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The Sultan’s army was huge and well-armed and had learned much from the European armies during the ‘military revolution’ of the period . <ref>Ágoston, Gábor (2014). "Firearms and Military Adaptation: The Ottomans and the European Military Revolution, 1450–1800". Journal of World History. 25: 85–124</ref>. However, the Ottomans strategy was poor. It was too slow, they did not mobilize quickly enough and they waited until they had assembled a huge force. The glacial pace of the Turkish advance allowed the Viennese to bolster their defense and allowed the commander to build up the city’s garrison. The slow pace of the Ottoman attack allowed the Viennese crucial time to prepare and to withstand the initial assault.<ref> Palmer, p. 324</ref>.  One Turkish tactic that failed was the use of terror to intimidate the defenders. The massacre of civilians by the Ottomans only made the Viennese more determined to fight to the death, as they knew that they would not be shown any mercy. The commander of the Muslim army, Vizier Kara Mustafa made several tactical errors. He failed to provide a sufficient force to guard his flanks and he relied too much on the Crimean Tartars who were ill-disciplined and wild. Perhaps the greatest weakness of the Vizier was that he was too confident and that he simply expected the city to fall and had not prepared for the possibility of a Christian alliance. Perhaps the greatest mistake he made was to attempt to take Vienna while fighting the Imperial army and the Poles. On the other hand Charles V, the Duke of Lorraine developed a strategy that sought to squeeze the Ottomans between Vienna, the Imperial army and the Poles which proved to be very effective.