Why Eastern Europeans Fear Islam: The Siege of Vienna, 1683

American Thinker ^ | 07/14/2019 | Raymond Ibrahim

[SeekAndFind]

“Austria acts against Muslims almost every day because of their subconscious fear of Turks,” writes Turkish historian Erhan Afyoncu in the Daily Sabah. “Austrians have not forgotten the fear and their emperor’s escape in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. When Turks were defeated in the Battle of Vienna, Europeans were so happy…”

Because this is true, a brief refresher of the Siege of Vienna is in order, particularly as its anniversary is right around now:

Around July 15, 1683, the largest Islamic army ever to invade European territory -- which is saying much considering that countless invasions preceded it since the eighth century -- came and surrounded Vienna, then the heart of the Holy Roman Empire and longtime nemesis of Islam.

Some 200,000 Muslim combatants, under the leadership of the Ottomans -- the one state in nearly fourteen centuries of Islamic history most dedicated to and founded on the principles of jihad -- invaded under the same rationale that so-called “radical” groups, such as the Islamic State, cite to justify their jihad on “infidels.” Or, to quote the leader of the Muslim expedition, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, because Vienna was perceived as the head of the infidel snake, it needed to be laid low so that “all the Christians would obey the Ottomans.”

This was no idle boast; sources describe this Mustafa as “fanatically anti-Christian.” After capturing a Polish town in 1674 he ordered all the Christian prisoners to be skinned alive and their stuffed hides sent as trophies to Ottoman Sultan Muhammad IV. Such supremacist hate was standard and on display during the elaborate pre-jihad ceremony presaging the siege of Vienna.

[PGR88]

Yes. I am not a deep historian of the era, but Russia had trouble at first against the Turks, and after calling up reserves, had more success. I suspect the Russians knew their forces were not enough to take Constantinople, supply lines were already greatly over-extended - and with the insertion of British naval power, the advance was stopped.

And in the hindsight of history, the Russo-Turkish war really set up the Armenians for slaughter by the Turks when WWI came along 35 years later,

[Capt. Tom]

There are no friendly Moslems. Friendship for infidels is feigned for the purpose of allowing the Saracens to infiltrate and to lull the infidels.

Agreed.

Our problem as Infidels is we don't read history , and if you are from a Judeo /Christian background it is difficult to understand the threat Islam poses to anyone on earth who is not a Muslim. - Tom

[Sam Gamgee]

They don’t forget. Poland doesn’t forget either the poor treatment it has had at the hands of Germany and Russia.

[MacNaughton]

And then the Bolsheviks took out the Czar in 1917. And then Kruschev got JFK to take out our missiles from Turkey in 1963. And then Erdogan knocked out the secular government in Turkey after ~70 years and returned it to the ummah while remaining a member of NATO.

[jjotto]

Well, if only they wouldn’t have supported Israel, then Moslems would have just wanted to be their friends! /s

[arthurus]

It is not so much that people, including our wise leaders don't know history as it is that they think all people are alike and history is irrelevant. History and tradition is not anything that is relevant to Today. All you need to do is get them to the talking table. Diplomats and politicians are also extremely short sighted in Democracies and Republics and are concerned with keeping the enemy talking which is useless if the enemy is talking and invading at the same time and using the talking to keep US talking and not paying attention.

Republics and democracies have very extremely short memories. Religions and the Chinese have memories that span millennia. When Austria was an empire it remembered the Siege of Vienna and shut out the Saracens. As it became a parliamentary its memory became truncated and Vienna has many Mussulmans on its streets.