Very few people seem to be aware of why it was that Al-Qaeda chose September 11 for the date of a devastating, carefully planned attack on the United States, but the information is illuminating and worthy of discussion. A better understanding of what drives Islamic terrorism assists in helping to understand why most Westerners’ lack of any sense of history is dangerous. Conversely, Islamic terrorists are driven by events that occurred hundreds of years ago. They comprehend that Islam and Western Culture have been locked in mortal confrontation for approximately 1,400 years with a brief interlude that has caused Western culture to forget what is at stake and what is at risk. But that was the only 9/11. Look at its chronology:
- 9/11/1683 The Ottoman Empire, a Christian empire, defeats the Islamic Army of Turkey at the gates of Vienna. Essentially marking the downturn in Islamic cultural and religious progress
- 9/11/1922 British mandate for Palestine, gave birth to Israel
- 9/11/1948 Death of Jinnah, the father of Pakistan “Jinnah Day” still a day of remembrance
- 9/11/1990 George W. Bush “New World Order” speech calling for an end of terrorism
- 9/11/2001 Flights hijacked and flown into New York City and Pentagon
- 9/11 2012 Attack on U.S. Embassy building at Benghazi, U.S. Ambassador Chris Stephens and 2 other American’s murdered (this was a repeat of a 9/11 attack on the US Embassy years earlier in Libyan history)
September the 11th is a significant date in world history. It was not just an arbitrary date chosen by the Muslim terrorists in 2001 who launched a jihad (Moslem holy war) against the United States, using four American airplanes and flying one plane into the Pentagon, another into a field in Pennsylvania, and two other airplanes into the Trade Towers in New York City. It also marks the date in 1683 when the Muslim armies of the Ottoman Empire began their attack on the Europe and Christianity with an assault on the city of Vienna, Austria. Unfortunately, the terrorists of 2001 focused on the wrong date. They, like the Moslem Turks in 1683, saw the Christian virtues of mercy and tolerance as weakness. They should have learned the historical lesson from what happened on the day after September 11th.
The Battle of Vienna was meant to be the opening assault in a jihad that was to lead to the Islamic conquest of Europe and the defeat of Christendom. It was a conquest that was intended to conclude in an Islamic victory celebrated by taking possession of the center of Christian worship, turning the Vatican into a stable for their horses and St. Peter’s Cathedral into a Muslim mosque. The Turkish army reached Belgrade in late March of 1683. They were joined by Muslim armies that occupied Transylvania and Hungary and laid siege to the region. About 150,000 Muslim troops moved westward toward the city of Vienna where about 40,000 Crimean Tatars joined them. With the addition of the Tartars, the Ottoman army now had twice as many soldiers as the Imperial army of Austria.
Meanwhile, Pope Innocent III called for the Christian armies of Europe to defend Vienna. Unfortunately, there was discord among the various German states, Austria and Poland, on how they should fight the war to defeat the Muslim jihad against Europe. The events of the Protestant Reformation that had seriously fractured the unity between the Christian nations of Europe was another cause for division. The king of Poland promised to come to the aid of Vienna with a combined Polish-Lithuanian army, and Charles V, Duke of Lorraine, promised to field an army in defense of Vienna. However, Austrian Emperor Leopold fled what he considered to be the doomed city with his court and 60,000 Viennese, and to make matters worse, Charles V Duke of Lorraine withdrew his force of 20,000 towards Linz. Duke Charles’s defection left Count Ernst Rudiger von Starhemberg with only 15,000 trained soldiers to defend Vienna. The Pope’s emissary, Capuchin friar Father Marco d’Aviano, refused to leave the city and stayed to serve as the spiritual advisor to the people of Vienna and the “Holy League” of the combined Christian forces.
The main Turkish army arrived at Vienna on July 14th. The Moslems laid siege to Vienna and sent the traditional demand for the city to surrender, to renounce Christianity, to embrace Islam, and to pay the required tax of all conquered people. Count Ernst Rudiger von Starhemberg, with 15,000 troops, 8,700 volunteers, and 370 cannons refused to surrender. Days before he had received news of the mass murder of a town south of Vienna where the people had surrendered after a similar offer. Instead of surrendering, von Starhemberg had the people demolish many of the houses around the city walls and remove the debris, leaving an empty area where the Turks would not find refuge from an attack. The Turks immediately began a siege of the city that cut off virtually every means of food supply and continually bombarded the city walls with their cannon as they worked to dig tunnels to undermine the walls.
The city of Vienna had been under siege by the Turks for almost two months when Jan III Sobieski, the king of Poland, prepared to leave for Vienna with a relief expedition during the late summer of 1683. He departed from Krakow on August the 15th, taking almost every soldier in his army and leaving his nation virtually undefended. The army of Lithuania was supposed to join the Polish king in defense of Vienna, but Jan Kazimierz Sapieha the Younger was delayed by fighting against the Turks in Hungry.Charles V, however, made good on his promise and defeated Muslim forces at Bisambery, 5 km northwest of Vienna and then joined the defense of Vienna.
The Battle of Vienna that marked the Muslim assault on Europe began in earnest on September 11th, 1683. The combined Christian forces of the “Holy League” were vastly outnumbered by the Moslem Turks and Tartars who were confident that they would be able to breach the walls of the city with their cannon after weakening both the people and the walls of the city during the two months of the siege. Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa celebrated the opening day of the battle for Vienna on September the 11th by executing 30,000 Christian captives.
The Viennese forces managed to hold off the Moslems on the 11th, but the defenders of the city knew they could not survive another day of fighting. The tide of the battle turned on September 12th with the arrival of the army of the Polish king, Jan III Sobieski. He had entrusted his kingdom and the success of his army to the protection of the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Czestochowa, whose icon was a Polish national treasure. He accomplished the nearly impossible feat of securing the high ground on the mountain above the battlefield and positioned his cannon to fire down on the Ottoman camp. The battle started before the deployment of all the Christian units when the Ottomans attacked at about 4 AM on September the 12th under the iconic Islamic sign of the crescent moon, seeking to interfere with the deployment of the troops of the “Holy League.” Charles of Lorraine moved forward with the Imperial army on the left, with the other Holy Roman Imperial forces in the center. The Ottoman commander, Kara Mustafa, launched a counter-attack with most of his force but held back some of the elite units for a planned simultaneous assault on the city. The Ottoman commanders had intended to take Vienna before Jan Sobieski arrived, but time ran out. Their sappers had prepared a large, final detonation to breach the city walls. In total, ten mines were set to explode, but they were located and disarmed by Viennese soldiers. A large battle commenced as the Polish infantry launched a massive assault on the Ottoman right flank. Instead of focusing on the battle with the relief army, the Ottomans continued their efforts to force their way into the city.
After twelve hours of fighting, the Polish troops continued to hold the high ground on the right. On the flanks, the Polish cavalry slowly emerged from the forest to the cheers of the infantry. At about 5 PM, the Polish king ordered the cavalry to attack in four groups, three Polish and one from the Holy Roman Empire. Eighteen thousand horsemen, the famed “Winged Hussars” led by Jan III Sobieski, charged down from the hills; it was the largest cavalry charge in history! The charge broke the lines of the Ottomans who were exhausted from the long struggle on two fronts. The cavalry headed straight for the Ottoman camp and Kara Mustafa’s headquarters. Sensing victory, the remaining Viennese garrison sallied out of its defenses to join in the assault.
At the same moment as the cavalry attacked, a cloud caused the crescent moon to fade from view; it was an ominous omen for the superstitious Turks. The Ottoman troops were tired and dispirited following the failure of both the attempt at undermining the walls and making an assault on the city. The arrival of the cavalry turned the tide of battle against them, sending the Moslem Turks into a massive retreat to the south and east by nightfall. Less than three hours after the cavalry attack, the Christian forces had won the battle and saved Vienna.
The defeat of the Ottoman Turks at Vienna on the 12th of September marked the turning point in the 300-year struggle between the forces of the Christian Central European kingdoms and the Muslim Ottoman Empire. It was the last attempt by Moslems to expand their power into Europe; therefore, historians consider the Battle of Vienna to be one of the decisive battles of world history. When lauded for his victory, King Jan III Sobieski responded with a variation of Julius Caesar’s famous statement “Veni, Vidi, Vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”), by replying “Veni, Vidi, Deus Vici” (“I came, I saw, God conquered”), giving credit for his victory to God and the intercession of the Virgin Mary. Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV blamed Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, who commanded the Muslim forces, for the defeat of the Muslim armies by the Christian “Holy League” and took his revenge by having the Vizier executed by strangulation for his failure on Christmas Day 1683.
Part of the motivation of Islamic terrorists is to reverse the trend of decline in the Islamic world relative to Western culture that many trace as far back to September 11, 1683 when a large Turkish army was humiliatingly crushed by Europeans at the Battle of Vienna.
In 1683, the Ottoman Turks attacked Vienna. The Turks viewed Vienna as the gateway to hegemony over all of Western Europe. The resulting battle of Vienna was a watershed moment in history. The Turks had made elaborate preparations and had assembled resources and Jihadists eager for booty from throughout the Ottoman Empire. Europe was quite vulnerable as it was fractured into warring kingdoms and weakened by internecine squabbles that nearly allowed the Turks to conquer the European continent. However, the Turkish preparations were so elaborate that they could not be hidden and the Europeans were able to form agreements or treaties to assist each other against the Turks that proved decisive and which changed the course of human history.
The Battle of Vienna was a hard-fought war with an uncertain outcome. The Turks nearly conquered the city. All that saved Europe was the arrival of a relief force headed by Polish King Jan Sobieski. Jan Sobieski and his troops won a major victory against the Turkish forces on September 11, 1683. The victory was so compete that Polish King Jan Sobieski purportedly described the windfall in a letter to his wife as follows:
“Ours are treasures unheard of … tents, sheep, cattle and no small number of camels … it is victory as nobody ever knew of, the enemy now completely ruined, everything lost for them. They must run for their sheer lives . . .”
Educated, fundamentalist Muslims feel the sting of the defeat hundreds of years later. In their view, they are the recipients of Allah’s final revelation and it is humiliating to them that their “perfect” Islamic culture has declined relative to Western culture. They seek to reverse the trend and September 11 was carefully chosen to try and reverse the course of history and create a new September 11 that the Islamic world could celebrate.
Viewed in this proper context, the events of September 11, 2001 take on additional significance. It is too early to write off the attack as simply an American tragedy and a minor victory for the terrorists as many Westerners seem inclined to do. New polls reveal that many Americans are no longer significantly concerned about terrorism, but such lack of concern is far from justified.
September 11 seems to have resulted in great exposure for the Islamic faith. While there have been some military setbacks on the battlefield, Islam continues its advance into Western culture via disinformation, immigration and faster rates of reproduction amongst Muslims as compared to non-Muslims. Europe is on the verge of completely being lost to Islam, although recent events in France and Germany suggest that the majority of people and rulers do not want Islamic majorities there. Despite all of the warnings from such intrepid, brilliant writers such as Oriana Fallaci, will Europeans ever be able to take the strong steps necessary to rescue their culture from Islam’s ominous advance? Most Europeans seem unable to recognize the mortal danger they are and their descendants are in and most Americans seem unable to grasp that Europe is in actual danger from such a vastly inferior culture.
Will enlightened people allow the Islamic world to slide deeper and deeper into Islamic extremism? Lebanon, Egypt, and Pakistan seem to be lost to Islamic extremists more and more. Oil wealth continues to pour into the Middle East with the adverse effect of hurting Western economies and providing the very revenue being used to finance the advance of fundamentalist Islamic ideology throughout the world, including the United States, as well as to fund international terrorism.
Sadly, the future looks bleak. Far from being the clear warning sign and wake-up call the tragedy of 9/11 could have and should have been, it appears that it will be nothing more than a terrible tragedy and temporary stirring from stupor somewhat akin to rousing a drunk from sleep and giving him coffee that will not result in the long-term steps needed to halt Islam’s insidious, steady advance. While most adult Americans will not see any significant effects of advancing Islam in their lifetimes as long as terrorists continue to be thwarted in their goal of using WMD’s within the United States, their children or grand children will not be so lucky.
The search continues for the numinous or hieroglyphic significance of the date September 11. Believers in propaganda by deed, like Gavrilo Princip and Timothy McVeigh, usually choose to invest themselves with portentousness by selecting an anniversary that will freight their murder with meaning. Often, it is a date that only meant something to a very limited or arcane circle until its true value was unveiled to a stunned world. Thus Princip chose the date of Serbia’s 14th century defeat in Kosovo and McVeigh chose the anniversary of Janet Reno’s bloodbath at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
I’ve also frequently heard it suggested that the timing of the recent attacks was linked somehow to the signing of the Camp David agreement in September 1978. I thought this sounded a plausible reason for the death-squads circling that date in their diaries – until I discovered that the agreement was in fact signed on September 17. Fanatics don’t make mistakes like that.
I now think I can provide a more persuasive explanation, however. It was on September 11 1683 that the conquering armies of Islam were met, held, and thrown back at the gates of Vienna.
Now this, of course, is not a date that has only obscure or sectarian significance. It can rightly, if tritely, be called a hinge-event in human history. The Ottoman empire never recovered from the defeat; from then on it was more likely that Christian or western powers would dominate the Muslim world than the other way around. In our culture, the episode is often forgotten or downplayed, except by Catholic propagandists like Hilaire Belloc and GK Chesterton. But in the Islamic world, and especially among the extremists, it is remembered as a humiliation in itself and a prelude to later ones. (The forces of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza once published a statement saying that they could not be satisfied until all of Spanish Andalusia had been restored to the faithful as well.)
If my speculation is correct, then whoever wanted to destroy the hearts of New York and Washington was animated by something more than a recent grievance over the West Bank or the Iraqi sanctions.
Troubling times for the Washington hawks
It is noticeable that in today’s Washington the recent and the local and the immediate are the determinants of policy. Those who had a pre-existing resentment against Saddam Hussein, for example, or against Syria and the Hezbollah, are taking the chance to push their preferred bugbears.
At the defence department, a faction most identified with assistant secretary Paul Wolfowitz has been pressing for an assault on Iraq and – while he is about it – the forces of Hezbollah. For Colin Powell, whose own reputation as a man of infinite moderation is extremely dear to him, the business of coalition-building in the Arab world is of much greater importance. And, judging from the way things are going, he must have the support of Dick Cheney in order to be prevailing. I ran into one of the leading hawks at a television studio this week; he wasn’t even trying to look happy. “If you think it looks clueless and confused from the outside,” he said, “you should see it from the inside.”
Of course, Powell was opposed even to moving some carriers into the Gulf on the warning of an invasion of Kuwait (something his enemies never fail to bring up.) And the idea of having Muslim allies is so crucial to the self-esteem of the Bushies that they would rather handle the Pakistanis and Saudis with tongs than run the risk of offending yesterday’s (and probably today’s) patrons of the Taliban.
I had to confess my worries to another administration person the other night. “So what you are telling me,” I said, “is that the only ones apart from me who worry about under-reaction are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Ariel Sharon lobby?” “That’s about it,” he replied, a touch too contentedly for my taste. Security? It makes me nervous
I feel sorry for the legacy we are leaving to the next generation. I suspect that in contradistinction to the so-called “greatest generation” of World war II fame, we may well be earning a far less flattering label from our descendants.
The horror of 9/11 seems to have been insufficient to permanently awaken Westerners from their decadent stupor and utter lack of any sense of history.
Dr.Lamba's Awakening Call 