The battle at Parkani (today's Sturovo in Slovakia) is one of the most interesting and peculiar in history. This battle, a result of the great Christian victory outside Vienna, in 1683, was the Turkish attempt to regain the initiative and was conducted in two phases... The first was the phase of illusions for the Turkish syrphetto.
The Crash of Kara Mustafa's 150,000-strong Turkish Army Outside Vienna caused terror in the Ottoman empire. Part of the Turkish forces, under Kara Mehmet Pasha , retreated to Parkani, in what was then Hungary, where he joined the forces of their Hungarian ally Imre Tokoli.
On the evening of October 6, 1683, the Polish army under King John Sobieski arrived at Parkani where they spotted the enemies. Sobieski decided to attack directly with only his cavalry. So the next morning he rode out with 5,000 horsemen against the enemy hoping to surprise them. The Turks were at least three times as many and thus soon overwhelmed the Poles who fled leaving behind 1,000 dead.
However, the Poles were saved thanks to the timely intervention of the German imperial forces of Charles Duke of Lorraine. The Imperials repulsed the Turkish cavalry but did not immediately counterattack. Duke Charles had only 16,700 men and did not want to risk the destruction of his army. So he reorganized and rested his forces and on the morning of October 9 he prepared to attack.
Charles arranged his forces in three lines, with the infantry (7,600 men) in the center under the brave general and defender of Vienna Ernst von Stareberg , with the imperial cavalry on either side and the Poles forming the outer wings, with Sobieski on the right and General Yablowski on the left. The right wing of the imperial cavalry (4,500 men) was commanded by the famous Elector of Baden Louis . The left wing of the imperial cavalry, with an equal number of men, was commanded by General von Dienewald.
Seeing the Christian army preparing to attack, Kara Mehmet decided to attack first, hoping to disorganize his opponents before they charged. The Turks invoking Allah rushed out with yaches. However, it seems that Allah was dealing with the uri and not with his believers... The result was the collapse of the Turkish attack. The immediate Christian counterattack led to the annihilation of Kara Mehmet's power.
Of Kara Mehmet's 18,000 men 10,000 were killed and only 3,000 were captured as after the Turkish atrocities in Vienna the Christians were not so willing to take Turkish prisoners. Only the pitiful remnants of Kara Mehmet's force managed to retreat, badly pursued by the victors as well. The losses of the Christian forces in the second conflict were literally negligible, with only a handful of dead and very few wounded.