An Ottoman depiction of the siege from the 16th century, housed in the
Istanbul Hachette Art Museum
Forces Engaged
Austrian: 16,000 troops and 72 guns. Commander: Philip,
count palatine of Austria
Ottoman: c. 120,000–125,000 (some sources claiming 300,000) Commander:
Sultan Suleiman.
Importance
Turkish defeat at Vienna was the high-water mark of Ottoman
expansion in Europe, signaling the beginning of a long decline in Ottoman
power.
Historical Setting
Europe in the 1520s presented to a potential outside
aggressor a wonderful opportunity, just as the weakened condition caused by
Byzantine-Persian hostility had opened the door for Islam to break out of
Arabia in the seventh century. More than weakness, however, it was political
rivalry in Europe that made the continent vulnerable. Politically, King Francis
I of France and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, argued and fought over land that
today is the Franco-German frontier, as well as control over northern Italy.
France had a powerful military based on artillery and heavy cavalry, with which
it won a number of victories. Charles, as head of the Hapsburg family,
controlled not only the Holy Roman Empire (which consisted of Austria and parts
of whatever countries bordered it) but also Spain, whose military power was
based on the tercio, a phalanx of pikemen supported by smaller contingents of soldiers,
each armed with the harquebus, a matchlock musket. Against these formations,
cavalry made no impression, and, when the two armies met at Pavia in northern
Italy in 1525, France came up the loser. Ferdinand not only was defeated, he
was taken prisoner. During and after his captivity, he plotted revenge and
pondered on possible allies.
Although Charles was enjoying this military success, he was
bothered by Pope Clement VII in Rome. Although technically the Holy Roman
Empire was supposed to be the defender of the Catholic Church, just which was
the senior partner in the equation had been a point of difficulty since
Charlemagne took on the job in 800. Clement resented Charles for controlling so
much of Italy because, before his accession to the papacy, Clement had been
Giulio de Medici, a wealthy and powerful figure in his own right. Thus,
Clement’s attitude toward Charles meant not only a lack of political support
but also a lack of religious support in dealing with the rise of the Protestant
Reformation and the increasingly political activities of Martin Luther in
Germany. Thus, Charles had his hands full with rivals in Rome, France, and
central Europe.
Sultan Suleiman in Constantinople was not slow to see this.
He was the ninth sultan of the Ottoman Empire, successor to a long line of
able, resourceful, daring, and strongly religious rulers. He inherited an
empire that stretched from the Persian frontier in the east to Morocco in the
west, as well as much of the Balkans. He also inherited a military that in its
own way was as impressive as anything Charles or Francis could put in the
field. The pride of the Ottoman army lay in two arms: the heavy infantry and
the artillery. Since the days of the second sultan, Ala ed-Din, the Ottoman government
had accepted for taxes payment in kind in the form of male children of
Christian families. They became slaves, were raised as Moslems, and from their
youth trained as soldiers. They developed into a fearsome unit called the
Janissaries, completely dedicated to their faith and their sultan and, in the
service of both, ready to go anywhere and fight any enemy. The Ottoman Turks
had also learned from western Europe the craft of casting artillery, and they
had far outstripped their teachers. The Ottomans produced the largest guns of
their day, and with them they captured Constantinople in 1453 after it had
stood unconquered for more than a thousand years. Heavy siege guns were the
Turks’ specialty, and many cities became Ottoman possessions because of those
weapons, just as many armies fell before the talent and élan of the
Janissaries.
Although Suleiman was an open-minded and interesting
political ruler whom the Europeans viewed as a man with whom they could do
business, he was also caliph of all Islam, thanks to the recent acquisition of
Egypt and deposition of the last spiritual leader. Suleiman was therefore bound
by the tenets of his faith to spread Islam and convert the unbelievers or exact
tribute from them. As such, he conducted campaigns against the Persians, and he
also looked to extend his political and religious dominion into Europe. He was
also contacted by the vengeful King Francis, who encouraged an invasion to
threaten Charles’s eastern front and correspondingly weaken his French
frontier.
Suleiman’s venture into Europe began in the summer of 1526
when he captured Buda and placed Hungary under his sway, promoting John
Zapolya, governor of Transylvania, to the Hungarian throne as his tributary
monarch. That throne was contested, however, by Ferdinand, archduke of Austria
and king of Bohemia. While Suleiman was campaigning in Persia in 1528, a
rebellion broke out in Hungary. Some of the rebellious factions claimed to be
fighting for Ferdinand’s cause. Once his Persian problems were settled—at least
temporarily—Suleiman made ready to march on Ferdinand’s home city of Vienna and
add Austria and the Holy Roman Empire to his own Ottoman Empire.
The Battle
Suleiman led his army out of Constantinople on 10 April
1529. When Ferdinand heard of this, he called a council in Bohemia to gather an
army. For the most part, his requests went unanswered. Lots of promises were
made by Austria and Bohemia and the empire, but few troops actually arrived.
Charles was busy with trouble in Italy and had to keep an eye on both Francis
and Clement. In Vienna, meanwhile, the 250-year-old city walls, no more than 5
feet thick, were in many places badly in need of repair. They could not be
mended with masonry, as there was no time, so for the most part dirt and the
debris of the suburbs were used because the outlying houses were razed to open
up a field of fire before the city walls. The official in charge in Vienna was
Philip, count palatine of Austria. He was assisted in his job by two talented
men, Graf Nicholas zu Salm-Reifferscheidt and William von Roggendorff. Graf
Nicholas oversaw the wall repairs, gathered in as much food and ammunition as
he could, and expelled from the city as many women and children as he could to
ease the supply burden. During the siege itself, he oversaw the placement of
the artillery, seventy-two guns of widely varying size and caliber. When the
siege began, the city was defended by a garrison of 22,000 infantry and 2,000
cavalry. Between the garrisons that Suleiman had absorbed along his line of
march, reinforcements commanded by his lackey King John Zapolya, and
innumerable camp followers, the Ottoman force that stood before Vienna on 26
September 1529 was possibly as large as 150,000 people[including camp followers],
although it included probably 80,000 Turkish soldiers and another 6,000
Hungarians.
The Ottoman advance had been a wonder to behold. Many of the
Janissaries advanced up the Danube in boats, stopping with Suleiman for 5 days
at Buda to recapture the city and massacre the defenders. News of that action,
as well as the activities of some 20,000 akinji (ransackers) that were
devastating the countryside all along the line of march, motivated the
defenders in Vienna to fix their walls as best they could. The first contingent
of Turks arrived in sight of Vienna on 23 September and skirmished with the
Viennese cavalry. By 27 September, the city was surrounded, and Suleiman sent a
delegation to demand its surrender. The delegation was comprised of four
captured cavalrymen, fabulously dressed in Turkish clothing. The sultan stated
that an immediate surrender would end in no occupation of the city but for a
few functionaries, and he would have breakfast there on the morning of 29
September. Resist, and the city would be destroyed so thoroughly that no one
would ever again find a trace of it. Graf Nicholas, de facto commander, sent
back four richly dressed Turkish prisoners; they carried no answer at all,
which was answer enough.
The fate of Vienna in reality lay neither in the city walls
nor the attacking army, but in the weather. The summer of 1529 was the wettest
anyone in southeastern Europe could remember, and the supply wagons, vital to
supporting the immense force before Vienna, lagged far behind. Worse still for
the Ottoman cause, the massive siege artillery also could not be moved along
the muddy roads. The artillery that Suleiman had with him were 300 small pieces
that lacked the destructive power necessary to break down even these old walls.
Suleiman’s only alternative was to mine the city walls. This
involves digging a tunnel from one’s own protected trenches under the walls of
the enemy and then filling the tunnel with gunpowder and exploding it. The
collapsing tunnel would then collapse a section of wall. Such operations began
immediately, but the defenders were lucky enough to learn the placement of the
mines from a deserter. They quickly countermined, either digging their own
tunnels under those being dug by the Turks in order to collapse them or digging
at the same level, which resulted in underground battles, in which the
defenders tended to be the more victorious. Not all of the mines could be
discovered, however, and some of them worked. The breaches, which were
occasionally large enough to ride several horses through abreast, could not be
exploited. Behind the walls, the defenders had dug trenches and built wooden
palisades from which they beat back the attackers. The breaches were held by
the same stolid pikemen that had won the battles of western Europe, and the
swords of the Janissaries were of little use in the cramped confines of the
battle. A major battle in one breach on 12 October resulted in the Janissaries
leaving behind 1,200 dead.
On the night of 12 October, Suleiman held a council of war.
The supply wagons had not arrived, and the countryside was not providing nearly
enough food to support his army. The city was proving unexpectedly tough.
Winter was approaching. The defenders had won every encounter in the breaches
that had been created, and the attackers’ death toll was between 14,000 and 20,000,
primarily Janissaries and aristocratic cavalry. For the first time in their
history, the Janissaries complained that they were being sacrificed. To do just
that had been their duty and indeed their entire life for nearly two centuries.
Suleiman offered them a huge bonus for one more attack. On 14 October, another
mine blew up, but the collapsing wall fell outward, creating such a pile of
rubble that it was impossible for the attackers to rush the breach. The pikemen
once again stood firm in the face of the Janissary onslaught, and once again
they turned the attackers away.
That night, the Ottoman army struck its tents, which had
covered the plain outside Vienna for as far as the eye could see. In massive
bonfires, they burned everything that they could not carry and then threw their
prisoners in the flames as well. The army marched away the next morning as it
snowed.
A relative handful of men saved western Europe from Ottoman
invasion. At first it seemed that little had changed, however. John Zapolya
still ruled in Suleiman’s name in Buda, and Hungary was part of the Ottoman
domain. Although Suleiman returned 3 years later to finish the job he had
started, a spirited resistance at the town of Guns (modern Koszeg, Austria)
and a major deployment of European troops under Charles V
once again convinced him to return home. Another uprising in Persia diverted
Suleiman’s attention, so he made peace with Ferdinand and turned his armies
eastward. He returned to Europe in 1541 to recapture Hungary from Ferdinand’s
invasion, but he went no farther.
Suleiman presided over the Ottoman Empire at its zenith,
both in power and territory. After him, the long line of talented sultans
ended. His son, Selim (called “the Sot”), had none of his father’s talents.
From Selim’s rule forward the Ottoman Empire began a long decline until by the
nineteenth century it was regarded by the world as “the sick man of Europe.”
Had Suleiman captured Vienna, he could have wintered there and proceeded the
following season to invade Germany. Any sort of cooperative moves by France
would have placed the Holy Roman Empire in a vise. That would have served
Francis’s aims in the short term, but he certainly overestimated his influence
on the sultan. Islam could well have triumphed against a divided enemy.
Within the Ottoman military, the zenith passed as well.
Vienna marked the beginning of the end for the Janissaries, for their once
invincible front had been shattered. They could be beaten, and not only did
their enemies know it, but so did the soldiers themselves. The bribe they were
offered for that final attack was proof that their élan was no more. “The
Janissaries themselves degenerated from the mighty force they had been. They
used their power to improve their personal lives, at the expense of the state”
(McCarthy, The Ottoman Turks, p. 164). “The Janissaries were to turn into
unruly Praetorian guards, who made and unmade sultans, and this was perhaps
inevitable. But even determinism must admit that Vienna started them down the
long slide” (Pratt, The Battles That Changed History, p. 149). The elite force
that had been the instrument of Ottoman expansion became the instrument of
internal instability.
The decline in quality leadership after Suleiman was
compounded by the success of the previous Ottoman line. The empire by the
middle of the sixteenth century was too large to be efficiently governed by the
overly centralized authority in Constantinople. Although the limits of the
empire were (for the most part) as far as an army could march from
Constantinople in one campaign season, that was still too large for the nature
of imperial rule. Because their primary enemies at that time were the Holy
Roman Empire and Persia, only two complete armies could maintain authority. To
create them would mean an increase in cost and a corresponding decrease in
quality, especially with the decline of the Janissaries. Thus, the Ottoman
Empire could not expand its borders any farther. Conquest and booty had always
been a major contributor to the economy. Over the following century, the Turks
began to experience a rise in unemployment and banditry, which the weakening
government could not successfully address. Unfortunately for the Ottoman
Empire, Vienna spelled a change of fortune: just when a strong and visionary
ruler was vital to maintain or expand the empire, the talent pool dried up.
References: Barber,
Noel. The Sultans. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973; Clot, Andre. Suleiman
the Magnificent: The Man, His Life, His Epoch. Translated by Matthew J. Reisz.
London: Saqui Books, 1989; McCarthy, Justin. The Ottoman Turks. New York:
Longman, 1997; Parry, V. J. A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976; Pratt, Fletcher. The Battles That Changed
History. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956.
SÜLEYMAN I
(1495–1566).
Ottoman sultan during whose reign Ottoman power reached its
apex. Also called Süleyman the Lawgiver (Kanûnî) or Süleyman the Magnificent.
The son of Selim I, he ascended to the throne on the death of his father
(1520).
His earliest acts included the rehabilitation of prisoners,
exiles, and those who suffered under the harsh rule of his father. Süleyman I
issued laws protecting life, property, and honor and promoting lawful
administration. The principle of merit was reinforced in promotions and in
appointments to administrative positions. Administrators who acted arbitrarily
during the rule of his father were tried. Measures were taken to prevent
injustice in the collection of taxes.
In the reign of Süleyman I, Ottoman territorial expansion
reached Vienna in Central Europe and the Indian Ocean in Asia. The period was
also rich in political events. The first serious incident was the rebellion of
the beglerbegi of Damascus, Canberdi Ghazali, who declared the independence of
Syria (1521). This rebellion was suppressed quickly. When the Hungarians
refused to continue the payment of the annual tribute, Süleyman launched a
military campaign against the kingdom; in August 1521, Belgrade was conquered.
The next move was to the Aegean island of Rhodes, which was governed by the
Knights of St. John. Conquest of this island in December 1522 secured the sea
connection between İstanbul and Egypt.
Süleyman I became closely involved in European politics when
the mother of the French king Francis I—who had been captured by the Holy Roman
emperor, Charles V, at the Battle of Pavia (1525)—sent a letter to İstanbul
asking for help in the release of her son. The Ottomans, considering an
alliance with France a means of preventing Habsburg domination in Europe,
attacked and defeated Hungary (Battle of Mohács, August 1526) and appointed
Janos Szapolyai as a vassal king. Thus Süleyman I became able to exert direct
pressure on the Habsburgs. When Charles V’s brother, Archduke Ferdinand, ruler
of Austria, claiming to be the king of Hungary, occupied Buda and expelled
Szapolyai, the Ottomans responded in force and reestablished him (September
1529). Süleyman, in order to discourage Ferdinand’s ambitions in Hungary, laid
siege to Vienna (October 1529). The issue of Hungary led to a new war with the
Habsburgs, in which Güns and Graz were besieged (1531–33).
A formal military alliance between the Ottoman Empire and
France was concluded in 1536, and capitulations were granted to French
merchants. As part of a joint plan to attack Charles V, French forces entered
northern Italy while Ottoman forces attacked Venetian ports in the south
(1537–40). A naval campaign resulted in Ottoman victory at the Battle of
Preveza (1538). This gave the Ottomans the upper hand in the Mediterranean
until their defeat at the Battle of Lepanto (1571).
When Szapolyai died in 1541, Ferdinand besieged Buda, and
Süleyman was again forced to move against the Habsburgs. After the Austrians
were pushed out, Hungary became a beglerbegilik, administered from İstanbul.
During the Ottoman-Habsburg war of 1541–47, the towns of Esztergom and
Stuhlweissenburg (Istolni Belgrad) were conquered (1543). Meanwhile the Ottoman
navy, headed by Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha, occupied the Habsburg fortresses of Messina,
Reggio, and Nice (1543). The Ottoman-Habsburg peace of 1547 stipulated the
payment of an annual tribute by the Holy Roman Empire to İstanbul.
The peace of 1547 was terminated by Habsburg attempts to
take control of Transylvania (1550). This move was repulsed, and the Ottomans
attacked the Habsburg strongholds of Eger, Malta, and Tripolitany, conquering
only the last (August 1551). At the same time, Süleyman I approached the
Protestant princes of Germany and urged them to cooperate with France against
the Catholic Habsburgs. By this he aimed to increase disunity among the
Christians. Though a peace agreement was signed in 1562, renewed hostilities
led to an (unsuccessful) Ottoman naval expedition to Malta (May–September
1565). When the Habsburgs refused to pay the annual tribute or evacuate the
Transylvanian towns of Tokaj and Serencz, Süleyman I launched his last military
campaign. He died during the siege of the fortress of Szigetvar (September
1566).
Ottoman engagements in the East during the reign of Süleyman
I aimed at preventing the extension of the Shia influence of Safavid Iran in
Anatolia and at expanding Ottoman domination over Islamic countries. A military
campaign against Iran of 1533–35 resulted in the conquests of Tabriz
(Azerbaijan) and Baghdad (Iraq). When the brother of the Safavid Shah Tahmasb
I, Elkas Mirza, revolted against Iran and took refuge with the Ottomans,
Süleyman used this opportunity to begin a second campaign against the Safavids
(1548–55). During this war, Van (eastern Anatolia) and Azerbaijan were
reconquered, and Georgia was annexed. These acquisitions were ratified by the
Ottoman-Iranian peace Treaty of Amasya (May 1555).
Süleyman I’s reign witnessed the extension of an Ottoman
naval presence from the western Mediterranean to eastern Africa and the western
coasts of India. When Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha left Algiers to Ottoman rule
(1533), the western Mediterranean entered the Ottoman area of naval activity.
The governor of Egypt, Hadım Süleyman Pasha, led the Ottoman Red Sea fleet
toward the south and conquered Aden (Yemen) but was unable to take the fortress
of Diu (Gujarat, India) from the Portuguese (1538). After Basra (in Iraq) came
under Ottoman rule (1538), Suez and Basra became the main Ottoman naval bases
for operations in the Indian Ocean.
During the rule of Süleyman I, Ottoman civilization produced
its major classics in art and literature. Poets like Bâkî and Fuzulî; prose
authors like Celâlzâde Mustafa Çelebi, Kınalızâde Ali Çelebi, Latifî, Lutfî
Pasha, Sehî Bey, and Taşköprülüzâde İsameddin Ahmed; jurists like Ebussuud
Efendi; and architects like Mimar Sinan produced their works in these decades.
At the same time, signs of institutional decline were to be observed toward the
end of Süleyman’s life.
HABSBURG EMPIRE.
Contacts between the Germans, in the general sense, and the
Ottomans dates back probably to the battle of Nikopolis (1396). The Habsburg
Empire and the Ottomans, as neighboring powers, confronted each other following
the Ottoman occupation of Hungary (1526). Janos Szapolyai, who was appointed by
Süleyman I as the new king of Hungary, was attacked and expelled by Ferdinand
I. This development triggered an Ottoman expedition in 1529 against the
Habsburgs to restore Szapolyai; Vienna was besieged for the first time. In 1533
a peace was made, by which Ferdinand I acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty. Warfare
continued between the Habsburg Empire and the Ottomans, in which the latter
were dominant until the wars between 1593 and 1606. The Treaty of Zsitvatorok
(1606) terminated the Austrian vassalage.
The new military superiority of the Habsburg Empire over the
Ottomans was marked by the period following the second Siege of Vienna (1683).
The warfare between the Holy League and the Ottomans between 1683 and 1699
proved to be disastrous for the latter. By the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) the
Ottomans had to abandon Hungary, Croatia, and their suzerainty over
Transylvania to the Habsburgs. After 1699 the Ottomans entered into a state of
constant defensive warfare against the Austrians. The Habsburg Empire,
collaborating with Russia and Venice, tried to penetrate deeper into the
Balkans. The result of the war of 1714–18 was the loss of northern Serbia,
including Belgrade, and Temesvar, to Austria (Treaty of Passarowitz, 1718). The
Ottomans were able to regain Belgrade and Temesvar during another war, 1736–39
(Treaty of Belgrade, 1739). The last major war between the Habsburg Empire and
the Ottomans took place between 1788 and 1791; the ensuing Peace of Sistova
(Ziştovi) did not alter the borders.
During the 19th century the Habsburg Empire continued to
increase its political influence in the Ottoman Empire, with a view to
domination in the Balkans. In order to attain this goal, Austria presented
itself as the protector of the interests of the Balkan Catholics—that is,
Albanian Catholics. The increasing rivalry between the Habsburg Empire and
Russia in the Balkans and the interest of the latter in the Balkan Slavic
nationalist movements led the Austrians to support Albanian nationalism. The
Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–1878 and the Congress of Berlin secured the Austrian
occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, formally annexed in 1908. During World
War I the Habsburg Empire and the Ottomans were allied.
