garrison,) "we saw
on the hills many fires, and rockets thrown up, as signals of our
approaching succours, which we joyfully answered in like manner ... and
next day the Turks were moving, and their cavalry riding about in
confusion, till about four P.M. we saw several of their regiments
drawing off towards the hills, and those in Leopoldstadt marching over
the bridge." The knowledge, indeed, that the terrible Sobieski was at
the head of the Christian army, had spread such a panic among the
Osmanli, that several thousands left the camp the same night; but
Kara-Mustapha, though urged by all his officers to march with his whole
force to meet the coming storm, contented himself with sending 10,000
men, under Kara-Ibrahim, pasha of Buda, to watch the Poles, while the
rest were kept in their lines before the city, which was cannonaded with
redoubled fury throughout the 11th and the night following. The summits
of the Kahlenberg glittered with the arms of the confederates, who
bivouacked there during the night, being unable to pitch their tents
from the violence of the wind, which Sobieski, in one of his letters to
his queen, (his "charmante et bien aimee Mariette,") says, was
attributed by the soldiers to the incantations of the vizir, "who is
known to be a great magician." From the top of the Leopoldsberg, the
king and the Duke of Lorraine reconnoitred the Turkish camp, which lay
in all its wide extent before them, from the opposite skirts of the
Wienerberg almost to the foot of the ridge on which they stood, with the
lofty pavilions and scarlet screens of the vizir's quarters conspicuous
in the midst, while the incessant roar of the artillery rose from the
midst of the smoke which enveloped the city.

At five in the morning of the 12th, the sound of musketry was heard from
the thickets and wooded ravines at the foot of the Kahlenberg, where the
Saxons were already engaged with the Turkish division under
Ibrahim-Pasha; and the king, having heard mass on the Leopoldsberg from
his chaplain Aviano, mounted his favourite sorrel charger, and, preceded
by his son James, whom he had just dubbed a knight in front of the army,
and by his esquire bearing his shield and banner, led the Poles, who
held the right of the allied line, down the slopes of the mountain. The
left wing, which lay nearest the river, was commanded by the Duke of
Lorraine, and the columns in the centre were under the orders of the two
electors, and the Dukes of