384 VIENNA RELIEVED BY JOHN SOBIESKI. [CHAP. XXXVIII. 60,000 persons are said to have hurried from Vienna in a single day. Leopold intrusted the defence of his capital, which he thus disgracefully abandoned, to Count Stahremberg, in whom it found an able and valiant defender. It was fortunate for the

Emperor, who could get but little aid from the German States, that he had concluded in the preceding March, with John Sobieski, King of Poland, an offensive and defensive alliance against the Turks, with special reference to their besieging either Cracow or Vienna. Under King Michael, who had been elected to the Polish crown in 1669, after the death of John Casimir II., the Poles had been reduced to become tributary to the Porte; but John Sobieski, who occupied the post of general of that crown, defeated the Turks in a battle near Choczim, and in 1673, after the decease of Michael, he was elected King of Poland. Sobieski had not been able to remedy the internal evils of that country arising from the Swedish war and the defection of the Cossacks of the Ukraine, as well as from the vicious constitution of the kingdom; but his personal qualities and warlike renown had enhanced the reputation of Poland. The Emperor Leopold and Louis XIV. contended for his alliance. Sobieski persuaded the senate to choose the former, and the treaty alluded to was concluded, March 31st, 1683.1 In the peace which he had made with the Turks in 1676, Sobieski had been compelled to leave them in possession of Podolia and a great part of the Ukraine, provinces which he would willingly recover; nor could he behold without concern their attempts upon Hungary and Austria. one time Vienna seemed beyond the reach of human aid. The Turks sat down before it on July 14th, and such were their numbers that their encampment is said to have contained more than 100,000 tents. It was the middle of August before John Sobieski could leave Cracow with 25,000 men, and by the end of that month the situation of Vienna had become extremely critical. Provisions and ammunition began to fail; the garrison had lost 6,000 men, and numbers died every day by pestilence or at the hands of the enemy. It was not till September 9th that Sobieski and his Poles formed a junction, on the plain of Tulln, with the Austrian forces under the Duke of Lorraine, and the other German contingents under the Electors John George of Saxony, Max Emanuel of Bavaria, and the Prince of Waldeck, when the united army was found to amount to upwards of 83,000 men, with 186 pieces of artillery. On September 11th, the allies

The treaty is in Katona, t. xxxv. p. 15 sqq.

At

CHAP. XXXVIII.]

THE HOLY LEAGUE.

385

reached the heights of Kahlenberg, within sight of Vienna, and announced their arrival to the beleaguered citizens by means of rockets. On the following day the Turks were attacked, and after a few hours' resistance completely routed. Kara Mustapha, who in vain attempted to rally them, was himself carried off in the stream of fugitives, whose disorderly flight was only arrested by the Raab. The Turkish camp, with vast treasures in money, jewels, horses, arms, and ammunition, became the spoil of the victors.

Count Stahremberg received John Sobieski in the magnificent tent of the Grand Vizier, and greeted him as a deliverer. The different commanders then entered Vienna, and in St. Stephen's Church gave thanks for their deliverance, when the preacher chose for his text, "There was a man sent by God whose name was John." The Emperor Leopold, who returned to Vienna on September 14th, instead of showing any gratitude to the commanders who had rescued his capital, received them with the haughty and repulsive coldness prescribed by the etiquette of the Imperial Court. Sobieski nevertheless continued his services by pursuing the retreating Turks. Worsted by them at Parkany on October 7th, he inflicted on them on the 9th, with the aid of the Duke of Lorraine, a signal defeat, in which 15,000 of them are said to have been slaughtered or drowned; and he terminated the campaign with the capture of Gran (October 27th), which place had been almost a century and a half in the hands of the Turks. The Sultan, enraged at these misfortunes, caused Kara Mustapha to be beheaded at Belgrade.1

In the following year, 1684, the King of Poland, having returned to his dominions, the war against the Turks was pursued by the Duke of Lorraine, who, after capturing Wissegrad, Waitzen, and Pesth, sat down before Buda, July 14th. This place, however, was defended with the greatest obstinacy, and as the Imperial army was decimated by disease, the Duke of Lorraine was desirous of raising the siege at the beginning of October; but it was fruitlessly prolonged, by orders from Vienna, till the 29th of that month. It had cost the assailants 23,000 men. It was this year that a league against the Turks, under the protection of the Pope, and thence called the HOLY LEAGUE, was formed by the Emperor, the King of Poland, and the Republic of Venice. The Venetians were induced to join it by the hope of recovering their former

1 His head was found at the capture of Belgrade by the Elector of Bavaria in III.

CC

1688, and is still preserved in the city arsenal of Vienna.

386 HUNGARIAN CROWN MADE HEREDITARY. [CHAP. XXXVIII possessions, and declared war against the Sultan, Mahomet IV July 15th. The war which ensued, called the Holy War, laste till the Peace of Carlowitz, in 1699. Venice in this war p forth a strength little expected from that declining State. Man thousand Germans were enrolled in her army, commanded b Morosini, and by Count Königsmark, a Swede.

The Austrians pursued the campaign in Hungary with succes in 1685. The Ottoman army was defeated at Gran, and Net häusel was shortly after recovered (August 19th), the norther most place held by the Turks. In Upper Hungary, Eper: Tokay, Kaschau, and several other places were also retaken. T Grand Vizier Ibrahim was so enraged at these reverses that] caused Tekeli, whom he regarded as the cause of them, to carried in chains to Adrianople. But Ibrahim being dismiss from office the same year, Tekeli recovered his liberty. The f lowing year (1686) was signalized by the taking of Buda by Duke of Lorraine, which was carried by assault, September 2 after a siege of more than three months. Buda, the capital Hungary, had been during 145 years in the hands of the Turs Another campaign sufficed to wrest almost all Hungary from t Porte. The Austrians under the Duke of Lorraine having be joined by the Elector of Bavaria with a large force from t German States, completely defeated the Turks in the battle Mohács, the scene of the former triumph of the Ottoman arr (August 12th). The Duke of Lorraine followed up this succe by reducing all Transylvania, while Sclavonia was reconquer by General Dünewald, one of his officers. The chief places Upper Hungary, including Erlau and Munkacz, were also take and Tekeli's wife and her two children captured and sent prisone to Vienna. Thus, before the end of 1687, the whole of Hunga except a few scattered places, was recovered by Austria. Micha Apafy, however, was left in possession of Transylvania, but c condition of admitting Austrian garrisons into the princip towns, and paying a contribution of 700,000 florins.' In Octobe Leopold summoned an assembly of the Hungarian States! Pressburg, and proposed to them to incorporate in the kingde: of Hungary all his recent conquests over the Turks, to confir the ancient privileges of the nation, and to grant to the Prote tants the free exercise of their religion, on the following cet ditions: 1. The abrogation of the law passed in the reign of Kir Andrew II. (1222), by which a clause was inserted in the oat Katona, t. xxxv. p. 393 sqq.

CHAP. XXXVIII.]

SIEGE OF ATHENS.

387

of fidelity taken to the King, enabling any nobleman to take up arms against him, in case he should be of opinion that the King had violated his coronation oath; 2. That as a reward for delivering Hungary from the Turks, the crown should be made hereditary in the heirs male of the House of Austria; 3. That imperial garrisons should be admitted into all the fortresses of the kingdom. The Hungarian Diet having consented to these conditions, which were in fact an abolition of their ancient constitution, the Archduke Joseph, the Emperor's eldest son, was crowned King of Hungary by the archbishop of Gran, December 9th, 1687.

While the war in Hungary had been conducted by the Emperor with such eminent success, the King of Poland had made only some fruitless attempts upon Moldavia. The Czar of Muscovy, Ivan Alexiowitsch who, after settling some disputes about boundaries with the King of Poland, had joined the Holy League in 1686, did not fare much better. All the attempts of the Russians to penetrate into the Crimea were frustrated by the Tartars. The Venetians, on the other hand, had made some splendid conquests. St. Maura, Koron, the mountain tract of Maina, Navarino, Modon, Argos, Napoli di Romania, fell successively into their hands. The year 1687 especially was almost as fatal to the Turks in their war with Venice, as in that with Hungary. In this year the Venetians took Patras, Lepanto, all the northern coast of the Morea, Corinth, and Athens. Athens had been abandoned with the exception of the acropolis, or citadel; and it was in this siege that one of the Venetian bombs fell into the Parthenon, which had been converted by the Turks into a powder magazine, and destroyed the greater part of that magnificent relic of classical antiquity.' The acropolis surrendered September 29th. The fall of Athens, added to the disastrous news from Hungary, filled Constantinople with consternation. After the defeat of Mohács, the Turkish army had retired in a state of mutiny to Belgrade. The Grand Vizier Solyman was unpopular with the Janissaries and Spahis on account of the stricter discipline which he had endeavoured to introduce among that licentious soldiery; and his disastrous defeat at Mohács afforded them a pretext to get rid of him. They elected in his stead Siawusch Pasha, governor of Aleppo, and sent envoys to Constantinople to demand the dismissal of Solyman, who had fled to that capital. The Sultan was weak enough even to outstrip

An account of this siege will found in Dyer's Athens, chapt. xi.

388

REVOLUTION AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

[CHAP. XXXVIII. these demands, by sending to the mutineers the head of the obnoxious Vizier, and the seal of the empire for Siawusch. Not content, however, with these concessions, the army marched to Adrianople, and demanded the deposition of the Sultan himself, in favour of his brother, Solyman. Their demands were secondel by a large party in the metropolis; the Ulema assembled in the mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople (November 8th, 1687), and having sanctioned the demands of the troops, Solyman II. was saluted as Padischah in place of his brother. Mahomet IV. was thrown into prison, where he died disregarded five years afterwards.

This revolution had scarcely been completed, when Siawush entered Constantinople at the head of the rebellious troops. The Janissaries and Spahis now became more turbulent than before. They demanded that the usual donation on the accession of a new Sultan should be increased, and that all such ministers and placemen as they disapproved of should be banished. Some of the viziers having attempted to resist their demands, a dread! riot ensued; the palaces of all the ministers were stormed, plundered, and burnt; and even the Grand Vizier Siawusch hinself fell by the hands of those who had elected him. T Janissaries and Spahis were only at last controlled by the peor. rising against them (February, 1688), and peace was gradus restored. The aged Ismael Pasha was now intrusted with th seal of the empire, and with the conduct of a war which seer-l to threaten the Osmanli Empire in Europe with destruction. F the campaign of 1688 was still more disastrous to the Turks th the preceding one. The Imperialists, under the Elector Bavaria, took Belgrade, while another division under the Margrave Louis of Baden overran great part of Bosnia.

Humbled by these reverses, the Porte, for the first time, beg to make proposals for a peace, and was disposed to make very ample concessions. The Duke of Lorraine, who was now appoint to the command of the Imperial army against the French, press the Cabinet of Vienna to listen to these offers, and to put an e to the war in Hungary, in order to concentrate all the forces the empire upon the Rhine. The Margrave of Baden, on contrary, who succeeded the Duke of Lorraine in the comman the Austrian army in Hungary, pressed for the continuance of t war against the Turks, and represented that all the advantag to be expected from it would be enjoyed by the House of Austr. which, on the other hand, was but little interested in the war w ́ ́