The pell-mell charge by Jan Sobieski down that mountain side in 1683 is legend..he was Polish of course but a large contingent of his cavalry was Lithuanian.

The painting is rife with historical detail. The dark guy with the shield on his back looks to be holding a wolf's head regimental Turkish banner, recalling the days when they first swarmed into the historical theater of the near east about 1000 AD. etc. I visited Istanbul (driving over from Athens) in 1993. In the square in front of the palace, a Turkish Army unit garbed like Jannissaries came out with cymbals and those wolf head roman-like "eagles"....it made the skin crawl.

They kicked butt for 1000 years. Ruled India (see Babur Ziauddin's autobiography "The Baburnama," maybe the greatest ever written - founded the Mogul empire in India - and he was very clear that he imported both firearms technology but also tactics from his Ottoman brothers in Turkey - He won a major battle in India against a huge Rajput army by chaining oxcarts filled with sand linked together to form a make-shift wall and putting his matchlock guys firing down shunts between the carts "Ottoman style"); a Turkish Azerbaijani tribe took over Iran; The Ottomans got to Vienna twice! - and ruled an empire from Iran to Morocco up to Hungary.

The gold robed guy looks to be holding a mace with a chained ball on the end?

In the aftermath Prince Eugene (great name by the way) led Austrian armies south and took Hungary and finally Belgrade in a brilliant coup.

Edit: Actually now I'm wondering if that banner is a Janissary banner?
[Linked Image from jpgbox.com]

Last edited by Argo44; 02/27/21 12:01 AM.
Baluch are not Brahui, Brahui are Baluch