Suleiman The Magnificent 1520 1566 (14 page)

The siege of Vienna appeals strongly to the imagination. Never since the battle of Tours, almost precisely eight centuries before, had Christian Europe been so direfully threatened by Mohammedan Asia and Africa. Had the verdict on either occasion been reversed, the whole history of the world might have been changed. And the cause of the Moslem defeat in both cases was fundamentally the same; the invaders had outrun their communications. This is well demonstrated in the case of Vienna by the fact that the long distances and heavy rains had forced the Turks to leave behind them the bulk of their heavy artillery, which had been such a decisive factor in the seige of Rhodes. The lighter cannon, which was almost all that they succeeded in bringing with them, could make little impression on the city walls. Only by mining operations could they hope to open a breach for a general assault.

The Vienna of 1529 was not much more than what is today contained within the Ring or Rmgstrasse™ On the

20 K. C. Schimmer, The Sieges of Vienna by the Turks, tr. and ed. Francis Egerton, Earl of Ellesmere, new ed. (London, 1879), pp. 14-15.

21 Schimmer-Ellesmere (p. 19) says 20,000 infantry, 2,000 horse, and 1,000 armed burghers.

22 See the plan in Schimmer-EHesmere,

northeastern side it was protected by what is now called the Donau Canal, or southern arm of the Danube, and on the southeastern by its little tributary the Wiener-Bach. The city was surrounded by a medieval wall, considerably strengthened during the weeks before the Turks arrived, and the defenders possessed an admirable watchtower in the tall spire of St. Stephen, whence all the movements of the besiegers could be observed; Count von Salm spent much of his time there. The Turks soon saw that the most promising place to attack was the "Karnthner Thor" or Carinthian Gate, on the south side of the city, to the west of the Wiener-Bach, and there they concentrated the mass of their forces. The Sultan's headquarters were his splendid red tent, pitched on a hill, three or four miles away. Mining and countermining operations were vigorously pushed during the early days of October. Several times the besiegers were encouraged to launch assaults, which were invariably repulsed. On the other hand, the constant sorties of the garrison were generally unsuccessful. 23 October 12 was the critical day of the siege. On that morning the walls had been breached by mines, and the Turks had delivered the most furious of their attacks. Only with great difficulty had it been beaten off, and the garrison was deeply discouraged; that very afternoon it despatched the most pressing of its messages to hasten the arrival of relief. But the Turks were in even worse case. At the Divan which they held that same day, the preponderance of opinion was in favor of withdrawal. The season was ominously late; supplies were getting short; the Janissaries were murmuring; powerful Christian reinforcements were known to be at hand. Ibrahim besought his master to go home. One more last attack was launched on October 14; but despite the unprecedented rewards that had been offered in case it should be successful, it was de-

28 Schimmer-EUesmere, pp. 27-35.

livered in such half-hearted fashion that it was foredoomed to failure from the first. That night the Turks massacred some 2000 of the prisoners that they had taken from the Austrian countryside; they burnt their own encampment; on the fifteenth they began to retire. 24 Their retreat was cruelly harassed by enemy cavalry, and truly horrible weather pursued them all the way to Constantinople. It was cold comfort that Zapolya came out from Buda as the Sultan passed by to compliment his master on his "successful campaign." All that the Sultan had "succeeded" in doing was to expel Ferdinand from his Hungarian dominions; and we need not take too seriously the statement in his diary that since he had learned that the archduke was not in Vienna, he had lost all interest in capturing the place! 25 The fundamental fact remained that Suleiman had been beaten back before the walls of the Austrian capital by a force a third the size of his own, or perhaps less. His prestige, about which, like all Orientals, he was abnormally sensitive, had suffered a serious blow. Obviously he must take immediate measures to regain it.

He began by a dramatic effort to throw dust in the eyes of his own subjects and to make them believe that he had really returned victorious. The "Feast of the Circumcision" of his four sons (June 27, 1530) furnished him the opportunity to give public entertainments on the grandest scale. They lasted three weeks and were marked by the most lavish display. For the common people all sorts of amusements were provided; the soldiers, the dignitaries of law and theology, and the officials all had their part in the ceremonies and the distribution of gifts. The Doge

^Moritz Smets, Wien m und aus der Turken-'Bedrangniss (Vienna, 1883), PP- 23-25.

25 Tagebuchy pp. 26-27.

of Venice, Andrea Gritti, who had been invited to be present by a special embassy, declined, on the ground of old age; but two envoys extraordinary were sent in his stead; and they, together with the Doge's son Ludovico and the resident bailo, made four representatives of the republic to atone for the absence of those of other Western states. Characteristically Oriental is the story that, after all was over, Suleiman asked Ibrahim whether the entertainments which he had just witnessed or those which had been given at the wedding of the Grand Vizir seemed to him the more magnificent. Ibrahim with ready wit replied: "A festivity like mine has never been seen since the world has existed, nor ever will be seen again." When his master asked in surprise, "Why so?", he added, "Your Majesty had no guest equal to mine, for I was honored by the presence of the Emperor of Mecca and Medina, the Solomon of our time." "Be a thousand times praised," replied the Sultan, "for having thus recalled me to myself!" 26

The problem of "saving his face" in the eyes of the outside world, and especially of the European powers, was obviously both more important and more difficult. The Sultan, however, was furnished with an excellent opportunity to attack it by the arrival at Constantinople of a fresh embassy from Ferdinand on October 17,15 3 o. It was headed by a Croatian nobleman named Niklas Jurisic and a certain Count Joseph von Lamberg. They had a suite of twenty-four persons and a Latin interpreter, and the object of the mission was to obtain a truce with the Turk. It is not difficult to see why Ferdinand was so anxious to be relieved of the threat of another Ottoman invasion. He had been deeply discouraged by the epilogue to the siege of Vienna. With the forces that had assembled there after Suleiman's withdrawal, he ought to have been able to take the offensive, drive Zapolya out of Hungary, and

26 Hammer, V, 137-145; 461.

no Suleiman the Magnificent

possibly recapture Belgrade; but the greater part of his troops refused to move. Most of the princes whom they served were intensely jealous of the power of the House of Hapsburg. They were willing to bear their share in the defence of the Empire, but they had no wish to participate in a dispute between Christian rivals for the Hungarian throne; in fact the Bavarian Wittelsbachs were ardently praying for the success of Zapolya. Nor could Ferdinand count on the support of his brother Charles. The latter, indeed, had made a satisfactory peace with France, and had come to terms with the Pope, who crowned him Emperor at Bologna on February 24, I530. 27 Just two months later he returned to the Empire, after an absence of nine years, to deal with the Lutherans. That was the problem which, at the moment, was uppermost in his mind; at all costs he must restore the religious unity of Western Christendom. Obviously he could not do that and confront the Turkish peril at one and the same time. Heresy must be extirpated before the Moslem could be fought. It was essential to get a respite from the direction of Constantinople; and Charles gave his approval to his brother's effort to obtain it.

The arrival of the envoys afforded Suleiman and Ibrahim the very opportunity that they desired, The ambassadors were honorably received and entertained at the Sultan's expense. Nevertheless, like many subsequent Christian diplomatic agents at the Porte, they were practically kept prisoners in their quarters, and nine full days were suffered to elapse before they were granted their first interview with the Grand Vizir. When at last he consented to receive them, Ibrahim was more haughty and toplofty than ever. He always spoke of their master as "Ferdinand" pure and simple; and he was particularly careful not to call Charles "Emperor"; that title he re-

served for the Sultan. 25 He amazed his listeners by the accuracy and extent of his information about recent events in Western Europe. He commented at length on the battle of Pavia, the treaty of Madrid, the sack of Rome, and the Peace of Cambray, and then favored the envoys with what was now the accepted Turkish version of the Vienna campaign. His master, so he said, had not come to Austria to capture a city, but to fight with Ferdinand, and as the latter had remained in hiding he had returned to Constantinople. For a long time the ambassadors were unable to get a word in edgewise. When at last they succeeded in telling Ibrahim that Ferdinand desired to be recognized as lawful king of Hungary, but would be willing to pay a "pension" to the Sultan and his Grand Vizir in return for their consent, and their promise to abandon Zapolya, Ibrahim threw open the window and pointed proudly to the Castle of the Seven Towers, where Suleiman's treasures were stored. He also took pains to add that no personal bribe could induce him to betray his sovereign. Yet, despite all his arrogance and boastf ulness, his tone had not been wholly unfriendly, nor is there any reason for doubting his statement that the Sultan was entirely willing to make peace, provided he could determine the conditions of it. The trouble was that neither side would yield on the main point at issue. Ferdinand would not give up his claims to Hungary, and Suleiman forbade any discussion of the cession of Buda; in view of what had thus far occurred, he can scarcely be blamed for so doing. After a purely formal audience with the Sultan, which was followed by a state dinner, Jurisic and Lamberg left Constantinople in November, having accomplished nothing. The affair as a whole had strengthened Suleiman's position and regained him much of the prestige which he had lost a year before. His rival had come to him as a suppliant,

^Hammer, V, 146.

and had been told that he could not have peace save on the Sultan's own terms. 29

Diplomatic triumphs, however, were not enough. If the memory of his failure to take Vienna were to be wiped out, Suleiman must win a great battle in the field. And this time he proposed to measure swords with Charles

V, the great enemy in the background, the fame of whose doings kept constantly reaching him, and whom he knew to be in the Empire and so, for the first time, within reach. The sailors of the two great rivals had already fought each other all over the Mediterranean. The course of events in the Danube valley during the past ten years had been closely linked with the Hapsburg-Valois struggle in the West. Charles had constantly declared that it was his ultimate intention to march against the Turk, and his recent coronation as Emperor at Bologna furnished a final cause for war. The tide of Emperor (in Turkish Padishah) implied something supreme over all other potentates. There really could be but one, and Suleiman was determined to settle by wager of battle who that one should be. so It is significant that in his diary he entitles his forthcoming expedition "The campaign against the King of Spain." n

The Sultan left Constantinople on April 26, 1532. As usual, it is impossible to form an accurate estimate of the size of the forces under his command, but it seems probable that they were even larger than the army of 1529; possibly as many as 100,000 fighting men. In any case, it was large enough to strike terror into the hearts of the first Christians with whom it came into contact. Before it had reached Belgrade, Ferdinand again attempted to

29 The Austrian documents concerning this embassy are printed in Gevay, vol. I, pt. 3; the report of the ambassadors appears on pp. 74-89.

30 It is, however, worth noting that Suleiman wrote a letter, in 1559, to Ivan the Terrible of Russia, in which he addressed him as Czar. Cf. Hammer,

VI, 118.

81 Hammer, V, 157, 476.

stay its advance by fresh negotiations for peace. 32 The increased prestige of the Sultan is clearly revealed by the terms which the Christian envoys had been instructed to offer. The annual "pension" in return for Suleiman's recognition of Ferdinand's right to call himself king of Hungary was now to be no less than 100,000 ducats. 33 If this proposal failed to appeal, they were even to consent to the cession of the kingdom to Zapolya, provided the latter would promise to remain unmarried and bequeath all his possessions to the House of Austria. 34 It was a humiliating contrast to Ferdinand's peace-offers of the previous year. No wonder that Ibrahim was more haughty than ever in his replies. Again he asked the envoys how their prince could possibly call himself king of Hungary after it had been twice conquered by the Sultan, who in his last expedition had been unable even to find Ferdinand, and had seen that he was no king, but "only a little fellow of Vienna, and worth small attention. . . . Therefore," he continued, "our lord has nothing to do with him on this occasion, but is seeking only for the king of Spain . . . who has done much more harm to Christendom than the Turk, for he has destroyed Rome and imprisoned the head of your faith." Finally, the two ambassadors were admitted to pay their homage to the Sultan in an audience of great magnificence, where they were mortified at being set below the representative of the king of France. 35 The answer that was delivered to them was unmistakable in its intent:

Know that by the grace of God and of our prophet Mohammed and of all the saints, I with all my nobles and slaves and my innumerable army have come from my great residence.

32 Documents relating to the embassy of Leonardo, Count of Nogarola, and Joseph von Lamberg in Gevay, vol. I, pt. 4.

33 Q£ va y ? vol. I, pt. 4, p. 5. The ambassadors were, however, to start their offer at 20,000 -ducats.