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