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Next: 3. The Battle
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 Charles IV Leopold of Lorraine Commander of the Imperial Forces |
 Jan II Sobieski Chosen as Commander in Chief as the highest ranking ruler in the army |
 Marco D'Aviano The Pope's legate in Vienna |
 Prince Eugene of Savoy This is his first battle - later a brilliant soldier |
 Ernst Rudiger Graf von Starhemberg Military commander in Vienna during the siege |
 Johan Andreas von Liebenberg The Lord Mayor of Vienna |
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An enormous Turkish army of 140,000 men reaches the outskirts of Vienna 14 July. Before the siege, the Viennese had demolished many of the houses around the city walls and cleared the debris, leaving an empty plain that will expose the Turks to defensive fire if they try to rush the city. Kara Mustafa meets the problem by ordering his forces to dig long lines of trenches directly towards the city to help protect them from the defenders as they advance towards it. Another purpose of the trenches is to decrease the stability of the walls around Vienna. The Ottoman siege virtually cuts every means of food supply into Vienna, and the population soon starts to starve.
By early September the Turks had penetrated the outer defences and breached the walls. The fall of the city seems imminent.
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The Polish and imperial relief armies meet at Tulln 7 September. The Austrian and German imperial armies count about 100,000 troops, and their allies under Jan III Sobieski about 30,000. For some unknown reason the Turks had neglected to occupy the heights of the Kahlenberg in the Wiener Wald (seen at the back of the postcard), and the allied armies form up there before the attack. |
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