Even though Poland had nothing to gain—and
much to lose—Sobieski took the long-term view and
realized the Ottoman threat to Europe far outweighed
short-term national differences. He therefore allied
himself to his erstwhile enemies, Austria and the Holy
Roman Emperor Leopold I, and the three armies ad-
vanced on Vienna to raise the siege there. Under Sobies-
ki’s overall command, some 81,000 men took up their
positions for an attack on the Ottomans planned for 13
September 1683. On the 11th, however, Sobieski no-
ticed weaknesses in the Turkish deployment and ordered
the attack to begin early on the morning of 12 Septem-
ber. At 4:00 a.m., the allies advanced with the Austrians
on the left, the imperial troops in the center, and the
Poles on the right. The Turks fell back, then rallied and
attacked the imperial forces in the center of the allied
line. The Poles pushed hard on the right wing and, early
in the afternoon, took the high ground from the Turks.
An hour later, Sobieski showed the leadership and judg-
ment that had won him so many victories. He brought
20,000 cavalry, mainly Polish, to the high ground his
infantry had won and led them in a charge straight into
the middle of the Turkish force. An hour later, the battle
was over and Sobieski had become the hero of Europe.
Sobieski’s famous victory had been won at great
cost to the Polish treasury and resulted in simmering
discontent among the Polish nobles, which made his last
years unhappy and unsuccessful. He died on 17 June
1696 and was buried in Wawel Castle, Krakow, Poland.
Judged by some historians to be an unscrupulous
ambitious adventurer, the same critics agree that Sobies-
ki’s military abilities were extraordinary. Poland soon lost
much of the territories it had won in battle, and a cen-
tury later it had ceased to exist as a nation. But Sobieski’s
victory at Vienna was a turning point in European his-
tory. Within 20 years, Hungary was freed from Ottoman
domination, followed by south Russia soon afterward.
From 1683 onwards, the Ottomans were slowly forced
back out of Europe. It would take 200 years, but it was
John Sobieski and the cavalry charge he led at Vienna
that began the process. If it had not been for him, the
history of Europe would have been very different.
References: Sobieski, John, The Life of King John Sobieski,
John the Third of Poland (Boston: R. G. Badger, 1915);
Morton, J. B., Sobieski, King of Poland (London: Eyre and
Spottiswoode, 1932); Wójcik, Zbigniew, Jan III Sobieski
(Warsaw: Zamek Królewski Wójcik, 1991); Bellamy,
Christopher, “John III (Jan Sobieski), King of Poland,” in
The Oxford Companion to Military History, edited by Rich-
ard Holmes (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001),
467; Windrow, Martin, and Francis K. Mason, “John III,
Sobieski,” in The Wordsworth Dictionary of Military Bi-
ography (Hertfordshire, U.K.: Wordsworth Editions Ltd.,
1997), 144–146.John of Austria (Don John of Austria, Don Juan
of Austria, Gerónimo) (1547–1578) German-
Spanish general
Don John of Austria was born in Regensburg, Bavaria,
Germany, on 24 February 1545, the illegitimate son of
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Barbara Blom-
berg, the daughter of a Regensburg merchant. As a baby,
he was given the name Gerónimo (Spanish for “sacred”)
and put in the care of foster parents in a village near
Madrid. At the age of nine, he was transferred to the
household of Magdalena da Ulloa, the wife of Don Luis
de Quijada, and brought up in their castle near Vallado-
lid, still in ignorance of his parentage.
Charles V died in 1558, and a codicil in his will
recognized John as his son and entrusted him to the
care of Charles’s successor, his legitimate son Philip II
of Spain. Philip acknowledged John, brought him to
court with the title Don Juan (John) of Austria, and had
him educated with the Infante Don Carlos and Ales-
sandro Farnese, prince of Parma. Philip intended him
to become a priest, but John made it clear he wanted to
become a soldier, a wish to which Philip acceded.
In 1568, at age 23, Don John was given command
of a squadron of galleys to fight the Algerian corsairs,
pirates who terrorized the western Mediterranean. The
following year, he fought against the rebellious Moriscos
in Granada, and in 1571 he fought the historic battle for
which he is still remembered.
Ever since they had taken Constantinople in 1453,
the Ottoman Turks had dominated eastern Europe and
had conquered Greece and the territories known today as
Rumania and Bulgaria. They had been equally success-
ful at sea, and their taking Cyprus in 1571 had forced
the European powers to put aside their differences in
the face of this common threat to the eastern Mediter-
ranean. Pope Pius V called for an alliance to combat the
Ottomans; Spain and Venice, the major sea powers in
the eastern Mediterranean, and others combined their
fleets in the common cause. John oF AuStRiA