Poland

by James A. Michener

  Because the Poles on the right flank had to move much farther than either the Germans or the Austrians, it was the latter under the Duke of Lorraine who next made contact with Kara Mustafa’s troops, and they performed excellently, moving with studied force over their flatter terrain: stand-fire-charge, stand-fire-charge, yard by yard they kept moving forward, and Sobieski was so pleased with their rugged determination that he sent a messenger to congratulate them.

  And now, on the right, the Poles at last reached the Turkish lines and began a systematic assault different from either the Germans’ or the Austrians’. Once they started moving forward, they kept coming vigorously until something like a stone fence or a barn stopped them. Then they milled about in seeming disarray until they regained forward movement, when they overwhelmed the Turks. Now the three armies were moving forward in unison.

  However, Kara Mustafa was not impotent, and whenever he spotted a weakness in the allied line, or a flank exposed, he sent his men dashing to that spot, and with the skill they had acquired in many battles, they knew just how to wreck the allies’ plans. By nine in the morning Austrians on the left, Germans in the center and Poles on the right were well bogged down, and a general melee ensued, in which hand-to-hand fighting predominated.

  This continued for two hours, and the Duke of Lorraine became so disconcerted by the lack of forward movement that he dispatched a messenger to Sobieski: ‘When will you send the hussars forward?’ and Sobieski had to reply: ‘As of now the terrain will not permit it, but as soon as we break through …’

  To test the terrain, and especially how far the grape fields and the stone fences continued before flat ground became available, he asked for a volunteer cavalry force—not his precious hussars, who must be held in reserve for the critical moments—to penetrate the enemy lines and bring back a scouting report. Count Lubonski cried: ‘I shall lead!’ and horsemen formed about him. Sobieski, himself fifty-four years old, knew that the count was far too old for such a venture, but he also knew that the leadership of such a man would prove invaluable in a dangerous mission like this, so he brought his right hand up to the edge of his fur shako in a salute of honor: ‘God ride with you!’

  At the head of his detachment, Lubonski started his horse at a slow pace, then spurred it to a brisk trot, and when the Turkish lines were close he jabbed his horse with his heels, set his short lance at the ready, and led the charge into the heart of the enemy force. Dodging and twisting both his horse and his own body in the saddle, he succeeded in getting three-fourths of his horsemen into the rear area of the Turkish camp, back among the tents, and there he found the flat ground the remainder of the cavalry would need, so with a wild cry he wheeled about and led his men back through the exact part of the line they had penetrated.

  There they went! Their steeds leaped over the low fences and cleared the ditches. They galloped straight for an obstacle, then veered cleverly away, man and horse swaying in the bright sunlight. They swept through the vineyards, knocked down the Janissaries, gained open ground between the combat lines, and galloped back to the Polish headquarters, where old Count Lubonski saluted his king and said: Tour hundred yards, Sire, and we are free.’

  It was a fearful four hundred yards. From one in the afternoon till nearly five the three armies moved forward almost inch by inch, for when the Turks realized that their tents were being threatened, their valued homes for the past two years, they stiffened their resistance, and with Kara Mustafa always in the thickest of the battle, for he was exceedingly brave, they confronted the coalition.

  It was now apparent to the three generals that they would have to be lucky if they were to traverse the final four hundred yards before nightfall, camp uneasily there, and resume the battle in the morning when the cavalry could be used, but at this critical juncture the lesser cavalry, composed of petty noblemen like Lukasz of Bukowo, began to break through here and there, so that Sobieski, as the day began to die, saw a chance not only to cover the four hundred yards but also to gain a solid footing on the level ground for his night’s camp, and he gave the signal for all his Polish troops to make a supreme effort during one last hour, and this they did.

  No one, in later analysis, could recall where the break came, but it was probably not along the Polish front at all. Waldeck’s Germans, seeing the Polish effort, emulated it, and because Kara Mustafa had rushed troops to stop the Poles, he had to leave the center sector weakened, allowing the Swabians and Thuringians to rip a great hole in his lines. Almost immediately the Austrians did the same, and immediately thereafter the Poles cracked their line, and in one roaring sweep the entire allied line surged forward, traversing the last of the bad terrain.

  It was five in the afternoon when this fortunate development crowned the allied effort, and both Lorraine and Waldeck sent messengers to Sobieski congratulating him on having obtained a solid base from which to launch the next day’s attack, but when the Polish king saw for himself the wonderfully flat land his troops now occupied, and when he saw disorder among the Turkish troops, who were retreating hastily to their tent area, a flash of vision like a bolt of summer lightning possessed him, and he cried: ‘We can finish this battle tonight!’ And with a mental vitality equal to his enormous physical size he barked out a dozen orders: ‘Hussars to the front! Every man in every unit who has a horse, to the ready! Along the entire line, when my cannon fires, charge and carry to the walls of Vienna if we can!’

  The three armies at that moment were about six miles from Vienna, the first five were level land, the last one was the denuded area leading to the glacis and the wall itself, so once an immense cavalry charge got started, it was not unreasonable to believe that it could go a great distance. There would be three thousand winged hussars in the lead, followed by some five thousand superior cavalry, backed up by thirteen thousand fighters on horseback, mostly petty noblemen and farmers with no military training but long experience with horses and self-defense. There had probably never been, in European warfare, a cavalry charge of this magnitude.

  It was twenty minutes past five, on a day when the sun would set at half after six, when Jan Sobieski gave the order to charge, and like some boundless autumn wind chasing dried leaves, the twenty thousand horsemen spurred their mounts to a gallop and bore down on the disorganized Turks. For only ten minutes did the outcome of the charge hang in the balance; during that time Kara Mustafa, with the green cord growing tighter about his throat, performed heroically, endeavoring in vain to rally his troops. Some remained faithful to him, many did not, and he realized that all was lost when at the height of the enemy attack he saw his own troops begin to loot the tents of their officers.

  ‘You!’ he shouted at some Bulgarian slaves who were ripping apart a tent valued at eight hundred gold pieces, and when his command had no effect, he shrugged his shoulders in a pathetic admission of despair and told his own bodyguard: ‘Take what you can,’ and a general looting proceeded, not by the Germans or the Poles, but by his own men.

  The looting had one tragic outcome which no one could have anticipated. Count Lubonski, austere and brave and straight in the saddle at age seventy-three, kept his horse in the van, and with his modified lance, for he no longer had the strength of arm to master a long one, he accomplished much, sending Turkish soldiers scattering. He was ably supported by Lukasz, who rode at his left, and by Brat Piotr and the boy Janko, who kept not far behind with the extra horses.

  But as the quartet from Bukowo entered the tent area, where the confusion was greatest, Piotr saw that a young hussar had been slain by a Turkish cannon shot, and his left leg was still in the stirrup, his precious circle of feathers broken in the dust, so on the spur of the moment the friar reined in his horse, leaped down, and tried to tend the fallen hussar. A moment’s inspection proved the young Pole was dead, but there was his armored vest, his halo of feathers, so with breathless delight Piotr stripped him, placed the armor about his own chest, adjusted the crown of feathers, discarded his own rather ordina
ry mount, and leaped upon the dead hussar’s beautiful beast.

  Feathers waving, long legs kicking, Piotr galloped forward to join the charge, shouting as he came: ‘Make way for the hussars!’ And with no lance or any other kind of weapon, he started chasing Turks.

  It took him only a few moments to catch up with Count Lubonski, and the feathers, the flailing legs, the stretch of friar’s garb flowing behind, made such a ridiculous figure, even Lubonski had to laugh. Young Janko, now at the count’s side, was captivated by the idea that the man he liked so much had at last attained his life’s desire, and, thoughtlessly, he left the count and joined the soi-disant hussar.

  Together the two roared through the rear guard of the retreating Turks, dashing in and out among the canopied tents, and accomplishing nothing except the exhilaration of the ride.

  The metal-and-leather frame to which the feathers of the winged hussar were attached had been broken when its former owner pitched to the ground, and now as Piotr rode with it about his ears the left half tore partially loose, dropped down, and began to flap about the horse’s left eye, so that instead of terrifying enemy horses, as intended, the feathers now annoyed the hussar’s horse, who began to run under its own direction, hoping to break free of the pestilential flapping.

  Piotr, never a first-class horseman, found himself unable to control the runaway horse, so he resorted to the coward’s only defense: leaning far forward, he grabbed the horse’s neck, and with feet dangling, robe flying behind and the good half of the feathered halo still about his right ear, he roared through the Turkish camp, astonishing both the Poles and the Turks. Janko, endeavoring to keep close, shouted encouragement: ‘Hold on, Piotr! You’re a hussar now.’

  And as the pair galloped, causing as much consternation among their own troops as among the enemy, Piotr caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of a special tent, austere on the outside, but with a small green medallion by the flap and a glimpse of richness inside, and although he looked the fool astride that horse, he was not a fool, and with almost superhuman effort he stopped the horse, wheeled it about, and brought it to a halt before the tent, where he hastily dismounted, and when Janko stood beside him, peering inside, their mouths gaped at the wonders which stood revealed.

  The tragedy of this affair did not pertain to the adventures of Piotr and Janko, but to the exposed position in which their desertion left Count Lubonski, for now he had only Lukasz to support him, and no spare horses, for they had vanished with the deserters. Even this might have proved acceptable had not Lukasz suddenly noticed something which stunned and delighted him.

  Lubonski’s charge, always headed for the strongest concentration of enemy forces, had carried them into one of the rear areas where the Turks guarded the animals needed in their stupendous enterprise, and at first Lukasz saw only strings of camels chewing sideways as if there were no battle, and herds of buffalo brought along for their meat, but in an enclosed area he also saw some two hundred of the best Arabian horses, and as a fly-by-night Polish nobleman who had never owned more than five horses, he was mesmerized by the richness of his find, and without making a moral choice, he drifted away from Lubonski and started selecting the two dozen Arabians that he would claim as his booty when this day ended.

  Cyprjan Lubonski, now alone and like any courageous warrior in the van of his troops, rode on for some minutes before he realized that no one supported him, and when he did discover his predicament he considered, briefly, wheeling about and seeking help, but he rejected this, for he supposed that others, perhaps even the winged hussars, would soon overtake him, and at a slowed pace he continued to move forward. As he did, he came upon a contingent of special troops who had remained loyal to Kara Mustafa in this moment of disaster, and when they saw the lone Polish horseman, erect and bewildered in his saddle and with only a short lance, they fell upon him with great fury.

  One struck him in the throat, bringing blood to his mouth. Another cut at his head, and hot blood blinded his left eye. One spear entered at his right knee and penetrated upward to the hip, but still he maintained control of his horse, trying to escape. The Turks were relentless, and with cries of triumph they moved in close, hacking at him with their scimitars, slashing his arms and legs. Finally, one spahi leveled a great lance at Lubonski’s gut, rode forward with speed and pierced him through, knocking him from his horse and breaking his neck bones.

  Still the old man did not faint or die. With only the broken shaft of his lance he tried to fend off his attackers, but when he had to lower his bleeding right arm, foot soldiers stabbed him many times. Cyprjan Lubonski died as he would have wished, not in the saddle but almost, and facing till the end the enemies of Christianity.

  The tremendous battle should have taken two days, but it ended in one. A French engineer, working for pay with the Turks, saw the general rout and shouted to his European friends: ‘This is a real sauve qui peut,’ then led the desertion of the foreigners.

  The people starving inside Vienna became aware at dusk that the Turkish threat was ended, and they began surging through the city gates, running toward the tethered buffalo, which they began to butcher on the spot.

  General Lubomirski, too, left the walled city, seeking King Jan Sobieski, and when they met in the growing darkness, Lubomirski so thin he seemed like a shadow, the two men wept.

  Kara Mustafa, resisting the efforts of his loyal troops to drag him safely from the battlefield, cried that he wanted to die here, but they insisted upon surrounding him, and saving his life so that he could later strangle himself with the green cord at some rear headquarters like Sofia or Edirne.

  Prince Waldeck sought neither Sobieski nor Lorraine; he was appalled at the cruel fighting his Germans had been required to do that day, and as he sat exhausted in a captured Turkish tent he told his assistants: ‘Never speak to me of where the place of honor is, left flank, right flank. The place of honor is where the enemy hits hardest, and today it was the center.’

  The first thing Duke Charles did when it became apparent that the victory would be won this day was to dispatch two messengers to Linz with a reassuring message for the Austrian king: ‘Leopold, Sire, it is now safe to return to Vienna.’ The duke realized that it was important to have the king on hand, in person, lest the Pole Sobieski garner all the honors, with consequences that might prove embarrassing.

  Lukasz spent that night guarding his twenty-four Arabians, and when a group of Polish soldiers passed he tried to commandeer some of them to help him protect his booty, but they ignored him. However, when some of the French deserters came by, he accosted them, and glad to find refuge for the night, they stayed with him.

  In the tent with the green blazon Brat Piotr and young Janko were bedazzled, for the interior was rich beyond anything they had ever imagined, and the friar assured the boy: ‘Not even the treasury at Czestochowa, where the Virgin keeps her brocaded robes, has anything like this.’

  Closing the flap quickly to prevent others from seeing the shimmering wealth, they moved about in the gloom, noting the encrusted daggers richly bejeweled, the carpets woven with gold and silver threads, the open bags of thalers, the sumptuous fabrics. Suddenly there came a terrifying scream from Janko.

  Poking into a small room within a room, he had come upon a fallen body from which had gushed an inordinate amount of blood, and when Piotr hurried to his side, he saw the corpse of an exceedingly beautiful young woman, one of the legendary Circassian slaves so highly prized by the Turks, and he told Janko: ‘I think her owner must have killed her himself. To keep her from being molested by the victors. She was probably a Christian, and we must say a prayer for her deliverance.’

  Janko could not pray. He was sickened by what he saw, for whoever had killed the beautiful girl had tried to chop off her head, but had failed; it now lay at such a grotesque angle from the torso that Janko turned away from the sight, and while Piotr prayed over the corpse of what had indeed been a Christian slave, Janko stepped outside the tent and vo
mited.

  As he raised his head, two Polish soldiers came roistering down the passageway between the tents, and seeing Janko, asked him what was going on. Before the boy could respond, Piotr, sensing danger and the possible loss of this immensely valuable find, rushed out, made the sign of the cross, and cried: ‘King Jan Sobieski.’ This sudden combination of piety and political power confused the soldiers, and after a prolonged consultation, during which Piotr explained that the king personally had placed him there to protect the royal booty, the two soldiers decided to help him guard it.

  ‘If you do that,’ Piotr assured them, ‘the king will reward you when we return to Krakow.’

  So the guard was mounted, and all during the night whenever intruders tried to ravage this tent, Piotr reared up before them, crossed himself once or twice, and said in a loud voice: ‘King Jan Sobieski.’

  Sometime after midnight Janko told Piotr: ‘I want to fix the dead lady,’ and he left the others, returning to the little room which had made him so violently sick only a few hours before, and tenderly he straightened out the exquisite fawn-colored dress and draped the voluminous cloth, which weighed almost nothing, so that folds covered the bloodstained areas. Then, his heart beating as if it might explode, he knelt down and placed his two hands tenderly about the girl’s head, moving it slowly until it resumed its proper angle in relation to her torso. Then he sat in the darkness at her feet, as if she merited a guard of honor, and he was still there when dawn broke.

  ‘Now!’ Piotr cried when the sun was up. ‘Your job is to find Lukasz.’ And he sent the boy out to search the area, and in time Janko found his master and one Frenchman guarding the twenty-four Arabian horses. He started to take Lukasz aside to whisper about the treasure he and Piotr had found, but Lukasz said: ‘The man knows no Polish,’ and he listened with his mouth agape as the boy spoke.

  Lukasz, sixty-two years old and a veteran of a dozen wars from which he had brought home almost nothing, sat down and studied his position. He already had in his possession, more or less securely, twenty-four of the best horses he had ever seen, and with them he could start a stud at Bukowo. It would require some careful managing to get the horses home, but with the help of Brat Piotr, Janko and the Frenchman this might be done.