From the end of July to September 11.
The corps of Tekeli had meanwhile prosecuted its operations in Upper Hungary. As he was approaching Tyrnau, the Duke of Lorraine reinforced the citadel of Presburg with some regiments of cavalry, and put the remainder of his army in motion across the March field. Learning that the town of Presburg was already occupied, and the citadel threatened by the adherents of Tekeli, and also that 20,000 Turks and 20,000 Hungarians were encamped in the neighbourhood, he pushed on towards the city. He succeeded in flinging an additional force into the fortress, and, after some resistance, drove the enemy out of the suburbs and town. The citizens, excusing their defection on the ground of compulsion, renewed their fealty to the Emperor. The advanced guard of the Polish army, under Prince Lubomirski, had meanwhile arrived, and with their assistance the Duke on the following day gained a victory which cleared the left bank of the Danube, and re-established the communication with Komorn and Raab. The hostile camp fell entirely into the victors’ hands. The Turks and Tekeli threw mutual blame upon each other. To whichever it was due, their united forces, after ravaging the March field, were overtaken by Lorraine near Stammersdorf, and again completely defeated. The Pacha of Erlau with 1200 men were left dead on the field, many more perished in attempting to swim the Danube, 22 standards were taken, and a body of 600 Hungarians deserted to the enemy. Meanwhile the troops of the Empire were flocking in from all quarters. The Bavarians have been already mentioned. The Elector of Saxony, John George III., marched out of Dresden on the 22nd July with 12,000 men and 18 guns, and reached Crems on the 28th August. Sobieski writes to his wife in great admiration of the Saxon troops, as well dressed, complete in numbers, and well disciplined. “We may say of the Germans what has been said of the horse, they do not know their own strength.” The King of Poland left Cracow early in August. The Emperor had undergone the humiliation of imploring the personal presence of a sovereign whose policy and interests he had always thwarted, even should he arrive without his army. This homage to his military talents was doubtless grateful, but John Sobieski needed no stimulus when the Turk was in the field. While the French ambassador was exerting all his influence to detain him, and writing to Louis XIV. that he was too corpulent for active service, he took leave of his wife, and, after making his will, set out, accompanied by his son, a boy sixteen years of age, in advance of his army. His march lay through a country exposed to the incursions of Tartars and Hungarians, but he performed it on horseback with an escort of some 2000 cavalry, and reached the head-quarters of Lorraine in safety. He found them at Tuln, on the right bank of the river, the force weak in numbers, and still employed in the construction of the bridge which the Emperor in his letters had announced as finished. Many of the German troops had not yet arrived. Lorraine spake with anxiety of the condition of affairs. “Be of good cheer,” replied Sobieski; “which of us at the head of 200,000 men would have allowed this bridge to be constructed within five leagues of his camp? The Vizier is a man of no capacity.” The Polish army, under Field Marshal Jablonowski, reached the bank of the Danube opposite Tuln early in September. It amounted to about 26,000 men of all arms, but with a very small proportion of infantry. After passing them in review, the leaders held a council of war, in which Lorraine suggested that the march for the relief of the city should be directed over the Kahlenberg. The King gave an immediate assent, observing, that he had left his royal dignity at Warsaw, and was prepared to act with the Duke as with a friend and brother. On the other hand, no jealousies would seem to have interfered to prevent an immediate and frank acknowledgment of the authority of Sobieski as Commander-in-chief of the assembled forces. It is not to be forgotten that the Duke of Lorraine had been competitor with Sobieski for the crown of Poland. Sobieski’s letters contain some graphic details of their first meeting, which seems to have passed off at table with morejoviality than was consistent with the ordinary habits of Lorraine, who was free from the German vice of drinking, but who on this occasion, beginning with the lighter vintage of Moselle, passed on to the stronger wines of Hungary. Sobieski describes him as modest and taciturn, strongly marked with the small-pox,le nez trez aquilin, et presque en peroquet; stooping, plain, and negligent in his attire.Avec tout ça, il n’a pas la mine d’un marchand mais d’un homme comme il faut, et même d’un homme de distinction. C’est un homme avec qui je m’accorderais facilement.It was further decided that the Poles should cross the river at Tuln and the Germans at Crems, so as to effect their junction at the former place on the 5th September. The junction did not however take place till the 7th. Three thousand Poles were detached towards the March field to keep the Hungarians in check. The Christian army now consisted of 85,000 men, Austrians, Poles, Bavarians, Saxons, Swabians, and Franconians, with 186 pieces of artillery. Of this number, some 7000 were detached for the occupation of various posts, leaving about 77,000 effectives for field operations against the Turks. This force, small in numbers if we consider the greatness of the stake at issue, counted among its leaders four sovereigns and twenty-two other princes of sovereign houses. The electoral houses of Germany were worthily represented by Saxony and Bavaria. John George III., Elector of Saxony, had seen much service in the cause of Austria, and had been the first of the German princes to give a frank adhesion to her cause. Sobieski describes him as speaking neither Latin nor French, and little German; not addicted to harangues or compliments,étourdi, drunken, simple, and good-natured. The man thus satirically painted was however a sturdy specimen of the German race, and could deal hard blows in the field. Maximilian Emanuel, of Bavaria, conspicuous in after years for the misfortunes entailed upon him by his alliance with France against Austria, and the principal victim of Marlborough’s success at Blenheim, came forward now at the age of twenty-one, to save from destruction the sovereign who, after rewarding him with the hand of a daughter, lived to expel him for awhile from his dominions. He had the good sense now to consign the conduct of his troops to experienced hands, and served himself as a volunteer. Among the others were the Dukes of SachsenLauenburg, Eisenach, and Weissenfels, of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Wirtemberg and Holstein, Pfalzneuburg and Croy, the Margrave of Baireuth and Louis of Baden afterwards so famous; the Landgrave of Hesse, the Princes of Waldeck, Hohenzollern, Anhalt, and Salm; last and youngest, Eugene of Savoy. The Prince of Waldeck commanded the troops of the Circles.
The literature of modern Europe, rich as it is in the correspondence of eminent persons of both sexes, perhaps contains no collection of letters of such engrossing interest as those written at this period by John Sobieski to his wife, which have lately found an eminent translator and commentator in the Count Plater. The familiar correspondence of such a man as Sobieski, even if devoted to ordinary occurrences and insignificant events, would derive an interest from the character and fame of the writer which few such collections could claim. In the case of these, however, the circumstances of the time combine with the character of the man to enhance that interest to the highest degree. They are the letters of an absent lover, pledged to punctual and familiar correspondence, and consequently rich in minute details. They are the military dispatches of one of the greatest soldiers who ever lived, penned in moments snatched from hard-earned repose, often when the night-lamp of his tent was growing pale before the twilight of morning, and dealing with the hourly progress of one of the greatest military transactions in history. Some passages of these documents escaped at the time, and have been quoted by all writers on the subjects concerned, from Voltaire and Madame de Sévigné to the gazette writers of the day; but these passages, principally relating to the great and notorious result, are not of greater interest, and are of less historical value, than the remainder more lately rescued from the obscurity of the Polish language which was the medium of his most familiar intercourse with his absent wife. It is a singular trait of ability in this mischievous woman, especially when we consider the habitual distaste of her countrymen and countrywomen for the acquisition of foreign languages, that she should have so completely mastered the difficulties of a Sclavonic dialect as to speak and write it with fluency and correctness. It is embarrassing to quote from these letters, because there is scarcely a passage in them which does not present the temptation. Theseries commences from the 29th August, the first evening after taking leave of his wife at Cracow. This and the five following letters carry him through the fatigues of the march, the tedious ceremonies of his reception at Olmutz and other halting-places; and the seventh, of the 9th September, is written from Tuln, the great rendezvous, and one of the points of passage for the collected forces of Poland and Germany. At every step the interest thickens; fresh intelligence is announced of the desperate condition of the city; the figures of men then, or afterwards, famous in history, are briefly and graphically introduced to our notice; observations on the busy present, and speculations on the doubtful future, are interwoven with lively sketches of character and costume. At Tuln commenced the main difficulties of the great operation on which the eyes of Europe were concentered, difficulties which nothing but the gross negligence of the Turks could have enabled the allies to surmount. The Tartar cavalry, properly directed, might alone have rendered impossible the three days’ march, by forest paths, through a country destitute of provisions, and scarcely practicable for artillery or carriages, which intervened between the banks of the river and the heights of the Kahlenberg. Baggage and commissariat were of necessity left behind, in the neighbourhood of Tuln. It was necessary to weaken the fighting strength of the army by a strong guard to protect these depôts from the Tartars, and by heavy escorts for the transport of provisions from this base of operation.
It was hardly to be expected that the heights of the Kahlenberg themselves would be found unguarded; and to explore the condition of this crowning post, the key to the main operation, was in itself a task of the utmost hazard and delicacy. It was performed on the night of the 10th by the king and the other principal commanders in person, and this service separated him so far and so long from his army then struggling up the precipices and through the forests behind, that the greatest alarm was excited for his safety. The crest of the Kahlenberg, with its castle and chapel, were found unoccupied; but the Turks, too late aware of its importance, were moving towards it in the course of the 11th, when, by great exertion, the first troops which came to hand, five Saxon battalions of the left wing, with three guns, were brought up to the summit. The Turks, findingthemselves anticipated, retired without a serious struggle, and the Saxon guns opening upon their rear, gave signal to the city of its approaching salvation. The king and the other commanders rejoined their several corps about midday of the 11th, and the principal difficulties of the march having been now overcome, the army was enabled to arrange itself in nearly the order which was preserved through the following day of battle.[14]This operation was conducted without disturbance from the enemy, except on the extreme left, where General Leslie experienced some opposition in the establishment of a battery. The report of this skirmish roused Sobieski, not from slumber, which, as he states, was rendered unattainable by the thunder of the Turkish batteries against the city, but from the occupation of writing a long and detailed letter to his wife. Disturbed in this enjoyment, the indefatigable man, described by the French ambassador as too corpulent to ride, was again in the saddle at threeA. M.He appears to have ridden along the whole position, from his tent on the extreme right to the Leopoldsberg on the left. This exertion had the advantage of bringing him once more into personal communication with Lorraine before that final issue which took place on the following day, contrary indeed to the expectation or intention of either, for neither contemplated at this moment the possibility of bringing so vast an operation as the relief of the city within the compass of a single day.
Nothing seems to have given Sobieski so much annoyance at this period as the non-appearance of some Cossack levies, which his agents had been despatched to raise. He writes of them in their absence in a strain which might have been used by a Russian commander of our own day, and which shows that the admirable qualities of the real Cossack for the duty of light troops, especially against the Turk, had fully displayed themselves in the seventeenth century. It is certain that down to the latest period, the Vizier had no belief, or even suspicion, that Sobieski had taken the field in person, or that any strong Polish force had joined the army. The reported appearance of Polish troops was accounted for by the known arrival of Lubomirski’s partisan corps.
The muster-roll of the Turkish army found in the tent of the Vizier gives in round numbers a total of 160,000 men, and historians have been ready enough to adopt a cypher, which would give a difference of 80,000 men as against the victorious party. As this document, however, includes all detachments and garrisons, and also many commanders and men who were certainly no longer in existence, the Pacha of Erlau, for instance, who, with most of his troops, had perished, as has been related, in the affair of Stammersdorf, it is as needless to dwell upon the fallacy of such an assumption of numbers, as it would be difficult to arrive at anything like accuracy with any other. If we accept the statement of Kantemir, that, on the night before the battle, nearly a fourth of the Turkish army disbanded itself, we can hardly calculate the force remaining in the camp at more than 100,000, for whom, exhausted and dispirited as they were, 80,000 untouched regular troops were more than an equal match.
When the advance of the Christian army became no longer doubtful, the Vizier called his Pachas about him to deliberate upon the mode in which to meet the impending attack. The aged Pacha of Pesth, who has been mentioned as adverse from the first to the march upon Vienna, advised the Vizier to raise the siege without delay, to collect the whole army, and, cutting down the neighbouring forests, to palisade and entrench themselves and abide the attack. On the repulse of the first onset, to launch the cavalry on both flanks of the enemy, and thus decide his defeat. The majority of the council was in favour of this proposal. The Vizier was obstinate in rejecting it, alleging, not unjustly, that if the siege were once raised, the city would instantly avail itself of the opportunity to repair its defences, and put itself into condition to defy a renewed attempt. It would be difficult, if the Janissaries were once withdrawn from the trenches, to persuade them to return to their toil, even after the achievement of a victory in the field. His opinion then was that a sufficient force should be left in the approaches to carry on the siege operations without interruption, and that the remainder should advance against the enemy, whose inferior numbers would be easily crushed. The Pachas made some further remonstrances, but were forced to give way to the unlimited authority of their chief. On the 11th September all the Turkish troops in the Leopoldstadt were withdrawn, and the greater part of the cavalry were moved forward towards the Kahlenberg, near thebase of which, and on the Wienerberg, they threw up entrenchments; and, disposing themselves in the shape of a crescent, they awaited the appearance of the Imperialists. Between Weinhaus and Gerstorf are still to be seen the traces of a considerable work, which bears the name of the Turkenschanz, the site of one of their principal batteries. So long previous as the 9th September, the Vizier, in his first alarm at the approach of the enemy, had determined to collect his force on the Wienerberg, and a field-tent had been pitched for him near the so-called Spinnerkreuz. On the following day, however, he changed his intention and plan, and moving the main portion of his force towards the Kahlenberg, drew it up upon the heights between Grinzing and Heiligenstadt. On the evening of the same day, the 10th, the advanced guard of the Christian army arrived on the Kahlenberg, and the first sound of its guns, as above described, was heard in Vienna, as they opened from the heights on the columns of the Turks. The effect was one of mingled joy and anxiety. The issue of the struggle was evidently at hand, but that issue was still uncertain, and the night was one of agonising suspense. The population not immediately employed in military duty, was divided through the day between the churches and the roofs of towers and houses; the first engaged in earnest supplication to Heaven, the latter in surveying the movements of the Turkish camp, and watching for the first gleam of the Christian weapons as they issued from the wooded heights. The commandant, as evening closed in, despatched a messenger, who swam the Danube with a letter for the Duke of Lorraine. Its words were few. “No time to be lost!—no time indeed to be lost!” This message was acknowledged by a cluster of rockets from Hermansdorf. Orders were now issued by Count Stahremberg to all the troops, regular and irregular, to hold themselves in readiness for a sally during the expected battle of the morrow, or for joining the Christian army, and driving the Turks out of the approaches. The night of the 11th of September closed in upon this troubled scene. The man whose doom is sealed will often sleep till morning calls him to the scaffold. Such heavy sleep as his, the offspring of nervous excitement and exhaustion, perhaps, was granted to the citizen of Vienna; but even this may be doubted, for the criminal is assured of his fate. The doom of Vienna was yet uncertain.