1683 owed her deliverance, when abandoned by her sovereign and in the extremity of distress, to the military talents of Sobieski, King of Poland, and the bravery of his subjects. The celebrated battle fought under the very walls of that capital is memorable as having finally delivered Europe from all fear of the Mahometan powers. Austria, since that period, has but ill discharged the debt of gratitude which she contracted under the walls of Vienna! Encouraged and assisted by a revolt in Hungary, Kara Mustapha, the Grand Vizir of Turkey, burst into that kingdom at the head of 200,000 men, drove back such troops as the imperial general, the Duke of Lorraine, was able to collect, and, crossing the Danube, forced his way to Vienna, then sufficiently ill fortified, and ill prepared for a siege. Leopold, the reigning emperor of Germany, anticipating this storm, had obtained a promise of succours from the Diet of the empire, and concluded a subsidiary treaty with Sobieski for an army of 46,000 men. But the Germans were slow, and before they could be assembled Vienna was besieged. Leopold quitted his capital, and absented himself from the struggle to be made in defence of his hereditary dominions. Tuln, situated on the Danube, about five leagues above Vienna, was appointed as the place of meeting for the armies. Sobieski, pressed to hasten by the imperial general, executed a forced march, accompanied only by a body of cavalry, and on his arrival had the mortification to find the imperial forces not yet arrived. The armies were at length united, but not before Vienna was reduced to extremity, and, indeed, nothing could have preserved it but the stupid security of the Turkish Vizir, who, with his vast numbers, suffered a very inferior force to construct a bridge over the Danube within five leagues of his camp, and delayed to assault a breached, half–garrisoned, and defenceless town, in hope that it would surrender by capitulation, and that its riches would thus be preserved entire for the general instead of being placed at the disposal of the soldiery. These errors led doubly to his ruin, by at once enraging and dispiriting his own soldiers, and by granting opportunity and a precious delay to the enemy. Still the allied troops were separated from Vienna by five leagues of mountain road, and though their junction was completed on the 7th of September, it was not until the 11th that the difficulties of the march were overcome, though it was pressed so eagerly that the Germans abandoned their cannon, and the Poles alone brought artillery into the field of battle.