The Winged Hussars once again faced the Muslims in the late seventeenth century, when the Ottoman Empire swallowed Greece, the Balkans, Hungary, and much of Austria. The Turkish Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha and his army surrounded Vienna and were on the verge of capturing the Danube River, the commercial gateway to Europe. With the Muslims on their doorstep, the German-speaking kingdoms, Austria and Prussia, pleaded with King John Sobieski to send the hussars to repel the marauding army. Sobieski’s hussars led an army that routed the Turks in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. He was hailed as
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