The year was 1526, and the Ottoman Empire had wiped their once mighty Hungarian foes
off the map. The Catholic world looked on in suspense as the ambitious Sultan Suleiman
and his elite Janissaries pushed deeper into Europe than any Islamic Empire ever had. But
as they expanded westwards, they encountered another formidable opponent, the Habsburg
Dynasty of Austria. The struggle between these two powers would soon escalate, and resulted
in a Turkish army pointed at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. Welcome to our video
on the first Ottoman Siege of Vienna, the zenith of Suleiman’s European conquests.
With the Ottoman victory at Mohacs, the Hungarian army was annihilated, and its government decapitated.
King Louis II had perished in the battle, and with him sunk the future of his Kingdom.
A power vacuum engulfed Hungary, and in its wake, two claimants to the throne arose.
In late 1526, the native aristocrat John Zapolya was elected by the Hungarian lower gentry.
The following year, the higher nobility elected Ferdinand I, the Archduke of Austria and brother
of Charles V, King of Germany and inheritor of the Habsburg monarchy. Ferdinand was quick
to act, sweeping in to establish control over the northwestern territories of the Kingdom,
establishing a capital in Posnozy. Meanwhile, Zapolya consolidated himself in
Transylvania. He knew that he would need support against his Austrian rivals and their powerful
Habsburg allies, and thus had no choice but to turn to Suleiman. The Hungarian would-be
King and his rump state became a vassal territory of the Sultan.
Ferdinand asserted his claim to the throne by launching a military campaign into the
Hungarian heartland at the head of an army of 18,000 German mercenaries. Zapolya found
himself bogged down in a Slavonic peasant uprising in his southern territories, and
was taken by surprise when Ferdinand took the city of Buda with little resistance. He
quickly rallied a force of 7,000 men, mostly Hungarians, Transylvanians and Serbs, and
marched out to meet the German host. In fall of 1527, Ferdinand decisively defeated
Zapolya at the battle of Tarcal [tar’tsal]. The Austrian Archduke followed up his success
by smashing Zapolya yet again the following Spring, at the battle of Szina [Seena]. By
the end of his campaign, Ferdinand and his mercenaries had seized control over much of
the Hungarian heartland, and his claim to the throne of Hungary was looking evermore
solidified. Zapolya had fled to Poland, licking his wounds.
From there, he sent desperate correspondences to Suleiman, beseeching his suzerain to intervene,
and drive the Germans out of Hungary on his behalf. The Sultan was quick to respond; in
the spring of 1529, campaigning season had begun once again, and the Ottomans started
mustering a massive army in Bulgaria, comprised of 125,000 men and 20,000 camels, and significant
amounts of cannons. As always, the Turkish army included soldiers of all the Empire’s
Christian and Muslim ethnic groups. Suleiman’s colossal army began its northward
march, but it was not without hardship. The spring rains bucketed down, turning the dirt
to mud. Many Ottoman cannons had to be abandoned. The Camels too, not used to the soaking conditions,
began to perish en masse. By the 18th of August, the Ottoman army had returned to the Mohacs
plain. Zapolya was waiting there with a host of 6,000 Hungarian cavalrymen, and joined
forces with his overlord. Despite the hardships, the Ottomans swept
through Hungary like a tidal wave, dismantling Ferdinand’s gains town by town most of which
put up little to no resistance. On the 8th of September, Suleiman seized the capital
of Buda, and placed it firmly in the hands of John Zapolya.
Suleiman then continued to assert his dominance. In the following weeks, he conquered Gran,
Tata, Komárom [kom’ahh’rom] and Raab, delivering blow after blow to the Habsburgs.
European sources claim that the Ottomans laid a path of destruction behind them, murdering
and pillaging as they marched onwards, committing numerous atrocities.
The Sultan’s campaign had brought him within striking distance of the heart of his great
enemy, and thus, the Ottoman Sultan marched his armies past the Hungarian border, and
into Austrian territory, towards Vienna. The trek was arduous, and the torrential downpour
continued to torment the troops. Ottoman sources claim that yet more horses and camels were
swept away by the water, many men drowned in the river, while more were forced to climb
onto trees and spend two days and nights there to avoid being washed away.
By now, western Europe had become more and more aware of the existential threat the Turks
posed. The reformer Martin Luther, who previously had been against resisting the Ottomans, now
published a book compelling the Habsburg crown to defend the Empire from Suleiman’s expansion,
in which he stated: “It is a fact that the Turk is at our throat, and even if he does
not will to march against us this year, yet he is there, armed and ready any hour to attack
us.” Christendom was aware that a strike upon Vienna was likely - the city would not
be taken by surprise. Knowing that an army encroached upon their
city, Ferdinand had fled and taken refuge in Bohemia. The Viennese population was left
leaderless, but began mustering a rabble militia, made up of mostly of peasant farmers, ready
to defend their home. Fortunately for the defenders, Emperor Charles V sent a contingent
of 17,000 mercenaries to defend the city. This force was made up mostly of Landsknechts
- elite, professional soldiers mostly from Germany known for their flamboyant dress,
a symbol of wealth and power. At their head was Nicholas Salm, a 70-year-old soldier who
had made a name for himself at the battle of Pavia, seven years earlier. Salm would
assume command of the city’s defense. Salm immediately set to bolstering Vienna’s
fortifications. The city walls surrounding the city’s main Cathedral of St. Stephens
were nearly 300 years old. They were reinforced heavily, and the gates were bricked shut.
Meanwhile the suburbs outside the main citadel were demolished, eliminating any cover for
the Ottoman forces. Great earthen bastions were built along the walls to provide the
defenders with a greater radius of fire. The city’s larders were restocked, and the wells
filled. Vienna was ready for a siege. The Ottoman army arrived at the city gates
on the 24th of September, 1529. They had lost much of their artillery, and many of their
men were suffering from illness. Of those fit for combat, roughly one third were the
Sipahi horsemen, ineffective in siege warfare. Nevertheless, Suleiman still outnumbered his
foe by a wide margin: Sources claim that his 100 thousand strong army with 300 cannons
outnumbered the defenders 5 to 1 and the latter had only 72 cannons. The Turks were easily
able to surround the city walls, isolating it from the outside world.
Suleiman delivered terms to his opponents. “to the commander and the other inhabitants
of the fortress of Vienna let it be known that if you become Muslims nothing will happen
to you. But if you offer resistance, then by Allah the most sublime your city will be
reduced to ashes and young and old slaughtered.” Weary of the previous atrocities committed
by the Ottomans, the garrison refused these terms. Suleiman expected as much, and readily
boasted that within two weeks, he would be eating breakfast inside St. Stephen’s Cathedral,
which he intended to turn into a Mosque. And so, the battle began. Twice the Janissaries
assaulted the city walls, and twice they were repelled by the ferocious Landsknecht mercenaries.
The Ottomans had lost most of their great bombards during their march, thus they shelled
the city walls with their lighter cannons. This artillery was not powerful enough to
do any significant damage to the walls, but some cannonballs sailed over the ramparts,
tearing up the cobblestone roads and causing much collateral damage. In response, the Viennese
dismantled their streets, exposing them to the soil beneath, which the cannonballs sunk
harmlessly into. However, the artillery was merely a distraction
to keep the defenders in disarray. The Ottoman sappers dug deep into the earth, creating
a network of trenches and tunnels in order to detonate mines beneath the city walls,
like they had done in Rhodes, seven years earlier. The defenders were prepared. Salm
had a system of water buckets in the cellars along the city walls, observing vibrations
in the water to see where the Turks were tunneling. On October 8th, 8000 Landsknecht sallied out
into the ditches, killing many Turkish soldiers, and detonating many mines before they could
reach the city walls. This hit-and-run tactic had consequences, as the German mercenaries
sustained heavy casualties when retreating back into the city through the narrow tunnels.
Despite their efforts, one of the mines detonated by the counter-siege team exploded too close
to the city, creating a breach in the walls near the Corinthian gate. The Ottomans saw
their opportunity, and charged. The Sultan’s Janissaries were elite soldiers, but their
German opponents were professionals. Forming a pike wall at the mouth of the breach, the
Landsknecht repelled the Turkish assault. October 11th marked the holy day of St. Michael,
and yet more rain tormented the Ottoman camp. Sickness was epidemic, and the Turks had made
little to no progress on the city walls. The morale of the soldiers was at an all-time
low, they were running out of food, and their commanders had to resort to harsher forms
of capital punishment to keep them from deserting. This was the day that Suleiman had boasted
he would be eating breakfast inside the Viennese Cathedral. Instead, the defenders sent him
a letter from inside St. Stephens, with a simple message:
“Your breakfast is getting cold.” The Janissaries began expressing their discontent,
and demanded to know if the siege would continue. Suleiman convened a council on the 12th of
October, and decided he would put his cards upon the table. He ordered one final, massive
assault upon the city walls, a last-ditch effort to salvage the siege.
On the 14th of October, the full force of the Ottoman army bore down upon the city walls.
Still, they were unable to breach them. Austrian gunners assaulted the attackers from the city
walls, while the disciplined Landsknechts held the line with their stalwart pike formation,
and volleys of arquebus fire. After only two hours, the Ottomans began to see the futility
in their assault, and called a retreat. The following morning, snowfall swept through
the Austrian plains, blanketing the Ottoman camp. It was clear that the siege could not
continue in these conditions. For the Christians, the miracle of a winter storm in October was
seen as divine intervention. Sure enough, the Ottomans withdrew, and the siege was lifted.
It is generally accepted that the in total, the Ottomans lost 15,000 men. The defender
casualties remain unknown, but are assumed to have been heavy. Nevertheless, Vienna was
saved. On the march home, the Ottoman armies pillaged
the Austrian state of Styria. Although Suleiman had failed to take Vienna, he saw and presented
the overall campaign as a success. After all, he had undone the territorial gains of the
Habsburgs in Hungary and reasserted his dominance there. He claimed that by attacking Vienna,
his goal had not been to take the city at all, but to test the strength of his new rivals-
Archduke Ferdinand and Charles V. The wars between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans
were just starting and we are planning to cover every major battle and campaign they
fought, so make sure you are subscribed to our channel and have pressed the bell button.
We would like to express our gratitude to our Patreon supporters and channel members,
who make the creation of our videos possible. Now, you can also support us by buying our
merchandise via the link in the description. This is the Kings and Generals channel, and
we will catch you on the next one.