![]() The Holy League, a Christian coalition, was formed during the months in which rumors of imminent invasion circulated. Mustafa, a brilliant tactician, had seized an opportunity to exploit tensions between Catholics and Protestants and recruited Hungarian prince Imre Thokoly to his side, among allegiances of other Christian vassal states with plentiful reason to believe that they were siding with a winner. History had offered those soldiers under the Ottoman banner plentiful reason to believe that the conquest of Vienna, a stepping stone for the eventual fall of Rome and final collapse of the Christian faith, was destiny for the “one true faith.” Having assembled such a grand army for the task, Kara Mustafa could relish in the thought that his own name would be recorded in history alongside the names of Muhammad, the Four Great Caliphs, Saladin, Mehmed II, and Suleiman the Magnificent (who himself had failed to conquer Vienna), and other greats before him who brought the light of Islam to new territories through their conquests. Non-Muslims became subjected to the jizya tax, and countless young Christian men were forcibly conscripted and converted in the system of devshirme. Churches such as the Hagia Sophia were converted to mosques (just as the Hagia Sophia was recently reconverted to a mosque). In 1453 the great city of Constantinople had fallen into Ottoman hands. ![]() The Iberian Peninsula likewise fell long ago, to the invading Moors, and the conquered peoples had to expend centuries of energy for Spain and Portugal to finally be liberated, during the Reconquista. The vision of God as the Holy Trinity, whose efforts to befriend mankind culminated in the Crucifixion of Christ, had been traded away for the vision of God as Allah, far too majestic to have ever been one of us, to whom all servitude must be given. In the centuries since the early Arab conquests the subjugated peoples, many of whom had the honorary status of “People of the Book” according to the Quran, had most all been converted, through policies of taxation and breeding and the force of law. The Holy Land had fallen long ago, as had Egypt, the Levant, and all of North Africa. The soldiers defending Vienna, and the peoples trapped behind her gates, were exhausted.įor over a thousand years, since the very dawn of Islam, the borders of Christendom had been pressed against, and receding. Having refused the customary demand to surrender, made by Kara Mustafa, the Grand Vizier, she had been under siege for two months. An invading Ottoman-led army, estimated at 150,000 troops, stood outside of her gates. Murray Abraham, Jerzy Skolimowski, Claire Bloom, Piotr Adamczyk, and Enrico Lo Verso.Vienna was surrounded. ![]() Carrying a huge banner of their Black Madonna, Sobieski and his famed Winged Hussars respond to the call, and the epic battle ensues for the freedom of Christendom.īuttressed by glorious cinematography, beautiful sets and costumes, dramatic war scenes, and a compelling music score, the film includes powerful performances by an outstanding cast with F. Marco also pleads for the aid of the great Polish King and military leader, Jan Sobieski. But a holy, courageous Capuchin monk, Blessed Marco D'Aviano, arrives in Vienna to rally the forces, and calls all the Christian people to fervent prayer, reminding them what is at stake: "Our wives, our children, and most importantly - the future of our Catholic Faith!" ![]() The Christian forces in Vienna, under the leadership of a weak Emperor Leopold I, were unprepared and vastly outnumbered for the onslaught. 300,000 Islamic troops, under the command of the Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa, besieged the city they called 'The Golden Apple', with the goal to conquer Vienna, then Rome and all Christendom. Islam was at the peak of its expansion in the West. This epic film tells the powerful true story of one of the most important military battles in history, recounting the Ottoman Turks massive invasion of Vienna, the gateway to the West, on September 11, 1683, a moment when Christendom and Western civilization truly hung in the balance.
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