September 12.
At sunrise of the 12th September, the crest of the Kahlenberg was concealed by one of those autumnal mists which give promise of a genial, perhaps a sultry day, and which, clinging to the wooded flanks of the acclivity, grew denser as it descended, till it rested heavily on the shores and the stream itself of the river below. From that summit the usual fiery signals of distress had been watched through the night by many an eye as they rose incessantly from the tower of St. Stephen, and now the fretted spire of that edifice, so long the target of the ineffectual fire of the Turkish artillerists, was faintly distinguished rising from a sea of mist. As the hour wore on, and the exhalation dispersed, a scene was disclosed which must have made those who witnessed it from the Kahlenberg tighten their saddle-girths or look to their priming. A practised eye glancing over the fortifications of the city could discern from the Burg to the Scottish gate an interruption of their continuity, a shapeless interval of rubbish and of ruin, which seemed as if a battalion might enter it abreast. In face of this desolation a labyrinth of lines extended itself, differing in design from the rectilinear zigzag of a modern approach, and formed of short curves overlapping each other, to use a comparison of some writers of the time, like the scales of a fish. In these, the Turkish lines, the miner yet crawled to his task, and the storming parties were still arrayed by order of the Vizier, ready for a renewal of the assault so often repeated in vain. The camp behind had been evacuated by the fighting men; the horse-tails had been plucked from before the tents of the Pachas, but their harems still tenanted the canvass city; masses of Christian captives awaited there their doom in chains; camels and drivers and camp followers still peopled the long streets of tents in all the confusion of fear and suspense. Nearer to thebase of the hilly range of the Kahlenberg and the Leopoldsberg, the still imposing numbers of the Turkish army were drawn up in battle array ready to dispute the egress of the Christian columns from the passes, and prevent their deployment on the plain. To the westward, on the reverse flank of the range, the Christian troops might be seen toiling up the ascent. As they drew up on the crest of the Leopoldsberg they formed a half circle round the chapel of the Margrave, and when the bell for matins tolled, the clang of arms and the noises of the march were silenced. On a space kept clear round the chapel a standard with a white cross on a red ground was unfurled, as if to bid defiance to the blood red flag planted in front of the tent of Kara Mustapha. One shout of acclamation and defiance broke out from the modern crusaders as this emblem of a holy war was displayed, and all again was hushed as the gates of the castle were flung open, and a procession of the Princes of the Empire and the other leaders of the Christian host moved forward to the chapel. It was headed by one whose tonsured crown and venerable beard betokened the monastic profession. The soldiers crossed themselves as he passed, and knelt to receive the blessing which he gave them with outstretched hands. This was the famous Capuchin Marco Aviano, friend and confessor to the Emperor, whose acknowledged piety and exemplary life had earned for him the general reputation of prophetic inspiration. He had been the inseparable companion of the Christian army in its hours of difficulty and danger, and was now here to assist at the consummation of his prayers for its success. Among the stately warriors who composed his train, three principally attracted the gaze of the curious. The first in rank and station was a man somewhat past the prime of life, strong limbed and of imposing stature, but quick and lively in speech and gesture, his head partly shaved in the fashion of his semi-Eastern country, his hair, eyes, and beard, dark-coloured. His majestic bearing bespoke the soldier king, the scourge and dread of the Moslem, the conqueror of Choczim, John Sobieski. His own attire is said to have been plain, but we gather from his letters that in his retinue he displayed a Sclavonic taste for magnificence which strongly contrasted with the economical arrangements of Lorraine, and even of the two Electors. Painters, and others studious of accuracy,may be glad to know that on this occasion the colour of his dress was sky blue, and that he rode a bay horse. An attendant bearing a shield, with his arms emblazoned, always preceded him, and his place in battle was marked by another who carried a plume on his lance point, a signal more conspicuous, though less inseparable, than the famous white plume of Henry IV. On his left was his youthful son Prince James, armed with a breastplate and helmet, and, in addition to an ordinary sword, with a short and broad-bladed sabre, a national weapon of former ages; on his right was the illustrious and heroic ancestor of the present reigning house of Austria, Charles of Lorraine. Behind these moved many of the principal members of those sovereign houses of Germany whose names and titles have been already specified. At the side of Louis of Baden walked a youth of slender frame and moderate stature, but with that intelligence in his eye which pierced in after years the cloud of many a doubtful field, and swayed the fortunes of empires. This was the young Eugene of Savoy, who drew his maiden sword in the quarrel in which his brother had lately perished. The service of high mass was performed in the chapel by Aviano, the King assisting at the altar, while the distant thunder of the Turkish batteries formed strange accompaniment to the Christian choir. The Princes then received the sacrament, and the religious ceremony was closed by a general benediction of the troops by Aviano. The King then stepped forward and conferred knighthood on his son, with the usual ceremonies, commending to him as an example for his future course the great commander then present, the Duke of Lorraine. He then addressed his troops in their own language to the following effect:—“Warriors and friends! Yonder in the plain are our enemies, in numbers greater indeed than at Choczim, where we trod them under foot. We have to fight them on a foreign soil, but we fight for our own country, and under the walls of Vienna we are defending those of Warsaw and Cracow. We have to save to-day, not a single city, but the whole of Christendom, of which that city of Vienna is the bulwark. The war is a holy one. There is a blessing on our arms, and a crown of glory for him who falls. You fight not for your earthly sovereign, but for the King of kings. His power has led you unopposed up the difficult access to these heights, and has thus placed half the victory in your hands. The infidels see you now above their heads; and with hopes blasted and courage depressed, are creeping among valleys destined for their graves. I have but one command to give,—follow me. The time is come for the young to win their spurs.” Military music and the shouts of thousands greeted this pertinent harangue, and as it closed, five cannon shots gave the signal for the general advance. A sharp fire of musketry from the small hamlet of Kahlenberg near Nussdorf soon announced that the left wing, under the immediate command of the Duke of Lorraine, had felt the enemy, and it increased as his attack developed itself towards Heiligenstadt and Döbling. The centre, commanded by the Elector of Bavaria and the Prince of Waldeck, moved upon Währing and Weinhaus. The right wing, under the King of Poland, issued from the woods near Dornbach. There is no doubt that the general disposal of the confederated forces was entirely arranged by the King. His rank alone would have entitled him to a nominal precedency, which, even in the case of an ordinary sovereign, it would have been convenient to admit; for, previously to his arrival in the camp, disputes had already arisen between Saxony and Bavaria, and Vienna might have been taken twice over before such disputes between German sovereigns could have been settled. The respect however in which John Sobieski’s military talents were held, his vast experience of the Turkish manner of fighting, and the dread which his presence was known to inspire amongst that people, were such as to obtain a ready and real acquiescence in his slightest suggestions, so long as the difficulty lasted and the danger was imminent. His order of battle was a deep one. To avoid so great an extension of front as would have compelled him to throw his right flank beyond the little river Wien instead of keeping that stream on his right, he adopted a formation in three lines, the third acting as a reserve. The troops were strictly directed to preserve their ranks on the approach of the enemy, and halt to receive his fire and return their own; then to advance steadily, and make good the ground so gained—the infantry gradually developing itself to the right and left, and allowing the cavalry to fill up the intervals, and take its full share in the further advance, charging as opportunity should offer.
The first operation of Kara Mustapha was worthy of one in whom the cruelty was united with the ignorance of the savage—it was the slaughter of the defenceless captives of all ages and either sex, with whom, to the number it is said of 30,000, his camp was crowded. It was obeyed to the letter; and even the inmates of the soldiers’ harems, women far different in morals from the courtezans of the Christian camp, are said to have perished. The command of the right wing, which occupied strong and broken ground opposite the Duke of Lorraine, was intrusted to the Pacha of Mesopotamia. The Vizier himself commanded in the centre opposite Währing, and the left wing opposite Hernals was commanded by the old Pacha of Pesth. The cavalry were in advance towards the base of the Kahlenberg. The hollow ways between Nussdorf and Heiligenstadt were strongly entrenched and fiercely defended. It was, as has been noticed, the original intention of the king to content himself on this day with the descent of the acclivity and the establishment of the army in favourable order and position for a general action on the morrow, and he had agreed upon this course with Lorraine, but the fierceness of the struggle on the left of the allies drew his forces gradually to its support, and brought on a more immediate decision. To descend the wooded acclivities without deranging the scientific order of battle devised and adopted was an operation only less tedious and difficult than the ascent of the preceding days, and it was to be performed in the presence of an enemy for courage and numbers not to be despised. The left wing was engaged for some hours before the Bavarians in the centre or the Poles on the right could deploy. The defence of the broken ground near Nussdorf and Heiligenstadt on the part of the Turks was obstinate, but having occupied in haste and too late their present position at the foot of the heights, they had not brought up their artillery, and their dismounted cavalry, of which the troops here engaged were principally composed, were not a match for the Imperialists, who drove the enemy steadily before them from ravine to ravine, and carried the two villages. It is probable that Lorraine, adhering to the original scheme of action, might have contented himself with this success for the day, and it is not certain at what period of the action a contrary and bolder determination first suggested itself to either the King orhimself. The Duke is said to have consulted at a critical period the Saxon Field-Marshal Geltz, who, observing the progress of the Bavarians and Poles towards the centre and right, gave it for his opinion that the Duke might sleep that night if he would in Vienna. Eugene of Savoy was employed during the action in conveying a message from Lorraine to the King. We may indulge ourselves with the conjecture that he was charged with this decision, one worthy of such a messenger. Accounts differ as to the hour at which the action became general by the deployment of the Bavarians and Poles. Some put it as late as twoP. M.It is said, however, that towards eleven o’clock the Imperialists on the left were slackening their advance to make good the ground they had gained, and to wait for the appearance of their friends, when the gilded cuirasses of the Polish cavalry flashed out from the defiles of the Wenersberg, and the shout of “Live Sobieski” ran along the lines. The heat was oppressive, and the King halted and dismounted his people for a hasty repast. This concluded, the whole line advanced, and the battle soon raged in every part of an amphitheatre admirably adapted by nature for such a transaction. The Turks had profited by the lull to bring up heavy reinforcements, and the Vizier flung himself on the Poles in very superior numbers. In an early part of the encounter, a body of Polish Hulans compromised itself by a rash advance, and was for a time surrounded. It was extricated by the prompt and judicious assistance of Waldeck and his Bavarians, but lost many officers of distinction, and among them, a Potocki, the treasurer Modrjewski, and the Colonel Ahasuerus. The second line was brought up by Sobieski, and the Turks were driven before their desperate valour through ravines and villages, and the fortified position of Hernals, back upon the glacis of their camp. The city of tents with all its treasures was almost within their grasp; but it is said that even with such a spectacle before him, Sobieski’s caution all but induced him to pause till the morrow. The approach to the camp was protected by a ravine, the ground in front was undulating and strengthened with works, and occupied by a strong force and a powerful artillery. The King was in face of the centre of this position; his right covered by Jablanowski against the attacks of the Tartar cavalry. It was five o’clock; hisinfantry was not yet at hand; the only artillery which had kept pace with the speed of his advance consisted of two or three light pieces which the veteran commander of his artillery, Konski, had brought up by force of arm and levers. Sobieski pointed these at the field tent of crimson silk, from which the Vizier was giving his orders. The ammunition carriages were, however, far behind, and a few charges carried by hand were soon exhausted. A French officer, it is said, rammed home the last cartridge with his gloves, his wig, and a packet of French newspapers.
At this moment of hesitation the infantry came up. They were led by the Count Maligni, the King’s brother-in-law, against a height which commanded the quarters of the Vizier. The attack was successful, and the King determined on the instant to pursue his fortune. As he led his troops in a direct line for the Vizier’s tent, his terrible presence was recognized by the infidel. “By Allah the King is really among us,” exclaimed the Khan of the Crimea, Selim Gieray. The mass retreated in confusion. Those who awaited the attack went down before those lances of the Polish cavalry of which it was said by a Polish noble to one of their kings, that if the heavens were to fall they would sustain them on their points. The Pachas of Aleppo and Silistria perished in the fray. The panic became universal and the rout complete. The Vizier, hurried along with the stream, weeping and cursing by turns—had neither time to deliberate nor power to command. By six o’clock his gorgeous tent was in possession of Sobieski. His charger, too heavily caparisoned for rapid flight, was still held by a slave at the entrance. One of the golden stirrups was instantly sent off by the conqueror to the Queen as a token of the defeat and flight of its late owner. On the left, meanwhile, the progress of Lorraine, though less rapid from the difficulties of the ground and the tenacity of the resistance, had been equally victorious. The great Turkish redoubt, of which the traces yet remain, held out against repeated assaults till near five o’clock, when Louis of Baden, at the head of a regiment of Saxon dragoons, dismounted for the purpose, and two Austrian regiments of infantry, carried the work. The Turks now gave way at every point, and poured into their camp in the wildest confusion. The Margrave Louis, at the head of a squadron of dragoons, was the first to open acommunication with the city from the counterscarp of the Scottish gate. Stahremberg ordered an immediate sally against the approaches of the enemy, from which they had maintained through the day as heavy a fire as on any previous day of the siege, though no assault had been attempted by the strong body of Janissaries left in them for that purpose. These men, abandoned now without orders to their fate, endeavoured to turn the guns of the batteries upon the Imperialists. The attempt, however, in the general confusion which ensued, was vain, and the main body of the Janissaries, unable or unwilling to retreat, was cut to pieces in the course of the night. The camp meanwhile fell into the undisputed possession of the Poles.
Previous precaution, or a few moments’ halt at St. Ulric, enabled the Vizier to save the sacred standard of the Prophet. One of the many standards captured was sent by Sobieski to the Pope under the supposition that it was the famous Palladium in question, but this proved to be a mistake. It is probable also that the mass of the treasure, which is supposed to have been very great in the Vizier’s exchequer, had been removed; and we learn from the King of Poland’s letters that considerable sums of coin were hastily divided among the Vizier’s attendants at the last moment, and carried off. No great amount of coin or bullion was found in the tents. Every other item in the long catalogue of the treasures and luxuries which the Vizier had accumulated round his person fell into the hands of the Poles. The Turks continued their flight without intermission in the direction of Raab, where the force still employed in the blockade of that fortress afforded them a rallying point. It was, however, impossible for the Christian leaders to assure themselves at so late an hour of the full extent of the enemy’s discomfiture, or even to consider themselves secure against a night attack. Great exertions were therefore made both by the King and the Duke to keep their troops well in hand through the night. The King, whose advance had led him to the very centre of the camp, found it necessary to resort to threats of summary and capital punishment to prevent his whole army from dispersing itself at once to gather the rich harvest of the Turkish tents. These threats were, as may be imagined, only partially effectual. Tents guarded in frontwere cut open from behind, and discipline as usual gave way before the attraction of spoil. The Germans had no such immediate opportunities for plunder. Two regiments only of Austrian dragoons were despatched in pursuit as far as the Fischa stream. The slaughter of this great battle was not great in proportion to the numbers engaged and the results obtained. The loss of the Turks has been computed at 25,000 men. Among these was that body of Janissaries, who were forgotten, and left without orders in the trenches, and were cut to pieces during the night. The King describes the Turks as defending themselves desperately even in full flight. In this point of view, he says, they made the finest retreat in the world. That of the Christians has been stated at 1000 killed and 3000 wounded, which is probably far less than the truth, for the Poles alone lost 100 officers, among them some of their first nobles. In the centre the loss of the Bavarians was probably trifling, but on the left the struggle was long and severe. A Prince of Croy fell here in the early part of the action. In the Vizier’s encampment was found the Polish envoy Proski, who, from the period of his sovereign’s junction with Austria, had been kept in fetters, under constant menace of the sabre or the bowstring, and now owed his life and liberation to the confusion of the moment. Kunitz also, an agent in Caprara’s suite, who had been detained in the Turkish camp, and had found means to send occasional intelligence to Stahremberg, escaped in a Turkish disguise during the action. A Polish writer, Rubinkoski, gives a rough list of the artillery and its appurtenances abandoned in the lines:—60 guns of 48 lbs., 60 of 24 lbs., 150 of various lesser calibre, 40 mortars, 9000 ammunition waggons, 100,000 oxen, 25,000 tents, 1,000,000 lbs. of powder. To this may be added 10,000 camels, 5000 oxen, mules, sheep, &c., and immense stores of other provision. Among those accidental results of events which the political economist and the philosopher loves to notice, is the fact that the popular use of coffee in Germany is to be dated from this period, and is due to the plunder of the Turkish camp. Stahremberg’s brave and faithful messenger, Kolschitzki, was rewarded by permission to set up the first coffee-house in Vienna. The head of the corporation of coffee providers is bound to this day to havein his house a portrait of this patriarch of his profession.[15]Another inventory of the siege-stores actually brought into the arsenal of Vienna shows a considerable amount, as well as variety of articles, but can give but an imperfect notion of the vast provision accumulated, as the army authorities could but glean after the plunderers of the three first days. The King writes to his wife that the quantity of ammunition saved was at most a third of the whole, and says that the continual explosions in the camp were like the last judgment. His letters give some very amusing details of that portion of the spoils of the Vizier’s tent which he contrived to rescue for his own share from the fangs of his officers. They illustrate also the character of the man whose penetralia were thus rudely exposed to investigation, and show that Kara Mustapha had superadded every description of refinement to the simpler sensuality of the East. Tissues and carpets and furs are natural appendages of Oriental rank and wealth, and jewelled arms and quivers, studded with rubies and pearls, were equally consistent with his functions as commander of the armies of the faithful. Baths, fountains, a rabbit warren, and a menagerie, were found within the encampment. A parrot took wing and foiled the pursuit of the soldiers. An ostrich had been beheaded by the Vizier’s own hand, as if it had been a woman of the harem, to prevent its falling into Christian hands. This rarity had been taken from the Imperial Menagerie at the Favorita, where the King mentions having found a famished lioness and a small body of Janissaries, who had been left behind at that post, and still held out some days after the action. The Janissaries surrendered to the personal summons of the King. Their lives were spared, and the lioness fed by order of the good-natured conqueror. “The Vizier,” writes the King,“is agalant homme, and has made us fine presents: everything in particular which came near his person is of the mostmignonand refined description. Father Louis will have reason to rejoice, for I have in my possession the medicine chest of the Vizier. Among its contents are oils, and gums, and balms, which Pecovini[16]is never tired of admiring. Among other things we have found some rare fishes called Eperlans de mer.Informez-vous-en, mon cœur, chez le Père Louis; ce doit être une chose précieuse pour rechauffer les entrailles.” Among the treasures of the Vizier, diamonds were found in great profusion; many, set in girdles and otherwise, fell into the hands of the King, and many more carried off by the officers and soldiers. The King remarks that they were not used for ornament by the Turks of his day, and conjectures that they were destined to adorn the ladies of Vienna when transferred to the harems of the Vizier and his Pachas.
Among other trophies of interest, Roman Catholic historians have particularized an oaken cross six ells in height, remarkable from the fact that in the camp of the infidel it was set up for the daily celebration of mass by one of their Christian allies, Servanus Kantacuzenos, Prince of Wallachia. A chapel was built for it in the so-called Gatterholz, near Schönbrunn, on the spot where it had thus braved the scoffs of the Moslem. It was stolen thence in 1785.
As far as a considerable lapse of intervening years permits us to decide, this great action appears to have been planned with surpassing judgment, and conducted with that steady valour and perseverance on the part both of officers and men, to give scope and effect to which all rules of war were invented, and without which these rules are useless. History presents few instances in which an extensive operation has been conducted with such cordial concert between bodies of different nations commanded in several cases by their respective sovereigns, and in which jealousies of precedence and professional rivalries appear to have been so completely laid aside during the action. The only instance of any apparent deficiency in this respect is that of a refusal of the Prince of Waldeck to support an attack directed by the Duke of Lorraine; but even in this case there is every reason to suppose that he considered it to involve a departure from the earnest injunctions of the chief in command, the King, who had directed him to keep his troops in hand for the supportof the right wing. When the discomfiture of the Polish cavalry had compromised the safety of that wing, and with it the fate of the battle, we find the German troops, probably the Bavarians, prompt and efficient to the rescue; and on the left, Saxons, intermingled with Austrians, fought together, as if under one common banner. The stout elector himself was in the thickest of the fray. He is said to have been splashed with Turkish blood so as scarcely to be recognised. With the exception of the first somewhat rash attack of the Poles, there is no appearance of any indulgence of that untempered enthusiasm which the occasion might have excused. Order and steadiness seem to have pervaded the whole area of the Christian operations. Attacks were everywhere duly supported, failures retrieved, and obstacles of ground successively overcome, in a manner which showed a grave consciousness of the magnitude of the stake at issue.