50 Battles That Changed the World by William Weir

Author:William Weir [Weir, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: N/A
Publisher: Permuted Press
Published: 2018-05-28T23:00:00+00:00

The Legacy of Rhodes

Suleiman never forgot the mud, the blood, the bodies, and the stink of death on Rhodes. For the next four years, the Drum of Conquest remained silent.

Then, during the winter, while the sultan and his Pashas were hunting in the Balkans, the 12,000 Janissaries in Constantinople rioted. They wanted action, and they wanted loot. Suleiman returned and had the ringleaders executed, but he knew he’d have to take the campaign trail again. He followed the suggestion of his ally, King Francis of France, and attacked Hungary, a part of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Empire and France were at war, and the Empire was also at war with itself, as the Catholics battled the Lutherans. A purely Hungarian army gathered to defend Europe as the Turks advanced. For Suleiman, it was almost too easy. Near Mohacs, the Hungarian calvary charged the Turks. They cut through the first line of lightly armed Turkish feudal cavalry. They broke through the second line. Then, the immovable Janissaries stopped them. Before they could recover, the Spahis and the feudal cavalry, who had deliberately let the Christians through their lines, closed in from their flanks and rear. For centuries after that, no matter what disaster overcame them, Hungarians would say, “But more was lost on Mohacs Field.”

Suleiman recorded that victory in his diary. The experiences of Rhodes had made war even more disagreeable to the Sultan, but they had not made him more compassionate. At Rhodes, the naive young Sultan had a life-altering experience. He would never be the same. His diary records how the bright young man began to change to something much darker.

On August 30 he wrote, “The Sultan rides out. Order to the troops to bring in all prisoners to the council tent.”

On August 31, “The Sultan seated on a throne of gold received the salutations of the viziers and officers; massacre of prisoners. Rain falls in torrents.”

On September 2, “Rest at Mohacs. 20,000 foot soldiers and 4,000 mailed riders of the Hungarian army are buried.”

Suleiman put a Turkish garrison in Buda, the Hungarian capital, and established Janos Zapolya as a client king of Hungary. Then, as defender of the Sunni Muslims, he turned east to deal with the Shiite Shah of Persia.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand, brother of Emperor Charles, had himself proclaimed King of Hungary by the remnant of the Hungarian nobility. Ferdinand was already Archduke of Austria and King of Bohemia.

In 1529, Suleiman gathered between 125,000 and 200,000 soldiers and marched toward Vienna.

Vienna was nothing like Rhodes. Its crumbling walls were no more than six feet thick and seven feet high. Their outdated gun ports were too small for modern artillery pieces. Suleiman probably hoped to lure Ferdinand into meeting him with his field army. His army was strong in cavalry, and horses aren’t much good at climbing city walls.

The first Austrians the Turks saw, however, were 5,000 old men, women, and children who had been expelled from Vienna because they were “useless mouths.” The Turkish cavalry killed most of them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.