By Brian Glyn Williams - The Jamestown Foundation

In the seventeenth century, troops serving under Montecuccoli invented the bayonet to help them
overcome the Sultan's cavalry forces. 150 Austria's musketeers were thus rendered far more effective for they no
longer needed to retreat behind a wall of pikes at the approach of Sultan's riders.
The advantages given to the Austrians by these advances were definitely significant, but not as telling as
might seem. The Tatars' maneuverability often rendered the Habsburg's cannon useless and the Tatars'
bow was still used with deadly effect against massed troops. It is also interesting to note that the Austrians
made little progress in developing tactics to overcome the Tatars' raiding skills despite their
improvements in tactics on the battlefield.
In the Austrian countryside, the Khan's raiders were able to move with a freedom that must have surprised the
Tatars used to the elaborate defense systems of Poland and Russia. The Austrian provincial aristocracy
proved to be especially inept in its attempts to halt the forays of the Tatar akinji. They, unlike their
counterparts in Poland and Russia, were inexperienced in dealing with a highly mobile steppe foe and
often fled their estates at the approach of an Ottoman army. 151 Signal fires, warning bells, and defense patrols that
required higher organization were often rendered ineffective by a lack of local organization. The rural
population was thus left at the mercy of the Turco-Tatar raiders who could engage in raiding with relative
ease. Barker notes that:
Although the Muslims were for the most part only lightly equipped—the Tatars lacked
even firearms—the population virtually paralyzed by fear, offered little resistance,
preferring precipitate flight or meek submission. 52
There were of course exceptions. On several occasions local castles held off Tatar assaults with relative
ease, for the plunder hungry akinji were reluctant to waste their time attacking fortified positions. The
most interesting case of local resistance to the marauders occurred in Lilienfeld, in 1683, when a Cistercian
monk managed to organize a surprisingly efficient peasant defense force. The naked corpses of Turkish and
Tatar raiders slain by the monk's men were displayed along the country roads in this vicinity to warn off other
raiders. 153
In the border regions, where Turkish raids were more common, the local resistance was of course better
organized. Villages here were placed on hills and surrounded by walls and castles were more frequent. This
region was, however, the exception and most of Austria was left practically defenseless.
The akinjis' raids were especially destructive in Lower Austria where a document written in 1689 claims that
as many as 500,000 people were killed or enslaved during a single campaign. 154 Barker makes the claim
that this region "did not fully recover from its wounds until the middle of the eighteenth century." 155 It
can thus be seen that the Austrians' poor defensive planning often went a long way in facilitating Tatar raids in
a country that admittedly was not well suited to the Tatars' style of warfare.
During a siege, this ability to move throughout the Austrian countryside on foraging missions was of
great assistance to the Ottomans. The Khan's raiders greatly facilitated Ottoman siege operations by
supplying the army with the important slave labor needed to construct the Turks' massive siege works.
They could also be counted on to gather lumber and capture food supplies for the preoccupied siege
forces. Their operations provided additional help to the main army by hindering enemy communications
and causing confusion among the terrorized population.
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