Annals of the Turkish Empire, from 1591 to 1659Naima, Mustafa
History
Annals of the Turkish Empire, from 1591 to 1659
Naima, Mustafa
Turkey -- History -- 1453-1683
At the time it was first determined to carry the war into Transylvania,
the five thousand cavalry and the twelve thousand foot soldiers,
sent last year from Europe to Maximilian, the commander-in-chief of
the infidels, and an army of more than sixty thousand foot and horse
soldiers, composed of Germans, Hungarians, and other nations, under
Maximilian’s brother, the archduke Mathias, assembled near Yanuk, and
resolved on aiding and supporting the prince of Transylvania. When the
Moslem serdár, however, laid siege to Warad, as before mentioned, the
prince of Transylvania retired to the mountains, and there fortified
himself among inaccessible rocks. On this account the imperial troops
were not so necessary, at least such a powerful augmentation as that
above alluded to; therefore when the enemy perceived that Buda was
left in a defenceless state in consequence of the expedition which had
entered Transylvania, they immediately marched against that place.
This was the most proper time, said they to themselves, to endeavour
to take Buda; and though they should not happen to be successful in
the attempt, yet they would at least effect a manœuvre in favour
of Warad, and thus save it from the grasp of the Moslems, who had now
commenced laying siege to it.
These mighty hosts of the enemy on their way to Buda reduced the
fortresses of Besperim, Polata, Papa, and Tata, all of them places of
strength which belonged to the Ottoman empire; and in Rabia II. they
encamped before Old Buda with more than forty pieces of ordnance and
other apparatus of war. The greater number of the enemy’s troops was
transported thence in boats on the Danube to Buda itself, to which they
laid siege in this same month. After a few days of hostile operation
they laid the walls of the city even with the ground. When they had
accomplished this they commenced attacking the citadel both from the
land and water at the same time. On the seventh day of the siege the
bloody contest was renewed at sun-rise, and continued till the going
down of the same. The beglerbeg of Merœsh, Sinán Páshá, and the
ex-beglerbeg of Papa, Semender Páshá, who had come from Alba Julia to
aid the Budians; these two heroes from among the besieged died martyrs
on this day of unparalleled cruelty and blood. Teryákí Hasan Páshá,
governor of Bosnia, and Mohammed Beg, beg of Semendria, were wounded;
and many others whose days were numbered fell by the hands of these
infidels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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