The Battle of Vienna

Battle of Vienna

The relief army was now ready for a final push. At around 6:00 pm, the Polish king ordered the cavalry to attack in four contingents, three Polish groups and one from the Holy Roman Empire. 18,000 horsemen charged down the hills, the largest cavalry charge in history.[47][48] Sobieski led the charge[19]: 661  at the head of 3,000 Polish heavy lancers, the "Winged Hussars". Lipka Tatars who participated on the Polish side wore a sprig of straw in their helmets to distinguish them from the tatars fighting on the Ottoman side.[49] The charge quickly broke the battle lines of the Ottomans, who were already exhausted and demoralized and would begin to retreat from the battlefield. The cavalry headed directly towards the Ottoman camps and Kara Mustafa's headquarters, while the remaining Viennese garrison sallied out of its defenses to join in the assault.[19]: 661  The Ottoman forces were tired and dispirited following the failure of the sapping attempt, the assault on the city and the advance of the Holy League infantry on the Türkenschanze.[19]: 661  Less than three hours after the decisive cavalry charge, the Holy League forces had won the battle and successfully defended Vienna. The first Catholic officer who entered the city was Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden, at the head of his dragoons.[18] Afterwards Sobieski paraphrased Julius Caesar's famous quotation (Veni, vidi, vici) by saying "Venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit"- "We came, we saw, God conquered".[19]: 661 [27]

aftermath

Contemporary Ottoman historian Silahdar Findiklili Mehmed Agha (1658–1723) described the battle as an enormous defeat and failure for the Ottoman Empire, the most disastrous since the foundation of Ottoman statehood in 1299.[50] The Ottomans lost at least 20,000 men during the siege,[19]: 661  while their losses during the battle with Sobieski's forces amounted to around 15,000 dead (according to Podhorodecki)[20] or 8,000–15,000 dead and 5,000–10,000 captured (according to Tucker).[19]: 661  Casualties of the relief force under Sobieski's command were much smaller, amounting to approximately 3,500 dead and wounded, including 1,300 Poles.[20] Tucker's estimate is slightly higher: 4,500.[19]: 661  The 10,000 strong Viennese garrison and the civilian populace lost, due to all causes, about half of their initial number during the siege.[6] The Holy League troops and the Viennese took a large amount of loot from the Ottoman army, which Sobieski described in a letter to his wife a few days after the battle Starhemberg immediately ordered the repair of Vienna's severely damaged fortifications to guard against a possible Ottoman counterstrike. However, Vienna would never again be besieged by the Ottoman Empire. Due to his defeat at the battle, on 25 December Kara Mustafa Pasha was executed in Belgrade in the approved manner – by strangulation with a silk rope pulled by several men on each end – by order of the Janissary Agha.[citation needed] Despite the victory of the Catholic allies, there was still tension among the various commanders and their armies. Sobieski demanded that Polish troops be allowed to have the first choice of the spoils of the Ottoman camp, and thus German and Austrian troops were left with smaller portions of the loot.[52] Further, Protestant Saxons, who had arrived to relieve the city, were reportedly subjected to verbal abuse by the Catholic populace of the Viennese countryside. The Saxons left the battle immediately, without partaking in the sha

aftermath

partaking in the sharing of spoils, and refused to continue the pursuit.[52] Sobieski went on to liberate Grau[clarification needed] and northwestern Hungary after the Battle of Parkany, but dysentery halted his pursuit of the Ottomans.[19]: 662  Charles V of Lorraine captured Buda and most of Hungary in 1686, establishing Habsburg control over southern Hungary and most of Transylvania in 1687 and capturing Belgrade in 1688.[19]: 663–664  The Ottoman defeat at Vienna sparked great celebrations in Safavid Iran; the report was apparently brought in such a spectacular way, that then incumbent Emperor (Shah) Suleiman I (r. 1666–1694) considered a march to Baghdad, which had been lost in 1639 to the Ottomans by virtue of the Treaty of Zuhab.[53] Ultimately, the Safavids would not conduct a new campaign, for concerned state officials (notably the dominant eunuch faction within the royal court) were aware of the decline in Safavid military strength, and thus did not consider it prudent.[53] The eunuchs, according to Professor Rudi Matthee "were not against the idea of having the Ottomans suffer some humiliation, but they did not want their power destroyed for fear that this would remove a buffer against Christian Europe".[53]