By that evening, the situation inside Vienna was becoming very serious.
The Ottoman army began its siege in July, led by Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha. By September, Ottoman soldiers dug trenches very close to Vienna’s walls. They also placed explosives under the defenses and launched many attacks, leaving fewer and fewer soldiers to defend the city.
An English report published in London in 1683 described what Vienna was like after almost two months of fighting:
After a Siege of Sixty days, accompanied with a Thousand Difficulties, Sicknesses, Want of Provisions, and great Effusion of Blood, after a Million of Cannon and Musquet Shot, Bombs, Granadoes, and all sorts of Fire Works, which has changed the Face of the fairest and most flourishing City in the World, disfigured and ruined most part of the best Palaces of the same, and chiefly those of the Emperor; and damaged in many places the Beautiful Tower and Church of St. Stephen, with many Sumptuous Buildings. After a Resistance so vigorous, and the Loss of so many brave Officers and Souldiers, whose Valour and Bravery deserve Immortal Glory. After so many Toils endured, so many Watchings and so many Orders so prudently distributed by Count Staremburgh… Heaven favourably heard the Prayers and Tears of a Cast-down and Mournful People… who since the Fifteenth of July last early in the Morning, to the Twelfth of September, had so Vigorously attacked it with Two hundred thousand Men; and by endless Workings, Trenchings, and Minings, reduced it almost to its last gasp.
But outside the Ottoman camp, help was on the way.
For weeks, a relief army gathered northwest of Vienna. Polish King John III Sobieski and Charles of Lorraine led it. Polish soldiers joined troops from the Holy Roman Empire, and together they began the difficult journey through the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods) toward the city.
These troops came from different Catholic powers, each with its own leaders and interests. But for now, they all shared the same goal: reach Vienna before Kara Mustafa and the Ottoman army captured it.
Vienna Was Waiting for Them
When the Ottoman army reached Vienna in July, Emperor Leopold I left the city. Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg stayed behind and took charge of Vienna’s defense.
The Ottoman army was much larger than Vienna’s defending force, so Starhemberg knew his soldiers could not defeat it in an open battle. Instead, they needed to defend the city walls and hold out for as long as possible.
Starhemberg’s main goal was simple: keep Vienna from falling until help arrived.
In mid-August, while still inside the besieged city, he wrote to the Duke of Lorraine:
God be thanked, we have had once the good Fortune to hear that one of our Letters is come to your Highnesses Hands… And to let you see how it is with us at present, give me leave to tell you, That we have disputed every Foot of Ground with the Enemy, and that they have not gained any thing upon us, but what hath cost them very dear; having been as often vigorously repulsed, as they have attempted to Lodge themselves… The Bastions Leb and Delacour are also doubly retrenched, and I am now busie at this very hour to make a Principal Retrenchment behind the two said Bastions… I can assure you, to render me worthy of the Confidence your Highness, and especially his Imperial Majesty my Master, ground on my Services, I will never deliver up the Place, but with the last drop of my blood. Withall I find that our men are no ways daunted at the sight of the Turks, who are easily overcome, if attaqued with Courage, and God be thanked one of ours is able to beat ten of theirs.
As July turned into August, the Ottoman army moved closer to Vienna by digging trenches and tunnels. Every piece of land they captured brought them closer to the city’s defenses. Vienna’s defenders tried to repair damaged walls and stop the Ottomans from digging tunnels underneath them.
The constant fighting was exhausting both sides.
By late August, Vienna’s situation was becoming more desperate, and its calls for help became more urgent. In another letter to the Duke of Lorraine, Starhemberg included a report from a miner that showed just how little time the city had left:
At this Instant my Miners Informed me, that they hear the Enemy working beneath them, under the Bastion of the Court. they must have passed the Ditch under ground, and there is no more time to be lost.
The relief army was on its way.
But reaching Vienna would not be easy. The difficult land between the army and the city stood in its way.
Sobieski Needed to Cross the Wienerwald
On September 10, the Christian relief army began its final march toward Kahlenberg, the hills overlooking Vienna. The journey was difficult because the soldiers and their heavy artillery needed to move through thick, wooded land.
Sobieski later wrote that the war badly damaged the surrounding countryside. Food was hard to find, and there was little grass or other feed for the horses. Even so, the army kept moving because every delay gave the Ottomans more time to break through Vienna’s defenses.
On September 11, Sobieski continued toward Kahlenberg while his troops slowly climbed the difficult hills behind him.
Sobieski was already an experienced military commander. Nine years earlier, he defeated an Ottoman army at Khotyn. His reputation helped make him the leader of the relief army, which included soldiers from Poland and the Holy Roman Empire.
But even an experienced commander could not make the difficult journey easier. Moving heavy cannons through the rough terrain was especially hard, and the army left some behind. By the evening of September 11, parts of the army were still struggling to reach the ridge.
Finally, the first soldiers reached the heights overlooking Vienna.
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Vienna Finally Received a Sign
As the Christian troops approached Kahlenberg, they met a group of Ottoman soldiers who arrived too late to take control of the area. Saxon soldiers fired at them, and the Ottoman troops pulled back.
It was only a small fight compared with the huge battle that would take place the next day.
Continue reading below…