WWI Serbia / The Serbian Golgotha 1915/1916 / Srpska Golgota / "Where the Yellow Lemon Blooms" / "Gde Cveta Limun Zut"

A remarkable historical documentary, with a combination of historical and modern footage and actors, produced by Kosutnjak Film, tells the story of the amazing Serbian Golgotha of 1915/1916 during World War One. The film has been posted on YouTube in 11 parts. All 11 parts can be viewed below. The narration is in the Serbian language with English subtitles.


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Kosutnjak Film presents...

Gde Cveta Limun Zut // Where the Yellow Lemon Blooms

2008

Produced by:


Zoran Jankovic
Slobodan Terzic




Screenplay by


Milovan Vitezovic
Zdravko Shotra


Narrated by Dragan Nikolic


Part 1 of 11




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BT2Ry2_bok


Part 2 of 11




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yzm22n7ZQA


Part 3 of 11




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nga-vEkLnlM


Part 4 of 11




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lrYFec9uCY


Part 5 of 11




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx6Hul__ZlQ


Part 6 of 11




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFGJksUTlak


Part 7 of 11



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20uyjhsO_Y4


Part 8 of 11



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYl0d_JfPVo


Part 9 of 11




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kz7KrDSo4


Part 10 of 11



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnCPYkfuu-M


Part 11 of 11

The Conclusion of

"Where the Yellow Lemon Blooms"




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIBS4V86gEs



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If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at heroesofserbia@yahoo.com


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SERBIAN ORTHODOX HOLY LITURGY / SVETA LITURGIJA

The following beautiful video was posted on "YouTube" by "xCZ99x"







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSxFU3bszzg



*****

If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at heroesofserbia@yahoo.com




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"World War One in Serbia" / "Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji" - An 8 part series on "YouTube"

Alex, my Serbian friend in Belgrade has made me aware of this wonderful 8 part series on "YouTube" called "World War One in Serbia" ("Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji"), posted by "Radeta".

This series is comprised of both live footage and photos. It is narrated in the English language with Serbian subtitles in "Latinica".

My friend said this about "World War One in Serbia" and I concur wholeheartedly:


"Below is a MUST SEE movie about Serbia in World War One. In English, with Serbian subtitles. I love my little, but proud and freedom loving country. FOR SERBS, FREEDOM HAS NO PRICE. The unimaginable suffering of Serbia in WW 1 and its astonishing sacrifice for freedom is UNPARALLELED IN HUMAN HISTORY. In 1918, the Serbian flag flew over the White House as a sign of American gratitude. That, my friends, was the glorious Kingdom of Serbia!"


Thank you, Alex! And thank you "Radeta" for sharing this with the world!  Glorious indeed!


Sincerely,

Aleksandra Rebic


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Part 1 of 8 / "World War One in Serbia" / "Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji"





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eODLtDz4IM


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Part 2 of 8 / "World War One in Serbia" / "Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji"







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSVjLcjSHq4


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Part 3 of 8 / "World War One in Serbia" / "Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji"







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBrKAH51sYg


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Part 4 of 8 / "World War One in Serbia" / "Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji"






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USuxRwJmyJw


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Part 5 of 8 / "World War One in Serbia" / "Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji"







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvGeWbdsvK4


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Part 6 of 8 / "World War One in Serbia" / "Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji"






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMbb1dYhWE4


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Part 7 of 8 / "World War One in Serbia" / "Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji"






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPzvPsI4lXw


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Part 8 of 8 / "World War One in Serbia" / "Prvi svetski rat u Srbiji"






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJzDOVZzoHk


THE END.


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Thank you for visiting. If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at heroesofserbia@yahoo.com


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Dr. Elizabeth Ross - the Scottish saint of Serbia

By Emma Cowing

The Scotsman

February 5, 2010

Photo of Dr. Elizabeth Ross

courtesy of Glasgow University Archive Services

JUST AFTER 11am on St Valentine's Day, a long procession of official cars will wind its way through the main street of the Serbian town of Kragujevac towards the city cemetery.

At the gate the occupants, expected to include Stephen Wordsworth, the British Ambassador to Serbia, and the town mayor Veroljub Stevanovic, will disembark and make their way towards one of the snow-covered graves to pay their respects. The grave is distinctive not only because it marks the resting place of three young women, but because some of the words on it are in English. On the largest, the headstone reads 'Here lies Dr Elizabeth Ross'. Underneath in Serbian, it says: 'They gave their hearts to the people of Serbia'.

It is 95 years since Ross, a doctor from Tain and one of the first women in Scotland to gain a medical degree, died of typhus in a military hospital in Kragujevac, where she had been treating Serb First World War casualties. Yet today, her name in Serbia is a byword for courage and bravery, emblazoned upon street signs, taught to schoolchildren, and celebrated every 14 February – the anniversary of her death – in numerous similar ceremonies across Serbia.


"She sacrificed herself for them," says Louise Miller, a writer who has extensively researched Ross's life, and those of other women like her who chose to travel to the frontline from Britain during the First World War. "The Serbs just think that a sacrifice like that is worth remembering."


Ross was born in Tain in 1878 into a progressive, adventurous family. Her father was a banker and her brother, David, worked for many years in Japan with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. She had four sisters, one of whom was a professor of maths and science who spent many years in India, another who was a secretary for an explosives company in Glasgow, and a third who was also a qualified doctor, working in York. The fourth became a farmer.


Ross's 86-year-old niece Edith Ross, who lives quietly in Tain surrounded by the memories of her extraordinary family, says they were remarkably modern for the times.


"Elizabeth's parents were very broadminded," she says. "They believed in women having the same chance of education as men. My mother, who ran a poultry farm, was the only one of the women in the family to get married. The rest were very focused on their careers."


After school, Ross went to Queen Margaret College in Glasgow to study medicine. She graduated in 1901, one of the first women in the country to do so.


"She was pioneering in that respect because you had to be incredibly strong-willed to get a medical degree at the time if you were a woman," says Miller. "Women weren't permitted access to clinical studies, they were segregated from the men, and a lot of the teachers didn't even believe they should be taught in the first place."


After her graduation, Ross worked briefly as a doctor in Tain, before becoming the medical officer for the island of Colonsay. But her family's adventurous spirit clearly ran in her veins, and she was soon on her way to Persia – now Iran – where she worked as an assistant to an Armenian physician. While there she spent time in the Iranian mountains working with the powerful Bakhtiara tribe, who were so impressed with her they made her a chieftainess. Edith still has a photograph of her aunt dressed in the traditional ceremonial dress, smoking a long hookah.


"Part of her job was to be a doctor to a harem of women," says Edith with a giggle. "She really liked the women and they just adored her."


Returning to Scotland for a break, Ross caught sight of a newspaper advert looking for a ship's surgeon. "The ship was going to India and Japan so she applied for this post, got it, and off she went," says Edith.


She is now believed to have been the world's first female ship's surgeon, and although Ross is thought to have loved it ("She sent the family short postcards," says Edith, "she never said too much") there was something about Persia that drew her back, and she returned to work there just before the outbreak of the First World War in September 1914.


"There was a desperate need for doctors and nurses in Serbia at the outset of the war," says Miller. "The country only had 400 doctors and most of them had been allocated to the military. Serbia was the first country to be attacked by Austro-Hungary and the hospitals were full of wounded Serbians and Austro-Hungarians. It was an absolutely desperate situation."


With other projects such as the Scottish Womens Hospitals, which were travelling to the region at the same time, just getting up and running, Ross felt she had to do what she could to help. "Elizabeth heard of the need and left Persia as soon as she could," says Miller. "She borrowed money from an old servant in order to make the trip."


When she arrived in late January 1915, she immediately volunteered to go and work in a typhus hospital in Kragujevac, rather than a Scottish Womens Hospital which had been set up not far away.


"She knew she really hadn't much of a chance of surviving because typhus was rife and they didn't know at that time what caused it," says Edith.


"The place was in a dreadful mess when she arrived and there were no nurses. They would put two single beds together and put three patients in them. Some of the nurses from the Scottish Womens Hospital came to visit her and said 'Dr Ross, I don't know how you can bear to work here', and she just said 'well, somebody's got to do it'. "


In the end, she survived less than three weeks. "She was probably bitten by one of the women she walked onto the ward," says Miller.


Ross died on 14 February 1915. She was 37 years old. For many years, she was remembered quietly, both by her family and by those in Serbia whom she had helped. Then, in 1977, the local Red Cross in Kragujevac was given some money, and decided to use it to restore Ross's grave. She is buried next to two British nurses who also died in Serbia of typhus, Mabel Dearmer and Lorna Ferriss. Altogether, 22 British women lost their lives to typhus in Serbia during the First World War, attempting to aid wounded soldiers.


In the early 1980s, after the graves had been restored, the town started holding commemorations at the graveside, and over the years they began to gather momentum, attracting bigger crowds, and becoming an important date in the town's calendar. Meanwhile similar celebrations started to spring up across Serbia.


"What is really quite remarkable is that even during the NATO bombings they continued doing it, and it just got bigger and bigger," says Miller. The ceremony now attracts hundreds every year, including a wealth of local dignitaries. The youth movement of the local Red Cross is now the Dr Elizabeth Ross Society, and every year its members attend the ceremony wearing T-shirts with Ross's graduation picture emblazoned on the front. Elsewhere in the town there is even an Elizabeth Ross Street. It is a remarkable canonisation for a woman who felt she was just doing her job.


"The Serbs admire her for her remarkable courage," says Miller. "She went into this military hospital to take over six typhus wards in the full knowledge that she would probably die just a few weeks later. The majority of people in Serbia have had a really tough time of it and Elizabeth's story is a thread that links them to their remarkable history. And it's a history they hope for as well – working hand in hand with their allies."


This 14 February, before the Orthodox priest starts to chant and sprinkle incense over the grave, and a poignant reading of the Lord's Prayer – in English – is given, Miller will give a talk at the ceremony about Ross, and the other women who came to the frontline to treat wounded Serbs. "It's one of these things I think will just continue to get bigger," she says. "These ceremonies happen across Serbia, this is just the biggest one."


Meanwhile, Edith, who is now too old too travel to Serbia, will be at home in Tain. She has created an album of pictures and writings about Ross, and often flips through it.


"She was exceptionally intelligent and very, very brave," says Edith. "She had a real sense of adventure."


Recently, some of the Serbs responsible for the ceremony commemorating her famous aunt asked Edith if she wanted to attend the celebrations.

She laughs. "I said no. I had to explain I wasn't quite as brave as my Aunt Elizabeth."

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http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/features/Dr-Elizabeth-Ross--the.6045806.jp


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If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at heroesofserbia@yahoo.com


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The British pay Tribute to the Serbs - The Guardians of the Gate

Aleksandra’s Note: “The Serbs - The Guardians of the Gate” by R.G.D. Laffan is an old, wonderful book that documents the views of a Briton on the Serbians. Originally published in England in 1918, the book was also published in 1989 in the United States by Dorset Press, New York, a division of Marboro Books Corporation. The 1989 publication, which was given to me as a gift by the late Professor Alex Dragnich in 1994, does not contain the original Foreword  written by Vice-Admiral E. T. Troubridge, C.B., C.M.G. that was included in the 1918 publication. I wanted to include that Foreword by E.T. Troubridge here.

In researching the history of the Serbians, the “old” books, now often out of print but still available if you search for them, are invaluable. Given the particularly volatile relationship the Serbs have had with the British over the years, it’s important to consider just how highly the Brits regarded the Serbs BEFORE the poison of Communism and political expediency entered into and compromised that relationship.

R.G.D. Laffan was one of several Britons who publicly shared their experiences with the Serbs in World War One and documented them in print. I’m very grateful that they did so, because what they had to say was from the heart and reflects an image of the Serbians as the people and the heroes that they really were.

Aleksandra Rebic
January 24, 2010

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THE SERBS - THE GUARDIANS OF THE GATE

Oxford University Press
London Edinburgh Glasgow New Tork
Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay
Humphrey Milford Publisher to the University
1918

HISTORICAL LECTURES ON THE SERBS
BY R. G. D. LAFFAN, C.F.

FELLOW OF QUEENS' COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

WITH A FOREWORD BY VICE-ADMIRAL E. T. TROUBRIDGE C.B., C.M.G.

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1918
_________



FOREWORD by Vice-Admiral E.T. Troubridge


"The Serbians are a people but little known in Great Britain. This extremely interesting book by the Rev. R. G. D, Laffan, C.F. will, I am confident, help our nation to understand them better, and, in understanding, to appreciate the sterling qualities that underlie their national character.


I have lived among the Serbians during the past three years, in days, and under circumstances, which encourage the revelation of every human attribute: in the days immediately following their first success, when they triumphantly flung out of Serbia the 'Punitive expedition' of their powerful neighbour and relentless enemy: in long and weary days of tenacious defence: in the days of overwhelming and treacherous attack upon them, with hope of succour growing less and less: in days of terrible marches in a fighting retreat through their beloved country under moral and physical conditions surely never paralleled in the history of any nation: in the days of regeneration of all that was left of them: and finally in days of eager and reckless fighting to regain that which they had lost. The qualities which they have displayed throughout these fateful years should especially appeal to the inhabitants of our Empire.


A love of freedom and country as deeply implanted as our own. A loyalty to friends that does not falter under the greatest temptation, and a chivalry so innate that hundreds of our countrywomen could walk hundreds of miles through a great army in a harassed retreat, through a fleeing peasantry in a disorganized and strange land, and yet fear no evil.


From such experiences a judgment can be formed; I permit myself, with the Serbians, to believe in a Serbia great and flourishing in the future, pursuing her national development and ideals in peace and quietness, bound to
Great Britain in the closest ties of friendship, and once more — as for centuries past — holding the gate of freedom of life, of freedom of thought, against the sinister forces of moral enslavement.


Serbia has indeed well and bravely answered the great question He asked: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'"

E. T. Troubridge
1918

_______________________

 PREFACE to


“The Serbs – The Guardians of the Gate”


by R.G.D. Laffan, C.F.




"To pass away the winter evenings in the early months of 1917 I gave a series of lectures on modern Serbian history to the scattered companies of the A.S.C. (M.T.), who are attached to the Serbian Army. Many of the men of the companies showed great interest in the subject, and, as we approached the end of the course, a number of them asked me to publish the lectures. So I have written the following chapters from the lecture-notes, intending them primarily as a souvenir for those who are now with the Serbs, but also in the hope that they may serve to spread sympathy for our heroic but little-known allies.


The title, “The Guardians of the Gate”, is borrowed from a phrase applied to the Serbs by several speakers, in particular by Mr. Lloyd George [British Prime Minister] in his speech on August 8. It is a summary of the services which the Serbs have always done their best to render to Christendom : for their country is, indeed, one of the gateways of civilized Europe. Despite their unhappy divisions and their weakness in numbers they have never ceased to struggle against the barbarisms of Turkestan and Berlin, which at different times have threatened to overflow the Western nations and the Mediterranean lands.


The lectures did not attempt a detailed survey of even recent years, and their publication may seem superfluous in view of the number of books lately produced on Balkan topics. Yet attention in England has been so largely and naturally directed to the west of Europe and to Russia that it is still possible to encounter the most complete ignorance of the Eastern Question. There are many who have a working knowledge of the great nations of Europe who still could scarcely distinguish between a Sandjak and a Dardanelle, or say off-hand whether the Balkan peoples were Christians or worshippers of Mumbo Jumbo. And the history of south- eastern Europe in the present century is so obscure in its details that there is much excuse for those who could not be bothered to understand it. Yet the vital interests of the British Empire are so bound up with the Near East that every effort should be made to present British readers with facts on which an opinion may be based. Not that it is yet possible to write the history of such recent years or of so complicated a subject with the scientific and impartial accuracy of the true historian. For that we must wait until the dust of conflict has cleared and the passions of the moment have subsided. Meanwhile, these lectures are offered as a provisional and tentative examination of the triumphs, disasters, and ambitions of the Serbs.


The chief difficulty in the way of gathering historical material during a campaign in the uplands of Macedonia consists in the lack of books. Especially has this been true of books giving the views of our enemies. However, I have read everything upon which I could lay my hands, and the lack of printed matter has been perhaps, to some extent, balanced by the advantage of meeting with and questioning numerous Serbian officers and others who know the Balkans well..."


R. G. D. LAFFAN


Head-quarters,
M.T. Units with Royal Serbian Army,
British Salonika Force.
September 19, 1917


INTRODUCTION TO THE LECTURES
AS DELIVERED BY R.G.D. LAFFAN




"When we arrived at Salonika last summer, most of us were entirely ignorant of the Balkan peninsula. Since then we have lived and worked in Macedonia, and I believe that you have formed no very high opinion of the country; which is not surprising when we remember that it has been the most troubled and insecure part of the Balkans for the last forty years. We are still more than vague about the inhabitants, the states, the economic condition and the history of the peninsula. But one thing we have all learned. We have been in close touch with the Serbian soldier, and we admire and love him. He has been a revelation to us of the charm of a people very unlike ourselves.

In the past most Englishmen, who have spoken to me about the Balkans, have expressed very decided views. Nine out of ten have said that all the Balkan nations were as bad as each other; that, as between Turks and Christians, it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; that all were savages and cut-throats and past praying for. The tenth man has usually been a philanthropic crank, who would only see good points in his own pet Balkan nation, and who wished to make it by industrialization and party politics into an imitation of Great Britain.


Now, when we return to England, we shall, at any rate, be in a position to declare that we found one Balkan race, the Serbs, to consist of the best of fellows. Our companies have had Serbs attached to them, as guards or drivers, and very sorry we were when they were withdrawn. Though most of us could not say anything to them except 'Dobro' (‘Good’), we managed to understand them, and to make ourselves understood. They were always cheerful, kindly, helpful, with a skill in many handicrafts that made camp-life more comfortable for themselves and us. And I think we may flatter ourselves that they liked us and our ways, and found the British character sympathetic with their own.


But, though first-hand acquaintance with some Serbs is essential to any knowledge of the people, I believe that you would like also to understand something of the nation's past and of the mental background from which the Serbs view the world. It is for that reason that I have undertaken to deliver these lectures. They will deal with the history of the Serbs in recent times; because it is impossible to understand the characteristics and point of view of a people, especially a people so nationalist and traditionalist as the Serbs, apart from their history…


…It will be necessary throughout to remember that the Serbs look back with pride to the great days of their independence in the Middle Ages, and to their empire which once embraced the whole Balkan peninsula, except southern Greece and the coast-towns.


They were a great people six hundred years ago. Never have they been more glorious than in their present humiliation, exile, and disruption. But, please God, that spiritual glory which encircles them to-day will soon be expressed in the 'outward and visible signs' of material greatness, and they will again take their place among the mighty nations of the earth."



R.G.D. Laffan



"The Serbs - The Guardians of the Gate"

1918

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If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at heroesofserbia@yahoo.com


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In honor of Sveti Jovan Krsna Slava (St. John the Baptist) / "We Magnify Thee, O Lifegiver Christ" by the Valaam Choir

In honor of this day, January 20th, 2010, which is the Serbian Orthodox Krsna Slava of Sveti Jovan (St. John the Baptist), I'm sharing this beautiful Serbian Chant, We Magnify Thee, O Lifegiver Christ, sung by the St. Petersburg Valaam Metochion Choir at the St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, D.C. in 2002.  Sveti Jovan was the Krsna Slava of my beloved maternal grandparents, Andja and Timotije, my Baka and Deka.

Enjoy.

Aleksandra Rebic


We Magnify Thee, O Lifegiver Christ







Posted by "gtrubetskoy" on "You Tube" at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh_kanfUmVE


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If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at heroesofserbia@yahoo.com

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"Siege of the Moles" // How a Christian Serb helped save Vienna from the Moslem Turks

By John Godwin

MILITARY HISTORY, October 2001



"Siege of the Moles"




The high tide of Ottoman expansion to the west saw the Turks burrowing underground in an attempt to take Vienna.

They had swept down from the steppes of Turkestan in Central Asia, calling themselves the Ottoman Turks. And during that chill, rainy summer of 1529, they represented the gravest peril Europe had faced in a thousand years, worse even than Attila’s Huns in the 5th century. Attila’s hordes had been barbarian primitives - these new invaders were more advanced and sophisticated than the Western nations in many dangerous ways, particularly in the military sphere.

Named after their first sultan, Osman, the Ottoman Turks settled in what is now Anatolia, in Asia Minor. At a glance they seemed no different from other tribes of wild horsemen in that region. But the Turks possessed two outstanding attributes that made them natural conquerors: They were excellent administrators, and they were very fast learners. The first enabled them to absorb neighboring peoples. The second gave them a rapid grasp of whatever sciences into which they came in contact - engineering, architecture, medicine, astronomy and the use of gunpowder.


In the 14th century, the Turks crossed the Dardanelles Strait into Europe and proceeded to overrun the entire Balkan Peninsula. Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians and Albanians all came under their domination. And in the process they created what was probably the most remarkable armed force in history.

The Turks were fervent Muslims. But they allowed Christians and Jews in their realm complete freedom of worship, providing they paid a special head tax imposed on all “infidels.” The bitterly poor mountain folk of the Balkans had no money for taxes, so they were charged a “blood tribute” instead. This consisted of the biggest and strongest adolescent boys from each village, who were taken to the capital to become personal slaves of the sultan. What they actually became were janissaries (“new troops”).


The boys, who had grown up in miserable shacks and reared on dry bread and onions, were housed in palaces with carpeted floors and marble bathing pools, with the choicest delicacies as daily rations. Their filthy, verminous rags were exchanged for silken robes. As the Venetian traveler Marcus Stinetti wrote: “Those youths whom I chanced to address believed they had entered paradise by accepting slavery.”

But there was a reverse side to all this luxury. The young men were placed under the harshest possible military discipline and put through staged exercises nearly as fierce as actual battles. Every drill left dead bodies on the parade ground; the slightest show of hesitation was savagely punished. Within months the janissary recruits were turned into robots who would march in ranks over a cliff if ordered.


Though the boys were not compelled to change their religion, they soon learned that conversion to Islam might earn them unlimited promotions - all the way up to commanding general or grand vizier (prime minister). Slavery was no obstacle. They filled most government positions and often grew into fabulously rich slave owners themselves. Most of them converted readily and became more fanatical Muslims than the Turks.

The janissaries were so proud of their superior rations that they used cooking utensils as badges of rank and cauldrons instead of regimental standards. They also adopted a peculiar type of martial music: rolling drums accompanied by shrill, wailing flutes. This was the origin of the fife and drum bands, which Western armies later copied. By the 15th century, those sounds evoked sheer terror, even from a long distance, because the janissaries committed unspeakable atrocities among civilian populations. They were kept away from women in peacetime and forced to live like military monks, but campaigns meant freedom to do anything, especially to unbelievers. The results were mass rapes of young girls and boys, torture, massacres and the systematic devastation of entire countrysides. The sight of the blue tunics and tall, white woolen hats of the janissaries resulted in panicked flight wherever they appeared.


With these new soldiers, Turkey possessed the only regular standing army of the period, and an elite force at that. European countries still depended on mercenaries who had to be raised for every campaign, or feudal levies that were notoriously unreliable. The janissaries were all infantry, but to support them, the Turks built up an artillery arm such as the world had never before seen.


In 1453, the Turks moved on Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire and the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church - the “Second Rome.” Its citizens fought desperately while the Turkish guns pounded their walls to rubble, sending out frantic pleas for help to all Christian nations. None came - they were too busy warring among themselves to respond. Constantinople fell, and the sultan rode his blood-spattered horse into the venerable cathedral of St. Sophia, to proclaim the city his new capital - today’s Istanbul.


From then on, the Ottoman Empire spread with the speed of a forest fire. It reached from Egypt and the Sudan in the south to the Crimea and Ukraine in the north; from Syria, Mesopotamia and Palestine in the east to Bosnia in the west. Its subject peoples included Russians, Tartars, Arabs, Persians, Armenians and Jews, black Nubians and blond Dalmatians. The Turks themselves were a minority. With every new province the stream of tribute money and the number of available soldiers swelled; all were at the command of the sultan in Constantinople. The empire resembled an avalanche that grew in weight and velocity the farther it rolled.


Part 2. Suleiman II


The 10th sultan, Suleiman II, ascended to the Ottoman throne in 1520. The Turks called him “the Lawgiver,” but to foreigners he was Suleiman the Magnificent. His court, the Seraglio, comprised an entire town within the capital, housing approximately 9,000 people and boasting water fountains that danced to music and ponds of goldfish with tiny jewels attached to their fins. His harem contained 300 slave concubines representing every race and nationality in his realm.


Suleiman was the son of a Tartar harem slave. He spoke eight languages fluently, wrote exquisite Persian poetry and composed lute music as a hobby - none of which prevented him from being one of the most ruthless warlords of his age. He enjoyed battle as much as philosophical debate and led his armies personally on horseback. His grand vizier was a Greek slave named Ibrahim, an accomplished violinist who went on campaign with him and, it was rumored, frequently shared his bed. Suleiman, in other words, was the classic Renaissance prince, an Oriental counterpart to the Borgias in Rome, but infinitely more powerful.


The Venetian envoy Ottaviano Bon described Suleiman as “tall and thin, with a smoky complexion and an aquiline nose above drooping mustaches. His hands were finely boned but exceedingly strong, and it is said that he can pull the tautest bowstring in the army. On his head he wore a wide oval turban with an aigrette of peacock feathers, held in place by a clasp of diamonds. His voice was sweet and pleasing, though he never smiled during our discourse.”


Suleiman was kept fully informed about the bitter feuds among the Western powers, several of which secretly sought his aid. He also knew that the rise of Protestantism was tearing Christianity apart. The time seemed ripe for a final westward push by the forces of Islam.


The Turkish assault troops took the important border fortress of Belgrade with almost playful ease. Then Suleiman’s army, 100,000 strong, advanced into Hungary, the gateway to Central Europe. King Lajos II of Hungary was a brave, handsome and extremely stupid young man; he ordered the Turkish ambassadors hanged when they came to demand his submission. Calling for help from other Christian monarchs, Lajos scraped together some 25,000 noble knights and retainers. From his royal colleagues he received fair promises and not a single soldier. In August 1526, he met the Ottomans at Mohacs and was not so much defeated as obliterated. King Lajos and 24,000 of his men were killed in the battle. Hungary became yet another Turkish province.


Suleiman appointed a Transylvanian governor named Janos Zapolya as puppet king of Hungary, and it says a great deal about the state of that country that Zapolya and thousands of Hungarians fought fiercely for the Turks from then on. They had been so cruelly oppressed and impoverished by their own nobles that they felt better off under the sultan.


It took the Ottomans just three years to digest Hungary. Then Suleiman began preparations for the next meal: Austria. King Ferdinand I von Hapsburg of Austria had protested against crowning of the puppet ruler Zapolya. Suleiman sent him a brief and ominous reply via courier: “Tell the king that I will meet him on the field at Mohacs. If he is not there I will come to Vienna and fetch him.


In the spring of 1529, the bulk of the Turkish army started massing in Bulgaria. Joined by their auxiliaries, they comprised the largest armed force ever in Europe - more than 330,000 men, 500 guns and 90,000 camels. They included 20,000 of the crack janissaries and 6,000 Christian Hungarians. Suleiman led this mass, with Ibrahim acting as seraskier (field commander, as distinct from commander in chief). It was a signal honor, since grand viziers, being politicians, usually stayed home.

Part 3. Ottoman Invasion


That spring it rained as it hadn’t rained in living memory. Day after day, week after week the torrents came down, turning the countryside into one vast morass. The Balkan roads became quagmires, the rivers burst their banks and swept away what bridges existed. The camels - creatures of the dry desert - could not gain a foothold in the slippery mud, stumbled, broke their legs and lay down to die by the thousands.


There was no way Suleiman could transport his heavy artillery under these conditions. He therefore decided to leave the big pieces behind - all 200 of them - and push on with only the light field guns. Ibrahim warned him against that move and advised him to postpone the campaign until the following year. Suleiman would not hear of it. Determined to take Vienna that summer, he replied, “It is beneath my dignity to allow the weather to interfere with my plans.”


The sultan banked on the thousands of highly skilled Romanian and Serbian miners in his ranks to reduce the town through mining operations. It was his first - and fatal - mistake in the war. Another soon followed. Suleiman was suffering from hubris, the delusion of invincibility that has broken so many conquerors in the past and would undo so many more in future.


When his army reached Pest, opposite Buda on the Danube, the sultan offered its small German garrison a safe retreat if the soldiers would evacuate the stronghold.The Germans accepted and marched out between two lines of jeering janissaries. But from mutual insults the two sides came to blows, then to cold steel. Within half an hour the Turks killed every man of the garrison, then turned on the town and sabered most of the inhabitants as well.


Word of the massacre spread and acted as a terrible warning for the Austrians not to trust the sultan’s promises. For Suleiman the episode held a different, equally ominous warning - that he couldn’t control the janissaries once they went on a rampage.


Icy fear gripped Vienna as the Turks drew closer. Ferdinand - whose actual title was archduke of Austria, king of Hungary and Bohemia - appealed to his mighty brother, Charles V, emperor of Germany and king of Spain. But Charles was engaged fighting the French in Italy and did not have the resources for a two-front war. Ferdinand, probably remembering King Lajos’ fate, scuttled off to the safety of Bohemia, leaving the Viennese to fend for themselves.


Fortunately for the Austrian capital, some help did arrive. The most valuable came in the person of Nicolas Graf von Salm, a cool, thoroughly experienced professional soldier, 70 years old but steady as a rock. Salm was too low on the nobility scale to be given top command - that went to a Duke Frederick, who gladly let Salm do all the work involved. With him arrived about 1,000 German Landsknechte - formidable, well-trained mercenary pikemen - and 700 Spaniards who were armed with the new-fangled wheel-lock muskets, which fired faster than the old Turkish matchlocks.


Salm took charge of a garrison of 23,000 infantry and 2,000 mounted cuirassiers, plus a total of 75 cannons - a sorry handful compared to the Ottoman host. He inspected the defenses and found them in a miserable state. Vienna was not very large, consisting only of those inner city portions that are today enclosed by the chain of boulevards called “the Ring.” Near the center towered the ancient cathedral of St. Stephen’s, and all around clustered a maze of narrow, crooked, foul-smelling alleys, sprinkled with innumerable taverns and a few grandiose palaces. The city walls were 300 years old and in very bad repair. They were pierced by four gates, the obvious danger points.


Part 4. Defenses


Salm methodically set about preparing the city for a siege. He had fireproof magazines dug, threw up earthwork bastions for the defenders to stand on and used paving stones to erect a second wall of sorts. He tore the inflammable shingles off the roofs and heavily palisaded the four gateways. Every building beyond the walls that might provide cover for the attackers was demolished. For his command post he chose the looming spire of St. Stephen’s, an extremely risky location, but one that gave him the widest possible view of the battlefield.


In order to save precious food supplies, Salm ordered 4,000 women, children and old people evacuated from the city in an escorted column. That turned out to be a tragic error, for by then the Turkish advance horsemen were swarming all over lower Austria, and at the village of Traismauer they swooped down on the convoy. They spared only young women who could be raped and then carried off to be sold as slaves. All the rest, including infants, were butchered, some spitted alive on sharpened stakes. Among the worst perpetrators were Zapolya’s Hungarian scouts.


From the city walls the sentries could see the smoke of burning villages all around them. The Turks were scorching everything in their path, slaughtering or carrying off an estimated half of the peasant population. But it was not until late September, two months behind schedule, that the main body of the Ottoman army reached Vienna.


Overnight the city found itself surrounded by a mass of white tents stretching as far as the eye could see, all the way to the heights of Semmering Mountain. It was an awesome sight and helped to disguise the fact that things were not well with the Turkish army. Roughly one-third of its troops were spahis, light cavalry of very limited use in siege warfare. Of the initial 90,000 pack camels, barely 20,000 remained, and those were in bad shape. The same applied to the men, who had been drenched to the skin for months and were coughing so loudly that the sound drowned out the camp preparations.


Suleiman dispatched couriers with a demand for surrender. “I expect to sup in the city on the last day of September,” his message ran. “If Vienna capitulates only my dignitaries will enter and all will be spared. If you resist, the place will be razed to the ground and all therein put to the sword.” Salm sent the couriers back courteously enough, but minus any reply.


At dawn the following day, 300 cannons opened up on the city, maintaining a steady fire until dusk. The Turkish gunners displayed exemplary discipline; they had managed to keep their powder reserves dry in the torrential rains, and they loaded and fired faster than any Western artillerymen. The bombardment, however, was fairly futile. The heavy pieces, left behind in Bulgaria, would have cracked the walls, but the stone projectiles of the light field guns simply splattered, though at high elevation they curved over the walls and damaged houses. Several lodged in the tower of St. Stephen’s, where they can still be seen by visitors. Salm remained calmly at his post, remarking to an aide, “These pebbles are like the little pills my medico bids me swallow.”

With the balls came showers of arrows fired over the walls. The crescent-shaped Tartar bows used by the Turks were vicious weapons that could propel their arrows through chain mail or iron helmets. But again, these were typical field armament - against fortifications they had only nuisance value.

The defenders’ response was a sudden sally by 100 cavalry that took the Turks by surprise. The horsemen, commanded by the daredevil Eck von Reischach, rode over two gun emplacements, cut down the crews and were back behind the walls before the besiegers could block their retreat. Vienna was holding its own ....for the moment at least.

Part 5. War Underground


The bombardment continued for days, without any sign of a massed attack. But on October 1, a Serbian engineer who claimed Christian parentage sneaked into the town and conveyed some very disturbing information. He said that the cannonade was merely a ploy to hide the real preparations that were proceeding underground. The Turks were digging mine shafts on both sides of the Carinthian Gate, intending to blow up the structure to open the way for their assault troops.


Salm knew all about mine warfare and immediately took countermeasures. He had drums scattered with dried peas and buckets of water placed in the cellars near the walls and posted sentries beside them. The moment the peas rattled or the water showed ripples, the guards sounded the alarm and squads of men began digging down. They found that the Turks were running six different saps, burrowing like moles with astonishing speed.


The counterminers shoveled until they struck the tunnels. Some were deserted, with huge bags of gunpowder stacked and ready to be exploded. The raiders carried them off as booty. In other shafts the work was still going on, and they became scenes of macabre subterranean combat. Neither side dared to fire a shot and could barely see each other by the light of shaded lanterns. The half-naked men fought with picks, spades, daggers and clubs, with bare fists and occasionally their teeth. Wounded men were trampled to death. Comrades killed comrades because they couldn’t distinguish friend from foe. The low, narrow shafts allowed no room to dodge, so every thrust or blow found a target. The survivors crawled back to the surface half crazed, black with earth and covered in blood, looking, as one eyewitness described, like “devils from the nether pit of hell.”


The defenders disarmed most of the saps, but new ones were being dug all the time and not all were discovered. On October 5, two mines exploded with ear-shattering roars at the Salt Gate, tearing holes large enough for a company to march through. The janissaries charged before the dust had settled but ran into a bastion behind the breach. On the bastion stood the Landsknechte armed with 12-foot pikes and halberds. Thrusting down with their long weapons, the pikemen had a distinct advantage over the Turks, who carried only their curved, razor-sharp scimitars. The attack was repulsed with heavy losses. The moment the Turks had withdrawn, the defenders were blocking the breach with sandbags and stone-filled baskets.

That night a new type of raiding party struck the Ottoman camp. This time the raiders came on foot and in utter silence, wearing black cloaks. Each one carried two homemade bombs - earthenware containers filled with powder and chopped lead - which they hurled into the tents. The glowing streaks of the burning fuses were the only warning the sleepers had before the grenades exploded and the lead pellets tore into them. More than 2,000 Turks died in their shredded tents.


The mining and the charges that followed went on day after day, accompanied by gunfire. A huge mine went up under the Carinthian Gate and effectively demolished the twin guard towers. Again the Turks found a bastion already erected behind it, manned by pikemen, Spanish arquebusiers with their wheel locks and Bohemians wielding two-handed swords that could slice an opponent in half. The janissaries piled in, were cut down and climbed over the heaps of dead, only to be slaughtered in turn. When the attackers finally fell back they left a mountain of 1,200 bodies.


The fighting underground took on even more gruesome forms. The counterminers now used spades with sharpened edges, both as digging tools and weapons. A blow could take a man’s head off. The Turks employed short cavalry maces, designed to smash helmets and crack skulls. On one occasion a spark exploded the stored powder prematurely, blowing up friend and foe alike in one indistinguishable mass. Nobody knows just how many men died in these nightmarish clashes beneath the earth.


Part 6. Ottoman Retreat


Watching the battle, Sultan Suleiman could see that his mining operations were too unpredictable to be effective. Most of the mines were emptied before they could be blown. Sometimes the debris fell inward, creating new obstacles instead of clearing them. And the defenders were fighting like men possessed, fully aware that they were the last barrier of Christendom preventing the Muslim tide from flooding Western Europe. They had by now mounted their own guns on reinforced rooftops. Their fire was raking the Turkish camps, ploughing into troop formations and killing scores of horses. Several of their Viennese cannons were so-called royals, which outranged any of the besiegers weapons.


On October 11, the heavens opened again and more rain poured down. Thousands more of the camels subsequently sickened and died. The coughing in the Ottoman army swelled as the campsites became waterlogged. Entire units fell out with fever chills. To make matters worse, food supplies were running low. The Turks had so thoroughly devastated the countryside that it could no longer support hundreds of thousands of hungry men.


Suleiman held a war council in his tent and decided on one final all-out attempt to capture the city. He intended to winter there, then continue the westward march with the coming of spring, when dry roads would enable him to bring up his heavy ordnance. This time the assault formations were reversed. The bashi-bazouks, an inferior militia, would go in first and tire out the defenders by the sheer press of their bodies. Then the janissaries would follow to push through into the city. The attack would be thrice renewed, regardless of the losses. The sultan also decided on the unprecedented step of offering a cash bonus of 1,000 silver aspers for each janissary. This was unheard of - hitherto those elite troops had fought only for loot and for glory, confident that death in battle would gain them immediate entry into heaven.


The attack began on the morning of October 14. Seraskier Ibrahim himself joined the janissaries. The drive was aimed at two points: the ruined Carinthian Gate and a protruding bastion called the Berg. One of the mines failed to blow; the other went off with a thunderous roar, hurling bodies into the air. The Turks surged forward, howling like demons, only to run into more palisades and the terrible rows of long pikes. Count Salm left his lookout position and took personal command. Almost immediately he was hit in the side and leg by stone splinters and had to be carried off. The wounds eventually killed him.


The bashi-bazouks fell back, were whipped forward by their onbashes (sergeants), fell back again, and were again driven toward the menacing spears. Their dead and wounded piled up, but they made no headway. Then the janissaries took over, only to be decimated by musket fire from both flanks. The musketeers rested their weapons on forked stands, which gave them steady aim. The attackers had pistols, but couldn’t use them in the wild press. Those who did mostly hit their own comrades. They charged and charged again, breaking one line of pikes only to be confronted by another. Hand bombs with hissing fuses rained down on them, exploding with terrible effect. Two small field pieces positioned on the Berg spewed grapeshot into the attackers. Mounds of entangled bodies hampered the men advancing from behind, who had to climb over them while musket balls inflicted more casualties.


The janissaries reeled back, though no signal for retreat had been given. Ibrahim used his horsewhip, then his saber to drive them forward, only to be ignored or cursed. For the first time in the 200 years of their existence, the janissaries refused to obey. They flooded to the rear, first in trickles, then in swarms, not stopping until they had reached their tents. Some even began to strike the tents without orders. There was no pursuit.


Part 7. Consequences


During that night the Turks packed up their campsites. The people in Vienna were kept awake by dreadful shrieks coming from the camps. The Ottomans were setting fire to the baggage they couldn’t carry and hurling their bound prisoners into the flames. Hundreds were roasted alive, but hundreds more managed to escape in the confusion and ran toward the city walls. They were hoisted up by ropes. The Viennese refused to open any gates. They couldn’t believe that the danger was over.


The following day the sea of tents around the city had nearly disappeared. Snow began to fall, far too early in the season. The weather that year, more than anything, had saved Vienna. The Turks marched off unhampered after Sultan Suleiman announced solemnly, “Allah, in His wisdom, has not yet permitted us to capture Vienna.” The Ottoman losses were estimated at between 18,000 and 25,000, several times higher than those of the garrison. But civilian casualties had been ghastly - lower Austria was virtually depopulated. In some villages the invaders left pyramids of human heads in place of inhabitants. Thousands of young girls were dragged off to the slave markets and never heard from again.


In Vienna the commanders were at first unable to believe their good fortune. They thought the Ottoman retreat was a feint to put them off guard. They also believed that the Turks had smuggled in scores of spies and saboteurs among the escaped prisoners. The provost marshal, a brute named Wilhelm von Roggendorf, had all the men examined to see whether they were circumcised, to confirm that they were Muslims. Those who bore the mark were hanged immediately. Others were tortured, and while their toes were crushed and their arms torn out of the sockets, a few poor wretches “confessed” to being Turkish agents. They were drawn and quartered in public while the audience cheered.


When the Austrians cautiously entered the Turkish campsites, they found some sacks filled with glistening black beans nobody had ever seen before. A Turkish prisoner explained that this was coffee, imported from Arabia and used by the Muslims as a stimulant, since the Koran forbade them wine. The Viennese brewed the stuff but found it too bitter for their taste. It was only after someone hit on the idea of adding honey that the new drink caught on, with a vengeance. A coffee house - the first such establishment in the West - opened in Vienna the following year.


In retrospect, the defeat at Vienna signaled the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The invincible janissaries had been forced to retreat, and their morale was impaired. The Turks teamed the hard way how dangerous such elite guards can be to their own side. The janissaries grew more and more insubordinate, threatening and occasionally murdering their monarchs. Instead of the janissaries being slaves of the sultan, the sultan frequently became their prisoner.


For Suleiman, Vienna marked another kind of decline. He remained the Magnificent, but fell under the strange domination of a harem beauty. Little is known about her, not even her real name. The courtiers called her Roxelana, meaning “the Russian,” or Khurrem, the “Laughing One.” Her laughter, however, concealed a poisonous intent. Whatever the reason for the power she wielded over her master, she induced Suleiman to have his devoted grand vizier Ibrahim strangled, followed by his eldest son, Mustapha, a promising young heir. Roxelana contrived instead to gain the succession for her own offspring, Selim II. He was a warped creature nicknamed “the Sot,” a confirmed alcoholic despite the Islamic ban on liquor.


Selim took over after Suleiman’s death in 1566, and from then on the realm went steadily downhill. The Turks never produced another capable sultan, though there were many cruel ones. Their military prowess declined decade by decade as the Western nations rapidly improved their armaments and organization. The Turks still counted as a major power; they even staged another - disastrous - siege of Vienna in 1683. But as a menace to Europe they were finished the rainy night they folded their tents and retreated into the Balkans.



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Australian-born John Godwin is a former reporter for Murdoch Press, living in San Francisco, Calif., whose books include Alcatraz, Murder USA, Unsolved and a dozen of the Frommer Dollar-a-Day travel guides. For further reading, he recommends: The Battles That Changed History, by Fletcher Pratt; and The Wanderer, by Mika Waltari.



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If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at heroesofserbia@yahoo.com


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