Chapter 1593: Someone's Trying to Rob a Bank!

Hungary, Győr Fortress.

The three-horsetail banner of the Ottoman Empire's Grand Vizier Mustafa Köprülü flew high above this great bastion fort.

Column after column of the Ottoman Empire's Janissary warriors were streaming continuously northward along the Danube from the south, passing beneath the majestic fortress walls and marching toward the Austrian border to the north. Moving with them were large numbers of heavy bronze cannon hauled by mules and horses, rumbling along the broad road and grinding two deep ruts into the earth. Those soldiers wearing great hats and long beards, carrying rifled guns imported from the Great Ming, matchlocks of their own making, or other weapons of one sort or another, were advancing at forced-march pace, every one of them panting hard, yet not one of them halted. The long column stretched from the southern horizon below Győr Fortress all the way to the northern horizon, as if it had no end at all.

On the whole plain west of the Danube, it seemed as though only they remained. The local Hungarians had long since vanished without a trace when the Tatar cavalry passed through as the vanguard — these people, who for generations had lived on the front line of the struggle between the faith of Arabia and Catholicism, had long ago caught the scent of danger.

This war was no small affair!

For the first time in history, the Christian camp of the West had united as one! Although the Roman Empire was still far from having unified the whole Christian world under one rule, its leadership of the pack was beyond doubt, and the Empire also held the Papacy firmly in its grip, so that for the first time Emperor and Pope stood united.

Thus the Roman Emperor Louis could now mobilize the greater part of Christendom's strength for a crusade against the leader of the faith of Arabia, the Ottoman Empire, and need not worry about being dragged down by "his own people."

And the armies the Roman Empire could now mobilize numbered no less than four or five hundred thousand! With so many troops flooding over like a tide, could the Ottoman Empire still hold out? Would Istanbul become Constantinople again?

Yet although the Hungarian Christians living west of the Danube had long yearned for the Roman imperial army to come, they had also seen plenty of the burning, killing, looting, and plundering ways of Western Christian armies, and knew they were about as savage as the Ottomans from the East — perhaps even a little more savage!

Now that several hundred thousand troops from both sides were about to fight a decisive battle between Hungary and Austria, the local inhabitants had best run as far away as they could.

Mustafa Köprülü and Mustafa Kara, two old men, stood side by side atop the walls of Győr Fortress, raising their telescopes to gaze out over the open plain to the north.

Both men's brows were slightly furrowed, and they looked thoroughly vexed.

The cause of their vexation was that Archduke Henry of Austria had actually incited the nobles of Upper Hungary to rise in revolt and had driven out the Ottoman garrison at Bratislava along with the Grand Duke appointed by the Ottoman Empire!

This was trampling on the Ottoman Empire's red line!

The spoils the Ottoman Empire had taken after crushing the Holy Roman Empire the last time were suzerainty over the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Grand Duchy of Upper Hungary, the Archduchy of Austria, and the Grand Duchy of Croatia. Among these, the Grand Duchy of Upper Hungary was the most important piece of territory!

Upper Hungary lay on relatively high ground, was close to Vienna, the capital of the Archduchy of Austria, and also bordered rich Bohemia. It was the strategic point from which the Ottoman Empire controlled Bohemia, overawed Austria, and resisted Poland.

Therefore the Ottoman Empire had always kept ten thousand heavy troops stationed at Bratislava. Originally the Archduchy of Austria had only fifteen thousand standing troops, so the ten thousand at Bratislava, plus the ten thousand at Győr, and the ten thousand stationed at Brno (with another ten thousand at Prague), had been enough to overawe Archduke Henry.

But no one expected that Archduke Henry would expand his army to 150,000 men in a very short time (in fact it was only 100,000), and that they would be so disciplined and imposing. When they marched in vast array on Bratislava, all the Hungarians there boiled over with excitement, while the Ottoman garrison was frightened out of its wits on the spot — the Ottoman troops stationed at Bratislava were not the finest Janissary units, so how could they have the nerve to fight ten or more to one while beset from within and without?

So the moment they saw the white Austrian corps advancing in vast array, they immediately packed their baggage and fled. And their flight brought disaster upon Grand Duke Dmitri I of Upper Hungary — this unlucky fellow had just fled to Győr when he ran straight into the Grand Vizier Mustafa Köprülü, who had just arrived.

To enforce military discipline, Mustafa Köprülü had Dmitri I's head cut off! Now a bloody human head hung by the roadside beneath the walls of Győr Fortress.

A Janissary officer dashed swiftly up onto the ramparts and handed a freshly received military report to Mustafa Kara.

The old man, whose beard and hair were already snow-white, fished out his reading spectacles, put them on, and read. When he finished, he laughed.

"Kara, what are you laughing at?" Mustafa Köprülü turned and asked his brother-in-law.

"Grand Vizier, we are going to win!" Mustafa Kara had always been an optimist. He said to Mustafa Köprülü with a smile, "Henry and François Eugène really do not know how to fight. They have actually deployed an army of 150,000 men between Lake Neusiedl and the Danube — and they have dug a long trench and piled up a low wall."

"What?" Mustafa Köprülü was taken aback. "Digging trenches and building earthen walls between Lake Neusiedl and the Danube? What are they trying to do?"

The straight-line distance between Lake Neusiedl and the Danube was more than twenty-six kilometers! And the ground was perfectly flat, with no natural obstacles to defend.

To defend a front that wide, the usual method was to build bastion forts, or simply to concentrate one's forces and fight in the open field.

Digging trenches to hold a twenty-six-kilometer front really was beyond anything Mustafa Köprülü had imagined.

What were they trying to do? Even with 150,000 men, once you scattered them across a front that wide, they would be spread absurdly thin.

And how deep and wide a trench could they dig in such haste? Could it stop Tatar cavalry? This time Mustafa Köprülü had personally led 100,000 troops and 30,000 Tatar cavalry (cavalry of the Crimean Khanate) on the attack. After joining up with the troops from Győr and those who had fled from Bratislava, his total strength reached as much as 150,000!

Moreover, Mustafa Köprülü's great army was carrying more than 300 cannon, and should be able to completely overwhelm the enemy in firepower.

A single long defensive line could never, no matter what, hold back the Ottoman host!

Mustafa Köprülü gave a cold laugh, his arrogance and self-assurance beyond words: "Send the order — increase the pace of the march. I intend to break through the Austrians' thin defensive line in the shortest possible time, and then march straight into Vienna!

The banks of Vienna are waiting for us to come and plunder them!"

Robbing banks!

The moment Mustafa Köprülü's order went out, the Ottoman host at once boiled over with excitement!

Morale shot straight up into the heavens — it could have charged all the way to Paradise.

Archduke Henry's wishful calculations thus fell completely to ruin — by his original intent, he had not wanted to fight a desperate battle against the Ottoman Empire's great army, so after the uprising broke out in Bratislava, he had not marched his troops in to occupy the city, but instead had drawn his army out onto the plain south of Bratislava and deployed it there, declaring that he would fight a decisive battle with the Ottomans to defend the people of Bratislava.

In reality, however, the Ottomans could perfectly well have crossed the Danube near Győr and then advanced along the east bank of the Danube, thereby bypassing the Austrian army on the west bank — but in the Ottomans' eyes there were simply no rebels in Upper Hungary worth noticing; what they had their sights on were the banks of Vienna!

How could suppressing rebels possibly matter as much as robbing banks? So the entire Ottoman host of 150,000 men surged forward in vast array toward the 100,000 Austrian troops deployed in defense between Lake Neusiedl and the Danube.

A bloody battle was about to begin!

(End of Chapter)