hungary – Tragedy and Farce

The 1956 Hungarian Uprising: A Fight for Freedom

October 23, 2024 lars4968Leave a comment

On 23 October 1956, the people of Hungary rose up in a brave yet futile effort to overthrow their Soviet imposed communist government and set up a more democratic and pluralistic political system free of Soviet oppression. The uprising lasted 12 days before Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest deposing the government of Imre Nagy and thwarting the Hungarian revolutionaries efforts to escape the Soviet camp. The uprising presented the Soviet Union with the most serious challenge to its authority in Eastern Europe since the end of World War II. It also revealed the persistent, paradoxical, challenge the Kremlin would face in managing its East European satellites over the next 30 years; the contradiction between its determination to maintain absolute control over these states and building legitimate, viable Communist regimes that could exist without constant Soviet support or intervention.

At the end of World War II, Red Army troops occupied nearly all of the states of Eastern Europe, making their subordination to the Soviet Union almost inevitable. Soviet leader Josef Stalin acknowledged this fact in April 1945 commenting to Milovan Djilas, a high-ranking official in the Yugoslav Communist party, “This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it, it’s own social system. Everyone imposes their own system as far as their army can reach.” The establishment of communist rule in Hungary roughly followed a similar pattern to that of the other East European states. Employing what head of the Hungarian Communist Party Matyas Rakosi termed “salami tactics” the communist proceeded to divide the non-communist opposition while gradually seizing power with the support of the occupying Red Army lurking in the background. By 1948, Hungary’s communists had gained total power over the country, and in 1949 the country was proclaimed a “peoples’ republic” with Rákosi as its absolute ruler.

Rakosi set about rapidly transforming Hungary into a Soviet style communist state. He instituted Stalinist political and economic programs, resulting in Hungary experiencing one of the harshest dictatorships in Europe. Rakosi set up the dreaded AVH, the state political police, to identify and root out regime opponents who were subject to show trials. On the economic front, the government collectivized agriculture and it extracted profits from the country’s farms to finance rapid expansion of heavy industry. Industrial production rose steeply, but the standard of living did not; the production of consumer goods was limited and that of agriculture stagnated. Hungary’s free market economy was replaced by a Soviet command style economy in 1949 and trade was reoriented away from Western Europe towards the Soviet Union. In addition, Hungary, having sided with the Nazis, was obligated to pay reparations to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia to the tune of 20 percent of its annual income. By the early 1950s, the imposition of Soviet-style economic policies and the payment of war reparations were impoverishing the Hungarian people fueling anti-Soviet political discontent as the payment of foreign debt and the heavy industrialization of the country took precedence over the material needs of the Hungarian people.

The year 1956 was a tumultuous one in the Soviet Union and its East European satellites. It had been three years since Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s death and Nikita Khrushchev finally prevailed in a three-way power struggle to succeed him. In February, at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR, Khrushchev gave a “secret speech” condemning Stalin. In a tirade that lasted hours, he denounced Stalin’s “cult of personality,” the party purges of the 1930s, the gulags, and his blunders in World War II. He accused Stalin of negligence, deceit, and incompetence which cost millions of Soviet lives.

Although Khrushchev’s address was intended to help consolidate his power and mobilize domestic support for a reform agenda in the Soviet Union, it had far reaching implications for the entire Communist Bloc. No where was its impact felt more profoundly than in the six countries of Eastern Europe where their leaders, who were installed by Stalin and were building mini-Stalinist regimes, now found their legitimacy compromised. Khrushchev argued that the Stalinist model was not the only acceptable model of communist development and that there were different roads to socialism. In Poland and Hungary, the people were beginning to chafe under Communist rule, Khrushchev’s speech led to increased protests and demands for political and economic reforms.

In Hungary, popular anger at Communist rule continued to grow rapidly and the government proved unwilling or unable to stop it. In July, Khrushchev facilitated the replacement of hard-line communist ruler Matyas Rakosi with another Stalinist hardliner, Erno Gero. Gero tried to defuse public anger and demonstrate to Moscow he was adhering to the party line of de-Stalinization by allowing the body of Lazlo Rajk, a communist reformer who had been executed in the 1949 Stalinist purges, to be buried in Budapest. His burial on October 6, 1956, brought to the surface anger over past Stalinist injustices against Hungary over the years, and the funeral march quickly transformed into a mass political demonstration. Anti-regime opponents, mostly urban intellectuals and students, began to make bolder and bolder demands of the government while calls for political and economic change soon spread to the working class and peasants as well.

Left: Matyas Rakosi; Center: Erno Gero; Right: Imre Nagy

On the afternoon of 23 October, a restless crowd of 20,000 marched through Budapest and gathered at the statue of Józef Bem, a Hungarian-Polish hero of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. Here they issued a list of demands known as the “Sixteen Points,” which included political reforms, democratization, the removal of Erno Gero and other Hungarian Stalinists, and the withdrawal of all Soviet military forces. What began as a series of peaceful student demonstrations now began to evolve into something much larger and by the evening there were more than 200,000 people on the streets calling for change.

In response, Gero went on the radio that evening and denounced the protesters as fascists and agents of imperialism and vowed that there would be no concessions. Gero’s defiant statements only further outraged the protesters and inflamed an already combustible situation. An angry crowd marched to the center of Budapest and defiantly tore down a ten-meter-high bronze statue of Stalin. They looped steel cables around its neck, pulled it to the ground with trucks and defaced the fallen icon. Elsewhere in Budapest, another group battled police outside a local radio station while units of the Hungarian military were besieged and attacked. Revolutionaries took over public buildings, destroyed Soviet symbols and freed political prisoners who had been locked away for years. The protest now became an armed uprising. The Hungarian Revolution had begun.

Fighting escalated quickly and the Hungarian government was quickly losing control of the situation as well as its security apparatus. Gero ordered the Hungarian military to quash the demonstrations and reestablish order, but many soldiers resisted cracking down on their fellow citizens and some even joined the protests. Acknowledging that his grip on power was slipping, Gero quickly appealed to his Soviet overlords for assistance. Khrushchev lacked confidence in Gero and was initially hesitant to dispatch Soviet military forces to quell the protests but incoming reports from the Soviet Ambassador in Budapest, Yuri Andropov, assured the Kremlin that military intervention was necessary. The next day, Soviet Defense Minister Georgiy Zhukov ordered 6,000 Soviet troops and 700 tanks into downtown Budapest. In return for Soviet military backing, however, Khrushchev insisted that Gero bring back Imre Nagy back into a high-level government position to appease the disgruntled populace. On the morning of October 24, Nagy was again named Prime Minister.

Neither the Soviet army nor the return of Imre Nagy did much to daunt the citizens of Budapest or defuse the crisis. Over the next several days, barricades went up throughout the city while fierce fighting raged between these revolutionaries and the Soviet Army , the Hungarian military, and the State Security Police. Shortly after being appointed Prime Minister, Nagy addressed the nation on radio calling for a ceasefire and promising to institute political reforms. His appeal did nothing to quell the revolutionary fervor. Not a single revolutionary stood down or handed over a weapon.

Nagy was a tragic figure about to be swept up in a wave of revolutionary tumult that he failed to fully grasp and was powerless to stop. Nagy appealed to the pre-revolutionary Hungarian public because he was a reformer and a moderate and not a hardline Stalinist like Rakosi and Gero but he was still a dedicated communist. Like Khrushchev, he believed that there were different pathways to socialism not just the single, rigid, Soviet model, insisted upon by Stalin. He wanted to build a distinctly unique communist system that reflected the national characteristics of the Hungarian people. The problem for Nagy was that Hungary’s young revolutionaries no longer wanted reform. They wanted to overthrow the system. Back in the government, Nagy quickly saw his dream of a new Hungary firmly on a peaceful path to reform communism under his leadership slipping away. He tried to steer a middle course acting as a bridge between the revolutionaries and the various Communist Party factions but for the people of Hungary the time for restraint, halfway measures and middle courses had passed.

*Massacred unarmed Hungarians at Kossuth Square.*

With no signs that order was close to being restored, two high-level Soviet Politburo members— Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov— traveled to Budapest on October 25 to troubleshoot the situation which was clearly deteriorating. Mikoyan and Suslov arrived to find a government that was no longer functioning and a Hungarian Communist Party that was in shambles. The two Soviet emissaries undressed Gero mercilessly for his handling of the crisis and suggested he resign at once and flee the country. He was quickly replaced by János Kádár as head of the communist party. The Soviets hoped that the new team of Nagy and Kadar would be able to right the ship but the situation was about to get worse. That morning, Hungarian and Soviet military forces opened fire on a group of unarmed protesters in Kossuth Square demanding Gero’s resignation, killing hundreds and wounding many more. As word of the massacre spread throughout Budapest, the revolution quickly devolved into an all-out existential war between ragtag groups of young, poorly armed, and undisciplined rebels and the Soviet army, supported by the few Hungarian military forces that remained loyal to the government.

*Erika Kornelia Szeles, a 15 year-old Hungarian anti-communist fighter. She was killed during the revolution*

Amidst the growing violence, Nagy continued to try and stake out ground as a bridge between the revolutionaries and hardliners inside the Hungarian Communist Party but his efforts found little traction. On October 27, He announced the formation of a new cabinet that included moderate communists as well as four non-communist ministers in the naive hope the revolutionaries would lay down their arms and embrace the new government. Instead, his announcement met with jeers and the resistance from the revolutionaries. Throughout Hungary, revolutionary councils already assumed the responsibilities of local governments from the defunct Communist party and had mobilized strikes to halt the economy and the functioning of civil society. Moreover, too much blood had been spilled by Hungary’s revolutionaries to settle for anything less than their full demands.

The crisis in Hungary was reaching an inflection point. Almost a week had passed since violence first erupted on the streets of Budapest and Soviet military forces still continued to struggle to suppress the revolution. The young Hungarian freedom fighters refused to be intimidated by Soviet military force and their confidence was growing daily. Conversely, Soviet troops were increasingly exhausted and demoralized with many growing more sympathetic to the Hungarian cause. The Kremlin was not prepared to allow Hungary to leave the Soviet bloc but it needed to find a way to extricate itself from the situation. What to do in Hungary prompted heated debate inside the Soviet Politburo. Hardline Stalinist holdovers like Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, and Lazar Kaganovich, who saw the situation in Hungary as an opportunity to discredit Khrushchev, argued strenuously for doubling down on a military solution. However, more moderate voices like Khrushchev and Defense Minister Georgiy Zhukov, who days earlier favored deploying troops, were more conciliatory and cautious urging flexibility. Zhukov argued that the option of military escalation should be kept in reserve but they also needed to consider pulling Soviet forces from the streets of Budapest to create an opening for a negotiated resolution to the crisis.

Khrushchev wanted to reach a deal with the Hungarians that would keep the essence of Soviet rule but allow for a little more independence from Moscow. For that, the Kremlin needed some semblance of a functioning Hungarian government which made Nagy still very relevant to Moscow. The Soviets also needed an opportunity to pull back without losing face. That opportunity presented itself late in the evening of October 27 when Nagy and Kadar approached Mikoyan and Suslov about the possibility of a cease fire and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Budapest. With Kadar taking the lead, the four men hammered out the broad framework of a agreement and around noon the following day a ceasefire was announced.

The Hungarian people initially greeted the cease fire with considerable skepticism but as the Soviets withdrew their military forces from Budapest over the next several days it came to be seen as a great victory. In the absence of Soviet troops, the Hungarian people set about dismantling the Communist system. Nagy dispensed with his customary moderation and embraced the idea of revolution. On October 30, he announced that the one-party system was being abolished and replaced with a multiparty democratic system. Thousands of political prisoners that had been incarcerated by the regime were released including, Cardinal József Mindszenty, the head of the Hungarian Catholic Church, who received a lifetime sentence in 1949 for opposing Communist rule. Angry mobs of anti-Communist revolutionaries also began to hunt down and execute members of the hated AVH, the Hungarian secret police, and other Communist party functionaries. By November 4, over 200 Communist party officials had been summarily executed.

Within days, Khrushchev regretted his decision to pull out Soviet military forces from Budapest. Increasingly pessimistic reports from Mikoyan and Suslov only served to confirm Moscow’s worst fear; Hungary was trying to break away from the socialist bloc. On the morning of October 31, Khrushchev convened an emergency session of the Politburo to decide what to do in Hungary once and for all. Where as days earlier the prevailing opinion in the Politburo was to give peace a chance, it was now clear from the deteriorating situation in Budapest that the Soviet Union had no other recourse than military force. Citing concerns about Soviet prestige, the unity of the socialist camp, and domestic political concerns, Khrushchev argued that the challenge in Hungary could not go unanswered, “We must take the initiative in restoring order in Hungary,” he declared. On 1 November, Nagy formally announced Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and Hungary’s international status as a politically non-aligned country. This step ensured that there was no turning back for the Soviets.

The Soviets quickly began preparations to oust Imre Nagy’s revolutionary government and restore Communist rule. Khrushchev informed Moscow’s Warsaw Pact allies of their plan for Hungary which met with little objection except from Poland’s leader, Wladyslaw Gomulka, who assumed power almost two weeks earlier against Soviet wishes. Soviet military forces also surreptitiously began returning. On November 1, Soviet tanks poured across the border into Hungary and when preparations were complete 150,000 Soviet troops from ten divisions and armed with the most modern equipment ringed Budapest. The Hungarians were not oblivious to the Soviet troop movements. Intelligence reporting had trickled in from Hungarian military forces loyal to the new revolutionary government and other observers but Nagy refused to believe the reports and convinced himself he still remained in favor with Moscow. Moreover, there was little Hungary could do at this juncture other than fight back.

*Soviet tanks on the streets of Budapest*

Shortly before dawn on November 4, “Operation Whirlwind”, the Soviet invasion of Hungary, commenced as Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to depose the government of Imre Nagy. Around 5:30am Imre Nagy broadcast his final plea to the nation and the world, announcing that Soviet forces were attacking Budapest before taking refuge in Yugoslavia’s embassy. Later that day, Janos Kadar, Nagy’s deputy prime minister and titular head of the Hungarian Communist Party, operating under direction from Moscow, declared the formation of a counter-revolutionary government. Fighting would spread through out the city, but the brave Hungarian revolutionaries who previously stalemated the Soviets were no match for the overwhelming firepower Moscow brought to bear this time around. Although sporadic fighting would continue over the next week Hungary’s fate was sealed. When all the guns were finally silenced, roughly 3000 Hungarians and 700 Soviet army troops were killed in the uprising since October 23.

With most of Budapest under Soviet control by 8 November, Janos Kádár became Prime Minister of the Hungarian “Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government” and General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, a position he would hold until 1988. Imre Nagy would suffer a far more terrible fate. After holding up in the Yugoslav embassy for two weeks, he was lured out of the embassy under false promises, arrested, and deported to Romania. On June 16, 1958, Nagy was tried and executed for treason alongside his closest allies, and his body was buried in an unmarked grave.

In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet invasion, many thousands of Hungarians were arrested. Eventually, 26,000 of these were brought before the Hungarian courts, 22,000 were sentenced and imprisoned, 13,000 were interned, and 229 were executed. Approximately 200,000 Hungarians fled Hungary to Austria as refugees as a result of the uprising. More than 30,000 of these refugees would be airlifted by the US military and resettled in the United States as part of Operation Safe Haven. Upon arrival, the Hungarians were temporarily housed at Camp Kilmer, in Piscataway New Jersey where multiple federal agencies assisted them through a resettlement process to become the newest members of American society. Many settled in nearby New Brunswick, which had an already thriving Hungarian-American community.

*Hungarian refugees arriving at Camp Kilmer*

In the Nick of Time: The Battle of Vienna, September 12, 1683

September 12, 2024September 13, 2024 lars4968Leave a comment

On September 12, 1683, a combined Polish-German army under the leadership of the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski, routed the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Vienna. For two months, the capital of the Habsburg Monarchy, was besieged by the Ottomans and brought to the point of near surrender before Sobieski’s relief force shattered the Turkish lines, breaking the siege. The battle would prove to be one of the most pivotal in history, a climactic struggle between Christianity and Islam, that would thwart any further Turkish expansion into Europe and put in motion what would become the slow steady decline of the Ottoman Empire over the next 200 years.

The Ottoman Empire was an aggressively expansionist power that sought to expand beyond its strongholds in Anatolia, the Near East, and the Levant and into the heart of Europe. The Ottomans first crossed the Bosporus and into Europe in 1346, sweeping through the Balkans, subjugating the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians and other peoples. In May 1453, the Turks seized Constantinople, after an epic siege, closing the curtain on the once powerful Byzantine Empire and putting all of Europe on notice. Over the next century, the Ottomans, under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent continued their steady advance northward, conquering the Kingdom of Hungary at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526 before finally being halted at the gates of Vienna in 1529. This was the first defeat inflicted on Suleiman, sowing the seeds of a bitter Ottoman–Habsburg rivalry that lasted until the 20th century. In 1566, the Habsburgs once again defeated Suleyman’s army at the battle of Szigetvár again forcing the Ottomans to retreat. However, Ottoman power was beginning to wane and a series of weak Sultans, palace intrigues, and unrest in other far corners of the empire precluded any further advances into Europe for 150 years.

Europe in the mid-17th century was weak, divided, and vulnerable to the Ottoman threat. The Thirty Years war between Catholics and Protestants that ended with the 1648 peace of Westphalia decimated the continent. By the second half of the century, much of Central Europe was still in rebuild mode; relations between Catholics and Protestants remained bitter and France and the Hapsburgs continued to vie for supremacy on the continent. Under these conditions, the Ottoman Sultan Mehemet IV accepted the recommendation of his overly ambitious Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) Kara Mustafa Pasha, that the time had come again to launch a major military campaign against the House of Habsburg. The Sultan sent notice to Habspurg Emperor Leopold I of his intentions, as was practice before declaring Jihad, and personally threated to take the emperor’s head. He also warned Leopold that he would kill the population of Vienna in its entirety unless they accepted Islam.

In late March of 1683, Kara Mustafa, now Serasker or Supreme Commander, and his 170,000 strong army departed Adrianople on the Tonsus river and began their long march north to Vienna. The march was onerous and slow going hampered by early Spring rains, poor roads, disease and illness and an extensive supply train. The Ottoman army reached Belgrade on May 3 where it was reinforced by the arrival of additional Tatar, Arab, Bosnian, Romanian vassals and Hungarian protestants in rebellion against the Habsburgs. After a month of incorporating these new reinforcements, the army resumed its march North, advancing quickly across the Hungarian plain. When word reached Emperor Leopold that the Ottoman Army was approaching Vienna more swiftly than expected he quickly fled the capital for the safety of Linz 135 miles away. Another 60,000 residents allegedly followed suit soon after. In his stead, Leopold left behind a garrison of 15,000 troops under the command of Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg. Starhemberg was an experienced if not ordinary commander, but he exhibited a steely resolve and swore to “fight to the last drop of blood.”

Kara Mustafa and his army reached the outskirts of Vienna on July 14, one week after Leopold fled the city. He immediately demanded the city surrender, urging the defenders to “accept Islam and live in peace under the Sultan!” Starhemberg and his men vigorously rejected his appeal and over the next two days the Ottoman army encircled the city and prepared for an epic siege. Mustafa focused the Ottoman attack on what he considered to be the most vulnerable section of Vienna’s wall, the southwest. He ordered his artillery forward and once in position his guns began to bombard the city wall but with only marginal effect. The Turks were excellent artillerists, but the caliber of their artillery was too small to bring down Vienna’s reinforced stone wall. Instead, Mustafa altered his strategy and directed his engineers to dig a network of trenches and tunnels, directly toward the city so that they could detonate explosives under Vienna’s wall and exploit any potential breeches. At the same time, Turkish archers fired their arrows indiscriminately over the wall and into the city while the Janissaries fired their arquebuses at the defenders along the wall.

For several weeks, Vienna’s defenders successfully beat back repeated enemy attacks but by early September their situation had become increasingly more desperate. Food, water, and ammunition were in short supply. Disease was rampant throughout the city and only a third of Starhemberg’s men remained fit for duty. All the while the Ottoman siege lines inched steadily closer.

On September 2, Ottoman engineers finally managed to blast several gaps in a large section of the wall and two days later elite Turkish Janissaries almost penetrated into the city through a 30-foot breech before being driven back by a countercharge led by Starhemberg himself. The situation reached a critical point on September 8, when the Ottomans seized key defensive positions near the city walls. Anticipating a breach in the city walls, the remaining defenders prepared to fight inside the city hand to hand. For the next three days Ottoman forces pressed hard to break into the city but were repelled by the yeoman efforts of Starhemberg’s exhausted troops. The city was on the verge of surrender and the Ottomans on the threshold of a great victory. Vienna’s only hope was the timely arrival of the anxiously awaited relief army.

As all these events were transpiring, the diplomatic efforts of Leopold and Pope Innocent XI were paying dividends as a relief army was gathered northwest of Vienna on September 11, under the guise of the Papal sponsored Holy League. Here, roughly 40,000-50,000 troops from the German states of Bavaria, Saxony, Franconia and Swabia and 18,000 Hapsburg troops under the very capable command of Charles V, Duke of Lorraine joined with 18,000 Polish soldiers, including Poland’s famous Winged Hussars (Heavy Cavalry) under King Jan Sobieski. Sobieski assumed command over the entire relief force given his lofty status and prepared to relieve the beleaguered city the next day.

Kara Mustafa did not take the threat of the relief army seriously enough and refused to give up his dream of taking Vienna once and for all. He rejected the advice of his commanders to give up the siege and focus on the threat posed by Sobieski’s Army. Instead, he kept up the pressure on Vienna, diverting only six thousand infantry, twenty-two thousand Tatar cavalry, and six cannons, to confront the relief force. Moreover, no field fortifications were created, and no defensive lines established. The Ottoman camp was completely open to attack.

Early on Sunday, September 12, the Holy League army began their assault on the largely unprepared and poorly defended Turkish encampment. The left wing of the army under the command of Charles, the Duke of Loraine, struck first. A mix of Imperial Habsburg and Saxon infantry moved downhill bearing a huge white banner with a scarlet cross, the Army of Christ Crucified. The center, composed of Bavarian and Franconia troops followed and one Ottoman military official watching the advance from afar remarked, “It looked as if a flood of black pitch was pouring downhill crushing and burning everything that opposed it.” After sweeping away Ottoman skirmishers, the Holy League force engaged their Ottoman foes demonstrating a tenacity the Turks had not seen before. After heavy fighting and repelling multiple Ottoman counter attacks, the Christians inflicted significant losses on the Ottomans and were poised for a breakthrough by mid-Afternoon.

On the right, the rugged and ravine filled terrain of the battlefield delayed the arrival of the Poles and their cavalry. By 4:00pm the Poles finally reached flat and easy ground suitable for their horses and formed up ready to enter the fight. After praying the rosary, Sobieski sent forward a detachment of 120 hussars—heavy cavalry—to probe for weaknesses in the Ottoman line. The hussars inflicted and received many casualties but demonstrated that the Ottoman lines were weak and vulnerable.

The climactic scene of the battle occurred around 6:00 when Sobieski launched one of the largest cavalry charges in history. Approximately 18,000 horsemen, including 3,000 heavy Polish Lancers or Winged Hussars, led by Sobieski himself, thundered across the battlefield towards the beleaguered Ottoman camps. The charge was massive but meticulously timed, coinciding with a coordinated push by the German and Habsburg forces from the north, who by this time had recuperated from their heavy fighting earlier in the day. The charge quickly broke the battle lines of the Ottomans, who were already exhausted and demoralized and were now fleeing the battlefield in the face of the combined onslaught. Sobieski’s horsemen headed directly towards the Ottoman camps and Kara Mustafa’s headquarters, while the remaining Viennese garrison sallied out of its defenses to join in the assault. Mustafa knew the battle was lost but his will to fight remained undiminished. He tried to rally his forces to no avail. Only the argument that his own death would cause the destruction of the remaining Ottoman troops persuaded Mustafa to break off the melee. Seizing the Holy Banner of the Prophet and his private treasure, the Grand Vizier fled the battlefield in disgrace. When the battle was over and the Holy League was victorious, Sobieski paraphrased Julius Caesar declaring “Venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit.” We came, we saw, God conquered!

The battle for Vienna was a tremendous loss for the Ottoman Empire, which would never again seriously threaten the city. All told, the Ottomans suffered upwards of 70,000 killed, wounded, or missing between the siege and battle. The magnitude of the defeat was not lost to Kara Mustafa who sought to escape the Sultan’s vengeance by blaming his defeat on subordinate commanders, executing those that might inform the Sultan of the Grand Vizier’s mishandling of the Ottoman army. Mehmed IV remained unconvinced. Mustafa would pay for his failure. On December 25, 1683, in Belgrade, the sultan’s emissaries executed the Grand Vizier by strangulation and sent his head to Constantinople.

The Ottoman defeat at Vienna reversed four centuries of expansion and set the stage for the reconquest of Hungary and other lands in the Balkans by the Habsburg’s and their allies. The Ottomans would fight on for another 16 years, before being forced to sign the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, which would cede much of Hungary to the Habsburgs.