Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

Political and Cultural History of Islam
It soon became evident that Austria could not muster an army of any service in time to check the Turkish advance; and the efforts of the Christians were now devoted to the defence of the capital. ”In Vienna, the necessary preparations had been made with almost superhuman exertion, but in such haste and with so little material, that they could only be considered as very inadequate to the emergency. The city itself occupied the same ground as at present the defences were old and in great part ruinous, the walls scarcely six feet thick and the outer palisade so frail and insufficient that the name Stadtzaun, or city hedge, which it bears in the municipal records of the time, was literally as well as figuratively appropriate.
The citadel was merely the old building which now exists under the name of Schweitzer Hof. All the houses which lay too near the wall were levelled to the ground; where the wall was specially weak or out of repair a new entrenched line of earthen defence was constructed and well palisaded; within the city itself, from the Stuben to the Karnthner or Carinthian gate, an entirely new wall twenty feet high was constructed with a ditch interior to the old. The bank of the Danube was also entrenched and palisaded, and from the drawbirdge to the Salz gate protected with a rampart capable of resisting artillery. As a precaution against fire, the shingles with which the houses were generally roofed were throughout the city removed. The pavement of the streets was taken up to deaden the effect of the enemy’s shot, and watch posts established to guard against conflagration. Parties were detached to scour the neighbouring country in search of provisions, and to being in cattle and forage. Finally, to provide against the possibility of a protracted siege, useless consumers, women, children, old men, and ecclesiastics, were as far as possible forced to withdraw from the city,” too often only to fall into the ruthless hands of the Sackmen.
Behind these hastily improvised defences, the veteran Count of Salm, who had seen half a century of service in the field, posted his garrison of 20,000 foot, 2,000 horse, and 1,000 volunteer burghers, and manned the seventy guns which formed the artillery of the city. At the last moment, when the Turks, having taken Bruck and Altenburg, were almost upon the capital, the order was given to destroy the suburbs, lest they should afford cover to the besiegers The unfortunate inhabitants deprived of their homes thus late, had no time to escape from the harries bf the Sackmen, who now spread over the whole country 40,000 strong, burning and slaying wherever
Sulayman the Magnificent
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they went, murdering ..iborn children, and brutally destroying helpless girls, whose insulted bodies lay unheeded upon the roads: ”God rest their souls, and grant vengeance upon the bloodhounds who did this wrong!” as a writer of the day indignantly exclaims. It was stated at the time that scarcely a third of the inhabitants of Upper Austria survived this calamitous invasion.
On the 27th of September, the Sultan and his Grand Wazir Ibrahim brought the main army before the city. ”The country within sight of the walls as far as Schwechat and Trautmannsdorf was covered with tents, the number of which was calculated at 30,000, nor could the sharpest vision from St. Stephen’s tower overlook the limit of the circle so occupied. The flower of the Trukish force the Janissaries took possession of the ruins of the suburbs, which afforded them an excellent cover from the fire of the besieged. They also cut loopholes in the walls still standing from which they directed a fire of small ordnance had musketry on the walls of the city. The tent of Sulayman rose in superior splendour over all others at Simmering. Hangings of the richest tissue separated its numerous compartments from each other, costly carpets and cushions and divans studded with jewels formed the furniture. Its numerous pinnacles were terminated by knobs of massive gold. Five hundred archers of the royal guard though inferior splendour the tents of ministers and favourites; and 12,000 Janissaries, the terror of their enemies, and not unfrequently of their masters, were encamped in a circle round this central sanctuary.”
While this immense army of a quarter of a million of which, however, probably not more than a third was fully armed, invested the city, the circuit was completed by means of the four hundred vessels which constituted the marine part of the siege, on the Lobau. The work of approaching the walls now began. The Turks had been compelled by heavy rains to leave their siege guns behind them, and they had only field pieces and musketry. Accordingly mines were the chief weapon in which they trusted. For a fortnight they exerted all their noted skill in burrowing under the walls and tower and laying mines in the most propitious positions; but all to no purpose. The besieged kept a watchful eye upon every approach and no sooner was a mine carefully laid, than it was destroyed by a countermine or its powder was extracted by an exploring party working from the cellars within the city. The Viennese were in good spirits and even ventured to indulge in jokes at the Sultan’s expense. Sulayman had

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