TURKISH INVASIONS OF EUROPE IN 1670-83.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 1, 6 October 1877, Page 4

TURKISH INVASIONS OF EUROPE IN 1670-83.

(From the " Contemporary Review.) SOBIESKI'S LETTEKS TO HIS WIFE. Now that the Turks have vindicated their right to " do what they like with their own," and declai'e the present state of the Ottoman empire to be quite satisfactory (in which opinion a certain part of English society seems to agree), it is interesting to turn to the record of a time when there seemed considerable danger that the greater part of Europe might have been subjected to the blessings of their rule, ami to recall the terror and dismay with which their advance was regarded, and the desperate efforts marie to avert what was then considered as the greatest misfortune that could happen to civilization and Christianity.

A small volume of letters from the hero John Sobieski to his wife, detailing his progress day by day to-the relief of Vienna and in the battles following it, the success of which at that moment was almost tantamount to salvation of Christendom, were translated from the Polish into French by Count Plater, and published in IS2O. It is a scarce book and extremely interesting, showing as it docs the noble, disinterested, simple character of the man, and the fearful imminence of the danger which would have reduced Austria, and indeed the whole centre of Europe, to the condition of Bulgaria, Bosnia, etc.. It requires, however, to be supplemented and interpreted by contemporary accounts, gathered from Salvandy's and Von Hammer's histories of Poland and the Ottoman empire. From the time of the taking of Constantinople in 1453, the Turks had been a standing menace to Europe, Mahomet 11., Bajazet 11., Bolim I. and 11., and Solyman the Magnificent, had all advanced at different times, and on different lines of attack. The fall of Rhodes, of Cvprus, of the islands of fireece belonging to Venice, and the strong places in the Peloponnesus, left them free to advance on the conquest of Dahnatin, thus threatening Italy, and on Moldavia, Bejsarabia, Servia, Bosnia, Hungary. It was now their object to soeure both the banks of the Dnuul>e. " Los deaniers venus d'entre les b&rbaroa, les Turcs etaient assui les plus redoubtables," says Salvandy ; " ils u'unportiieut pas simpiement 1» eonquete, il* apportoient le brigandage, le rapt, lapostosio, la mort." Their hordes had pawed with tin? and sword over Epirus am'. Greece to Transylvania on one side, ond the provinces of tho Adriatic on thl oIJIW Bolyman bad, it, i. trot b a I

from the walls of Vienna with •rival loa in 1529, after having taken Belgrade but the check was only for a time. The fall of Cyprus in the wars of Selin 11., who treated the defenders with ere* barbarity, was succeeded by an attack 01 Corfu ; and although the united fleets o Spain and Venice obtained a great victor at Lepadto, yet Don John of Austria, wli commanded, retired immediately, I was " a glorious victory," but product» little advantage, for the Turks dictate. :he hardest possible conditions to th Venetians, and the battle is general! emembered as that in which Cervante ost his ami as much as for any politic* :onsequcnees. The advance of the Turks ctmtinuedfour times in eleven yean, between 107and UiH'i, irruptions of immense hordes of barbarians threatened the centre of Europe, and in each case they were repelled chiefly, if not entirely, by the genius for war of Sobieski, and the

influence which his noble character obtained.

Peace with the Porte was never of any duration; it was only when weakened by dissensions among its disorderly heterogeneous subjects, revolts of the Janissaries, wars with Persia, or the accidental weakness of a sultan, that its onward course was stayed. The fall of Crete in 16G9, after a siege which lasted more or less for twentyfour years, and during which two hundred thousand men were said to have fallen on the two sides, was a cruel blow to Christendom, and the pope, Clement IX., was said to have died of grief at the news.

Flushed by success, Mahomet IV. and his grand vizier Achmet Kiuprili, who was of Greek origin, now entertained the most magnificent projects of conquest. The empire touched the (Caspian St-a, the Adriatic, the Indian Ocean, and stretched south towards the upper waters of the Nile; it was now advancing on the Baltic, and would soon, they trusted, possess fleets on the north seas and the Indian Ocean alike, while the Archipelago and the Red Sea would have counted only as inland lakes in his dominions. " He hoped to reign over the Christian world." The present preparations were directed against Poland, which had always been the chief barrier to the subjugation of the north by the Turks. With the exception of a small subsidy from the pope, she was left to bear tiie brunt of the attack alone. The preparations of the Porte wore enormous : Tartars were arriving in hordes, Moldavia was full of battalions of strange men from the heart of Asia, the immense siege trains from Candhi, consisting of between three and four hundred pieces of canon, a numb, r hitherto unheard of, wero being carried up the Danube, ami a numerous fleet was collecting in the Black Sea; seven hundred camels had arrived in Thrace with corn from Egypt; soldiers from Attica and the Peloponnesus, from east and west, filled a vast camp near Adrianople where Mahomet and his vizier held perpetual reviews. But their destination was still uncertain. The Hungarians had long been making ineffectual attempts to defend thenhereditary privileges against the tyranny of the emperor, who ruled over them by an elective right along. xVt length they

rose in rebellion, headed by the chief nobles of the country. The revolt was

put down with much cruelty, hut the insurgents sought the assistance of the Porte, master already of two-thirds of the country, and were ready to join in any attack upon Austria if its arms were turned in that direction. The Polish king refused to believe in any danger, and opposed Sobieski's exertions to collect the scattered troops. Thwarted at home and abroad by the iealousy of the emperor and of Louis XIV., he could only get together six or eight thousand men, young, ill-armed, undisciplined, and ■without provisions There were soldiers enough in the country to trouble its peace, but not make war with safety. After a short and brilliant campaign against the Cossacks, Tartars, and wild hordes under the khan, the allies and what might be called the advanced guard of the Turk, finding that no money and no help were to be had for the impending invasion, Sohieski fell dangerously ill with anxiety and fatigue, and the army, which for many years had received from him their only pay and rations, and had been led on to constant victory, indignant now at this treatment by the king, disbanded, and declared they would only serve under a chief of their own choice. For a whole year the anarchy and confusion of Poland went on increasing, but when news arrived that the sultan had started on his march towards Poland, the soldiers returned to their quarters and swore to follow their old leader to death. The Turks by forced marches advanced on Kaminiek, a fortress situated on the frontier of Moldavia and the Ukraine. It was almost the only strong placu possessed by the Pole*, and Sobieski had iu vain tried to persuade the Diet to keep up it) defences. After a siege of less than a month the Turks carried a place concerning which it was ■aid that " (iod alone could have built it, and He only could tike it" Even then the only help which the Polish king thought lit to give in the struggle was to accuse his protector, the "groat hetnian," of being "an impostor and a traitor." Sobieski, however, not heeding tho insult, threw himself with his scanty forces on the woak ]x>iiitK of the Turkish lines, pursued tin.' Tartu's who li.'ul invaded the kingdom nnd were carrying oil* immense booty, overtKik them in t'i« Cirp.ithi.ari defiles, nnd (termlnfttad (hem !

Marty thirty thousand captives who . vera being carried otf into slavery. He ttiriicil in xt on tin' advanced guard of the sultan's army, which had advanced on the Vistula with forty thousand men. Mahomet hail arranged a camp for himself at Boitdchu among tin- mountains, where, accouijianied by his seiaglio, he amused himself with hunting. Sobieski, by a " coup de main," crossed the river, rushed on the camp " intoxicated with pleasure and pillage," penetrated even to i tlie imperial tents and the women's quarters, and " the young lord who ruled i at Athens and Memphis, Jerusalem and i Babylon," on this his first campaign was obliged to fly to save his life. But the miserable Polish king suddenly

"live up the struggle ami threw himself on the mercy of the invaders, abandoning the Ukraine and I'odolia to the Turk, and reducing bis country to the condition of a vassal state by promising un animal tribute.

Sobieski retired to his estates disgusted and nearly broken-hearted, lie had not

long been there, when the " Terror of the Turks," as he was surnamed, was accused in the Diet of having sold his country to the infidel for a bribe of twelve million florins. Enraged at such an attack on his honor, he returned to Warsaw immediately, while his army, furious at such a libel on their beloved chief, swore to avenge the insult in blood. After calming them with much difficulty he proceeded to the Diet, where the very sight of him produced such an impression that when he claimed the punishment of his calumniator from the

assembly, and excuses from all members

who could for a moment have listened to such an accusation, his demands were accepted in a transport of enthusiasm. The Diet in a pressing message entreated his help against the Turks, and in the strangely hyperbolical language so often used in Pwladd, termed him "the hero of whom it might be believed, according to the system of Pythagroas, that all the souls of'the great captains and good citizens lived again, as not one of their virtues was wanting in him." The miserable informer confessed that he had been bribed to make the accusation, and was condemned to death, but Sobieski would not allow the sentence to be carried out. The Diet pursued its course until the end of the session with uniycustomed calm under his influence, and at its close the president declared in the same semiOriental style, that "the wisdom of a divinity, or, if Sobieski could he considered as a man, the excellence of a hero, had saved the liberty of his country by bis virtues and its independi nee by bis exploits. No sueli man i had ever before been formed by nature, and probably never would lie so in future ;" The Diet then decreed a levy of sixty thousand men, ami committed full power over it to the "great hetman." The summer was spent in preparations such as might be expected from Poland ; " no men, no material of war, no money, were to be bad." For the time, however, disorders in Constantinople, and an insurrection in the Peloponnesus, had cheeked the projects of the vizier. In November,

1673, however, seven bridges were by

his orders thrown across the Dniester, and eighty thousand veterans advanced

under the command of the Seraskier Hussein Pasha.

A division of Sobieski's small army wa» sent forward to cany the Turkish outposts; but when they found that they were required to cross a river full of floating ice, to put .such a barrier between themselves and their homes, that they were being led into a country without townsor villages, and surrounded by innumerable Turks, they broke out into open mutiny. Once before Sobieski had quelled a similar revolt; now with his imperious eloquence ho culled upon his men in the name of their duty and

their country to follow him, and, as always, was the- case-both with friends and foes, be gained the day. He led them to the battle of Kotzim, on the other side of the Duiestor, where Hussein had established himself in a camp defended by .strong fortifications, natural and artificial, and by rocks ami marshes. To attack such a position with such troops as Sobieski could command, at such a time of year, without provisions and weak artillery, seemed an impossible ta.sk in all eyes but his own. Fifty years before, however, the Poles, under his father, James Sobieski, had conquered at the same spot, and the good omen gave them courage. The weather was dreadful, and the snow w;us falling thickly, when he disposed his troops for the attack. All night long the preparations went on. " Comrades ! " cried he, passing along the ranks, his dress, his arms, bis Illicit moustoch vo.rcd with hoarfrost, " ' you ' have suffered, but the Turks are worn out; these men from Asia are half conquered already by the cold. The last twenty-four hours have fought for us. We shall save the republic from shameand vassalage. Soldiers of Poland, tight for your country, and remember that Jesus Christ tights for you !" Sobieski himself had hoard three masses since daybreak, the army bail been blessed by a priest, and now getting oil'his horse, sabre in hand, he led his infantry across the trenches. The Turks, wdio hail behoved an attack Impossible in such weather, alarmed at. the triumphant shouts of the Poles, defended themselves but ill ; charge after charge of the young Polish cavalry, ui full armor, cut to pieces the best troops; they turned to lly, but, the bridge of boat* bad bam broken clown by Sobieski's orders ; "i.i men wen- believed to

have fallen in attempting to cross the rapid, half-from) river; 11««- water ran with blood and corpses for miles." In the camp the oai uage wi< frightful; under the axes, the lances and scimitars of their assailants lay thousands of dead bodies, half of them Janissaries and iSpahis. The green standard of Hussein, given him by the sultan, was seised, sent to the pope, ami still bangs in St. Peters. The victory Was complete; all the Turkish garrisons of the neighbouring towns retired, leaving devastation and tire as monuments of their passage ; and thanks were given in almost all the churches in Europe for the" most memorable battle gained against the infidel for three hundred years." The Polish king died the night before the fight, and, by an act of tardy deathbed repentance, named John Sobieski as one of his executors. (TO UE COHTINUED.)