The Siege of Vienna: The Last Great Trial Between Cross & Crescent

I FIND THE TURKISH ROUT BEFORE VIENNA IS THE LAND BATTLE THAT CLOSES THE TURKISH EMPIRE'S GLORIOUS TIMES, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SEA BATTLE THAT STOPPED THE TURKISH EMPIRE IN THE OFFENSIVE AGAINST CHRISTIANITY. IT IS A VERY IMPORTANT BATTLE, ANS THE BOOK COVERS IT IN A SHORT SPACE WITH THE HELP OF QUITE GOOD MAPS.

This is a meticulously researched and documented history of a distant event with contemporary repercussions. However, it is remarkable how indifferently the question of illustrations and maps was dealt with. I don't understand why someone would produce such a wonderful and detailed account and then accompany it with maps and illustrations that are virtually meaningless. The maps are either insufficiently detailed to permit following the documentation in the text, or the illustrations (themselves of some interest because of their contemporaneousness) so indistinct as to render references to them useless. There should be a match between the illustrations and the text--either reduce the textual detail to match the illustrations, or (far better) include illustrations that support the text.

Not many people today realize that militant Islam reached as far West as Vienna in its attempt to conquor Europe. After reading this meticulously researched and coherently presented book, the reader will come to realize what a close call Western civilization had before the gates of Vienna in 1683. France, the largest country and most militant power in the West, refused to help the Emperor because it suited its own political ends, even at the cost of the eastern part of Europe being lost to the Moslems. The saviors were a motley group of small German principalities and the Kingdom of Poland, led by its ruler Jan Sobieski. Were it not for these groups, and particularly the Poles, our history might have been completely different now. What thanks did the Empire give to Poland? As a later Austrian diplomat said in another connection: "Our ingratitude will astonish the world." Merely a century later, Austria took part in the dismembering of Poland, and wiping that heroic kingdom from the map of Europe for well over a century. If Sobieski had still been alive, he would have wished that he and his army had stayed home in 1683!

What an interesting book! The present War on Terror does have certain overtones of the past struggles between Christianity and Islam. The Jihadists refer to the Western nations as Crusaders and while most in the West make a distinction between Islam per se and the Jihadists, they are not blind to the fact that the Jihadists (or Islamofacists or whatever you want to call them) are almost completely Muslim. And certainly, the Christianity of Europe is nominal at best and is not a motivating factor in the West's approach to the current situation. There are other more overriding interests. If one went on Sunday to the Cathedrals and traditional Christian denominations and conscripted the congregants into an army, it would consist mostly of older women and some children. And it would be small. It was not always so. This book recounts the time in the late seventeenth century (mostly in 1683 to be precise) when the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (and ruler of the Muslim world) and his Grand Vizir took a hundred thousand men (or more) into and through the Hungarian territories into Austria on a quest for new lands to tax (more than for converts) and after conquering lesser cities on the way, laid siege to Vienna. Europe was very much different than the Europe of the past two centuries. There were nations, but not so much nation states as the two great kingdoms of France ruled by Louis XIV and the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire ruled out of Austria and Spain. Both also had relationship with ancillary and related smaller states and territories. The complex web of treaties were often, but not always, related to whether the ruler and the population were primarily Roman Catholic or Protestant. This was not the first time that the Ottomans came out of Turkey to attack Vienna. In 1529 they came and laid siege to the city until disease forced them back. In 1683, they came and were making progress in undermining the walls of the city until the King of Poland, Jon Sobieski and came from the north and drove the Turks out. This led to a more extended war with the Ottomans that lasted until 1699 and captured Hungary for the Habsburgs. John Toye has written a very concise telling of the second siege. There are nine chapters in just fewer than two hundred pages. The first chapter provides the origins of the Ottoman attack. Understanding the court politics and the names and titles of all the players is probably the most difficult part of the book. However, once the reader has that under control, all goes smoothly. The author provides a helpful list of key names and titles on pages x and xi. There are also some maps up front and provided within the text as needed. The second chapter informs the reader about the situation in Austria and Vienna. We learn about the court of Leopold his character, talents, his key advisors, and I. The third chapter gives us a broader picture of the Habsburg Empire and its competitive relations with France and what its

The siege by the Islamic Turks of the Christian city of Vienna in 1683 was a watershed incident in European history. Had the Turks been successful, there well might have been no Christian Europe to dominate the world stage for the next 500 years. Facing that magnitude of threat, European powers that were normally jealous and hostile to one another suppressed their mutual antagonisms to defeat the armies of Islam and their brutal Tartar Allies. The Ottoman empire lost control of half of their European territories which led to the long, slow, decline and inevitable collapse, even as the Hapbsburgs were able to parley the Viennese victory into control of the Balkans and expand their influence into France and the Rhine country. An enthusiastic recommendation for inclusion into both academic and community library World History collections, "The Siege of Vienna: The Last Great Trial Between Cross & Crescent" by John Stoye (Fellow in Modern History, Magdalen College, Oxford, England) is a superbly presented and accurately detailed account of this pivotal incident between the forces of a militant Islam and the armies of a European Christendom.