Christians confront the Turks at the Battle of Sisak

I’ve recently become interested in the Battle of Sisak (June 22, 1593), in which a small Austrian army repulsed a much larger Ottoman force, and thus kept the Turks from making further inroads into Central Europe. Among the Turkish troops who died during the battle (by drowning in the river) was Hassan, Pasha of Bosnia, the commander of the Ottoman expedition.

When he translates material for us, our Slovenian correspondent uses as his pseudonym the name of the Slovenian hero Andrej Turjaški (Andreas von Auersperg, Lord of Schönberg und Seisenberg). That name got me interested in the history of the battle, which occurred in what is now Croatia. It is little-known in English (and the wiki is inadequate), yet it seems to be a significant victory over the Ottomans, comparable in its own way to the sieges of Vienna.

While reading this material, it suddenly occurred to me: for all those centuries, the fractious Central Europeans fought bravely to keep the Ottoman Caliphate out of Europe. And now they are simply handing the territory over to the latter-day Ottomans — inviting them in. Anyone among the Austrian political leadership who is over the age of fifty knows very well the history of the sieges of Vienna, Sisak, the Hungarian campaigns, etc. Yet, despite their knowledge, they are surrendering their country anyway. It’s a betrayal of such magnitude that it’s difficult to comprehend.

As Fjordman once said:

The European Union is the principal motor behind the Islamization of Europe. It is formally surrendering an entire continent to Islam while destroying established national cultures, and is prepared to harass those who disagree with this policy.

This is the greatest organized betrayal in Western history.

Dymphna sees this unprecedented high-level treason as a diabolical process. She says that when she was younger she didn’t believe in the diabolical, but she’s changed her mind.

I mentioned the Battle of Sisak to Rembrandt Clancy, and asked him if he knew of any German-language histories of the day’s events. Several days later, much to my surprise and delight, he sent the following translation of a 19th-century account of the battle.

The translator includes the following preliminary notes:

I did not intend a project, but a mere sampling. Having started roughly in the middle of the monograph, at the section on the arquebusiers, it gradually expanded in both directions until I was half way through the work at one end, and had completed the introduction at the other end.

As I made my way through the document, I began more and more to share your interest on this subject, not to mention the language itself.

The feel of the piece is epic, a little Homeric in flavour, with its order of battle, for example, which names the heroes, emphasising their nobility and hinting at lineage, not to mention the establishment of a connection with poetry and song of the epic type singing of ‘arms and the man’. The introduction is unmistakeable in this respect. The ending of the introduction is marked by a horizontal line, also in the original.

Radič’s preliminaries make mention of the capture by the Turks of the strategically located Bihać, which comes under the regional name of Wichitsch in the monograph.

It would be interesting to study the role of Pope Clement VIII in the Long Turkish War, for during that period he apparently sought to build a Holy League against the Turks, following Pius V.

Below is Rembrandt Clancy’s translation of the first half (reckoned without the notes and references) of P. v. Radič’s The Battle of Sissek — Sissek being the 19th-century German spelling of Sisak.

The Battle of Sisak, 1593, by Hans Rudolf Miller

Source: Radič, P. V. Die Schlacht bei Sissek: 22 June 1593. Laibach, 1861
The illustration of the battle: Wikipedia

Carniolae Victoria: victory against the Turks at Sisak, June 22 1593

When a people enter the feast day into the history book to mark a period which is beginning anew, so is it understandable that they are inclined to leaf back through the pages and seek the places wherein bright colours gleam. In the chronicle of our people, it is in such places that red is the most prevalent colour; this brings to their minds the much blood which was shed on our soil, or leastwise that which had been shed by the sons of our Fatherland in the adjoining south-eastern frontier regions throughout the XV and XVI centuries. Whilst recording with delight the fact of the granting of equal status to all the peoples of our great Imperial State, we tarry with pleasure on the numerous places recounting to us of the heroic deeds of our forefathers in the battles with the Turks.

One such conspicuous deed occurred on the 22nd of June 1593 at the fortress Sissek, the battle with the besieging Turks being accepted on the notable counsel of Baron Andreas von Auersperg [Andrej Turjaški] and fought out by virtue of the courage and strength of this same counsellor to the great renown of our Fatherland.

The year 1408 brought the first Turkish bands to Carniolan soil [the Duchy of Carniola, in what is now Slovenia] and indeed into the immediately adjoining Metlika region; in 1418 almost 1,000 Carniolans, under one Lord von Auersperg, made close acquaintance with this uninvited guest in the great battle at Radkersburg. From that time on, with few interruptions throughout all the decades of the XV and XVI centuries, the Ottomans alternated between openly declared campaigns and unpredictable incursions into our country in search of booty.

It was mostly the frontier pashas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who undertook such expeditions on their own account for the sake of booty, but often to so as to set large ransom amounts by taking prisoner important personages of the Slovenian-Croatian border defence.

In deference to these conditions — and the more so in consideration of the major importance for general history of these battles which arose from the vigorous resistance on the part of our frontier lands — it would certainly be very worth while to draw up a comprehensive portrait of the battles based on a precise examination of the sources.

But to introduce here even the most important and successful “Campaigns against the Turks” would go far beyond the scope of this work.

For this reason I am content, in the interests of the better appreciation of my subject, to be brief in the depiction of Carniola’s situation in those times.

The XV century, which was one filled with the most difficult battles for the lands unified under the sceptre of Friedrich III, had also brought to our country the collective suffering of oppression of one kind or another, disorientation in public and private relations and especially a constant pressure from the Ottomans.

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