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

224 honored by the glory of islam

him to tie it well.^51 The executioner tugged at the ropes two or three times, and

the former grand vizier expired. The body was taken out to an old tent, where

they prepared the corpse for burial, performed the funeral prayers, and then

cut off the head, buried the body in the courtyard of the mosque opposite the

palace, and sent the head to Mehmed IV in Edirne. First it was placed at the

palace gate to serve as a warning to others, then it was buried in the courtyard

of a local mosque. Hüseyin Behçeti, who had written the Ascent of Victory in

celebration of Kara Mustafa Pasha’s conquest of Çehrin and in praise of Vani

Mehmed Efendi’s incitement to jihad four long years before the rout at Vienna,

died soon after in Belgrade after having retreated from the front with the army

and his patron.

One of those who safely returned with the army to Edirne after setting out

with the sultan to Belgrade was a twenty-fi ve-year-old who served in the royal

laundry as one of those in charge of the sultan’s linen.^52 Before his retirement

from royal service in 1 703, he became the sword bearer (silahdar) of Ahmed III,

and that is the name attached to the history he wrote as a continuation of Katip

Çelebi’s narration of Ottoman history. Although Silahdar used The Events of

Vienna as a source for his account, he adopted a critical tone toward the grand

vizier (2:42–94). With the benefi t of many years’ hindsight, when discussing

the beginning of the campaign he complains that Kara Mustafa Pasha failed to

bring large cannons and mortar and enough fi repower to conquer the citadel,

the same mistake Ottoman planners had initially made during the Candia cam-

paign. This was particularly inexcusable to the author at a time when the em-

pire was at the peak of its economic and military strength with enough wealth

and matériel to sustain a larger campaign. Silahdar infers that the grand vizier

thought he could conquer Vienna without the requisite war and bloodshed. In

his entries for the last weeks of August, Silahdar argues that the grand vizier

had already been told that the army did not have enough ammunition to subdue

the citadel, that Vienna was especially well fortifi ed, and that the longer it was

besieged the harder it would be to take it, especially because the enemy was

being reinforced while Ottoman forces faced deprivation. He complains that the

grand vizier could have avoided the fi asco if he took Yanık and stopped there;

doing so would have made the emperor desire a peace treaty. Or he could have

surrounded Vienna in all directions rather than going straight before its citadel.

Silahdar claims that if the Ottoman military had put pressure on the city in that

fashion, Vienna would have fallen without a battle. He also puts words to this

effect in the mouths of the grand vizier’s commanders, who at the end of August

stated that they were badly outnumbered and requested tens of thousands of ad-

ditional troops; yet Kara Mustafa Pasha failed to fulfi ll his promise to send more

troops, leaving the beleaguered Ottoman armed forces to their fate. Silahdar