I read today that the first mark on the decline of the Turkish empire was when the second siege of Vienna in 1683 ended in total failure. I'm intrigued and really curious about what had happened. Seems like every time I do readings for Political Science I'm reminded by how little history of the world I've yet to learn about. There's always mention of these kind of worldly events that I've never even heart of before.
Could anyone tell me about what happened during the critical battle? Also did it lead to the decline of the Turkish empire?
Short Version: a relief army turned up and saved the day.
Long Version: In an era of religious warfare, having a major Christian city like Vienna fall to the Turks would have been a Very Big Deal, so a coalition army was sent off under the command of the King of Poland, Jan III Sobieski.
They arrived on the hills surrounding Vienna during the night, the day after the Turks had made a failed assault on the city, lit bonfires, said mass and in the morning the Turks knew they had one last chance to take the city so they attacked. Sobieski waited most of the day to make his move, then at about 5pm he ordered what was at the time the largest cavalry charge in European history - 20,000 strong (for comparison, the charge of the Rohirrim at Pelennor Fields in "Return of the King" has about 5,000 horse visible on screen), the core of which was 3,000 armoured Polish "Winged Lancers".
Caught between the defenders of Vienna and the charging cavalry, exhausted and demoralised by a full day's fighting after having been beaten back only the day before, the Turks scattered.
Popular legends have it that one Polish cavalryman, a Joszef Kulczycki, found a bag of coffee beans in the Turkish camp and settled down to open Vienna's first Coffee House; that croissants were first baked in Vienna in mockery of Turkish crescents to celebrate the deliverance, and that bagels were likewise invented to mimic cavalry stirrups. Other legends say that musical instruments found in the Turkish camp were cymbals, triangles and bass drums, previously unknown in Western Europe.
Those may be fanciful, but it was certainly a Very Big Deal at the time - church bells were rung all over Europe and Jan III Sobieski was a bona fide hero - he even got a constellation named after him: Scutum (the Shield) which had recently been discovered, was officially named Scutum Sobiescianum. A church was built (it's still there) on the Kahlenberg hill where they said mass before battle, and the Military History museum in Vienna has quite a selection of loot picked up afterwards including the Sultan's tent, if you're ever out that way.
Andrew Wheatcroft wrote "The Enemy at the Gates: Hapsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe" in 2009. The enormous Ottoman army laid siege to Vienna and were slowly wearing that fortress down. They worked their way through the outer walls on the south side of Vienna and were bombarding the south wall of the Hofburg Palace. If they could have broken down that wall, they could have entered the center of Vienna. Yet that is when the Barvarians and Saxons attacked the Ottomans from the west and the Polish cavalry attacked from the south. It was a very close battle, one that the Ottomans almost won.