Vienna, from its geographical position and its political importance, has been subjected to several sieges, and yet has occasionally, like Rome, sometimes escaped those fearful visitations when it might have expected them.

FIRST SIEGE, A.D. 1529.

After having subdued Asia, Soliman II. determined to make Europe tremble by the terrors of his constantly victorious arms. In 1529 this redoubtable conqueror entered Hungary with fire and sword; he pillaged, ravaged, and destroyed everything in his passage, and marched over these melancholy ruins to lay siege to Vienna, the capital of Austria and of the whole Western empire, since the house of Austria was said to occupy the throne of Charlemagne. The Ottoman army was immense, and was composed of the brave Janissaries who had just subdued Persia. But Vienna contained within its walls both warlike citizens and intrepid soldiers. The sultan commenced his operations by mining the walls. This immense labour was frequently interrupted by the counter-mines of the besieged; but at length some of these concealed volcanoes burst forth all at once, and threw down a great part of the walls. In an instant the Viennese, men, women, and children, flew to construct a new rampart; and when the infidels came to the assault, they were surprised to find themselves stopped, at a few paces from the breach, by this barrier, which twenty pieces of cannon and tens of thousands of defenders rendered impregnable. They then turned their attention to another side, where there had been only time to intrench with palisades. At this point the bodies of the inhabitants served as bulwarks. The combat here was terrible; rivers of blood and heaps of slain rolled beneath the steps of the warriors. Twice the Turks were repulsed with loss; twice the sultan and his officers rallied them and led them back against the enemy, and twice were they on the point of carrying the city. During four hours they fought and immolated each other, without being able to imagine to which side victory would be favourable. At length the thunders which were incessantly launched from all quarters of the place crushed whole ranks of the infidels, and the invincible courage of the inhabitants drove off an enemy who had more than once shouted clamorous cries of victory. This first check only seemed to inflame the valour of the Turks; on the 12th of October, Soliman harangued them, and gave orders for a general assault. They were preparing for it during a great part of the night; and on the 13th, at break of day, all the bodies of the Turkish army advanced in good order, armed, some with blazing torches, others with muskets, arrows, and axes, and a great number with ladders, and all sorts of machines to force or to get over the walls. But they were expected: the Austrians had placed on the walls all their artillery, all their mortars, and all their soldiers. The city was attacked on more than twenty points at once, and from every one the infidels were obliged to retreat with great loss and disgrace. The fight lasted for twelve hours, without either side thinking of food or rest, and night alone put an end to the fearful slaughter. Soliman, in despair, sounded a retreat: he had vainly consumed forty days before Vienna, and had lost more than forty thousand men in his different assaults upon that city. As a crowning misfortune, snows, frosts, and tempests made still greater havoc with his army than the enemy had done. Even Soliman the Great, the invincible Soliman, could not overcome these obstacles—he raised the siege, and Vienna was saved.

SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1683.

The grand vizier, Kara Mustapha, charged with the humiliation of the empire and Leopold its master, advanced towards the capital of the states of that prince with terrible preparations. Very unlike what we have seen in the former siege, at the approach of the enemy’s legions the emperor quitted Vienna, with two empresses, his mother-in-law and his wife, with the archdukes and archduchesses, and sixty thousand inhabitants. The country round exhibited nothing but fugitives, equipages, carts laden with goods, the laggard of all which became the prey of the Tartars, who pillaged, ravaged, burnt, slaughtered, and led them away into slavery. On the 7th of July, 1683, the city was invested, and all Europe tremblingly watched the issue of this famous enterprise.

Vienna, bathed by the Danube on the north, was fortified by twelve great bastions in the remainder of its inclosure. The curtains were covered by good half-moons, without any other outworks; the ditch was partly filled with water, and partly dry, and the counterscarp was much neglected. The side of the city which was bathed by the river had no defence but strong walls, flanked by large towers, the whole well terraced. In a plain of three leagues, environed by a circle of mountains, the vizier fixed his camp, which he had the audacity to leave undefended, except with lines of circumvallation and countervallation. Everything was in abundance in the camp—money, munitions of war, and provisions of all sorts. The different quarters boasted pachas as magnificent as kings, and this magnificence was effaced by that of the vizier; to use the phrase of an historian, “he swam in luxury.” The court of a grand vizier generally consists of two thousand officers and domestics; Mustapha had double that number. His park, that is to say, the inclosure of his tents, was as large as the besieged city. The richest stuffs, gold and precious stones, were there contrasted with the polished steel of arms. There were baths, gardens, fountains, and rare animals, as well for the convenience as the amusement of the general, whose effeminacy and frivolity did not in the least relax the operations of the siege. His artillery, composed of three hundred pieces of cannon, was not the less formidable; and the bravery of the Janissaries was not at all enervated by the example of their leader.

The count de Staremberg, a man perfect in the art of war, the governor of Vienna, had set fire to the faubourgs, and to save the citizens, he had destroyed their buildings. He had a garrison estimated at sixteen thousand men, but which in reality consisted of about eleven thousand at most. The citizens and the university were armed; the students mounted guard, and had a physician for their major. Staremberg’s second in command was the count de Capliers, the emperor’s commissary-general, one of those men whom knowledge, vigilance, and activity point out as fit for the highest posts.

The approaches to Vienna were easy. The trenches were opened on the 14th of July, in the faubourg of St. Ulric, at fifty paces from the counterscarp; the attack was directed against the bastion of the court, and that of Lebb. Two days only advanced the works as far as the counterscarp, where the ditch was dry. The duke of Lorraine, who had posted himself in the isle of Leopoldstadt, using every exertion to preserve there a communication with the city, then found himself obliged to retreat by the bridges he had thrown over the Danube, and which he broke down behind him. The country houses, of which the island was full, then lodged the Turks. This proceeding has been considered a great mistake; but if it was one, the duke thoroughly repaired it by his behaviour during the whole siege. With an army which never amounted to thirty thousand men, he covered Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Bohemia; he protected Vienna; he checked Tekeli; and he stopped the progress of more than forty thousand Turks and Tartars, who scoured and devastated the country.

But he could not prevent the infidels from carrying on the siege with vigour. With the Turks, there were daily mounds raised, works advanced, new batteries, and a fire which augmented every instant; with the Austrians, it was, in an equal degree, a display of the most intrepid valour and firm resistance. Staremberg, who at the first approaches had been wounded by a fragment of stone struck off from the curtain by a ball, though only half-cured, animated the whole defence by his looks, his actions, and his humanity. He treated all his soldiers like brothers; he praised and recompensed all distinguished actions; and, not content with being with them during the day, he passed the night upon a mattress in the corps de garde of the emperor’s palace, which adjoined a bastion of the court comprised in the attack. By the 22nd of July, the besiegers were at the palisade, which was only defended by the sword. They were so near, that they grappled each other across the pikes in death-struggles. The count de Daun, a general officer of distinguished merit, had scythes fastened to long poles, which destroyed a vast number of the infidels, but which could not diminish the presumptuous confidence which animated them. So certain were they of victory, that they came forward to make bravadoes similar to those of which we read in ancient wars. A champion of extraordinary stature advanced with a threatening air, insulting with both voice and sabre. A Christian soldier, unable to endure this affront, sprang out to encounter him: he at first was wounded, but quickly wounded and disarmed his enemy, cut off his head with his own scimitar, and found fifty gold pieces stitched up in his vest. One would suppose that this brave fellow would be rewarded; not so: he remained a private soldier, and his name, which the Romans would have consecrated in the fasti of history, is not even known to us. The besieged, who beheld the action from the top of the ramparts, drew a good augury from it; it redoubled their constancy and courage.

The enemy did not obtain possession of the counterscarp before the 7th of August, after twenty-three days’ fighting, with a great effusion of blood on both sides. The count de Serini, nephew of the famous Serini whom Leopold had brought to the scaffold, had retarded the taking of this work by a thousand actions of bravery. There was no sortie in which he was not conspicuous. His ardour on one occasion prevented his feeling that he had received an arrow in his shoulder. The Turks had come to the descent of the ditch; no people equal them in turning up the ground. The depth of their work was astonishing: the earth they threw out was carried to the height of nine feet, surmounted by planks and posts in the form of floors, beneath which they worked in safety. Their trenches differ from those of Europeans in shape: they are cuttings in the form of a crescent, which cover one another, preserving a communication like the scales of fish, which conceal a labyrinth from whence they fire without inconveniencing those who are in front, and whence it is almost impossible to dislodge them. When the Janissaries had once entered them, they scarcely ever left them. Their fire became progressively more active, whilst that of the besieged relaxed: the latter began to husband their powder, and grenades were short. The baron de Kielmansegge invented a powder-mill and clay grenades, which proved of great service. Industry employed all its resources; but the hope of holding out much longer began to diminish. The enemy’s mines, the continual attacks, the diminishing garrison, the nearly exhausted munitions and provisions, everything conspired to create the greatest anxiety; and not content with so many real evils, they invented imaginary ones. A report was spread that traitors were working subterranean passages by which to introduce the infidels. Every one was commanded to keep watch in his cellar; and this increase of fatigue completed the weakness of the defenders of Vienna, by robbing them of their necessary rest. Others spoke confidently of incendiaries hired to second the Turks. A young man found in a church which had just been set fire to, although most likely innocent, was torn to pieces by the people. But the Turkish artillery was more to be dreaded than all these phantoms. The inhabitants were incessantly employed in extinguishing the fires which the bombs and red-hot balls kindled in the city, whilst the outworks were falling in one continued crash. The half-moon had already suffered greatly; the ramparts presented in all parts vast breaches; and, but for the invincible courage of the inhabitants and the soldiers, Vienna must have been taken.

In this extremity, Leopold turned his eyes towards Poland. John Sobieski, the terror of the Ottomans, and perhaps the only sovereign of his age who was a great captain, was supplicated to come to the assistance of the empire and the whole Christian world. This monarch instantly responded to the summons by marching thither at the head of twenty-five thousand men. He traversed two hundred leagues of country, and on the 5th of September he crossed the bridge of Tuln with his army, five leagues above Vienna. The Polish cavalry was remarkable for its horses, uniform, and noble bearing. It might be said that they were equipped at the expense of the infantry: among the latter, there was one battalion extremely ill-clothed. Prince Lubomirski advised the king, for the honour of the country, to order them to pass in the night. Sobieski judged otherwise; and when that troop was on the bridge, he said to the spectators,—“Look well at them; that is an invincible troop of men, who have taken an oath never to wear any clothes but those of the enemy. In the last war they were all clothed in the Turkish fashion.” “If these words did not clothe them, they cuirassed them,” pleasantly observes the AbbÉ Cayer, whose account we follow.

The Poles, after crossing the bridge, extended themselves to the right, exposed during twenty-four hours to being cut to pieces, if Kara Mustapha had taken due advantage of their position. On the 7th, all the German troops joined their allies, and the army was then found to amount to about seventy-four thousand men. There were four sovereign princes among them,—John Sobieski of Poland, Maximilian Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, John George III., elector of Saxony, and Charles V., duke of Lorraine; and twenty-six princes of sovereign houses.

Vienna was driven to bay. The Turks and diseases carried off, as if in concert, both officers and soldiers. Almost all the leaders had disappeared; the warrior, exhausted by fatigue and want of good food, dragged himself to the breach; and he whom the fire of the enemy spared, expired with languor and debility. The people, who had at first undertaken the labours of the siege with such eagerness, now dreamt of no other defence but prayer. They filled the churches, into which bombs and cannon-balls constantly brought terror and death. On the 22nd of August, it appeared certain that they could not hold out more than three days, if the Turks gave a general assault. From that melancholy period, one mine seemed to precipitate itself upon another. The half-moon was taken; breaches of from eighteen to twenty toises laid open the two bastions and the curtain; soldiers served instead of walls. A mine was advancing under the emperor’s palace, already beaten to pieces with bombs, and close to the bastion of the court. Other mines, like snakes, were winding about in all directions; several were discovered; but the Austrian miners were timid, and could not be persuaded to go under ground when once they had heard the enemy at work there. The artillery was no longer able to respond, most of the cannons being either broken or dismounted. Staremberg scarcely preserved a ray of hope, or rather, he did not longer dare to hope; and the general who at the commencement of the siege had said, “I will only surrender the place with the last drop of my blood,” wrote to the duke of Lorraine in this critical moment: “No more time to be lost, monseigneur—no more time to be lost.” Even the most rapid activity would have been of no avail, but for the stupid inaction of the grand vizier, who, for the sake of the riches with which he thought Vienna filled, waited in the expectation of its surrendering by capitulation. Such was his blindness, that he was ignorant of the preparations of the Christians when they were upon the point of overwhelming him.

When about to march, Sobieski gave out the following order of battle, written with his own hand: “The corps de bataille shall be composed of the imperial troops, to whom we will join the regiment of cavalry of the Marshal De la Cour, the Chevalier Lubomirski, and four or five squadrons of our gendarmes, in the place of whom some dragoons or other German troops shall be given. This corps shall be commanded by M. the duke of Lorraine.

“The Polish army will occupy the right wing, which will be commanded by the grand-general Jublonowski, and the other generals of that nation.

“The troops of MM. the electors of Bavaria and Saxony shall form the left wing, to whom we will give also some squadrons of our gendarmes and of our other Polish cavalry, in the place of whom they will give us some dragoons or some infantry.

“The cannons shall be divided; and in case MM. the electors have not enough, M. the duke of Lorraine will furnish them with some.

“The troops of the circles of the empire will extend along the Danube, with the left wing falling back a little on their right; and that for two reasons: the first, to alarm the enemy with the fear of being charged in flank; and the second, to be within reach of throwing succours into the city, in case we should not be able to drive the enemy as soon as we could wish. M. the prince of Waldeck will command this corps.

“The first line will consist entirely of infantry, with cannons, followed closely by a line of cavalry. If these two lines were mixed, they would doubtless embarrass each other in the passages of the defiles, woods, and mountains. But as soon as they shall be on the plain, the cavalry will take its posts in the intervals of the battalions, which will be arranged with this view, particularly our gendarmes, who will charge first.

“If we were to put all our armies in three lines only, it would require more than a German league and a half, which would not be to our advantage; and we should be obliged to cross the little river Vien, which must be our right wing: it is for this reason we must make four lines; and this fourth shall serve as a body of reserve.

“For the greater security of the infantry against the first charge of the Turkish cavalry, which is always impetuous, it will be desirable to employ spanchÉraistres, or chevaux de frise, but very light, for convenience of carriage, and at every halt place them in front of the battalions.

“I beg all the messieurs the generals, that as fast as the armies shall descend from the last mountain, as they shall enter the plain, every one will take its post as it is set down in this present order.”

There were but five leagues between them and the Turks, from whom they were separated by that chain of mountains which surrounded the vast plain on which they were encamped. Two routes presented themselves: one by the more elevated part; the other, by the side where the summit, sinking, became more practicable. The first was fixed upon: it was true it was the more difficult, but it was the shorter. On the 9th of September all the troops moved forward. The Germans, after many attempts to bring up their cannon, gave the matter up in despair, and left them in the plain. The Poles had more spirit and perseverance. By manual strength and address they contrived to get over twenty-eight pieces, and these alone were used on the day of battle. This march, bristling with difficulties, lasted three days. At length they approached the last mountain, called Calemberg. There was yet plenty of time for the vizier to repair his faults: he had only to take possession of this height, and mark the defiles, and he would have stopped the Christian army. But he did not do so; and it was at this moment that the Janissaries, indignant at so many blunders, exclaimed: “Come on, come on, ye infidels! The sight of your hats alone will put us to flight.”

This summit of Calemberg, still left free, discovered to the Christians, an hour before nightfall, both the innumerable hosts of the Turks and Tartars, and the smoking ruins of Vienna. Signals incontinently informed the besieged of the succour at hand. We must have suffered all the dangers and miseries of a long siege, and have felt ourselves, our wives, and our children doomed to the sword of a victor, or slavery in a barbarous country, to have an idea of the joy the city experienced. Sobieski, after having examined all the positions of the vizier, said to the German generals, “That man is very badly encamped; he is an ignorant fellow: we shall beat him.” The cannon, on both sides, played the prelude to the grand scene of the morrow. It was the 12th of September. Two hours before dawn, the king, the duke of Lorraine, and several other generals, performed a religious duty, very little practised in our time,—they received the communion; whilst the Mussulmans were crying to the only and solitary God of Abraham, Allah! Allah!

At sunrise, the Christian army descended with slow and measured steps, closing their ranks, rolling their cannon before them, and halting at every thirty or forty paces to fire and reload. This front widened, and took more depth as the space became greater. The Turks were in the greatest astonishment. The khan of the Tartars drew the vizier’s attention to the lances ornamented with banderoles of the Polish gendarmerie, and said, “The king is at their head!”—and terror seized upon the heart of Kara Mustapha. Immediately, after having commanded the Tartars to put all their captives to death, to the amount of thirty thousand, he ordered half of his army to march towards the mountain, whilst the other half approached the walls of the city, to give a general assault. But the besieged had resumed their courage. The hope, and even the certainty of victory, had rendered them invincible.

The Christians continued to descend, and the Turks moved upwards. The action commenced. The first line of the Imperialists, all infantry, charged with so much impetuosity, that it gave place for a line of cavalry, which took part in the intervals of the battalions. The king, the princes, and the generals gained the head, and fought, sometimes with the cavalry and sometimes with the infantry. The two other lines urged the first on warmly, protected by the fire of the artillery, which was incessant and very near. The field of the first shock, between the plain and the mountain, was intersected with vineyards, heights, and small valleys. The enemy having left their cannon at the beginning of the vineyards, suffered greatly from those of the Christians. The combatants, spread over this unequal ground, fought with inveteracy up to mid-day. At length the infidels, taken in flank, and driven from hill to hill, retired into the plain, lining their camp.

During the heat of the mÊlÉe, all the bodies of the Christian army having fought sometimes on the heights, and sometimes in the valleys, they had necessarily doubled over each other, and deranged the order of battle. A short time was given to re-establish it; and the plain became the theatre of a triumph which posterity will always feel difficulty in believing. Seventy thousand men boldly attacked more than two hundred thousand! In the Turkish army, the pacha of Diarbeker commanded the right wing, the pacha of Buda the left. The vizier was in the centre, having by his side the aga of the Janissaries and the general of the Spahis. The two armies remained motionless for some time, the Christians in silence, whilst the Turks and Tartars emulated the clarions with their cries. At length Sobieski gave the signal, and, sabre in hand, the Polish cavalry charged straight upon the vizier in the centre. They broke through the front ranks, they even pierced through the numerous squadrons which surrounded Mustapha. The Spahis disputed the victory; but all the others,—the Wallachians, the Moldavians, the Transylvanians, the Tartars, and even the Janissaries, fought without spirit. In vain the Ottoman general endeavoured to revive confidence: they despised him and disregarded his words. He addressed himself to the pacha of Buda, and to other chiefs, but their only reply was desponding silence. “And thou!” cried he then to the Tartar prince, “wilt not thou assist me?” The khan saw no safety but in flight. The Spahis were making their last efforts: the Polish cavalry opened and dispersed them. The vizier then turned his back, and spread consternation by his flight. The discouragement extended to the wings, which all the bodies of the Christian army pressed at once. Terror deprived of both reflection and strength this immense multitude of men, who ought, in an open plain like that they fought on, to have completely enveloped and crushed their enemy. But all dispersed, and all disappeared, as if by magic; that vast camp, which the eye could not measure, resembled a frightful desert. Night stopped the victorious progress of the Christians, who remained upon the field of battle till daybreak. At six o’clock in the morning, the enemy’s camp was given up to the soldiery, whose cupidity was at first suspended by a horrible spectacle; mothers lay stretched about in all directions, with their throats cut, many of them with their infants still clinging to their breasts. These women were not like those who follow Christian armies—courtesans, as fatal to health as to morals; these were wives, whom the Turks preferred sacrificing thus to exposing them to becoming the victims of unbridled conquerors. They had spared a great part of the children. Live or six hundred of these little innocent victims of war were collected by the bishop of Newstadt, and were fed and brought up in the Christian religion. The Germans and the Poles were greatly enriched by the spoils of the Mussulmans. It was upon this occasion the king wrote to the queen, his wife: “The grand vizier has made me his heir, and I have found in his tents to the value of many millions of ducats. So you will not have to say of me as the Tartar wives say when they see their husbands return empty-handed: ‘You are not men, you come home without booty.’” Thus, without much bloodshed, the valour and skill of John Sobieski saved Vienna, the empire, and religion. In fact, if Vienna had been taken, as at Constantinople, churches would have been changed into mosques, and nobody can say where Mahometanism, which already was spread over so much of the globe, might have ended. Staremberg came, immediately after the victory, to salute the preserver and liberator of Vienna, into which city the hero entered over ruins, but amidst the acclamations of the people. His horse could scarcely pierce through the crowd who prostrated themselves before him, who would kiss his feet, calling him their father, their avenger, the greatest of monarchs. Leopold seemed to be forgotten—they only saw Sobieski. But, alas for the gratitude of peoples! Poland, whose king thus successfully interfered between Mahometanism and Christianity, to the shame of the European powers is no longer a nation! The great error of its constitution, which made the monarchy elective, created feuds, of which three powerful neighbouring countries took advantage. Poland was, by degrees, partitioned amongst them, and Austria, which owed it so much, was one of the most eager and greedy of the plunderers.