1 00:00:07,340 --> 00:00:09,540 This is the Danube, 2 00:00:09,540 --> 00:00:12,500 the most majestic river in Europe. 3 00:00:12,500 --> 00:00:15,620 And on its banks stands Vienna. 4 00:00:15,620 --> 00:00:17,220 Imperial city. 5 00:00:17,220 --> 00:00:18,780 This is its story, 6 00:00:18,780 --> 00:00:24,460 a story peopled by a cast of giants from Suleiman the Magnificent 7 00:00:24,460 --> 00:00:29,500 to Napoleon, from Mozart and Mahler to Freud, Hitler and Stalin. 8 00:00:29,500 --> 00:00:33,620 It grew as a bastion of Christendom against Islam, 9 00:00:33,620 --> 00:00:36,740 of Catholicism against Protestantism. 10 00:00:36,740 --> 00:00:40,580 And it all happened because of one family, a family whose empire, 11 00:00:40,580 --> 00:00:43,500 at its greatest, stretched from Peru to Poland, 12 00:00:43,500 --> 00:00:46,340 from the Netherlands to Naples. 13 00:00:46,340 --> 00:00:49,580 This is the rise and fall of the House of Habsburg. 14 00:00:49,580 --> 00:00:54,420 This is how Vienna became the imperial city of Europe, 15 00:00:54,420 --> 00:00:55,980 the paramount city, 16 00:00:55,980 --> 00:00:58,100 the city of the world. 17 00:01:02,820 --> 00:01:07,980 The strategic position of Vienna on the Danube, between the Black Forest 18 00:01:07,980 --> 00:01:12,300 and the Black Sea, was first appreciated by the ancient Romans. 19 00:01:18,020 --> 00:01:20,860 They built a forward military base here 20 00:01:20,860 --> 00:01:26,100 to defend the empire against endless attacks by Eastern barbarians. 21 00:01:28,300 --> 00:01:30,620 These are the ruins of Vindobona, 22 00:01:30,620 --> 00:01:34,220 the Roman town on the site of present-day Vienna. 23 00:01:34,220 --> 00:01:37,260 But its real importance was for future dynasties 24 00:01:37,260 --> 00:01:39,580 who liked to play up its Roman past 25 00:01:39,580 --> 00:01:43,780 to presage their own future imperial glory. 26 00:01:45,340 --> 00:01:49,660 Creating a heroic narrative for the city, and for themselves, 27 00:01:49,660 --> 00:01:54,620 the Habsburgs would help transform Vienna from a small frontier town 28 00:01:54,620 --> 00:01:56,780 to one of the world's greatest cities. 29 00:01:57,980 --> 00:02:02,740 They would use every medium - architecture, sculpture, printing, 30 00:02:02,740 --> 00:02:05,340 music and theatrical spectacle 31 00:02:05,340 --> 00:02:09,540 to glorify the city and project their own power. 32 00:02:09,540 --> 00:02:11,060 That's the point. 33 00:02:11,060 --> 00:02:12,660 This was all an act. 34 00:02:12,660 --> 00:02:14,540 It was all a show. 35 00:02:14,540 --> 00:02:19,540 Vienna would become the inspiration, the magnet, the stage for Mozart, 36 00:02:19,540 --> 00:02:21,900 Beethoven, Strauss and Mahler. 37 00:02:21,900 --> 00:02:24,620 It would also become an intellectual hotbed 38 00:02:24,620 --> 00:02:26,260 for some of the most brilliant, 39 00:02:26,260 --> 00:02:28,940 and the most dangerous thinkers of modern times. 40 00:02:30,660 --> 00:02:34,060 This is the story of empire, 41 00:02:34,060 --> 00:02:38,660 empire of conquerors, courtesans and composers, 42 00:02:38,660 --> 00:02:42,100 palaces, churches and coffee houses. 43 00:02:42,100 --> 00:02:47,340 But also, the empire of cultures, of nations, of ideas, 44 00:02:47,340 --> 00:02:50,460 monstrous ideas that killed millions, 45 00:02:50,460 --> 00:02:54,100 wonderful ideas that helped create our world. 46 00:02:54,100 --> 00:02:56,300 Yes, in so many ways, 47 00:02:56,300 --> 00:03:00,860 Vienna is the capital of the empire of the mind. 48 00:03:13,540 --> 00:03:15,820 Following the fall of the Roman Empire, 49 00:03:15,820 --> 00:03:18,380 Central Europe became the battlefield 50 00:03:18,380 --> 00:03:20,740 of rival tribes and warlords. 51 00:03:20,740 --> 00:03:24,460 They had much in common - the Roman legacy, the use of Latin, 52 00:03:24,460 --> 00:03:26,540 and faith in Christianity. 53 00:03:29,700 --> 00:03:34,220 Then in the eighth century, a brilliant, harsh, Frankish warlord, 54 00:03:34,220 --> 00:03:40,020 Charlemagne, Charles the Great, managed to unite much of Europe. 55 00:03:40,020 --> 00:03:44,500 Charlemagne created the idea of a pan-European state, 56 00:03:44,500 --> 00:03:48,100 a new Roman Empire based on two pillars, 57 00:03:48,100 --> 00:03:51,820 Christianity and a powerful European king, 58 00:03:51,820 --> 00:03:54,620 known as the Holy Roman Emperor. 59 00:03:54,620 --> 00:03:58,060 In 800, he was crowned by the Pope in Rome, 60 00:03:58,060 --> 00:04:01,940 and henceforth, the status of the Holy Roman Emperors 61 00:04:01,940 --> 00:04:05,380 justified their actions in the name of Christendom. 62 00:04:06,820 --> 00:04:09,860 These Holy Roman Emperors became, effectively, 63 00:04:09,860 --> 00:04:12,020 kings of a wider Germany, 64 00:04:12,020 --> 00:04:17,380 that later extended to include bits of modern France, Italy and Bohemia, 65 00:04:17,380 --> 00:04:18,860 with its capital, Prague. 66 00:04:23,180 --> 00:04:24,860 At the edge of this empire 67 00:04:24,860 --> 00:04:28,500 was the relatively insignificant town of Vienna. 68 00:04:28,500 --> 00:04:31,700 But by the 12th century, Vienna was becoming an increasingly 69 00:04:31,700 --> 00:04:34,660 important centre of German civilisation. 70 00:04:37,020 --> 00:04:41,940 Work began on a new church that would go on to become the mighty 71 00:04:41,940 --> 00:04:44,380 St Stephen's Cathedral, 72 00:04:44,380 --> 00:04:47,620 a masterpiece of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. 73 00:04:49,660 --> 00:04:52,740 The church was founded in 1137, 74 00:04:52,740 --> 00:04:57,500 the year in which Vienna is first referred to as a city. 75 00:04:57,500 --> 00:05:01,660 The cathedral's South Tower reaches 446 feet, 76 00:05:01,660 --> 00:05:03,980 still the city's highest point. 77 00:05:03,980 --> 00:05:05,940 And in the centuries ahead, 78 00:05:05,940 --> 00:05:09,340 this cathedral would be the magnificent stage 79 00:05:09,340 --> 00:05:11,140 for the drama of Vienna. 80 00:05:14,060 --> 00:05:18,060 When the first Habsburg Archduke became Holy Roman Emperor, 81 00:05:18,060 --> 00:05:19,980 it was here, on the altar, 82 00:05:19,980 --> 00:05:24,060 that he inscribed his mysterious code of power, 83 00:05:24,060 --> 00:05:26,180 A, E, I, O, U. 84 00:05:27,620 --> 00:05:31,260 And he inscribed them in different places all across his domains. 85 00:05:31,260 --> 00:05:35,020 And during his lifetime, no-one knew what they meant. 86 00:05:35,020 --> 00:05:38,380 Had they known, they would have seemed utterly preposterous. 87 00:05:38,380 --> 00:05:40,260 The Emperor didn't even reveal 88 00:05:40,260 --> 00:05:42,260 whether the code was Latin or German. 89 00:05:43,540 --> 00:05:46,820 On his deathbed, he revealed what the letters stood for, 90 00:05:46,820 --> 00:05:48,780 and by the time he revealed them, 91 00:05:48,780 --> 00:05:51,420 they no longer seemed quite so ridiculous. 92 00:05:51,420 --> 00:05:53,660 Here's what they stood for, 93 00:05:53,660 --> 00:05:57,500 "The whole world is dominated by Austria." 94 00:05:59,100 --> 00:06:03,580 I'm no German scholar, but these letters signify, in German, 95 00:06:03,580 --> 00:06:06,780 "Alles Erdreich ist Osterreich untertan." 96 00:06:08,740 --> 00:06:11,100 During the next 500 years, 97 00:06:11,100 --> 00:06:15,260 Vienna would become the capital of the Habsburg family monarchy, 98 00:06:15,260 --> 00:06:20,900 and effectively, the headquarters of the Holy Roman Emperors. 99 00:06:20,900 --> 00:06:23,100 The story of the rise of the Habsburgs 100 00:06:23,100 --> 00:06:25,780 possesses all the rollicking heroes 101 00:06:25,780 --> 00:06:28,380 and extravagant blood-letting of a medieval myth. 102 00:06:30,020 --> 00:06:34,620 In 1273, a new prince from a rising family 103 00:06:34,620 --> 00:06:37,340 was elected king of the Germans. 104 00:06:37,340 --> 00:06:41,380 His name was Rudolf, and he came from the family of Habsburg. 105 00:06:41,380 --> 00:06:44,140 They'd started in a Swiss castle, 106 00:06:44,140 --> 00:06:47,980 in an eyrie named The Hawk's Nest, Habsburg. 107 00:06:47,980 --> 00:06:52,140 And now they'd expanded their holdings into Austria. 108 00:06:52,140 --> 00:06:54,220 Rudolf was 55, 109 00:06:54,220 --> 00:06:56,820 and the electors who chose German kings 110 00:06:56,820 --> 00:06:58,820 believed he would be no threat. 111 00:06:58,820 --> 00:06:59,780 They were wrong. 112 00:07:04,980 --> 00:07:08,620 Rudolf, though already old by medieval standards, 113 00:07:08,620 --> 00:07:12,500 would go on to rule from his base in Vienna for 17 years. 114 00:07:12,500 --> 00:07:16,740 And the Habsburgs would dominate Europe for the next half-millennium. 115 00:07:20,260 --> 00:07:23,580 But Rudolf's rise to power would not go unchallenged. 116 00:07:23,580 --> 00:07:28,220 His principal rival for control of Middle Europe came from the north - 117 00:07:28,220 --> 00:07:30,740 Ottokar, King of Bohemia. 118 00:07:33,780 --> 00:07:37,780 In 1278, Ottokar, with his Bohemian army, 119 00:07:37,780 --> 00:07:42,180 began the march southwards towards the Danube. 120 00:07:42,180 --> 00:07:45,180 Rudolf and his army rode out from Vienna to meet them. 121 00:07:50,020 --> 00:07:52,980 A decisive battle between Rudolf von Habsburg, 122 00:07:52,980 --> 00:07:57,220 and Ottokar, King of Bohemia, took place right here on the Marchfeld, 123 00:07:57,220 --> 00:08:04,460 east of Vienna. The two sides met in August, 1278, in sweltering heat. 124 00:08:04,460 --> 00:08:08,340 They fought all day, and they fought themselves to a standstill. 125 00:08:08,340 --> 00:08:11,100 It was so hot that the knights in their armour 126 00:08:11,100 --> 00:08:13,220 started to faint in droves. 127 00:08:23,180 --> 00:08:28,900 At this point, Rudolf deployed the fresh brigade of cavalry 128 00:08:28,900 --> 00:08:31,380 he'd hidden right up this hill. 129 00:08:31,380 --> 00:08:35,620 They charged down into the Bohemians and routed them. 130 00:08:35,620 --> 00:08:40,300 Faced with defeat, the Bohemians murdered their own king, Ottokar. 131 00:08:40,300 --> 00:08:42,180 He was stripped naked, 132 00:08:42,180 --> 00:08:46,860 butchered and Rudolf displayed his body in the streets of Vienna. 133 00:08:51,100 --> 00:08:53,180 This was a victory that would mark 134 00:08:53,180 --> 00:08:55,700 the birth of a great European dynasty, 135 00:08:55,700 --> 00:08:58,300 and transform the fate of Vienna. 136 00:09:01,660 --> 00:09:07,140 When Rudolf died in 1291, it was his son, Albert, who succeeded him, 137 00:09:07,140 --> 00:09:11,300 first as Duke of Austria, and, ultimately, as King of the Germans. 138 00:09:14,140 --> 00:09:19,020 Albert was a shrewd and just ruler, but as a man, he was terrifying, 139 00:09:19,020 --> 00:09:21,660 vicious and arrogant. 140 00:09:21,660 --> 00:09:24,180 His face was distinguished by a gaping cavity 141 00:09:24,180 --> 00:09:26,580 where his eye should have been. 142 00:09:26,580 --> 00:09:28,940 When some enemies had tried to poison him, 143 00:09:28,940 --> 00:09:32,020 his doctors insisted that he be hung upside down 144 00:09:32,020 --> 00:09:33,420 for long periods of time 145 00:09:33,420 --> 00:09:35,980 to allow the poison to seep out. 146 00:09:35,980 --> 00:09:39,180 In the process, somehow, he'd lost his eye. 147 00:09:39,180 --> 00:09:41,540 Everyone called him Albert One Eye. 148 00:09:48,260 --> 00:09:52,380 Albert had a fearsome reputation, not only with his many foes, 149 00:09:52,380 --> 00:09:54,820 but also within his own family, 150 00:09:54,820 --> 00:09:57,380 and eventually this would be his undoing. 151 00:10:00,060 --> 00:10:03,820 On May Day, 1308, Albert rode out with his entourage, 152 00:10:03,820 --> 00:10:07,100 who included his 19-year-old nephew, John. 153 00:10:07,100 --> 00:10:10,660 As they rode, John tried to persuade his uncle to return the lands 154 00:10:10,660 --> 00:10:12,660 he'd taken from his family. 155 00:10:12,660 --> 00:10:14,340 Albert refused. 156 00:10:14,340 --> 00:10:15,820 John, furious, 157 00:10:15,820 --> 00:10:20,500 rowed across the river and gathered together a posse of assassins. 158 00:10:20,500 --> 00:10:25,220 When Albert himself crossed, they lay in wait, fell upon him, 159 00:10:25,220 --> 00:10:29,420 and stabbed him. They left him dying in a pool of his blood. 160 00:10:32,860 --> 00:10:34,460 The murderers fled, 161 00:10:34,460 --> 00:10:37,700 only to be ruthlessly hunted down by Albert's successors. 162 00:10:39,460 --> 00:10:43,500 One day of brutal revenge, presided over by his children, 163 00:10:43,500 --> 00:10:47,100 saw 63 of John's relatives beheaded. 164 00:10:47,100 --> 00:10:51,300 As blood spurted from them, Albert's daughter cried out in ecstasy, 165 00:10:51,300 --> 00:10:54,100 "This is like being bathed in May dew." 166 00:10:58,900 --> 00:11:02,740 The bitter family feud would halt the rise of Vienna, 167 00:11:02,740 --> 00:11:07,300 and keep the Habsburgs out of power for 30 years. 168 00:11:07,300 --> 00:11:10,100 But they were still one of the most powerful families 169 00:11:10,100 --> 00:11:11,740 within the Holy Roman Empire. 170 00:11:15,100 --> 00:11:17,020 They needed a statesman. 171 00:11:17,020 --> 00:11:21,380 And now they produced a young man of astonishing vision and guts, 172 00:11:21,380 --> 00:11:23,380 Rudolf IV, the Founder. 173 00:11:28,220 --> 00:11:31,540 Rudolf inherited the Habsburg lands at just 19. 174 00:11:31,540 --> 00:11:34,900 But he'd been brought up at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, 175 00:11:34,900 --> 00:11:36,380 his father-in-law, 176 00:11:36,380 --> 00:11:40,380 and from the start, he was wildly ambitious, creative, 177 00:11:40,380 --> 00:11:46,620 a visionary, energetic, and I've come here to the Habsburg Archives 178 00:11:46,620 --> 00:11:50,260 to see his most ingenious creation. 179 00:11:57,140 --> 00:12:02,100 Rudolf craved the ultimate prize, the imperial crown. 180 00:12:02,100 --> 00:12:06,020 But he didn't have the same status as the German prince electors 181 00:12:06,020 --> 00:12:09,700 who chose both the German king and the emperor. 182 00:12:09,700 --> 00:12:11,860 So Rudolf came up with a cunning plan - 183 00:12:11,860 --> 00:12:14,860 he invented the title archduke 184 00:12:14,860 --> 00:12:18,740 to make his family more important than their rivals. 185 00:12:18,740 --> 00:12:23,060 Kathrin Kininger is a medieval specialist at the archives, 186 00:12:23,060 --> 00:12:25,460 and she's going to show me how he did it. 187 00:12:28,940 --> 00:12:31,020 Kathrin, tell me what this document is, 188 00:12:31,020 --> 00:12:32,620 and why it's so important. 189 00:12:32,620 --> 00:12:35,100 So this is one of the most famous 190 00:12:35,100 --> 00:12:38,300 medieval documents of Austrian history. 191 00:12:38,300 --> 00:12:41,620 It claims to be of the 12th century, but actually, 192 00:12:41,620 --> 00:12:43,980 it was made in the middle of the 14th century. 193 00:12:43,980 --> 00:12:46,820 It's a forgery. And what does it claim? 194 00:12:46,820 --> 00:12:48,660 So the purpose of the forgery 195 00:12:48,660 --> 00:12:53,300 was to increase the prestige of the Habsburg family of Austria, 196 00:12:53,300 --> 00:12:55,540 the Habsburg dynasty. 197 00:12:55,540 --> 00:12:58,260 And didn't he invent some titles in here? 198 00:12:58,260 --> 00:13:01,260 Yeah, for example, he invented the title archduke. 199 00:13:01,260 --> 00:13:05,660 It was an invention of Rudolf IV. 200 00:13:05,660 --> 00:13:07,860 And how do we know this is a forgery? 201 00:13:07,860 --> 00:13:09,420 Actually, it's quite difficult, 202 00:13:09,420 --> 00:13:12,180 because the forgery is really, really, very good. 203 00:13:12,180 --> 00:13:13,740 When you look at it, 204 00:13:13,740 --> 00:13:17,100 everything from the outside looks quite authentic 205 00:13:17,100 --> 00:13:19,300 because they use the seal, 206 00:13:19,300 --> 00:13:22,980 this is the original seal of Frederick I, 207 00:13:22,980 --> 00:13:28,420 and they transferred it from the original document to the forgery. 208 00:13:28,420 --> 00:13:30,460 And that's up to the 19th century, 209 00:13:30,460 --> 00:13:33,020 everyone believed that it was the real thing. 210 00:13:37,100 --> 00:13:39,580 All cities have their founding myths, 211 00:13:39,580 --> 00:13:43,660 but none have been based on quite such a brazen fraud. 212 00:13:43,660 --> 00:13:45,500 And it would work for centuries. 213 00:13:46,820 --> 00:13:51,100 It was a challenge to the ruling Holy Roman Emperor of the time, 214 00:13:51,100 --> 00:13:55,900 Charles VI, King of Bohemia, and it wasn't just political either. 215 00:13:55,900 --> 00:14:00,940 Rudolf also wanted Vienna to rival the Bohemian capital, Prague. 216 00:14:10,060 --> 00:14:15,780 Rudolf embellished and promoted both his dynasty and his capital. 217 00:14:15,780 --> 00:14:20,020 He invented a new title for himself, Archduke of Austria, 218 00:14:20,020 --> 00:14:23,060 which placed him above all the other princes and dukes. 219 00:14:23,060 --> 00:14:26,340 And in Vienna, he remodelled St Stephen's Cathedral 220 00:14:26,340 --> 00:14:28,580 and he founded this. 221 00:14:28,580 --> 00:14:32,940 In 1365, he created Vienna University, 222 00:14:32,940 --> 00:14:35,780 one of the oldest in Europe. 223 00:14:35,780 --> 00:14:39,620 Even today, it's known as Alma Mater Rudolphina. 224 00:14:45,660 --> 00:14:47,860 Rudolf had laid the foundations for Vienna 225 00:14:47,860 --> 00:14:50,460 to become one of Europe's great cities. 226 00:14:50,460 --> 00:14:54,060 Had he lived longer, who knows what he might have achieved? 227 00:14:54,060 --> 00:14:59,100 But sadly, for Vienna and the Habsburgs, he died at just 26. 228 00:15:02,020 --> 00:15:05,860 But Rudolf's embellishment of Vienna had not been cheap, 229 00:15:05,860 --> 00:15:08,180 and he'd had to borrow to pay for it. 230 00:15:17,340 --> 00:15:21,340 The Habsburg dukes depended on the Jews for financial loans, 231 00:15:21,340 --> 00:15:23,180 like many medieval rulers. 232 00:15:23,180 --> 00:15:27,260 It was a close relationship - the Jews lived under royal protection. 233 00:15:27,260 --> 00:15:30,780 This Judenplatz was the site of the Jewish city 234 00:15:30,780 --> 00:15:32,980 where the Jews all lived, 235 00:15:32,980 --> 00:15:35,180 and this, now the Holocaust Memorial, 236 00:15:35,180 --> 00:15:37,700 was the site of the community's synagogue. 237 00:15:37,700 --> 00:15:41,100 The Royal Court was right next door. 238 00:15:41,100 --> 00:15:45,300 But this relationship was ambivalent. It led to resentment. 239 00:15:45,300 --> 00:15:51,100 And in 1421, it exploded in a savage pogrom against the Jewish community. 240 00:15:57,420 --> 00:16:01,940 Now Archduke Albert V turned against the Jews, 241 00:16:01,940 --> 00:16:04,100 first crippling them with taxes, 242 00:16:04,100 --> 00:16:08,580 then torturing them when they couldn't pay. 243 00:16:08,580 --> 00:16:11,180 The pogrom climaxed with the lynching, 244 00:16:11,180 --> 00:16:14,780 torturing and burning at the stake of hundreds of Jews, 245 00:16:14,780 --> 00:16:18,220 as the Jewish community was systematically destroyed. 246 00:16:18,220 --> 00:16:20,980 Finally, the Duke issued a decree 247 00:16:20,980 --> 00:16:23,940 that all Jewish children under the age of 15 248 00:16:23,940 --> 00:16:27,620 should be abducted and forcibly converted to Christendom. 249 00:16:27,620 --> 00:16:31,900 The surviving Jews retired to their community synagogue 250 00:16:31,900 --> 00:16:35,420 and locked themselves in. After a siege of two or three days, 251 00:16:35,420 --> 00:16:39,700 they committed suicide en masse by setting the synagogue alight. 252 00:16:46,700 --> 00:16:49,380 A Christian merchant of the time 253 00:16:49,380 --> 00:16:52,780 gleefully celebrated the Jewish tragedy 254 00:16:52,780 --> 00:16:59,500 by putting up this plaque which reads, "The raging fire of 1421 255 00:16:59,500 --> 00:17:04,420 "cleansed the city of the vile crimes of the Hebrew dogs." 256 00:17:08,420 --> 00:17:10,900 The boundless ambitions of the House of Habsburg 257 00:17:10,900 --> 00:17:13,540 finally reached their fulfilment 258 00:17:13,540 --> 00:17:16,540 with the unlikely figure of Frederick III. 259 00:17:16,540 --> 00:17:20,900 In 1442, he was crowned Emperor by the Pope in Rome. 260 00:17:23,300 --> 00:17:26,420 Frederick was the first Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, 261 00:17:26,420 --> 00:17:27,940 the first of many, 262 00:17:27,940 --> 00:17:30,420 and everything about him was big - 263 00:17:30,420 --> 00:17:35,180 his ambitions, the length of his reign, and his mountainous stomach. 264 00:17:35,180 --> 00:17:37,860 He was known as Frederick the Fat. 265 00:17:37,860 --> 00:17:40,940 He was shrewd, patient, long-suffering, 266 00:17:40,940 --> 00:17:45,420 but also notoriously sluggish and vacillating. 267 00:17:45,420 --> 00:17:47,860 The Pope said that he wanted to conquer the world 268 00:17:47,860 --> 00:17:49,340 whilst sitting down. 269 00:17:49,340 --> 00:17:54,300 And in Germany, his nickname was the Arch Sleepyhead of the empire. 270 00:17:58,820 --> 00:18:00,420 On becoming Emperor, 271 00:18:00,420 --> 00:18:04,580 he confirmed Rudolf the Founder's forged document. 272 00:18:04,580 --> 00:18:09,580 And henceforth, the Habsburgs would always be Archdukes of Austria. 273 00:18:12,060 --> 00:18:17,100 This is the Hofberg, the ancient city fortress of Vienna. 274 00:18:17,100 --> 00:18:19,100 And when Frederick III, Frederick the Fat, 275 00:18:19,100 --> 00:18:20,780 became Holy Roman Emperor, 276 00:18:20,780 --> 00:18:23,180 this became his imperial headquarters. 277 00:18:25,620 --> 00:18:28,060 But Frederick's ambitions always exceeded 278 00:18:28,060 --> 00:18:30,500 both his energy and his resources. 279 00:18:30,500 --> 00:18:33,380 And it wasn't long before his rivals were circling. 280 00:18:38,740 --> 00:18:41,460 Ever since the murder of Albert One Eye, 281 00:18:41,460 --> 00:18:44,060 the House of Habsburg had been deeply divided. 282 00:18:46,340 --> 00:18:49,420 Now Frederick was challenged by his own brother, another Albert, 283 00:18:49,420 --> 00:18:52,740 who marched on Vienna in 1462, 284 00:18:52,740 --> 00:18:56,500 intending to wrest power from him and his son and heir, Maximilian. 285 00:18:59,540 --> 00:19:02,980 Albert allied himself with the Bohemian warlord, 286 00:19:02,980 --> 00:19:08,300 and, together, they came down to Vienna and besieged Fat Frederick, 287 00:19:08,300 --> 00:19:12,180 his wife, and Maximilian here at the Hofberg. 288 00:19:12,180 --> 00:19:16,020 This is, in fact, one of the very few parts of the Hofburg Palace 289 00:19:16,020 --> 00:19:18,540 that dates from Frederick's time. 290 00:19:18,540 --> 00:19:20,980 It looked like everything was lost, 291 00:19:20,980 --> 00:19:24,980 but Frederick endured all this with his usual mixture 292 00:19:24,980 --> 00:19:28,980 of sleepy patience and obstinate tenacity 293 00:19:28,980 --> 00:19:31,020 that all would turn out right. 294 00:19:31,020 --> 00:19:32,620 And so it did. 295 00:19:32,620 --> 00:19:38,340 The siege was lifted, Albert died, and Frederick swallowed his lands. 296 00:19:42,220 --> 00:19:45,060 But these family feuds had distracted him 297 00:19:45,060 --> 00:19:47,100 from a greater danger - 298 00:19:47,100 --> 00:19:50,100 his dynamic neighbour, the King of Hungary, Matthias. 299 00:19:55,780 --> 00:20:01,500 In 1482, Matthias attacked Vienna. Frederick ingloriously fled. 300 00:20:01,500 --> 00:20:03,740 He'd lost his capital. 301 00:20:07,420 --> 00:20:12,100 But once again, Frederick succeeded by simply outliving his enemies. 302 00:20:12,100 --> 00:20:16,100 And when Matthias died, he retook Vienna without a fight. 303 00:20:20,420 --> 00:20:24,140 In celebration, he finished the building of St Stephen's, 304 00:20:24,140 --> 00:20:28,100 and it was he who inscribed the letters of his code - 305 00:20:28,100 --> 00:20:30,500 A, E, I, O, U - 306 00:20:30,500 --> 00:20:33,620 "The whole world is dominated by Austria," - on the altar. 307 00:20:38,260 --> 00:20:42,740 And he designed a special place for himself, centre stage. 308 00:20:42,740 --> 00:20:48,620 When he died in 1493, he'd ruled longer than his supposed ancestor, 309 00:20:48,620 --> 00:20:50,340 the Roman Emperor Augustus. 310 00:20:51,780 --> 00:20:54,300 During his long reign, Frederick the Fat 311 00:20:54,300 --> 00:20:57,340 had endured an astonishing number of disasters. 312 00:20:57,340 --> 00:20:59,580 And yet he triumphed in the end. 313 00:20:59,580 --> 00:21:03,140 He'd even lost a leg to diabetes, and survived that. 314 00:21:03,140 --> 00:21:05,300 But when he finally died, appropriately, 315 00:21:05,300 --> 00:21:06,780 it was from overeating. 316 00:21:06,780 --> 00:21:08,500 And here's his tomb. 317 00:21:08,500 --> 00:21:12,300 And as you can see, it's an amazing masterpiece. 318 00:21:14,300 --> 00:21:16,940 And look at these little creatures, 319 00:21:16,940 --> 00:21:20,540 the elaborate decoration, these arches. 320 00:21:20,540 --> 00:21:23,220 Here are the good things in his life, the holy works, 321 00:21:23,220 --> 00:21:25,620 and here is all the evil he overcame. 322 00:21:32,220 --> 00:21:34,340 What you have up here, 323 00:21:34,340 --> 00:21:36,500 in immaculate detail, 324 00:21:36,500 --> 00:21:41,220 is a surprisingly slim-fit version of Frederick the Fat, 325 00:21:41,220 --> 00:21:46,140 with all the accoutrements, the paraphernalia of power, the sword, 326 00:21:46,140 --> 00:21:47,460 the shield, the sceptre. 327 00:21:50,100 --> 00:21:53,620 Before he died, Frederick pulled off one last victory 328 00:21:53,620 --> 00:21:55,260 for the House of Habsburg. 329 00:21:55,260 --> 00:21:57,100 And it wasn't on a battlefield, 330 00:21:57,100 --> 00:21:58,940 it was in the marriage chamber. 331 00:21:58,940 --> 00:22:03,940 He married his son and heir, Maximilian, to Mary of Burgundy, 332 00:22:03,940 --> 00:22:06,420 the richest heiress in Europe. 333 00:22:06,420 --> 00:22:09,740 She was heiress to the Duchy of Burgundy, 334 00:22:09,740 --> 00:22:12,860 that, in those days, contained the Netherlands, Belgium, 335 00:22:12,860 --> 00:22:17,300 Luxembourg and swathes of Eastern France. 336 00:22:17,300 --> 00:22:21,460 It would make the Habsburgs the greatest dynasty in Europe. 337 00:22:27,020 --> 00:22:30,060 "Let others wage war," went the saying, 338 00:22:30,060 --> 00:22:33,220 "But you, happy Austria, shall marry." 339 00:22:33,220 --> 00:22:36,500 Maximilian's brilliant match to Mary of Burgundy 340 00:22:36,500 --> 00:22:40,260 was just the first of the three weddings 341 00:22:40,260 --> 00:22:44,980 that would raise Vienna from Germanic to world capital. 342 00:22:46,220 --> 00:22:50,100 Maximilian was as gifted a warlord as he was a matchmaker. 343 00:22:55,300 --> 00:22:58,060 Maximilian couldn't have been more different 344 00:22:58,060 --> 00:23:00,260 from his flabby, sleepy father. 345 00:23:00,260 --> 00:23:01,780 Or from the cliche 346 00:23:01,780 --> 00:23:04,940 of the weak-chinned Habsburgs of the 19th century. 347 00:23:04,940 --> 00:23:08,580 He was an exuberant, swaggering swashbuckler, 348 00:23:08,580 --> 00:23:11,820 nicknamed the German Hercules. 349 00:23:11,820 --> 00:23:16,780 "I laughed, I danced, I jousted, I paid court to the ladies," 350 00:23:16,780 --> 00:23:18,540 he wrote in his autobiography. 351 00:23:18,540 --> 00:23:21,820 "But most of all, I just laughed wholeheartedly." 352 00:23:28,020 --> 00:23:32,580 But his greatest achievements were in his marriage alliances. 353 00:23:32,580 --> 00:23:36,100 First he married his son, Philip the Handsome, 354 00:23:36,100 --> 00:23:37,820 to Juana of Spain, 355 00:23:37,820 --> 00:23:40,860 daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. 356 00:23:44,140 --> 00:23:49,820 When they died, the Habsburgs inherited the Spanish Empire. 357 00:23:49,820 --> 00:23:51,860 But Maximilian wasn't finished yet. 358 00:23:57,380 --> 00:24:00,300 Towards the end of his life, in 1515, 359 00:24:00,300 --> 00:24:02,060 Maximilian pulled off 360 00:24:02,060 --> 00:24:06,300 a second astonishing marriage coup for the dynasty. 361 00:24:06,300 --> 00:24:09,860 He married his grandchildren, his grandson, Ferdinand, 362 00:24:09,860 --> 00:24:14,700 and his granddaughter, to the heirs to the Kingdoms of Hungary, 363 00:24:14,700 --> 00:24:16,340 Bohemia and Croatia. 364 00:24:18,260 --> 00:24:21,740 In an age of extremely high infant mortality, 365 00:24:21,740 --> 00:24:24,500 even Maximilian couldn't have expected 366 00:24:24,500 --> 00:24:27,460 all his marriage alliances to come good. 367 00:24:28,980 --> 00:24:30,260 But as it happened, 368 00:24:30,260 --> 00:24:33,300 he and the House of Habsburg were extremely lucky. 369 00:24:34,660 --> 00:24:37,740 His marriage alliances delivered to the House of Habsburg 370 00:24:37,740 --> 00:24:41,460 not only Spain, not only the Spanish Empire, 371 00:24:41,460 --> 00:24:46,780 but also the thrones of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia. 372 00:24:46,780 --> 00:24:50,700 It would make the Habsburgs the greatest family empire 373 00:24:50,700 --> 00:24:52,540 the world had ever known. 374 00:24:55,500 --> 00:24:59,900 Maximilian was determined that his achievements would not go unnoticed. 375 00:25:02,580 --> 00:25:06,380 He'd be aided in this mission by the invention of the printing press. 376 00:25:08,380 --> 00:25:12,060 The Emperor Maximilian had used marriage alliances and war 377 00:25:12,060 --> 00:25:14,820 to promote the House of Habsburg. 378 00:25:14,820 --> 00:25:17,220 But now he was one of the first rulers 379 00:25:17,220 --> 00:25:19,460 to use the new medium of printing 380 00:25:19,460 --> 00:25:22,980 to project his majesty and magnificence. 381 00:25:22,980 --> 00:25:26,300 And I'm here at the Albertina Museum to see how he did it. 382 00:25:30,460 --> 00:25:36,540 These famous but rarely seen works are held in storage at this museum. 383 00:25:36,540 --> 00:25:39,540 But they've offered to take them out and show them to us. 384 00:25:40,860 --> 00:25:46,420 Christof Metzger is head of the Albertina's graphic art collection. 385 00:25:46,420 --> 00:25:49,220 This is the first sheet. 386 00:25:49,220 --> 00:25:53,220 And now you can make a sequence of altogether 387 00:25:53,220 --> 00:25:55,220 more than 40 metres. 388 00:25:57,380 --> 00:25:59,500 One of the largest ever made, 389 00:25:59,500 --> 00:26:03,060 Maximilian's print depicts his travels around the empire. 390 00:26:03,060 --> 00:26:07,380 But it's also meant to resemble the triumphal processions 391 00:26:07,380 --> 00:26:08,620 of the Roman Emperors. 392 00:26:10,100 --> 00:26:12,780 Just tell me about, you know, what was done with these - 393 00:26:12,780 --> 00:26:17,540 these were printed and then sent around the Holy Roman Empire? 394 00:26:17,540 --> 00:26:19,220 Yes, yes, 395 00:26:19,220 --> 00:26:23,620 using the very, very modern medium of printing. 396 00:26:25,140 --> 00:26:29,940 And if you want to have an impression how this has been made, 397 00:26:29,940 --> 00:26:34,980 we have here the wood block of the artists of this procedure. 398 00:26:34,980 --> 00:26:38,420 The detail is so intricate. 399 00:26:38,420 --> 00:26:40,820 You fill it with ink, you cover it with ink, 400 00:26:40,820 --> 00:26:43,820 you take a sheet of paper, 401 00:26:43,820 --> 00:26:47,300 you put it on the coloured wood block... 402 00:26:48,980 --> 00:26:50,820 ..make a little pressure on it. 403 00:26:50,820 --> 00:26:55,900 And afterwards, you have the final print. 404 00:26:55,900 --> 00:26:59,940 This was the latest technology in 1518, or whatever, 405 00:26:59,940 --> 00:27:02,820 it was like Twitter or Facebook today. 406 00:27:02,820 --> 00:27:04,860 Yes. This was the new medium. 407 00:27:04,860 --> 00:27:10,300 That's the new medium, and the first possibility, really, 408 00:27:10,300 --> 00:27:13,140 to create art as a mass product. 409 00:27:13,140 --> 00:27:14,100 Fascinating. 410 00:27:15,220 --> 00:27:17,460 But there's also a colour version 411 00:27:17,460 --> 00:27:19,500 of Maximilian's triumphal procession, 412 00:27:19,500 --> 00:27:22,940 hand-drawn and hand-painted. 413 00:27:22,940 --> 00:27:27,780 This has been the most precious version for the emperor, 414 00:27:27,780 --> 00:27:30,220 and the imperial family. 415 00:27:30,220 --> 00:27:34,340 The printed version was for 416 00:27:34,340 --> 00:27:35,980 nearly everybody. 417 00:27:35,980 --> 00:27:39,780 I think it's a thing of breathtaking beauty. 418 00:27:39,780 --> 00:27:43,180 It's one of the greatest treasures in Vienna. 419 00:27:43,180 --> 00:27:46,860 Am I right in saying that it's only been exhibited 420 00:27:46,860 --> 00:27:49,820 about two or three times in 500 years? 421 00:27:49,820 --> 00:27:51,740 Very, very rare occasions. 422 00:27:51,740 --> 00:27:54,660 Can I look at it a bit more closely? 423 00:27:54,660 --> 00:27:55,980 Yes, of course. 424 00:27:55,980 --> 00:27:58,860 I'd just like to look at some of the detail on it. 425 00:27:58,860 --> 00:28:04,260 I love this horse here, this caparisoned horse, 426 00:28:04,260 --> 00:28:05,540 with these eagles on it. 427 00:28:05,540 --> 00:28:07,140 Now, who is this? 428 00:28:07,140 --> 00:28:14,700 These two horsemen introduce the carriage of the imperial family. 429 00:28:14,700 --> 00:28:18,860 I think nothing really approaches the resplendent bling 430 00:28:18,860 --> 00:28:22,020 of this gold-worked armour. 431 00:28:23,500 --> 00:28:26,580 So moving this way, now we approach, 432 00:28:26,580 --> 00:28:29,580 we suddenly see somebody very important is coming, 433 00:28:29,580 --> 00:28:31,380 because look, there's one, two... 434 00:28:31,380 --> 00:28:32,780 there's 12 horses... 12. 435 00:28:32,780 --> 00:28:35,580 ..each ridden by a postilion, 436 00:28:35,580 --> 00:28:38,980 that are pulling a giant carriage. 437 00:28:38,980 --> 00:28:40,580 And who is in this carriage? 438 00:28:40,580 --> 00:28:43,940 Well, this is Maximilian himself, isn't it? 439 00:28:43,940 --> 00:28:45,620 Let's look at him. 440 00:28:45,620 --> 00:28:48,420 This is, in effect, the story we're about to tell. 441 00:28:48,420 --> 00:28:53,820 So we have Maximilian, and then we have his son, Philip the Handsome, 442 00:28:53,820 --> 00:28:59,740 who was married to Juana of Spain. 443 00:28:59,740 --> 00:29:04,660 And there we see their children, the future Emperor Charles V, 444 00:29:04,660 --> 00:29:09,300 and the future Emperor Ferdinand, his brother. 445 00:29:09,300 --> 00:29:11,020 So, in effect, 446 00:29:11,020 --> 00:29:15,580 this carriage contains the future destiny of the House of Habsburg, 447 00:29:15,580 --> 00:29:17,980 and of Europe itself, 448 00:29:17,980 --> 00:29:19,980 for the next 100 years. 449 00:29:24,220 --> 00:29:26,620 Maximilian was ready to die. 450 00:29:26,620 --> 00:29:29,660 He travelled everywhere with his own coffin 451 00:29:29,660 --> 00:29:31,700 and he specified that on his death, 452 00:29:31,700 --> 00:29:34,300 he was to be treated like a common sinner, 453 00:29:34,300 --> 00:29:37,380 his teeth pulled out of his body, his hair shorn, 454 00:29:37,380 --> 00:29:40,900 and his cadaver scourged with whips. 455 00:29:40,900 --> 00:29:44,220 When he died, his heir was not his son, 456 00:29:44,220 --> 00:29:47,780 Philip the Handsome, who'd predeceased him, but his grandson, 457 00:29:47,780 --> 00:29:52,580 Charles V, who inherited all his vast domains. 458 00:29:52,580 --> 00:29:54,500 But it was too much for any one man, 459 00:29:54,500 --> 00:29:57,180 and so he brought his brother, Ferdinand, 460 00:29:57,180 --> 00:30:00,620 who'd been brought up in Spain, speaking only Spanish, 461 00:30:00,620 --> 00:30:05,100 and gave him the Austrian lands and Vienna. 462 00:30:05,100 --> 00:30:07,820 From now on, this is Ferdinand's story. 463 00:30:13,340 --> 00:30:18,700 In 1521, Ferdinand I became Archduke of Austria. 464 00:30:18,700 --> 00:30:20,460 But when his brother-in-law, 465 00:30:20,460 --> 00:30:22,540 the King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, 466 00:30:22,540 --> 00:30:25,100 was killed in battle by the Ottoman Turks, 467 00:30:25,100 --> 00:30:27,820 he inherited those lands as well. 468 00:30:30,180 --> 00:30:35,020 Ferdinand was now in charge of defending the entire eastern flank 469 00:30:35,020 --> 00:30:39,820 of Christendom from the looming threat of the Ottomans and Islam. 470 00:30:42,780 --> 00:30:46,940 The Sultan of the Ottomans was Suleiman I, 471 00:30:46,940 --> 00:30:49,660 known to history as Suleiman the Magnificent. 472 00:30:52,820 --> 00:30:58,660 In 1529 he marched on the city with an army of 300,000 men. 473 00:31:03,900 --> 00:31:09,580 Ruling an empire that stretched from Iraq to Africa and the Balkans, 474 00:31:09,580 --> 00:31:13,860 Suleiman the Magnificent saw himself as a Roman emperor, 475 00:31:13,860 --> 00:31:16,980 an Islamic caliph and a Turkish sultan. 476 00:31:16,980 --> 00:31:19,900 Now 35, in his prime, he'd already 477 00:31:19,900 --> 00:31:22,980 taken the cities of Belgrade and Buda. 478 00:31:22,980 --> 00:31:25,580 And he was advancing into Hungary, 479 00:31:25,580 --> 00:31:27,500 defeating the Hungarians and 480 00:31:27,500 --> 00:31:30,100 Bohemians and killing their young king. 481 00:31:30,100 --> 00:31:34,020 This allowed Ferdinand to claim those thrones, 482 00:31:34,020 --> 00:31:36,420 but it also started the duel between 483 00:31:36,420 --> 00:31:39,780 the two greatest dynasties of their time, 484 00:31:39,780 --> 00:31:42,740 the Ottomans versus the Habsburgs. 485 00:31:42,740 --> 00:31:46,660 As he advanced on Vienna, this wasn't just a battle for a city, 486 00:31:46,660 --> 00:31:51,020 it was a battle for Christendom and Europe itself. 487 00:31:51,020 --> 00:31:53,060 Christendom was in peril. 488 00:31:57,540 --> 00:32:00,980 In September, the Ottoman army camped right 489 00:32:00,980 --> 00:32:04,540 here on the outskirts of Vienna. 490 00:32:04,540 --> 00:32:07,340 Suleiman commanded the siege of Vienna from his tent, 491 00:32:07,340 --> 00:32:09,500 pitched on this spot. 492 00:32:09,500 --> 00:32:12,180 But he'd started late in the year - 493 00:32:12,180 --> 00:32:15,180 winter was coming, supplies were low 494 00:32:15,180 --> 00:32:17,420 and then his troops mutinied. 495 00:32:17,420 --> 00:32:19,740 He'd never been defeated before, 496 00:32:19,740 --> 00:32:23,060 and so he ordered a final assault on the city. 497 00:32:23,060 --> 00:32:26,140 And when it failed, he reluctantly retreated. 498 00:32:26,140 --> 00:32:32,100 Afterwards, the Habsburgs celebrated by building this palace on the site. 499 00:32:32,100 --> 00:32:33,620 But it wasn't over. 500 00:32:33,620 --> 00:32:38,940 This was the beginning of a titanic struggle that lasted 200 years. 501 00:32:44,180 --> 00:32:48,300 But Islam wasn't the only threat to Vienna and the House of Habsburg. 502 00:32:49,740 --> 00:32:53,180 Martin Luther had launched his protest against 503 00:32:53,180 --> 00:32:55,060 papal abuses in Germany 504 00:32:55,060 --> 00:32:58,340 and the Protestant Reformation of the church had now 505 00:32:58,340 --> 00:33:00,140 spread into Bohemia as well. 506 00:33:01,180 --> 00:33:04,820 Ferdinand went to war, and he managed to contain 507 00:33:04,820 --> 00:33:06,700 the Protestant threat. 508 00:33:06,700 --> 00:33:10,460 But his grandson didn't just compromise with Protestantism, 509 00:33:10,460 --> 00:33:13,860 he actively encouraged religious diversity. 510 00:33:13,860 --> 00:33:15,860 Crowned emperor in 1576, 511 00:33:15,860 --> 00:33:20,500 his portrait hangs here in the Art History Museum. 512 00:33:20,500 --> 00:33:22,220 This is Rudolf II, 513 00:33:22,220 --> 00:33:26,620 the mercurial Holy Roman Emperor who ruled for 30 years. 514 00:33:26,620 --> 00:33:29,140 And here you can see the exhaustion on his face. 515 00:33:29,140 --> 00:33:33,460 But for three decades he had dazzled, amused 516 00:33:33,460 --> 00:33:36,980 and worried all of Europe with his crazy antics. 517 00:33:36,980 --> 00:33:39,100 He was known as Rudolf the Mad. 518 00:33:39,100 --> 00:33:44,260 He had a court filled with necromancers, magicians, alchemists, 519 00:33:44,260 --> 00:33:45,580 Jewish Kabbalists. 520 00:33:45,580 --> 00:33:47,860 He wasn't interested in politics, 521 00:33:47,860 --> 00:33:51,300 he was bored by religious politics which obsessed everybody else. 522 00:33:51,300 --> 00:33:56,060 What interested him was collecting great art, a quest for beauty 523 00:33:56,060 --> 00:33:58,340 and truth and magic. 524 00:33:58,340 --> 00:34:00,420 He was a mystic. He was a collector. 525 00:34:00,420 --> 00:34:01,820 He was a connoisseur. 526 00:34:01,820 --> 00:34:03,900 Everything he did was extraordinary. 527 00:34:03,900 --> 00:34:08,380 He had, for example, a pet tiger that wandered his castles, 528 00:34:08,380 --> 00:34:10,780 occasionally eating his courtiers. 529 00:34:10,780 --> 00:34:14,620 He loved boys, he loved girls, he fathered many bastards. 530 00:34:14,620 --> 00:34:17,460 His sex life shocked everybody. 531 00:34:17,460 --> 00:34:20,100 But he was always on the verge of madness. 532 00:34:25,740 --> 00:34:29,860 Rudolf amassed one of the most impressive art collections in Europe 533 00:34:29,860 --> 00:34:34,540 with works by Durer, Brueghel and the Italian Giuseppe Arcimboldo. 534 00:34:36,700 --> 00:34:39,820 The style of Rudolf's court painter 535 00:34:39,820 --> 00:34:43,300 and impresario of court spectacles, Arcimboldo, 536 00:34:43,300 --> 00:34:46,900 tells you a lot about the fantastical atmosphere 537 00:34:46,900 --> 00:34:49,180 at Rudolf the Mad's court. 538 00:34:49,180 --> 00:34:52,780 Arcimboldo loved to portray courtiers and even 539 00:34:52,780 --> 00:34:56,100 royalty using everyday objects. 540 00:34:56,100 --> 00:34:59,340 Here, this man's nose is a gherkin, for example. 541 00:34:59,340 --> 00:35:01,060 His chin is a pear. 542 00:35:01,060 --> 00:35:03,380 Arcimboldo's signature is in the straw. 543 00:35:04,780 --> 00:35:07,340 His most famous painting is not kept in Vienna, 544 00:35:07,340 --> 00:35:08,740 but in a museum in Sweden. 545 00:35:11,140 --> 00:35:16,820 This is Arcimboldo's masterpiece. It is Rudolf II himself. 546 00:35:16,820 --> 00:35:19,620 The emperor commissioned this. He loved it - 547 00:35:19,620 --> 00:35:22,580 he had it hanging in his imperial bedchamber. 548 00:35:22,580 --> 00:35:27,980 And he insisted that his own nose should appear as a pear. 549 00:35:27,980 --> 00:35:33,180 He is Vertumnus, Roman god of fecundity and of fruit. 550 00:35:33,180 --> 00:35:35,660 And that's how Rudolf saw himself. 551 00:35:35,660 --> 00:35:37,900 But, you have to ask, 552 00:35:37,900 --> 00:35:41,860 what to make of a Holy Roman Emperor who wanted himself portrayed 553 00:35:41,860 --> 00:35:43,940 as a living fruit salad. 554 00:35:43,940 --> 00:35:48,140 And his own family, the Habsburgs, were deeply unamused about this. 555 00:35:48,140 --> 00:35:51,500 They didn't just regard him as a fruit salad, or a fruit cake, 556 00:35:51,500 --> 00:35:56,260 for that matter. To them, his mysticism, his madness, 557 00:35:56,260 --> 00:35:59,300 his tolerance of Protestantism made 558 00:35:59,300 --> 00:36:03,460 him not just a nutter but more than that, 559 00:36:03,460 --> 00:36:08,580 a danger to the dynasty, to God, to Christendom itself. 560 00:36:14,300 --> 00:36:17,740 In 1609, Rudolf formally granted tolerance to 561 00:36:17,740 --> 00:36:20,140 the Protestants of Bohemia. 562 00:36:20,140 --> 00:36:23,900 For his family and the Pope, this was a step too far. 563 00:36:23,900 --> 00:36:26,420 They began to plot against him. 564 00:36:26,420 --> 00:36:30,540 In 1611, Rudolf's own brother Matthias overthrew him. 565 00:36:36,660 --> 00:36:39,660 Rudolf died nine months later. 566 00:36:39,660 --> 00:36:43,540 Although he saw himself as an advocate for religious tolerance, 567 00:36:43,540 --> 00:36:45,980 his legacy had a dark side. 568 00:36:47,300 --> 00:36:50,540 The Habsburg Empire was created by marriage, 569 00:36:50,540 --> 00:36:54,860 and they tried to keep it together by intermarriage within the family. 570 00:36:54,860 --> 00:36:58,660 But it wasn't long before these incestuous unions had started to 571 00:36:58,660 --> 00:37:02,780 produce a few depraved psychopaths. 572 00:37:02,780 --> 00:37:08,220 Rudolf the Mad's son, Don Julius, was even madder than his father. 573 00:37:08,220 --> 00:37:13,100 Finally, he kidnapped a barber's daughter, dismembered her, 574 00:37:13,100 --> 00:37:17,060 sliced off her ears, cut off her breasts 575 00:37:17,060 --> 00:37:21,100 and was finally found cradling her earless head, 576 00:37:21,100 --> 00:37:24,740 covered in his own blood and excrement. 577 00:37:24,740 --> 00:37:29,020 Such were the macabre secrets of the house of Austria. 578 00:37:34,860 --> 00:37:37,060 Matthias's rule was short lived. 579 00:37:37,060 --> 00:37:41,300 But the same cannot be said for the Catholic fervour of the Habsburgs, 580 00:37:41,300 --> 00:37:44,980 which now faced a new challenge from the Protestants of Prague, 581 00:37:44,980 --> 00:37:46,940 just 180 miles to the north. 582 00:37:48,060 --> 00:37:50,460 The age of tolerance was dead. 583 00:37:50,460 --> 00:37:54,060 The Catholic counterreformation was on the march. 584 00:37:54,060 --> 00:37:59,020 The new Habsburg monarch, Ferdinand II, was a religious bigot, 585 00:37:59,020 --> 00:38:00,620 a Catholic zealot. 586 00:38:00,620 --> 00:38:02,980 He revoked the tolerance of the 587 00:38:02,980 --> 00:38:06,380 Protestants of Bohemia, and they rebelled. 588 00:38:06,380 --> 00:38:10,180 The result was the Defenestration of Prague. 589 00:38:10,180 --> 00:38:12,020 Every schoolboy's favourite, 590 00:38:12,020 --> 00:38:15,460 defenestration means throwing someone out of the window. 591 00:38:15,460 --> 00:38:19,900 And throwing people out of windows was a bit of a national pastime 592 00:38:19,900 --> 00:38:24,020 in Bohemia. This was the second Defenestration of Prague. 593 00:38:24,020 --> 00:38:26,580 Four of Ferdinand's Catholic 594 00:38:26,580 --> 00:38:31,180 ministers were grabbed by the mob and tossed out of the window. 595 00:38:35,620 --> 00:38:38,300 The drop was 70 feet. 596 00:38:42,100 --> 00:38:45,580 Astonishingly, all four survived the fall. 597 00:38:45,580 --> 00:38:48,820 To Ferdinand and the Catholics this was a miracle - 598 00:38:48,820 --> 00:38:53,340 the Virgin Mary had intercepted them and softened their fall. 599 00:38:53,340 --> 00:38:56,740 To the Protestants, they had simply survived by landing 600 00:38:56,740 --> 00:38:58,060 in a heap of dung. 601 00:38:58,060 --> 00:39:01,300 But Ferdinand celebrated by making one of the lords 602 00:39:01,300 --> 00:39:03,340 Baron von Hohenfall, 603 00:39:03,340 --> 00:39:05,820 Baron of the High Fall. 604 00:39:05,820 --> 00:39:08,380 Nonetheless, Bohemia and the 605 00:39:08,380 --> 00:39:11,820 Protestants were now in open rebellion. 606 00:39:11,820 --> 00:39:13,460 This was war. 607 00:39:19,580 --> 00:39:22,380 Ferdinand was determined to regain Bohemia. 608 00:39:22,380 --> 00:39:24,900 He sent an army to march on Prague. 609 00:39:29,660 --> 00:39:32,100 In 1620, Ferdinand and the Catholics 610 00:39:32,100 --> 00:39:35,780 defeated the Protestants at the Battle of White Mountain. 611 00:39:35,780 --> 00:39:39,020 And when he retook Prague, he unleashed a terrible revenge. 612 00:39:39,020 --> 00:39:44,580 27 of the leading Protestant lords were tortured, dismembered, 613 00:39:44,580 --> 00:39:50,260 executed in the main town square, their heads hung from meat hooks. 614 00:39:50,260 --> 00:39:53,420 This was the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, 615 00:39:53,420 --> 00:39:58,180 a savage religious war and a brutal tournament of power that ultimately 616 00:39:58,180 --> 00:40:01,260 drew in most of the powers of Europe. 617 00:40:01,260 --> 00:40:05,020 And for the Europeans themselves, it was a disaster. 618 00:40:05,020 --> 00:40:08,140 Out of a population of around 78 million, 619 00:40:08,140 --> 00:40:12,100 somewhere between three and 12 million perished. 620 00:40:12,100 --> 00:40:14,860 That's as much as 15%. 621 00:40:14,860 --> 00:40:17,660 This was a European catastrophe. 622 00:40:21,860 --> 00:40:27,540 But war would be the making of one man, who seemed born for battle. 623 00:40:27,540 --> 00:40:32,340 Albrecht Wenzel von Wallenstein was one of the greatest generals 624 00:40:32,340 --> 00:40:34,620 the Habsburgs ever fielded. 625 00:40:34,620 --> 00:40:38,740 And he was the ultimate over-mighty swaggering warlord 626 00:40:38,740 --> 00:40:40,780 of the Thirty Years' War. 627 00:40:40,780 --> 00:40:44,700 At the war's opening he offered himself with 100,000 men to 628 00:40:44,700 --> 00:40:46,180 Emperor Ferdinand. 629 00:40:46,180 --> 00:40:50,340 He thrashed all the emperor's enemies - Danes, Protestants, 630 00:40:50,340 --> 00:40:53,780 Swedes, and became commander-in-chief. 631 00:40:53,780 --> 00:40:57,380 But he forced the emperor to make him Duke of Friedland, 632 00:40:57,380 --> 00:41:01,020 and amassed a vast, personal fiefdom. 633 00:41:01,020 --> 00:41:04,860 Soon he was even threatening the emperor himself. 634 00:41:11,340 --> 00:41:15,580 Ferdinand now feared that Wallenstein wouldn't rest until he 635 00:41:15,580 --> 00:41:19,380 dominated all of Central Europe. 636 00:41:19,380 --> 00:41:24,820 In 1634, Ferdinand gathered together in Vienna a tribunal that condemned 637 00:41:24,820 --> 00:41:27,620 Wallenstein was a traitor. 638 00:41:27,620 --> 00:41:31,740 He was to be brought back to Vienna, dead or alive. 639 00:41:31,740 --> 00:41:37,100 The hit squad was a group of Irish dragoons under an Irishman, 640 00:41:37,100 --> 00:41:42,300 Walter Butler. First they burst into the tavern where Wallenstein's 641 00:41:42,300 --> 00:41:45,540 entourage and henchmen were asleep. They murdered them all. 642 00:41:45,540 --> 00:41:49,620 And then, finally, burst into Wallenstein's own bedroom. 643 00:41:49,620 --> 00:41:52,500 As he lay in bed, they ran him through with a halberd, 644 00:41:52,500 --> 00:41:57,900 and there died, bled out on the bed in some remote lodgings, 645 00:41:57,900 --> 00:42:00,660 the greatest general of the Thirty Years' War. 646 00:42:00,660 --> 00:42:04,020 The warlord who had dared to challenge the emperor himself. 647 00:42:08,100 --> 00:42:11,860 But this was not just a war fought by generals on battlefields. 648 00:42:13,740 --> 00:42:18,300 The Thirty Years' War was also a battle for hearts and minds. 649 00:42:18,300 --> 00:42:22,580 Ferdinand II recruited the Jesuits, the holy order, 650 00:42:22,580 --> 00:42:25,500 as soldiers in his army of Christ. 651 00:42:25,500 --> 00:42:28,020 They provided his top advisers, 652 00:42:28,020 --> 00:42:31,860 the tutors for the heir to the throne, they ran the university, 653 00:42:31,860 --> 00:42:33,700 they took over education. 654 00:42:33,700 --> 00:42:37,300 And as the cloisters took over the corridors of power, 655 00:42:37,300 --> 00:42:39,100 the joke went like this - 656 00:42:39,100 --> 00:42:42,620 Austria, Osterreich, had become Cl-Osterreich. 657 00:42:45,940 --> 00:42:48,540 In Austria, the Counter-Reformation 658 00:42:48,540 --> 00:42:51,540 became known as the Klosteroffensive. 659 00:42:51,540 --> 00:42:54,420 It would transform the character of the city. 660 00:42:55,740 --> 00:42:58,900 Ferdinand himself founded this Jesuit church 661 00:42:58,900 --> 00:43:02,260 in the old university quarter of Vienna. 662 00:43:03,700 --> 00:43:06,580 In 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia 663 00:43:06,580 --> 00:43:10,020 finally ended the ruinous Thirty Years' War. 664 00:43:10,020 --> 00:43:13,580 In wider Europe, there was a compromise between the Catholics and 665 00:43:13,580 --> 00:43:17,220 Protestants. But within the Austrian monarchy, 666 00:43:17,220 --> 00:43:20,900 it marked the total victory of Catholicism. 667 00:43:20,900 --> 00:43:24,300 And that confidence, that exuberance, 668 00:43:24,300 --> 00:43:29,580 that supremacy of Catholicism, is expressed here in this church. 669 00:43:33,740 --> 00:43:38,740 Its interior was remodelled in opulent Baroque style by an Italian 670 00:43:38,740 --> 00:43:42,060 architect and stage designer, Andrea Pozzo. 671 00:43:44,300 --> 00:43:47,380 The ceiling is a fine example of a trompe-l'oeil, 672 00:43:47,380 --> 00:43:50,300 creating the optical illusion of a domed roof. 673 00:43:52,860 --> 00:43:56,380 And Pozzo's background in stage design is apparent 674 00:43:56,380 --> 00:44:00,260 in the inclusion of these theatrical boxes on the first floor. 675 00:44:07,340 --> 00:44:11,660 Positioning the Habsburgs as champions of Catholicism, 676 00:44:11,660 --> 00:44:16,700 Ferdinand laid the foundation stone for the family Imperial Crypt. 677 00:44:19,540 --> 00:44:23,980 We've been given exclusive access to this wonderful, 678 00:44:23,980 --> 00:44:25,620 if somewhat eerie place. 679 00:44:28,980 --> 00:44:34,220 When a Habsburg emperor died, his funeral cortege would come here, 680 00:44:34,220 --> 00:44:39,500 to the Capuchin Chapel to the Kaisergruft, the Emperor's Crypt. 681 00:44:40,780 --> 00:44:45,420 The doors would be locked, and they would knock on the doors and say, 682 00:44:45,420 --> 00:44:49,060 "This is the Emperor. The King of Bohemia." 683 00:44:49,060 --> 00:44:52,700 And they would list all his other many, many titles, a page long. 684 00:44:54,100 --> 00:44:57,740 "We recognise no-one of that name," they would reply. 685 00:44:57,740 --> 00:45:00,260 So they would knock again and this time, 686 00:45:00,260 --> 00:45:02,700 they would give a shorter version. 687 00:45:02,700 --> 00:45:07,500 And again they would reply, "We know of no-one of that name." 688 00:45:07,500 --> 00:45:10,300 And finally, they would knock for the third time. 689 00:45:10,300 --> 00:45:12,540 "Who goes there?" they would say. 690 00:45:12,540 --> 00:45:14,860 And the cortege would answer, 691 00:45:14,860 --> 00:45:17,020 "A penitent sinner." 692 00:45:17,020 --> 00:45:19,260 And then they would open the door. 693 00:45:19,260 --> 00:45:22,060 That was how Habsburgs were buried. 694 00:45:27,420 --> 00:45:30,420 But in spite of their supposed humility in death, 695 00:45:30,420 --> 00:45:33,140 the Habsburgs were still buried 696 00:45:33,140 --> 00:45:37,780 in these ornate metal sarcophagi, decorated with skulls, 697 00:45:37,780 --> 00:45:39,620 but also with their many crowns. 698 00:45:43,740 --> 00:45:46,460 And that's the point. This was all an act. 699 00:45:46,460 --> 00:45:48,100 It was all a show. 700 00:45:48,100 --> 00:45:52,900 A Habsburg emperor lived and died as an emperor. 701 00:46:12,860 --> 00:46:16,740 Educated by the Jesuits and originally intended for the church, 702 00:46:16,740 --> 00:46:19,820 Ferdinand's grandson, Leopold I, 703 00:46:19,820 --> 00:46:24,260 was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1658. 704 00:46:27,460 --> 00:46:31,500 The new young emperor, Leopold I, was no beauty. 705 00:46:31,500 --> 00:46:34,420 Even by the standards of Habsburg interbreeding, 706 00:46:34,420 --> 00:46:37,580 he was possessed of the most ginormous jaw 707 00:46:37,580 --> 00:46:40,260 in the whole history of the family. 708 00:46:40,260 --> 00:46:45,580 Wits at court meanly nicknamed him Schweinemund von Habsburg. 709 00:46:45,580 --> 00:46:47,740 The Hog Mouth of Habsburg. 710 00:46:47,740 --> 00:46:53,100 In a 50-year rule, he endured disasters and he endured glories. 711 00:46:53,100 --> 00:46:55,780 He was endearing. He was sweet. 712 00:46:55,780 --> 00:47:01,420 He was untalented but he loved music. He lived for music. 713 00:47:01,420 --> 00:47:04,460 He was a consummate if conventional composer. 714 00:47:04,460 --> 00:47:09,380 His tragedy was that he wrote the requiems for both of his dead wives. 715 00:47:12,020 --> 00:47:16,500 His first wife was a toddler when she was betrothed to him. 716 00:47:16,500 --> 00:47:21,140 An extraordinary story is told in a series of portraits that hang in the 717 00:47:21,140 --> 00:47:22,780 Art History Museum. 718 00:47:23,980 --> 00:47:29,580 This is Margarita Teresa, a child who is the Infanta of Spain. 719 00:47:29,580 --> 00:47:34,140 And from the age of about three, she was destined to marry her uncle, 720 00:47:34,140 --> 00:47:39,180 Leopold I, Emperor in Austria, in Vienna. 721 00:47:39,180 --> 00:47:43,140 And this was just another example of the insane, 722 00:47:43,140 --> 00:47:45,740 and ultimately disastrous policy of 723 00:47:45,740 --> 00:47:48,380 the Habsburg marrying their relatives. 724 00:47:48,380 --> 00:47:52,820 She was not only his niece, both her parents were also Habsburgs, 725 00:47:52,820 --> 00:47:56,220 so they were related on many levels. 726 00:47:56,220 --> 00:48:00,100 And because she was far away in Madrid, and she had to grow up, 727 00:48:00,100 --> 00:48:02,860 the court painter in Spain, Velazquez, 728 00:48:02,860 --> 00:48:05,100 was commissioned to paint her every two or three years. 729 00:48:06,220 --> 00:48:07,420 Here's the first painting. 730 00:48:09,260 --> 00:48:12,820 Here in the second painting she is at five. 731 00:48:12,820 --> 00:48:16,700 And here she is, the third one, at eight. 732 00:48:16,700 --> 00:48:20,620 The actual marriage took place when she was 15. 733 00:48:20,620 --> 00:48:23,980 And when they were married, and they were husband and wife, 734 00:48:23,980 --> 00:48:26,780 she always called her husband "Uncle." 735 00:48:33,420 --> 00:48:35,260 In the summer of 1666, 736 00:48:35,260 --> 00:48:39,380 Margarita Teresa finally travelled to Vienna and 737 00:48:39,380 --> 00:48:41,860 their marriage took place in December that year. 738 00:48:45,980 --> 00:48:51,580 Leopold celebrated his wedding with a giant allegorical spectacular here 739 00:48:51,580 --> 00:48:56,420 at the Hofburg. Life-size ships, horses, carriages 740 00:48:56,420 --> 00:48:58,620 hovered above the lake. 741 00:48:58,620 --> 00:49:02,820 Two 60-foot mountains, Etna and Parnassus, 742 00:49:02,820 --> 00:49:06,100 spurted forth fire like volcanoes. 743 00:49:06,100 --> 00:49:08,660 And the climax came when Leopold 744 00:49:08,660 --> 00:49:13,900 himself excitedly lit 70,000 fireworks 745 00:49:13,900 --> 00:49:17,540 that illuminated the sky above Vienna, 746 00:49:17,540 --> 00:49:20,980 spelling out the letters A, E, I, O, U. 747 00:49:20,980 --> 00:49:24,460 Austria dominates the world. 748 00:49:29,460 --> 00:49:32,780 For days, the entire city was given over 749 00:49:32,780 --> 00:49:36,060 to a series of baroque spectaculars, 750 00:49:36,060 --> 00:49:38,740 including a four-hour equestrian ballet. 751 00:49:43,940 --> 00:49:46,340 Rudi Risatti is one of the curators 752 00:49:46,340 --> 00:49:48,900 of an exhibition of baroque spectacle 753 00:49:48,900 --> 00:49:50,580 at the Vienna Theatre Museum. 754 00:49:59,740 --> 00:50:04,580 He's made an animated film from original period prints of the 755 00:50:04,580 --> 00:50:07,100 horse ballet, performed in the Hofburg Square. 756 00:50:11,140 --> 00:50:15,060 Rudi, tell me about the special effects of the 17th century. 757 00:50:15,060 --> 00:50:17,540 How on earth did they get these life-size 758 00:50:17,540 --> 00:50:20,060 carriages to seem to float on water? 759 00:50:20,060 --> 00:50:26,740 They tried through means of illusion to create wonderful images in the 760 00:50:26,740 --> 00:50:28,420 three-dimensional space. 761 00:50:28,420 --> 00:50:31,780 So, for example, in the horse ballet you saw 762 00:50:31,780 --> 00:50:35,100 different wagons and chariots moved by the 763 00:50:35,100 --> 00:50:38,700 force of horses, etc. 764 00:50:38,700 --> 00:50:41,860 The water was not real water, 765 00:50:41,860 --> 00:50:47,980 it was just a combination of different fabrics and painted parts. 766 00:50:47,980 --> 00:50:52,180 Tell me about other spectaculars that Leopold put on. 767 00:50:53,540 --> 00:50:58,260 A second big event confirming the power of the court 768 00:50:58,260 --> 00:51:01,540 was the opera Il Pomo D'oro, 769 00:51:01,540 --> 00:51:04,780 for which Leopold I composed some parts. 770 00:51:04,780 --> 00:51:07,740 When the Habsburg monarchy was almost bankrupt, 771 00:51:07,740 --> 00:51:12,500 why did they spend so much on these spectacular extravaganzas? 772 00:51:12,500 --> 00:51:15,820 Spectacular and theatrical events 773 00:51:15,820 --> 00:51:20,300 were being made just to show the power of the dynasty. 774 00:51:22,180 --> 00:51:25,300 To finance these extravagant displays of power, 775 00:51:25,300 --> 00:51:29,420 Leopold had to borrow from Jewish moneylenders. 776 00:51:29,420 --> 00:51:31,900 They'd finally been allowed to return to Vienna, 777 00:51:31,900 --> 00:51:35,340 though only permitted to settle outside the city walls 778 00:51:35,340 --> 00:51:37,060 on the other side of the Danube. 779 00:51:39,660 --> 00:51:44,180 But now, influenced by the rabid anti-Semitism of his young wife, 780 00:51:44,180 --> 00:51:46,500 Leopold would turn against them 781 00:51:46,500 --> 00:51:48,500 and they were expelled from the city. 782 00:51:51,620 --> 00:51:55,900 Their synagogue was destroyed and Leopold built a church on its site. 783 00:51:58,700 --> 00:52:00,860 Soon after the Jewish expulsion, 784 00:52:00,860 --> 00:52:05,020 the city was blighted by an outbreak of bubonic plague 785 00:52:05,020 --> 00:52:07,540 that claimed over 70,000 lives 786 00:52:07,540 --> 00:52:09,500 and severely weakened its garrison. 787 00:52:12,220 --> 00:52:16,620 This didn't go unnoticed by a resurgent Ottoman Empire. 788 00:52:17,940 --> 00:52:20,740 Its grand vizier, or prime minister, 789 00:52:20,740 --> 00:52:24,580 was the ferociously ambitious Kara Mustafa, 790 00:52:24,580 --> 00:52:28,380 and he finally persuaded his sultan that the time was right 791 00:52:28,380 --> 00:52:31,020 to once again attempt to take Vienna. 792 00:52:34,340 --> 00:52:38,620 In July, 1683, the Ottoman army, 793 00:52:38,620 --> 00:52:43,100 200,000 strong and under the command of Kara Mustafa himself, 794 00:52:43,100 --> 00:52:46,940 arrived beneath the walls of Fortress Vienna. 795 00:52:46,940 --> 00:52:49,700 As the Ottomans besieged the city, 796 00:52:49,700 --> 00:52:55,540 they started to mine underneath the bastions and walls of its defences. 797 00:52:55,540 --> 00:52:59,900 This is one of the last city walls that still exists. 798 00:52:59,900 --> 00:53:03,580 Day by day they slowly, but systematically, 799 00:53:03,580 --> 00:53:06,340 blew up bastion after bastion, 800 00:53:06,340 --> 00:53:11,580 wall after wall, until they were almost ready to storm the city. 801 00:53:11,580 --> 00:53:14,780 If relief didn't come soon, Vienna would fall. 802 00:53:24,220 --> 00:53:28,020 Leopold was chiefly concerned with saving his own skin 803 00:53:28,020 --> 00:53:31,620 and he fled to Linz, more than 100 miles away. 804 00:53:31,620 --> 00:53:34,900 En route he was jeered and spat at by peasants. 805 00:53:42,100 --> 00:53:46,260 Leopold and the Pope implored Christian kings to join 806 00:53:46,260 --> 00:53:49,980 a holy league to defend the embattled city. 807 00:53:49,980 --> 00:53:51,540 And their call was heard. 808 00:53:53,340 --> 00:53:57,220 The leader of the Holy Alliance was King Jan Sobieski of Poland. 809 00:53:57,220 --> 00:54:01,740 He was the classic beau sabreur and knight who'd fought in many armies 810 00:54:01,740 --> 00:54:03,140 across Europe. 811 00:54:03,140 --> 00:54:05,580 He'd also been to many foreign capitals, Paris - 812 00:54:05,580 --> 00:54:06,940 he was a man of culture. 813 00:54:06,940 --> 00:54:09,340 He'd married a beautiful French wife. 814 00:54:09,340 --> 00:54:11,660 He was hugely overweight, 815 00:54:11,660 --> 00:54:16,460 but he could still stay in the saddle for 12 or 15 hours at a time. 816 00:54:16,460 --> 00:54:20,300 He knew that if Vienna fell, Poland would be next. 817 00:54:20,300 --> 00:54:23,900 And that's why he led his 3,000 famous Polish hussars 818 00:54:23,900 --> 00:54:28,700 in their leopard skins and tiger skins to rescue Vienna. 819 00:54:34,020 --> 00:54:37,980 Sobieski assembled his army here, in the Vienna Woods, 820 00:54:37,980 --> 00:54:40,300 and on the 12th of September, 1683, 821 00:54:40,300 --> 00:54:43,900 they began to fight their way towards Vienna. 822 00:54:46,980 --> 00:54:49,380 The battle raged from dawn till dusk, 823 00:54:49,380 --> 00:54:51,820 until eventually the Christian forces were ready 824 00:54:51,820 --> 00:54:52,860 for the final charge. 825 00:54:55,300 --> 00:55:00,420 King Jan Sobieski, now joined by the Bavarian and Saxon contingents, 826 00:55:00,420 --> 00:55:06,900 led 18,000 cavalrymen thundering down the hill into the Turkish camp. 827 00:55:06,900 --> 00:55:10,220 It's said it's the biggest cavalry charge in history. 828 00:55:10,220 --> 00:55:12,140 The Turks fled. 829 00:55:12,140 --> 00:55:17,020 Kara Mustafa had given orders that his favourite concubine and his pet 830 00:55:17,020 --> 00:55:21,140 ostrich must not fall into enemy hands. 831 00:55:21,140 --> 00:55:23,980 In the grand vizier's opulent tent, 832 00:55:23,980 --> 00:55:28,700 headless girl and headless bird were found side-by-side. 833 00:55:30,300 --> 00:55:31,980 BELL TOLLS 834 00:55:35,020 --> 00:55:39,180 It was a victory for Christ, it was a victory for Vienna. 835 00:55:42,020 --> 00:55:45,820 The bells of Saint Stephen's rang out in joyful celebration. 836 00:55:49,340 --> 00:55:52,620 King Jan Sobieski, by right, should have waited for 837 00:55:52,620 --> 00:55:56,340 Emperor Leopold to return before he entered his city. 838 00:55:56,340 --> 00:55:59,060 But the old swashbuckler just couldn't resist it 839 00:55:59,060 --> 00:56:02,060 and he galloped on into Vienna. 840 00:56:02,060 --> 00:56:04,180 When Leopold finally did return, 841 00:56:04,180 --> 00:56:07,860 there was a frosty meeting between the two monarchs. 842 00:56:07,860 --> 00:56:11,100 Leopold thanked him half-heartedly. 843 00:56:11,100 --> 00:56:14,140 "It was a pleasure to perform this small service for you," 844 00:56:14,140 --> 00:56:17,420 replied the Polish king sardonically. 845 00:56:17,420 --> 00:56:19,380 Then he left for Poland. 846 00:56:19,380 --> 00:56:24,060 But Leopold commandeered the victory for the dynasty. 847 00:56:24,060 --> 00:56:27,140 It was the making of the House of Habsburg. 848 00:56:45,220 --> 00:56:48,860 Kara Mustafa had failed in his great enterprise, 849 00:56:48,860 --> 00:56:51,620 much of it due to his own incompetence. 850 00:56:51,620 --> 00:56:54,020 And he would pay the price. 851 00:56:54,020 --> 00:56:57,900 When the Sultan's deaf-mutes, his traditional executioners, 852 00:56:57,900 --> 00:57:02,060 arrived, Kara Mustafa knew why they had come. 853 00:57:02,060 --> 00:57:05,060 He bared his neck, "It is God's will," he said. 854 00:57:05,060 --> 00:57:07,260 They strangled him with their bowstring, 855 00:57:07,260 --> 00:57:10,540 and then beheaded him and sent the head to the Sultan. 856 00:57:10,540 --> 00:57:13,820 But for Vienna, and for the House of Habsburg, 857 00:57:13,820 --> 00:57:16,340 it was a new beginning, a new era. 858 00:57:16,340 --> 00:57:19,740 The Austrian Habsburgs became a great power in their own right 859 00:57:19,740 --> 00:57:21,020 for the first time. 860 00:57:21,020 --> 00:57:23,500 They struck east against the Ottomans, 861 00:57:23,500 --> 00:57:26,420 west against the mighty French. 862 00:57:26,420 --> 00:57:29,100 The empire was striking back, 863 00:57:29,100 --> 00:57:32,740 and Vienna would enter upon its own golden age. 864 00:57:36,780 --> 00:57:40,580 In the next 100 years, Vienna would see an extraordinary 865 00:57:40,580 --> 00:57:42,380 flourishing of the arts and the 866 00:57:42,380 --> 00:57:46,580 construction of some of the world's most spectacular palaces. 867 00:57:46,580 --> 00:57:50,020 This is one of the glories of 18th-century Vienna. 868 00:57:50,020 --> 00:57:52,860 No wonder it's called Belvedere - look at this view. 869 00:57:54,220 --> 00:57:58,540 And Vienna would inspire, perhaps, the most brilliant composer of all, 870 00:57:58,540 --> 00:58:01,500 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. 871 00:58:01,500 --> 00:58:02,980 I would say he was a rock star! 872 00:58:04,100 --> 00:58:08,260 But it would also come under threat from one of history's greatest 873 00:58:08,260 --> 00:58:10,860 conquerors, Napoleon Bonaparte. 874 00:58:10,860 --> 00:58:15,180 What makes Vienna the imperial city it is today? 875 00:58:15,180 --> 00:58:20,140 Find out more through the Open University's interactive map 876 00:58:20,140 --> 00:58:23,100 of landmarks, language and stories 877 00:58:23,100 --> 00:58:26,780 by heading to bbc.co.uk/vienna 878 00:58:26,780 --> 00:58:31,620 and following the links to the Open University.