Book I · The Coffee Chronicles
Georg Franz Kolschitzky
His legend was forged in war — and poured into Vienna's first coffee cup.
His legend was forged in war — and poured into Vienna's first coffee cup.
For two months, Vienna has lived inside its own dwindling arithmetic. Grain measured against days. Courage measured against silence. Beyond the walls, an Ottoman army numbering in the hundreds of thousands has settled into a slow, patient siege.
The Siege of Vienna is real history — one of the pivotal confrontations between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires. Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg's garrison held the walls; Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha commanded the besieging army; and beyond the horizon, a relief force was slowly, uncertainly assembling.
Georg Franz Kolschitzky is not a soldier. He is a ruined trader — fluent in Turkish, familiar with Ottoman customs — and, by the time the siege tightens, a man with very little left to lose. Tradition credits him with carrying word between the besieged garrison and the relief forces beyond the Ottoman lines.
To move between the two armies, Kolschitzky has to become, briefly and convincingly, someone he isn't. The novel's tensest chapters live inside that crossing — the actual, present-tense danger of a man whose only real weapon is his ability to sound like he belongs somewhere he doesn't.
Popular tradition holds that Kolschitzky was given the besieging army's abandoned coffee stores, and used it to open one of Vienna's first coffee houses. Historians are less certain than the legend is — see below for the full, honest account.
This novel is fiction, built on a real man and a real siege. We think readers deserve an honest account of which parts are documented, which are tradition, and which historians still argue about.
Vienna was besieged by an Ottoman army from July to September 1683.
The siege was broken on 12 September 1683 by a relief force under Duke Charles of Lorraine and King Jan III Sobieski.
Georg Franz Kolschitzky was a real person, familiar with Ottoman customs from time in the Balkans and Istanbul.
Tradition credits Kolschitzky with carrying messages between the besieged garrison and the relief armies.
Tradition holds he opened one of Vienna's first coffee houses using the besiegers' abandoned coffee.
Much of this detail was popularised by writer Gottfried Uhlich in 1783 — a century after the siege.
Historical records point to Johannes Diodato, an Armenian merchant, as holder of Vienna's first official coffee-house license — granted January 1685.
Whether Kolschitzky's coffee house predates, follows, or ran independently of Diodato's is not settled in the record.
Chapter One, page one — click the page to zoom
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The story doesn't end in Vienna.
The Coffee Chronicles continues in Book II.