First Ottoman Siege of Vienna
- Date
- 27 September to 15 October 1529
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Vienna (Habsburg Austria)
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
From late September to mid-October 1529 Suleiman the Magnificent besieged Vienna, the Habsburg capital, with an army of over 100,000. The roughly 21,000 defenders under Niklas Graf Salm held the city behind hastily strengthened walls.
Suleiman's campaign had been hampered by an exceptionally wet season that bogged down his heavy siege artillery on the long march from the Balkans, leaving him without the firepower to breach the defences. After several failed assaults and with winter approaching, the Ottomans withdrew on 15 October. The repulse marked the furthest sustained Ottoman thrust into Western Europe and the limit of Suleiman's advance up the Danube. It opened roughly 150 years of tense Habsburg-Ottoman rivalry along the Hungarian frontier, punctuated by raids and counter-raids, that would culminate in the far larger second siege of Vienna in 1683.
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Empires active in 27 September to 15 October 1529
- Songhai Empire1464 CE to 1591 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE to 1644 CE
- Inca Empire1438 CE to 1533 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE to 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE to 1974 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE to 1857 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Second Siege of Vienna and the turn of the Ottoman tide12 September 1683
- Defenestration of Prague and the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War23 May 1618
- Fall of Beijing and the Ming-Qing transition1644
- Battle of Mohács and the Ottoman conquest of Hungary29 August 1526
- First Battle of Panipat and the founding of the Mughal Empire21 April 1526
- Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire1532 to 1533
Essential reading
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- Shah Ismail I proclaims Twelver Shi'ism the state religion of Iran1501
- Bayinnaung forges the largest empire in Southeast Asian history1565
- Kingdom of Kongo converts to Christianity under Nzinga a Nkuwu (João I)3 May 1491
Further reading
The wider story
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire
Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.
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