Siege of Oven (1684/1686)
After the unsuccessful Second Turkish Siege of Vienna in 1683 by the Ottomans, which triggered the Great Turkish War , an imperial counter-offensive began to recapture Hungary , as a result of which the Hungarian capital of Ofen (Buda) was taken from the Ottomans.
initial situation
Buda (German: oven) was conquered by the Turks as early as 1541 and was to be ruled by the Ottoman Empire for 145 years. With the Turkish defeat near Vienna in 1683 in the great Turkish war, Emperor Leopold I finally saw the chance to strike back. With the help of Pope Innocent XI. the alliance of the Holy League against the Ottomans was concluded on March 5, 1684 . King John III Sobieski of Poland , Emperor Leopold I and the Republic of Venice formed an alliance that was supposed to be directed against the Ottomans.
First siege in 1684
Panorama of the Pest and Oven for the Siege 1684
| date | June 27 to October 30, 1684 |
|---|---|
| place | Hungary , furnace today's Budapest |
| output | The siege is broken off after the arrival of a relief army. |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Holy Roman Empire and its allies ( Poland-Lithuania , Republic of Venice , Papal States ) |
|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 10,000 men | 34,000 men |
| losses | |
|
23,000 men |
|
An army of about 38,000 men set out in the spring of 1684 under Charles V of Lorraine to free Ofen from the Ottomans.
After the main army crossed the Danube at Gran / Esztergom on June 13th, the vanguard of the imperial army under the command of Maximilian Lorenz von Starhemberg and the cavalry general, Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden , appeared before Vicegrad / Visegrád on June 15th . On June 16, the city of Gran was taken by imperial troops, despite its strong walls, after a gate with the gun was destroyed. Most of the Ottoman occupation forces were killed and the city sacked. Only a few Ottomans were able to retreat to the castle on the rock above the city. After a siege of only one and a half days, the remaining Ottoman occupation surrendered on June 18.
On June 27, the imperial army met a 17,000 strong Ottoman army near Waitzen / Vác . Although the Ottomans had entrenched themselves in a favorable position, Charles V opened the fight with artillery fire. The center of the imperial troops was led by Maximilian Lorenz von Starhemberg and after a short battle the Ottoman troops were defeated. Even Waitzen fell into the hands of the imperial family that same day. On June 30th, the main imperial army entered the city of Pest , which had recently been set on fire by the Ottomans. After the army changed the banks of the Danube again at Waitzen, on July 14, 1684, the anniversary of the beginning of the siege of Vienna, the siege of Buda with 34,000 men, which was defended by around 10,000 Ottomans with over 200 guns, began to bombard the fortress. Field Marshal Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg was charged with leading the siege. On July 19th, the imperial troops managed to take the lower city of Buda . But since there were too few troops to occupy it, Ernst Rüdiger had the houses set on fire. The attacks carried out in July and August under the command of Ernst Rüdiger and Maximilian were all repulsed by the defenders. On August 10, the Ottoman commander Kara Mehmed Pasha fell while repelling an attack. At the beginning of September, according to a general, the number of imperial soldiers fit for duty fell from 34,000 to 12,500. In addition, the morale of the besiegers was low. It was only when an imperial aid corps reached Buda on September 11 that siege activities intensified.
But on September 22nd, a relief army of the Ottomans arrived and immediately went into the attack. This attack could be repulsed by the imperial army, but the Ottoman relief army could not be defeated decisively. The constant disruptive attacks of the relief army and failures of the Turkish occupation of the city finally wore down the besiegers, and Ernst Rüdiger, who suffered from severe gout complaints, had to be relieved of leadership of the siege. Since the weather in October was unfavorable, it was decided to break off the siege. On October 30, the imperial army withdrew after a siege for 109 days. As a result of Ottoman attacks, dysentery and fever epidemics, poorly laid trenches and tactical errors during the siege itself, the Allied forces shrank by more than half. After this failed enterprise, the Christian Allies lost 23,000 men, including Friedrich August von Sachsen-Eisenach and Captain Paul Joseph Jakob von Starhemberg. Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg was blamed for the failure of the siege of Buda, although he was the only one against this siege at the beginning.
Second siege, 1686
![Floor plan of the fortresses and the siege of Buda and Ofen Scale: 90 Rhineland rods = 9.4 cm [1: 10,000]](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:BelagerungOfen1.jpg)
Floor plan of the fortresses and the siege
of Buda and Ofen
Scale: 90 Rhineland rods = 9.4 cm [1: 10,000]
| date | Mid-June to September 2, 1686 |
|---|---|
| place | Hungary , furnace today's Budapest |
| output | The imperial troops conquer the city. |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Holy Roman Empire and its allies ( Poland-Lithuania , Republic of Venice , Papal States ) |
|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 7,000 men | 75,000-80,000 men |
| losses | |
|
3,000 dead, |
at least 5,000 dead |
Two years after the unsuccessful siege of Ofen, a new campaign to take the Hungarian capital was started in 1686, this time with 75,000–80,000 men, a Christian force twice as strong. The Ottoman garrison at Buda consisted of about 7,000 men. The siege began in mid-June 1686. On July 27th there was a major attack on the fortress. Outer bastions could be captured by the Christian troops with heavy losses, but the attack was eventually repulsed. A Turkish relief army led by Grand Vizier Suleiman Pascha arrived in front of Ofen in mid-August, but Suleiman Pasha shied away from a field battle against the siege army. His troops fought at most small battles and disrupted the besiegers' supplies. On September 2, 1686 there was a successful general assault on the fortress. Prince Eugene and his dragoons were not directly involved in the capture, but secured the back of their army against the Ottoman relief army, which could not prevent the capture of the city, which had been in Ottoman possession for 143 years.
After the storm the whole anger of the victorious soldiers discharged against the "heathen". The Ottoman threat, which was firmly anchored in the consciousness of Europe at that time for centuries, the anger that was widespread throughout Europe over the alleged atrocities of the Ottomans against the civilian population, and the religious hatred fanned by Church and Faith, now unleashed itself on the crew and the population of Ofen:
“Furnace was captured and sacked. The soldiers committed thousands of excesses. Against the Turks, raised because of their long and stubborn resistance, which had cost the lives of an astonishing number of their comrades, they look neither at age nor gender. The Elector of Bavaria and the Duke of Lorraine, touched by the sighing of the men who were killed and the women who were raped, gave such good orders that the slaughter was stopped and the lives of over 2000 Turks were saved ... "
3,000 Turks were killed in the massacre of the imperial troops. The violence was directed not only against the Muslims, but also against the Jewish population of Ofen. In the first three days after the city was conquered, the Jewish community of Oven was almost destroyed.
Some of the churches in Buda were converted into mosques by the Ottomans during their rule, but they were not destroyed by them. The city was developed into a cultural and economic center while it was in Ottoman possession. Mosques, churches, folk kitchens, schools, bakeries and numerous Turkish baths were located in Buda. The intellectual treasures and artistic treasures (including manuscripts from the Corvinian library and gems of book illumination) were carefully preserved by the Ottomans.
consequences
As a result of the capture of Oven and the victory in the Battle of Mohács (1687) , the Hungarian Diet in Pressburg in November 1687 recognized the hereditary nature of the Hungarian crown in the House of Habsburg and at the same time waived the right of resistance and objection. In addition, the Hungarian Reichstag undertook to crown the Habsburg heir to the throne as King of Hungary while his father was still alive. On December 9, 1687, Joseph , the nine-year-old son of Emperor Leopold , was crowned the first hereditary king with the St. Stephen's crown. Hungary was finally the hereditary land of the Habsburgs. As early as June 1688, the "Commission for the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary" was created to create a strong monarchist government in the land of the St. Stephen's Crown, taking into account Viennese absolutism and mercantilism .
literature
- Josef Némedy, The Sieges of the Oven Fortress in 1686 and 1849 , 1853, digitized
- Hans-Joachim Böttcher : The Turkish Wars in the Mirror of Saxon Biographies, Gabriele Schäfer Verlag Herne 2019, ISBN 978-3-944487-63-2 , pp. 127-144 (The Liberation of Furnace 1686).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ernst Trost: Prince Eugene of Savoy ; Vienna, Munich ² 1985; P. 47
- ↑ consolation (²1985)
- ↑ Trost (²1985), p 48
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Ferenc Majoros / Bernd Rill: The Ottoman Empire 1300 - 1922 .: The history of a great power , Bechtermünz-Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-8289-0336-3 , pp. 285–286
- ↑ Trost (²1985), p 56
- ↑ Thomas Winkelbauer : Stands freedom and princely power. Countries and subjects of the House of Habsburg in the denominational age , Part 1. In: Herwig Wolfram (Ed.): Austrian History 1522–1699 ; Vienna 2004; P. 166
- ↑ Winkelbauer (2004), p. 168
- ↑ Winkelbauer (2004), p. 166