Concerning the Bad Management of the Commander-in-chief; His Error and Failure in Some Other Matters
There is no evidence from the records of the intendant of the finances what was the actual number of the troops employed in the war in Hungary; he merely states that thirty thousand household troops were sent thither. The army of Romeili was immense. After the death of Soleimán Khán, and before the war commenced in Hungary, the people thirsted for spoil. An army equal to that of Romeili, but destitute of the means of subsistence, was collected in that quarter. A swift, active body of troops, competent for every sort of depredation, and equal to a whole province in number, assembled. The Tátárs alone amounted to more than forty thousand. Such was the vast army the commander-in-chief had under his command: such also was their fitness for contending with the enemy, if properly and wisely directed.
When, however, the pensioned Janissaries entered their trenches, the rest needlessly wasted their time in idleness: when the Khán and other chiefs proposed to commit depredations in the enemy’s territories, they were checked by being asked what advantage would accrue by treading down one province? and yet it is a certain fact, that no power whatever could have stopped the army, especially after the victory gained at Yanuk, from reaching Vienna, had they been properly commanded. When a deputation came from the country about Buda, begging protection against rapine and plunder, they were told, that unless one province fell another could not rise. To this very evident defect and mismanagement in the government of the commander-in-chief is to be attributed chiefly every misfortune which happened to the Moslems. The peasants were made slaves, and villages were ruined. Some of the most powerful of these peasants were roused to seek revenge: five or six hundred of them seized on a palanka, and refused giving it up so long as one of them remained alive. When their villages and hamlets were robbed and plundered, they set fire to them and left them. The mills near Belgrade were taxed. No apology was offered to the Waivodas of Moldavia and Valachia for the heavy injuries done to them, but they were still more oppressed; and when they sent their usual presents they were rejected with disdain, and the bearers of them threatened with death; and this wicked and unreasonable conduct awakened the spirit of rebellion and revolt which afterwards manifested itself in these two provinces, as we shall see.