Under previous sultans, the Ottomans had reached the gates of Vienna twice. Both times, they had failed to take the city. And although the empire’s territorial expansion in Africa and Europe during Mehmed’s reign had reached its peak, he couldn’t really claim credit for these triumphs. Those conquests were the work of his grand viziers. Mehmed himself was more renowned for his abilities at hunting down stags and bears in the forests around his palace at Edirne—a far cry from the exploits of his legendary uncle, the sultan Murad IV, who had taken Erivan and Baghdad, and his namesake and illustrious ancestor Mehmed II, who had conquered Constantinople and toppled the Byzantine Empire at the ripe old age of twenty-one. Both sultans had fully earned their epithets of fatih—the conqueror. Mehmed IV, however, had to content himself with avci—the hunter.
Taking Vienna would change all that.
A barrage of questions assaulted the sultan’s mind. He was scared, beyond any fear he’d ever known. But he was also intrigued.
He calmed his breathing and, after one final internal debate, nodded.
“Tell me more.”
One year later almost to the day, in early September of 1683, the army of Christendom was finally within striking distance of Vienna and the Ottoman army that had laid siege to it since the beginning of summer.
Sixty thousand warriors were now gathered on open ground outside the small town of Tulln, lined up in front of its wooden defensive palisade for the grand ceremonial review that would precede their heroic march into battle.
The beleaguered capital was only twenty miles away.
Facing them from outside the large ceremonial tent were their leaders, the princes and dukes that Pope Innocent XI had summoned and financed, all of them illustrious and battle-hardened professional soldiers of the highest order. They were all here to halt the advance of the largest army ever seen in Europe, a Muslim army that threatened not just Vienna but their own states.
At the center of this preeminent lineup was the most senior of them all, the army of liberation’s main commander: John III Sobieski, king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania.
Sobieski—an ox of a man and a formidable military leader—had ridden in a week earlier at the head of an army of fifteen thousand horsemen. His force included two thousand husaria, the fierce “winged” hussars; with their sixteen-foot lances, spear-like swords, and plumed helmets, they were the most fearsome heavy cavalry of their time.
It had been a long, hard march, and the Polish king was exhausted. Still, as he surveyed his troops, he felt a surge of pride and anticipation. He knew that the hopes of a deeply worried Europe rested most heavily on his shoulders, and he would not disappoint its people. He couldn’t. God had tasked him with saving the Christian states from the heathens. It was, he was certain, his destiny. His eternal place at Saint Peter’s side was assured.
He stood in muted appreciation as the troops, musketeers, dragoons, and cuirassiers, their cannon and mortars proudly on display, were paraded before him and the rest of the commanders. As the final regiment took up its position, he turned and glanced at the man to his right, Charles, the Duke of Lorraine.
He didn’t need to say anything. His look of utter confidence said it all.
It was a look Lorraine knew well. The duke, who still walked with a limp from a broken leg sustained in battle seven years earlier, was the brother-in-law of the Habsburg emperor. Leopold had appointed him field commander of his forces earlier that year. An affable, unpretentious man, the duke was, like Sobieski, a fierce, courageous soldier who bore his battle scars proudly and commanded great respect and trust from his men.
His presence by Sobieski’s side only heightened the Polish king’s confidence.
With all the troops now in place, the king and the duke led the rest of the commanders in kneeling before their men while the archbishop of Gran prepared to celebrate Mass and bless the valiant soldiers of Christ. The emperor himself was not there. The cowardly Leopold and his court had fled the capital one week before the arrival of the Ottoman army earlier that summer, and he had no intention of joining the men who were here to save it. He wasn’t alone; more than fifty thousand Viennese had followed their monarch in abandoning the city for safer ground farther west. Their places were taken over by an equal number of country folk who fled the neighboring villages and sought refuge behind the city’s fortified walls—a refuge that was on the verge of collapse.
Sobieski knew how desperate things were. For weeks, the Ottomans had rained cannon fire on the besieged city. At the same time, Ottoman sappers had dug tunnels under its defensive walls and exploded mines to wreck them. The Viennese defenders had so far managed to repel each assault, but they were bloodied, starved, and exhausted. From messages sneaked out of the city by intrepid couriers, Sobieski knew it would only take one final well-placed charge to cleave an opening through the fortifications and allow the Turks to stream into the city. He also knew that when that happened, no one would be spared.
The sultan had already sent two missives to Leopold in which he’d laid out his intentions in startlingly clear terms. Ottoman rules of engagement prescribed that any city that did not accede to the sultan’s demand of surrender and open its gates, and whose people did not forsake their religion and convert to Islam, would not be spared. Flayed skins and sacks of severed heads would be gifted to the victorious pasha, and those who were not put under the blade would be enslaved.
Sobieski and the rest of the gathered commanders had also heard first-hand reports of how Kara Mustafa Pasha, the grand vizier at the head of the sultan’s army, had demonstrated that his master would be taken at his word: en route to Vienna, a few miles outside the city, Kara Mustafa had his men slaughter all four thousand citizens of the small town of Perchtoldsdorf—after its garrison had surrendered. They also burned down its church, which was packed with women and children. The people of Vienna had taken note. Kara Mustafa’s bloodthirst ensured that they would fight to the death.
As far away as England and Spain, terrified prayers were given in churches asking for salvation from the heathen invasion.
It would all hinge on the men gathered here, at Tulln.
With the court choristers in midhymn, something caught Sobieski’s eye. It came from the far right of the plain, at the very edge of the gathered force: a cloud of dust, topped by several fluttering flags.
The profound solemnity of the moment made the disturbance all the more egregious.
Even from this great distance, he immediately realized what he was looking at: intricately woven silk flags carrying Koranic verses, ones that served to remind soldiers of their faith while invoking a sense of divinely protected victory.
Ottoman flags.
Sobieski stiffened and he glanced at Lorraine. The duke’s face mirrored his own angry scowl. Lorraine had evidently also recognized the sultan’s banners.
The procession caused a ripple of commotion across the gathered troops as it advanced slowly, unhindered. The hot, still air was choked with portent and malice, and yet, the small convoy was allowed to progress. As it drew nearer, Sobieski could now make out three horsemen, each of them carrying a banner and trailing a camel.
They made their way across the grounds until they were within fifty yards of the ceremonial tent. A wall of guards moved to block their advance, swords raised. The lead horseman calmly raised his arm and brought the convoy to a halt just before them. Then the three riders dismounted, took a few steps toward the guards and the royal enclosure, and, with the edges of the guards’ swords hovering a hair’s breadth from their necks, bowed.