The Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna (1683) and The Battle That Saved Europe

The Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna of 1683 was a turning point in European history. In many ways, it has been called the battle that saved Europe from Turkish rule. This exciting and tense confrontation at the time was the culmination of a protracted conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the growing Ottoman Empire.

The Prelude to the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna

The events leading up to the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna bear some resemblance to those preceding the city’s first siege. Trying to take advantage of the long-standing chaos in Hungary, the Ottoman Empire was redoubling its efforts to achieve hegemony in Central Europe. The Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna occurred when the Ottomans attempted to extend their rule into the heartland of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Siege of Vienna itself was foreshadowed when the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV decided to take advantage of the military support the Ottomans could provide to the Hungarians and other non-Catholic rebels in their fight against the Holy Roman Empire and its allies. The Ottomans had established an alliance with the rebels led by Imre Thököly, King of Upper Hungary, putting Vienna back within Ottoman reach.

Vienna was bracing for the impending Ottoman threat and preparing accordingly. The plague had broken out in the city in the years before the siege, and the situation was further worsened by various other political issues that had accumulated in those years. Religious dissension, as a result of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I of the Habsburg dynasty trying to impose Catholicism on Protestant Hungary, had caused much discontent and rebellions among Hungarians against their Habsburg overlords.

The Ottoman Empire was able to exploit this to justify its military intervention. At the same time, the siege resulted from a gradual buildup of Ottoman forces in the area.

In the early months of 1683, Ottoman forces, led by Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha, began their massive and lumbering advance towards Vienna. The Ottoman army, augmented by allies and mercenaries, advanced on Vienna with a deliberate purpose. On the other hand, Vienna itself began preparations to withstand the siege, making alliances with neighboring countries and anticipating aid from the Poles, the Venetians, and the Papacy. Both sides began to entrench as the Ottoman forces laid siege to the city in 1683, marking the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna.

Initial Assaults of the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna

On July 14, 1683, the massive Ottoman army under Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa began the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna. Kara Mustafa’s stated goal was to take the city, so as Grand Vizier, he sent a message demanding the city’s surrender. The offer was flatly rejected by Ernst Rüdiger Graf von Starhemberg, the commander of Vienna’s defense.

Starhemberg and Vienna’s defense were assisted by some 15,000 soldiers and 8,700 volunteers, who were put to work digging trenches and raising other fortifications. There was no lack of motivation on Vienna’s part to fight, given the recent experience of the town of Perchtoldsdorf, where a much smaller garrison and local citizenry had agreed to surrender, only to find themselves massacred by the victorious Ottoman army.

Siege operations were now in full swing. By the July 17, the outer area had been entirely cleared by the defenders, creating what could only be described as a killing field in front of the city walls. Any Ottoman troops that advanced would be at the mercy of withering fire from all sides. To combat this, Kara Mustafa now ordered his men to dig extensive trenches up to the city walls to provide them with cover. The Ottomans had brought up 130 field guns and 19 medium-caliber cannons. The city, however, outgunned them with a total of 370 cannons.

Ottoman sappers began to tunnel under the city’s walls, packing the tunnels with gunpowder. The city’s fortifications had long been in disrepair, yet they still took the besiegers longer than expected to breach. In an attempt to improve the defences, the Viennese rammed massive tree trunks into the ground to support the walls, which delayed the siege for several weeks. This measure would have a vital effect on the siege’s outcome later, as it gave time for a relief force to form and move towards the city.

Kara Mustafa played a much more conservative game. He forbade a general assault to avoid a general looting of the city, which would have been the usual reward for the victors. In sparing the city’s riches, he hoped to take Vienna intact. Still, in so doing, he gave the desperate city an additional period of time in which to harden its defences and make its last preparations for the long and bloody struggles to come.

The Siege Deepens & Forces Gather to Relieve the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna: A Race Against Time

The second Ottoman Siege of Vienna had reached a critical point, with supplies running low. By August, the Ottoman army had cut off nearly all of Vienna’s supply lines. The city was running so low on supplies that Ernst Rüdiger Graf von Starhemberg, the commander of Vienna, ordered that any soldier caught sleeping on guard duty was to be executed.

One sign of hope was that an Imperial army under Charles V, Duke of Lorraine, defeated troops of Imre Thököly in Bisamberg, a few kilometers northwest of Vienna, so help seemed finally to be at hand.

At the beginning of September, King John III Sobieski of Poland, who had been steadily marching his forces through Austria to relieve Vienna, crossed the Danube at Tulln, some 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Vienna, with the main body of his army and joined the Imperial forces, as well as smaller allied contingents from Saxony, Bavaria, Baden, and other German states of the Holy Roman Empire. The French King Louis XIV had refused to help, since he did not want to increase the power of his Habsburg rival, and both armies under Sobieski’s command prepared for a decisive battle.

The alliance was further strengthened by the arrival of Polish hussars, who had proven their worth against the Ottomans. Sobieski, a noted warrior and hero of the Battle of Khotyn, assumed leadership of a 70,000-80,000-strong allied force, prepared to engage the Ottoman army outside Vienna’s city walls.

By this point in September, the Ottoman sappers had so extensively damaged the walls of Vienna, blowing breaches at several points along the city walls, that the Ottomans would be able to enter the city, which posed a significant risk for the besieged residents. The Viennese counter-mining operations began as they desperately tried to counter the Ottoman mining operations. The situation was such that on September 8, the Ottomans took over positions very near the walls, and the Viennese prepared to fight hand-to-hand within the city.

This strain between the immediate prospect of relief and the ever more successful Ottoman sapping produced a race for time, which was the prelude to the battle that decided the fate of Vienna, and possibly that of Europe.

Prelude to the Climactic Battle at Vienna

The Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna was reaching a crisis point, with the city preparing for an attack and a relief army hastily organized to defend it. This army would be multinational and predominantly Polish and Imperial, with both armies needing to form a single command in a very short time, and have to operate under the King of Poland, John III Sobieski, a noted cavalry commander with the Polish Hussars. This alliance would show great logistical and diplomatic speed, being formed in days.

Financing was obtained from many sources, including significant backing from the Pope, wealthy bankers, and noblemen. It was also agreed that while the Polish government would fund Polish forces on Polish lands, the Holy Roman Emperor would fund them upon entry into Imperial lands. An agreement was made with the Holy League that Sobieski would have the first right to plunder in the case of victory.

On the other hand, Kara Mustafa’s army was showing cracks, and its fighting spirit was waning. The inconstant allegiances among the Ottoman forces presented a challenge to the defense as well. The Crimean Khanate, under the Khan of Crimea, for one, displayed an almost embarrassing lack of zeal, choosing not to attack the relief force as it crossed the Danube and passed through the Vienna Woods once again. This lack of initiative on their part bought the defenders some very valuable time, and the lackluster involvement of Ottoman vassal states such as Wallachia and Moldavia, some of whose most prominent leaders, such as Șerban Cantacuzino, would switch sides after the battle started, did not help either.

The timely and spectacular union of these forces was signaled by the lighting of bonfires by the confederated troops on the Kahlenberg, a signal that was answered by the beleaguered city of Vienna.

Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, a Polish nobleman fluent in Turkish, managed to infiltrate the Ottoman camp. His espionage work was successful, and the relief army now had precise knowledge of the Ottomans’ location and preparedness. The coordination between the allies for the upcoming move, one of the most critical battles in European history, was complete. The besieging army, weakened by their leadership’s strategic blunders and marred by serious infighting, was about to face an army determined to break their siege.

The Climactic Battle of Vienna

On the morning of September 12, 1683, the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna culminated in a large-scale general assault on the city by Ottoman forces under Kara Mustafa Pasha. The engagement began before dawn, and some of the Holy League forces were surprised and still in the process of setting their positions. Although they were vastly outnumbered, the forces in Vienna were ready to defend, with an estimated 20,000 defenders (plus recently arrived reinforcements of about 65,000) against an estimated 150,000-plus Ottoman army.

The Ottomans began their assault at around 4: 00 a.m. and concentrated their attacks on the northern sections held by the Germans and imperial forces. These outnumbered troops beat back the Ottoman attacks and even seized important positions in Nussdorf and Heiligenstadt, inflicting heavy losses on the Ottomans.

The battle did not slacken as the day wore on. By noon, the imperial troops had gained more ground and beaten off several Ottoman counterattacks. The Polish forces under John III Sobieski began to move into position for the final charge. Sobieski was a seasoned soldier and had positioned his famous cavalry, including his Winged Hussars, for a decisive assault. The Allied forces slowly began to surround the Ottoman army as it was pressed up against its own lines.

The breakthrough in the fighting was in the late afternoon when the Polish cavalry (amounting to some 18,000 horses, 3,000 of them heavy Polish Lancers or Winged Hussars) under the personal command of Sobieski crashed in what was one of the largest cavalry charges in history, across the Kahlenberg hills onto the hard-pressed Ottoman camps. This was a huge, but carefully controlled and delayed, charge, and the Ottomans were already reeling from the success of a combined German and Austrian attack in the north. The result was a disaster for the Ottoman defense, already crumbling from the weight of the constant attacks and the collapse of the sapping operations earlier in the day.

By the evening, the battle had clearly turned in the Holy League’s favour. With many of its troops fatigued and demoralised, the Ottoman army began to retreat slowly and disorderly. Both sides suffered significant casualties; estimates for Ottoman casualties (dead and wounded) are around 15,000, while the defenders suffered around 4,000.

The success in Vienna ended the siege and reversed the Ottoman advance into Europe, and signaled the start of their slow retreat and a loss of interest in expanding their territories in Europe. The Holy League’s victory was celebrated throughout Europe, and Sobieski was hailed as the savior of Christendom.

The Enduring Impact of the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna

The result of the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna in 1683 was an Ottoman defeat. It was a significant event that set the stage for the decline of the Ottoman Empire. According to Ottoman history, as recorded by Ottoman historian Silahdar Findikli Mehmed Agha, the 1683 battle was one of the most damaging defeats for the Ottomans since the foundation of the Ottoman Empire in 1299. The Ottomans lost 15,000-20,000 soldiers during the Siege and the following battle, while the Polish-led coalition suffered much smaller losses under King John III Sobieski.

Vienna was quickly repaired in the immediate aftermath of the battle. In later times, the city always maintained its readiness to resist another Ottoman siege, but after this battle, the Ottomans never again seriously threatened Vienna. The Viennese and their allies looted a significant amount from the defeated Ottoman army. The victory gave the Viennese city and its allies the chance to take substantial loot from the Ottoman army. At the same time, the Ottomans’ troops were unable to recapture their gains immediately. Sobieski writes in his letters about the loot and treasures, emphasizing the tremendous losses the Ottomans suffered. Tensions between the victors over the division of spoils and the question of military support led to discord.

The failure of the siege was devastating for the Ottoman grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, who personally led it. His perceived responsibility for the Ottoman defeat was so heavy that he was executed later that same year, a year which became a turning point for the Empire. The consequences of the siege for the Ottomans were both internal and external. Internally, it invited criticism and a reevaluation of military strategies, but externally, it shifted the European balance, emboldening the Habsburgs and their allies.

The consequences of the siege on a larger European scale are reflected in the fact that the Habsburgs managed to conquer Hungary and other regions held by the Ottoman Empire at the time. The further Habsburg expansion into Hungary and the reconquests of other Ottoman-ruled lands in the following years cemented Habsburg dominance in Central Europe. It thus decreased the Ottoman sphere of influence in Europe. This is evident in the Peace of Karlowitz, signed in 1699, which ended the war.

The Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna and the later Battle saved the city and considerably slowed Ottoman expansion into Europe, marking a turning point in the Ottomans’ imperial goals and significantly affecting the balance of power in Europe. The Battle also maintained Vienna’s importance as a European cultural and political hub. The events and the legacy of the Second Siege of Vienna and the Battle are still remembered and analyzed today.