Sunday, January 25, 2026

The largest calvary charge in history

 

I truly just learned about this. In the battle that broke the siege of Vienna by troops of the Ottoman Empire in 1683, the largest calvary charge in history took place.

Initially, the siege and the battle that ended it might have seemed a huge mismatch:  supposedly the Ottomans had 180,000 troops against a defending force of 15,000 or so. But a relief army was raised from Poland and surrounding countries/fiefs/kingdoms/whatever the social borders were back then, and the Ottoman troops were unreliable (the Tatars), sick (disease killed a lot of them), and sick of sitting in the summer heat while besieging Vienna (thus, a lot of desertions).  So the battle wasn't as much of a mismatch as the initial numbers might have indicated.

You can read more on Wikipedia -- The Battle of Vienna.  There are probably several military history sites in the Webiverse that have detailed descriptions, too.

So, about the charge. The battle that broke the siege culminated with a charge of 18,000 calvary troops, which induced the final retreat of the losing Ottoman side.

Below is an artistic depiction of the battle. There are many.  There's even a movie! But I don't think it's easy to find for viewing. The trailer is on YouTube, though.





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