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Turning the Ottoman Tide – John III Sobieski at Vienna 1683By Anthony Pagden | MHQ | 10 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post  Muslims battle Christians outside Vienna. The Art Archive/Museum der Stadt Wien/Dagli Orti. By the end of the fourteenth century, Byzantium lacked any strategic importance and certainly represented no threat to the ambitions of the resurgent Ottoman Empire. Constantine’s great city, and what little remained of the crumbling Byzantine Empire, had never fully recovered from the Latin occupation from 1204 to 1261. Despite its dilapidated condition, Constantinople was still the “Golden Apple,” the capital of the ancient Roman Empire. Muslims and Christians alike reckoned it to be the greatest power the world had ever known. For the Ottoman ruler Mehmed II, it was the most treasured prize of all, whose possession would make him master of the world. Constantinople was the capital of the oikoumene, the “inhabited world,” over which Mehmed, the Amir al-Mu’minin, “Commander of the Faithful,” and his descendents would soon rule until the end of creation. On April 5, 1453, Mehmed’s army reached the outer walls of the city. His forces, according to the Venetian merchant Nicolò Barbaro, who saw them arrive, numbered some one hundred sixty thousand. Other accounts, all of them Christian, put the figure anywhere between two and four hundred thousand. Most were Muslims, marshaled from all over the empire, but their ranks were swollen by others in the expectation of rich pickings: Latins, a large contingent of Serbs, even some Greeks. Inside Constantinople a state of terror now reigned. The able-bodied male population of the city numbered some thirty thousand, but the Byzantine statesman George Sphrantes estimated that fewer than five thousand of these were able and willing to fight. Mehmed moved no fewer than fourteen batteries of artillery into place along the entire length of the outer line of walls, known as the Wall of Theodosius. Day after day, the Ottoman guns fired massive stone balls that carried away great chunks of masonry, sometimes entire towers. Although the entire population turned out each night to rebuild what they could, hour by hour the city’s defenses steadily crumbled. About three hours before dawn on May 29, Mehmed gave the order for a final assault. The Greeks managed to drive back the first two waves of attackers. But the outer walls of the city were now virtually in ruins. The Janissaries, the sultan’s crack troops, broke through the Kerkoporta, or “Gate of the Circus,” and poured into the city. The fighting was fierce, but Ottoman victory was certain. For three days, Mehmed’s victorious army was allowed to pillage the city. The Greek chronicler Kristovoulos lamented that the Turks fell upon the defenseless population, “stealing, robbing, plundering, killing, insulting, taking and enslaving men, women, and children, old and young, priests and monks—in short, every age and class.” The blood ran in the streets “as if it had been raining,” wrote the merchant Barbaro, and “bodies were tossed into the sea like melons into the canals of Venice.” Ever since the armies of the caliph Umar II had been forced to abandon the first sustained siege of Constantinople in 718, prophecies had spread throughout the Muslim world of the inevitable day when the great city, the last bastion of the ancient enemy, would pass into the dar al-Islam. Now, under a sultan who bore the name of the prophet himself, these predictions had finally come to pass. Thereafter both Muslims and Christians alike referred to Mehmed II as “the Conqueror.” For the West, the fall of Constantinople was a calamity. It was not only a great Christian city, the last bastion of Constantine’s empire in the East, that had fallen. Gone too was the last living link with the ancient Greek world. And all this glittering past had been snuffed out by a horde of Muslim barbarians from the depths of Asia. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: 17th - 18th Century, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures
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10 Comments to “Turning the Ottoman Tide – John III Sobieski at Vienna 1683”
I think this article is not that objective. It has gone too far about looting and calling muslims as barbarians.
By Mete Han on Aug 11, 2008 at 6:11 am
Great article, very informative. Gives a great overview of a serious subject that resonates today in America’s so called “War on Terror”
By Murphy Maloney on Aug 26, 2008 at 5:33 pm
These days, September 2008 we have 325 anniversary of this battle. You can discuss this battle at the historynet.com forum:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67411
By Bartosz on Sep 7, 2008 at 4:21 am
I think the article is a decent overview of the ottoman empire trending upward and then its decline but the title is all wrong. It should have stopped at “Turning the Ottoman Tide” for in reality what did it mention the battle of Vienna for? 4 paragraphs?
By Bob Sandusky on Dec 26, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Nicely written article.
It would have been reasonable to remind readers that Janissaries were mostly Christian children, forcably taken from Christian families in conquered regions, brought up by Muslims under conditions of religious manipulation, converted to Islam when they came of age, then sent out with zeal to commit Jihads against Christians.
The Janissary core was one of many methods used by Muslims to convert the Middle East and North Africa to Islam.
By Tom Sontag on Jan 31, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I thought that the article (which was, indeed, taken from a much larger work) was immense in its coverage of a hugh piece of history. BUT, I missed a better description of the heroic deeds of John III, particularly his cavalry, whic h played such an important tole in the salvation of the West.
By Bob Sayers on May 27, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I thank you for this article. I appreciate an honest historian. The article complaining about calling some of the Muslim men of the year(s) mentioned want to candy coat reality. I realize with the heat of battle/caught up in the moment men on both sides of a battle may over due their anger. The reason we have enjoyed our living style(s) and history is in thanks to the monks (scriptoria), Benedictines e.g., and the Roman Catholic men and women who stood in the breach and fought and/or shed their blood; both secular/laity and the Knights .g. St. Johns Hospitalliers, the Knights of St. Peter Alcantara etc…
Read William Thomas Walsh book’s “Isabella the Catholic of Spain” and “Phillip II”. This is why the Roman Catholic church that is being preserved with the Latin mass is right. We will need our faith and will be shedding blood. I believe there is another group of a different faith that is instigating this, too. As in the case of what we have seen since 1948.
Palestine until then, 1948 and even before the 1920’s with the British helping with a settlement, was quiet.
The Palestinians, both Christian and Arab, are right in their grievance.
Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat
By Clarence J. LaFuentes II on Jun 12, 2009 at 5:48 pm
The article was very good and covered most of the better information available. I was recently in Constantinople and it is still in ruins. The city has not been taken care of but there is a newer movement to clean it up to bring in Western Tourists.
The history there is directed towards Islam and how wonderfully it changed everything for the better there and not Christianity. You need to study the facts before you go to Constantinople and Vienne and this article will help in that regard. Sadly, the Janissary core did betray their own families also.
Don Juan of Austria, Eugene of Savoy (Austrian General) and King John III Sobieski of Poland and the emperor’s brother-in-law, Charles Sixte of Lorraine should all be given much more credit for what they did for the West. World wide historical kudos should still be showered on Sobieski for his decision to march through the Wienerwald to catch the Turks off guard. There is a church and lookout on that hill now to honor this.
The uneducated public does not realize that the Muslims are still at the Gates of Vienna and the West has thrown those gates open to the good people to come in for jobs but the bad are also slithering in under their shoes into the European Union.
This article is good in historical context of the times. Yes,
Turkey proudly announces that it is .99 % Muslim and open to the West.
By John Riggs on Jun 13, 2009 at 7:01 am