In the summer of 1683, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa's 150,000-strong army surrounded the Austrian capital. For two months, 16,000 defenders repelled continuous assaults and waged brutal warfare in the narrow tunnels beneath the bastions. The outcome of this monumental campaign was decided not only by the sabers of King Sobieski's Polish hussars, but also by a gunpowder fuse intercepted in the darkness. This investigation reveals a minute-by-minute chronicle of events, the logistical crisis of the besiegers, and the precise engineering calculations that forever halted the sultans' advance westward.

Siege of Vienna 1683, Battle of Vienna, Jan Sobieski, Kara Mustafa, Winged Hussars, Ottoman Empire, history of wars, Habsburgs