“Austria acts against Muslims almost every
day because of their subconscious fear of Turks,” writes Turkish historian
Erhan Afyoncu in the Daily
Sabah. “Austrians have not forgotten the fear and their
emperor’s escape in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. When Turks were defeated in
the Battle of Vienna, Europeans were so happy…”
Because this is true, a brief refresher of the Siege of Vienna is
in order, particularly as its anniversary is right around now:
Around July 15, 1683, the largest Islamic army ever to invade
European territory -- which is saying much considering that countless invasions
preceded it since the eighth century -- came and surrounded Vienna, then the
heart of the Holy Roman Empire and longtime nemesis of Islam.
Some 200,000 Muslim combatants, under the leadership of the
Ottomans -- the one state in nearly fourteen centuries of Islamic history most
dedicated to and founded on the principles of jihad -- invaded under the same
rationale that so-called “radical” groups, such as the Islamic State, cite to
justify their jihad on “infidels.” Or, to quote the leader of the Muslim
expedition, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, because Vienna was perceived as the head
of the infidel snake, it needed to be laid low so that “all the Christians
would obey the Ottomans.”
This was no idle boast; sources describe this Mustafa as
“fanatically anti-Christian.” After capturing a Polish town in 1674 he ordered
all the Christian prisoners to be skinned alive and their stuffed hides sent as
trophies to Ottoman Sultan Muhammad IV. Such supremacist hate was
standard and on display during the elaborate pre-jihad ceremony presaging the siege
of Vienna. Then, the sultan, “desiring him [Mustafa] to fight generously
for the Mahometan faith,” to quote a contemporary European source, placed “the
standard of the Prophet… into his hands for the extirpation of infidels, and
the increase of Muslemen.”
Once the massive Muslim army reached and surrounded the walls of
Vienna around July 15, Mustafa followed protocol. In 628, his prophet Muhammad
had sent an ultimatum to Emperor Heraclius: aslam
taslam, “submit [to Islam] and have peace.” Heraclius rejected the
summons, jihad was declared against Christendom (as enshrined in Koran 9:29),
and in a few decades, two-thirds of the then Christian world -- including
Spain, all of North Africa, Egypt, and Greater Syria -- were conquered.
Now, over a thousand years later, the same ultimatum of submission
to Islam or death had reached the heart of Europe. Although the Viennese
commander did not bother to respond to the summons, graffiti inside the city --
including “Muhammad, you dog, go home!” -- seems to capture its mood.
So it would be war. On the next day, Mustafa unleashed all
hell against the city’s walls; and for two months, the holed-up and vastly
outnumbered Viennese suffered plague, dysentery, starvation, and many
casualties -- including women and children -- in the name of jihad.
Then, on September 12, when the city had reached its final
extremity, and the Muslims were about to burst through, Vienna’s prayers were
answered. As an anonymous Englishman explained:
After a siege of sixty days, accompanied with a thousand
difficulties, sicknesses, want of provisions, and great effusion of blood,
after a million of cannon and musquet shot, bombs, granadoes, and all sorts of
fireworks, which has changed the face of the fairest and most flourishing city
in the world, disfigured and ruined [it]... heaven favorably heard the prayers
and tears of a cast down and mournful people.
The formidable king of Poland, John Sobieski, had finally come at
the head of 65,000 heavily-armored Poles, Austrians, and Germans -- all hot to
avenge the beleaguered city. Arguing that “It is not a city alone that we
have to save, but the whole of Christianity, of which the city of Vienna is the
bulwark,” Sobieski led a thunderous cavalry charge -- history’s largest --
against and totally routed the Muslim besiegers.
Although a spectacular victory, the aftermath was gory: before
fleeing, the Muslims ritually slaughtered some 30,000 Christian captives
collected during their march to Vienna -- raping the women beforehand. On
entering the relieved city, the liberators encountered piles of corpses,
sewage, and rubble everywhere.
It is this history of Islamic aggression -- beginning in the
fourteenth century when Muslims first established a foothold in Eastern Europe
(Thrace), and into the twentieth century when the Ottoman sultanate finally
collapsed -- that informs Eastern European views on Islam. As one Pole,
echoing the words of Sobieski, said,
“A religious war between Christianity and Islam is once again underway in
Europe, just like in the past.”
Whereas Western nations cite lack of integration, economic
disparities, and grievances to explain away the exponential growth of
terrorism, violence, and rapes that come with living alongside large Muslim
populations, Eastern nations tend to see only a continuity of hostility.
Note: The above account is excerpted
from Sword
and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West
-- a book that CAIR and its Islamist allies did
everything they could to prevent the U.S.
Army War Collegefrom learning about.
