Ottoman–Habsburg wars

The Ottoman–Habsburg wars were fought from the 16th through the 18th centuries between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg (later Austrian) Empire, which was at times supported by the Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Hungary and Habsburg Spain. The wars were dominated by land campaigns in Hungary (including Transylvania and Vojvodina), Croatia and Central Serbia.

By the 16th century, the Ottomans had become a serious threat to the European powers, with Ottoman ships sweeping away Venetian possessions in the Aegean and Ionia and Ottoman-supported Barbary pirates seizing Spanish possessions in the Maghreb. The Protestant Reformation, the France–Habsburg rivalry and the numerous civil conflicts of the Holy Roman Empire served as distractions to the Christians from their conflict with the Ottomans. Meanwhile, the Ottomans had to contend with the Persian Safavid Empire and to a lesser extent the Mamluk Sultanate, which was defeated and fully incorporated into the empire.

Initially, Ottoman conquests in Europe made significant gains with a decisive victory at Mohács reducing around one third (central) part of Kingdom of Hungary to the status of an Ottoman tributary. Later, the Peace of Westphalia and the Spanish War of Succession in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively left the Austrian Empire as the sole firm possession of the House of Habsburg. By then, however, European advances in guns and military tactics outweighed the skill and resources of the Ottomans and their elite Janissaries, enabling the Habsburgs to retake Hungary. The Great Turkish War ended with three decisive Holy League victories at Vienna, Mohács and Zenta. The wars came to an end following Austria's participation in the war of 1787-1791, which Austria fought in alliance with Russia. Intermittent tension between Austria and the Ottoman Empire continued throughout the nineteenth century, but they never again fought each other in a war and ultimately found themselves allied in World War I, in the aftermath of which both empires were dissolved.

Historians have devoted most of their attention to the second siege of Vienna of 1683, depicting it as a decisive Austrian victory that saved Western civilization and began the fall of the Ottoman Empire. However more recently historians have taken a broader perspective noting that the Habsburgs at the same time resisted internal separatist movements, and were battling Prussia and France for control of central Europe. From a military historian's viewpoint, the tactics and techniques of the European armies proved decisive because the Ottomans troops were much too slow in responding, and failed to develop their own innovations. The key advance made by the Europeans was an effective combined arms doctrine in which the infantry and artillery, supported by the cavalry, cooperated together to be triply effective. The Ottomans continued brute force frontal attacks that were unable to defeat smaller European armies. Historian Gunther Rothenberg has emphasized the non-combat dimension of the conflict, whereby the Habsburgs built up military communities that protected their borders and produced a steady flow of well-trained, motivated soldiers.

Origins

Main articles: Byzantine–Ottoman wars and Ottoman–Hungarian Wars

Battle of Nicopolis (1396)

The origins of the wars are clouded by the fact that although the Habsburgs were occasionally the Kings of Hungary and Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (though 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 and of Varna marked the most determined attempts by Europe to halt the Turkic advance into Central Europe and the Balkans.

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, his widow Queen Mary fled to her brother the Archduke of Austria, Ferdinand I. Ferdinand's claim to the throne of Hungary was further strengthened by the fact that he had married 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.

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

Habsburg advance

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 saw 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. 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 of these territorial and demographic losses, the smaller heavily war-torn Royal Hungary had remained economically more important than Austria or Kingdom of Bohemia even at the end of the 16th century. Out of all his countries,the territorially shrunk war-torn Kingdom of Hungary was, at that time, Ferdinand’s largest source of revenue.

Siege of Vienna

Further information: Siege of Vienna

At Vienna, the Ottomans found overruning pike formations in the face of concentrated musket fire a challenge too difficult to overcome.

The Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, easily wrestled 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.

The Sultan arrived at Vienna on 27 September the same year. 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 heavy rainfall. Ferdinand defended Vienna with great vigour. By October 12, after much mining and counter-mining an Ottoman war council was called and on October 14 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.

Little War

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

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

Much like the previous Austrian offensive, the return of the Ottomans forced the Habsburgs in Austria to go on the defensive once more. 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 defensive force led by the Croatian earl Miklós Jurisics, the defenders accepted an "honorable" surrender of the fortress in return for their safety. After this, the Sultan withdrew content with his success and recognizing the limited Austrian gains in Hungary, whilst at the same time 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 saw another Ottoman triumph. Even so, by the Treaty of Nagyvárad, Ferdinand was recognized as the heir of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Ruins of Kőszeg castle

Turkish attack on a river fortress (Szigetvár 1566)

The death of John Szapolyai in 1540 saw Ferdinand's inheritance robbed; it was instead given 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.

After the seizure of Buda by the Turks in 1541, the 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. Southern Slavs were also acting as akinjis and other light troops intended for pillaging in the territory of present-day Hungary.

The Little war saw wasted opportunities on both sides; 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 to be avoided, but not absent in the upcoming conflicts. In any case Habsburg interests were split 3-way between fighting for a devastated European land under Islamic control, trying to stop the gradual decentralization of Imperial authority in Germany, and Spain's ambitions in North Africa, the Low Countries and against the French. Having said this, the Ottomans, whilst hanging on to their supreme power, could not expand upon it as much as they did in the days of Mehmet and Bayezid. Whilst the nadir of the Empire had yet to come, its stagnation would be characterized by the same campaigning that led to little real expansion. To the east lay further wars against their Shi'ite opponents, the Safavids.

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 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.

War in the Mediterranean

1480–1540

Further information: Siege of Rhodes (1480) and Siege of Rhodes (1522)

Siege of Rhodes in 1522

Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire rapidly began displacing her Christian opponents at Sea. In the 14th century, the Ottomans had only a small navy. By the 15th century, hundreds of ships were in the Ottoman arsenal taking on Constantinople and challenging the naval powers of the Italian Republics of Venice and Genoa. In 1480, the Ottomans unsuccessfully laid siege to Rhodes Island, the stronghold of the Knights of St. John. When the Ottomans returned in 1522, they were more successful and the Christian powers lost a crucial naval base.

In retaliation, Charles V led a massive Holy League of 60,000 soldiers against the Ottoman city of Tunis. After Hayreddin Barbarossa's fleet was defeated by a Genoan one, Charles' army put 30,000 of the city's residents to the sword. Afterwards, the Spanish placed a friendlier Muslim leader in power. The campaign was not an unmitigated success; many Holy League soldiers succumbed to dysentery, only natural for such a large overseas army. Furthermore, much of Barbarossa's fleet was not present in North Africa and the Ottomans won a victory against the Holy League in 1538 at the Battle of Preveza.

Siege of Malta

Further information: Great Siege of Malta

Siege of Malta, 1565

Despite the loss of Rhodes, Cyprus, an island further from Europe than Rhodes, remained Venetian. When the Knights of St. John moved to Malta, the Ottomans found that their victory at Rhodes only displaced the problem; Ottoman ships came under frequent attacks by the Knights, as they attempted to stop Ottoman expansion to the West. Not to be outdone, Ottoman ships struck many parts of southern Europe and around Italy, as part of their wider war with France against the Habsburgs (See Italian Wars). The situation finally came to a head when Suleiman, the victor at Rhodes in 1522 and at Djerba decided in 1565 to destroy the Knights' base at Malta. The presence of the Ottoman fleet so close to the Papacy alarmed the Spanish, who began assembling first a small expeditionary force (that arrived in time for the siege) and then a larger fleet to relieve the Island. The ultra-modern star shaped fort of St Elmo was taken only with heavy casualties including the Ottoman general Turgut Reis, and the rest of the island was too much. Even so, Barbary piracy continued and the victory at Malta had no effect on Ottoman military strength in the Mediterranean.

Cyprus & Lepanto

Further information: Turkish–Venetian War (1570–1573) and Battle of Lepanto (1571)

Battle of Lepanto

The death of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566 brought Selim II to power. Known by some as "Selim the Sot", he assembled a massive expedition to take Cyprus from the Venetians, an Island far closer to Ottoman-controlled Middle East than to Venice. The other military option that Selim opted out of was to assist the Moorish rebellion that had been instigated by the Spanish crown to root out disloyal Moors. Had Selim succeeded in landing in the Iberian peninsula, he may have been cut off, for after he had captured Cyprus in 1571 he suffered a decisive naval defeat at Lepanto. The Holy League, assembled by the Pope to defend the Island arrived too late to save it (despite 11 months of resistance at Famagusta) but having collected so much of Europe's available military strength, sought to inflict a blow on the Ottomans, which with better supplied ammunition and armor, they did. The chance to retake Cyprus was wasted in the typical squabbling that followed the victory, so that when the Venetians signed a peace treaty with the Ottomans in 1573, they did so according to Ottoman terms.

Thirteen Years' War 1593–1606

Further information: Long Turkish War

File:Europe map 1600.jpg

Europe and the Ottoman Empire (in purple) in the year 1600

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

After Suleiman' death 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 his son Murad III. A hedonist and a total womanizer, Murad 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.

1594 saw a more fruitful Ottoman response. 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 in 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.

Victory of the Ottoman Army during the Battle of Keresztes.

Despite the previous years' success, the situation for the Ottomans worsened yet again in 1595. A Christian coalition of the former vassal states along with Austrian troops recaptured Gran 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. Michael continued his attacks deep within the Ottoman Empire, taking the forts of Nicopolis, Ribnic, and Chilia and even reaching as far as Adrianople. At one point his forces reached Edirne, the former Ottoman capital city; no Christian army had set foot in the region since the days of the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologoi.

Murad III's mismanagement may have led to early Ottoman defeats in the war

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), 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.

Keresztes was a bloodbath for the Christian armies – thus it is surprising to note that 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.

Conquest of Crete

A Venetian Fortress in Candia (Heraklion), Crete

Following Ottoman victories at Rhodes (1522) and Cyprus (1570), Crete was the last major island in the eastern Mediterranean to be brought under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Prior to Ottoman capture, Crete was one of the largest and most prominent overseas holdings of the Republic of Venice. 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.

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. In response, the Ottomans in 1645 amassed a sizable fleet with no stated target, although many believed it would sail on Malta. Taking advantage of surprise, the Ottomans began their campaign on Crete in June of 1645. Between 1645 and 1648, the Ottomans captured nearly the entire island, and in May 1648 began a siege on the capital, Candia (modern Heraklion).

Even though the Ottomans held nearly universal control over the island, the Siege of Candia would go on for twenty-one 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. 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. 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. 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. After a failed attempt by French soldiers under the Duke of Beaufort to break the Ottoman siege, the city surrendered on 5 September 1669. 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.

Great Turkish War

Main article: Great Turkish War

Siege of Érsekújvár, Kingdom of Hungary, 1663.

Ottoman Sipahis at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

In 1663, the Ottomans launched a disastrous invasion of Austria, 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. 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 Jan III Sobieski of the Poles 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 of all for the Vizier were the numerous alliances established by the Austrians, including one with Jan Sobieski, king of Poland. 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 a decisive battle, the Ottomans were defeated and the siege lifted.

The climax of the Siege of Vienna

Holy League Counter

Battle of Zenta

The siege of united Christian forces in Buda, 1686

Recapturing Buda, 1686

Prince Eugene of Savoy captures Belgrade, 1717

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 vast amounts of Central Europe, mostly Hungary, for the Austrians.

Throughout Europe, both 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.

By the end of the war, the Habsburgs had shifted the balance of power away from the Ottomans

Endgame

18th century wars

See also: War of the Spanish Succession, Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18, Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–39), and Austro-Turkish War (1787–91)

Although the Great Turkish War was a disaster for the Ottomans, from which they were unable to recover, the Habsburgs were soon drawn into another destructive European war against the French, their traditional rivals.

The Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18

Brimming with confidence after their victories over the Russians in 1711 (Pruth River Campaign) and over the Venetians in 1715 (Ottoman–Venetian War (1714–18)), the Ottomans declared war on the Habsburg Monarchy in 1716 and marched north from Belgrade in July under the command of Grand Vizier Ali Pasha. The invasion was a catastrophe, however, and the Ottoman army was utterly destroyed and the Grand Vizier slain at the battle of Petrovaradin in August by an outnumbered Austrian army under the command of Prince Eugene, who went on to capture Belgrade a year later. At the subsequent Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, the Austrians gained possession of the Banat, Serbia and Lesser Wallachia.

After Eugene's death in 1736, the Austrian conquests in Serbia and Wallachia were undone at the Battle of Grocka in 1739, where the outnumbered and disorderly Austrians were defeated by the Ottomans.

The Austro-Turkish War of 1787–91 was an inconclusive struggle and Austrian territorial gains were meager in the Treaty of Sistova. The Austrians gained nothing more than the town of Orșova in Wallachia and two small towns on the Croatian frontier.

19th century

For the next 100 years, the Austrians and the Ottomans both began to slowly lose their power to the French, British, Prussians and Russians. Both the Ottomans and the Austrians lacked the heavy industry of their other European counterparts, but the Ottomans were further behind than the Austrians. Thus, Ottoman power decayed faster than Austrian power. In the Balkans, the increasingly prevalent nationalistic cries for independence became a bigger problem for the more militarily incompetent Ottomans. After 1867, the Austrians compromised with the Hungarians to form Austria-Hungary, thus preventing a major ethnic group from rebelling in the shorter term. The same benefits could not be had with the Ottomans.

Muslim Bosniak resistance during the battle of Sarajevo in 1878 against the Austro-Hungarian occupation.

Efforts to catch up with European technology led officers and intellectuals to study abroad—a plan that backfired for the Ottomans when these individuals brought back European ideas of Enlightenment and egalitarianism. These ideas subsequently clashed with the traditional Turkish-dominated, autocratic, millet system of the Ottomans. Therefore, Ottoman power collapsed more rapidly than Austrian power, and they were powerless to stop Bosnia from being occupied in 1878 (officially annexed in 1908).

World War I

Relations between Austria and the Ottomans began to improve when they saw a common threat in Russia and a common ally in Germany in countering the threat of the Tsar. The Ottomans had hoped the Germans would industrialize their nation to defend itself against the Russians, who had taken the "anti-Turk crusade" to a more committed level, driving the Turks out of the Crimea and Caucasus. Meanwhile, the German Empire of Prussia appealed to the Austrians through a common culture, language and the lenient terms imposed after the Austro-Prussian War. The Austrians were in no hurry to see Russia advance at the cost of the Ottomans towards their borders. Thus, in the years before World War I, the two former enemies found themselves allies against the French, the Russians and the British. In 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire surrendered to partition under the Treaty of Saint-Germain, as did the Ottomans under the Treaty of Sèvres.

See also

• Ottoman wars in Europe
• Ottoman Navy
• List of Ottoman sieges and landings
• The Ottomans: Europe's Muslim Emperors

Further reading

• Aksan, Virginia. Ottoman wars, 1700-1870: an empire besieged (Reprint, Routledge, 2014).
• Barker, Thomas Mack. Double eagle and crescent: Vienna's second Turkish siege and its historical setting. SUNY Press, 1967.
• Cacavelas, Jeremias, and Frederick Henry Marshall. The Siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683 (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
• Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans (Cambridge University Press, 1983).
• Millar, Simon. Vienna 1683: Christian Europe Repels the Ottomans (Osprey Publishing, 2008); Short military history, well illustrated.
• Murphey, Rhoads. Ottoman Warfare, 1500-1700 (Rutgers University Press, 1999).
• Părvev, Ivan. Habsburgs and Ottomans Between Vienna and Belgrade:(1683-1739) (1995).
• Rothenberg, Gunther E. The Austrian military border in Croatia, 1522-1747 (1960); The Military Border in Croatia, 1740-1881: a study of an imperial institution (1966).
• Wheatcroft, Andrew. The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe (2010).