THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.

SEPTEMBER, 1847.

ART. I.-The Sieges of Vienna by the Turks. From the German of Karl August Schimmer, and other sources. By the EARL OF ELLESMERE, 8vo. Murray, London: 1847.

66

"I

SOUGHT to take Rhodes and to subdue Italy," was the significant epitaph inscribed, at his own desire, upon the tomb of Mahomet II., the conqueror of Constantinople. From the fall of the capital of the Greek empire, the arms of this enterprising warrior had never ceased to point towards the west. Imbued with the true spirit of Mahomedan propagandism, and yielding in ambition and enterprise to no chief since the days of Caliph Omar himself, he had aspired to the glory of founding a western empire not inferior in extent and importance to the vast realm which he had received from his father Amurat; and even cherished the hope of fixing upon the summit of the Mother-Church of Christendom, in the city of St. Peter himself, the victorious crescent, which already gleamed upon the time-honoured dome of St. Sophia. The numberless expeditions which he undertook for the purposethe unexampled armaments which he equipped-the two hundred cities and towns which he wrested from the christians may be taken as evidence of the strength and earnestness of his resolve; and the inscription which he caused to be placed upon his tomb, contained, as it were, his last testament, and bequeathed to his successors, as their most sacred inheritance, the great duty of extending and carrying the vast scheme of universal conquest, in the execution of which he had been arrested by death.

VOL. XXIII.-NO. XLV.

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Nor were they unmindful of the inheritance thus transmitted. From his death in 1481, the Turkish arms continued with varying success, to advance westwards. Mahomet's immediate successors, Bajazet II., and Selim I., it is true, were too much engaged in domestic wars, or in schemes of conquest nearer home, to secure any very important advantages over the christian powers of Europe; but the third in succession, the celebrated Soliman II., accomplished, in the conquest of Rhodes, (1522,) half the dying injunction of Mahomet; and by the occupation of Belgrade, opened the way, as he fondly hoped, for its complete fulfilment.

The Christmas of the year 1522, therefore, was a gloomy and portentous one for Western Christendom. On the night of that festival, Rhodes, so long the bulwark of Europe against the encroachments of the Moslem, yielded to the arms of Soliman. He took possession of the city in triumph; and quartered within its walls, long deemed impregnable, only to meditate new conquests and to devise means of prosecuting them with success.

commences.

It is at this exciting period, that the volume before us It regards an episode in Turkish history, of which little has hitherto been generally known; and we have no hesitation in pronouncing it one of the most interesting and stirring narratives which we have met for a long time. Not that it contains many of the brilliant and striking views, the picturesque and highly-wrought descriptions, and the elaborate sketches of character, which now form the staple of regular historical compositions constructed according to the rules of modern art. The interest of "The Sieges of Vienna," lies in the closeness and rapidity of the narrative, which is crowded even to overflowing, not with thoughts or views, but with facts; and which, were it not for the nature and the intrinsic interest of those facts, would hardly rise beyond the charge of dryness, perhaps even of bald and meagre mediocrity. There is no attempt at display,-no seeking after effect,—no elaborate effort at dramatic grouping of persons and events:

all is told in the calm, passionless, unwondering, unspeculating tone which constitutes the charm of the simple chronicles of the olden time; and yet with all this simplieity and heartiness, the narrative unites, in quite a sufficient degree, the orderly and well digested arrangement of a philosophical history.

It will be seen from the title-page, that the work is not original, being “from the German of Karl Schimmer and other sources. It is far, however, from being a mere translation, especially that part of it which regards the Second Siege. Into this portion of the narrative Lord Ellesmere has introduced much additional matter, derived partly from other histories, partly from the correspondence of the celebrated John Sobieski, whose name indeed is identified with many of the most important passages in these transactions. But the interpolation is so judiciously managed as not to interfere, in any sensible degree, either with the unity of the style, or the continuity of the narrative.

Perhaps, however, so simple a history may require, in order to be fully appreciated, somewhat of a kindred and congenial spirit in the reader. It is not easy for us nowa-days, to realize the feeling with which the Turkish name was regarded of old. Every hateful association which it is possible to conceive,-all that is degrading in superstition, all that is odious in despotism, all that is debasing in sensuality, all that is atrocious in cruelty, all that is revolting in barbarism, would seem of old to have been united in the idea, as it presented itself to the minds of our Christian forefathers. The feeling of the old Crusaders had descended to their posterity without alteration. The war with the Turks was still a war of religion, with this additional feature, that it was now a defensive, rather than an offensive war.

At no former period had this feeling been stronger or more active than that in which the present history is laid. The memory of the cruelties of the olden conqueror was still preserved in the stirring ballads and traditions of the country; and the near prospect of a return of those scenes. of horror, gave a terrible, because almost personal, interest to the recollection. It was not alone that the occupation. of Belgrade and the mastery of Rhodes, opened an easy way for the advance of the Turkish armament; but the position of affairs in the frontier countries of Europe was such as to encourage, if not absolutely to invite, its approach. Hungary, which from its frontier position was necessarily to be the theatre of the struggle, was torn by internal dissensions; and far from presenting that united front which might have checked the invader in the first steps of his career, became, through the treachery of one

of its most influential nobles, the strongest support of the invasion. The young king, Louis II., had offended the pride of the powerful John Zapolya, Count of Zips, and Governor of Transylvania, by passing him over in the election for the office of Palatine, though his name was one of those presented by the States for approval. The disappointed noble, though at the head of a numerous army, looked on passively, and in sullen discontent, while the forces of the Sultan, seizing city after city, advanced into the heart of the kingdom; and when in the fatal field of Mohacs, (August 20, 1526,) the fall of the young king left the crown of Hungary vacant, he consulted at once for his ambition and revenge, by seizing upon the throne and causing himself to be proclaimed king, in opposition to the claim of Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, and brother of the Emperor Charles V.

These dissensions naturally tended to facilitate the progress of the Turkish arms. Soliman pushed onwards as far as Fünfkirchen, and even Pesth; burnt these important towns in great part, and laid waste the country by every destructive device which he could employ. But, fortunately for the security of the city itself, the intelligence of domestic disaffection and revolt, which the conqueror received in the very flush of his conquest, compelled him to abandon the idea of any further advance; and he suddenly withdrew his forces, dragging with him into captivity, two hundred thousand prisoners, of every age, sex, and condition.

The respite, however, was brief. Zapolya's pretensions to the throne met but limited and feeble support at home. He was defeated in two successive engagements by the Palatine Bathory, Ferdinand's faithful supporter, and in an evil hour, like many a disappointed aspirant_before him, was induced by the counsel of his friend, Jerome Laski, to throw himself into the arms of the common enemy of his country and his faith. Soliman eagerly accepted his proposals and espoused his cause; undertook, (in requital of Zapolya's promise to pay an annual tribute, to place, every ten years, a tenth of the population of Hungary, male and female, at the Sultan's disposal, and to secure his forces at all times a free passage through his dominions), to place him upon the throne of Hungary; dismissed the ambassadors whom Ferdinand had sent at the same moment to negociate a peace; and told them

that he would go "to seek their master in person in the field of Mohacs, or even at Pesth; and that, should he fail of these appointments, he would meet him under the walls of Vienna itself."

For a time the Viennese could not be brought to believe that the purpose thus vauntingly announced was seriously entertained; happily, however, for the empire, the unprecedented violence and duration of the rains, which set in just as the Sultan's preparations were completed, compelled him to postpone for a year his intended expedition, and gave them time to make some, though very inadequate preparation.

It was not till April 1529, therefore, that the Turkish army (at least 200,000 in number) began to advance; its movements being supported by a demonstration at home on the part of the traitor Zapolya, who, almost at the same moment, entered Hungary with about two thousand men; and although defeated in a first engagement, yet, soon afterwards, rallied his scattered forces, and gathering strength as he advanced, was at the head of a small but active force of six thousand men, when he joined the Sultan, and, on the ill-omened field of Mohacs, did homage for the prospective sovereignty of Hungary. The progress of this enormous armament was marked by every species of excess and violence.

"Before the main body marched a terrible advanced guard of 30,000 men, spreading desolation in every direction. Their leader was a man worthy of such command of bloodthirsty barbarians, the terrible Mihal Oglou, whose ancestor, Kose Mihal, or Michael of the Pointed Beard, derived his origin from the imperial race of the Palæologi, and on the female side was related to the royal houses of France and Savoy. His descendants were hereditary leaders of those wild and terrible bands of horsemen called by the Turks Akindschi,' i. e. hither streaming,' or 'overflowing;' by the Italians, Guastadori,' the spoilers; by the French, Faucheurs' and Ecorcheurs,' mowers and flayers; but by the Germans universally Sackman,' possibly because they filled their own sacks with plunder, or emptied those of other people."-pp. 8, 9.

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"Contemporary writers have exhausted their powers of language in describing the atrocities perpetrated by these marauders. We find, for example, in a rare pamphlet of the time, the following: At which time did the Sackman spread himself on every side, going before the Turkish army, destroying and burning everything, and carrying off into captivity much people, men and women, and even the children, of whom many they grievously maimed, and, as