Ottoman historiography is full of rich and diverse sources. The chronicles written about Ottoman history are important tools to illuminate a period’s social, economic, and political aspects. In this context, the 1683 Vienna Campaign has a significant place in Ottoman historiography because this event marks the point where the Ottoman expansion into Western Europe stopped and a period of transformation began. Contemporary and later manuscripts on this event constitute essential sources for understanding the siege and its consequences. Therefore, examining the chronicles written on this expedition has great importance in terms of a versatile evaluation of historical events. In addition, this initiative is valuable in terms of showing how this significant event that affected the fate of the Ottoman Empire was perceived and interpreted in historiography.

In 1683, the Ottoman army under the command of Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha laid siege to Vienna, but the failure to achieve success and defeat led to the end of the Ottoman expansionist policies in Europe. In historical context, the Second Siege of Vienna has an important place in European and Ottoman history in terms of both its military and diplomatic consequences. As a matter of fact, for the Ottoman Empire, the failure of this siege was the beginning of a retreat period, and for the European states, it increased the importance of the Holy Alliance as a result of the coalition formed against the Ottomans.

The manuscript titled Târîh-i Sefer-i Beç, which is the subject of the research and has not been seriously examined before, is an important chronicle that confirms and completes the contemporary chronicles describing the process of this campaign. This manuscript, written in 1731 but whose author is unknown, is now in the archives of the National Library of France. This manuscript consists of 27 folios. In addition, the work, translated into French, was dedicated to the Count of Maurepas by a linguist named Latine and presented as a New Year’s gift. 

It is known that the chronicle titled Târîh-i Sefer-i Beç was first mentioned in the literature in a section written by Joseph von Hammer in a catalog prepared in 1822. Researchers such as German Orientalist Franz Babinger, French Orientalist Edgard Blochet, and Turkish literary historian Agâh Sırrı Levend have briefly touched upon this work, providing limited and repetitive information. Richard F. Kreutel claimed that the manuscript in Paris could be a copy of the “Vekâyi‘-i Beç” a work by the Ceremonial Master, one of the significant eyewitnesses of the campaign. However, subsequent examinations have shown that the Paris manuscript differs in structure and content from its contemporaries to some extent. This chronicle, which contains the campaign process from beginning to end, brings a new perspective to the literature on the 1683 Vienna Campaign by providing occasionally different information about the political and diplomatic background of the campaign, the preparations, the realization of the siege, and its results. The work is also noteworthy in that it reveals the multifaceted effects of historical events and the long-term consequences of these effects on societies.

Compared to contemporary manuscripts, this work presents a noteworthy research opportunity to explore its potential contributions to the literature, particularly in terms of its original content, narrative style, and the subjects it addresses. Therefore, while this study aims to evaluate the causes, consequences and historical importance of the siege through the Târîh-i Sefer-i Beç, it also aims to examine what kind of a narrative was established about this period in Ottoman historiography and the place of this narrative in this historiography. In this context, the research questions to be answered are as follows: What were the motivations behind the writing of the work, and how have these motivations impacted its content and style of narration? How has the author explained the failure of the siege? How are the decision-makers during the 1683 Vienna Campaign represented in this specific work, and how can this portrayal relate to the period’s political and social structures? In the study, which primarily focuses on these questions, first of all, information is given about the author of the transcribed work, its introduction, and literature evaluation, and then, in line with the findings, the importance of the work in understanding the 1683 Vienna Campaign and in Ottoman historiography is determined. 

The findings of this study cover a wide range of topics, from the content and narrative style of the work to the author’s motivations for writing, explanations for the failure of the siege, the representation of decision-makers, and the relationship of this representation with the political and social structures of the period. In explaining the failure of siege and portraying the decisionmakers, the work considers both the deficiencies of war strategies and the complexities of Ottoman domestic politics. The author describes the events that led to the Ottoman defeat and heavily criticizes the faulty decisions of the key figures that were effective in this failure. This approach provides significant clues into the work’s place in Ottoman historiography of the period and how the author viewed this process compared to his predecessors. The simplicity of the language used in the work and the way the events are conveyed have been interpreted as a reflection of the author’s desire to convey these events to a wide readership. However, the fact that Târîh-i Sefer-i Beç was not sufficiently disseminated and used in historiography has shown that this text had a limited impact on social memory. As a result, this work has been demonstrated to be an important historical source that facilitates understanding of the multifaceted impacts of a historical event and the socio-political structure of the period within the context of historiography.