Vienna 1683: the Ottomans roll back from Europe
The grand vizier besieges Vienna for two months; the Polish king lifts the siege, and in sixteen years of war the Ottomans lose Hungary.
In July 1683 the grand vizier Kara Mustafa brings an army of more than a hundred thousand to Vienna; the emperor Leopold I leaves, and the city holds behind its walls for two months. On 12 September the forces of the Holy League come down from the Kahlenberg, and the Polish king John Sobieski with his winged hussars routs the besiegers; on the sultan’s order the vizier is strangled with a silk cord in Belgrade. The war goes on for sixteen more years: the Austrians take Buda and Belgrade, the Venetians the Morea, and in 1699 the Peace of Karlowitz gives Hungary and Transylvania to the Habsburgs. For the first time the Ottoman Empire cedes large territories by treaty: two centuries of advance on Europe end, and the retreat begins. The Jews of Buda live through the taking of the city by a Christian army in 1686, and Vienna after the siege remains closed to Jews for another century.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the diary of the siege of Vienna of 1683 and the dispatches of John Sobieski — the two months of siege and the battle of 12 September
- the Peace of Karlowitz of 1699 — the cession of Hungary and Transylvania
Scholarship
- history of the Ottoman Empire — the dating to 1683–1699 and the beginning of the retreat
Basis: documents and evidence.