The Siege of Vienna: The Last Great Trial Between Cross & Crescent (15 page)

A keen observer gave this account of the city on 22 April:

Here we think of nothing except military affairs. Last Monday the Dieppental battalion, 500 strong, was inspected by the imperial commissaries. Nine hundred horses and 169 wagons for the artillery, and 19 large anchors for warships, also arrived; while the same day, the foot marched out along the Tabor road to the suburbs, and went down the Danube next morning. On Tuesday 3 craft from Steyr came in, with 2,000 canon-ball, and many thousands of smaller shot. Half the Scherffenberg regiment (with 1,020 men) also arrived, and marched through the city . . . Today, half the Mansfeld regiment (again 1,020 men) were stationed outside the Burg-gate at 9 o’clock, when the Emperor went out of town to hunt; he took the opportunity to inspect them. They were well clad in grey, with blue facings . . . Count Windischgrätz, last Thursday, arranged to have his son and daughter signify their submission to the Roman faith in the Jesuit Church.
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*
The florin of the Austrian financial estimates was less valuable than the thaler of the Saxon estimates (p. 49 above). The rate of exchange was commonly 1 ½ or 1 ¾:I.

*
Strictly speaking, ‘Upper’ Austria is ‘Austria-above-the-Enns’ with Linz as capital, and ‘Lower’ Austria is ‘Austria-below-the-Enns’ with Vienna as capital. The river Enns is the boundary between them south of the Danube.

*
The famous ‘Tiirken-Louis’ (1655–1707) was Herman of Baden’s nephew. Best known to English readers as the unimpressive colleague of Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy in the Blenheim campaign twenty-one years later, he was a splendid and fiery commander in his prime.

*
See maps,
pp. 14–17
, and
p. 24
.

*
Cylindrical bundles of sticks, bound together, for making parapets and raising batteries.

III

These preparations on home ground were accompanied by further sustained efforts to strengthen Leopold’s position, by diplomacy in foreign courts.

One set of negotiations was a total failure. An envoy named Waldendorf was instructed, on 17 November 1682 to go to the Rhineland and confer with the three ecclesiastical Electors and with the Elector Palatine.
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The proposal which he took with him suggested a meeting between these Electors and the Emperor at the Regensburg Diet in the early spring in order to discuss the joint defence of the Empire against the Turk. The irruption of the Grand Vezir with the Sultan’s grand army from Hungary into Silesia, Poland or Moravia, and from there into the ‘viscera’ of the Empire, was held out as an immediate threat in the coming year. But Waldendorf, after visiting Mainz, Ehrenbreitstein, Cologne and Heidelberg in December and January, found that not one of these rulers felt disposed to fall in with Vienna’s wishes. They were all far too frightened of Louis XIV and all said that, if they appeared in Regensburg to confer with Leopold, French troops would at once move east into the lands of the Empire. The gravity of the Turkish danger absolutely required an agreement between Vienna and Paris, they argued, before any other steps could be taken. They pointed out that Louis had now left open until the last day of February 1683 his offer to negotiate a settlement with Leopold and the states of the Empire.

Meanwhile another envoy, Martinitz, had been sent into Italy to press Innocent XI and the Italian rulers for financial and diplomatic assistance.
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For many months his reports made gloomy reading. Rome persisted in the view that the great crisis in eastern Europe required a policy of harmony and appeasement between the western states.
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Lamberg, also, continued his
efforts in Dresden and Berlin, but was unable to deflect the policies of these Protestant princes.
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John George continued polite but negative. The Habsburg government paid the Elector’s expenses when he spent the Easter holiday at Teplice, the Bohemian spa, but John George continued to look northwards over his shoulder to Berlin, determined to keep on good terms with a powerful neighbour who obstinately preached the doctrine that peace in the Empire must be preserved by making the necessary concessions to France, and who clearly hoped to aggrandise himself in north Germany, to the possible detriment of Saxony as well as of other states.

It was all the less likely that Lamberg would gain a hearing in Berlin. Frederick William refused to discuss an alliance with the Emperor unless Louis XIV’s claims in Germany were first accepted. Hocher and Königsegg, commenting on this, again reminded Leopold of Louis’ lack of scruple, his perpetual aggressions, and their unyielding attitude to France remained the core of Habsburg policy. All the same they managed to complete other agreements of the greatest importance, and first they came to terms with Max Emmanuel of Bavaria.

The Elector’s new army had been taking shape in the summer of 1682, and during the period of its first autumn manoeuvres—in which he shared—serious bargaining with the Hofburg began. Max Emmanuel demanded large subsidies, and territorial pledges for their punctual payment; he had his eye on Habsburg lordships along the upper Danube and the Inn. He wanted an assignment of the greatest possible number of Habsburg troops to defend the Empire against France, and some sort of guarantee that other German states would follow him in joining Leopold. Until the beginning of December Leopold prevaricated, but his position in Hungary was now so insecure, the French ultimatum to the negotiators at Frankfurt so likely to expire without a further renewal, that he felt compelled to act. A new ambassador, Kaunitz, assisted by his dazzling wife, came to Munich and agreement was reached in the treaty of 23 January 1683.

The two princes joined in stating the broad principle that the Empire must be defended: therefore conversations with Louis XIV’s envoys should be continued, in order to reach a settlement on the basis of previous treaties. Aggression was to be resisted by force of arms. Leopold would assign 15,000 men to defend his hereditary lands against the Turks, and at least 15,000 for the defence of the Empire; this second figure whittled down the original Bavarian demand for 25,000.
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The Elector agreed to place 8,000 men in the field, but they were only obliged to assist Leopold against the Turks if there was no emergency in the west; Leopold’s first request had been for 10,000 Bavarian soldiers. Max Emmanuel’s government, in return, secured subsidies of 250,000 thaler a year in time of peace, and 450,000 thaler in war. These amounts were slightly less than Max Emmanuel asked for, but Leopold reluctantly gave him pledges to surrender territory if the subsidies were not paid; and the agreement, valid for five years, was not to bind Max Emmanuel if Leopold’s other allies
left him. A further clause anticipated that Bavaria and neighbouring Circles in the Empire would discuss the common problem of military defence. By the end of March Max Emmanuel, and the Bavarian Circle, did indeed come to terms with the Franconians. The Swabians demurred.
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For the Hofburg, this was undoubtedly a step forward. If the Elector still enjoyed great freedom of manoeuvre, he had quit the policy of outright friendship with Louis XIV. His army, in certain circumstances, was available for use against France or against the Turks. French diplomacy had lost one of its safest footholds, a change illustrated by Kaunitz’ second triumph, the dismissal from office of Caspar Schmidt, the chancellor who had been friendly to France for many years. Next, Max Emmanuel himself accepted an invitation to Vienna. Much flattering entertainment, arranged for him by Leopold and by noblemen like Kaunitz and Liechtenstein as he passed through Austria to Vienna, and through Moravia and Bohemia on his way home again in the spring of 1683, certainly helped to make sure of his friendship for the time being. He was present at Kittsee (near Pressburg) on 6 May when the grand ceremonial review of Leopold’s field-army took place. On that occasion he no doubt flattered himself that he had his own army, and his own military ambitions. It also accorded with his interests of state to employ the one, and satisfy the other, in warfare againt the Turks. Provided that Louis XIV made no move of a transparently aggressive kind in the Empire, the use of Bavaria’s new armament in this way would leave intact as much of the old friendship between Bavaria and France as the Elector judged desirable.

On 14 January Leopold’s ministers also completed their treaty with Ernest Augustus of Hanover.
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Falkenhayn shuttled backwards and forwards, he did his best, but only when he arrived again in Vienna, at the end of November 1682 was it at last possible to make progress. Ernest Augustus had become very alarmed by the whole situation in Germany. He enlarged his army rapidly during the winter, which made him the more anxious to raise additional funds. He failed to squeeze anything out of the Dutch, so he now offered to place 10,000 men in the Rhineland under his own command in return for a promise of 700,000 thaler; this sum was to be taken, with imperial authority, from the ‘unarmed’ lands of the Empire, plus 50,000 thaler paid direct by Leopold to cover a part of the initial expenditure. Leopold at first offered less than half this total. Then, with a few modifications, he accepted the bargain. At least on paper another sizeable force had been conjured out of the German labyrinth for imperial defence.

It was only on paper. What had really persuaded Ernest Augustus to sign the treaty soon threatened to divert him from the Rhineland: the crisis in the north.
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Here the alliance of Brandenburg, Denmark and Münster against Sweden, the Duke of Gottorp-Holstein and the house of Brunswick, appeared to grow stronger with every month that passed. Ernest Augustus and his cousins armed to meet and defeat it. They wanted allies. They wanted subsidies. They knew that France, at this stage, busily encouraged Brandenburg and the
Danes; and there were rumours of a projected French attack on Westphalia through Cologne. It was this which had led Ernest Augustus to offer his 10,000 men to the Emperor, and to this extent he felt deeply concerned for the defence of western Germany. But the longer the French assault was delayed, the more completely he became absorbed by the prospect of warfare along or across the Elbe valley. The surprising restraint shown in the next few months by two greater powers, Louis XIV and Charles XI, gradually damped down these northern fires, but not before they had left Leopold little to hope for from diplomacy in that quarter. When Vienna was besieged and he begged urgently for help, Ernest Augustus’ reply was strictly determined by the necessities of his position. He sent to Passau apologies, and to the relieving army no more than a company under his son George—who became, in due time, King George I of England.

Much strenuous discussion at The Hague accomplished even less. By April 1683 the Austrian envoy had seen a conference of the interested powers talk itself to a standstill, but he had failed to get from any of them a promise to defend the Empire against a French attack. The ministers in Vienna were disappointed, but still they resolutely refused to treat with Louis XIV, or to consider accepting his demands in order to free more troops for the coming struggle with the Grand Vezir. Their stubbornness on this point measures precisely the extent to which they believed that western Europe, and western politics, were their prime concern.

East of the Empire, Habsburg diplomacy secured one conspicuous and fundamental triumph, in Poland. In another area, in Hungary, it met with a crushing defeat.

IV

In the intricate pattern of diplomatic and military preparations for the coming tussle of arms, nothing is stranger than the obscure story of the approaches made by the Vienna court to Thököly during this winter.
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In November 1682 Leopold had concluded the usual seasonal truce with the Magyar leader after discussion with two envoys sent to Vienna for the purpose, Szirmay and Janocki. Thököly then summoned a Diet of all the Hungarian counties to meet him at Košice in January. The Palatine,
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Esterházy, protested that this assembly was utterly unconstitutional; but when it met, and through it Thököly began trying to subject much of the country to a firm administration under his control by the rigorous collection of taxes, the Habsburg court nevertheless empowered an envoy to be present at the Diet, and to negotiate with Thököly and the assembled deputies. Herman of Baden, in a memorandum of 7 January, had been emphatic that a treaty with France was out of the question, and that therefore it was essential to bargain and compromise in the east. He believed, quite wrongly, that Leopold could win over Thököly. He also
believed, and his opinion was grotesque in all the circumstances, that Thököly could then be persuaded to win over the Turks to the idea of a peace with Leopold. The envoy in Košice, Hoffman, was ordered to follow out this line of policy. Only one point in his instructions made good sense: he was to woo all those deputies at Košice who appeared sympathetic to the Habsburg interest. Undoubtedly not every Magyar in Thököly’s camp had accepted his autocracy, or the Ottoman overlordship. But Hoffman utterly failed to influence the views of the delegation sent by Thököly to the Sultan. It duly reached Belgrade and soon informed Kara Mustafa of Leopold’s secret diplomacy. It was these men who pressed for an immediate assault on Vienna. One of them, Szirmay—recently returned from the Habsburg court—apparently handed over sketches or plans of the fortifications of the city to the Turks, who studied them eagerly.

Caprara realised what had happened and was able to report to Leopold. Even so, the conversations with Thököly were continued. Colonel Saponara, commandant of the Habsburg garrison at Patak, replaced Hoffman. He listened while Thököly, as the price of friendship, affected to demand lordships in Hungary from Leopold, the title of Prince of the Empire, and the Golden Fleece. Vienna took these points seriously, and was ultimately willing to grant them all provided that Saponara haggled ‘per Gradus’, in order to give away the minimum needed to satisfy Thököly. But the weeks passed, and the time for the active military partnership of the Magyar ‘King’ and Ottoman Sultan was at hand. Thököly, on 21 June, abruptly announced the immediate cessation of the truce, although the original agreement required that a month’s notice should be given. Even then, Saponara was told to continue discussions. Leopold went so far as to advise him that the Habsburg troops would not break the truce for another month. The policy of appeasement, on this occasion, had deceived nobody except the policy makers of Vienna. Its most sinister consequence must have been to slacken—over a period of months—the vigour with which the military defences of Hungary were prepared for battle.