In 1683, the Ottomans besieged Vienna, and the failed campaign marked the historic end of their expansion into Central Europe. The siege began on 14 July, after Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha led a large Ottoman army toward the Habsburg capital.
Vienna held out for nearly two months behind strong fortifications. On 12 September, a relief force commanded by John III Sobieski of Poland and supported by Habsburg and German troops attacked the Ottoman army from the hills near Kahlenberg. Polish Winged Hussars played a prominent role in the final assault, forcing the besiegers to retreat.
This was the second Ottoman siege of Vienna; the first had taken place in 1529. The 1683 defeat began a major Habsburg counteroffensive and the Great Turkish War. The eventual Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 confirmed large Ottoman territorial losses, so Vienna was the turning point, not the treaty that formally ended the wider war.