THE TURKS' CELLAR.
You enter the old town of Vienna from Leopoldstadt by the Ferdinand
Bridge; and, walking for a few minutes parallel with the river, come into
a hollow called the Tiefer Grund; passing next under a broad arch which
itself supports a street spanning the gulley, you find on the left hand a
rising ground which must be climbed in order to reach a certain open
space of a triangular form, walled in by lofty houses, called "Die
Freiung,"--the Deliverance. In it there is an old wine-house, the Turks'
Cellar, and there belongs to this spot one of the legends of Vienna.
In the autumn of the year sixteen hundred and twenty-seven, when the city
was so closely invested by the Turks, that the people were half famished,
there stood in the place now called "Freiung," or thereabouts, the
military bakery for that portion of the garrison which had its quarters
in the neighbourhood. The bakery had to supply not only the soldiers,
but bread was made in it to be doled out to destitute civilians by the
municipal authorities; and, as the number of the destitute was great, the
bakers there employed had little rest. Once in the dead of the night,
while some of the apprentices were getting their dough ready for the
early morning batch, they were alarmed by a hollow ghostly sound as of
spirits knocking in the earth. The blows were regular and quite
distinct, and without cessation until cockcrow. The next night these
awful sounds were again heard, and seemed to become louder and more
urgent as the day drew near; but, with the first scent of morning air,
they suddenly ceased. The apprentices gave information to the town
authorities; a military watch was set, and the cause of the strange
noises in the earth was very soon discovered. The enemy was under
ground; the Turks, from their camp on the Leopoldiberg, were carrying a
mine under the city; and, not knowing the levels, had approached so
nearly to the surface that there was but a mere crust between them and
the bakehouse floor.
What was to be done? The danger was imminent--the remedy must be prompt
and decisive. A narrow arm of the Danube ran within a hundred yards of
the place: pick and spade were vigorously plied, and in a short time a
canal was cut between the river and the bakery. Little knew the Turks of
the cold water that could then at any time be thrown upon their
undertaking. All was still. The Viennese say that the hostile troops
already filled the mine, armed to the teeth, and awaiting only a
concerted signal to tell them that a proposed midnight attack on the
walls had diverted the attention of the citizens. Then they were to rush
up out of the earth and surprise the town. But the besieged, forewarned
and forearmed, suddenly threw the flood-gates open and broke a way for
the water through the new canal under the bakehouse floor; down it went
bubbling, hissing, and gurgling into the dark cavern, where it swept the
Mussulmans before it, and destroyed them to a man.
This was the origin of the Turks' Cellar; and although the title is
perhaps unjustly appropriated by the winehouse I have mentioned, yet
there is no doubt that the tale is true, and that the house at any rate
is near the spot from which its name is taken. Grave citizens even
believe that the underground passage still exists, walled and roofed over
with stone, and that it leads directly to the Turks' camp, at the foot of
the Leopoldiberg. They even know the size of it, namely, that it is of
such dimensions as to admit the marching through it of six men abreast.
Of this I know nothing; but I know from the testimony of a venerable old
lady--who is not the oldest in Vienna--that the bakers' apprentices were
formerly allowed special privileges in consideration of the service once
rendered by some of their body to the state. Indeed, the procession of
the bakers, on every returning anniversary of the swamp-in of the Turks,
when they marched horse and foot from the Freiung, with banners, emblems,
and music, through the heart of the city to the grass-grown camp outside
the city walls, was one of the spectacles that made the deepest
impression on this chatty old lady in her childhood.
The Turks' Cellar is still famous. It is noted now, not for its bread or
its canal-water, but for its white wine, its baked veal, and its savoury
chickens. Descend into its depths (for it is truly a cellar and nothing
else) late in the evening, when citizens have time and money at their
disposal, and you find it full of jolly company. As well as the
tobacco-smoke will permit you to see what the place resembles, you would
say that it is like nothing so much as the after cabin of a Gravesend
steamer on a summer Sunday afternoon. There is just such a row of tables
on each side; just such a low roof; just such a thick palpable air,
uncertain light, and noisy steamy crowd of occupants. The place is
intolerable in itself, but fall-to upon the steaming block of baked veal
which is set before you; clear your throat of the tobacco-smoke by mighty
draughts of the pale yellow wine which is its proper accompaniment;
finally, fill a deep-bowled meerschaum with Three Kings tobacco, creating
for yourself your own private and exclusive atmosphere, and you begin to
feel the situation. The temperature of mine host's cellar aids
imagination greatly in recalling the idea of the old bakehouse, and there
comes over you, after a while, a sense of stifling that mixes with the
nightmare, usually constituting in this place an after-supper nap. In
the waking lethargy that succeeds, you feel as if jostled in dark vaults
by a mob of frantic Turks, labouring heavily to get breath, and sucking
in foul water for air.
Possibly when fully awakened you begin to consider that the Turks' Cellar
is not the most healthful place of recreation to be in; and, cleaving the
dense smoke, you ascend into sunlight. Perhaps you stroll to some place
where the air is better, but which may still have a story quite as
exciting as the catastrophe of the imperial bakehouse: perhaps to
Bertholdsdorf; a pretty little market-town with a tall-steepled church,
and a half ruined battlement, situated on the hill slope about six miles
to the south of Vienna. It forms a pretty summer day's ramble. Its
chronicler is the worthy Markt-richter, or Town-justice, Jacob
Trinksgeld; and his unvarnished story, freely translated, runs thus:--
"When the Turkish army, two hundred thousand strong without their allies,
raised the siege of Raab, the retreating host of rebels and Tartars were
sent to overrun the whole of Austria below the Enns on this side of the
Danube, and to waste it with fire and sword. This was done. On the
ninth of July, detached troops of Spahis and Tartars appeared before the
walls of Bertholdsdorf, but were beaten back by our armed citizens.
Those attacks were repeated on the tenth and twelfth, and also repulsed;
but as at this time the enemy met with a determined resistance from the
city of Vienna, which they had invested, they gathered in increased force
about our devoted town, and on the fifteenth of July attacked us with
such fury on every side that, seeing it was no longer possible to hold
out against them, partly from their great numbers, and partly from our
failing of powder; and, moreover, seeing that they had already set fire
to the town in several places, we were compelled to seek shelter with our
goods and chattels in the church and fortress, neither of which were as
yet touched by the flames.
"On the sixteenth, the town itself being then in ashes, there came a
soldier dressed in the Turkish costume, save that he wore the leather
jerkin of a German horseman, into the high street, and waving a white
cloth, he called out in the Hungarian language, to those of us who were
in the fortress, that if we would ask for grace, both we and ours should
be protected, and a safe conduct (salva quartier) given to us, that
should be our future defence. Thereupon we held honest counsel together,
citizens and neighbours then present, and in the meantime gave reply,
translated also into Hungarian, that if we should agree thereto, we would
set up a white flag upon the tower as a sign of our submission. Early on
the morning of the nineteenth of July there came a Pasha from the camp at
Vienna, at the head of a great army, and with him the same Turk who had
on the previous day made the proposal to us. And the Pasha sat himself
down upon a red carpet spread on the bare ground, close by the house of
Herr Streninger, till we should agree to his terms. It was five o'clock
in the morning before we could make up our minds.
"Then, when we were all willing to surrender, our enemies demanded, in
the first place, that two of our men should march out of the fortress as
hostages, and that two Turks should take their places with us; and that a
maiden, with loose streaming hair, and a wreath upon her forehead, should
bring forth the key of the town, seeing that this place had never till
then been taken by an enemy. Further, they demanded six thousand florins
ransom from us, which, however, we abated to four thousand, handing to
them two thousand florins at once, upon three dishes, with the request
that the remainder should be allowed to stand over till the forthcoming
day of John the Baptist. As soon as this money had been paid over to
them, the Pasha called such of our faithful garrison as were in the
church to come out and arrange themselves in the square, that he might
see how many safe-conducts were required; but, as each armed man came to
the door, his musket was torn out of his hand, and such as resisted were
dragged by the hair of the head into the square by the Turks, and told
that they would need no weapons, seeing that to those who sought for
mercy, the passes would be sufficient protection. And thus were our arms
carried away from us.
"As soon as the whole garrison, thus utterly defenceless, were collected
in the public square, there sprang fifty Turks from their horses, and
with great rudeness began searching every one of them for money or other
valuables; and the citizens began already to see that they were betrayed
into a surrender, and some of them tried to make their escape--among
others, Herr Streninger, the town-justice; but he was struck down
immediately, and he was the first man murdered. Upon this, the Pasha
stood up, and began to call out with a loud, clear voice to his troops,
and as they heard his words, they fell upon the unarmed men in the
market-place, and hewed them down with their scimitars without pity or
remorse--sparing none in their eagerness for the butchery, and which, in
spite of their haste, was not ended till between one and two o'clock in
the afternoon. Of all our citizens, only two escaped the slaughter, and
they contrived to hide themselves in the tower; but those who fled out of
the town were captured by the Tartars, and instantly dispatched. Then,
having committed this cruel barbarism, they seized the women and children
who had been left for safety in the church, and carried them away into
slavery, taking care to burn and utterly destroy the fortress ere they
departed. And when Vienna was relieved, and the good people there came
among the ruins of Bertholdsdorf, they gathered together the headless and
mangled remains of our murdered citizens to the number of three thousand
five hundred, and buried them all in one grave."
In "eternal remembrance" of this catastrophe, the worthy town-justice,
Trinksgeld, in seventeen hundred ordered a painting to be executed,
representing the fearful scene described. It occupies the whole of one
side of the Town-hall, and in its quaint minuteness of detail, and
defiance of perspective--depicting, not merely the slaughter of the
betrayed Bertholdsdorfers, but the concealment of the two who were
fortunate enough to escape, and who are helplessly apparent behind some
loose timber--would be ludicrous, were it not for the sacred gravity of
the subject.
As it is, we quit the romantic little town with a sigh, and turning our
faces towards Vienna, wonder what the young Turks of eighteen hundred and
fifty-four may possibly think of the Old Turks of one hundred and thirty
years ago.