The Turkish Empire, Its Growth and DecayEversley, G. Shaw-Lefevre (George Shaw-Lefevre), Baron
History
The Turkish Empire, Its Growth and Decay
Eversley, G. Shaw-Lefevre (George Shaw-Lefevre), Baron
Turkey -- History
Kara Mustapha, when he saw the Christian army on the heights above
him, made immediate preparations for battle. He gave orders for the
massacre of thirty thousand Christian captives, mostly women and
children, taken prisoners on the route to Vienna and destined to be
sold as slaves. Leaving the best of his men, the Janissaries, in the
trenches before the city, he concentrated the main part of his army to
meet the attack of the Poles from the rear. Sobieski ranged his army
in a great semicircle and made a general advance against the Turks.
The Tartar irregulars fled and carried confusion to the rest of the
army. Sobieski then led his best troops direct against the centre
of the Turks. The mass of the Ottoman army was broken and routed.
Terrible slaughter followed, and the whole of the Turkish camp, with
immense booty, fell into the hands of the Christians. The Janissaries
in the trenches before the city were then attacked on two sides, by
the victorious Poles from the rear and by the Viennese garrison on the
front. They were cut to pieces and annihilated. The victory of Sobieski
was complete and final. Three hundred guns, nine thousand ammunition
wagons, and twenty-five thousand tents were captured.
The Turkish army was driven from the field and, panic-stricken, took
to flight. Untold thousands of them were killed, together with great
numbers of pashas and generals. Kara Mustapha escaped with the mob of
fugitives, carrying with him the sacred banner of the Prophet. The
débris of the army found its way to Raab, and thence to Buda, where the
Grand Vizier ordered the execution of some of the best officers of the
army, whom he falsely accused of being responsible for the disaster.
He himself then made his way to Belgrade, where, in his turn, he was
put to death, with much more justification, by order of the Sultan.
His immense and ill-gotten wealth was confiscated by the State. He had
lived in unprecedented splendour. In his harem were fifteen hundred
concubines, attended each by a servant, and seven hundred eunuchs
to guard them. His own personal servants and horses were counted by
thousands.
The second siege of Vienna, thus brought to so glorious an end by
its brave garrison and by Sobieski, differed essentially from that
undertaken by Sultan Solyman in 1529. Solyman was compelled to raise
the siege and to retreat by the failure of food and munitions. He met
with no reverse in the field, and he was able to withdraw his army
intact. Mustapha fought a pitched battle against a very inferior army
coming in relief of the city, and was defeated, and his army was routed
and broken up. There never was a greater disaster to an army or to a
general. It brought most serious results to the Ottoman Empire. It
broke once for all the prestige of the Turks as a conquering nation.
It removed the fear of an Ottoman invasion which for two centuries had
been a nightmare to the Central States of Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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