Chapter I: Preface

The historical scholar will find nothing new in the following pages; but I have thought it worth while to tell to the general reader a story worth the telling, and to explain not only the details, but the wider bearings also, of a great crisis in European history, no satisfactory account of which exists, I believe, in English, and the two hundredth anniversary of which is now upon us.

My principal authorities are "Sobieski's Letters to his Queen," edited by Count Plater, Paris, 1826; Starhemberg's "Life and Despatches," edited by Count Thürheim, Vienna, 1882; "Campaigns of Prince Eugene, of Savoy," Vienna, 1876, etc.; Schimmer's "Sieges of Vienna;" Von Hammer's "History of the Turks;" Salvandy's "History of Poland;" "Memoirs of Eugene," by De Ligne; "Memoirs of Charles, Duke of Lorraine, and his Military Maxims," published late in the seventeenth century; "Works of Montecuculi;" De la Guillatière's "View of the Present State of the Turkish Empire, etc.," translated, London, 1676, etc.

I have been obliged to reject some statements of Salvandy's, such, for instance, as that the _crescent moon_ was eclipsed on the day of the battle before Vienna.

I regret that I have been unable to use the account of the campaign of 1683 published in Vienna, by the Director of the War Archives, since this went to press. Some of the matter of it is, I believe, contained in the "Campaigns of Eugene," published under the same authority mentioned above, and in Schimmer's work.

KITLANDS, 1883.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS.

1663. Ahmed Kiuprili Grand Vizier.

1664. Montecuculi defeats the Turks at St. Gotthard. Twenty years'
truce with Austria, by which the Turks retain most of Hungary.

1669. The Turks take Candia from the Venetians.

1671. Conspiracy in Hungary against the Emperor crushed.

1672. French attack upon Holland provokes a general war. Treaty of
Buksacs between the Turks and Poles. Poland cedes most of Podolia
and the Ukraine, and pays tribute to Turkey.

1673. The Polish nobles break the treaty. Great victory of Sobieski
over the Turks at Choczim.

1675. Sobieski crowned King of Poland.

1676. Treaty of Zurawna between Turks and Poles; the former retain
most of their conquests.

1677. Death of Ahmed Kiuprili. Kara Mustapha Grand Vizier.

1678. Tekeli heads an insurrection in Hungary against the Emperor.
The French intrigue with him.

1678-79. Treaties of Nimuegen between the French and the allies.

1681. Louis XIV. seizes Strassburg and makes other aggressions upon
the Empire. Treaty between Holland and Sweden against France.

1682. Treaty of Laxenberg between the Emperor and the Upper German
Circles against France, followed by similar treaties between the
other Circles, the Emperor and Sweden. The Turks openly aid the
Hungarians.

1683. League of the Empire, Poland and the Pope, supported by other
anti-French powers, against the Turks. Turkish invasion of Austria.
Siege of Vienna. Defeat of the Turks by John Sobieski and the Duke
of Lorraine, September 12. The French attack the Spanish
Netherlands in the autumn.

1684. Truce of Ratisbon between France and the Empire.

1686. Buda recovered from the Turks. League of Augsburg between the
Emperor and the Circles of Western Germany, joined ultimately by
Spain, Holland, the Pope, Savoy and other Princes of the Empire,
against the French.

1688. The English Revolution secures England for the side of the
League, which she joins next year. General war with France follows.

1696. Death of Sobieski.

1697. Treaty of Ryswick between France and the allies. Eugene
defeats the Turks at Zenta, in Hungary.

1699. Peace of Carlowitz. The Turks cede nearly all Hungary,
Transylvania, Podolia, the Ukraine, the Morea and Azof. The first
great diminution of Turkish territory in Europe.

VIENNA.

1683.