The first Turkish siege of Vienna, 1529

1529

In the autumn of 1529 the army of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent set up camp to the south-east of Vienna and besieged the city for three weeks. This first Turkish siege of Vienna was part of the Turkish Wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Together with the second siege in 1683 it formed the basis for a myth of the victory of Christianity over Islam which is still being exploited today for political purposes.