Karl August Schimmer

“ The troops were nearly driven from the walls, upon which eight Turkish standards were already planted, when a shout of despair raised by the women and unarmed inhabitants of the place was mistaken by the assailants for the cheer of a reinforcement. The garrison profited by a moment of hesitation, and again succeeded in their noble effort. For twenty-five days they had occupied the whole force of the Turkish Empire in a fruitless attempt,—a period fully sufficient to exhaust the patience of the brave and impetuous but ill-disciplined armies of the faithful. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not more than sixty men escaped this sweeping execution, part of whom escaped by flight and part were made prisoners. A proof, however, of Soliman’s appreciation of honour and courage is to be found in the fact that he not only eulogized the fidelity and firmness of Nadasky, but dismissed him on his parole not to serve against the Turks during the war. This generosity is the more to be praised as it was exercised in the teeth of the resistance not only of the embittered Janissaries, but of the Hungarian traitors in the suite of Zapolya. ”

“ Before Soliman quitted Pesth he had issued a proclamation to the effect that “Whosoever in Hungary should withhold obedience and subjection from the Count John of Zips, Wayvode of Transylvania, whom the Sultan had named king, had replaced in the sovereignty, and had engaged himself to uphold, should be punished and extirpated with fire and sword; but that those who should submit themselves should be stoutly protected, and maintained in the possession of their property and privileges.” ”

“ The works of man were everywhere destroyed, and the population slaughtered, or dragged into captivity. The Imperial army soon beheld the flames of burning villages rising in the rear of its position. Not a moment was to be lost in effecting its retreat: the infantry had scarcely time to fling itself into the Schütt island, and thence, gaining the left bank, to pursue its retreat over the March field to Vienna. The cavalry, under the immediate command of the Duke of Lorraine, retired by Altenburg and Kitsee. ”

“ It was Soliman’s sole desire to follow the King till he should find him, and then to retire to his own dominions. Should the city, however, venture to resist, he would not retreat till he had reduced it, and then he would spare neither old nor young, not the child in the mother’s womb, and would so utterly destroy the city that men should not know where it stood. ”

“ The outworks from the Burg, almost to the Scottish gate, were nothing but a mass of rubbish. The Löbel bastion in particular, and the adjacent houses in the street of that name, had specially suffered; but still more so the dwelling which still bears the name of the Turks’ House. Scarcity also was making rapid strides; and if the casualties of war diminished the number of consumers, falling as they did principally on the fighting men they also made it impossible to repeat the sallies which in the early part of the siege had sometimes swept into the city the cattle of the Turkish commissariat. ”

“ Amid the ruins of the suburbs the Janissaries and the asapes (a species of sappers) dug trenches, from which they plied their arrows and musketry with such assiduity, that no one without extreme danger could show himself on the walls. Their archers’ aim was so accurate that they often sent their missiles through the embrasures and loopholes of the defences. It happened, however, fortunately for the weak garrison, that the greater part of the Turkish heavy artillery had been left behind in Hungary, its further transport having been rendered impossible by heavy rains. ”

“ As the imperial army approached, the incentive to attack rose in intensity in the same proportion with the motive to resistance, and it was to be expected that the struggle would be waged to the last with increased energy. Every device of war was exhausted by Stahremberg to provide that no inch of advance should be gained by the enemy unpurchased by streams of his blood. ”

“ Cities and hamlets, market-towns and villages, blazed up in the fire of vengeance and destruction. The beautiful land, the treasury of spring and abode of joy, was trodden down by the horsemen and filled with smoke. Houses and palaces were left in ashes. The victorious army dragged away captive the inhabitants, great and small, high and low, men and women, strong and weak. ”

“ Not to mention that the open country was long infested with roving parties of Turkish marauders who were little interfered with by a soldiery who had forgotten their own discipline in the excitement of success, in Vienna itself this spirit displayed itself in a fearful insurrection of the troops of the Empire, which threatened the citizens with greater calamities than even those of the siege itself. ”

“ Parties were detached to scour the neighbouring country in search of provisions, and to bring in cattle and forage. Finally, to provide against the possibility of a protracted siege, useless consumers, women, children, old men, and ecclesiastics were, as far as possible, forced to withdraw from the city. Though this latter measure was successful for its special purpose, and prevented any failure of subsistence during the investment of the city, it had the melancholy consequence that many of the fugitives met with massacre or captivity at the hands of the Turkish light troops. ”

“ About 200 men fell on the side of the Turks; the Austrians lost only sixty, but among them were a young prince of Aremberg and Louis of Savoy, elder brother of the future conqueror of the Turks, Eugene. The first fell by the Turkish sabre; the latter was crushed beneath his horse. The baggage of the Dukes of Sachsen Lauenberg and Croy, and of General Caprara, containing their plate, with which it was the fashion of the day for generals to encumber themselves, fell into the hands of the Tartars. The tidings of this action produced their immediate effects on either party. ”

“ The close of the year 1529 had been made memorable in the annals of Christendom by the retreat of Soliman. He had retired not without loss and a degree of exhaustion which promised an interval at least of repose to the countries he had so cruelly ravaged. He was, however, neither satiated with blood nor discouraged by that signal failure of the main object of his expedition which the Turkish historiographers strove in vain to conceal beneath the flowers of Oriental eloquence. ”

“ It is, however, unaccountable that their leaders, who usually showed so much eagerness to possess themselves of every commanding position in the neighbourhood of a besieged fortress, should have neglected to establish themselves on the adjacent heights of the Kahlenberg. These acclivities presented not only a cover to the motions of an army advancing to raise the siege, but a post of the utmost importance if once occupied, and the assemblage of the army of the Empire at Crems could be no secret to the Turks. ”

“ These were the motives, as far as inquiry can now detect them, which postponed to a subsequent century the great spectacle of actual collision in the field between the main armies of Turkey and the Empire. Austria meanwhile derived from the postponement of so tremendous an issue no immunity from a repetition of the horrors of the last invasion. While the main Turkish army occupied Styria, the bands of Michael Oglou were again let loose upon her plains, re-enacting, up to the walls of Lintz and Vienna, every former atrocity. ”

“ The Emperor Charles in person had put himself at the head of the troops of the Empire, and had well employed the interval of security which the delay of the Sultan before the town of Güns had afforded him. With an army rated at 260,000 men, of which however only 126,000 were combatants, namely, 96,000 infantry and 30,000 cavalry, he lay encamped at no great distance from Vienna. In his former campaign Soliman had sought in vain for the accursed Ferdinand, and had made much of his disappointment in the bulletins from his camp and in the pages of his servile historiographers. ”

“ He fastened to his person the keys of the castle and a purse of a hundred ducats, carefully counted and selected, of the coinage of Hungary. “The man who lays me out,” he said, “shall not complain that he found nothing upon me. When I am dead, let him who may take the keys and the ducats. No Turk shall point at me while alive with his finger.” The banner of the Empire was borne before him by Laurence Juranitsch. In this guise, followed by his 600 remaining comrades, he rushed upon the enemy, and by two musket-shots through the body and an arrow in the head obtained the release he sought. ”

“ We must not forget the old adage of Kochanouski, ‘the man who knows not how to conceal his disgust makes his enemy to laugh.’ Say only that the commissaries of the Emperor have deceived our army with respect to the provisions and forage which they promised us, and for which the Pope has destined considerable sums; that the bridge is not finished; that the army suffers much; that the Imperial troops are still under the walls of Vienna; that the Saxons have retired; that the King is in advance; that his light cavalry is pressing the enemy ”

“ Among those accidental results of events which the political economist and the philosopher loves to notice, is the fact that the popular use of coffee in Germany is to be dated from this period, and is due to the plunder of the Turkish camp. Stahremberg’s brave and faithful messenger, Kolschitzki, was rewarded by permission to set up the first coffee-house in Vienna. ”

“ At sunrise of the 14th July the main force of the enemy showed itself on the heights of the Wienerberg. It was difficult for the most practised eye to distinguish particular objects from amidst the multitudinous crowd of men, horses, camels, and carriages. The mass extended itself from the Lauer wood to near the Hundsthurm, by Gumpendorf, Penzing, Ottakring, Hernals, Währing and Döbling, towards Nussdorf and the Danube, in a circuit of some 25,000 paces. The camp was marked out in the form of a half-moon. In a few hours 25,000 tents had risen from the ground. ”

“ It was, however, impossible for the Christian leaders to assure themselves at so late an hour of the full extent of the enemy’s discomfiture, or even to consider themselves secure against a night attack. Great exertions were therefore made both by the King and the Duke to keep their troops well in hand through the night. The King, whose advance had led him to the very centre of the camp, found it necessary to resort to threats of summary and capital punishment to prevent his whole army from dispersing itself at once to gather the rich harvest of the Turkish tents. ”

“ On the day on which Soliman crossed the Hungarian frontier, a detachment of Imperial cavalry under Paul Bakics encountered a body of the Turkish light troops in the immediate neighbourhood of Vienna, and took a few prisoners. The conquerors showed themselves apt disciples in cruelty of the Turks, and even exceeded their teachers, who with the sabre usually made short work with their captives, whereas the men now taken were racked or tortured before they were bound together with ropes and flung into the Danube. ”

“ A wise man rolled up the carpet from the corner, and thus obtained possession of the gold. Hungary was the carpet, and if rolled up in like manner the gold might be reached in the autumn, or at latest in the following spring. This apologue only drew down the insolent wrath of the Vizier upon the venerable councillor, and Raab was left unmolested in the rear of the advancing army, which the Tartar [Pg 85] hordes preceded in all directions. With the exception of a few places, which, surrendering themselves to Tekeli, were spared from destruction, the old system of havoc was everywhere pursued. ”

“ The loss of the Turks has been computed at 25,000 men. Among these was that body of Janissaries, who were forgotten, and left without orders in the trenches, and were cut to pieces during the night. The King describes the Turks as defending themselves desperately even in full flight. In this point of view, he says, they made the finest retreat in the world. That of the Christians has been stated at 1000 killed and 3000 wounded, which is probably far less than the truth, for the Poles alone lost 100 officers, among them some of their first nobles. ”

“ If, however, they were allowed for a period thus to extend and pursue their ravages, they came at last within reach, not merely of the partial resistance by which the more adventurous of their parties had before been occasionally cut off, but of the heavy blows of a disciplined enemy. Vienna itself was in a state of defence which fully secured it against any attack from the irregular troops of the Turks; and it is not probable that Soliman at any time had contemplated a renewal of his attempt upon that city with his main army, for he had again left his heavy artillery behind ”

“ He conquered also Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and reduced to subjection the powerful Sheikh of Mecca. In wisdom, however, in power, and in glory, this Soliman was surpassed by his son, the second of that name, the greatest of the Ottoman sovereigns, under whom the Turkish empire attained a pitch of splendour which has not been equalled before or since. ”

“ The subterranean warfare was carried on with much effect by the Austrian counterminers, who frequently succeeded in burying or suffocating the Turkish labourers, and carried off many hundredweights of powder from their chambers. The tenacity of the Turks in prosecuting this mode of attack is shown by the loss they experienced: 16,000 of their miners perished during the siege. On one occasion a fourier or quartermaster of the Beck regiment having detected the end of a mine, sprung like Curtius into the abyss, and encountering five Turks, killed three, and drove the other two to flight. ”