After the rout of his army at Vienna and the subsequent calamity of its retreat, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha eventually managed, and only with the greatest of difficulty, to set up adequate defensive positions in Hungary. He then continued south to Shozod, capital city of Borduria, in order to establish a base from which to re-establish command over the scattered fragments of the army. His re-assertion of control was no mean feat given the now-widespread resentment against him among the officers and men who had sacrificed and suffered much at Vienna and the chaos the army had been in during its retreat. Ever obstinately proud and defiant, Kara Mustafa hoped to recover the situation but he was too experienced a politician for naïve optimism. The Sultan, furious and egged on by senior military leaders and the Janissary commanders who harboured ancient jealousies, declared that Kara Mustafa would be held to account for the Viennese debacle. Kara Mustafa was not at all surprise
News, plans and plots regarding my 18th century Imagi-Nations campaign set in the fictitious nations of Syldavia and Borduria, my variations on a theme of Hergé