Pietas Austriaca

'After the Habsburg lands had recovered to some extent from the consequences of the Thirty Years' War, the populace of this region was struck by yet another misfortune: the plague. It came from Hungary in 1678 and quickly spread to the west. It is thought to have claimed some fifty thousand victims in Vienna alone. In an effort to escape this epidemic, the royal household fled to Prague in 1679. Here too, however, the number of fatalities was not insignificant: some six thousand people met their death in the city by the Moldau.

The plague had barely been brought under control when disaster once again struck the still-suffering populace. This time it was the Turks. As is well known, they stood before the gates of Vienna in 1683 after having plundered and pillaged the surrounding countryside. Although the Turks could be repulsed by the relieving army under the command of King John III of Poland (John Siebiski), the running fights exhausted the resources of the strained populace. During subsequent years the invaders were increasingly driven back to the east and defeated in a series of battles by Prince Eugene of Savoy, the emperor's famous general. The final triumph over the Turks and over the Plague, with the latter returning, however, in a devastating epidemic in 1713, marked the "birth" of the Pietas Austriaca, the lived piety of the Habsburgs. In gratitude for having survied such extreme misfortune, people erected plague columns and similar monuments in many places and held pilgrimages and processions in honor of the saints who had protected them. The most magnificent testimony to this newly strengthened piety was certainly the Karlskirche (Church of St. Charles) in Vienna that Emperor Charles VI, fulfilling a vow, had built by Johann Bernhard Fischer in 1713. The spirit of the times also found expression in music, where court ceremony and lived piety met ...'

From the liner notes to CPO's 2006 2CD Vienna 1700: Baroque Music from Austria, one of a number of interesting albums exploring the music of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Prefect of the Court Library

While in Vienna I revisited the 'home' of the above fellow, the bust of good old Gerard van Swieten in the Prunksaal (State Hall) of the Austrian National Library. Van Swieten was prefect of the Court Library from 1745 to 1772, and according to the museum guide, 'utilizing his contacts with booksellers in Paris, Venice and Leiden, he amassed a collection of contemporary scientific literature from across Western Europe.'

The hall itself was constructed by order of Charles VI whose statue is close to van Swieten's bust in the hall. It was built and decorated at the time of the famous Serbian cases, that is from 1723-30. In those days it housed the entire collection of the Court Library and was actually open to the public. In 1738 the Bibliotheca Eugeniana, the library of Prince Eugene of Savoy was purchased by the Emperor and installed in the hall.

Nowadays the hall is used for the National Library's exhibitions, the current concerning early geographical approaches to other continents.

Military History

One of the places I had been looking foward to visiting in Vienna was the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, the Museum of Military History, located near Belvedere and Südbahnhof. I was in particular interested in the exhibitions related to the wars against the Turks, Eugene of Savoy, and the 18th century.

I was not disappointed and spent quite some time in those parts of the museum. Actually I found it hard to concentrate on the rest of the exhibitions, although they contain many interesting objects from the Napoleonic wars, the first and second World Wars etc.

It is allowed to take photos if you pay a fee of €1.50, but it is unfortunately very dark in some areas of the exhibitions. Furthermore, it is usually hard to take decent photos in a museum because of all the reflections, which is the explanation for the poor quality of my photo below of a detail of a print showing an 18th century Feldscherer (field surgeon) and his assistants treating a wounded soldier.

The conquest of Belgrade 1717

From the English Wikipedia entry on Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736):

'After Eugene took the Banat fortress of Temesvár in mid-October 1716 (thus ending 164-years of Turkish rule), the Austrian commander turned his attention to the next year’s campaign and to what he considered the main goal of the war, Belgrade. Situated at the confluence of the Rivers Danube and Save, Belgrade held a garrison of 30,000 men under Mustapha Pasha. The siege progressed steadily, but by the first days of August 1717 a huge Turkish field army under Halil Pasha (150–200,000 strong) had arrived on the plateau east of the city to relieve the garrison. News spread through Europe of the imminent destruction of the Imperial army, yet Eugene had no intention of lifting the siege. With his men suffering from dysentery and continuous bombardment from the plateau, Eugene, aware that a decisive victory alone could relieve the army from their dangerous situation, decided to attack the relief force. On the morning of 16 August, 40,000 imperial troops marched through the fog, caught the Turks unawares, and routed Halil Pasha’s army; a week later Belgrade surrendered effectively bringing an end to the war. The victory was the crowning point of Eugene’s military career and had confirmed him as the leading European general; his ability to snatch victory at the moment of defeat had shown the Prince at his best.'

The above painting of the conquest of Belgrade by Jan van Huchtenburg shows Prince Eugene in the lower left corner. Click on the painting to view it in more detail!