330 Years Since the Relief of Vienna

In 1683 the Christian Alliance Defeated the Turks Before Vienna and Led the Liberation of Southeast Europe from the Turkish yolk.

Vienna 1683, the armies of the Holy League attacking the Ottoman
besieging forces.  Since 1400, Turkish troops began attacking
the Empire, a Fresco in the Graz Cathedral by Thomas von Villach
counts them among the seven menaces. [The Previous Picture: was of

Hatschi Bratschi's hot air balloon, just as politically incorrect

as this one.]

The Christian relief force

In early September 1683, the armies mediated by Pope Innocent XI. into the Holy League gathered for the attack on the Turkish siege forces under the Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa in front of Vienna.

The French King Louis XIV., was committed to neutrality by Pope Innocent XI., was previously connected to the Sultan. France tried in vain to hold the Polish king from a merger with the army of Emperor Leopold I..

The formal leadership of the relief army, the Emperor Leopold I left to Poland's King Jan III. Sobieski. The individual parts of the army, however, remained under the suzerainty of the respective commanders.

Duke Charles of Lorraine led the imperial troops (among them, the troops provided by the Pope), supported by the Bavarians and Franks under Max Emanuel and the Saxons under Elector Johann Georg III.

The financing of the relief force was paid for to a substantial degree by the Holy Church under Pope Innocent XI., who fell back again on the income and wealth of ecclesiastical rule, the abbeys and monasteries.

The soldiers in the city were paid from ecclesiastical property, especially from the depot of the Primate of Hungary, Bishop Kollonitsch, experienced in fighting the Turk, who cambe back into the besieged city.

12th September 1683

The city of Vienna was under the command of Ernst Rüdiger Graf Starhemberg just was barely holding backthe attacks of the Ottomans, who had besieged the city with around 100,000 men.

These build trenches around the city ditches and dug underground blasting chambers which were set off undermine the walls defending the city. In addition, the city was under constant artillery fire.

The armies of the Holy Alliance took advantage of the Kara Mustafa poorly defended positions in Vienna Woods to the west of the city, as a staging area.

According to estimates by the troops under the leadership of Lorraine, they comprised about 40,000 men, with 20,000 additional soldiers by Jan Sobieski.

The attack took place from the Kahler and Leopold mountain and by midday the Alliance troops established a front from Heilgenstadt to Grinzing and Sievering.

"The Giauren [unbelievers = Christians] appeared with their detachments on the slopes on like storm clouds, gathering around the Erz Mountains. The other wing was opposed on the banks of the Danube composed of Walachians and Moldovans and over-reaching with the other wing to the extreme divisions of the Tartars, covered the mountains and fields while formed up in crescent order of battle. They were like a flood of wallowing black pitch pouring downhill, everything that opposed them was crushed, and burned," is how Mehmet, the Ottoman chronicler, describes the relieving army.

General Attack

The general attack on the main line of defense of the Ottomans took place at three twenty pm, the attack apparently exerted overwhelming pressure, so that even Kara Mustafa's camp had to be evacuated in great haste.

Just as Kara Mustafa was surprised by the strength of the defenders of Vienna, it also apparently the strength of the Christian troops.

At five thirty in just over two hours, the battle was over.

Cowardice of the Turks

An Irish officer who witnessed the combat action, "If the victory was not as extensive as we had set out to do, this is only due to the cowardice of the enemies whom we have driven before us from morning to night, who had not the courage to look us in the face as we displaced them from position to position, and pursued to narrow passes, which we never would have succeeded had they have had even a trace of courage. The battle lasted with the troops of the King of Poland for the longest time, but that only increased his fame, because the losses of the enemy's soldiers and cannons were greatest there, the enemy had left us practically his whole camp, with tents, bags and luggage."


Pursuit

With the relief of Vienna, the dislodging of the Ottomans from Eastern Europe was launched. Among the officers of the Imperial Army then, was the young Prince Eugene, as a lieutenant-colonel.

According to estimates, the death toll of the areas in which the Turks had ravaged, murdered and enslaved, were twice as high as in the Second World War.

Book Recommendation via Kreuznet: 

Siege of Vienna by John Stoye

 Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com AMGD

The Human Kindness of Bishop Kollonitsch

[Kreuz.net] Bishop Leopold Karl Kollinitsch traveled to besieged Vienna in 1683 and helped organize the defense. After the victory over the Turks he worried about hundreds of orphans.

Bishop Kollonitsch, who drove to strengthen the defense of morality on the approach of the Turkish hordes to Vienna, gathers his "war booty" from the Turkish camp: 500 orphans, whom he at his own expense a new home and comfort are [Photo: cross-net.info]Battle Hardened Knight of Malta

The son of Count Ernst von Kollonitsch, who was the commander of the fortress Kormorn - in contrast to most of today's bishops - was a man of courageous deeds.

As a member of the Order of Malta, he was tested by the turks: He fought in 1651 in Candia (Crete), and four years later at the Dardanelles against Turkish invaders.

Since 1670 the Bishop of Wiener Neustadt, previously Prior of the Order of the branch Commende Mailberg and subsequently of Eger.

Defensive struggle in Vienna

When the Turks besieged Vienna in 1683, he traveled to the city, while others fled from her.

He organized jointly with Starhemberg the defense of the city, provided for the pay of soldiers and set up medical care.In addition, he was responsible for the spiritual care of the besieged.

When Kara Mustafa Pasha, the besieger of Vienna, who learned of his presence in the city, he announced that the courageous bishop's head would be led through the city on a pole after the hoped for taking of the city.

It was not to be: Kara Mustafa's skull was found after the conquest of Belgrade, on the road to Vienna.

In 1685 Count Kollonitsch became Bishop of Raab in Hungary, Archbishop of Esztergom, Primate of Hungary.

His work was honored by the Church with the appointment of a cardinal.

After the victory over the Turks in Vienna, he collected several hundred orphans from the suburbs and provided for their advancement and education. The following is recounted in history and poetry.

Rescue of orphans after the liberation of Vienna

"While the whole army was "grabbing loot in the camp, the worthy Bishop Kollonitsch seeked out those helpless children whose-parents had fallen, were among the unfortunate prisoners as the victim of hostile rage, to find them foster parents and to represent them.

"He found about 500 abandoned orphans. They were in indescribable misery in some which he met.

Some were near the bodies of their murdered mothers, and suckling, near death from hunger, blood instead of milk from her breasts.

"Others were rooting around in the soil, and could scarcely breathe more from hunger and exhaustion.

The worthy priest clasped them in his arms, paid people so that they were carried in the city, provided with costs for board and lodging, and afterwards he also educated many of them to become useful citizens of the state.

Emperor Leopold was touched by the philanthropic self-sacrifice of this bishop so that he procured him the Cardinal's dignity as a reward from the pope."

Thus, were the descriptions of the actions of Bishop Kollonitsch in the "Patriotic Conversations" by Leopold Chimani, Vienna, 1815, He was also praised in the figure below poem by Johann N. Vogl [Another stab at translating poetry by the editor from the German]

"None Wanted From My Spoils of War ..."

It sits in Vienna in the Imperial Hall The princes and heroes richer withal You have horrified the town anxious Lusted after by the Turks.

.And now to the end of the hearty repast and happily emptied of victories, one Speaks: "Enough now with song and sound! Now tell who won the best booty abound?"

"Have I got myself Sultan's God, out of his tent," said the Pole bold.Then a Lorrainer: "I took his proud banner with my my bloody sword."

A Viennese then: " A rich robe I wrung
with this hand from one retreating". Another shouted: "Weapon helm, spear won I and more such gear"

A fifth: "I ran with all with art
Arab horses then for my part. "
All knew of his kind what to say,
what for him was his prey.

Only one victor sat silent in reverie
all else forgot his story
"How silent but the bishop. Confess your deeds! Methinks thou hast most poor!"

Herr Kollonitsch, who also bishop, replied with smile: "One thing certain: gained you whatever by the Turks flight, none
has looked after my loot.

"And yet it is the more dear in fact, than any has taken from the battlefield. "

He waved his servants, to unlatch door whence came a throng, an army of children poor.

From boy and maid so tender and hold,
Her cheeks like Rose, the curls as gold.

They fell on their knees before man
of God, and clung weeping to him
"This is my prize!" the bishop says,
"Not one of you sought such as these.

I found them left in harm and dread,
their mothers strangled their fathers dead.

I led them all to storied Vienna's gables.
And I will be a father to the fatherless!"

And as he told them these words, the others were to shamed
 to silence, for what they all brought home, for none compared.

Link to kreuz.net...

330th Anniversary of the Battle of Vienna

Jan Sobieski III

Edit: there may be a lot of Turks in Vienna today, but at least there aren’t any crescents on top of the Stepensdom as there might have been had the Turks been victorious.

An allied army of Germans and Poles had saved Europe from the Mohammedans  on the back of a Protestant Revolt in Hungary.

Many concerned officials these days want to remove references to this glorious defeat of the Turk from history books in the city where these events occurred, and the battle continues.  It’s the other 9/11.