#Battle of vienna date plus

He was not considered a particularly effective leader by many contemporaries, but he saw himself as a bastion of Christendom besieged by an army of heathens. The Hapsburg Emperor, in contrast, was the bookish Leopold, who had trained to be a priest. Mehmed, who had acquired a reputation for laziness and hedonism (his appellation was “The Hunter”), desperately wanted to be seen as a great Sultan such as Mehmed II (who took Constantinople) and Suleiman the Magnificent (who launched the unsuccessful First Ottoman Siege of Vienna). Their rival claims to the throne of Rome, as well as the proximity of their empires, had led to generations of warfare. On the other side was the Imperial House of Hapsburg, which also claimed descent from Noah and the title of Holy Roman Empire. On one side was the Imperial House of Osman, which claimed descent from Noah and to be the rightful inheritors of the Roman Empire. The campaign that is often referred to as the “Siege of Vienna” (a more accurate title would be the “Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna”) was really all about ego.

Marching across the Hungarian plain, along with herds of sheep and camels, the vast Ottoman force was united by a single goal-the conquest of Vienna and the destruction of the Hapsburg Empire.

#Battle of vienna date plus

On a bright spring day in 1682, Mehmed IV, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, raised his banners, the seven ancient horsetail tūg of the House of Osman, in front of the Tokapi palace in Istanbul, and massed a gargantuan army: formidable Janissaries, cavalry from Egypt, infantry from Bosnia, Tatar scouts from the Crimea, plus specialized units dedicated to artillery, mining, tent-pitching, and even breadmaking.