Battle of Peterwardein
The Battle of Peterwardein ( Jan Pieter van Bredael , around 1720, Heeresgeschichtliches Museum Vienna)
| date | August 5, 1716 |
|---|---|
| place | Peterwardein |
| output | Victory of the Austrians |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 80,000 men | 150,000 men |
| losses | |
|
3,000 killed |
10,000–30,000 killed |
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The Battle of Peterwardein was a battle that took place on August 5, 1716 during the 6th Austrian Turkish War between the Imperial Army and the Ottoman Army near Peterwardein .
prehistory
In 1716 Grand Vizier Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha gathered a 150,000 strong Ottoman army near Belgrade , whose core consisted of 40,000 Janissaries and 20,000 Sipahi as well as 10,000 Crimean Tatars . At the end of July this crossed the Sava near Semlin and advanced on the right bank of the Danube towards Karlowitz .
The imperial military leader of Austria, Prince Eugene of Savoy , decided to oppose the Turks due to the strategically favorable location near Peterwardein. He had arranged for an entrenched camp to be set up under the protection of the local fortress and put the 80,000-strong imperial army on the march from the camp in Futog .
On August 2nd the first skirmishes between the imperial vanguard and Turkish cavalrymen. The next day the Grand Vizier stood in front of Peterwardein and immediately sent 30,000 janissaries against the imperial positions. They dug trenches and began bombarding the fortifications.
The core of the imperial army did not cross the Danube over two ship bridges until the night of August 5th and moved into camp.
Course of the battle and further consequences
On the morning of August 5th at 7 a.m., Prinz Eugen opened the attack. While the right flank under Prince Alexander von Württemberg took an Ottoman gun battery by storm, the imperial in the center got into trouble, because the march made slow progress through the narrow exits of the camp. The Janissaries immediately counter-attacked and beat the Imperial forces back into the camp. Prince Eugene sealed off the break-in into the center with additional troops and sent his cavalry into the flanks of the Turks, which surrounded them. The grand vizier did not succeed in blowing up the cauldron with his sipahi and rearranging his troops. The Tatars even withdrew without a fight.
After the broken-in Ottomans had been wiped out, Prince Eugene personally led his troops against the Grand Vizier's camp. Supported by the guns of six frigates of the Danube fleet, the battle was won at around 2 p.m. The Grand Vizier himself was among the fallen. Hardly 50,000 men of the Ottoman army were able to escape to Belgrade.
Museum reception
The permanent exhibition of the Vienna Army History Museum contains several objects that document and commemorate the battle of Peterwardein. A Turkish state tent is shown that was captured in battle and presumably served as the audience tent of the fallen grand vizier. The remaining parts of the tent with their colored silk-embroidered ornaments made of Moorish columns and plant motifs give an idea of the original splendor of Ottoman representation tents of this kind. In addition, chains with integrated neck irons were also captured in battle, which can be seen opposite the magnificent tent . The Ottomans used chains of this type to abduct both prisoners of war and civilians into slavery . The decapitated corpse of Lieutenant Field Marshal Wenzel Siegfried von Breuner, who had only been taken prisoner by the Turks a few days earlier, was found on one of the chains after the battle - near the Grand Vizier's tent . A contemporary depiction of the battle in the form of an oil painting by the hand of the Dutch battle painter Jan Pieter van Bredael is also on display in this area of the Army History Museum.
literature
- Alexander Lernet-Holenia: Prince Eugene. Paul Zsolnay Publishing House
- Detailed description of the current Turkish war , 1717, digital version of the Battle of Peterwardein
Individual evidence
- ^ Manfried Rauchsteiner, Manfred Litscher: The Heeresgeschichtliche Museum in Vienna. Verlag Styria, Graz / Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-222-12834-0 , p. 23.
- ↑ Johann Christoph Allmayer-Beck : The Army History Museum Vienna. Hall II - The 18th Century to 1790 . Kiesel Verlag, Salzburg 1983, ISBN 3-7023-4012-2 , p. 26