150,000 Ottomans vs the Largest Charge in History

The Battle of Vienna, fought on 12 September 1683, was the day the Ottoman advance into Europe was finally broken. For two months an enormous Ottoman army under Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha had besieged the city of Vienna, mining beneath its walls and starving its defenders, while a garrison of barely fifteen thousand men under Count Ernst von Starhemberg held on against impossible odds. This is the full story of that siege and the extraordinary relief that ended it. Sultan Mehmed the Fourth had sent one of the mightiest hosts the Ottomans ever assembled, its size still debated by historians and often placed near a hundred and fifty thousand men. Emperor Leopold the First had fled west, leaving Vienna to hold the gateway to central Europe almost alone. As the walls crumbled and the city neared collapse, a relief army of some seventy to eighty thousand men gathered under the King of Poland, John the Third Sobieski, joined by Imperial forces under Charles of Lorraine and contingents from Saxony, Bavaria, and Baden. They crossed the Danube, dragged their cannon over the wooded heights of the Kahlenberg, and fell on the exhausted besiegers from above. The climax came late in the day, when Sobieski led some eighteen thousand horsemen down the mountain in what is often called the largest cavalry charge in history, with three thousand Polish Winged Hussars at its head. The Ottoman army broke, the siege was lifted, and Kara Mustafa was later executed for the defeat. Vienna proved the high-water mark of Ottoman expansion into Europe. This video traces the siege, the war fought underground, the fatal patience of the Ottoman command, and the charge that turned the tide. Chapters: 0:00 The Largest Charge in History 0:38 The Gate to Europe 2:35 A City of Fifteen Thousand 3:58 The War Beneath the Walls 5:58 The King Comes Down the Mountain 9:37 The Tide Breaks Subscribe for more of the battles that shaped the world: https://www.youtube.com/@empirenashes... Sources: Wikipedia - Battle of Vienna Encyclopaedia Britannica - Siege of Vienna 1683 Encyclopaedia Britannica - Battle of Vienna Andrew Wheatcroft, The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe (Basic Books, 2010) Polishhistory - the battle of vienna 1683 the clash that saved europe This video presents real, documented military history for educational and entertainment purposes. Strength and casualty figures for medieval battles are debated by historians; where sources differ, a range or attribution is given. #history #militaryhistory #wingedhussars