Siege of Vienna (1683)

Timeline

1. 1683Vienna · AustriaHungarian anti-Habsburg leader Imre Thököly urged the Ottomans to attack the imperial capital. Kara Mustafa Pasha led the main force north from Belgrade, with Crimean Tatar horsemen appearing east of Vienna first. Leopold I withdrew with the court to Passau, leaving the city's defense to Count Starhemberg.
2. 1683Vienna · AustriaAfter seizing the outer works, the Ottomans dug mines to blow the inner walls, at one point coming closer to a breach than in 1529. About 15,000 defenders held on behind bastions and counter-mining. Pope Innocent XI failed to persuade Louis XIV to intervene and instead used subsidies to press Poland to honor its pledge of aid.
3. 1683Kahlenberg · ViennaThe relieving league of John III Sobieski and Charles V, Duke of Lorraine, deployed along the Vienna hills; imperial troops and Polish winged hussars struck the Ottoman camp together. After about fifteen hours of fierce fighting the besiegers broke, the grand vizier's tent was destroyed, and the Ottomans abandoned vast baggage in their eastward flight.
4. 1683Belgrade · SerbiaAfter the relief the allied forces pursued, continuing to strike the remnants at Párkány and elsewhere. Kara Mustafa Pasha retreated to Belgrade and was hanged on the sultan's order that December. The relief of Vienna marked the Ottomans' shift in Europe from offense to defense.