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Book The Siege of Vienna

    Book Details:
  • Author : John Stoye
  • Publisher : Birlinn
  • Release : 2012-12-10
  • ISBN : 0857905104
  • Pages : 409 pages

Download or read book The Siege of Vienna written by John Stoye and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2012-12-10 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Siege of Vienna in 1683 was one of the turning points in European history. It was the last serious threat to Western Christendom and so great was its impact that countries normally jealous and hostile sank their differences to throw back the armies of Islam and their savage Tartar allies. The consequences of defeat were momentous: the Ottomans lost half their European territories and began the long decline which led to the final collapse of the Empire, and the Hapsburgs turned their attention from France and the Rhine frontier to the rich pickings of the Balkans. The hot September day that witnesses the last great trial of strength between Cross and Crescent opened an epoch in European history that lasted until the cataclysm of the First World War in 1914.

Book The Enemy at the Gate

    Book Details:
  • Author : Andrew Wheatcroft
  • Publisher : Random House
  • Release : 2009-11-10
  • ISBN : 1409086828
  • Pages : 386 pages

Download or read book The Enemy at the Gate written by Andrew Wheatcroft and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009-11-10 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1683, two empires - the Ottoman, based in Constantinople, and the Habsburg dynasty in Vienna - came face to face in the culmination of a 250-year power struggle: the Great Siege of Vienna. Within the city walls the choice of resistance over surrender to the largest army ever assembled by the Turks created an all-or-nothing scenario: every last survivor would be enslaved or ruthlessly slaughtered. The Turks had set their sights on taking Vienna, the city they had long called 'The Golden Apple' since their first siege of the city in 1529. Both sides remained resolute, sustained by hatred of their age-old enemy, certain that their victory would be won by the grace of God. Eastern invaders had always threatened the West: Huns, Mongols, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals and many others. The Western fears of the East were vivid and powerful and, in their new eyes, the Turks always appeared the sole aggressors. Andrew Wheatcroft's extraordinary book shows that this belief is a grievous oversimplification: during the 400 year struggle for domination, the West took the offensive just as often as the East. As modern Turkey seeks to re-orient its relationship with Europe, a new generation of politicians is exploiting the residual fears and tensions between East and West to hamper this change. The Enemy at the Gate provides a timely and masterful account of this most complex and epic of conflicts.

Book The Siege of Vienna  1529

Download or read book The Siege of Vienna 1529 written by Charles River and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-22 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the 4th century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity's greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century. Naturally, the Ottoman Empire would also use Constantinople as the capital of its empire after their conquest effectively ended the Byzantine Empire, and thanks to its strategic location, it has been a trading center for years and remains one today under the Turkish name of Istanbul. In the wake of taking Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire would spend the next few centuries expanding its size, power, and influence, bumping up against Eastern Europe and becoming one of the world's most important geopolitical players. It would take repeated efforts by various European coalitions to prevent a complete Ottoman takeover of the continent, and one of the most important battles among those efforts took place at Vienna in 1529. At the time, the Ottomans were led by one of their most famous sultans, Suleiman the Magnificent, and different chroniclers have analyzed Suleiman's behavior in different ways. There is a plethora of opinions as to his motives for attempting the takeover of Vienna, a well-guarded city far away from his empire's center. Had he intended to conquer the whole of the Holy Roman Empire? Had he intended to strengthen his borders? Had he acted in accordance with King Francis I's needs in the West? No matter the reason, Suleiman did not halt in his advances, despite the fact circumstances were not favorable for the Ottomans. The summer rains had already begun when he set out for Vienna, making most of the roads inaccessible both for cavalry and moving the heavy pieces of artillery needed for a successful siege. The camels brought from Anatolia proved too sensitive for the cold, constant rain and died in large numbers, and many of the soldiers shared the same fate. By the time they arrived around Vienna in late September, the Ottoman forces were heavily depleted, and many siege armaments had been left behind when stuck in the mud. The population of Vienna had seen the enemy coming, giving them plenty of time to reinforce, strengthen, and prepare. When they launched the siege, the Ottoman forces lacked conviction, making it easy to fight back during the initial attacks. After making no real progress, the soldiers lost their motivation when the weather took a turn for the worse shortly into the siege. Suleiman's supply of food and water diminished, and the troops were close to mutiny. In a final "all or nothing" attempt, the Ottomans attacked with all the strength they had left, trying to break Vienna's fortifications, which refused to yield. Suleiman accepted defeat, gathered his men, and returned to Anatolia. The hasty departure from Vienna resulted in the loss of heavy armaments, as well as troops and prisoners in the heavy snowfall. Modern historians speculate as to why Suleiman persisted with the siege even though the Ottoman forces were evidently weaker than the forces in Vienna upon their arrival. As an experienced, strategic warrior, it is most likely he realized his disadvantage and the full scale of his potential losses. It was also probable that the last burst of attacks was merely a means with which to weaken the city walls for a future siege. The second attempt, in 1532, was met with the same mix of bad luck and good defenses, and Vienna marked the limit of Ottoman advances in the West.

Book The Siege of Vienna

    Book Details:
  • Author : John Stoye
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2008-02-06
  • ISBN : 1605987689
  • Pages : 455 pages

Download or read book The Siege of Vienna written by John Stoye and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-02-06 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In his splendid study The Siege of Vienna, the Oxford historian John Stoye provides a detailed account of the intricate machinations between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. Mr. Stoye's description of the siege itself is masterly. He seems to know every inch of ground, every earthwork and fortification around the Imperial City, and he follows the action meticulously." —The Wall Street Journal "Worthy of the pen of Herodotus. . . . It is a measure of the fascination of Mr. Stoye's subject that one should think of comparing his treatment of it with the work of the greatest historians." —The Times Literary Supplement "John Stoye is the master of every aspect of his subject." —Daily Telegraph The siege of Vienna in 1683 was one of the turning points in European history. So great was its impact that countries normally jealous and hostile sank their differences to throw back the armies of Islam and their savage Tartar allies. The consequences of defeat were momentous: The Ottomans lost half of their European territories, which led to the final collapse of their empire, and the Habsburgs turned their attention from France and the Rhine frontier to the rich pickings of the Balkans. That hot September day in 1683 witnessed the last great trial of strength between the East and the West-and opened an epoch in European history that lasted until the First World War.

Book The Siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683

Download or read book The Siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683 written by Frederick Henry Marshall and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the 1683 Siege of Vienna by the Turks.

Book the siege of vienna by turks in 1683

Download or read book the siege of vienna by turks in 1683 written by Jeremias Cacavelas and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Singing Turk

    Book Details:
  • Author : Larry Wolff
  • Publisher : Stanford University Press
  • Release : 2016-08-30
  • ISBN : 0804799652
  • Pages : 505 pages

Download or read book The Singing Turk written by Larry Wolff and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While European powers were at war with the Ottoman Empire for much of the eighteenth century, European opera houses were staging operas featuring singing sultans and pashas surrounded by their musical courts and harems. Mozart wrote The Abduction from the Seraglio. Rossini created a series of works, including The Italian Girl in Algiers. And these are only the best known of a vast repertory. This book explores how these representations of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, the great nemesis of Christian Europe, became so popular in the opera house and what they illustrate about European–Ottoman international relations. After Christian armies defeated the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683, the Turks no longer seemed as threatening. Europeans increasingly understood that Turkish issues were also European issues, and the political absolutism of the sultan in Istanbul was relevant for thinking about politics in Europe, from the reign of Louis XIV to the age of Napoleon. While Christian European composers and publics recognized that Muslim Turks were, to some degree, different from themselves, this difference was sometimes seen as a matter of exotic costume and setting. The singing Turks of the stage expressed strong political perspectives and human emotions that European audiences could recognize as their own.

Book The Sieges of Vienna by the Turks

Download or read book The Sieges of Vienna by the Turks written by Karl August Schimmer and published by . This book was released on 1879 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Battle of Vienna  1683

    Book Details:
  • Author : Charles River Editors
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2019-05-25
  • ISBN : 9781099594922
  • Pages : 114 pages

Download or read book The Battle of Vienna 1683 written by Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2019-05-25 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "Ours are treasures unheard of . . . tents, sheep, cattle and no small number of camels . . . it is victory as nobody ever knew before, the enemy now completely ruined, everything lost for them. They must run for their sheer lives . . . General Starhemberg hugged and kissed me and called me his saviour." - Polish King John III Sobieski There are certain events that are famous not so much in themselves, noteworthy as they might be, but on account of their role in the context of history. Seismic shifts pivot upon the outcome of such events, and many of them come from battles, for it is an unfortunate but irrefutable fact of history that humanity is shaped by the force of arms. Salamis, Hastings, Agincourt, Waterloo, Sedan, and Stalingrad all fit into this category, and the 1683 Battle of Vienna or Kahlenberg (named after a hill near the city) can also, with eminent justification, be placed in the list of era-changing conflicts. For nearly 1,000 years, there had been a clash for the souls, hearts, and bodies of societies across Europe, Africa, and Asia. The conflict between Christianity and Islam has been one of the defining factors in Europe and the Middle East, and while this dichotomy might be an excessively simple and incomplete explanation, there is no doubt that it has generated the world today. From Arabia, Islam surged forth onto the world stage in the 7th century as a religion carried by the force of arms. By the middle of the 8th century, the Islamic Caliphate had conquered the Levant, parts of North Africa, and even parts of Spain, all regions which had converted to Christianity in the previous three centuries. An Islamic invasion of France was turned away at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, and a Western counter-offensive known as the Reconquista lasted about 700 more years. Away from Europe, Christian and Muslim forces fought the Crusades around the Holy Land. Toward the end of the 17th century, the preeminent Islamic power in the world was the Ottoman Empire. From lowly beginnings as a vassal of the Anatolian Sultanate of Rum Osman I, from whom the empire was named, it expanded into the lands of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and by 1683, the year of the Battle of Vienna, the Ottomans ruled Asia Minor, the Middle East (with the exception of Iran), northern Africa to the borders of Morocco, the Balkan Peninsula up to the lands of modern Poland, as well as portions of Poland, Ukraine, Crimea, and Georgia. The sultan was styled "His Imperial Majesty the Padishah (Emperor), Commander of the Faithful and Successor to the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe." He was considered by his subjects to be the Caliph, the supreme leader of the faithful throughout the world. The duty of holy jihad was vested by the umma in his hands, and the sultans had successfully overpowered the forces of the Christian princes time and time again. The long conflict between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans would finally come to a head in 1683 outside the city of Vienna, the center of Habsburg power in central Europe. It would be no exaggeration to say that Vienna was one of the most important battles not only in the conflict between Islam and Christendom, but in the entire history of the world. If the Habsburgs had lost that battle, it is highly likely that Islamic civilization rather than Christian would dominate much of Europe. The Battle of Vienna (1683): The History and Legacy of the Decisive Conflict between the Ottoman Turkish Empire and Holy Roman Empire chronicles the dramatic siege, and how the Christian forces turned back the Ottomans. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the battle like never before.

Book Vienna 1683

    Book Details:
  • Author : Simon Millar
  • Publisher : Osprey Publishing
  • Release : 2008-02-19
  • ISBN : 9781846032318
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book Vienna 1683 written by Simon Millar and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2008-02-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Osprey's study of a battle that was part of a triple conflict: the Polish-Ottoman War (1683-1699), the Great Turkish War (1667-1698), and the Ottoman Hapsburg Wars (1526-1791). The capture of the Hapsburg city of Vienna was a major strategic aspiration for the Islamic Ottoman Empire, desperate for the control that the city exercised over the Danube and the overland trade routes between southern and northern Europe. In July 1683 Sultan Mehmet IV proclaimed a jihad and the Turkish grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, laid siege to the city with an army of 150,000 men. In September a relieving force arrived under Polish command and joined up with the defenders to drive the Turks away. The main focus of this book is the final 15-hour battle for Vienna, which climaxed with a massive charge by three divisions of Polish winged hussars. This hard-won victory marked the beginning of the decline of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, which was never to threaten central Europe again.

Book The Enemy at the Gate

    Book Details:
  • Author : Andrew Wheatcroft
  • Publisher : Basic Books
  • Release : 2009-04-28
  • ISBN : 0786744545
  • Pages : 384 pages

Download or read book The Enemy at the Gate written by Andrew Wheatcroft and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An acclaimed history of the Great Siege of Vienna, when the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg dynasty came face to face In 1683, an Ottoman army that stretched from horizon to horizon set out to seize Vienna, the bulwark of Christendom. The ensuing siege pitted battle-hardened Janissaries wielding seventeenth-century grenades against Habsburg armies widely feared for their savagery. The walls of Vienna bristled with guns as the besieging Ottoman host launched bombs, fired cannons, and showered the populace with arrows. Each side was sustained by the hatred of its age-old enemy, certain that victory would be won by the grace of God.The Great Siege of Vienna is the centerpiece of historian Andrew Wheatcroft's richly drawn portrait of the complex centuries-long rivalry between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires for control of the European continent. A gripping work by a master historian, The Enemy at the Gate offers a timely examination of an epic clash of civilizations.

Book Vienna 1683

Download or read book Vienna 1683 written by Günter Düriegl and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Battle for Central Europe

Download or read book The Battle for Central Europe written by Pál Fodor and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-01-28 with total page 579 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Battle for Central Europe specialists in sixteenth-century Ottoman, Habsburg and Hungarian history provide the most comprehensive picture possible of a battle that determined the fate of Central Europe for centuries. Not only the siege and the death of its main protagonists are discussed, but also the wider context of the imperial rivalry and the empire buildings of the competing great powers of that age. Contributors include Gábor Ágoston, János B. Szabó, Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik, Günhan Börekçi, Feridun M. Emecen, Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, István Fazekas, Pál Fodor, Klára Hegyi, Colin Imber, Damir Karbić, József Kelenik, Zoltán Korpás, Tijana Krstić, Nenad Moačanin, Gülru Neci̇poğlu, Erol Özvar, Géza Pálffy, Norbert Pap, Peter Rauscher, Claudia Römer, Arno Strohmeyer, Zeynep Tarım, James D. Tracy, Gábor Tüskés, Szabolcs Varga, Nicolas Vatin.

Book The Sieges of Vienna by the Turks

Download or read book The Sieges of Vienna by the Turks written by Karl August Schimmer and published by . This book was released on 1847 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Great Siege  Malta 1565

Download or read book The Great Siege Malta 1565 written by Ernle Bradford and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The indispensable account of the Ottoman Empire’s Siege of Malta from the author of Hannibal and Gibraltar. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was thought to be invincible. Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman sultan, had expanded his empire from western Asia to southeastern Europe and North Africa. To secure control of the Mediterranean between these territories and launch an offensive into western Europe, Suleiman needed the small but strategically crucial island of Malta. But Suleiman’s attempt to take the island from the Holy Roman Empire’s Knights of St. John would emerge as one of the most famous and brutal military defeats in history. Forty-two years earlier, Suleiman had been victorious against the Knights of St. John when he drove them out of their island fortress at Rhodes. Believing he would repeat this victory, the sultan sent an armada to Malta. When they captured Fort St. Elmo, the Ottoman forces ruthlessly took no prisoners. The Roman grand master La Vallette responded by having his Ottoman captives beheaded. Then the battle for Malta began in earnest: no quarter asked, none given. Ernle Bradford’s compelling and thoroughly researched account of the Great Siege of Malta recalls not just an epic battle, but a clash of civilizations unlike anything since the time of Alexander the Great. It is “a superior, readable treatment of an important but little-discussed epic from the Renaissance past . . . An astonishing tale” (Kirkus Reviews).

Book Mapping the Ottomans

    Book Details:
  • Author : Palmira Brummett
  • Publisher : Cambridge University Press
  • Release : 2015-05-19
  • ISBN : 1107090776
  • Pages : 385 pages

Download or read book Mapping the Ottomans written by Palmira Brummett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how Ottomans were mapped in the narrative and visual imagination of early modern Europe's Christian kingdoms.

Book The Habsburg Empire Under Siege

Download or read book The Habsburg Empire Under Siege written by GEORG B. MICHELS and published by . This book was released on 2021-03 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the seventeenth century Hungary's diverse population of peasants, townsmen, soldiers, and county nobles rose up against the violent imposition of the Counter-Reformation, the Habsburg military occupation, and exhorbitant war taxes. In The Habsburg Empire under Siege Georg Michels explores the little-known grassroots revolts that threatened the Habsburgs' hold over the Hungarian borderlands. Based on extensive research in Hungarian, Austrian, and Dutch archives, this revisionist study shifts attention away from high politics, diplomacy, and military confrontation to the popular revolts that took place during the two decades before the 1683 siege of Vienna. Michels reveals a complex environment in which Calvinist Hungarians, Lutheran Slovaks, Lutheran Germans, and Orthodox Ukrainians worked to defend their religion against brutal Habsburg Counter-Reformation campaigns. Challenging preconceived notions of European, Middle Eastern, and East European history, this book tells a dramatic story of Reformation and Counter-Reformation violence, covering proxy wars, guerrilla warfare, refugee flight, migration from Hungary into Ottoman territory, and largely unknown Christian-Muslim encounters. Offering a trans-imperial perspective that reassesses the complex relationship between Hungarians, Habsburgs, and Ottomans, The Habsburg Empire under Siege portrays the resistance of ordinary men and women and their hopes for liberation from Habsburg oppression, reclaiming their place in history.