Kasim Bey

Kasim Bey († September 19, 1532 , probably in the battle of Leobersdorf - Enzesfeld in what is now Lower Austria ) was during the campaigns of Sultan Suleyman I in 1529 and 1532 commander of the Turkish river forces and the Akindschi , the feared patrol troops who were in the German countries as "Sackmann" or "Renner und Brenner". The spectacular annihilation of his troops on the Lower Austrian Steinfeld in the "Turkish Year 1532" met with strong echoes in the German-speaking area and formed the basis for a rich legend on both the Christian and Turkish sides.

Life

Little is known about Kasim Bey's life. It is not certain whether he was a member of the Mihaloğlu family, as has been repeatedly claimed in older research literature, which provided several Akindji leaders in the 15th and 16th centuries. There are also considerable differences in the sources with regard to its rank. On the one hand he is called Bey (in the older form also Beg ), on the other hand also as Pascha or as " voyvoda ". In any case, it is certain that during the siege of Vienna by the army of Suleyman I (r. 1520–66) in 1529 he commanded the Turkish river forces deployed on the Danube, the so-called Nassadists . His knowledge of the land above and below the Enns is likely to come from this time .

During Süleyman's campaign in 1532, Kasim Bey was among the Turkish troops who had invaded Eastern Styria at the beginning of August . About 16,000 Akindischi under his command eventually left Styria. They penetrated the Austrian Alpine foothills via the Pittental and past Wiener Neustadt . Here they divided into two large departments, which in turn split up into smaller subdivisions and in the following weeks looted and devastated large areas in southern Lower Austria. The largest of these equestrian departments, which was headed personally by Kasim Bey, particularly haunted the Ybbstal .

When the Kasim Beys patrolmen received the news that the main Turkish army, which had besieged the Güns fortress , was withdrawing, they hastened to reconnect with them. On their retreat the Turks reached the area around Pottenstein , where they camped, presumably to discuss which valley they should take to the stone field in front of them . Kasim Bey did not know that at this point in time, only one of the three valleys through which he and his warriors could get out onto the stone field was still passable, but the others had already been blocked by barricades .

It was thanks to the courage and luck of a small detachment commanded by Sebastian Schertlin von Burtenbach (1496–1577) that the trap set for the Turks snapped shut. Through constant attacks, Burtenbach's men, who had appeared in the rear of the Turks, succeeded in driving them in the direction of the only open road to the stone field. In the meantime, however, around 20,000 mercenaries and several thousand heavy horsemen and artillery had taken up line here and were already waiting for the Akindschi. This Christian armed force was made up of contingents recruited in the empire , commanded by Count Palatine Friedrich II (1482–1556), and those from the Habsburg hereditary lands. In several battles or fights fought on September 19, 1532 in the Leobersdorf – Enzesfeld-Lindabrunn – Wiener Neustadt – Neunkirchen area , the far superior Christian armed forces finally succeeded in destroying the majority of the Turkish patrol troops.

It is believed that Kasim Bey fell in the Leobersdorf – Enzesfeld area on the morning of September 19, when the Turks were driven out of Pottenstein into Steinfeld. His personal belongings, including his carrying a large golden, jeweled vulture wings decorated turban and his armor-piercing were Emperor Charles V (r. 1519-56) later passed as trophies.

Afterlife

The spectacular end of Kasim Bey and his fighters met with a strong response from contemporaries, both on the Christian and on the Ottoman side. While on the Christian side the main focus was on the joy of victory and the "wonderful salvation" felt in this way, on the Ottoman side it is primarily the "sacrificial death" of the "fearless religious warriors ". The same narrative patterns can also be found in the legends surrounding the "Battle of the Turks" of 1532. On the Turkish side, the fall of Kasim Bey is woven into a meaningful myth with the historical event of the first Turkish siege of Vienna. According to this, the Sultan's soldiers managed to penetrate the city, but completely ignored the sacred mission of the campaign and instead immediately began selfishly to plunder. Out of anger at this, Allah not only drove the unbelievers out of the city, but also punished the Turkish army with a premature onset of winter. The Prophet finally appeared to the unsuccessful Sultan in a dream face and commanded him to reconcile Allah through a sacrifice of 40,000 rams. However, it was impossible to find such an amount of rams, which is why the Sultan interpreted the dream as having to sacrifice 40,000 religious warriors. It was Kasim Bey, who now stepped before the Sultan and offered to make this sacrifice with 40,000 fighters, including his Akindschi. While he and his Ghāzī now faced the enemy and all died as martyrs, the rest of the Sultan's army was able to withdraw unmolested.

In the Austrian world of legends, the events that led to the fall of Kasim Bey live on, especially in the legend of the "fall of the Turks ". According to this, an Akindschi crowd dispersed during the hasty retreat into the Pitten Valley is said to have been chased by the farmers living there towards the rocks near Gleissenfeld and thrown to their death. To commemorate this, Prince Johann von Liechtenstein (1760–1836) had an artificial ruin built on the site in 1824/25 , called the Turks Fall . In another version of this legend, the Akindschi are lured over the abyss into perdition, not by the peasants, but by the Virgin Mary herself, whom they consider to be an easy-to-catch “prey”.

Literature (selection)

• Gertrud Gerhartl: The defeat of the Turks at Steinfeld in 1532 (= military historical series, issue 26). Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 3rd, unchanged edition, Vienna 1989, ISBN 3-215-01668-0 .

Web links

• Information about Kasim Bey and the fighting on September 19, 1532 (private website with a map taken from Gerhartl (1989), p. 37), accessed April 16, 2008
• Information on the armored stabber Kasim Beys (same website)

References and comments

1. ↑ Gerhartl (1989), p. 25. - Joseph von Hammer is also indicative of this jumble : History of the Ottoman Empire. Third volume: From the accession of Suleiman the First to the death of Selim II. 1520–1574. Pest 1828, where he is referred to on p. 85 as " the Voivode Kasim ", to whom 800 Danube ships were subordinate during the Turkish siege of Vienna, and on p. 114 as " Kasimbeg ", who devastated large areas with his " racers " in 1532 .
2. ↑ Gerhartl (1989), p. 8.
3. ↑ Gerhartl (1989), p. 18.
4. ↑ The armored engraver is still preserved and is now in the armory of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (inv. No. C 162). Gerhartl (1989), p. 27.
5. ↑ In the realm of the golden apple. The Turkish globetrotter Evliyâ Çelebi made a memorable trip to the Giaurenland and the city and fortress of Vienna in 1665 (= Ottoman historians, vol. 2). Translated and introduced by Richard Franz Kreutel, Erich Prokosch and Karl Teply, Verlag Styria, Graz u. a. 1987, ISBN 3-222-11747-0 , pp. 41-43.
6. ^ Burg Seebenstein (at www.burgenkunde.at), accessed on May 18, 2012
7. ↑ The Turks Fall near Seebenstein (at www.sagen.at), accessed on May 18, 2012