Honored by the Glory of Islam. Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe

the failed final jihad 219

grand vizier grabbed him by the beard and hit him twice, then had him arrested

for disobeying orders.^31

While the grand vizier, like the sultan’s preacher, visited the trenches to

cheer on the troops or discipline his commanders, Ottoman forces learned that

the French, Habsburg, and Polish forces had united. Christian forces had ar-

rived to save the besieged city. The author of The Events of Vienna prayed that

God would grant the army of Islam strength and victory and cause the enemies

of religion to face utter defeat and rout. Kara Mustafa Pasha faced a continual

barrage of missiles, which his secretary of protocol interpreted hopefully as

demonstrating that the defenders no longer knew what to do and were in des-

perate need of help, which actually more accurately described the Ottoman

side.^32

On the sixtieth day of the siege, September 1 2, Kara Mustafa Pasha gave

orders for the fi nal attack. Thirty thousand Ottoman troops faced a combined

Christian army four times its size. To the astonished master of ceremonies,

Christian forces seemed to have fl owed like a fl ood of black tar that smothered

everything in its path, and also seemed like threatening storm clouds or an

immense herd of furious boars that trampled and destroyed everything.^33 The

defenders of Vienna were able to outmaneuver the Ottoman soldiers because

the troops of the Crimean Khan Murad Giray did not carry out orders and cover

the others. As an anonymous western European eyewitness relates:

The Duke of Lorain Order’d the Chevalier Lubomirski with the Polish

Horse to advance toward the Enemy; and in case he found them

too strong for him, to retire, and draw the Enemy after him. Which

Orders he accordingly executed with good Success; for the Enemy be-

lieving the Poles had fl ed, follow’d them with great fury and eagerness

so far, till the D. of Lorain, who was prepar’d to receive them, easily

surrounded them, and cut the greatest part of them in pieces: The

rest fl ed in so great confusion, that they who escap’d the Sword, were

drown’d in the River Mark.^34

Fuming to be repulsed so vigorously, the grand vizier attempted to mine the

bastion, but this too was foiled.^35

The siege was doomed. Confederate forces joined under the leadership

of the king of the Commonwealth of Poland Jan Sobieski attacked the grand

vizier’s position. The soldiers around him, seeing that the coalition forces at-

tacked and advanced from two sides, and that the Ottoman forces were being

defeated, lost their will to fi ght.^36 It was not possible to resist the overwhelming

number of enemy forces, and the Ottoman soldiers were routed, as Nihadi

relates, “some drowning, others having to drink the sherbet of martyrdom.”^37