How did the Ottomans Lose the Battle of Vienna? (1683) | Animated History

this video is brought to you by dashlane start saving time logging into websites by saving your passwords with their free app more on that later hi i'm griffin johnson the armchair historian today's video the Battle of Jana before this video starts I'd like to give a quick shout out to history time I highly recommend watching his video on the predecessors of the Ottoman Empire the seljuq turks the link to that video can be found in the description below it is September 11th 1683 and the city of Vienna is on the verge of collapse a massive Ottoman force has surrounded the city and Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha is poised to succeed where Suleiman the Magnificent failed more than a century and a half ago the Habsburg Emperor Leopold the first has already fled the city and the relief force comprised of bickering elements of the so-called holy League arrives slowly and piecemeal inside the city members of the tiny garrison search desperately for a bomb that could easily spell doom for their defensive efforts the situation is looking desperate and Ottoman victory is a distinct possibility that is unless reinforcements arrive but before all that only about a year and a half earlier the Ottomans and the Holy Roman Empire were at peace at least nominally the internet and warfare between the two powers had come to a lull though nobody expected it to last the Ottomans had a special hatred for the Hapsburgs whom they considered according to Andrew we Croft despicable usurpers falsely using an imperial title that rightfully belonged to the Ottomans the inheritors by conquest of Rome's Imperial past moreover there was a possibility for the Turks to address old grievances and to fulfill long-standing territorial ambitions just over a century and a half earlier Suleiman the Magnificent had been defeated by the Hapsburgs at Vienna and the Ottomans would not rest until this humiliating loss was avenged this and the opportunistic Ottoman commander Kara Mustafa Pasha initiated a protracted infrastructure campaign building the roads and bridges that would allow supply lines to function as smoothly so that an invasion of Austria could be swift and decisive this is something the Ottomans neglected to do in 1529 in their first invasion but why was this time the most opportune moment to strike against the hapsburgs well we can identify three main reasons number one the Austrians economic woes in the wake of the 30 Years War a conflict which wrought not just Austria but most of Europe to the core number two the intensification of Ostrow Ottoman border conflicts in Hungary and number three a zealous Grand Vizier with fantastical aspirations as soon as it became evident that the Ottomans were planning full-scale invasion Emperor Leopold the first and most of his subjects fled Vienna to gather a relief force should the city be subjected to a siege as the Austrians were in no way prepared to face an ottoman onslaught but experience had taught the remaining defenders well and under the inspiring and stalwart Austrian commander count Ernst rüdiger von Sternberg they promptly got to work Manning Vienna's already impressive defenses the city was a massive nearly impregnable fortress shielded by walls almost 200 feet high and equipped with powerful artillery that outclassed the comparatively small field guns that the Ottomans would end up bringing to the fight however it cannot be overstated how methodical the Turkish siege plans were when Kara Mustafa arrived with a force of nearly 150,000 men in the midsummer of 1683 he ordered the raising of any structure immediately outside the city walls and the construction of an extensive network of trenches to shield his men from defensive fire the Viennese defenders were trapped in the city though again the massive Viennese walls prevented the Ottomans from making a Greek but the Grand Vizier had a plan she would direct a detachment of his forces to plant large explosive mines beneath strategic points in the walls although this process had been used successfully by the Turks in Crete it was expensive and time-consuming and the clock was now ticking Emperor Leopold was quickly rallying support from other Christian powers selling the struggle against the Ottomans as a sort of continuation of the Crusades with support from Pope Innocent xi he and his commander of choice Charles of Lorraine formed an alliance with Poland Lithuania Venice and a number of German principalities that would eventually be called the holy League assembling an alliance that large and diverse is no simple matter which is why the holy leagues force of approximately 90,000 men arrived late to the party the German and imperial forces would end up arriving before the heavy polish cavalry who despite their mobility experienced difficulty moving through the densely forested terrain delays like this were highly problematic by September 11th Kara Mustafa had already destroyed and stormed one of the two major defensive points on the wall and the situation for the Austrians was becoming more dire by the minute early the next morning the holy League forces began deploying a top of a large hill outside the city called the column berg with the Imperials on the left the Germans in the middle and a hole in the right flank where the Polish were supposed to be this didn't stop the battle from kicking off early contact was made around four o'clock in the morning and most of the Turkish army was redirected to fight off their relief force the Imperial and German forces were able to form defensive lines with dense musket ranks to repel repeated cavalry charges by the ottomans below using the high ground to their advantage the most elite well-trained portion of the besieging army the 18,000 strong Janissary force was kept in the rear to storm the city when the and defensive point fell in retrospect Karen Mustafa's failure to commit all of the Janissaries to combat the holy league on the column Berg before Polish forces had fully arrived may well have been his fatal mistake at noon the Polish cavalry finally appeared and Kara Mustafa began to realize that something had gone terribly wrong the bomb he had planted in the walls the previous day hadn't exploded like something out of an old black-and-white cartoon it turned out that a contingent of the Viennese garrison had found the device with its fuse still led and then frantically extinguished the flame however the day had not been won for the holy League just yet still possessing a numerical advantage the Ottomans assessed the situation and decided to fight the relief army head-on the members of the holy League recognized almost immediately that the enemy Force had begun to regroup for an all-out attack and so called for a general charge themselves while Ottoman forces were not yet organized Qingyuan the third sobieski had been waiting for this moment of all of Western Europe's military leaders he had the most experience fighting the Ottomans he had suffered a number of terrible defeats at their hands and one just as many great victories and among them this would be his greatest that one he would forever be remembered for at six o'clock p.m. yon rallied the three thousand polish winged hussars along with the holy leagues fifteen thousand other mounted troops minutes later eighteen thousand men came crashing down the column smashing the Ottoman line the noise was deafening dirt rolling behind these surging troops like a storm on the ground it was the single largest cavalry charge in human history and Kara Mustafa Pasha's forces crumbled before it so BS Keys charge was the most decisive moment of the battle which resulted in the siege being lifted within a few short hours the Turkish war effort did not recover and the holy League would go on to recapture much of Hungary the battle marked the end of the Ottoman incursions into Western Europe and the beginning of the Ottoman Empire's slow decline which finally culminated in its 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Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 1,204,343

Rating: 4.8734379 out of 5

Keywords: Siege of Vienna, Battle for Vienna, Battle of Vienna, John III Sobieski, kara mustafa pasha, Jannissary, Polish history, austrian history, ottoman history, the winged hussars, largest cavalry battle, largest cavalry charge, polish hussars, winged hussar charge, what was the largest cavalry charge, When the winged hussars arrived, winged hussars arrive, when the hussars arrived

Id: Jibk6hvhlG0

Length: 10min 32sec (632 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 28 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Delta787]

We remember!!!