From the 9th to the 17th July.
The fate of the inhabitants of the small town of Perchtoldsdorf forms a sad episode in the annals of the Turkish invasion. So early as the 9th July the Tartar horse had appeared in its neighbourhood. The inhabitants, after the example of their forefathers of 1529, converted the church tower and the churchyard with its surrounding wall into a fortress, and repulsed without difficulty the first attack of the marauders. The attack was repeated on the following day, but with the same result; the garrison was increased in numbers by many fugitives from other places, and the inhabitants, after some days of repose, began to believe that, as in 1529, the crisis would pass over without serious consequences. The bailiff of the market was one Adam Streninger; the other authorities were the parish priest and his coadjutor. On the 14th, when the investment of Vienna had been brought to bear by the main army of the Turks, their next care was to secure the strong places within a certain distance of the city. With this view a strong detachment was directed at sunrise of the 14th upon Perchtoldsdorf, which began to throw incendiary missiles into the place, and speedily set fire to it in various quarters. Some citizens ventured upon a daring sally, but the small body, not more than thirty in number, were cut down to a man. The overwhelming superiority of the enemy’s numbers and the failure of their own ammunition compelled the inhabitants entirely to abandon the town and to betake themselves to their fortified church and its precincts. The town was given to the flames, which raged from 2P. M.through the following night, which was passed by the little garrison in the contemplation of this dismal scene, and in the expectation of an attack at sunrise, which they had no hope of being able to repel. The Turks, however, preferred craft and perfidy to force, and contentedthemselves with a blockade of the stronghold, which was moreover rendered scarcely tenable by the heat and smoke of the burning houses adjacent. This state of things lasted till the afternoon, when a horseman rode up the main street, dressed in the doublet of a German Reiter, but otherwise in Turkish attire, and bearing a flag of truce, which he waved towards the church, and in the Hungarian language summoned the citizens to surrender, distinctly promising them security of life and property on condition of an immediate submission. Such terms, under the circumstances, were far too favourable to be refused. A man and a woman who spoke Hungarian made known their acceptance to the envoy, and a white flag was hung out from the tower in token of surrender. On the morning of the 17th a Pacha with a strong attendance arrived from the camp, and seating himself on a red carpet near the house of the bailiff, opposite the church, announced through an interpreter the following conditions to the besieged. First, two citizens were to come out to the Turks, and two of the latter to be admitted into the fortress; secondly, as a symbol that the place had not before been yielded to an enemy, the keys were to be delivered to the Pacha by a maiden with loosened hair and a garland on her head; thirdly, a contribution of 6000 florins was to be levied on the inhabitants. This latter demand appears to have protracted the negotiation for some hours, but finally half the sum demanded was paid into the Pacha’s hands, and the remainder was promised for the 29th August, the day of St. John the Baptist. These terms arranged, the citizens left their stronghold, the daughter of the bailiff, a girl of seventeen years, at their head, arrayed according to the fanciful conditions above stated. She bore the keys of the place on a cushion, and presented them trembling to the Pacha, who now required that the whole body of men capable of bearing arms should be drawn up in the market-place, for the purpose, as he pretended, of judging what number of troops might be required for the preservation of order in the town. This requisition excited some misgiving among the townsmen, but there was no retreat, and they prepared to carry it into effect. As they issued from their stronghold bodies of Turkish troops closed about them and took from them their weapons, observing that men who had surrendered had no longer use for such. Some who hesitated todeliver them were deprived of them by force, and others who, from apprehension, paused in the gateway, were dragged out by the hair. The Turks loaded some carriages in attendance with the arms, and conveyed them away. The men, some 2000 in number, were drawn up in ranks in the place opposite the priest’s house, and surrounded with cavalry. At a signal from the Pacha, a troop of the latter dismounted and commenced a diligent search of the persons of the prisoners for money or concealed weapons. The entrance gate was at the same time strongly guarded. Some of the townsmen taking alarm at these proceedings, with the bailiff at their head, endeavoured to regain the church. The Turks pursued them with drawn sabres, and the bailiff was cut down on the threshold. The Pacha now rose, flung down the table before him, and gave the signal for a general massacre, setting the example with his own hand by cutting down the trembling girl at his side. The slaughter raged for two hours without intermission: 3500 persons were put to the sword in the strictest sense of the word, and in a space so confined that the expression, “torrents of blood,” so often a figure of speech, was fully applicable to this case. The women and children, who still remained in the asylum of the church, together with the priest and his coadjutor, were dragged into slavery and never heard of more. A local tradition avers that one solitary individual returned after a lapse of fifteen years, but as from maltreatment he had lost speech and hearing, he was unable to communicate the story of his escape. Another prevalent report, that two townsmen escaped by concealment in the roof of the church, is less probable, because the Turks immediately set fire to that building. It is certain, however, that three persons did escape, but in a different manner. One of them, Hans Schimmer by name, a tailor’s apprentice and an ancestor of the writer of this narrative, wisely fled before the catastrophe to Maria Zell; another, Jacob Holzer, is supposed to have escaped in the first confusion; the third, Balthasar Frank, it is said, hid himself till nightfall in the well of the tower, and then found means to abscond. This last story, however, is less well authenticated than the two former. From the number of the slaughtered, it is evident that many of the inhabitants of the places adjacent had taken refuge in this devoted town, for the ordinary male population never reached that number, and those who were carried off as slaves are also to be counted. It is probable that among the victims were people of condition, for in the course of some excavations which lately took place in the mound of their sepulture, some rings of value, enamelled, and even set with precious stones, were discovered.