The real Battle of Vienna, 1683

in religion •  6 years ago 

Interesting, thought-provoking article:

https://aeon.co/essays/the-battle-of-vienna-was-not-a-fight-between-cross-and-crescent

"So the Battle of Vienna wasn’t a war between the cross and the crescent. It was not a clash of civilisations, a mighty Christian victory over Islam. Rather, Sunni Muslim Tatars were vital in helping the Catholic Polish king on the one side – just as Lutheran Hungarians were allied with the Sunni Muslim Sultan on the other. The year 1683, in the end, was just another year of battles over power and influence between the great states of Europe. Loyalties crossed all borders of faith and ethnicity. Sobieski and his allies never ‘saved Europe’, nor Christianity, despite the claims of plaques, textbooks, and encyclopaedias. Rather, the ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was Europe’s foremost saviour of Muslim life and culture in northern Europe. The Battle of Vienna was a multicultural drama; an example of the complex and paradoxical twists of European history. There never has been such a thing as ‘the united Christian armies of Europe’."

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@steemcleaners:

This post should initiate a discussion and it did.

This post is neither plagiarism nor spam.

What is steemit if not a community discussing a broad spectrum of interesting topics?

And what do you think you do here? You're just a bunch of wannabe rogue cops.

@steamcleaners:
I agree with zuerich !

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Thanks for both your answers. I tend to agree with you. Nonetheless I found the article well written and there are details I didn't know, especially concerning the parties involved in the two alliances.

Granted there were Christians and Muslims on both sides but that doesn't change the story too much. It's a fact that the Turks forced conversion or put in place heavy taxes on Jews and Christians. Had the Turkish empire taken Austria there is no reason to believe that Europe would have remained Christian.

The bottom line is that it was still a war between Christianity and Islam. Although the "Christianity" has an asterisk. Catholics aren't Christians. The Lutherans of the time weren't either.

interesting...