IN the spring of 1683 the King of Poland was reported to be suffering from an incurable disease which would prevent him ever taking to the field of battle again at the head of his troops. The Christian nations were at swords’ points. To make matters still more serious, Hungary, suffering from the oppression of Austria, stood ready to furnish fifty thousand of its best troops to assist the Porte* in his operations against Austria, so that a very great army was assembled, and marched triumphantly to the very gates of Vienna.
In the very hour when victory seemed sure, Sobieski suddenly appeared with an army of only seventy thousand men, and struck the Turks like a whirlwind.* The Turks were so dumbfounded and bewildered by his sudden movement that they fled, panic-stricken, so that the proud, exultant foe was scattered to the winds, leaving behind them all of their war materials, and never stopping until they had reached the borders of Hungary. This defeat was so final that it was the very end of the Oriental dream of supremacy in Europe.*
abridged
The High or Sublime Porte (French for gate) is a handy term for the Government of the Ottoman Empire. Strictly speaking, it is the High Gate of the Sultan’s Palace in Constantinople; the term is used much as we may speak of Downing Street, or Whitehall.
Modern estimates suggest about 150,000 for the Ottoman forces, and something rather short of 90,000 for the combined forces of John Sobieski’s Poles, Germans and Austrians.
Victory at Vienna began the Great Turkish War, which lasted until the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. It was a defeat for the Ottoman Empire that proved to be the beginning of a gradual decline.