The Ottoman Empire had tormented European Christendom well into the 17th century.

Under the rule of Sulemont, the magnificent, the rapidly encroaching Turks had caused serious concern for Christian rulers across the continent.

The Ottoman Empire's success, however, wasn't without a few critical defeats.

The Holy League, for instance, which was a coalition of Catholic states arranged by Pope Pius V, had

inflicted a major defeat on the Ottoman Empire's Sea Fleet in 1571 during the Battle of

Lepanto, which was the largest naval battle in Western history.

And for all his victories, one prize evaded Sulemon.

He was not able to capture what the Turks considered the golden apple of the west, the city of Vienna.

Islamic forces tried to take the city of the siege in 1529, but were successfully rebuffed.

Vienna was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire and as such was a crown jewel the Ottoman

empire deeply coveted.

By the 1670s the Turkish Empire had reached its zenith and renewed its focus on Vienna.

Under Kara Mustafa, the Grand Vizier of the Ottomans, plans were remade to destroy this Christian

city and its populace.

Known for being fanatically anti-Christian and ruthless,

Mustafa wreaked havoc on Christian peoples.

In one horrific example, he captured a Polish town in 1674.

The prisoners he took were flayed alive and their skins were sent to the Sultan as a sort of barbaric boast.

Emboldened by several victories, in 1683, Mustafa began marshalling the largest Muslim army ever to invade Christian territory.

He was given the standard of the Prophet by the Sultan and charged with the

extirpation of infidels and the increase of the Muslims. Boasting in his pride and

vain glory, he defiantly proclaimed that he would not only capture Vienna, but would soon thereafter

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