Sunday, September 12, 1683
Wilhelm
The hills above Vienna
Wilhelm swallowed his meager midday meal and wiped a sleeve across his forehead to clear it of perspiration. The afternoon had barely begun, so it was only going to get hotter—in multiple ways. The temperature would rise, and if the sounds reaching them from the left side of the Christian line were any indication, the battle had commenced. The Poles on the right side of the line had farther to travel before they met the enemy, but King Sobieski would bring his forces into action soon.
He closed his eyes, remembering that morning’s mass presided over by the monk Marco d’Aviano. It had been an unusual service because the songs of the choir hadn’t been strong enough to completely cover the sound of artillery. That hadn’t changed all morning—the cannon still boomed all around the battlefield. Sobieski had spoken to his troops after mass, promising them that though they fought under the walls of Vienna, their battle would also save Cracow and Warsaw. They fought to save all of Christendom, and Vienna was the bulwark. Then the Poles had marched, and Wilhelm had gone with them.
Wilhelm stood as a rider approached the king. Prince Eugene of Savoy. He too had perspiration that he wiped from his forehead, but he wasted no time with complaints about the oppressive heat. “The duke advanced as far as Nussdorf and Heiligenstadt. The Turks attacked him. They didn’t bring their artillery up in their rush to occupy what’s left of the villages, so I expect we’ll push them back in time, but the battle has begun in earnest.”
That hadn’t been the plan. The various groups—Imperial, Saxon, Franconian, Bavarian, and Polish—were to get into position today for a battle on the morrow. Battle plans rarely survived longer than the first contact with the enemy, so surprise wasn’t the dominant emotion, but concern was. On this side of the line, they’d heard hints of the battle, but they hadn’t seen anything beyond the occasional clouds of dust, powder, and smoke. The Imperial forces could advance in the most disciplined of squares, and the ravines and vineyards would still hide them from their Polish allies.
King Sobieski, seated on a bay horse, took his time examining the ground that spread before them. His doublet was blue, like the summer sky, and his expression was grim, like a storm, as he motioned Wilhelm closer. “What do you think, Edler von Schor?”
Wilhelm swallowed. Sobieski would do what he thought best, regardless of what Wilhelm said. Perhaps this was the king’s way of teaching, the same as he had done with his son. “Your Highness, the majority of your troops are cavalry. Cavalry is most effective on ground that is not broken up by grapevines and ravines. I think it best that you take your forces to the plains before Vienna and engage the enemy there rather than in these hills.”
Sobieski’s eyes flitted to a nearby crag, then to a rut that had broken one of the gun carriage’s wheels and still held it. “Mounted men make rather promising targets while picking their way through grapevines, do they not?” He faced Eugene of Savoy again. “What will the duke do with his forces?”
“If given the chance, he’ll push and continue pushing until they break.”
“Then we will be the anvil for his hammer to beat them against.”
The heat didn’t abate. Nor did the ground grow any less difficult for the next few hours as Wilhelm and the Poles made their way down the Kahlenberg slopes. A few horses fell, and some even broke legs. The Polish hussars who rode near Wilhelm followed the example of their king and didn’t complain. All were nobles. They wore mail under plate armor, and most bore leopard skins. Curved wooden slats protruded from their backs, filled with feathers to give them the appearance of wings. Winged hussars. The feathers might make a terrifying hiss during battle, but the men had to feel the added weight.
They reached Dornbach and the plains toward the end of the afternoon. Polish couriers rode back and forth, keeping the three Polish groups coordinated in their advance. In the distance, the Ottomans came into view. They would have had sufficient time to prepare defenses of some sort, even while dealing with the other contingents in the Christian alliance.
“Their cavalry have little in the way of armor, and their infantry have few pikes,” one of the Polish officers said. “But we have so many lances that we could hold up the sky if the heavens should fall.”
Confidence like that was contagious. Maybe by nightfall, Wilhelm would be celebrating the salvation of his city.
Sobieski’s face showed resolve in the set of his jaw and the fierceness of his gaze. “A small charge first.”
The officer who had boasted of holding up the sky lowered his head in a bow. “May I volunteer, Your Highness?”
Sobieski nodded.
A group of one hundred twenty men and their horses organized themselves in front of the rest of the Poles. Prince James Louis asked to join them.
“Not today.” Sobieski’s voice held sadness and pride. Wilhelm could guess the reasons. Sobieski was proud of his son’s bravery but unwilling to risk the heir, not in a charge fraught with so much peril.
“He’s done that before.” The prince patted his horse and spoke to Wilhelm. “It is like a test charge, before the main one. Helps him read the enemy lines, but sometimes, the cost is high for the men who go.”
“Yet you wish to join them?”
“I wish to prove myself.”
King Sobieski spoke with man after man, issuing orders and commanding attention wherever he moved.
Wilhelm turned to the prince. “Someday it will be you organizing the charge and reading the results to see what they can tell you of the enemy. Learn from your father, for one day, you may need to take his place.”
“I cannot take his place if the hussars doubt my courage.”
“I suspect you’ll have a chance to prove yourself before the day is over.” Wilhelm too felt a compulsion to prove himself. He couldn’t charge with the winged hussars—he had no skill with the lance, and his lack of practice would thwart their careful coordination—but there would be other roles to play.
The small charge of Hussars galloped at the Ottoman lines. The riders held even with each other at a steady, even gait. The Turks appeared to retreat, pulling back before the Poles, but as the line of winged horsemen hit the Turks, the Ottomans turned and seemed to swallow up the Poles.
What would the king read from that? Wilhelm saw only disaster.
“Edler von Schor?” Sobieski motioned Wilhelm closer.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“You know the officers among the Bavarians?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“We need infantry in the gap between our lines. I have almost none.”
Wilhelm nodded and moved his horse around. He maneuvered his way behind the Polish cavalry with their big horses, sharp lances, and striking wings. Then he urged Gotthard into a canter. The poor horse had worked hard today—he deserved rest. But the desperate state of Vienna called for a push, a sacrifice, an effort above and beyond the normal.
When Emperor Leopold had sent him to Warsaw, Wilhelm had never expected that this was where his path would take him: into battle, trying to coordinate an advance between cavalry from Poland and infantry from Bavaria. Dust and heat parched his throat, but still, he rode on, pushing Gotthard even when the horse wanted to slow.
When he arrived and made it through the pickets, Wilhelm questioned the Bavarian troops until he found the Prince of Waldeck. “A group of Polish cavalry are surrounded. Can you help?”
Waldeck agreed to it with a nod and a slew of orders. Time had passed since the initial charge, then Wilhelm’s ride. The Bavarians acted quickly, but every moment marked another saber stroke between the Poles and the Turks, another arrow shot, another lance shattered.
The Bavarian infantry formed squares and advanced on foot. The Turks across the field had neither pikes nor heavy armor. None of the forces that would be most effective against Polish cavalry. Against Bavarian infantry, things were more brutally even.
Was this what war was like for Xavier? Standing in a square, ordering musketeers to load, aim, and fire? Then ordering an advance and ensuring all the men stayed in formation so they could more effectively protect themselves and damage their enemy? As he watched, the men shifted from squares into lines; the Turks here were not mounted, so lines would be more effective, spreading out the firepower because there was little threat of a charge from mounted opponents.
Wilhelm waited in case he needed to take a message back to King Sobieski, but it seemed he would not be taking messages to the king of Poland and Duke of Lithuania anytime soon. The Poles now advanced in a much larger charge than the previous one. The hussars rode in unison, their horses keeping stride with one another in three even, seemingly unbreakable lines. Their wings flashed behind them, dust formed clouds in their rear, and the hiss of feathers and tread of galloping horses projected the sound of approaching death.
A Bavarian staff officer’s chin dropped. “I’m glad they’re on our side.”
Wilhelm could only nod his agreement. He’d guessed at their might, but to actually see it . . . Magnificent. Terrifying. Unforgettable.
The charge was like a mighty wave hitting the shore, the edge flattening everything before it, snagging here and there on obstacles but ultimately advancing in tandem with the other waves, ever moving forward as one complete, unstoppable force that trampled and stabbed anything that stood in its way.
Cannon boomed in the distance, mixing with the cries of men being impaled by Polish lances or being cut down by Polish sabers. Muskets fired, most of them shot by Bavarians, and for the entire stretch of visible line, the Christians advanced and pushed back the Turks.
The Ottoman line seemed to collapse. Groups of Turks fell before the Christians, but after the way the Turks had feigned retreat before, Wilhelm didn’t completely trust it as a sign of victory. It might be a trick. Then more and more of the Turks fled, and the Polish cavalry moved faster and faster toward the camp of the Grand Vizier.
After two months of siege, the Ottomans didn’t break all at once. But break they did, almost imperceptibly at first, then it grew to panic as the Poles pressed their advantage and the Turks were scattered in unequivocal defeat. Wilhelm rode forward with some of the Bavarian staff officers for a better look; curiosity pulled them, but so did the need to observe and report back to the king, electors, princes, and generals.
“Stay together!” one of the Bavarian officers said.
Wilhelm picked out a group of onrushing janissaries. His group lay in their path, and they were but a handful of officers and messengers—they were meant to coordinate troops or act as couriers, not fight. There were no musketeers to give orders to, no artillerymen to command. Just a few men with horses and sabers.
Wilhelm drew out his rapier. He’d trained with it, of course, but he wasn’t a warrior. He was just a diplomat with significant failings that felt more and more weighty as the janissaries charged.
“Should we turn back?” Wilhelm asked. They could outride the men easily enough. It felt a little cowardly to turn and flee from the infantry, but their current role was reconnaissance, not skirmishing.
“Don’t worry,” one of the Bavarians said. “They’ve lost. They’re more interested in making it past us and escaping than they are in killing us.”
The enemy soldiers rushing toward them looked positively bloodthirsty, but they were on the ground. At a disadvantage.
“Stay together, and we’ll charge them.”
Wilhelm swallowed hard. “I’m not a cavalry officer. I don’t know what to do.” He didn’t even have the right type of sword for a mounted attack.
The Bavarian gave Wilhelm and Gotthard a long glance. “You’re safer if you stay with us. Grip the horse well with your legs, and aim for the neck or torso when you slash at them.”
Wilhelm bit his lip. The situation was ridiculous. He wasn’t trained to charge a pack of janissaries. But he was a good horseman. Gotthard could handle this, even after the long day. And Wilhelm could too. He’d been nervous to spy on the French diplomats at Wilanów Palace, but that had turned into a triumph. Given the magnificence of the charge of the Polish hussars, his trip to Warsaw might turn into the greatest accomplishment of his life. If he thought of himself not as a diplomat in a cavalry charge but instead as a man doing everything he could to defend his home, maybe the task didn’t seem so impossible.
“Now!” the officer called.
Wilhelm and Gotthard kept pace with the Bavarian officers as they circled around and approached the janissaries from the side. Wilhelm didn’t get close enough to actually attack anyone in that first charge, but he stayed with the group as they turned, this time riding toward the janissaries from the rear.
He gripped Gotthard with his legs and leaned over and down to use his momentum to the best advantage as they rode. He swung and hit one of the enemy soldiers just below the shoulder blades. The man tumbled and fell. Why was the poor man here, outside Vienna, trying to take a city that wasn’t his? Had he followed a call to glory? But war was not glorious, not in the slightest. It was death and hardship and struggle . . . and it had taught Wilhelm what was most important in life, what was worth fighting for. His home. His family. His people.
The remaining janissaries ran into ravines where horses couldn’t easily follow. Most of the rest lay on the ground, and their moans tugged at Wilhelm’s sympathy for only a moment. He had ridden past devastating destruction on his way back from Poland and could picture in his mind the frightful scene that would have occurred should Vienna have fallen.
Skirmishes continued, but the cannon fell silent. The enemy artillery had been captured or abandoned. The relief army had hoped to take a step toward victory today, but they hadn’t expected to achieve it completely, not so quickly. Perhaps silenced cannon didn’t really signal the end, just a pause. The battle was too spread out for him to know if it was truly over. Around him, it looked like a Turkish defeat and a Polish victory, but the field might still be contested in other areas. Wilhelm needed to get back to the king and find out his next task.
He thanked the Bavarians and followed the path the Poles had taken. The breeze took the edge off the heat, but it also brought the sickly scent of decomposing bodies. What would he find when it came time to enter his city? Did his home still stand, and did his siblings still breathe?
The ground was littered with dead and wounded men, with broken weapons and a few broken horses. Their legs lashed out in pain, violent and pitiful. Gotthard made his irritation known with a snort, but he followed the directions Wilhelm gave him. Poor horse. Maybe Martin was still in Vienna; he would know how to best help Gotthard recover from a day like this.
Eventually, Wilhelm caught up with the Poles, just outside the Ottoman camp. The Ottomans were gone for as far as the eye could see, and messengers brought word of victory in the other sectors as well. The day’s triumph seemed complete, but fear that the Ottomans might regroup remained.
Wilhelm passed a long line of bodies—Christians, by their clothing. Old, young, men, women, children, rich, poor. All dead. Slaughtered. He dismounted and gave Gotthard a few pats. “What happened?” he asked a nearby Polish officer.
“They killed their prisoners when the battle started. Didn’t want them to escape. And that’s not the worst of it. Some of the Turks brought their wives and children along. Killed them too rather than risk having them fall into Christian hands.”
Wilhelm had a hard time breathing for a moment. He could imagine what might have happened to Urszula and their son had they fallen into the hands of the Tatars or the Turks instead of traveling with the emperor to Passau, but he couldn’t imagine killing them himself to prevent their capture. The Turks had launched this war; they had put in motion all the suffering and slaughter. He should have been satisfied to see the heartache blow back on them, but he felt only tragedy.
Dearest Urszula, I think I saw history today. It held a sharp edge of evil in one hand and a blade of courage and triumph in the other. I haven’t made it into Vienna yet, and all is veiled by a fog of smoke. Our home might be gone, but our city is saved.
King Sobieski stood with his son only a few paces away. Wilhelm stepped toward them in time to hear the king say, “We came. We saw. God conquered.”