Ottoman–Habsburg wars

Battle of Nicopolis (1396)

While the Habsburgs were occasionally the Kings of Hungary and Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (and almost always that of the Holy Roman Empire after the 15th century), the wars between the Hungarians and the Ottomans included other Dynasties as well. Naturally, the Ottoman Wars in Europe attracted support from the West, where the advancing and powerful Islamic state was seen as a threat to Christendom in Europe. The Crusades of Nicopolis (1396) and of Varna (1443–44) marked the most determined attempts by Europe to halt the Turkic advance into Central Europe and the Balkans.[9]

For a while the Ottomans were too busy trying to put down Balkan rebels such as Vlad Dracula. However, the defeat of these and other rebellious vassal states opened up Central Europe to Ottoman invasion. The Kingdom of Hungary now bordered the Ottoman Empire and its vassals.

After King Louis II of Hungary was killed at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, his widow Queen Mary of Austria fled to her brother the Archduke of Austria, Ferdinand I. Ferdinand's claim to the throne of Hungary was further strengthened by his marriage to Anne, the sister of King Louis II and the only family member claimant to the throne of the shattered Kingdom. Consequently, Ferdinand I was elected King of Bohemia, and at the Diet of Pozsony he and his wife were elected King and Queen of Hungary. This clashed with the Turkish objective of placing the puppet John Szapolyai on the throne, thus setting the stage for a conflict between the two powers.[10]

"The Great Gun" (1518), an allegorical representation by Albrecht Dürer of the Turkish menace for the German lands

The Austrian lands were in miserable economic and financial conditions, thus Ferdinand desperately introduced the so-called Turkish Tax (Türken Steuer). Despite this, he was not able to collect enough money to pay the expenses of the defense costs of the Austrian lands. His annual revenues only allowed him to hire 5.000 mercenaries for two months, thus Ferdinand asked help from his brother Emperor Charles V, and started to borrow money from rich bankers like the Fugger family.[11]

Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1530, by Titian.

Ferdinand I attacked Hungary, a state severely weakened by civil conflict, in 1527, in an attempt to drive out John Szapolyai and enforce his authority there. John was unable to prevent Ferdinand's campaigning, which led to the capture of Buda and several other key settlements along the Danube. Despite this, the Ottoman sultan was slow to react and only came to the aid of his vassal when he launched an army of about 120,000 men on 10 May 1529.[12] The Austrian branch of Habsburg monarchs needed the economic power of Hungary for the Ottoman wars. During the Ottoman wars the territory of former Kingdom of Hungary shrunk by around 70%; despite these territorial and demographic losses, the smaller, heavily war-torn Royal Hungary remained economically more important than Austria or Kingdom of Bohemia at the end of the 16th century,[13] as it was Ferdinand's largest source of revenue.[14]

The earliest type of Turkish hand cannons are called as "Şakaloz", which word came from the Hungarian hand cannon "Szakállas puska" in the 15th century.[15]

Although Ottoman janissaries adopted firearms in battles since the beginning of the 16th century, the Ottoman usage of the handheld firearms spread much more slowly than in the Western Christian armies. Wheel-lock firearms were unfamiliar for Ottoman soldiers until the Siege of Székesfehérvár in 1543, despite the fact they had been used for decades by Christian armies in Kingdom of Hungary and in Western Europe. According to a report from 1594, the Ottoman soldiers hadn't adopted the pistol yet.[16]

In 1602 the grand vizier reported from Hungarian front about the firepower superiority of the Christian forces:

"in a field or during a siege we are in distressed position, because the greater part of the enemy forces are infantry armed with muskets, while the majority of our forces are horsemen, and we have very few specialists skilled in the musket"[17]

According to Alvise Foscarini's (Venetian ambassador in Istambul) report in 1637,

"few Janissaries even knew how to use an arquebus"[18]

The Ottomans were unable to overcome the long pike formations and arquebus fire of the defenders in the Siege of Vienna, 1529

Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent easily wrested from Ferdinand most of the gains he had achieved in the previous two years – to the disappointment of Ferdinand I, only the fortress of Bratislava resisted. Considering the size of Suleiman's army and the devastation wrought upon Hungary in the previous few years it is not surprising that the will to resist one of the world's most powerful states was lacking in many of the recently garrisoned Habsburg settlements.[19]

The Sultan arrived at Vienna on 27 September 1529. Ferdinand's army was some 16,000 strong – he was outnumbered roughly 7 to 1 and the walls of Vienna were an invitation to Ottoman cannon (6 ft thick along some parts). However, the heavy cannons on which the Ottomans relied to breach the walls were all abandoned on the way to Vienna, after they got stuck in mud due to heavy rainfall.[20][21] Ferdinand defended Vienna with great vigour. By 12 October, after much mining and counter-mining an Ottoman war council was called and on 14 October the Ottomans abandoned the siege. The retreat of the Ottoman army was hampered by the resistance of Bratislava, which once more bombarded the Ottomans. Early snowfall made matters worse, and it would be another three years before Suleiman could campaign in Hungary.

The Ottoman army consisted of both heavy and missile fire, cavalry and infantry, making it both versatile and powerful.

After the defeat at Vienna, the Ottoman Sultan had to turn his attention to other parts of his domain. Taking advantage of this absence, Archduke Ferdinand launched an offensive in 1530, recapturing Esztergom and other forts. An assault on Buda was only thwarted by the presence of Ottoman Turkish soldiers.

As in the previous Austrian offensive, the return of the Ottomans forced the Habsburgs in Austria to go on the defensive. In 1532 Suleiman sent a massive Ottoman army to take Vienna. However, the army took a different route to Kőszeg. After a defence by a mere 700-strong force led by the Croatian earl Nikola Jurišić, the defenders accepted an "honorable" surrender of the fortress in return for their safety. The Sultan then withdrew, content with his success and recognizing the limited Austrian gains in Hungary, while forcing Ferdinand to recognize John Szapolyai as King of Hungary.

Whilst the peace between the Austrians and the Ottomans would last for nine years, John Szapolyai and Ferdinand found it convenient to continue skirmishes along their respective borders. In 1537 Ferdinand broke the peace treaty by sending his ablest generals to a disastrous siege of Osijek, which was another Ottoman triumph. Nevertheless, Ferdinand was recognized by the Treaty of Nagyvárad as the heir of the Kingdom of Hungary.

After the death of John Szapolyai in 1540, Ferdinand's inheritance was robbed, given instead to John's son, John II Sigismund. Attempting to enforce the treaty, the Austrians advanced on Buda where they experienced another defeat by Suleiman; the elderly Austrian General Rogendorf proved to be incompetent. Suleiman then finished off the remaining Austrian troops and proceeded to de facto annex Hungary. By the time a peace treaty was enforced in 1551, Habsburg Hungary had been reduced to little more than border land. In 1552 the forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Kara Ahmed Pasha laid siege on the Castle of Eger, located in the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, but the defenders led by István Dobó repelled the attacks and defended the castle of Eger. The Siege of Eger (1552) become an emblem of national defense and patriotic heroism in Hungary's Occupations

After the seizure of Buda by the Turks in 1541, west and north Hungary recognized a Habsburg as king ("Royal Hungary"), while the central and southern counties were occupied by the Sultan ("Ottoman Hungary"), and the east became the Principality of Transylvania. The vast majority of the seventeen and nineteen thousands Ottoman soldiers in service in the Ottoman fortresses in the territory of Hungary were Orthodox and Muslim Balkan Slavs instead of ethnic Turkish people.[22] Southern Slavs were also acting as akinjis and other light troops intended for pillaging in the territory of present-day Hungary.[23]

Turkish attack on river fortress, Siege of Szigetvár, 1566)

There were wasted opportunities on both sides in the Little War; Austrian attempts to increase their influence in Hungary were just as unsuccessful as the Ottoman drives to Vienna. Nonetheless, there were no illusions as to the status quo: the Ottoman Empire was still a very powerful and dangerous threat. Even so, the Austrians would go on the offensive again, their generals building a bloody reputation for so much loss of life. Costly battles like those fought at Buda and Osijek were avoided but not absent in the upcoming conflicts. In any case Habsburg interests were split between fighting for devastated European land under Islamic control, trying to stop the gradual decentralization of Imperial authority in Germany, and for Spain's ambitions in North Africa, the Low Countries and against the French. Nevertheless, the Ottomans, whilst hanging on to their supreme power, could not expand as they had in the days of Mehmet and Bayezid. To the east lay further wars against their Shi'ite opponents, the Safavids. Both the French (since 1536) and the Dutch (since 1612) occasionally worked together against the Habsburgs with the Ottomans.

Suleiman the Magnificent led one final campaign in 1566, ending at the Siege of Szigetvár. The Siege was meant to be only a temporary stop before taking on Vienna. However, the fortress withstood against the Sultan's armies. Eventually the Sultan, already an old man at 72 years (ironically campaigning to restore his health), died. The Royal Physician was strangled[24] to prevent news from reaching the troops and the unaware Ottomans took the fort, ending the campaign shortly afterward without making a move against Vienna.[25]

By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire spanned approximately 877,888 sq mi (2,273,720 km²), extending over three continents: mainly Europe, Africa and Asia.[27] In addition, the Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the Mediterranean Sea.[28] By this time, the Ottoman Empire was a major part of the European political sphere. The Ottomans became involved in multi-continental religious wars when Spain and Portugal were united under the Iberian Union lead by the Habsburg monarch King Philip the Second, the Ottomans as holders of the Caliph title, meaning leader of all Muslims worldwide, and Iberians, as leaders of the Christian crusaders, were locked in a worldwide conflict, with zones of operations in the Mediterranean sea[29] and Indian Ocean[30] where Iberians circumnavigated Africa to reach India, and in the way, wage wars upon the Ottomans and its local Muslim allies and likewise the Iberians passed through newly Christianised Latin-America and had sent expeditions that traversed the Pacific in order to Christianize the partially Muslim Philippines and use it as a base to further attack the Muslims in the far east.[31] In which case, the Ottomans sent armies to aid its easternmost vassal and territory, the Sultanate of Aceh in Southeast Asia.[32][33] During the 17th century, the bloody worldwide conflict between the Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was nevertheless a stalemate, since both powers were at similar population, technology and economic levels.

Ruins of Kőszeg castle, site of the Siege of Güns in 1532

Mismanagement by Murad III may have led to early Ottoman defeats in the war

After the death of Suleiman in 1566, Selim II posed less of a threat to Europe. Though Cyprus was captured at long last, the Ottomans failed against the Habsburgs at sea (see above, Battle of Lepanto). Selim died not too long after, leaving in power his son Murad III, a hedonist who spent more time at his Harem than at the war front. Under such deteriorating circumstances, the Empire found itself at war with the Austrians yet again. In the early stages of the war, the military situation for the Ottomans worsened as the Principalities of Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania each had new rulers who renounced their vassalship to the Ottomans. At the Battle of Sisak, a group of ghazis sent to raid the insubordinate lands in Croatia were thoroughly defeated by tough Imperial troops fresh from savage fighting in the Low Countries. In response to this defeat, the Grand Vizier launched a large army of 13,000 Janissaries plus numerous European levies against the Christians. When the Janissaries rebelled against the Vizier's demands for a winter campaign, the Ottomans had captured little other than Veszprém.

Technological disadvantages also significantly worsened the Ottoman positions in Hungary.

The fatal Cavalry charge by Hasan Predojević, during the Battle of Sisak in 1593.

In 1594 an even larger army was assembled by the Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha. In the face of this threat, the Austrians abandoned a siege of Gran, a fortress that had fallen during Suleiman's career, and then lost Raab. For the Austrians, their only comfort in the year came when the fortress of Komárno held out long enough against the Vizier's forces to retreat for the winter.

Despite the success of the previous year, the situation for the Ottomans worsened yet again in 1595. A Christian coalition of the former vassal states along with Austrian troops recaptured Esztergom and marched southward down the Danube. Michael the Brave, the prince of Wallachia started a campaign against the Turks (1594–1595), conquering several castles near the Lower Danube, including Giurgiu, Brăila, Hârşova, and Silistra, while his Moldavian allies defeated the Turks in Iaşi and other parts of Moldavia.[34] Michael continued his attacks deep within the Ottoman Empire, taking the forts of Nicopolis, Ribnic, and Chilia[35] and even reaching as far as Adrianople (Edirne),[36] the former Ottoman capital city; no Christian army had set foot in the region since the days of the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologoi.

Victory of the Ottoman Army during the Battle of Keresztes.

Following the defeat of the Ottoman army in Wallachia (see the Battle of Călugăreni) and the series of unsuccessful confrontations with the Habsburgs (culminating in the devastating siege and fall of Ottoman-held Esztergom), and alarmed by the success and proximity of the threat, the new Sultan Mehmed III strangled his 19 brothers to seize power and personally marched his army to the north west of Hungary to counter his enemies' moves. In 1596 Eger fell to the Ottomans. At the decisive Battle of Keresztes, a slow Austrian response was wiped out by the Ottomans. Mehmet III's inexperience in ruling showed when he failed to reward the Janissaries for their efforts in battle; rather he punished them for not fighting well enough and thereby incited a rebellion.

The Austrians renewed the war against their enemies in the summer of 1597 with a drive southward, taking Pápa, Tata, Raab (Győr) and Veszprém. Further Habsburg victories were achieved when a Turkish relief force was defeated at Grosswardein (Nagyvárad). Enraged by these defeats, the Turks replied with a more energetic response so that by 1605, after much wasted Austrian relief efforts and failed sieges on both sides, only Raab remained in the hands of the Austrians. In that year a pro-Turkish vassal prince was elected leader of Transylvania by the Hungarian nobles and the war came to a conclusion with the Peace of Zsitva-Torok.

After Ottoman victories at Rhodes (1522), Chios (1566) and Cyprus (1570); Crete (1669) was the last major island in the eastern Mediterranean to be brought under the control of the Ottoman Empire.[37] Before Ottoman capture, Crete was one of the largest and most prominent overseas holdings of the Republic of Venice.[38] The island was significant to the Ottomans not only for its strategic position along shipping routes between Istanbul and Egypt, but also for its role as a safe harbor for pirates.[37]

A Venetian Fortress in Candia (Heraklion), Crete

In July 1644, an Ottoman ship bound for Egypt, carrying the former Chief Black Eunuch of the Harem, the kadi of Cairo, and many pilgrims heading to Mecca, was besieged and captured by the Knights of Malta.[39] In response, the Ottomans in 1645 amassed a sizable fleet with no stated target, although many believed it would sail on Malta.[40] Taking advantage of surprise, the Ottomans began their campaign on Crete in June 1645.[41] Between 1645 and 1648, the Ottomans captured nearly the entire island, and in May 1648 began a siege on the capital, Candia (modern Heraklion).[42]

Even though the Ottomans held nearly universal control over the island, the Siege of Candia would go on for 21 years. The situation was complicated by naval engagements against Christian fleets in the Aegean, as well as internal political turmoil including the deposition of Sultan Ibrahim in favor of his son, Mehmed IV.[43] During this same period, the Ottoman-Venetian war raged on several other fronts, notably a campaign in Dalmatia and several Venetian attempts to blockade the Dardanelles.[44] In 1666, after the resolution of several other fronts, the Ottomans dispatched sizeable reinforcements towards Crete, under the personal command of Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha.[45] Over the final two years of the siege, the Venetians, bolstered by Ottoman infighting and expecting reinforcements from France, refused several offers of peace treaties.[46] After a failed attempt by French soldiers under the Duke of Beaufort to break the Ottoman siege, the city surrendered on 5 September 1669.[47] With this victory, the Ottomans secured their first major territorial gain in almost a century, and simultaneously ended 500 years of Venetian rule over Crete.[37]

The Ottoman Empire in 1683

In 1663, the Ottomans launched a disastrous invasion of the Habsburg Monarchy, ending at the Battle of St. Gotthard. The battle was won by the Christians, chiefly through the attack of 6,000 French troops led by La Feuillade and Coligny.[48] The Austrians were unable to follow up on this victory due to the intervention of French forces in the Rhine; in such circumstances the Protestant allies of the Catholic Habsburgs would have proven unreliable, wanting instead to have the Austrians and themselves fight the French in a German coalition. The Ottomans therefore turned their attention north again against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. By now, the Kingdom had fallen into a terrible state; the Sejm had divided loyalties and the treasury was bankrupt. It is therefore noteworthy that John III Sobieski, king of Poland, led a decisive victory against the Ottomans at the Second battle of Khotyn.

Restless, the Ottomans were to have another chance in 1682, when the Grand Vizier marched a massive army into Hungary and to Vienna in response to Habsburg raids into Ottoman controlled Hungary.

Siege of Vienna

Main article: Battle of Vienna

In 1683, after 15 months of mobilizing forces, the Grand Vizier reached Vienna to find the city well defended and prepared. Worst for the Vizier were the numerous alliances established by the Austrians, including with Sobieski. When the siege of Vienna began in 1683, Sobieski and his coalition of Germans and Poles arrived just as Vienna's defense was becoming untenable. In one of history's truly decisive battles, and simultaneously the Ottomans' high watermark; they were defeated and the siege lifted.

The climax of the Siege of Vienna

Reconquest of the Ottoman occupied territories of Kingdom of Hungary

Battle of Zenta

In 1686, two years after the unsuccessful siege of Buda, a renewed European campaign was started to enter Buda, the erstwhile capital of medieval Hungary. This time, the Holy League's army was twice as large, containing over 74,000 men, including German, Croat, Dutch, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Czech, Italian, French, Burgundian, Danish and Swedish soldiers, along with other Europeans as volunteers, artillerymen, and officers, the Christian forces reconquered Buda. (See: Siege of Buda)

In 1687, the Ottomans raised new armies and marched north once more. However, Duke Charles intercepted the Turks at the Second Battle of Mohács and avenged the loss inflicted on the last Hungarian King over 160 years ago by Suleiman the Magnificent. The Ottomans continued to resist the southward-pressing Austrians, denying them an opportunity to negotiate from a position of strength. Only when the Ottomans suffered yet another disastrous battle at the crossing at Zenta in 1697 did the Ottomans sue for peace; the resulting treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 secured territories, the rest of Hungary and overlordship of Transylvania for the Austrians.

Throughout Europe Protestants and Catholics hailed Prince Eugene of Savoy as "the savior of Christendom" – English volunteers, including a son of Prince Rupert (nephew of Charles I of England) and Protestants from as far as Scotland fought in the Prince's army. For the Ottomans, the years between 1683 and 1702 were a sad time; 12 Grand Viziers were deposed in 19 years – the legacy of what was at one time under Köprülü Mehmed Pasha the most powerful position of one of the most powerful Empires in the world.

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  Ottoman Sipahis at the Battle of Vienna in 1683
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  The siege of united Christian forces in Buda, 1686, by Frans Geffels
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  Recapturing Buda, 1686

• Ottoman wars in Europe
• Ottoman Navy
• List of Ottoman conquests, sieges and landings
• Ottoman decline thesis
• Croatian–Ottoman wars