Significance

The battle

The Turks lost at least 15,000 men dead and wounded in the fighting + at least 5,000 men captured and all cannons; compared to approximately 4,500 dead and wounded for the Habsburg-Polish forces.

The loot that fell into the hands of the Holy League troops and the Viennese was as huge as their relief, as King Sobieski vividly described in a letter to his wife a few days after the battle:

"Ours are treasures unheard of... tents, sheep, cattle and no small number of camels... it is victory as nobody ever knew of, the enemy now completely ruined, everything lost for them. They must run for their sheer lives... Commander Starhemberg hugged and kissed me and called me his savior.”

This emotional expression of gratitude did not distract Starhemberg from ordering the immediate repair of Vienna's severely damaged fortifications, guarding against a possible Turkish counter-strike. However, this proved unnecessary. The victory at Vienna set the stage for Prince Eugene of Savoy's re-conquering of Hungary and (temporarily) some of the Balkan countries within the following years. Austria signed a peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire in 1697.

Long before that, the Turks had disposed of their defeated commander. On 25 December 1683, Kara Mustafa Pasha was executed in Belgrade (in the approved manner, by strangulation with a silk rope pulled by several men on each end) by order of the commander of the Janissaries.

Although no one realised it at the time, the battle shaped the outcome of the entire war as well. The Ottomans fought on for another 16 years, losing control of Hungary and Transylvania in the process, before finally giving up. The end of the conflict was finalised by the Treaty of Karlowitz.

The battle marked the historic end of the expansion into Europe of the declining Ottoman Empire.

The behaviour of Louis XIV of France also set the stage for centuries to come: German-speaking countries had to fight wars simultaneously in the West and the East. While German troops were fighting for the Holy League, Louis ruthlessly used the occasion, before and after the battle of Vienna, to annex territories in western Europe, such as Luxembourg, Alsace with Strasbourg, etc. Due to the ongoing war against the Turks, Austria could not support the interest of German allies in the West. The biography of Ezechiel du Mas, Comte de Melac illustrates the devastations of large parts of Southern Germany by France.

In honour of Sobieski, the Austrians erected a church atop a hill of Kahlenberg, north of Vienna. The train route from Vienna to Warsaw is also named in Sobieski's honour. The constellation Scutum Sobieskii (Sobieski’s Shield) was named to memorialise the battle. Because Sobieski had entrusted his kingdom to the protection of the Blessed Virgin (Our Lady of Czestochowa) before the battle, Pope Innocent XI commemorated his victory by extending the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, which until then had been celebrated solely in Spain and the Kingdom of Naples, to the universal Church; it is celebrated on September 12.

The period of Polish-Austrian friendship did not last long, as Charles V of Lorraine began downplaying the role of John III Sobieski and his troops in the battle. Neither Sobieski nor the Commonwealth profited significantly from saving Austria; on the contrary, the battle of Vienna cleared the path towards the forming of the future Austrian Empire (1804 to 1867) and the destruction of the Commonwealth. In 1772 and 1795 the Habsburg Monarchy took part in the first and third partitions of Poland, which wiped the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth off the maps of Europe. In contrast, the Ottoman Empire never recognised the partitions and provided a safe haven for many Poles.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-31