The battle that supposedly saved Western civilisation, which started on 6 August 1566, when a huge Ottoman army changed its course to put an end to a small group of defiant Croatians and Hungarians.
It’s early 1566, and Suleiman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire for the last 46 years, embarks on his 13th military campaign with the goal of taking Vienna from the hands of the West. He’s 72, got gout and has to be carried in a litter. Nonetheless, he’s determined to go to war anyway.
Suleiman leaves Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) in May with easily more than a hundred thousand men, one of the largest armies he’s ever commanded. After 49 days of solid marching, the Ottoman horde arrives in Belgrade (capital city of modern-day Serbia).
It’s here that Suleiman hears of an attack on a Turkish encampment at Siklós in Hungary. To make things worse, the attack was orchestrated by none other than Count Nikola IV Zrinski, a Croatian nobleman and general, and a known thorn in the Ottoman side. In his early twenties, Zrinski distinguished himself in Suleiman’s failed Siege of Vienna (1529). The same man later went on to win a series of conflicts against the Ottomans. In short, the dude’s pretty annoying.
Change of plans.
Suleiman sets a new direction.
