Battle of Vienna

The Battle of Vienna (as distinct from the Siege of Vienna in 1529) was the decisive battle of the Great Turkish War. The battle, which took place on September 12, 1683, pitted an Austrian and German army of about 100,000 troops and their allies, a 30,000-man relief force under Jan III Sobieski, King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, against their Turkish besiegers. The Turks, commanded by Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, numbered approximately 140,000 men, although a large number of them played no part in the battle.

The battle marked the turning point in a 300-year struggle between the forces of Central European kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire. Over the 16 years following the battle, Habsburgs of Austria and their allies would permanently drive the Ottomans out of southern Hungary and Transylvania.

Prelude

Before the siege, the Viennese had demolished many of the houses around the city walls and cleared the debris, leaving an empty plain that would expose the Turks to defensive fire if they tried to rush the city. Kara Mustafa Pasha solved that problem by ordering his forces to dig long lines of trenches directly toward the city to help protect them from the defenders as they advanced toward it. One goal of this digging was to decrease the stability of the walls around Vienna. Additionally, the Ottoman siege cut virtually every means of food supply into Vienna, and the population started to starve. (For example, the Viennese cavalry had to start killing their own horses for food. After the later retreat of the Turkish army, the Polish army reported many horse thefts.)

Sobieski began planning a relief expedition to Vienna during the summer of 1683, when the hard-pressed Turks launched an all-out offensive against Austria. Ottoman Empire and Habsburgs had clashed repeatedly for more than 150 years, and Kara Mustafa Pasha planned an expedition to put an end to this situation. Starting in March, the Turkish Army moved toward the city, and finally invested it on July 14. The previous winter, Austria and Poland had concluded a treaty in which the Austrian Emperor would support Sobieski if the Turks attacked Kraków; in return, the Poles would support Austria if Vienna came under attack.

The Polish king honored his obligations to the letter, going so far as to leave his own nation virtually undefended. He covered this with a stern warning to Imre Thököly, the leader of Hungary (then an Ottoman satellite), whom he threatened with destruction if he tried to take advantage of the situation.

Kara Mustafa Pasha had managed to take part of the walls of Vienna by exploding mines under them, entrusting the defence of rear to Khan of Crimea and its cavalry force numbered about 30,000. Yet, due to their previous confrontations and his subsequent humilitation in previous War Councils, Khan of Crimea did not make dispositions to defend the rear against Sobieski. After learning the arrival of Polish forces, he retreated his forces and left vital bridges virtually undefended; allowing the passage of combined Habsburg-Polish army.

Battle

At 4 in the morning on September 12, the Austrian army on the left and the German forces in the center moved forward against the Turks. Mustafa Pasha launched a counterattack with most of his force. Then the Polish infantry launched a massive assault on the right flank. After 12 hours of fighting, Sobieski's men held the high ground on the right.

At about five o'clock in the afternoon, four cavalry groups, one of them German-Austrian and the other three composed of Polish heavy cavalry (Husaria), 20,000 men in all, led by the Polish king, charged down the hills. In the confusion, they made straight for the Ottoman camps, while the Vienna garrison sallied out of its defenses and joined in the assault. In less than three hours, the Habsburg and Polish forces won the battle, as the Turkish army beat a hasty retreat to the south and east.

The Turks lost about 15,000 men in the fighting, compared to approximately 4,000 for the Habsburg-Polish forces.

Significance

Although no one realized it at the time, the battle shaped the outcome of the entire war as well. The Ottomans fought on for another 16 years before giving up, losing their possesion in Hungary and Transylvania in the process finalized by the Treaty of Karlowitz.

In honor of Sobieski, the Austrians had a church erected in his honor atop a hill north of Vienna. Also, the train route from Vienna to Warsaw is named in Sobieski's honor.