The Battle of Vienna (German: Schlacht am Kahlen Berge, Polish: Bitwa pod Wiedniem or Odsiecz Wiedeńska, Turkish: İkinci Viyana Kuşatması) is a battle that took place on 11 and 12 September 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. It was a battle of the Holy Roman Empire in league with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Holy League) versus the Ottoman Empire and chiefdoms of the Ottoman Empire, and took place at the Kahlenberg mountain near Vienna. The battle marked the beginning of the political hegemony of the Habsburg dynasty in the Holy Roman Empire and Central Europe. The battle was won by the combined forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth, the latter being represented only by the forces of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (the march of the Lithuanian army was delayed, as a result of which they arrived in Vienna after it was relieved. The Viennese garrison was led by Ernst Rüdiger Graf von Starhemberg, an Austrian subject of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. The overall command was held by the commander of the Polish forces, the King of Poland, Jan III Sobieski. The alliance fought the army of the Ottoman Empire and those of Ottoman fiefdoms commanded by Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha. The siege itself began on 14 July 1683, by the Ottoman Empire army of approximately 90,000--300,000 men. The besieging force was composed of 60 ortas of Janissaries (12,000 men paper strength) with an observation army of c.70,000 men watching the countryside. The decisive battle took place on 12 September, after the united relief army of approximately 84,000 men had arrived. It has been suggested by some historians that the battle marked the turning-point in the Ottoman--Habsburg wars, the 300-year struggle between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire. However, an opposing view sees the battle only as confirming the already decaying power of the Ottoman Empire. Over the sixteen years following the battle, the Habsburgs of Austria gradually occupied and dominated southern Hungary and Transylvania, which had been largely cleared of the Ottoman forces. The battle is also notable for including the largest cavalry charge in history. The capture of the city of Vienna had long been a strategic aspiration of the Ottoman Empire, due to its interlocking control over Danubian (Black Sea to Western Europe) southern Europe, and the overland (Eastern Mediterranean to Germany) trade routes. During the years preceding the latter siege (the formerhad taken place in 1529), under the auspices of grand viziers from the influential Köprülü family, the Ottoman Empire undertook extensive logistical preparations, including the repair and establishment of roads and bridges leading into the Holy Roman Empire and its logistical centres, as well as the forwarding of ammunition, cannon and other resources from all over the Ottoman Empire to these centres and into the Balkans. Since 1679 the plague had been raging in Vienna. On the political front, the Ottoman Empire had been providing military assistance to the Hungarians and to non-Catholic minorities in Habsburg-occupied portions of Hungary. There, in the years preceding the siege, widespread unrest had become open rebellion against Leopold I's pursuit of Counter-Reformation principles and his desire to crush Protestantism. In 1681, Protestants and other anti-Habsburg Kuruc forces, led by Imre Thököly, were reinforced with a significant force from the Ottomans, who recognized Thököly as King of "Upper Hungary" (the eastern part of today's Slovakia and parts of today's north-eastern Hungary, which he had earlier taken by force of arms from the Habsburgs). This support went so far as explicitly to promise the "Kingdom of Vienna" to the Hungarians if it fell into Ottoman hands. Yet before the siege a state of peace had existed for twenty years between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire as a result of the Peace of Vasvár. In 1681 and 1682, clashes between the forces of Imre Thököly and the Holy Roman Empire (of which the border was then northern Hungary) intensified, and the incursions of Habsburg forces into Central Hungary provided the crucial argument of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha in convincing the Sultan, Mehmet IV and his Divan, to allow the movement of the Ottoman Army. Mehmet IV authorized Kara Mustafa Pasha to operate as far as Győr (the name during the Ottoman period was Yanıkkale, German Raab) and Komárom (Turkish Komaron, German Komorn) castles, both in northwestern Hungary, and to besiege them. The Ottoman Army was mobilized on 21 January 1682, and war was declared on 6 August 1682. The logistics of the time meant that it would have been risky or impossible to launch an invasion in August or September 1682 (a three-month campaign would have got the Ottomans to Vienna just as winter set in).

• published: 22 Dec 2013
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