From July 15 to July 30.
The 15th July, the day from which may be dated the commencement of the active siege of Vienna, was distinguished by an accident which might well have brought that operation to a close by the destruction of the city. At two o’clockP. M., some time after the Turkish batteries had opened, a fire broke out in the Scottish Convent, which, after destroying that establishment, rapidly spread to the Renngasse and the neighbourhood of the Imperial arsenal, which contained some 1800 barrels of powder. Two windows of this building were actually at one moment on fire. The exertions, however, of the Commandant and the citizens were proportionate to the emergency, the windows were built up with great haste, and under a heat which made the operation very difficult. This immediate danger averted, a propitious change of wind assisted the final extinction, but several palaces and other extensive buildings had been destroyed, and for three days the smouldering ruins threatened danger and demanded attention. Nothing certain was ever known of the origin of the fire. At a period of so much alarm and excitement, it was scarcely possible that under this uncertainty the public would be satisfied to ascribe it to any of the many accidents which may give rise to a conflagration in a besieged town. Popular suspicion fell upon the Hungarian malecontents, and many acts of cruelty were the result of this surmise. Men wearing the Hungarian dress were massacred in the streets, but others also fell victims to the spirit of frantic and undiscriminating cruelty which panic generally engenders. A poor half-witted man, whose eccentricities had often afforded amusement at the tables of the wealthy Viennese, chose in his folly to discharge a pistol in the direction of the fire: he was seized by the populace and torn to pieces. Even an Imperial officer, in whose residence some rocket sticks werediscovered, was flung into prison after terrible maltreatment. It required great exertion on the part of the authorities to repress this phrenzy, and to bring back the population to that regular discharge of duties on which rested the sole chance of salvation to the entire community. On this same day, the 15th, the trenches were opened against the Burg and Löbel bastions, and many Christian prisoners were compelled to labour in them. On the part of the town the palisades were completed along the counterscarp, the ditches were furnished with traverses, and with the necessary passages of communication, and on the bastions arrangements effected for placing in battery about 300 pieces of cannon. Countermines were now also commenced, in conducting which the Venetian Bartholomeo Camuccini and a Captain Hafner specially distinguished themselves, being the only persons in the city skilled in this branch of engineering.
On the 16th the Commandant Stahremberg, who with unwearied activity visited every quarter of the defences, was wounded in the head by the explosion of a shell. His exertions were scarcely interrupted by this accident, for before he was sufficiently recovered to walk, he caused himself to be carried in a chair to every quarter which required his presence. The stone seat is shown to this day, high up in the spire of St. Stephen’s, from which for many an anxious hour he overlooked the camp of the Turks, and watched the movements of their corps and the progress of their engineers. The fire of the Turks was henceforth sustained with scarcely any interruption, and it has been calculated that during the siege upwards of 100,000 shells were thrown into the city. If this calculation approach the truth, it is difficult to account for the smallness of the amount of damage they are known to have produced. The buildings indeed of Vienna were then, as now, of very solid construction, and all the usual precautions against vertical fire, the placing of beams, earth, &c., on the roofs and upper stories, had been resorted to. The chronicles of the transaction have however recorded several instances of the inefficiency of the Turkish missiles. It is said that one of the first shells which fell in the city, near St. Michael’s, was extinguished by a child of three years old before it could burst; another which fell into a full congregation at St. Stephen’s, did no injury beyond carrying off the foot of anold woman; a third fell upon an open barrel of powder, and did no mischief. The fragments of these missiles were occasionally collected, and after being, according to a custom of the day, blessed by a priest, were redischarged at the enemy. The various contrivances of the besiegers for incendiary purposes,—arrows wrapped with combustible materials, fireballs, &c.,—proved equally ineffective. To meet indeed this particular danger, the wooden shingles with which the houses were generally roofed were removed; a theatre, magnificent and costly, but constructed with wood, which then stood on the Burg Place, was pulled down; and, to deaden the rebound of shot or shell, the pavement was every where taken up. The vaults of the great churches were in general found to supply the best and safest magazines for powder: windows, and superfluous entrances of the churches so used were walled up. All wells were placed under strict superintendence, and every precaution taken for a due supply of water for extinction of fire.
Up to this moment the insular suburb, Leopoldstadt, had remained the only quarter of the suburbs still uninjured and free from the presence of the enemy. General Schulz occupied it with a detachment of cavalry, and was directed to hold it as long as possible. As early, however, as the 16th July, the Princes of Wallachia and Moldavia had thrown two bridges over the arms of the Danube on either side of this suburb, and the Imperialists, from want of artillery, had been unable to interrupt this operation. Early on the 27th the Turks crossed the stream in great numbers, favoured by the lowness of the water at this season; and after a conflict of several hours, General Schulz was compelled to yield to numbers, and to withdraw his troops to the left bank of the Danube. The great bridge of the Danube was now broken up, and Leopoldstadt fully abandoned to the enemy. The city was now invested on all sides; every communication and every channel of supply cut off. The lot of Leopoldstadt was a severe one. The authorities had given the inhabitants a premature and inconsiderate assurance that the island would be permanently held and defended by the Imperial troops; and, relying on this prospect, they had forborne to remove their property to any place of safety. It thus happened that not only the buildings, but nearly every object they contained, formedpart of the funeral pile which, wherever the Turkish force set foot, was lighted to give token of their occupation. Among the more sumptuous of the edifices destroyed was the Imperial villa called the Old Favorita (now the Augarten). The Turks opened trenches immediately on the island, and established batteries both on the Danube bank and near the church of the Brothers of Mercy, from which they much annoyed the lower part of the city, and especially the Convent of St. Lawrence. Every possible measure was adopted for the defence of this quarter of the city; the Rothenthurm gate was closed and barricaded, flanking works were constructed, and the windows of adjacent buildings built up, loopholes only for musketry being left. On the 2nd August the Turks made all their preparations for an assault on this side. They sent from Closterneuburg and Nussdorf all their boats down the small arm of the Danube, which, being caught in their descent by the piers of the bridge which had been removed, so clustered together as to form in themselves a sort of bridge. In the course of the night, however, the boatmen of the city contrived to set the vessels again afloat. This important service was performed under a heavy fire from the island, and cost a good many lives in its execution. On the side of the Burg, meanwhile, the works of the besiegers above and below ground, the battery and the mine, were rapidly pushed forward. The approaches, when inspected after the siege, excited the admiration of the German engineers, for the skill and labour which had been bestowed on them. The trenches were twice the height of a man in depth, and near the city were roofed with timber and sods. Apartments were excavated for the principal officers, and those for the Vizier and pachas sumptuously carpeted and cushioned.
To check this dangerous progress a sally took place from the town on the 19th of July, the first of the siege, under command of Guido Count von Stahremberg, nephew and aide-de-camp to the Commandant, and Samson von Stambach, by which some of the trenches were filled up, and several of the enemy killed or taken. The latter were immediately exchanged, on which occasion the Grand Vizier presented the drummer who attended the flag of truce with three ducats. These sallies were often repeated, and gave occasion to the students particularly to distinguish themselves by their gallantry and intelligence. Many herds of cattle were captured in some of them, and driven into the city, affording, under the circumstances of blockade and hourly increasing scarcity, a most welcome aid to its resources. The principal object of the Turkish fire was the Burg, which was riddled with shot-holes: next to this, St. Stephen’s tower, and the houses from the Carinthian to the Mölk bastion. The further ravelin of the Löbel bastion was so smashed with shot that no one could show himself upon it and live, and the besieged were advised to withdraw its armament, and distribute the pieces elsewhere.
On the 23rd of July took place the first assault. Two mines which had been carried under the counterscarp of the Burg and the Löbel bastion were exploded at the same instant, burying 15 of the garrison in the ruins, and tearing up twenty palisades. The Turks rushed over the ruins to the assault, but were quickly and completely repulsed. The second assault, July 25, was directed against the face of the Burg ravelin. It followed as usual the explosion of a mine, and was led by the Janissaries, who, after three successive repulses, retired with a loss of 200 men. The besieged, however, had to lament the loss of some valuable officers, among them of their chief engineer, Rimpler, who died within two days of wounds received in this affair. He is said to have been one of the greatest engineers of his day: he had distinguished himself at the siege of Philipsburg, under the Margrave Herman of Baden, and had written works on subjects of his profession which still retain their value. On the 27th, an assault took place, in the course of which some of the Janissaries surmounted the palisades, but only to perish in the ditch. The Turks lost 300 men. On the side of the besieged, the Major, Baron von Gallenfeld, perished by a poisoned arrow. On the 20th there came in a Turkish flag of truce, bearing a request on the part of the Vizier for an armistice for the purpose of burying his dead, and also a summons fraught with the usual threats of vengeance and extermination. Stahremberg replied, that in the city they were enjoying excellent health, and having no dead to bury could not listen to the proposal for an armistice; as to surrender, they had made up their minds on that head, and were prepared to defend the city while they lived. A proclamationwas now issued offering a reward of 100 ducats to any one who would swim the Danube with letters for the Duke of Lorraine: for the moment, however, no candidate presented himself. July 20th a mine was exploded under the Löbel bastion, 20 of the garrison perished, but no assault ensued, and the besieged had leisure to repair the damage. On the 29th the palisades of the Burg gate ravelin were shattered by a mine. By this time the underground operations of the Turks had so far advanced as to give them access to the ditch. Although every attempt of the Turks to pass the ditch was repulsed in hand-to-hand fight, yet the known progress of their engineering operations gave reason for expecting an early and general assault of a more formidable nature than the former, and the watchful Stahremberg neglected no preparation to meet it. The arsenals furnished forth at his order quantities of the devices for laming an advancing enemy, known by various names in various services; in our military language, caltrops; these were distributed at the expected points of attack, and additional lines of palisades were fixed in the inner defences. The sound of bells from church or convent was forbidden, with the single exception of the great bell of St. Stephen, reserved for signal of assault upon the walls, at which the forces, regular and irregular, of the garrison were instructed to hasten to their respective posts. From early in the month of August the Turks scarcely allowed a day to pass without the explosion of one or more mines. On the 3rd, after several severe checks, they succeeded in effecting a lodgment on the crown of the counterscarp of the Löbel bastion, from which, though several Janissaries perished by the springing of a countermine, it was found impossible to expel them. They followed up this advantage by measures for filling up the ditch, which were, however, continually foiled by the diligence of the garrison in removing the materials. On the 6th a Turkish mine blew up a Colonel Leslie and his pages. On the 8th, a sally commanded by General Souches did much mischief to the approaches of the besiegers. On the 9th and 10th similar operations were conducted with still greater effect, and the enemy was dislodged from the counterscarp. On the last occasion three soldiers of the garrison were blown into the air and descended in safety to the earth complaining of nothing but severe thirst. At midday of the 12th, the salientangle of the Burg ravelin was blown up with an explosion which shook half the city. An assault followed, which, after two hours’ desperate fighting, ended in the retreat of the Turks with a loss of 2500 men. The damage was quickly made good. On the 16th, the Turks, after three repulses, succeeded in effecting and maintaining a lodgment in the ditch facing the Löbel bastion, which enabled them to establish near and destructive batteries on the counterscarp against the Burg and the Löbel bastion.
The two commanders, Stahremberg and the Vizier, were alike indefatigable in their personal superintendence of their respective operations. The latter was carried every third day in a litter, made shot proof by plates of iron, into the approaches, inspecting the works, punishing the idle, and menacing the timid with his drawn sabre. He had also in the trenches his own peculiar posts sunk deep in the ground, and made bomb proof with planks and sand-bags. His favourite position, however, for general observation and direction was the tower of the church of St. Ulric, from which he overlooked the city, as Stahremberg did the camp from his memorable stone chair in the sculptured spire of St. Stephen.
Towards the middle of August an envoy from the Sultan reached the camp, charged ostensibly with the conveyance of rich presents of honour to the Vizier, furs and jewelled aigrettes, but secretly commissioned to ascertain and report upon the progress of the siege. He remained a fortnight, and returned with a most unfavourable report. On the 15th August the Imperial Ambassador, Caprara, arrived in the Turkish camp after a long compulsory detention at Pesth. He was escorted by a Tschauch, or officer of the body guard, and 300 men. He fell in on his dismal march with many of his unhappy countrymen, a few only of whom he was able, at an exorbitant price, to ransom from hopeless slavery. Among these was a girl ten years of age, of noble birth and singular beauty, whose name however has not reached us. On his arrival in the camp, the Vizier, by special order of the Sultan, released him at Tuln, into the hands of the Imperialists. It has been said that he brought a proposal from the Vizier to abandon the siege of Vienna, and negotiate a peace on the sole condition of the surrender of the fortress ofRaab. If this report be founded, as Wagner in his Historia Leopoldi Magni supposes, it would show how far the projects of the Vizier had been checked by the noble resistance of the garrison. If this or any proposal was intrusted to Caprara, it remained unanswered.