Читать книгу The Sieges of Vienna by the Turks - Karl August Schimmer - Страница 6

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From 1527 to September 11, 1529.

The Turkish preparations were pushed forward with great vigour, and in a short time an immense army was assembled in the great plain of Philippopolis. Although the Sultan had originally formed the intention of marching with it in person, he nevertheless appointed to its command his famous Grand Vizier and favourite Ibrahim. This man was by birth a Greek, of moderate stature, dark complexion, and had been in infancy sold as a slave to Soliman. He soon by his intelligence, his musical talents, his aspiring and enterprising spirit, won the favour of his master, and after Soliman’s accession to the throne participated with him in the exercise of the highest powers of the state, in the character of Vizier, brother-in-law, friend, and favourite, and enjoyed such distinctions as neither Turkish favourite nor minister has ever before or since attained. He not only often interchanged letters with his master, but frequently his clothes, slept in the same chamber, had his own seraglio in the Hippodrome, and his own colour, sky-blue, for the livery of his pages and for his standard. He insisted in his communications with Ferdinand on the title of brother and cousin. In a Latin verse which he addressed to the Venetian ambassador, he signified that while his master had the attributes of Jupiter, he himself was the Cæsar of the world. Yet all this exaltation was destined to the usual termination of the career of an Oriental favourite. He was murdered in 1536 by command of Soliman, on suspicion of a design to place himself on the throne.

Soliman had intended to put his army in motion in 1528, but his stores were destroyed, and his arrangements paralysed by rains of such extraordinary violence, that the troops, and even his own person, were endangered. A year’s respite was thus afforded to the Austrians,—the more valuable to them because, as all accounts concur in stating, they had in the first instance placed little reliance on the accounts of the Turkish preparations for war, and had entertained a very unreasonable disbelief in any serious intention on the part of Soliman to carry his menaces into execution. The threats and vaunting of Oriental despots may generally be received with much allowance for grandiloquence; but in this instance Ferdinand should have remembered that the sovereign who uttered them had already once overrun Hungary to the frontiers of Austria, and had good reason, from past experience, to anticipate success in a renewed invasion. On the 10th of April, 1529, the Sultan left Constantinople at the head of an army of at least 200,000 men. Zapolya, on his part, was not idle. He applied to nearly all the powers of Europe, not excepting even the Pope, Clement VII., whom he knew to be at this period on bad terms with the Emperor, urging them to support what he termed his just cause. These applications were unavailing; the Pope replied by excommunicating him, by exhorting the magnates of Hungary to the support of Ferdinand, and by urging the latter to draw the sword without delay in defence of Christendom.

Zapolya, supported by the money of some Polish nobles, and by some bands of Turkish freebooters, pushed forward early in April into Hungary at the head of about 2000 men, summoning on all sides the inhabitants to his support. Near Kaschan, however, he was attacked and completely routed by the Austrian commander Da Rewa. Meanwhile the Turkish army advanced without other hindrance than heavy rains and the natural difficulties of the passes of the Balkan, and by the end of June had effected the passage of the rivers of Servia, and had crossed the Hungarian frontier. Before the main body marched a terrible advanced guard of 30,000 men, spreading desolation in every direction. Their leader was a man worthy of such command of bloodthirsty barbarians, the terrible Mihal Oglou, whose ancestor, Kose Mihal, or Michael of the Pointed Beard, derived his origin from the imperial race of the Palæologi, and on the female side was related to the royal houses of France and Savoy. His descendants were hereditary leaders of those wild and terrible bands of horsemen called by the Turks “Akindschi,” i. e. “hither streaming,” or “overflowing;” by the Italians, “Guastadori,” the spoilers; by the French, “Faucheurs” and “Ecorcheurs,” mowers and flayers; but by the Germans universally “Sackman,” possibly because they filled their own sacks with plunder, or emptied those of other people. Whether this explanation be correct or not, it is certain that the name long retained its terrors in Austria, and that down to the beginning of the eighteenth century mothers used it to frighten their unruly children.

Meanwhile Zapolya, encouraged by the progress of the Turk, had ventured his own person in an advance upon Hungary; many of his old adherents joined his standard, and he collected an army of some 6000 men, with which he came on to join the Sultan. The meeting took place in the field of Mohacs. Zapolya was received with acclamation by the Turks, and with presents and other marks of honour by the Sultan, whose hand he kissed in homage for the sovereignty of Hungary. The Sultan assured him of his future protection, and awarded him among other royal honours a body-guard of Janissaries. After the army had refreshed itself it proceeded slowly, occupying the fortified places to the right and left; and in thirteen days after its departure from Mohacs the Sultan’s tents were pitched in the vineyards of Pesth, the inhabitants of which had for the most part fled either to Vienna or Poland. The garrison consisted of only about a thousand German and Hungarian soldiers, under Thomas Nadasky, who in the first instance showed the best disposition towards a manful defence. The Turks, however, after continuing a well-sustained fire from the neighbouring heights for four days, were proceeding—although no breach had been effected—to storm the defences, when the courage of the garrison failed them. The latter, with the few remaining inhabitants, retired into the citadel, and the Turks occupied the town. Nadasky was firmly resolved to hold out to the last, with the view of delaying as long as possible the advance of the enemy; but the soldiers had lost all courage, and preferred to obey two of their German officers, who entered into a capitulation with the Turks, and answered Nadasky’s remonstrances by putting him into confinement. The Vizier rejoiced at the prospect of removing an obstacle which might have materially affected the ulterior plan of his campaign at so advanced a period of the season, and eagerly accepted the conditions, promising them life and liberty; and thus by mutiny and treason was the fortress surrendered on the 7th September. The traitors soon found reason to repent their crime. The event was one which, in justice to the Sultan, demands a close investigation, for the naked circumstances were such as to fix a stigma of bad faith on that sovereign, who, however open to the charge of cruelty, was usually distinguished by a rigid and even magnanimous adherence to his word. In many accounts, contemporary and later, he is accused in this instance of a reckless violation of his promises. It is certain that the garrison was massacred, but there is reason to believe that this occurred neither with the sanction of the Sultan nor without provocation on the part of the victims. The Janissaries were in a temper bordering on mutiny on being disappointed of a general plunder of the fortress. Stones were flying at their officers, and the second in their command had been wounded. Through the ranks of these men the garrison had to defile amid expressions of contempt for their cowardice. A German soldier, irritated at this treatment, exclaimed that if he had been in command no surrender would have exposed them to it. This information being received, as might be expected, with redoubled insult, the stout German lost patience, and with his sword he struck a Janissary to the ground. The general massacre which naturally ensued was certainly not by the order, and probably against the will, of the Sultan, as indeed the writer, Cantemir, a bitter enemy of the Turk, acknowledges. Not more than sixty men escaped this sweeping execution, part of whom escaped by flight and part were made prisoners. A proof, however, of Soliman’s appreciation of honour and courage is to be found in the fact that he not only eulogized the fidelity and firmness of Nadasky, but dismissed him on his parole not to serve against the Turks during the war. This generosity is the more to be praised as it was exercised in the teeth of the resistance not only of the embittered Janissaries, but of the Hungarian traitors in the suite of Zapolya. The fortress was placed in the hands of that leader, who remained behind with a sufficient garrison in charge of it, while the Turkish army pursued its triumphant progress over the Austrian frontier. On the 14th September Zapolya was solemnly installed on the Hungarian throne, the ceremony being attended, however, on the part of Soliman only by the Segbanbaschi, or second in command of the Janissaries, and by Soliman’s commissioner in Hungary, the Venetian Gritti, whose name has been already mentioned. A Turkish commandant was left in the place, and the Pacha of Semendria, Mohammed Bey, was sent on in advance towards Vienna to obtain intelligence and clear the roads.