No. 1.

The number of pieces of artillery furnished from the imperial arsenal of Vienna for the defence in 1683 was 262. The thirty years’ war had led to many improvements in the construction and use of artillery. Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein had both effected important alterations, and in 1650 a Jesuit of Warsaw had invented the elevating screw as a substitute for the quoin. Whatever improvement, however, had taken place in the system as applied to field movements, it would appear that for purposes of stationary defence it was still one of much complexity and confusion. The 262 pieces used at Vienna were of no less than 26 denominations and calibres, the capacity of the latter ranging from 1 lb. to 48, and in the case of some large pieces called bÖller or pÖller, used as mortars for vertical fire and discharging stone shot, from 60 to 200 lbs. There were of these four of 200, two of 150, five of 100, and ten of 60. Fifty other pieces furnished from the city arsenal were planted, not on the defences, but at various points in the city, and worked by 100 men of the burgher force. Of these hundred volunteer artillerists 16 were killed and 5 of the pieces ruined: 72 pieces in all had been rendered unserviceable at the close of the siege.

Thirty-seven officers were killed, which, considering the frequency of assaults and sallies, operations which require great personal exposure on the part of the leaders, would appear rather a small proportion to that of 5000 rank and file among the regular troops. The loss in action among the citizens is scarcely possible to arrive at. The only two officers of much distinction who fell were the Col. Count Dupigny and the engineer, Rimpler.

The Turkish loss is stated at 48,544. It appears to have fallen heaviest on the miners, of whom 16,000 perished, and 6000 of their artillerists. The formidable corps of the Janissaries was reduced by a loss of 10,000: 544 officers, including 3 pachas, were also killed. As this list is taken from a return found in the tent of the Vizier, it does not include the loss of the Turks in the battle. These statements are naturally liable to much allowance for inaccuracy from many causes. A comparison of the various sources of information leads to a rough conclusion that the Vizier sat down before the place with about 220,000 men. Of these it is supposed not more than 50,000 regained the Turkish frontier.

No. 2.—Order of battle of the Christian army before Vienna on the 13th September.

The left wing was commanded by the Duke of Lorraine; the centre by the Elector of Saxony and the Prince Christian Louis von Waldeck (it is idle to adjoin to these the Bavarian Elector, who was present, but had the good sense to consign the direction of his troops to Waldeck); the right wing by the Polish Field-Marshal Jablonowski; the whole by the King of Poland. The army was drawn up in three lines.

First Line.

Right wing.—19 divisions and 4 battalions of Poles; 8560 cavalry, 3120 infantry.

Centre.—9 divisions, Austrians; 7 divisions, Bavarians; 4 divisions, troops of the Circles; 5 battalions, Bavarians; 3 battalions, Circles; 5 battalions, Saxons; 5768 cavalry, 8600 infantry: commanders, the Elector of Saxony and the Prince of Waldeck.

Left wing.—10 divisions, Austrians; 5 divisions, Saxons; 6 battalions, Austrians; 5660 cavalry, 4242 infantry; commanded by the Duke of Baden.

Total of first line, 19,788 cavalry, 15,962 infantry.

Second Line.

Right wing.—6 divisions, Poles; 8 divisions, Austrians; 4 battalions, Poles; 5568 cavalry, 3120 infantry: commanders, Generals Siniousky and Rabatta.

Centre.—5 divisions, Bavarians; 3 divisions, Circles; 4 battalions, Bavarians; 5 battalions, Circles; 3 battalions, Saxons; 6 battalions, Austrians; 1725 cavalry, 11,442 infantry: commanders, Field-Marshal Golz and Field-Marshal the Prince of Baireuth.

Left wing.—4 divisions, Saxons; 8 divisions, Austrians; 4528 cavalry: commanders, Field-Marshal Leslie and Prince Lubomirski.

Total of second line, 11,819 cavalry, 12,562 infantry.

Third Line or Reserve.

Right wing.—9 divisions, Poles; 6 divisions, Austrians; 3 divisions, Bavarians; 3 battalions, Poles; 1 battalion, Bavarians; 6855 cavalry, 2940 infantry: commanders, great standard-bearer Lesno Lescynski and Field-Marshal Dunnewald.

Centre.—3 battalions, Bavarians; 2 battalions, Saxons; 2 battalions, Austrians; 4014 infantry: commander, Field-Marshal Leika.

Left wing.—3 divisions, Saxons; 7 divisions, Austrians; 3762 cavalry: commander, Field-Marshal Margrave Louis of Baden.

Total of third line, 10,617 cavalry, 6954 infantry.

Total force in the battle—

Total of the army, including detachments—

Artillery, 168 pieces, of all calibres, of which the Austrians counted 70, the Saxons 30, the Bavarians 26, the Franconians 12, and the Poles, 30. It is impossible, considering the difficulties of the march from Tuln, that all these pieces should have been brought into action: they were distributed along all parts of the line of battle.

To the above may be added Croats and other irregulars, and volunteers about 10,000. This detail of the force is extracted from the Military Conversations Lexicon, art. ‘Wien.’

No. 3.—Anecdotes of the Siege, from a Tract by the Advocate Christian W. Huhn, an eye-witness.

In the night of August 2nd some troopers of Dupigny’s regiment with divers foot soldiers of the garrison, made a sally by the covered way at the Scottish gate, and returned with forty-seven head of oxen and a captured Turk. The cattle were allotted partly to the wounded and sick soldiers, and partly to the captors, who made their gain from them, inasmuch as meat, which when the siege began had fetched one grosch the lb., rose afterwards to nine and more, and a fresh egg did not wait for a customer at half a dollar. Whosoever also fancied Italian cookery might purchase of one of the women who sat in the high market a roof hare (cat), roast and larded, for one florin, to be washed down with a cup of muscat wine at the Italian vintners; and truth to say, this animal, when the sweetness of the flesh was tempered with the salted lard, was an unusual, indeed, but not an unacceptable morsel. The 9th August was a fine clear day, on which a young and spirited Turk chose to disport himself for bravado on a caparisoned horse, performing strange antics with a lance in his right hand. While he was caracoling at a distance of full 300 paces from the counterscarp, Henry Count von Kielmansegge, who happened to be with his foresters on the KÄrnthner bastion, took such good aim at him with a fowling-piece that he jumped up with a spring from the saddle and fell dead amid shouts and laughter from the besieged. A lucky shot of the same kind was executed by a student of the university, who sent a bullet through the head of a Turk near the counterscarp palisade, and dragged the body to him with a halberd. Having learned from experience of others that the Turks, either to strengthen the stomach, or when mortally wounded, to rob the Christians of their booty, were accustomed to roll up their ducats together and swallow them, without further ceremony he ripped up the corpse and found six ducats so rolled up within it. The head he cut off and bore it round the city upon a lance-point as a spectacle of his ovation. In the assault of the 17th August a common soldier, having mastered and beheaded a Turk, and finding 100 ducats upon him sewed up in a dirty cloth, as one who had never seen so much money together before, went about the city like one distracted, clapping his hands and showing his booty to all he met, encouraging them by his example to win the like, as though it rained money from Heaven.

On the 13th September, the day following the relief of the city, the Poles being masters of the Turkish camp, many soldiers, citizens, and inhabitants, while as yet no gate was opened, clambered down over the breaches and by the secret sallyports to pick up what they might of provisions, ammunition, or other articles of small value. The King of Poland and his people having fallen on the military chest and the Vizier’s tent, had carried off many millions in money, and the Vizier’s war-horse, his quivers, bows, and arrows, all of countless value, together with the great standard of their Prophet, inscribed with Turkish characters, and two horsetail standards. I, with many others who had been enrolled in a volunteer body during the siege, thought to pick up our share of the spoil. I, therefore, gained the counterscarp by the Stuben gate, passing between the ruined palisades on horseback to the Turkish camp. I did not, however, dare to dismount, by reason of the innumerable quantity of flies and vermin, which, although at so advanced a time of the month of September, swarmed up from the bodies of more than 20,000 dead horses and mules, so as to darken the air, and so covering my horse, that not the space of a needle point remained free from them, the which was so insufferable to him, that he began to plunge and kick in front and rear, so that I was fain to get me clear of the press and make my way back to the city, but not till I had persuaded a passer-by to reach to me the bow and arrows of one who lay there, and also the cap of a Janissary, and some books which lay about, and which had been plundered in the country, and secured them in my saddle-bags. After the which I re-entered the city, not as one ovans on foot, but triumphans on horseback with my spolia. I had no want of predecessors before or followers behind, for every one who had legs to carry him had betaken himself to the camp to plunder it. Although I had gained the counterscarp and the inner defences, I passed a good hour making my way through the pass, and my unruly horse was compelled to move step by step for such time before I could extricate him and regain my quarters.

No. 4.—Specification of the Christians carried off into Turkish slavery out of Hungary, Austria, and the adjacent districts in 1683. From a contemporary MS.

THE END.

London: Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford-street.