The Siege of Vienna: The Last Great Trial Between Cross & Crescent (23 page)

While the ring of fortifications buzzed with activity, inside Vienna the civilian world struggled to survive under conditions of siege.
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If the schools had closed, the churches soon opened again. Stocks of food were still ample, and prices steady. The flurry of excitement which had first called out the burgher-guards and companies recruited from the artisans, died down when the siege began to follow an orthodox course. The garrison of Lorraine’s infantry was large enough to hold the defences; neither the fighting, nor the spread of illness among the troops, had yet taken such toll that Starhemberg was compelled to use untrained auxiliaries, except at a few points of little importance. The civil administration was gradually being pulled into shape by the commander himself, by Caplirs and burgomaster Liebenberg. A number of useful measures were agreed, and to some extent carried out. Fire-brigades, when incendiary bombs began to fall in quantity, began to do their work admirably; they arrived promptly when a stable caught alight near the Löbel on 19 July and though a quantity of straw blazed away little damage was done. Persistent official pressure now forced all householders to provide themselves with buckets, barrels or skins, kept filled with water; and they had to dismantle roofs made of shingles, in order to lessen the risks of fire. But there were fires, and more companies of fire-fighters were formed to deal with them. Other instructions dealt with the scouring of the streets, the removal of refuse and
of dead animals; while paving-stones were dug up, partly for the reason that Turkish shot did least damage if it fell on soft earth, partly because more stone was needed on the fortifications. At the same time timber was taken from damaged buildings. Long lengths made extra palisades and baulks for the works. Smaller pieces increased the supply of firewood, or were dipped in tar for flares to illumine the moat and counterscarp at night, so that the enemy could not creep forward under cover of darkness. In addition the municipal authority organised the inspection of all properties, for a variety of reasons. It wanted to draw up a schedule of the total supply of straw in the town, because the wounded soldiers and civilians needed straw. It wanted all the fodder available, for the horses which were essential for the transport of supplies from one area to another. It wanted a census, to identify idlers and suspects. It again wanted full information about cellars for storage, and empty premises for the accommodation of the sick. Individual members of the inner council of the burghers were charged with these assignments, while the tight little municipal bureaucracy of inspectors and tax-collectors found themselves busy on novel and unfamiliar work.

Some problems were almost insuperable. The administration could not easily get rid of garbage, or even find sufficient burial-grounds for the dead. The Turks cut the conduits of fresh water leading into the city. In spite of orders and plans the growing number of sick and wounded caused terrible hardships, and the apothecaries and the nursing nuns and the City Hospital itself were unable to deal with the casualties of the siege. One strong man did his best to come to the rescue: Kollonics. This churchman had solved the financial problem by putting pressure on the clergy, as we have seen. In the sphere of hospital and medical organisation, he likewise swept aside clerical immunities which in any way hampered the arrangements which he sponsored for the treatment of the sick. He allotted accommodation in different religious houses to the sick or wounded of various units of the garrison, and to the civil population. He called in the help of all the physicians whom he could find in Vienna to assist the regimental doctors. He did in fact improve the medical services, in his own way strengthening the will to resist in the more critical weeks ahead.

The completeness of the siege gradually increased. On two consecutive nights, early on, detachments of the garrison sallied out from the walls. The first, a troop of 80 men, was severely handled by the left wing of the opposing army. The second, of 500, was the last of its kind for many weeks. The main purpose of such raids had been to smash the approaches to the counterscarp, but it was found that these were too well protected by Turkish infantry in the parallels. Cattle raids were of course a different matter; they occurred on a number of occasions, sometimes with official consent. In addition, on 23 July Starhemberg warned the municipality that women were going out of the town to barter their bread with the Turks in exchange for vegetables: too many persons, he said, were climbing across the fortifications. He viewed this with
great suspicion, because security was in fact more important than the food supply. Not only by the enemy, therefore, but by a grimmer consideration of their own interests, the Viennese were barred in. The troops on duty had instructions to fire at all trespassers on sight. Even so, private forays by a few who knew the ground must have continued, men scrambling at night along ruined boundary walls to caches of supplies still buried and hidden in the burnt-out suburbs. These would be the routes followed by Starhemberg’s messengers sent out to Leopold and Lorraine later on.

Life was intensely uncomfortable everywhere in Vienna, especially in the quarter bordering the Canal at the commencement of the siege. The enemy guns fired furiously from Leopoldstadt; houses and churches facing them were badly damaged. It was decided to wall up the windows in the neighbourhood of the Rotenturn, the city gate, and Starhemberg placed a heavier armament on the adjoining bastion, which replied very effectively to the Turks. He and his colleagues believed that any embarrasments in this quarter were annoying but not dangerous, so long as Kara Mustafa refrained from a serious attack across the Canal, under the protection of his batteries in Leopoldstadt.

This survey has moved gradually north from the Grand Vezir’s base, across the Turkish works and the Christian defences adjoining the Burg, then to the northern part of the town and to the Turks in Leopoldstadt. East and west, beyond the glacis, other sections of the besieging army were stationed, but inactive most of the time. Still further off, and north again from Leopoldstadt a series of broken bridges blocked the usual crossing of the Danube: here one more Ottoman force stood on guard, facing their enemy. Across the water the Habsburg cavalry would be stationed, but powerless to help the Habsburg infantry locked inside the city.

This garrison was now composed of the regiments (with ten companies each) of Alt-Starhemberg, Mansfeld, Souches and Scherffenberg; half or more of the companies of Kaiserstein’s, Neuburg’s, Heister’s and Württemberg’s; three companies each of Thim’s, and of Dupigny’s dragoons. To these must be added the City Guard. The nominal total of the seventy-two companies amounted to 16,600 men, but their actual strength was approximately 11,000.
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Useful, but of slight military importance, were the civilians who could be mobilised. The most plausible estimate of the size of the ancient burgher-companies from the eight city ‘wards’, each led by a captain, lieutenant and ensign, allows them a combined total of 1,815 excluding their officers. But in this supreme emergency, when all ordinary business came temporarily to a standstill, public-spirited individuals took the lead in organising groups of volunteers and employers recruited their work-people. One prominent company was formed by Ambrosius Frank, a well-known inn-keeper, a member of the outer council of burghers. The butchers and brewers joined forces and raised a company, the shoemakers and bakers each raised one. Other artisans were grouped together, first in one large unit, and then later into two. Such were the six so-called ‘free’ companies of the city, estimated—at one count—to
number 1,293 men. The university authorities, meanwhile, were mustering the students, together with the printers and booksellers, perhaps 700 in all. The big import-export merchants raised 250; they paid their men, and tended to attract recruits from other companies. Craftsmen, office-holders, and servants connected with the court—the ‘Hofbefreiten’—were also organised; and with some hesitation their total manpower can be recorded as 960. Finally, a very useful small group of eighty huntsmen and sharpshooters was ready to serve. The municipality could therefore put about 3,000 at Starhemberg’s disposal, the university and the merchants and the court about 2,000. The organisation of these 5,000 was always rudimentary, nor is it clear how many of them were available in the very early stages of the siege. But the civilians helped with guard-duties, and they did much of the repair-work.

In status the first citizen was the burgomaster, John Andrew Liebenberg.
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He is a puzzling character and, unfortunately for patriotic Viennese chroniclers, not an ingratiating one. Although he had played a very honourable part during the plague-year of 1679, he subsequently found it difficult to clear his financial accounts with the Treasury. He filled all the important city offices in turn, before becoming burgomaster, but did not seem to enjoy sufficient private revenues of his own to free him from a suspicion that he was somewhat mean and unscrupulous in money matters; yet there can be no doubt that he died in considerable poverty, from which his family suffered later. His house, facing on to the square of Am Hof, close to the administrative office of the city treasury and the municipal armoury, was a business centre of the highest importance during the crisis. The town hall stood a little farther north in the Wipplinger Strasse, the ordinary meeting-place of the city councillors. A large proportion of the members of the inner council were even older than Liebenberg and, like him, died of illness and strain before the Turks were finally driven off. They all, or nearly all, were assigned duties of considerable responsibility. They supervised the distribution of bread or wine. They were captains of the burgher companies.

On 10 July, shortly before the Turks reached Vienna, while so much still needed doing if they were to be resisted at all, it was decided to amalgamate the inner council with the municipal tribunal, the
Stadtgericht.
The members of the court, headed by wealthy Simon Schuster who lived on the main street leading down to the Rotenturm and the bridge over the Canal, were brought in to share the duties and responsibilities of the senior councillors. But the outstanding citizen during the crisis was Daniel Fotky, the rich and energetic senior treasurer who was often sent by the townsmen to settle difficult matters with Starhemberg or Caplirs. He handled every kind of business, and in the intensely anxious weeks of August seems to have deputised for Liebenberg, whose strength failed rapidly. When the burgomaster died on 9 September Fotky took over all his duties. A worthy colleague of these men was Hocke, the syndic. Not a Viennese by birth, he had come to study law at the University there in his youth. He now proved a tireless and conscientious official, and
later wrote what was certainly the best contemporary history of the siege. Posterity is indebted to him on both counts.

*
See illustrations
IX
and
XI
.

*
These villages and suburbs are named or numbered in
illustration IX
. Beyond Gumpendorf the ceremonial tents of the three headquarters in the Ottoman encampment are conspicuous, and the suburb of St Ulrich lies in front of them. The houses of Rossau surround no. 26

†
See illustrations
VII
and
IX
.

*
The Leopoldstadt suburb is visible in
illustration IX
, between the Canal and one of the main channels of the Danube.

*
An important point connected with the submission of Batthyány and Draskovich was that they undertook to send large stocks of provisions from their lands to the besieging army at Vienna.

†
see
illustration VII

*
see
illustration VI
.

II

In the third week of July, Kara Mustafa still had every reason to be satisfied. The army of his opponents was sealed off from Vienna along the length of the Danube from Krems to Pressburg, and their reinforcements were clearly very far away. His own forces encircled the city, of which the main line of defence had now been reached; and surely his men would soon move across the counterscarp into the ditch beneath the curtain-wall. The garrison, no doubt, was full of fight. It might continue to struggle against overwhelming odds for a week or two longer, but with every day that passed it would get less effective. Everything, so far, justified his own actions during the previous six months; nothing suggested that he was open to a serious attack from any quarter. The siege could proceed systematically, without running unnecessary risks a thousand miles from Istanbul. His men, Kara Mustafa recognised, had not shown themselves able to rush the counterscarp. Attacks made under cover of darkness, and the impact of Turkish mortar-fire and grenades, were insufficient to help them forward. The Grand Vezir therefore sanctioned the next stage of an assault, the laying of mines to force entry from his approaches into the counterscarp. These approaches, and the whole complex of lateral communications, came nearest to the defences at three salient points, in front of the two bastions, and also in front of the ravelin which stood between them. Here, after much hard digging, the Turks prepared to mine; an officer was sent forward by Kara Mustafa to inspect, and to report back to him. For some unexplained reason, the miners in the centre lagged behind their colleagues to left and right, and did not complete their preparations so quickly. On 22 July the Turkish artillery bombardment suddenly became tremendous. Kuniz heard what was afoot, and tried to send a warning into the town. The Austrian command, even without this intelligence (which only arrived two days later) guessed enough to know what was coming. Starhemberg ordered every householder to arrange for the inspection of his cellars, and to report immediately if sounds were heard underground; and he considered the possibility that traitors in Vienna might tunnel out towards the Turkish lines. Most of Friday 23 July things were quiet, unusually quiet;
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then, between six and seven o’clock, two mines, opposite the two bastions, were exploded by the Turks who immediately stormed the palisading which protected the counterscarp. But these mines were ineffective, and after violent fighting the position hardly altered.