From June 30 to July 13, 1683.
The Vizier during the above transactions had led the main army by way
of Belgrade as far as Essek, where, as before related, his meeting
with Tekeli took place. In the discussions of a council of war held at
this place, several Pachas and Tekeli himself declared their opinions
strongly against undertaking a siege of Vienna, at least in the current
year. They recommended, not without substantial military grounds, the
previous reduction of the strong places in Hungary still held by the
Imperialists, and the establishment of a base for further operations in
the complete subjugation of that kingdom. The Vizier, obstinate in his
own view, and irritated by the strength of the opposition, concealed
his determination, and, appearing to acquiesce in the advice of Tekeli,
gave orders for an advance upon Raab, which was invested and summoned
on the 30th of June. The Governor returned a reply to the summons by
which, whether by collusion or accident, he played into the hands of
the Vizier. It stated the impossibility of a present surrender: the
Vizier would do well to pursue his march on Vienna: after the fall of
that city Raab should be surrendered without resistance. In a council
of war the aged Ibrahim Pacha, Governor of Pesth, strongly advocated
the reduction of Raab and the other fortresses of Hungary. A king, he
said, once placed a heap of gold on the middle of a carpet, and offered
it to any one who could take it up without treading on the carpet.
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 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 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. Its advanced guard was, on the 7th of July, surprised near
Petronel by an attack of 15,000 Tartars, and the whole body was thrown
into a confusion which, but for the presence and exertions of its
commander, might have been fatal. He was ably seconded by the Margrave
Louis of Baden, the Duke of Sachsen Lauenberg, and others, and, order
once restored, the enemy was repulsed without difficulty. 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 Vizier, on the day after receiving them, crossed the
Raab. He took care to disseminate through his ranks exaggerated reports
of the discomfiture and confusion of the Imperialists, and of the
unprovided condition of Vienna; and while he stimulated the Janissaries
by the prospect of an easy triumph and boundless plunder, he silenced
the opposition of the timid and the wise by the promulgation of the
Sultan’s Hatti Scheriff, which invested him with sole and unlimited
power of command. Some time, however, had been lost in deliberation,
and in going through the formality of the investment of Raab, and these
moments were precious to the defenders of Vienna. The usual tendency to
exaggerate evil tidings had strongly displayed itself in that city.
The skirmish of Petronel had been magnified into the total defeat and
hasty flight of the Imperial army. Those who had been the first to
leave the field, and therefore knew least of the actual result, were
the authors of this intelligence; and it derived dismal probability
from the flames which reddened the nightly horizon in many directions
and at no great distance. The villages, for instance, of Schwechat and
Fischamend gave this evidence of the presence of the Turkish horse.
The Emperor Leopold was not one of those rare instances of military
talent on the throne which appear once perhaps in a century in the
shape of Gustavus Adolphus, John Sobieski, or Charles XII. Such men by
their presence would have made a capital impregnable. Leopold would
have been but an incumbrance during a siege; and he adopted the wiser
course of removing himself and his court to a sufficient distance from
the scene of danger. Before, however, he had decided on this step,
events had left him little time to lose; and it had become matter of
serious deliberation which road he should take to avoid the risk of
falling into the hands of the Tartar cavalry. The direct road to Lintz
was adjudged by his council no longer free from this danger, and it
was determined that he should make his way thither by the left bank
of the Danube. On the evening of the 7th, therefore, the long file of
the Imperial carriages issuing from the Rothenthurm gate crossed the
Leopoldstadt island and the Tabor bridge, and reached that evening the
village of Chor Neuburg, some fifteen miles from Vienna, which had been
previously occupied by a small detachment of musketeers under an Irish
officer, whose name, probably O’Haggerty, has been Germanized into Von
Haffti. Thence he pursued his journey to Lintz, but not without serious
risk. It is said that but for the prompt and able interference of the
French envoy, the Marquis de Sepville, who caused a part of the bridge
at Crems to be removed, the Emperor and his entire suite would have
fallen into the hands of the Tartars. It would be a curious matter of
inquiry how far this important service was approved of at Versailles.
It is evident that the first route proposed would have consigned the
head of the empire, his consort, far advanced in pregnancy, and the
Empress mother, to the hands of the Tartars. Even Lintz was considered
insecure; and the Royal party continued its discreditable flight
till it found refuge beyond the frontier of its own dominion in
the Bavarian fortress of Passau. From nine in the evening till two
of the following morning the carriages of the wealthier fugitives,
who followed the example of the court, filed over the Tabor bridge,
lighted on their route by the flames of the Carmelite convent on the
Kahlenberg. They left the city in a state of well-grounded alarm and
discontent bordering upon revolt. The public feeling was strongly
evinced against the Jesuits, who were not unjustly accused of having
instigated the naturally mild disposition of the Emperor to courses
which had alienated the affections of the Protestants, and driven them
into the arms of an infidel enemy. The city also, thus left to itself,
was at this moment nearly without a garrison. Besides the usual burgher
guard, a mere police force, the regiment of Kaiserstein, about 1000
strong, were the only troops within the walls. The palisades were not
fixed, the bastions were unprovided with artillery or gabions. The
number of those who left the city on the 6th and 7th of July amounted
to 60,000, of whom a large proportion, whose means of conveyance failed
them on the way, and all those who took the road of Styria, fell into
the hands of the enemy. The Turks are said to have used bloodhounds to
hunt down those who fled to the woods. So large an emigration reduced
to a fearful extent the number of citizens capable of bearing arms.
The courage, however, of this remnant was somewhat restored on the
8th by the appearance of the cavalry, who filed through the city with
much military clangour and display, and encamped in the meadows near
the Tabor. This substantial contradiction of the rumour previously
circulated of the total destruction of the imperial army was well
calculated to produce a reaction on the public mind; but a still
happier impression was made by the arrival on the same day of Ernest
Rudiger, Count Stahremberg, another pupil of the Montecuculi school,
to whom, on the score of his successful defence of Moravia against the
incursions of Tekeli in 1681, the Emperor now confided the command
and defence of the city. He lost no time in setting all hands to work
on the fortifications; but at first little more could be done than to
complete the fixing of the palisades, for the scarcely credible fact
is on record that the necessary works for the main defence of the city
could not be prosecuted for want of the common and essential tools.
The annals of the city are silent as to the parties responsible for
this monstrous neglect; but it is certain that if the Turks had not
lingered before Raab, or if by greater expedition on the march they had
arrived before Vienna a few hours sooner than they did, that city must
have fallen without a blow, and with all its treasures, into the hands
of the destroyer. It was not till the following day after Stahremberg’s
arrival that, by the unwearied exertions of the Imperial Chancellor
Benedict Geizer, the contents of the secret archives and the treasury
were conveyed away by the Danube under circumstances of imminent peril.
The population of all classes, the richest citizens, and even women
and ecclesiastics, now laboured unremittingly at the fortifications.
The burgomaster, Von Liebenberg, set the example, doing active service
with a wheelbarrow. The wood stored for building or fuel without the
walls was conveyed into the town; every householder was enjoined to
have water ready on his roof, and all persons whose usual employment
would be in abeyance during the siege were armed and taken into the
regular service of the state. They formed a body of 1200. The most
important works were conducted between the 7th and the 12th July, and
towards the end of that period almost under the eye of the enemy, who
on the 10th had crossed the Austrian frontier at Hungarian Altenburg,
destroying everything as he advanced. At Klosterneuburg a number of
boats were collected for the construction of a floating bridge there in
case of necessity, and the arsenals were well stored with ammunition
brought by water from Crems. On the 12th the nearer vicinity of the
enemy was evinced by the contracting circle of blazing villages.
From the Hungarian frontier to the neighbourhood of the Kahlenberg
every unfortified place bore lurid token of Turkish occupation—Baden,
Mödling, Ebenfurt, Inzersdorf, Pellendorf, Laxenburg, Laa. Neustadt
alone held out by the strength of its walls and the gallantry of its
inmates. Perchtolsdorf emulated this example in the first instance, but
its ulterior fate demands separate and particular narration.
The Tartar bands in the course of this day ventured as far as St.
Marks, and to the present Theresianum. All that man can do to blast the
results of human labour and defeat the powers of production inherent
in a fruitful soil was performed by this tribe of human locusts. One
spot alone was held sacred by them: this was the imperial villa at
Sommering, occupying and nearly co-extensive with the site of Soliman’s
tent at the former siege. From respect to his memory this building was
spared and converted into a magazine. These scenes of desolation were
not confined to Lower Austria. The marauders followed the course of
the Danube into the Upper Province, and even in Bavaria and Suabia the
terror of their rumoured approach was such that many of the inhabitants
fled with their moveable effects to Switzerland and over the Rhine. On
the 13th July, towards 8 A. M., several bodies of Turkish horse showed
themselves on the Wienerberg, whence they spread themselves towards
Schönbrunn, Hietzing, Ottakrin, Hernals, and Währing as far as Döbling
and Nussdorf. Towards 2 P. M. another numerous body showed itself from
St. Marks, which took possession of the whole ground from the so-called
Gatterholzel to the Hundsthurm. The first fire from the city was opened
on these troops, which caused them to retire behind the enclosures
of the numerous vineyards of this neighbourhood. At this, the last
available moment, the commandant gave the order, which an hour’s delay
would have made impossible of execution, to set fire to the suburbs,
the inhabitants of which had on the previous day removed their property
into the city. The conflagration was general and effective for its
purpose: many costly buildings, public as well as private, were its
victims, and many valuable contents still remaining in them shared
their fate. A high wind sprung up at the same time, and as much timber
was still accumulated near the palisades and up to the walls of the
city, it required all the exertions of the commandant and the city
authorities to prevent the city itself from sharing the disaster which
was intended for its preservation.
Stahremberg has been by some blamed for postponing so long the
destruction of the suburbs. Others would have been found to blame him
if, while a hope or a possibility remained of an abandonment of their
undertaking by the Turks, he had given so many costly public edifices,
so many abodes of luxury and comfort, so much wealth, to the flames.
To the last moment that hope was probably entertained—that possibility
might reasonably be held to exist. The disputes in the Turkish council
were no secret, and perhaps were exaggerated in the imperfect reports
which reached Vienna. The movement on Vienna might be an empty menace;
even if serious, it might be frustrated by a counter-advance of the
forces of the Empire. If these or other possible contingencies had
occurred, what complaints of ruined proprietors would have assailed
him—what a stigma of useless barbarity would chroniclers have attached
to the name since become so famous! The circumstances were very
different in 1529. The suburban buildings of that day were of far less
extent and value, but approached much nearer to the city; and the
necessity of their demolition was much more palpable, inasmuch as after
the fall of Pesth the advance of such a leader as Soliman was a matter
of far greater certainty than that of the Vizier in this instance; the
more so because in the former case there was no regular force whatever
to oppose the invasion—in the present, an army of some strength, well
disciplined, and ably commanded, was in the path of the invader. The
ultimate event certainly justified the wary advice of the old Pacha
of Pesth, but it was rather in the execution of his plan than in its
conception that the Vizier can now be held to have failed. If Vienna
had fallen, we should have heard little of the rashness of the rapid
and daring march by which so great a blow had been struck, and the
operation would have been possibly considered as an anticipation of
the system of Napoleon by a semi-barbarian but kindred genius. As such
indeed it is now considered by some military critics.