Andreas von Auersperg

Andreas von Auersperg, Lord of Schönberg und Seisenberg (Slovene: Andrej Turjaški; Croatian: Andrija Auersperg) (9 April 1556 – 5 September 1593) was a Carniolan noble and leader of the defending forces at the Battle of Sisak in 1593.

Andreas von Auersperg was born in the Carniolan town of Seisenberg into one of the leading Protestant Austrian families in the Duchy of Carniola as the youngest son of Wolfgang-Engelbert von Auersperg, Lord of Schönberg, Seisenberg and Flödnig, and Anna Maria von Lamberg. After his parents' early demise, the governor of Carniola, Baron Weikhard von Auersperg (1533–1581), became the guardian of the one-year-old boy.

In 1569, the 13-year-old registered at the University of Tübingen, where the Collegiate Church, along with the rest of the city, was one of the first to have converted to Martin Luther's teachings. In 1573 and 1574, he also studied at the renowned universities of Padua and Bologna.

Andreas became a soldier accompanying Archduke Matthew on his campaign in the Netherlands (1577–1578), fighting as a captain on the Croatian-Turkish border in 1578 and 1579 under Hans Ferenberger von Auer and Christoph von Auersperg. In 1583 he rose to the rank of colonel and was appointed commander-in-chief (Feldobrist) of the Croatian and Dalmatian frontier lands in Karlstadt in 1589.

On 22 June 1593, the day of Saint Acacius, the leader of the Ten thousand martyrs, a battle occurred near the fortress of Sisak in present-day Croatia, where the Sava and Kupa rivers meet. It was the last fortress the Ottomans needed to conquer in order to expand northward into central Europe virtually unopposed.

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