Military defeats and the emergence of theEastern Question, 1683–1792

The traditionalist 17th-century reforms did, however, produce at least a semblance of revival. By 1681 the Ottoman army seemed so strong that the grand vizier,Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa (served 1676–83), brother-in-law of Ahmed Köprülü, was emboldened to move again into central Europe and besiege Vienna (July–September 1683). His effort quickly overextended the fragile bases of the Ottoman revival. The aroused defenders, led by the Polish king Jan Sobieski (ruled 1674–96), not only held out but also built a major European coalition that was to bring destruction to the Ottoman Empire during the 18th century. The Habsburgs set out to reconquer Hungary, Serbia, and the Balkans, while Venice hoped to regain its naval bases along the Adriatic coast and in the Morea and to resume its naval and commercial power in the Levant, and Russiaworked to extend its reach through the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles to the Aegean. Only the European enemies of the coalition, led by France and Sweden, tried to support Ottoman integrity. They were supported in this by neutral Britain and the Netherlands, who sought to guard the commercial privileges they had secured from the sultan through the Capitulations by preventing any nation from gaining control of the entire Ottoman Empire and thereby becoming dominant in Europe. Russia and Austria fought the Ottomans not only by direct military attack but also by fomenting dissatisfaction and revolt on the part of the non-Muslim subjects of the sultan. Against such subversion, the Ottomans could only try to conciliate their subjects where possible and repress them when conciliation was rejected, taking advantage at every opportunity of each rivalry that arose between the Habsburgs and Russians for predominance in the Balkan provinces of the empire.

In consequence the Ottoman Empire fought intermittent wars with its European enemies during the period between the second siege of Vienna (1683) and the Treaty of Jassy (1792). From 1683 to 1699 it fought the armies of the Holy League in a disastrous war that culminated in theTreaty of Carlowitz (1699). In 1710–11 it fought Russia again, and at the Treaty of the Pruth (1711) it regained some territories previously lost. The war of 1714–18 with Venice and Austriawas concluded by the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718); and three wars with Russia and Austria, in 1736–39, 1768–74, and 1787–92, culminated in the treaties of Belgrade (1739), Küçük Kaynarca(1774), and Jassy (1792). As a result of these wars, the Ottomans lost Hungary, the Banat of Temesvár region, Transylvania, and Bukovina, establishing their European boundary on the Danube, where it had been early in the 16th century. By 1812 the Ottomans had lost all their possessions on the northern coast of the Black Sea, from the Romanian principalities to the Caucasus, including Bessarabia, southern Ukraine, and the Crimean Peninsula (the soldiers of which had provided the strongest element in the Ottoman army during the 17th century). In addition, the Ottomans were compelled to allow the Russians and Austrians to intervene legally on behalf of the sultan’s Christian subjects, increasing European influence in internal Ottoman affairs.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 928