Battle of Sisak - Battle

Battle

In spring 1593, without a declaration of war, the Governor-General of Bosnia, Telli Hasan Pasha, with his provincial army crossed the Kupa River, then the border between Ottomans and Austria as agreed upon in a treaty concluded between Habsburg and the High Porte at Adrianople (present day: Edirne) only a year earlier. Pounding the massed attackers with heavy artillery fire, the Austrian, Carniolan and Croat defenders broke the Ottoman siege and repulsed the enemy back towards the Kupa river. Caught in the middle between two Christian army flanks, the attackers panicked and started a chaotic retreat. Disintegrating under the unending cannonade, the bulk of the army with all the commanders are said to have been slaughtered or drowned in the Kupa river.

Telli Hasan Pasha, the Bosniak kapetan of the Ottoman regional force, did not survive the battle; Hersek Sandjakbey Sultanzade Mehmet Bey and some other beys were also killed. The figures concerning the Ottoman losses vary from 8,000 to a bragging and vainglorious 20,000, as legend has it, which contrasts sharply with one author’s statement that there was only a total of 12,000 Ottoman regional troops involved who faced 5,000 Croats reinforced by forces from Styria and Carniola. Christian losses are said to have numbered only between 40–50 men.

Christian Europe, which after relieving Spain of the Arabic Muslims had identified the Ottoman Empire with the Islamic menace, was delighted at the reports of such an allegedly grandiose victory. King Philip II of Spain congratulated and Pope Clement VIII praised the Christian military leaders. The traditional daily ringing of the small bell of Zagreb cathedral at 2 p.m. is in memory of the battle as it was the bishop of Zagreb who had borne the major part of the costs of the fortress of Sisak.