[19] Count Thürheim, "Starhemberg," p. 163 and _seqq._; and Sobieski to his wife, September 13. CHAPTER VII. The position of the Christian army on the Kahlenberg was, from the left wing, the nearest point, about four miles from Vienna. The centre and right were further removed. The intervening country, far from being a plain, as Sobieski had been led to believe when he formed his first plan of battle, is broken up into hillocks and little valleys, intersected by streams, full of vineyards, and interspersed with the ruins of numerous villages burnt by the Turks. Beyond these lay the Turkish encampment and approaches, mingled with the vestiges of the suburbs destroyed by Starhemberg at the beginning of the siege. The Turkish army was stretched over a front of about four miles from point to point, but slightly curving with the convex side towards the attacking force. Their right rested upon the Danube, and held the Nussberg before the villages of Nussdorf and Heiligenstadt; their left reached towards Breitensee near the Wien, and the Tartars swarmed still further on the broken ground beyond. Their camp straggled in an irregular half-moon from the river above Vienna to beyond the Wien, and their troops were, at the beginning of the action, drawn up before it. Some hasty entrenchments had been thrown up by them here and there, of which the most considerable was a battery between Währing, Gerstorf and Weinhaus;[20] but the bulk of their artillery remained in their lines, pointed against the city, and the clamour of the ensuing battle was swelled by the continuous roar of their bombardment, kept up as on previous days. In the trenches lay a great body of Janissaries; and the Turkish army was further weakened by the dispersal of Tartars and irregulars on the night before the fight, doubtful of the event, and anxious at any rate to secure their plunder. As the king had said, the Turks were badly posted, their camp was long and straggling, too valuable to be abandoned and not easy to defend. In case of a reverse, their right wing would run the risk of being driven into the Danube, or else have to fall back upon their centre and left, to the confusion of the whole army. Fighting with a river and a fortified city upon their flank and rear, repulse for them would mean certain disaster. But the incapacity of the Vizier could not be fully fathomed till the attack began. We have the assurance of Sobieski himself that he hoped upon the first day merely to bring his army within striking distance of the enemy, and to establish his left well forward near the bank of the Danube, ready to deal a decisive blow, or to throw succour into Vienna on the morrow or following day. He closed his letter to his wife in the grey of the windy morning of the 12th of September, ignorant that the decisive moment, bringing a victory greater than that of Choczim, was at hand.