Vienna, which the Ottomans regarded as the “Red Apple” but failed to capture despite two sieges mounted after marches of more than 2,000 kilometers, later came to be seen by them as one of Europe’s model cities. From the Austrian perspective, meanwhile, the Ottomans—and particularly the Second Siege of Vienna—continue to occupy an important place in the nation’s historical memory.
THE RED APPLE
Born as a small frontier principality, the Ottoman state directed its policy of conquest primarily toward the West and soon came to control vast territories in Europe. After consolidating their rule in the Balkans, the Ottomans advanced into Central Europe and, during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, brought much of Hungary under their control following the Battle of Mohács. From that point onward, they found themselves confronting Austria and the Holy Roman Empire.
Vienna had now become the Ottoman “Red Apple”—the ultimate objective of conquest. The Ottomans initially referred to Vienna by its Hungarian name, Beç, but from the 19th century onward they increasingly used the name Viyana.
In the Ottoman tradition, the “Red Apple,” symbolizing the next great objective, changed continually. Orhan Şaik Gökyay, who wrote an extensive article on the subject for the journal Tarih ve Toplum, defined the Red Apple as “the ideal that must be attained, the imagined place one aspires to possess.”
The roots of the Red Apple concept have been traced as far back as Central Asia. During the Seljuk and Ottoman periods, it evolved into the belief that the ideal of Turkish world dominion would be fulfilled through the conquest of Constantinople and Rome.
Following Ziya Gökalp’s 1913 poem “Kızılelma,” Ömer Seyfeddin described the Red Apple in his 1917 story “Where Is the Red Apple?” as both “the place where the sultan sets foot” and “the country one seeks to reach.”
Ottoman soldiers would often say: “My Sultan, for your sake we will march beyond Mount Qaf, all the way to the Red Apple.” After the conquest of Constantinople, Rome and Vienna became the new Red Apples. The Otranto campaign under Mehmed the Conqueror, the First Siege of Vienna under Suleiman the Magnificent and the Second Siege of Vienna during the reign of Mehmed IV were therefore regarded as attempts to fulfill this ideal.
VIENNA AS THE RED APPLE
The first Ottoman siege of Vienna took place in 1529, during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. The Ottoman army departed Istanbul on May 10, 1529. Because Vienna had not initially been its primary objective, the army did not reach the city until September 27. The journey lasted 141 days and covered approximately 2,100 to 2,200 kilometers, at an average rate of 15 kilometers per day.
Image 2: The route followed by the Ottoman army during the First Siege of Vienn
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Emperor Ferdinand withdrew to Linz, leaving the defense of the city to the experienced commander Count Nicolas von Salm. Vienna’s civilian population was evacuated to prevent shortages of provisions. Those who left the city were attacked both by Ottoman raiders and undisciplined Austrian forces.
Because of adverse weather conditions, the siege did not begin in earnest until October 1. The Ottoman effort centered heavily on tunneling beneath the fortifications and detonating mines. Vienna had only two months’ worth of food remaining, suggesting that a siege launched earlier than late September might have succeeded. The Ottoman army numbered around 100,000, while Vienna was defended by approximately 21,000 troops.
Heavy artillery could not be transported because rain had turned the road between Buda and Vienna into a swamp. The growing discontent and unrest among the soldiers, Suleiman’s desire to avoid excessive casualties and his wish to return to Istanbul before winter ultimately led to the abandonment of the siege. The Ottoman army began its retreat, reaching Istanbul only on December 6. Ottoman losses were around 20,000, while Vienna lost approximately 2,400 defenders.
Vienna remained under threat after the first siege: during the German Campaign of 1532, the Szigetvár Campaign of 1566 and Fazıl Ahmed Pasha’s Hungarian campaign of 1663. In 1683, Ottoman forces once again reached the gates of the city.
The Ottoman army assembled in Edirne at the end of March and set out under the command of Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha. When the army reached the city in present-day Hungary that the Ottomans called İstolni Belgrad, a council of war was convened. There, the target was changed from the relatively unimportant fortress of Yanıkkale, or Raab, to Vienna.
Although the decision was effectively imposed by Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, Sultan Mehmed IV ultimately approved it. The decision caused a rift between the grand vizier and two prominent commanders who opposed it: İbrahim Pasha, the governor of Buda, and Murad Giray, the Crimean khan. Among those who supported the grand vizier was Sheikh Vani Efendi, who accompanied the campaign as the army’s preacher.
Sultan Mehmed IV is said to have granted his approval reluctantly, remarking:
“Our intention was Yanık and Komorn. The Fortress of Vienna was never mentioned. What extraordinary disrespect the pasha has shown by succumbing to this ambition! May Almighty God now make it easy. Had he informed me beforehand, however, I would never have consented.”
It has been claimed that the Ottoman force on this campaign numbered 500,000—350,000 combat troops and 150,000 support personnel. The Ottoman advance on Vienna mobilized Europe and helped create the conditions for an alliance led by Pope Innocent XI and involving Poland, Austria, Russia and Venice.
The Ottoman army arrived outside Vienna on July 14, 1683, after covering an estimated 2,100 to 2,200 kilometers at an average pace of 20 kilometers per day. When the city rejected the demand for surrender, the siege began. Like Archduke Ferdinand during the first siege, Emperor Leopold I left Vienna and entrusted its defense to Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg.
Command of the Austrian armies was assumed by Charles of Lorraine, the emperor’s brother-in-law. Around 80,000 civilians also left Vienna. Emperor Leopold withdrew to Passau, where he attempted to organize defensive measures.
Because the siege had not been planned in advance, the Ottomans had failed to bring the necessary heavy artillery, giving the Austrians the advantage. Kara Mustafa Pasha sought to compel the city to surrender rather than capture it through a direct assault. As a result, the siege dragged on, the troops became exhausted and food shortages began after two months.
Meanwhile, Polish King Jan Sobieski arrived to relieve Vienna with 200 cannons. Crimean Khan Murad Giray, resentful of the grand vizier, failed to mount an effective operation, allowing the Polish forces to seize the Kahlenberg heights. The Crimean khan maintained this passive posture, and the Battle of Kahlenberg began on September 12.
After their right and left wings collapsed, the Ottoman forces withdrew, leaving behind some 300 cannons, 15,000 tents, large quantities of military supplies and the army treasury. Kara Mustafa Pasha retreated to Belgrade in an effort to regroup the army, but amid propaganda spread by his opponents, he was executed on the sultan’s orders on December 25.
Although the celebrated Austrian historian Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall wrote that the pasha’s skull was in Vienna, contemporary historians Silahdar Mehmed Ağa and Dimitrie Cantemir recorded that it was buried in Istanbul. Following the defeat, Sheikh Vani Efendi, a member of the Kadızadeli movement, was exiled to Kestel, where he died.
Austrian researcher Kerstin Tomenendal, however, claims that Vienna possesses not only Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha’s skull but also one of his ribs (Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Symposium, 2000, pp. 286–308).
The defeat at Vienna also resulted in the capture of thousands of Muslim women, children and soldiers. These prisoners were baptized, given new names and placed in the service of feudal lords in Austria, Bavaria, Saxony and Lower Saxony.
Vienna, the Ottoman Red Apple after Constantinople, could not be conquered despite two sieges. The failure paved the way for major territorial losses that would culminate in the Treaty of Karlowitz. Ottoman wars with Austria, however, continued into the 18th century.
EVLİYA ÇELEBİ’S VIENNA
Austria was the Ottoman Empire’s greatest rival in Central Europe, and impressions of both the country and its capital were recorded by the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi. Following the Treaty of Vasvár in 1664, Evliya traveled to Vienna in 1665 as a member of Ambassador Kara Mehmed Pasha’s delegation and met Emperor Leopold I. He even claimed to have obtained a travel permit and journeyed onward to the Netherlands, Denmark and Brandenburg, although historians regard this claim with suspicion.
Because the two states were not at war at the time, Evliya Çelebi described Vienna as a Dar al-Sulh—an abode of peace. He wrote about the delegation’s reception by the emperor as well as the city’s works of art. At times he described them with admiration; at others, he was dismissive. His overall conclusion, however, was that the Europeans were superior to the Ottomans in the arts.
His observations concerning social life and customs reflect the perspective of a Muslim traveler looking upon a “nonbelieving” population. He generally found their customs and activities strange because, for him, Vienna represented “the other.” While praising churches for their artistic qualities, he could not resist comparing them to temples filled with idols. He reportedly asked one priest: “How many gods do you have?” He also wrote that women were treated with great respect there and elsewhere in the lands of the “infidels,” attributing this to their “love of the Virgin Mary.”
What most attracted Evliya’s attention in Vienna were its clock towers, mechanical clocks, depictions of Heaven and Hell and St. Stephen’s Cathedral. He compared the books he saw in the cathedral with those housed in the mosques of Barquq and Faraj in Egypt and the Fatih, Beyazıt, Süleymaniye and New mosques in Istanbul. Evliya concluded that the cathedral possessed more books, attributing the difference to the Muslim principle that “images are forbidden.” He also criticized Muslims for failing to show “as much respect for the books of God as the infidels do.”
Evliya Çelebi called Vienna “the fortified barrier of the Red Apple, the Fortress of Beç.” Disappointed by the failure of the first siege, he prayed, “May God once again deliver it into the hands of Islam.” According to Evliya, a person he described as “one of the inspired madmen” responded:
“May God not deliver this garden and the Fortress of Beç into Muslim hands in the year ninety-four [1094 AH, or 1683 CE], for they would destroy all these buildings.”
The reference is to the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683. The episode was probably fictional, and the madman’s prophecy may have been added by Evliya during the final revision of his work, after he had learned that the siege had failed. For Evliya, Vienna was “a gazelle that had escaped the hunter.” Yet he believed that, “God willing,” Vienna and other cities would eventually be conquered, just as earlier Red Apples had been.
THE DIPLOMATIC ACCOUNTS
Contrary to Evliya’s hopes, the Ottoman army never again reached the gates of Vienna. The Ottoman–Venetian–Austrian Wars of 1715–1718 also ended in defeat. Under the Treaty of Passarowitz, signed at the end of the conflict, Belgrade was ceded to Austria. The Ottomans later fought Austria and Russia between 1736 and 1739 and succeeded in recapturing Belgrade.
In the final Ottoman war against Austria in the 18th century, the empire entered into conflict with the Russo-Austrian alliance in 1787. The war ended with the Treaty of Sistova in 1791. Thereafter, the two empires did not fight one another again before their eventual collapse. Although the Treaty of Berlin placed Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austrian administration in 1878, the two states fought on the same side during World War I, allied with Germany and Bulgaria.
During periods of peace, ambassadors traveled regularly between the two empires. One of them, Mustafa Hatti Efendi, visited Vienna in 1748 and was warmly received by Empress Maria Theresa. He attended the opera, was invited to Schönbrunn Palace and remained in Vienna for approximately five months.
Another Ottoman envoy to Vienna was Ahmed Resmî Efendi. He arrived in 1757 to announce the accession of Sultan Mustafa III. Unlike Evliya Çelebi, Ahmed Resmî also described Austria’s system of government. He even recognized the country’s emerging mercantilist policies: retaining money and precious metals within the country, reducing imports and increasing exports.
He was also struck by the state’s equitable collection of taxes, its careful recording of tax revenues and the fact that this money was spent on the army and the welfare of the people rather than on the palace. In contrast to the Ottoman Empire, he observed, affairs of state were conducted according to merit and written law rather than through bribery and favoritism.
The diplomatic reports themselves demonstrate that the Ottoman Empire had come to regard Europe—and Vienna, its former Red Apple—as a place worthy of emulation rather than contempt. Ahmed Resmî offered a particularly realistic assessment, arguing that the Ottomans should abandon their “dreams of the Red Apple” and pursue policies that prioritized peace with Western states over war.
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The Ottoman–Austrian struggle and the two sieges of Vienna were never forgotten in Austrian historical memory. Images of “the Turks who made Europe tremble” and “the Ottoman army that reached the gates of Vienna” have survived in various parts of the city to the present day.
The bell of St. Stephen’s Cathedral was made by melting down cannons, cannonballs, swords and other materials captured from the Ottoman army. Damaged during World War II, the bell was recast and reinstalled in 1957.
A figure of an Ottoman soldier being trampled underfoot can still be seen on the wall of the same cathedral. It is also claimed—incorrectly—that Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha’s skull and Suleiman the Magnificent’s imperial tent are kept in Vienna.
Europeans are said to have discovered coffee following the Second Siege of Vienna, with Franciszek Kulczycki opening the city’s first coffeehouse. The croissant’s crescent shape is likewise said to have originated during a bread shortage in either the first or second siege. Whether fully accurate or not, these stories reflect the enduring “Turkish influence and fear” in Austrian culture.
By the 19th century, the Ottoman perception of Vienna had changed entirely. Vienna joined Paris, London and Berlin as one of the European cities to which the empire sent students for education. Ottoman students began arriving there in 1835 and studied German as well as military science, engineering, medicine and other fields.
Ultimately, Vienna—the city the Ottomans called their “Red Apple”—could not be conquered despite two sieges. In later centuries, however, it came to be perceived as a model city.
At the same time, the fact that Ottoman armies marched more than 2,000 kilometers from Istanbul to besiege Vienna left a profound mark on the city’s collective memory. Traces of that history can still be seen throughout Vienna today.
Sources: Gökyay, O. Ş. (1986), “On the Red Apple,” Tarih ve Toplum, Nos. 25, 26, 27 and 28; Beydilli, K. (2013), “Vienna,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 43, pp. 113–119; Öztuna, Y. (1979), “The First Siege of Vienna,” Tarih ve Edebiyat Dergisi, No. 9, pp. 11–16; Savaşkurt, A. (1999), “The First Siege of Vienna,” Belgelerle Türk Tarihi Mecmuası, No. 27, pp. 47–57; Millar, S. (2015), Vienna 1683, Istanbul: İş Bankası Publications; Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Symposium, Ankara, 2001, Merzifon Foundation; The Book of Travels of Evliya Çelebi, Istanbul, 2003, Yapı Kredi, Vol. VII; Bakıcı, A. (2019), “Evliya Çelebi’s Impressions of Vienna and His Approach to the Visual Arts Through the Concept of ‘Freng-Pesend,’” Türkoloji Araştırmaları Dergisi, No. 4, pp. 61–82; Tezcan, S. (2013), “Vienna, the Red Apple: The Extinguishing of a Hope,” Cahiers balkaniques, No. 41, pp. 2–13; Kaçan Erdoğan, M. (2001), The Second Siege of Vienna, doctoral dissertation, Marmara University Institute of Turkic Studies, Istanbul.
Keywords: Vienna, the Ottoman Empire, the Red Apple.
