CHAP. IV.] RELIEVED BY JOHN SOBIESKI. 109 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 the vicious constitution of the kingdom; but his personal qualities and warlike renown had enhanced the reputation of Poland abroad. The Emperor Leopold and Louis XIV. contended for his alliance; but Sobieski persuaded the senate to choose the former, and the treaty alluded to had been concluded, March 31st 1683.7 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. At 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 6000 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 Tuln 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 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 * The treaty, which was under the protection of the Pope, is in Katona, t. xxxv. p. 15 sqq. 110 THE HOLY LEAGUE. [Book V. camp, with vast treasures in money, jewels, horses, arms, and ammunition, became the spoil of the victors. Count Stahremberg received the King of Poland 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 expressing his thanks and 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 killed 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, December 25th.8 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; and it was resolved to procure, if possible, the accession to it of the Czar of Muscovy. The Venetians were induced to join the league by the hope of recovering their former possessions, and declared war against the Sultan, Mahomet IV., July 15th. The war which ensued, now called the Holy War, lasted till the Peace of Carlowicz in 1699. Venice in this war put forth a strength that was little expected from that declining state. Many thousand Germans were enrolled in her army, commanded by Morosini, and by Count Königsmark, a Swede. The Austrians pursued the campaign in Hungary with success, His head was found at the capture of Belgrade by the Elector of Bavaria in 1688, and is still preserved in the city arsenal of Vienna. CHAP. IV.] HUNGARIAN CROWN MADE HEREDITARY. 111 in 1685. The Ottoman army was defeated at Gran, and Neuhaüsel was shortly after recovered (August 19th), the northernmost place held by the Turks. In Upper Hungary, Eperies, Tokay, Kaschau, and several other places were also retaken. The Grand Vizier Ibrahim was so enraged at these reverses that he caused Tekeli, whom he regarded as the cause of them, to be carried in chains to Adrianople. But Ibrahim being dismissed from office the same year, Tekeli recovered his liberty. The following year (1686) was signalised by the taking of Buda by the Duke of Lorraine, which was carried by assault, September 2nd, after a siege of more than three months. Buda, the capital of Hungary, had been during 145 years in the hands of the Turks. Another campaign sufficed to wrest almost all Hungary from the Porte. The Austrians under the Duke of Lorraine having been joined by the Elector of Bavaria with a large force from the German States, completely defeated the Turks in the battle of Mohacs, the scene of the former triumph of the Ottoman arms, (August 12th). The Duke of Lorraine followed up this success by reducing all Transylvania, while Sclavonia was reconquered by General Dünewald, one of his officers. The chief places in Upper Hungary, including Erlau and Munkacz, were also taken, and Tekeli's wife and her two children captured and sent prisoners to Vienna. Thus, before the end of 1687, the whole of Hungary, except a few scattered places, was recovered by Austria. Michael Apafy, however, was left in possession of Transylvania, but on condition of admitting Austrian garrisons into the principal towns, and paying a contribution of 700,000 florins.9 In October, Leopold summoned an assembly of the Hungarian States at Pressburg, and proposed to them to incorporate in the kingdom of Hungary all his recent conquests over the Turks, to confirm the ancient privileges of the nation, and to grant to the Protestants the free exercise of their religion, on the following conditions: 1. The abrogation of the law passed in the reign of King Andrew II. (1222), by which a clause was inserted in the oath 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 9 Katona, t. xxxv. p. 393 sqq. 112 SIEGE OF ATHENS. [Book V. 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 10 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, the castles at the entrance of the Bay of Lepanto, Lepanto itself, 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 those magnificent remains of classical antiquity." The acropolis surrendered September 29th. The fall of Athens, added to the disastrous news from Hungary, excited the greatest consternation and discontent at Constantinople. After the defeat at Mohacs, the Turkish army had retired in a state of mutiny to Belgrade. The Grand Vizier Solyman was unpopular with the Janissaries and Sipahis on account of the stricter discipline which he had endeavoured to introduce among that licentious soldiery; and his disastrous defeat at Mohacs 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 these demands, by sending to the mutineers the head of the obnoxious 10 The Czar Alexis died January 29th 1676, leaving by his first marriage two sons, Feodor and Ivan, and six daughters; and by his second marriage, one son, Peter, afterwards called the Great, and two daughters. Feodor III., who succeeded Alexis, reigned till his death in April 1682; but these six years present nothing of much European importance. Feodor was succeeded by Ivan; who, however, from his weakness both of mind and body, reigned only nominally; the government was conducted by his sister Sophia. 11 An account of this siege of Athens will be found in Count de Laborde's Athènes, t. ii. p. 98 sqq. For the effects of the bomb see p. 151. Cf. Beulé, L'Acropole d'Athènes, t. i. p. 72 sqq. CHAP. IV.] REVOLUTION AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 113 Vizier, and the seal of the empire for Siawusch. Not content, however, with these concessions, the army marched to Adrianople, and now demanded the deposition of the Sultan himself, in favour of his brother, Solyman. Their demands were seconded 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 Siawusch entered Constantinople at the head of the rebellious troops. The Janissaries and Sipahis 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 dreadful riot ensued; the palaces of all the ministers were stormed, plundered, and burnt; and even the Grand Vizier Siawusch himself fell by the hands of those who had elected him. . The Janissaries and Sipahis were only at last controlled by the people rising against them (February 1688), and peace was gradually restored. The aged Ismael Pasha was now intrusted with the seal of the empire, and with the conduct of a war which seemed to threaten the Osmanli empire in Europe with destruction. For the campaign of 1688 was still more disastrous to the Turks than the preceding one. The Imperialists, under the Elector of 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, began to make proposals for a peace, and was disposed to make very ample concessions. The Duke of Lorraine, who was now appointed to the command of the Imperial army against the French, pressed the Cabinet of Vienna to listen to these offers, and to put an end to the war in Hungary, in order to concentrate all the forces of the empire upon the Rhine. The Margrave of Baden, on the contrary, who succeeded the Duke of Lorraine in the command of the Austrian army in Hungary, pressed for the continuance of the war against the Turks, and represented that all the advantages to be expected from it, would be enjoyed by the House of Austria, which, on the other hand, was but little interested in the war with France. The advice of these two princes was not, perhaps, uninfluenced by motives of self-interest. The Margrave was gathering easy laurels in the Turkish war; and the Duke of Lorraine, in pressing that |