Vienna 1683: a forgotten siege Quiz

Answer: 1684

The map of Europe was very different in those years. In 1664, the Austrians had defeated the Ottomans at Saint Gotthard (Szentgotthard in today's Hungary). The Austrian ruler Leopold I Habsburg was also the elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, an entity that covered most of the then-fragmented German lands of Europe.

After the Battle of St. Gotthard (1664), Leopold agreed to peace terms that did not reflect the fact that the Austrians were the winners and the Turks were the losers. This infuriated particularly some of the Hungarian nobles, who were hoping to see their lands liberated from the Ottoman Turkish occupation.

But Leopold wanted to appease the Ottoman Turks because he feared French pressure in the West. Indeed, King Louis XIV of France (the Sun King) wanted to push the French border to the Rhine! In the years that followed 1664, the Hungarian Protestants in the part of Hungary under Habsburg rule were subjected to appalling persecution by the Catholic authorities.

The Hungarian Protestants were so desperate that they asked the Ottoman Turks to come to their help and invade Austria! The Turks hesitated for a while.

The Sultan's mother was against it and so were the members of the Ulema (the assembly of the Muslim scholars). They thought it was dishonorable to break the peace but eventually Sultan Mehmed IV and the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa convinced everybody that Turkey should go to war before the peace expired. Vani Mehmed Effendi, a charismatic holy man who was the preacher of the Turkish Army and a confidant of the Sultan and the Grand Vizier, sincerely believed that Allah punished the Arabs for ceasing to wage war against the Christians and that is why the Ottoman Turks conquered all the Arab lands, except Morocco. Vani also sincerely believed that if the Turks did not continue the Jihad against the Christians, Allah was going to punish them too! Very likely, the Sultan and the Grand Vizier shared Vani's views. Vani was completely wrong! Pursuing the Jihad, as recommended by him, the Turks were defeated at Vienna in 1683 and that defeat was the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire. Vani got fired after the defeat near Vienna. The Grand Vizier was executed on orders from Mehmed IV on Christmas Day the same year in Belgrade, then still part of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed IV himself was deposed only four years later, after more defeats. So much for the guidance given by holy men.

Answer: The economy of the Crimean Tatars was based mainly on slave trade.

The Crimean Tatars, nowadays the subjects of much sympathy because of their fate under Russian and Soviet rule, did not always deserve this kind of pity. The last major Tatar slave raid took place in 1769, that is only 250 years ago, during the Russo-Turkish war.

The Tatars enslaved 20,000 people at that time. The annexation of Tatar Crimea by the Russian Empire in 1783 put an end to these slave raids.

Answer: Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg

Count von Starhemberg was a very competent, tenacious and courageous artillery general born in Graz, Austria. Eugen of Savoy was only at the beginning of his stellar career under the Habsburgs. He was with the Imperial Austrian army and not in Vienna. Also, he was not a prince yet. Duke Charles of Lorraine did not remain in Vienna during the siege.

The units of the Imperial Army commanded by him retreated to the northern shore of Danube. General Jacob Leslie, a Scot in the service of the Habsburgs, was not in Vienna either during the siege.

Answer: He chose not to reply and continued the preparations for the siege.

The letter of formal notice, written in Ottoman Turkish, listed Sultan Mehmed IV's many titles, including 'Emperor of Rome'. The Ottoman Turkish Sultans used that title after they conquered Constantinople, the city founded by Emperor Constantine the Great.

The letter promised the people inside the fortress that if they converted to Islam, they were not going to be harmed. It promised them that they were not going to be harmed even if they did not convert to Islam but surrender peacefully, and the like.

But it threatened them with death, confiscation of possessions and enslavement if they did not surrender.

Answer: The zone between the Löwel Bastion and the Burg Bastion.

The Ottomans believed that a western section of the wall including the Löwel and the Burg Bastions was more vulnerable, so that is where they began digging their trenches. Today you will be in that area if you walk on the famous Vienna Ring between Burgtheater and Burggarten, not far from the Kunsthistorische Museum.

There is also a street called Löwelstrasse, close to where the Löwel Bastion was. This bastion, badly damaged towards the end of the siege, saw furious attacks by the Janissaries and heroic resistance of the defenders.

The Viennese defenders, about 11,000 at the beginning of the siege, faced an army of circa 150,000 soldiers. The Viennese defenders killed 47,000 Ottomans before the relief Christian army crushed the besiegers on September 12, 1683.

Answer: They sent couriers who crossed the enemy lines.

Franz Kolschitzky with his servant Stephan Seradly, as well as Georg Thomas Michaelowitz are the names that come to mind when thinking about couriers who crossed the enemy lines with messages for and from the Duke of Lorraine. Kolschitzky is the best known one.

He only crossed once but received a reward of 200 ducats. The legend says that he started the first coffee house in Vienna with the coffee beans that the fleeing Turks left behind on September 12, 1683. Others believe that somebody else was the owner of the first coffee house in Vienna. Michaelowitz did not get paid for his spying activity, although he crossed the enemy lines more than once!

Answer: A barrier made of chains.

The Turks needed more than three weeks to get past the humble wooden palisade-the farthest out barrier set up by the defenders. Yet the Turks already reached it only two days after the beginning of the siege on July 14! The Christian soldiers defended it stubbornly. Only after passing the palisade were the Turks able to approach with their advancing trenches the moat, the ravelins and finally the main curtain wall.

The defenders set up chains only behind the curtain wall when they thought the storming of the city through a breach in the curtain wall was becoming possible.

Answer: The red flux.

The red flux was a form of severe dysentery that could be lethal in many cases. The victims were sent to Passauerhof, which was located somewhere in the area of the Maria am Gestade church. Can you imagine the stench caused by the hundreds of patients?

Answer: Starhemberg replied he had no dead to bury but only healthy soldiers ready to fight to the last drop of blood.

It is hard to imagine that such scenes took place in the area of today's Vienna Ring between the Burgtheater and Burggarten. After the victory of September 12, 1683, Christian Wilhelm Kuhn, a German lawyer from Breslau (today's Wroclaw in Poland) who fought as a volunteer during the battle, went on horseback to explore the Turkish camp.

He rode over dead and rotting corpses. Soon he had to turn back 'because such a horrific amount of flies and vermin ascended , that the air was darkened'.

Answer: France

King Louis XIV of France promised the Turks he was not going to help Leopold if they would attack Austria. He actually forbade all French men capable of bearing arms to travel to Austria. The French king wanted to do everything possible to weaken Leopold's armies in the West, so consumed was he by the dream of pushing the border of France to the Rhine. About 700 French volunteers joined the Christian army that fought the Turks near Vienna, but they were not regular army units sent by the French king. To this day, the French historians are defensive about the role of France in the Austro-Turkish war of 1683.