![]() ![]() Among the Turks disease was out of control owing to inadequate sanitary facilities, casualties were horrendous, and morale was sagging. Mustafa’s Fierce Ambition for the Ottoman EmpireĪt least Starhemberg could take heart in knowing that conditions were little better among the enemy. The 1683 Battle of Vienna was about to begin. Without that army, the Turks would pour into the city and wantonly enslave and butcher its inhabitants. The city’s only hope was the timely arrival of the anxiously awaited Christian relief army. Starhemberg knew that Vienna’s defenses were at their end. After fending off 18 major Turkish assaults, only a third of the originally 11,500-strong garrison remained fit for combat and their munitions were nearly exhausted. Sewage, rubble, and corpses littered the streets and disease ran rampant. Turkish mines and bombardment opened huge gaps in the city walls. The Turkish Serasker (Supreme Commander), Grand Vizier Kara “Black” Mustafa, demanded surrender, but Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, commander of Vienna’s garrison, spat back, “Let him come I’ll fight to the last drop of blood.” That last drop of blood had almost been reached. On October 25, 1955, the last foreign troops left Austrian soil.For nearly two long months, from July 14 to early September 1683, Vienna endured the siege from the Ottoman Empire. In return, the two superpowers granted Austria full independence. In 1955, the United States and Soviet Union reached an agreement whereby Austria declared its perpetual neutrality. Although the first postwar democratic City Council elections in Vienna took place in November 1945, Allied troops jointly administered and occupied Austria until May 1955. In 1943, the Allies had agreed that Austria would be treated as a victim of Nazi aggression, but the ensuing Cold War put Austria at the center of a new ideological power struggle in Europe. A period of general lawlessness followed until the situation began to improve as Allied troops from other nations arrived to begin the joint occupation of Vienna.Īustria fared marginally better than Germany in the immediate postwar world. In the wake of the city’s capture, large numbers of Soviet soldiers brutalized the population and looted the city. ![]() By April 13, the battle for Vienna was over. Unable to hold out any longer, the remaining German defenders retreated northwards. Meanwhile, the 3rd Ukrainian Front moved to outflank Vienna and rushed towards Linz and Graz. The German commanders struggled to retain control of their scattered units and officers resorted to holding isolated positions. Nearly a week of heavy street fighting ensued, which destroyed many of Vienna’s historic buildings and seriously damaged all but one of the city’s bridges over the Danube River. German forces were unable to delay the well-equipped Soviet forces and quickly retreated to the heart of the city. ![]() But as the Soviet assault on Vienna’s southern suburbs began, the German forces assembled to defend the city consisted of only the depleted II SS Panzer Corps, anti-aircraft units, Hitler Youth members, and convalescing soldiers. From Hitler’s bunker beneath Berlin, the German dictator issued orders to his commanders to hold Vienna at all costs. ![]() These attacks destroyed more than a fifth of the city’s housing, an estimated 80,000 apartments. On April 13, 1945, Soviet soldiers of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts completed their conquest of Vienna, the Austrian city where Hitler had spent six years before World War I as a starving artist.īy the time Soviet soldiers approached Vienna’s suburbs on April 3, 1945, the city had already endured over 50 Allied bombing raids in the course of the war. ![]()
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