[Azure Angel]

In the honor of eternal defense of Mother Europe by people of Croatia against Muslim invaders.

In 1566, from August 5 to September 7, Count Nikola Šubić Zrinski and his small warrior force of 2250 heroically defended the little fortress of Siget against the whole Ottoman army of at least 170,000 soldiers with powerful artillery, led by Suleiman the Magnificent in person who finally went forth to carry out his dream of conquering Europe in the name of Islam.
After over a month of exhausting and bloody struggle the few remaining defenders retreated into the old town for their last stand.
The Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent tried to entice Count Zrinski to surrender, ultimately offering him leadership of Croatia under Ottoman influence,Count Zrinski did not reply and continued to fight to the end.
Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent died in his tent, his death was kept secret from Ottoman army in order to keep already crumbling morale of army.
The final battle began on 7 September, the day after Suleiman's demise. By this time, the fortress walls had been reduced to rubble by mining with explosives and wood fueled fires at the corners of the walls. In the morning an all-out attack began with fusillades from small arms, "Greek fire", and a concentrated cannonade.Soon the castle, the last stronghold within Siget, was set ablaze.
The Ottoman army swarmed through the city, drumming and yelling.

Count Nikola Šubić Zrinski prepared for a last charge addressing his troops:

“ ...Let us go out from this burning place into the open and stand up to our enemies. Who dies – he will be with God. Who dies not – his name will be honoured. I will go first, and what I do, you do. And God is my witness – I will never leave you, my brothers and knights!... ”

Count Nikola did not allow the final assault to break into the castle.
As the Turks were pressing forwards along a narrow bridge the defenders suddenly flung open the gate and fired a large mortar loaded with broken iron, killing 600 attackers.

Count Nikola then ordered a charge and led his remaining 600 troops out of the castle into his last stand against entire Ottoman army.
After he used his two matchlock pistols, he continued cutting Turks with his sword, only to fall from his horse due to many wounds.
His knights rushed around him to defend him and shared the fate of all other Croat warriors that day.

Before charging forth from castle,Zrinski ordered a fuse be lit to the powder magazine.
After cutting down the last of the defenders the besiegers poured into the fortress. The Ottoman Army entered the remains of Siget and fell into the booby trap,thousands perished in the blast when the castle's magazine exploded.

Count Nikola inspiring his men before last charge.



In his honor, this song was written by Franjo Marković.

To battle, to battle!
Unsheathe your swords, brethren,
Let the enemy know how we die!

Our city already burns,
The heat is already reaching us:
Their roar resounds,
Their rage is rampant!

Our chests flare up as that fire,
The roar is silenced by the rattling of our swords!

All of you, kiss Zrinski
As brethren would kiss one another!
Follow him to the gates,
You, faithful heroes!

Now, brethren!
Load the rifles, pistols,
Our thunders, our bang,
Let them roar, topple, harry!
Let us grind our fierce swords,
Make them cut harder, harder!
Load the rifles, pistols,
Our thunders, our bang,
Let them roar, topple, harry!

Good bye and be well,
Our home of old,
Oh, good bye,
From everywhere
The grim enemy comes
Already they plan
To bury your sacred body,
But they won't!
All your sons move to the fight for you!
Our home, you will stand forever!

Into the fight, to the fight!
For the home, for the home now to the fight!
Even if the infernal might
Raises its knife at it;
To the fight!
We are few, but courageous!
Who, who will bring him down?
Death to the devil, death!

For the home, to the fight, For the home, to the fight

To die for your homeland - such a delight!

Against the enemy! They shall die!

[fuser]

Ottoman army of at least 170,000 soldiers

lol. No, I don't think Ottoman Empire was that efficient. Sources from those era always grossly exaggerate their enemy's number, anyway the point of this thread is?

[Azure Angel]

Actually number around 150,000-200,000 is generally accepted by both European and Turkish historians.

This is history sub-forum, I posted a piece of history which most people never heard before.

[ThirdTerm]

The Ottoman Empire did resort to military conquests to subjugate Christian kingdoms in southeastern Europe but it was relatively a benign empire, under which Christian princes could keep their faith as well as their territories as long as they paid tributes to the Ottomans. Thus the classical system of empire resembled that of the British Empire which imposed indirect rule on its subjects. While Europe was less advanced, the Ottoman Empire experienced some of the most advanced political and cultural achievements in the early 16th century, and the empire exerted a civilising influence on its Eastern European subjects as a result of cultural superiority. For example, the Ottoman method of inoculation was first introduced to Great Britain in 1721 by a wife of the British ambassador to Ottoman Constantinople, eventually contributing to the eradication of smallpox in Europe, and inoculation was already practiced by physicians in Ottoman Turkey by the latter half of the 17th century.

The Ottoman Empire was created by a series of conquests carried out between the early fourteenth and late sixteenth centuries by ten successive capable rulers of the Ottoman Turkish dynasty. Starting as nomadic gazis (Ar., ghāzī, “raider”), fighting for the faith of Islam against the decadent Byzantine Empire on behalf of the Seljuk Empire of Konya (“Seljuks of Rum”), Osman I and his successors in the fourteenth century expanded primarily into Christian lands of southeastern Europe as far as the Danube, while avoiding conflict with the Muslim Turkoman principalities that had dominated Anatolia after they defeated the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. These conquests were facilitated by policies that left the defeated Christian princes in control of their states as long as they accepted vassalage and provided tribute and warriors to assist further Ottoman conquests and that allowed Christian officials and soldiers to join the Ottoman government and army as mercenaries without being required to convert to Islam. This first Ottoman Empire incorporated territories that encompassed the modern states of Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia, and Croatia; it bypassed the Byzantine capital Constantinople, which, despite the depopulation and despoilage inflicted by the Latin Crusaders early in the thirteenth century, held out as a result of its massive defense walls as well as the services provided by soldiers from Christian Europe, though its emperors for the most part accepted the suzerainty of the Ottoman leaders. Efforts by the Byzantine emperors to reunite the Orthodox church with Rome in order to stimulate the creation of a new crusade to rescue their empire led to new internal divisions that prevented any sort of unified resistance to the Ottomans.

From the late eighteenth century onward the Ottoman Empire faced three prominent challenges, and responses to these challenges once more transformed the empire in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, thus paving the way for the Tanzimat period. The first was a strategic threat posed by the Russian Empire. In the eighteenth century, the emergence of Russia as a great power brought about a shift in the balance of power, at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. The Empire was in decline militarily, and Russia was eager to fill the vacuum that Ottoman weakness had created in the region. There were a series of Russo-Ottoman wars, resulting in the Russian invasion of Ottoman territory in the Balkans, southeastern Europe, and the Caucasus. The Ottomans were persistently defeated by the Russians (with the exception of the Crimean War of 1853–1856), and the very heart of the Ottoman Empire, the capital Istanbul, was often threatened by the Russian army. At the same time, the decline of the empire and the prospect of its disintegration created a power struggle among European Great Powers. This struggle, known as the Eastern Question, over the fate of the empire to safeguard the strategic, territorial, and commercial interests of the European Great Powers in the Ottoman domains, lasted until the end of the empire.

The second challenge was the emergence and spread of nationalist ideas and movements in the Ottoman Empire after the French Revolution, first among non-Muslim elements, and then among non-Turkish Muslim elements. From the beginning of the nineteenth century until the end of the First World War, the empire faced a series of nationalist and separatist uprisings, from different ethnic groups, seeking to break up the empire in order to secure their independence. The uprisings of the Christian minorities, supported by Russia and other European Great Powers, who sought to use these movements as vehicles to extend their influence within the Ottoman body politic and, ultimately, to replace Ottoman rule with their own. It started with the Greek revolution early in the century and continued in Serbia and Bulgaria; later in the century, it spread to Macedonia and to the Armenians in Anatolia. The resulting loss of territories and large-scale massacres of Muslim (and in some cases Jewish) subjects by the rebels as well as by the newly independent Christian states of southeastern Europe, aimed at securing homogenous national populations for the new nation-states, led to massacres and countermassacres that characterized the empire, with little break, during the last half century of its existence.

http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/art ... t236/e0611

[Potemkin]

Count Nikola then ordered a charge and led his remaining 600 troops out of the castle into his last stand against entire Ottoman army.

[youtube]mE328QhF-VA[/youtube]

Awesome!

[annatar1914]

Great story in the OP!

It is awesome to see such bravery in the face of such Evil!

[fuser]

Actually number around 150,000-200,000 is generally accepted by both European and Turkish historians.

This is history sub-forum, I posted a piece of history which most people never heard before.

1. No, it was simply impossible 16th century states to march and maintain such a huge number in a single campaign, wiki says that some modern estimates put it close to 100,000 which frankly is still high and probably they are counting non combatants too but yeah Croatian were highly outnumbered.

2. The point as it seems to me is just nationalism, "me country very strong" that's it. And as such we can have millions of thread in this subforum with excerpts from wikipedia about millions of battle in history plus I do think that most on PoFo are aware of this part of History.

[Azure Angel]

1. No, it was simply impossible 16th century states to march and maintain such a huge number in a single campaign, wiki says that some modern estimates put it close to 100,000 which frankly is still high and probably they are counting non combatants too but yeah Croatian were highly outnumbered.

2. The point as it seems to me is just nationalism, "me country very strong" that's it. And as such we can have millions of thread in this subforum with excerpts from wikipedia about millions of battle in history plus I do think that most on PoFo are aware of this part of History.

1. Ottoman Empire was not some meager 16th century state, it was powerful empire and Suleiman the Magnificent was its greatest leader.
It is impossible to know true number on either side but still this is beautiful tale of courage and valor in the face of death.

2.I am pretty sure most people here never heard of this individual battle in some little forgotten country that was Croatia at that time.
If I am wrong, please correct me since that would be amazing.
But this is just one tale of long series of wars in Vojna Krajina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Frontier) in which Croat blood was spilled in order to defend Europe.

[fuser]

Ottoman Empire was not some meager 16th century state, it was powerful empire and Suleiman the Magnificent was its greatest leader.
It is impossible to know true number on either side but still this is beautiful tale of courage and valor in the face of death.

Yes and even the great Ottoman Empire at its apex couldn't field such a large army in a single campaign, no pre Napoleonic states could, that was just impossible even the much more populous Chinese state didn't fielded 200,000 in a simple campaign (I am counting only combatants) simply because it would had been impossible to support such a large army as the army of that era used to live off the land not to mention the logistical constraints in bringing up such a large number of men from far fetched areas of a large empire, its much cheaper to raise men from nearest province.

But this is just one tale of long series of wars in Vojna Krajina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Frontier) in which Croat blood was spilled in order to defend Europe.

Blood was more likely spilled for their petty land holdings motivated by concepts like Christendom but hardly it had anything to do with Europe. Or do you think that France is a traitor of this Europe?

[Azure Angel]

Okay, we have no way of knowing true number of combatants, but you will agree with me that it is beautiful story of courage in face of death?

Blood was more likely spilled for their petty land holdings motivated by concepts like Christendom but hardly it had anything to do with Europe. Or do you think that France is a traitor of this Europe?

Blood was spilled to defend Croat Christian lands and block way of Turks going further into Europe.
Habsburg Austria created and financed this Vojna Krajina as defense shield of south-east Europe.
Where have I personally said that France is traitor of Europe?
You seem to be in some mode where you wish to discredit the heroism of these people who died at Siget.

For what has your communist kind spilled blood? For the most misguided ideology on the face of Earth?

[fuser]

Okay, we have no way of knowing true number of combatants, but you will agree with me that it is beautiful story of courage in face of death?

Yes, Croatian were vastly outnumbered, that's a fact and as per it being a beautiful story, meh I am not a romantic for military tales.

Where have I personally said that France is traitor of Europe?

I made no such claim that you personally said so, I was just mocking the idea of blood being spilled for "Europe" for France made an alliance with Ottomans, hence by your logic France must be a traitor to Europe, right? or else the fight wasn't about Europe, you are just juxtaposing today's identities in an era where it had no such meaning as it exists today.

You seem to be in some mode where you wish to discredit the heroism of these people who died at Siget.

No. I am just defending history.

For what has your communist kind spilled blood?

Really? Does literally saving millions from Nazi death machine counts?

[Azure Angel]

France made alliance but as in my signature says
Rivers change course over many lifetimes
I do not deny that act of France does not sit well with me, but at the end of days, France is part of Europe.

Really? Does literally saving millions from Nazi death machine counts?

Does sending millions of people into death counts too?

Wiki:

As of 2011, academic consensus has not been achieved on causes of large scale killings by states, including by states governed by communists. In particular, the number of comparative studies suggesting causes is limited. The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The estimates of the number of non-combatants killed by these three regimes alone range from a low of 21 million to a high of 70 million.

Or will you tell me now that all those states were in fact not true to communism ideology?

[Doomhammer]

Bunch of romantic nonsense and masturbation.




+1 to everything Fuser and Thirdterm said.

[Ganeshas Rat]

If you are so defenders of Europe against invaders, why did you wiped Roanoke colony 20 years after?

[Azure Angel]

If you are so defenders of Europe against invaders, why did you wiped Roanoke colony 20 years after?

Are you confusing Croatan Native American tribe with Croats?

Bunch of romantic nonsense and masturbation.

There is zero romantic nonsense and masturbation in what is historical fact.

[Decky]

Are you confusing Croatan Native American tribe with Croats?

Are they not the same?

[Potemkin]

Hey, if Jesus could make it to the New World, why not the Croats?

[Azure Angel]

Hey, if Jesus could make it to the New World, why not the Croats?

Good one.

Now for some little historical alteration.
The Coming of the Croats to the America by Oton Iveković.

[Potemkin]

The Coatian nation - EUROPE'S GREATEST!!

[Azure Angel]

The Coatian nation - EUROPE'S GREATEST!!