department (at the last possible moment), there were no more experts on American history left to advise me. Thanks to this uprising, the Ottomans now had allies inside Hapsburg territory, ready to deliver them to the gates of Vienna-and all that lay beyond it. That year, Protestant Hungarians under Count Imre Tekeli rebelled against the repression of their Catholic Hapsburg overlords and sought protection from the Ottomans. Vienna-known to the Turks as the “Golden Apple”-must have seemed like over-ripe fruit in 1682. Kara Mustafa was especially ambitious to this day, many historians believe he intended to usurp the throne or carve out his own kingdom. Kara Mustafa was an adopted son of the legendary Köprülü political dynasty the Köprülüs had rescued the empire from the brink of collapse when Mehmed was still a child and enlarged the powers of the Grand Vizier so greatly that they, not the Sultan, effectively ruled the empire. Perhaps the biggest ego of all, however, belonged to the Ottoman Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa. ![]() He was not considered a particularly effective leader by many contemporaries, but he saw himself as a bastion of Christendom besieged by an army of heathens. The Hapsburg Emperor, in contrast, was the bookish Leopold, who had trained to be a priest. Mehmed, who had acquired a reputation for laziness and hedonism (his appellation was “The Hunter”), desperately wanted to be seen as a great Sultan such as Mehmed II (who took Constantinople) and Suleiman the Magnificent (who launched the unsuccessful First Ottoman Siege of Vienna). Their rival claims to the throne of Rome, as well as the proximity of their empires, had led to generations of warfare. On the other side was the Imperial House of Hapsburg, which also claimed descent from Noah and the title of Holy Roman Empire. On one side was the Imperial House of Osman, which claimed descent from Noah and to be the rightful inheritors of the Roman Empire. The campaign that is often referred to as the “Siege of Vienna” (a more accurate title would be the “Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna”) was really all about ego. Marching across the Hungarian plain, along with herds of sheep and camels, the vast Ottoman force was united by a single goal-the conquest of Vienna and the destruction of the Hapsburg Empire. On a bright spring day in 1682, Mehmed IV, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, raised his banners, the seven ancient horsetail tūg of the House of Osman, in front of the Tokapi palace in Istanbul, and massed a gargantuan army: formidable Janissaries, cavalry from Egypt, infantry from Bosnia, Tatar scouts from the Crimea, plus specialized units dedicated to artillery, mining, tent-pitching, and even breadmaking.
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