Читать книгу The Sieges of Vienna by the Turks - Karl August Schimmer - Страница 7

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Before Soliman quitted Pesth he had issued a proclamation to the effect that “Whosoever in Hungary should withhold obedience and subjection from the Count John of Zips, Wayvode of Transylvania, whom the Sultan had named king, had replaced in the sovereignty, and had engaged himself to uphold, should be punished and extirpated with fire and sword; but that those who should submit themselves should be stoutly protected, and maintained in the possession of their property and privileges.” On the 21st of September, Soliman with his main army crossed the Raab at Altenburg in Hungary, and on the same day his advanced corps of plunderers and destroyers under Michael Oglou, after spreading terror far and wide around them, reached the neighbourhood of Vienna. It may be questioned whether the main objects of the campaign were promoted by the employment of this force. As a scourge to the defenceless portion of an enemy’s country, none could be so effective; but though terror may paralyze the resistance of the scattered and the weak, cruelty serves to excite the indignation and organize the resistance of those beyond its immediate reach; and in the case of the Sackman cruelty was combined with a reckless treachery, which was laid to the account and affixed to the reputation of the general body of the invaders and their great leader, in some instances hardly with justice. Contemporary writers have exhausted their powers of language in describing the atrocities perpetrated by these marauders. We find, for example, in a rare pamphlet of the time,[2] the following: “At which time did the Sackman spread himself on every side, going before the Turkish army, destroying and burning everything, and carrying off into captivity much people, men and women, and even the children, of whom many they grievously maimed, and, as Turkish prisoners have declared, over 30,000 persons were by them carried off, and as has since been told, such as could not march were cruelly put to death. Thus have they wasted, destroyed, burnt, and plundered all in the land of Austria below Ens, and nearly to the water of Ens, but on the hither side of the Danube for the most part the land has escaped, for by reason of the river the Turk could do there but little harm; the towns also round about Vienna beyond Brück on the Leitha, have remained unconquered and unwasted by the Turk, but the open country wasted and burnt.” The irresistible pressure forward of the main army, the threats of the Sultan, and the merciless fury of the Sackman, produced their consequences in the prompt surrender of most of the places which were unprovided with garrisons and adequate defences. In this manner fell Fünfkirchen, Stahlweissenburg, and Pesth, without a blow, into the hands of the enemy. In Gran the inhabitants even refused to admit the garrison sent by Ferdinand for its occupation, and the Archbishop Paul Tomori so far forgot his honour and duty as to procure the surrender both of town and citadel to the Sultan, to whose camp the prelate also betook himself. Komorn was abandoned by its garrison. Raab also fell, but not till it had been set on fire by the fugitives. Altenburg in Hungary was betrayed into the hands of the enemy. Brück on the Leitha, on the contrary, defended itself stoutly; and the Sultan, pleased with the constancy and courage of its defenders, willingly accorded them terms in virtue of which they were pledged to do him homage only after the fall of Vienna. Content with this compact, he ceased his attack on the city, marched past under its walls, and strictly forbade all injury to the district in its dependence. Wiener Neustadt also defended itself with spirit, and in one day repelled five attempts to storm its defences in the most heroic manner. Several other places, among them Closterneuburg, and Perchtoldsdorf, and some castles held out with success.[3] Such occasional opposition was scarcely distasteful to Soliman, for whom invariable and cheap success had not its usual attraction. His far-reaching ambition looked to a sovereignty of the West corresponding to that which his ancestors had asserted over the East, and he remarked with complacency the valour of men whom he destined for his future subjects. For the same reason he detested cowardice in the ranks of his opponents, and punished it with the same severity as if it had exhibited itself in his own. In contemplation also of the immensity of his force, the rapidity of his progress, and the unprepared condition of Austria, he held success for certain, and isolated instances of resistance could, as he conceived, only afford useful practice to his troops without affecting the general and inevitable result. In fact, the aspect of the time for Austria was one of gloom and danger. The main force of the enemy was hard upon the frontier, which had already been crossed at several points by the terrible bands of Michael Oglou; and from the walls of Vienna the horizon was seen reddened with the flames of burning villages, while within the city little or nothing had yet been done for its fortification and defence. It is true that, on the near approach of the danger, Ferdinand had called meetings of the States, as well in Austria as in the other provinces of his hereditary dominions; and had for this object proceeded in person through Styria, Carinthia, Tyrol, and Bohemia. The cause was everywhere taken up with much alacrity. In Austria the tenth man was called out for service; the other provinces undertook to furnish considerable forces; and Bohemia promised, in case of the actual invasion of Austria, to send to her aid every man capable of bearing arms. The King, however, saw but too well that with all this aid he would be no match in the field for the Sultan’s force; and he turned his thoughts to the Empire, in which the religious disputes of the time presented serious difficulties in the way of the assistance he required. The danger, however, was pressing enough to allay for the moment even the heats engendered by the Reformation. At the Diet of Spire, which was attended by most of the Electoral and other Princes of the Empire, Ferdinand addressed to them an urgent appeal, in which he made a prominent allusion to the fact that Soliman had declared his determination never to lay down his arms till he had erected a monument to his victories on the bank of the Rhine. The voice of party was indeed silenced by this appeal to a common interest; but the succour, voted after protracted discussion, was nevertheless scanty, not exceeding 12,000 foot and 4000 horse, as the contingent for the Germanic body. Then followed interminable debates as to the selection of a commander; and the Turks were over the Save and in possession of Pesth before the Germanic contingent was mustered. There were not wanting men hard of belief, pedants of the true German stamp, who maintained that mere apprehension had exaggerated the danger; and finally it was agreed at Ratisbon, to which city the assembly had transferred itself, to send a deputation of two persons to Hungary to investigate the state of affairs on the spot.[4] They went; and, having the good fortune to escape the hands of the Turks, returned with evidence sufficient to satisfy the doubts of their sagacious employers.

On the day on which Soliman crossed the Hungarian frontier, a detachment of Imperial cavalry under Paul Bakics encountered a body of the Turkish light troops in the immediate neighbourhood of Vienna, and took a few prisoners. The conquerors showed themselves apt disciples in cruelty of the Turks, and even exceeded their teachers, who with the sabre usually made short work with their captives, whereas the men now taken were racked or tortured before they were bound together with ropes and flung into the Danube. Meanwhile the near approach of the Turks and the delay of all succour raised consternation in Vienna to the highest pitch. The news of the fall of Pesth, which reached it on the 17th September, suggested flight to all who had the means of escape. In defiance of an urgent summons on the part of the authorities, addressed to all capable of bearing arms, many burghers left the city on pretence of bearing their women and children to places of safety, and few of these returned. These delinquents were called afterwards to severe account, though much excuse was to be found for such conduct on the part of individuals in the shameful neglect of their rulers, who had postponed measures of defence till resistance appeared hopeless. The countless hosts of the invader had crossed the frontier before any force had been collected which could even impede its advance. The royal troops encamped at Altenburg hardly amounted to 5000 men, who on the first appearance of the enemy effected a rapid retreat in order not to be cut off from Vienna. The succours promised by the Empire were not forthcoming, though messenger after messenger was sent to hurry their advance. Even the Bohemian troops approached but by slow marches, under their leader John of Bernstein, and required every exhortation to greater diligence. At length Duke Frederick of the Palatinate, the prince elected as leader of the army of the Empire, arrived on the 24th of September at Lintz with the scanty levies, amounting to a few thousands, which had as yet been collected. At Lintz he held conference with Ferdinand as to the measures to be pursued, and then hastened forward to effect his entrance into Vienna before the arrival of the Turks. On the 26th, however, he received at Grein the intelligence that the Turks had appeared in force in the neighbourhood of the city. He was at first resolutely determined to cut his way at all hazards, but when he learned that both the bridges over the Danube were in possession of the enemy, being satisfied that by the attempt he could only involve his feeble forces in certain and useless destruction, he determined to halt at Crems for reinforcements. His cousin, however, the brave Pfalzgraf Philip, succeeded in throwing himself into the city, with a small number of Spanish and German troops, three days before it was surrounded by the Turks.

In Vienna the necessary preparations had now been made with almost superhuman exertion, but in such haste and with so little material, that they could only be considered as very inadequate to the emergency. The city itself occupied then the same ground as at present, the defences were old and in great part ruinous, the walls scarcely six feet thick, and the outer palisade so frail and insufficient that the name Stadtzaun, or city hedge, which it bears in the municipal records of the time, was literally as well as figuratively appropriate. The citadel was merely the old building which now exists under the name of Schweizer Hof. All the houses which lay too near the wall were levelled to the ground; where the wall was specially weak or out of repair, a new entrenched line of earthen defence was constructed and well palisaded; within the city itself, from the Stuben to the Kärnthner or Carinthian gate, an entirely new wall twenty feet high was constructed with a ditch interior to the old. The bank of the Danube was also entrenched and palisaded, and from the drawbridge to the Salz gate protected with a rampart capable of resisting artillery. As a precaution against fire the shingles with which the houses were generally roofed were throughout the city removed. The pavement of the streets was taken up to deaden the effect of the enemy’s shot, and watchposts established to guard against conflagration. Parties were detached to scour the neighbouring country in search of provisions, and to bring in cattle and forage. Finally, to provide against the possibility of a protracted siege, useless consumers, women, children, old men, and ecclesiastics were, as far as possible, forced to withdraw from the city. Though this latter measure was successful for its special purpose, and prevented any failure of subsistence during the investment of the city, it had the melancholy consequence that many of the fugitives met with massacre or captivity at the hands of the Turkish light troops. In the neighbourhood of Traismauer, for instance, in the very beginning of September, a body of no less than 5000 were unsparingly massacred by the Sackman. To meet the financial exigency of the time, an extraordinary contribution was levied throughout Austria. A bishop was taxed 5 florins, a mitred prelate 4, an unmitred 3, a count 4, the rest of the noblesse, as also the secular clergy, and all citizens who were accounted to possess 100 florins, 1 florin each; peasants, servants, and others of the poorer classes a kreutzer in the dollar; day labourers 10 pennies, and every communicant 9 pennies (see “Chronicon Mellicense,” part vii. p. 572). Should these sums appear small, the value of money must be considered at a period when a considerable country-house might be purchased for 50 florins, and when 200 florins were reckoned a competence.

In respect of the active defence, the Pfalzgraf Philip had taken the command in the city. Associated with him was the veteran hero Nicholas, Count of Salm, who had crossed the March field from Upper Hungary with a chosen band of light troops, and on whose proved fidelity and valour Ferdinand principally relied for the defence of the bulwark of Christendom. These qualities had been tried through fifty-six years of service in the field, and recently in the victory of Pavia (1522), in which he had borne a distinguished share, having crossed swords and exchanged wounds with the French king, Francis I. At the age of seventy, he now undertook a heavier responsibility than any he had yet incurred; for though the Pfalzgraf’s rank gave him a nominal precedence, the confidence both of the soldiery and the citizens rested chiefly on the veteran leader.

The other commanders were William, Baron of Roggendorf, general of the cavalry, who had distinguished himself in the Italian wars; Marcus Beck, of Leopoldsdorf, commissary general; Ulrich Leyser, master of the ordnance; John Katzianer; Leonhard, Baron of Vels; Hector Eck, of Reischach; and Maximilian Leyser. Of Austrian states-deputies and councillors, the following were in the city:—George von Puechhaim, governor of Lower Austria; Nicholaus Rabenhaupt, chancellor; Rudolph von Hohenfeld, Felician von Pottschach, privy councillors; John von Greissenegg, commandant of Vienna, and of the foot militia of the city; Melchior von Lamberg; Trajan von Auersberg; Bernardin Ritschen; Helfreich von Meggun; Erasmus von Obritschen; Raimund von Dornberg; Otto von Achterdingen; John Apfalterer; Siegfried von Kollonitsch; Reinbrecht von Ebersdorf; and Hans von Eibenswald. The Styrian troops were commanded by the gallant Abel von Holleneck; the Bohemian, by Ernst von Brandenstein. The contingent of the Empire consisted of two regiments, under Kuntz Gotzman and James von Bernan. Luis de Avallos, Melchior de Villanel, Juan de Salinas, and Juan de Aquilera, commanded the Spaniards. The magistrates remaining in the city were Wolfgang Troy, burgomaster; Paul Bernfuss, judge; and the councillors Sebastian Eiseler, Sebastian Schmutz, and Wolfgang Mangold. The limits of this work do not admit a list of subordinate officers. It would include names connected with the first houses of the German and Austrian nobility. Among these were several who had joined the garrison as volunteers. In the camp of the Imperialists at Crems were two young nobles, Rupert, Count of Manderscheid, and Wolf, Count of Oettingen, so zealous in the cause, that after the city had been invested they swam the Danube, and were drawn up over the wall near the Werder gate. The garrison altogether amounted to 20,000 infantry and 2000 horse; the armed burghers to about 1000. The distribution of the troops was as follows:—The Pfalzgraf Philip occupied, with 100 cuirassiers and 14 companies of the troops of the Empire, the Stuben quarter from the Rothenthurm to the middle of the curtain towards the Kärnthner gate. Thence the line of defence was taken up to the Augustine Convent by Eck von Reischach, with 3000 infantry. Thence to the Burggarten were posted the Styrian troops under Abel von Holleneck. The citadel was held by Leonard von Vels, with 3000 chosen troops. Thence to the Scottish gate Maximilian Leyser was in command. In the four principal squares of the city were posted cavalry, under William von Roggendorf, ready to advance in any direction. From the Scottish gate to the Werder gate were posted 2000 Austrians and 700 Spaniards, under Rupert von Ebersdorf. The tower in the spot called Elend, was strengthened with a rampart, and mounted with heavy guns to annoy the Turkish flotilla, which covered the Danube as far as Nussdorf. Finally, from the Werder gate to the Rothenthurm, including the Salz gate, were posted 2000 Bohemians under Ernst von Brandenstein and William von Wartenberg, with a detachment of cavalry under John, Count of Hardegg. The artillery mounted on the defences appears to have consisted of between sixty and seventy pieces, of the very various calibres and denominations in use at this period. A small armament according to our present ideas, if the circuit of the defences and the lightness of some of the pieces be considered, but respectable perhaps for the time, and more than a match for the light pieces of the Turks. The city would probably have been still less provided with this arm of defence, but for the Emperor Maximilian, with whom the fabrication and use of artillery had been a favourite study and pursuit, of which his heirs and country now reaped the benefit.[5] The care of this artillery was committed to seventy-four gunners under the master of the ordnance, Ulrich Leyser. After all these preparations the defences were very weak, even according to the engineering science of the time. There were no bastions on which the guns could be properly disposed. It is mentioned that several of the pieces which had been adjusted to embrasures or loopholes opened in the wall were found useless in that position, and were removed to the roofs of neighbouring buildings; the ditches were dry, and it was left to the defenders to supply by gallantry and endurance the deficiencies of art and the precautions of prudence. The hour of trial was at hand; on the 20th September, Altenburg surrendered, after a gallant defence, and its garrison, 300 strong, were made prisoners. These men were interrogated by the Sultan as to the condition of Vienna, the strength of its garrison, &c., and having, as would appear, answered in terms which agreed with his ideas of the truth, were well treated by him, but forced to accompany him on his march. Soon afterwards Brück on the Leitha and Trautmannsdorf fell into his hands by capitulation; and, freed from these petty obstacles, he advanced with his collected might, and with every prospect of achieving the ruin of the empire in the subjection of its capital.