116 ISLAM AT WAR
others remained loyal to Kara Mustafa’s orders. A revolt erupted and the
loyal troops triumphed, but Ottomans killing Ottomans in a power struggle
only brought greater success to the Christian armies.
The Ottomans attempted a stand at Gand on November 1, but they were
overwhelmed. The Ottoman defensive system for their northern borders
was smashed and the road was open for the European powers to drive the
Ottomans out of the Balkans. Kara Mustafa’s enemies in Constantinople
correctly convinced Mehmet IV that he was responsible for the failure.
Kara Mustafa was dismissed from office and executed by strangulation in
Belgrade on December 15, 1683. Its leader gone, the army promptly fell
into an even greater state of disorganization and confusion.
The Turkish defeat at the gates of Vienna was another of the decisive
battles of world history. Had the ancient Hapsburg city fallen to the Mus-
lim east at the very dawn of the modern world, the cultural and political
ramifications would have been enormous. As it was, 1683 might conve-
niently be described as the turning point for the Ottoman Empire. Their
feudal hosts were no longer a match for the disciplined infantry of the
European powers. The splendid Turkish and Asiatic cavalry was almost
irrelevant on a battlefield increasingly dominated by firepower. The Otto-
mans no longer had a monopoly in artillery, and were, indeed, falling behind
in that decisive arm.
Most telling, though, was that the Western European nations were mov-
ing beyond their feudal roots. Modern financial and administrative ideas
would organize them far better than the Sublime Porte was organized. In
the West, the rise of national rather than tribal monarchies was giving the
European populations an identity unavailable to the sprawling collection
of clans, tribes, and peoples ruled by the Ottomans.
The war between the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by the Hapsburgs, and
the Ottoman Empire was at a critical point. As was typical for the era,
Louis XIV used the Ottoman attack on Vienna to cover his invasion of
the Spanish Netherlands. However, as soon as the French achieved their
goals they abandoned their Ottoman allies. The Hapsburgs soon found
themselves reinforced by forces from Poland, Malta, Venice, Tuscany, and
the Papacy. Russia would join as soon as Poland promised concessions in
the Ukraine. The Ottomans would spend the next two decades fighting on
several fronts simultaneously: against the Hapsburgs in Hungary, Bosnia,
and Serbia; against Poland in the Ukraine; against Venice in Dalmatia,
Albania, and Morea; and against the Russians in the Crimea and the prin-
cipalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. These strains, which her defeat at
Vienna in 1683 might have avoided, merely hastened her decline.