The king nobody quite knew how to thank

On the thirteenth of September 1683, Jan Sobieski, the king of Poland, rode through a city that was cheering him on. The emperor, Leopold, returned the next day, and that's when a problem started that kept the court busy for days.

 

Sobieski had led the relief army and won the battle at the Kahlenberg, so gratitude wasn't the issue. The issue was that he was an elected king, which in the eyes of Vienna made him no equal to an emperor. Advisers were consulted on how you greet someone like that, how many steps you walk towards him, and whether you take off your hat. The meeting that followed was short and cool, and the Polish troops got less honour than the city had waved their way.

 

Sobieski himself had already summed up the result in a letter to the pope, in three words: we came, we saw, God conquered. The astronomer Hevelius later named a constellation after him, Sobieski's shield, which still hangs in the summer sky.

 

On this square, until the end of the nineteenth century, stood the old court theatre where Mozart premiered his Figaro. Under your feet lies an excavation with remains of the Roman camp and the medieval city.

 

Along the Kohlmarkt we reach the Peterskirche, the church that rose from the ground after the victory.