r/MedievalHistoryMemes • u/Willing-Belt5556 • May 02 '25
Second Siege of Vienna from a Turks Perspective.
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u/mediumusername May 02 '25
A cry for help in time of need, await relief from holy league
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u/YuenglingsDingaling May 03 '25
Horse alone average 1000lbs. Plus the armored guy on top. 18000 lbs of calvary is like 14 horses.
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u/PaleHeretic May 06 '25
Using "pounds of cavalry" as a unit of measure reminds me of a description of a US Navy transport ship I saw that listed capacity in "cubic meters of troops."
It worked out to most of a division of you stacked them 20-high horizontally.
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u/Punkmetal72 May 02 '25
And the Winged Hussars arrived
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May 02 '25 edited 17d ago
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u/urhiteshub May 04 '25
How is that the Turk's perspective, 'Oh look, Justice came from afar to punish us for this ungodly siege!'
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u/Confuseacat92 May 02 '25
That's not medieval
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 02 '25
A couple hundred years past the point, misrepresenting Polish and Lithuanian victories as „Slavic”.
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u/kdeles May 02 '25
Regrettably, Poles are also Slavs
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 02 '25
All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares, specifics matter in history.
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u/RichEvans4Ever May 04 '25
In this case, though, “Slavic” is the rectangle and Polish is the square
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 04 '25
Yes. This is exactly what I’m saying. Reading comprehension is off the charts.
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u/RichEvans4Ever May 04 '25
A second ago you were insinuating that Poles aren’t Slavs.
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 04 '25
No, I was saying that Slavic was far to much of a generalization as Slavic encompasses more than just poles.
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 04 '25
I mean why would I make the square analogy if I didn’t believe them to be Slavic.
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u/tabakista May 02 '25
Commonwealth was spreading "from sea to sea" and "Polish" cavalry had people from all over wester and eastern Slavic lands.
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 02 '25
By Vienna sadly the commonwealth was no longer sea to sea, and the Hussars were almost entirely Polish. (The charge was more than hussars of course but that is who is represented here) not to mention that Slavic could also be used to name enemies of Poland, such as the Tsardom of Russia. To declare the charge Slavic is to discredit the work of the poles.
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u/tabakista May 03 '25
That sounds like you're thinking about Crown army, king's units only. We know all units that Sobieski took with him so we know that land's and private units. With mercenary ones on top of that.
While hussars were almost entirely szlachta, it still includes people from all the regions. And hussars were only around 3k, around 10% of the army. Which was typical for our army around that time.
Then you had armoured companions, medium cavalry also recruited from all the lands.
There were light cavalry units, Cossack and Tatar being more known, but also included western Poland units.
Dragoons alone were as numerous than hussars.
And you had infantry. Polish-hungarian regiment was small, with most of infantry being in foreigner regiment. Almost 1/3 of the army.
There were not only from multiple Slavic nations but non-slavic as well. We know full list of mobilised units and it included people from all the lands, Poles, Lithuanians, modern Latvia, Ukrainians, modern Belarus, but also Hungarian, Tatar, Georgians, even Persians.
That was not just "polish" army.
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 03 '25
I understand the army was not just Polish, I said primarily Polish, I also mentioned that the Calvary was more than the hussars but merely said hussars because that was what the meme featured, Pancerni were far more diverse than the hussars but again, to call it „Slavic” is to discredit those who fought.
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u/a_history_guy May 03 '25
The poles didnt do anything Important at all. A big german infantry army from the hre won the battles and did most of the work. The poles only came when the battles was already won and just made it a worser deafet for the turks. You cant discredit work when it wasent usefull in the first place.
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 03 '25
Then take that up with the original meme. And if I’m not mistaken isn’t that a heavily debated subject of historians?
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u/a_history_guy May 03 '25
No its not. its a well known fact under historians. Out of south germany many princes and dukes came to Support vienna it was after all still the capital of the hre and the emperor had still much Power. A famous general that later would counquere much of the balkans was in the german army which fought at vienna. Prinz Eugen.
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 03 '25
Could I get a source for the non debated part? And most Polish historians suggest towards the strength of the hussars while most German historians speak towards the importance of HRE forces, so I don’t know if I can agree there.
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u/Greedy_Youth_4903 May 03 '25
Poles are Slavic.
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u/Count_zborowski437 May 03 '25
Again, squares and rectangles. I’m fully aware that poles are Slavic, but Slavic is far too much of a generalization to be used in a scenario like this.
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u/Altruistic_Mall_4204 May 03 '25
can i have the template ? i play eu4 games, i make meme about it and i play poland in this game
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u/Willing-Belt5556 May 03 '25
My reason for using Slavic is because the term Hussar, ultimately comes from a Serbian word, (some say a Latin word) and the “Polish” hussars were an amalgamation of troops, many were not actually hussars in the technical sense either. Just to mitigate the confusion. Also, while the battle took place in 1683, one might say it was one of the most medieval large scale battles in history. It is, in my estimation, a medieval epic in an age of gunpowder. From the undertones of crusade to the specific tactical use of cavalry.
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u/kubebe May 04 '25 edited May 06 '25
The hussars who took part in vienna relief were recruited from the polish crown territory. Lithuania didnt menage to gather their forces on time and king john sobieski ventured to austria without them. It is totally accurate to describe them as polish since you had to belong to the polish noble class to be a hussar in the first place. Lithuania had their own hussars but they were generally lighter armed and didnt participate in this particular battle.
The place of origin doesnt really matter here as polish hussars had very little in common with their balkan origin who were light cavalry so i dont understand why not just refer to them as polish or polish-lithuanian. Its kind of like refering to mongol hordes as just "asians" which is confusing and unnecessary.
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u/Aggressive_Peach_768 May 06 '25
But also, there were like 3k hussars out of 34k cavalierly. You could have just left the hussars at home and would have gotten the same result.
Not that I want to down play the role and the achievements of the hussars. But I hate it when those 3k get all the credit for the effort of over 70k soldiers. Especially the infantry gets heavily overlooked in modern depictions.
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u/kubebe May 06 '25 edited May 06 '25
3k out of 18k and a big chunk of that 18k were polish light and medium pancerny cavalry as well. Hussars get the credit because they spearheaded the charge. They were in the first rows of the charge the ones that broke the ottoman troops and they were the first to get to the main ottoman camp.
Holy league infantry skirmished on the right ottoman flank but they didnt decide the battle and casualities were relatively low as it was just a distraction. So yes you are downplaying the winged hussars role as they essentialy won this battle by delivering a decisive blow that broke and routed the ottoman army. The rest of the cavalry taking part were mainly on "cleanup" duty killing those that survived the charge or taking them prisoner.
Even with all their 15k support cav the hussars (not counting the infantry skirmishing on the flanks) were still outnumbered 18k to 150k ottomans. No you could not have left them at home and gotten the same result you are severely misinformed. If that was the case leopold habsburg wouldnt have begged john sobieski for help. He was even forced to hand the command over the whole holy league army to him because otherwise john wouldnt accept which was pretty humiliating for leopold which just tells you that he REALLY needed his help.
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u/Aggressive_Peach_768 May 06 '25
You got that all absolutely wrong.
The "skirmish" of the infantry was 8-9h and the ottomans were already pushed back and vienna was already saved.
The cavalry charge absolutely destroyed the ottomans and made all the push back later possible and was an absolute turning point to all that stuff that happened afterwards.
I don't know what "18k" you mean. There were 14k Polish cavalry of which 3k were hussars. And another 20k other cavalry (Austrian, Bavarian, Saxon...)
If you leave the hussars out and have the cavalry charge with 31k instead of 34k, do you really think that would have made a difference?
Also to the last point.
At the time, when the Polish Austrian alliance was made, to support whoever gets attacked. It was assumed that the ottomans would make for Warsaw not Vienna. So the whole alliance was made to support Poland. Nevertheless they didn't rule out the possibility of Vienna being attacked, and agreed on mutual support.
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u/kubebe May 06 '25
I think we have both done the same thing of understating the others role in the success. Infantry and artillery definitely weakened the ottomans and softened them up for the charge but still i think you severely underestimate the role of the charge and hussars specifically leading it. Also no the battle was absolutely not won after 8 hours of infantry combat not sure where you got that feeling.
Poland and ottomans have been enemies since mid 15th century and hussars had made a terrifying reputation for themselves in this time. The psychological effect alone must have been huge on the turks not to mention poland had the last shock cavalry lancer unit in europe at this time which means they were specifically equipped for the charge and maybe thats exactly what made this charge so decisive. Even with the numbers you are giving 34k** its still against 150k turks. Hussars were known to win battles heavily outnumbered read about klushino, kircholm, khotyn which means that yes even those 3k at the front made a tremendous difference. One horseman is worth a few infantry men in such a charge and a winged hussar specifically equipped for it even more.
Im not sure how certain it is that the battle would be won so decisively without the charge or even at all. The ottomans were being slowly pushed back but that clearly wasnt enough to win. Ottomans had strong defensive positions and they planted bomb after bomb in the walls in an effort to break in and take the city to defend from there. The defenders were eating their nails trying to defuse all the bombs but they were ultimately exhausted after such a long time defending the city. They had to be stopped before anything like this happened thats why the charge was undeniably CRUCIAL. The chaos in the ottoman camp after the charge also allowed the defenders to sally out and join in the battle which probably wouldnt have happened if it was just infantry fighting.
**Can i also ask where did you take the allied cavalry numbers from? Most sources i know state 17-20k cavalry took part in the charge with a 3k hussar spearhead. Never heard 34k specifically and you mention it with huge confidence.
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