Episode 2230: The Siege of the Chosen One, Suleiman's Defeat at Vienna

[Huang Jianbo's Travelogue and Reflections] [Imperial Ancient Architecture Compendium]

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No deception to the dead, no burden to the living, no shame to the future.

Episode 2230: The Siege of the Chosen One, Suleiman's Defeat at Vienna

World conqueror, thunder of war, emperor of the earth, king of victory on land and sea, this man was the first chosen one, Mehmed II.

The Ottoman Empire lasted 600 years due to its strength and heroic figures. Its decline accompanied the decline of Mediterranean trade. Constantinople no longer held its once-crucial economic and cultural status; the center of world trade shifted to the Atlantic and the Cape of Good Hope, not the Mediterranean. The center of Eastern Orthodoxy moved to Moscow, not Constantinople.

Even as a political center, it was barely adequate, as the Balkan countries were poor and frequently embroiled in conflicts, and Turkey did not regard Constantinople as its capital. Now, Constantinople’s status is like a mascot—its possession matters little to anyone, but which Western European power would bother to occupy a useless city at great effort?

Perhaps only Russia is an exception. Russia needs Constantinople’s strategic position to ensure its Black Sea Fleet can venture out. Subsequent wars between Russia and the Ottoman Empire repeatedly confirmed Russia’s covetousness for Constantinople. But now, Russia cannot even take Kyiv, so it can only sigh and gaze at Constantinople from afar.

Those truly wishing to reclaim Constantinople are probably only Greece and Russia. Russia claims to be the Third Rome (while the US claims to be the Fourth Roman Empire), eager to seize Constantinople and control the Bosporus and Dardanelles. In the past, Russia fought twelve wars with Turkey. Entering the 21st century, Russia lacks the strength to fight Turkey again, especially after the messy conflict with Ukraine.

Greece has the desire but lacks the power—its size is too small, its population and military insufficient to threaten Turkey. Once, Greece gambled its national fortune in war, trying to reclaim Thrace and Anatolia, but Turkey produced a final chosen one, Kemal, who was so effective that he crippled Greece.

Every winter, people in central Vienna eat cured meat; those in southern Venice also choose cured meat; nearby Florentines prefer cured meat even more; and the Slavic barbarians to the east also rely on cured meat as their meal. In the Middle Ages, with poor livestock techniques, many animals froze to death each winter. Europeans made cured meat from these frozen carcasses as a source of animal protein.

In an era without refrigerators, preventing food spoilage was a challenge. Spices like pepper, cloves, and cinnamon from the East could mask the odor of long-stored salted meat and correct the taste.

Thus, spices were essential for every European housewife. However, Europe could not produce spices locally; only Southeast Asia had them back then. But the overland route east for spices was blocked. Forced to look westward, Europeans sought a sea route to the East to find those seasonings that gave them exotic flavors. Later, they discovered the New World...

This foodie history roughly matches the early truths of globalization. And the lever that pried open globalization was the man who blocked Europeans from seeking spices in the East: Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II.

In 1453, Mehmed II, with heavy siege cannons and an Ottoman army, captured Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, and moved his capital there, renaming it Istanbul. That year, the Sultan had been on the throne for only two years, at the young age of 21, full of youthful vigor.

For Europeans, especially those in the eastern Mediterranean, living in the same era as Mehmed II was a nightmare. The Sultan’s boundless ambition fueled that nightmare. Every unconquered European city heard terrifying tales of Constantinople’s fall.

Years later, on an expedition against the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt, Mehmed II died suddenly in Gebze, 50 kilometers east of Istanbul, at only 49 years old. Gebze was also where the ancient world conqueror Hannibal had died.

Mehmed II’s death gave all Christendom a sigh of relief, but a few decades later, another scourge of Europe emerged: Suleiman I.

After succeeding his father, Suleiman I suppressed a rebellion led by the governor of Damascus in 1521, then began a series of military conquests. He soon prepared to capture the Hungarian stronghold Belgrade, an unfinished task of his grandfather Mehmed II.

After Serbs, Bulgarians, and Byzantines had failed, the Hungarians became the only formidable force blocking the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into inland Europe. Capturing Belgrade was key to eliminating the Hungarians.

Suleiman’s army laid siege to Belgrade, bombarding the city with heavy cannons from an island in the Danube. The Belgrade garrison had only 700 men, and Hungary sent no reinforcements. The Ottomans captured Belgrade in August 1521.

News of the fall of Belgrade, a Christian stronghold, spread quickly across Europe. The road to Hungary and Austria was open, but Suleiman the Great turned his attention to Vienna. Europeans had few good days left...

On July 6, 2015, I woke up at just after six in the morning, took a shower, boiled eggs, had breakfast, and went out. I headed directly to the old city of Nuremberg. Nuremberg clearly separates its old and new districts. In terms of scale, Nuremberg’s geographical position in Germany is similar to Shenzhen’s in China. Although Nuremberg is an ancient city of a thousand years, it was bombed almost flat during WWII.

Therefore, Nuremberg’s new city hasn’t been built for long, but it is clearly more rationally planned than Shenzhen. Shenzhen is a city constantly updating its height. Over the past 30-plus years, Shenzhen’s buildings have risen from nothing, new ones aged, old ones were demolished, and new ones built again, rapid like flash mobs. Shenzhen’s miraculous construction speed has drawn global attention. In recent years, many domestic cities have followed Shenzhen’s pace of rapid demolition and construction, engaging in a booming block-stacking competition. This is why I deeply hate the rapid demolition of ancient buildings in Chinese cities. If not for survival, who would want to live in a polluted city that looks like a giant construction site?

We strolled around Nuremberg for a while and found that the Chinese restaurant was closed, so we went to a supermarket to browse. We spent 1.37 euros on shopping, then went to a nearby Muslim restaurant to eat. We ordered a plate of fried noodles and a long fried pancake, costing 6.5 euros.

Yuan returned to the hotel and brought me empty plastic bottles and beer cans. I went to the self-service bottle return machine in the chain supermarket. A homeless man had already occupied one machine; he was carrying several large bags of empty plastic bottles and frantically feeding them into the machine—each empty bottle worth 0.25 euros. Soon he broke the machine. While I was getting anxious, a young man with a tattered backpack came over, walked directly to the other machine, and started feeding empty bottles. I went over and realized the supermarket actually had two bottle return machines.

That young man fed many bottles, and the machine printed a 4-euro receipt. When it was my turn, only two of my four empty bottles were accepted, yielding just 0.5 euros. I then grabbed a bag of chips priced at 0.69 euros from the supermarket and paid only 0.19 euros at checkout. Soon I returned to the hotel, picked up my backpack, and checked out at the front desk. Right then I thought we must promote empty plastic bottle recycling machines in Shenzhen.

On July 6, 2023, Huang Jianbo again went to demand repayment from Wang Mige. The empty bottle recycling machine project he had operated eight years ago had failed; the several machines he designed had never been able to open the domestic market. Wang Mige said, “The empty plastic bottle recycling machine is actually a carbon-reducing environmental project, but currently Chinese supermarkets and convenience stores are unwilling to install recycling machines. I think vested interests are obstructing it.”

Huang Jianbo believed that “empty plastic bottle recycling machines” might end up like the “old clothes recycling project,” trapped in a cycle of formalism. Moreover, we had previously implemented activities to ban plastic bags, but in recent years, large and small supermarkets and markets still brazenly provide free plastic shopping bags to consumers—restricting plastics.

Wang Mige argued that the effectiveness of China’s “plastic ban” has been compromised, with a key factor being the lack of suitable alternatives. Traditional plastic bags are convenient, cheap, and widely used; their substitutes are either expensive or impractical. Although domestic biodegradable plastic technology has made breakthroughs in recent years, the physical properties and production costs of related products still lag far behind traditional plastic bags, making them difficult to fully replace.

This year marks the 14th year since the “plastic ban” officially took effect. Overall, the results are not insignificant, but still unsatisfactory. Huang Jianbo found that the “plastic ban” remains in an awkward position: small shops directly provide free plastic bags, large stores sell them—this has become commonplace. In some places, the “plastic ban” exists in name only, having almost degenerated into a “plastic-selling ban.”

On July 6, 1529, the Ottoman Empire decided to attack Vienna.

Background: The Siege of Vienna in 1529, distinct from the Battle of Vienna over a hundred years later, was the first attempt by Sultan Suleiman I’s Ottoman Muslim forces to capture Vienna, ending in failure. This battle marked the Ottomans’ first invasion of Central Europe. For the following 150 years, the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire vied for control of Central Europe until the Battle of Vienna.

The 1529 siege was the first Ottoman attempt to take Vienna. The Ottoman Turkish army numbered about 100,000, led by Suleiman in person, with Grand Vizier Pargalı İbrahim Pasha in command.

The Austrian side had fewer than 20,000 men, commanded by two commanders: Wilhelm von Roggendorf and Niklas Graf Salm. Because the Turks failed to capture the city in the first few days of heavy assault, the conflict dragged on.

After the first snowfall of winter, the Turks, concerned about their overstretched supply lines, decided to retreat.

Some historians believe Suleiman I’s main purpose in this Central European campaign was to reassert Ottoman control over Hungary, and the attack on Vienna was merely an opportunistic afterthought.

In 1520, Suleiman I became the supreme ruler of the Ottoman Empire. Since several of his brothers had been executed before his father’s death, the succession was unusually smooth, and the inheritance suffered no severe damage from power struggles. At that time, he was not only the Sultan of the Turks,

but also inherited the Eastern Roman crown that Mehmed II had seized and the Muslim caliphate title left by Selim I. The territory under his rule stretched from the Red Sea coast at the Gulf of Aden to the Danube basin in the heart of Central Europe—a truly unprecedented chosen one.

Of course, Suleiman did not disappoint his ancestors’ legacy nor this era that seemed to belong only to him. First, he captured Belgrade in 1521, breaking the Balkan fortress that blocked the Turks’ westward march. Then in 1522 he crossed the sea to besiege Rhodes, forcing the Knights Hospitaller, longtime enemies of the Muslim world, to flee to Malta (Siege of Rhodes).

Next, he ordered the expansion of the navy, preparing to wage holy war against Christendom from both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Finally, in 1526 he personally led a campaign into Hungary, crushing the European coalition at the Battle of Mohács, wiping out the newly crowned Jagiellon branch. Even France, a Western European power, sought a strategic alliance with the Ottomans.

In the spring of 1529, an Ottoman army of up to 300,000 men (including auxiliaries and laborers) assembled in what is now Bulgaria. Among them were the Sultan’s most trusted Kapıkulu slave guards, as well as Sipahi feudal lords and nomadic chieftains from both Europe and Asia. There were also Serbs and Moldavian vassals who had once resisted the Turkish conquest, along with troops from Transylvania led by Zápolya. Of course, there were always plenty of poor cannon fodder who volunteered, hoping to climb the social ladder by looting spoils of war.

On May 10 of that year, Suleiman I set out on his western campaign, but was immediately met with harsh weather. Continuous heavy rains made already muddy roads even more impassable. The artillery, which needed to carry heavy loads, was severely affected and had to abandon large-caliber siege guns. In the past, such oversized equipment was often transported by ship to waterside battlefields.

Now, because medieval roads could not keep pace with modern weaponry, the Turks, who relied heavily on artillery technology, were in great distress. Many pack animals fell ill due to the sudden climate change—especially camels from the Asian provinces suffered heavy losses—which greatly slowed the entire army’s march. Finally, even the privileged Janissaries became widely ill; the condition of lower-tier units was predictable.

Facing the powerful enemy, the Habsburgs in Austria had few options. The Holy Roman Emperor could only maintain a small mercenary force with very limited funds and mobilize local militia for defense.

By August, as summer neared its end, Suleiman and his Ottoman army entered western Hungary. First, he sent a large cavalry force under the collaborator Zápolya to deal with the garrisons scattered in various towns. Since the Habsburgs were unable to provide support,

key objectives including the capital Buda quickly fell. Whether guarded by Hungarian nobles or German mercenaries Ferdinand brought from Austria, they were easily overwhelmed by the overwhelming assault. Only Pozsony, adjacent to the Danube, held out for a longer time, pinning down the Ottoman fleet sailing upstream. But the main Turkish army did not stop; it continued toward Austria, straight for the Habsburg headquarters in Vienna.

On September 27, 1529, the Turkish army, still over 100,000 strong, arrived beneath the walls of Vienna and began a full siege. Since Emperor Charles V himself was absent, the supreme commander of the defenders was General Wilhelm von Roggendorf.

But the actual command was largely entrusted to his mercenary commander Niklas Graf Salm. The available troops in the city numbered over ten thousand, but only about a thousand German pikemen and over eight hundred Spanish arquebusiers were professional; the rest were militia and feudal levies. Artillery was also scarce.

Considering the city walls were built 300 years earlier during the Crusader era, the 70-year-old Salm first called on all residents to reinforce the defenses. He ordered the sealing of the four weakest gates and reinforced the massive stone walls with thick rammed earth.

Not only did he strengthen the interior against cannon fire, but he also built small modern bastions on the outer perimeter. At the same time, he had many peripheral buildings demolished to reduce the risk of fires from enemy bombardment and to free up space for troop movements. He set up his command in St. Stephen’s Cathedral at the center, the city’s highest point, from which he could clearly observe the plain outside the city.

When the Turkish vanguard, mainly light cavalry, first appeared, the elite Spanish arquebusiers sallied out. They operated mainly on the plain north of the city, using the experience of their commander Luis to catch the enemy off guard. They then quickly withdrew to the vicinity of the walls, where they dug trenches and built breastwork defenses—their specialty. The Ottomans had to send more troops to attack, but were frustrated by the field positions and wall-mounted fire.

Seeing the strong defense, Suleiman tried to bluff the city into surrender. He sent three captured Austrian prisoners to urge surrender, but Salm sent back three Muslim prisoners in a silent rebuff.

However, because he had ordered the abandonment of heavy siege guns months earlier, he had to rely on a long blockade and mining operations. Yet all these large-scale works were exposed to view from St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and Salm organized nearly all his elite troops for preemptive attacks. At first, these were small-scale sorties, but they nearly captured the Grand Vizier Ibrahim, second only to Suleiman.

Later, on October 6, as many as 8,000 defenders suddenly sallied out, charging the exhausted construction sites. The Turks were caught off guard; only after the mines were destroyed by the sortie did they react, concentrating Janissaries and cavalry to counterattack. The Austrian defenders, mostly militia, lost order and could not re-form ranks quickly, and were slowed by the narrow gates during retreat.

As a result, they suffered heavy casualties from Turkish guns, bows, and arrows. But the disciplined German pikemen remained calm, forming a dense formation to block the pursuers and slowly retreating with the help of arquebusiers. Suleiman’s soldiers again took crossfire at the city walls and had to withdraw to their camp outside.

On October 11, continuous rain began to hit Vienna and its surroundings. For the Turks who had made no progress, this change was like adding frost to snow. Disease spread widely in the camp, causing many auxiliary troops to desert. The proud Janissaries were also furious, demanding the Sultan and Grand Vizier make a quick decision. If they could not breach the city, they should return to Istanbul for rest. Suleiman had no choice but to call a meeting of all senior commanders the next day, deciding to concentrate all artillery and available forces for a final assault.

On October 14, 1529, the assault led by Janissary infantry went ahead as scheduled. However, the temporary defenses the defenders had built proved more impenetrable than they looked. Salm deployed all his pike phalanxes to hold the front, buying enough time for the arquebusiers around them to shoot. Even though the Turks were offered bonuses much higher than usual, they could not break the enemy line with their scattered human-wave tactics.

The huge setback lowered morale further and made Suleiman realize he could not take Vienna. However, the commanding Salm was mortally wounded by artillery fire; of his eight hundred Spanish soldiers, only 250 survived to see victory.

On October 15, 1529, the Sultan ordered a halt to that year’s campaign so that all his men could return home for rest. But an early snowfall turned their retreat into a military disaster. With no winter preparations, the Turkish army suffered many non-combat casualties.

The Austrian cavalry, which had endured months of waiting in Vienna, pursued and killed many stragglers, raising Ottoman losses to around 15,000. Though unable to launch a major counteroffensive, they ultimately triumphed through tenacity.

However, the Siege of Vienna in 1529 was only the beginning of the hot war between the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire. The Austrians, with their hard-won victory, preserved their headquarters and established a new image as the shield of Europe.

But this also meant they had to fund a new long-term front with tight finances. For the victory in the siege did not help them regain key Hungarian areas like Buda. The Turks could send new large armies from these places for nearly 200 years afterward.

For Suleiman, returning in defeat, the failure at Vienna was but a small blemish among many victories. The Ottoman Empire’s western border had successfully advanced to Hungary; monopolizing the Danube basin was only a matter of time. But given the deep roots of the Habsburgs, he needed allies like France, ambitious but temporarily weak. As for the Austrians colluding with the eastern Safavid dynasty of Persia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and any local forces willing to cause trouble, that was merely a drop in the ocean of the grand journey.

Thereafter, clashes between the Habsburgs and Suleiman became increasingly frequent. The battlefield would expand from the Central European basin to the entire Mediterranean, turning the distant Arabian Peninsula and Indian Ocean into secondary theaters. But the 1529 Siege of Vienna seemed to set the tone for the final outcome...

As early as 1529, the Ottoman Empire, having occupied most of Hungary, launched its first siege of Vienna, only to fail due to the onset of cold winter. Three years later, another siege of Vienna failed.

The third siege of Vienna came a century and a half later. In the long intervening years, the Ottoman Empire repeatedly fought the Persian Safavid Empire, winning a Pyrrhic victory in 1596 but suffering a major defeat in 1603. Eight decades after that defeat, a rejuvenated Ottoman Empire again besieged the western bastion of Vienna.

At that time, under Sultan Mehmed IV, the Ottoman Empire spanned three continents (from northern Algeria to Baku in the Transcaucasus, from Budapest on the Danube to Yemen on the Red Sea), pressing into Central Europe, posing a sharp threat to the heartland of Christian Europe.

Mehmed IV’s uncle Murad IV was famously known in Ottoman history as the “Conqueror of Baghdad,” while Mehmed IV’s namesake Mehmed II was forever remembered as the “Conqueror of Constantinople.” Planting the victorious crescent flag on the spire of St. Stephen’s Cathedral and winning the title “Conqueror of Vienna” was an irresistible temptation for the warlike Sultan Mehmed IV.

On July 7, 2015, it was cloudy in the morning, very cool. We walked to the train station and saw a beautiful German girl carrying a violin. At the station, I had Yuan watch the backpacks while I browsed the bookstore. There were many banned books, a wide variety, including books analyzing scandals in various national governments, and many pornographic magazines. European and American countries are too liberal and licentious.

Yuan and I walked to Platform 9. I bought a 500ml Fanta soda for 1.5 euros from a vending machine. Then we boarded the high-speed train to Austria, Deutsche Bahn ICE 23. The carriages were almost empty. Our train arrived in Regensburg at about 11:25. Large and medium-sized German cities are well laid out, without chaotic disorder.

Regensburg is a beautiful ancient city on the Danube, 140 km north of Munich. It has a long history, an important town on the Danube since Roman times. Regensburg is a city-district in the Bavarian region of Germany, capital of the Upper Palatinate administrative region and Regensburg district, and seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Regensburg. It is the fifth-largest city in Bavaria after Munich, Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Würzburg. The old town of Regensburg was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2006.

We also passed through St. Pölten, the capital of Lower Austria, and then arrived at Vienna Meidling station. After a brief stop, the train reached Vienna Central Station. We got off and went to an information desk with a counter selling public transport tickets. Honestly, we bought a multi-day pass valid for unlimited rides on city public transport.

The two of us spent 14.1 euros. Later I learned that in Vienna, you don’t need to tap cards or go through security when taking the subway; no one checks tickets. The city’s subway stations are basically defenseless—anyone can walk in and board a train. No ticket inspection, no security check machines. I guess this is the legendary shared society way of travel.

Sometimes you plan but fate has other ideas. We bought the pass but never had it checked on subsequent rides. Those 14 euros were wasted.

After leaving the train station, we took the subway. Upon arriving at our destination, we exited the subway station and walked onto a square, but I got the direction wrong. We walked in the wrong direction for over ten minutes, carrying huge backpacks, feeling very tired. When I realized the mistake, we had already walked nearly an extra kilometer. We had to turn back, return to the train station, then go the correct way, crossing under a railway bridge, expending much effort to find the hotel.

Later we discovered there was a direct bus to the hotel right in front of it. We entered Hotel Hadrian, checked in—room cost 39 euros per night. We went to the room, dropped our big backpacks, washed our faces, and went out. It was already afternoon, but still very hot. After leaving the hotel, we took a bus into the city center to sightsee. Next to our hotel was a relatively new church and a Chinese restaurant called Xinyuan. We took a tram to the bustling old town, and noticed the city had a lot of tourists.

Vienna is the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Empire, and the Republic of Austria, as well as one of the nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria’s largest city and political center, located on the Danube River in Europe. Vienna is also one of the four official seats of the United Nations. Additionally, Vienna is the headquarters of OPEC, the OSCE, the IAEA, and other international organizations.

In 2011, Vienna topped the world’s most livable cities due to its splendid architecture, parks, and extensive bicycle network. Because of its strong classical music atmosphere, it attracts musicians from all over the world, earning reputations as the “World Capital of Music” and “City of Music.” Before WWI, it was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which covered most of Central and Eastern Europe except the German Empire.

We went directly to visit the Vienna State Opera, one of the world’s most famous opera houses and a major symbol of the “City of Music,” known as the “World Opera Center.” More people know the Golden Hall than this place, but the State Opera is also important in art history—several of Mozart’s operas premiered here, and the current standard of opera performances is very high.

On the streets of Vienna, strong traces of European classical music can be found everywhere, from architectural forms to festive family celebrations; melodies often linger in the ears, floating across the sky—sounds from heaven.

Due to Austria’s special geographical location, whether from the Roman period or the Baroque splendor, Vienna has weathered storms. Traces of war and smoke remain in the city. Like many European towns, Vienna hides many stories waiting for appreciative people to uncover.

Vienna is a very pleasant place for both young and old. The cultural atmosphere is very rich; whether high art or nightlife bars, there are ample places for people to explore. Though the place is small, there are countless museums and art galleries. Unfortunately, they require tickets, but some places have free entry after a certain time on a certain day of the week. If you visit frequently, you can buy an annual pass—not too expensive.

None. Vienna Acoustics appointed Aiwei Audio as the general distributor for China (including Hong Kong and Macau). “Audiophile Frontline,” 2020, Zhou Xu. Viennese Dream: Piano Works on Vienna. “CNKI,” 2019, Wang Tong. Barenboim’s Viennese Sound: Notes on the 2014 Vienna New Year’s Concert. “VIP,” 2014, Xu Xiaoqian. Sound of Vienna. “VIP,” 2009, Hanxiucao. Three Great Opera Houses of Vienna. “VIP,” 2010.