Sieges of Vienna

Sieges of Vienna, sieges that took place in the 16th and 17th centuries, during the Habsburg-Ottoman Wars between the Ottoman Empire and Habsburg Austria. The first siege of Vienna formed the high water mark of the Ottoman invasion of central Europe by Turkish troops under Sultan Suleiman I. The ill-judged territorial demands of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (later Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I), who had been elected King of Hungary after the death of Louis II at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, provoked a Turkish invasion in the autumn of 1529. Though the defenders of Vienna received only lukewarm support from their German neighbours, the Turkish army was ill-equipped for a siege, and its task was further hampered by snow and floods. Suleiman withdrew in October, and was unable to resume the siege on his return in 1532, when he found the defenders supported by a large army under Ferdinand’s brother, Emperor Charles V.

By contrast, the second siege of 1683 marked the beginning of the eclipse of the Ottomans’ European empire. It was launched by the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, who desperately needed a military success to bolster his own shaky political position. He hoped to achieve this in a campaign against the Emperor Leopold I, who was distracted by threats from Louis XIV of France. The Turks, advancing in overwhelming force, surrounded the city on July 16, but, lacking sufficient siege artillery, were obliged to starve the garrison into surrender. This allowed Leopold to gather a relief army composed of Austrian, German, and Polish troops under John III Sobieski, which routed the Turkish army in the Battle of the Kahlenberg fought under the city walls on September 12. Turkish forces never threatened Vienna again.