When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

WDF Xtra: Jan Sobieski XI

Added 2017-12-15 00:45:01 +0000 UTC

[PATRONS] Our story reaches a fever pitch, and you'd have to be MAD to miss out!

"I know Sobieski well, where he is, flight is our only refuge. Look out upon the firmament and you will see that even Allah himself is against us! The Pasha of Damascus was right when he advised you not to attack Vienna. You have done a foolish thing, Kara Mustafa, in coming here, as half of Christian Europe is united against us. I am distressed to participate in this battle when you sit in your luxurious tent drinking your coffee, while your men are slaughtered by the infidels."

These were the incredible words of the Khan of the Crimean Tartars, Murad Giray. By doing so, Giray had effectively signed his own death warrant, yet he had not, for he knew that Kara Mustafa would never be able to catch either him or his riders. At the sight of Jan Sobieski riding down the slopes beside Vienna, the Khan of the Tartars knew that the battle for Vienna was lost. Before the enterprise was crushed, he wished to extricate his men.

History friends, all this drama and more is available in Episode 11 of our look at Jan Sobieski, the man, the king, the legend. Within it we give a horde of detail on the relief of Vienna from Sobieski's perspective, and explain how the final charge at the head of his winged hussars would have appeared. By that time, Sobieski's nemesis Mustafa would have known that the battle was totally lost.