THE ROULE OF THE OTTOMAN MUSLIMS IN 1518

The Ottoman wars in Europe are the wars which, after the fall of Constantinople (1453), opposed the expanding Ottoman Empire to the north and west, to Christian Europe from the fourteenth century to the eighteenth century.

 The main opponents of the Ottomans were first the Republic of Venice, the Holy Roman Empire, and Poland-Lithuania;  Russia was added towards the end of the seventeenth century.  Even Christian principalities dependent on the "Sublime Porte" (Hungarian Transylvania and Romanian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia) sometimes stood up against their suzerain.  On the other hand, powers like France, Sweden, and Prussia were sporadically allied with the Sublime Porte, and in the course of the seventeenth century Poland-Lithuania was temporarily allied with the Khanate of the Crimean Tatars.  Finally, in the eighteenth century, Polish patriots sought an alliance with the Ottomans.

 First conquests on the Byzantine Empire (1346-1356) 

 Although the Ottomans have multiplied the incursions along the Greek coast since the end of the thirteenth century, the conquest of Europe really began with the gradual invasion of the Balkans during the second half of the fourteenth century.  During this period, the Byzantine Empire, long the only power in Eastern Europe to resist the Turks during the Middle Ages, is now only a shadow of itself and weakens more and more over time  .  Thus, during the civil war that shakes the empire, the Byzantine pretender Jean VI Cantacuzène married his daughter in 1346 to the Ottoman bey Orhan.

 In 1354, the Ottomans took control of Gallipoli, thus giving them a rear base for future military operations in Thrace.  Within a decade, most of Eastern Thrace falls into their hands, Orhan I massively colonizing the region with members of Turkish tribes.  These possessions, cutting Byzantium out of all its closest European markets, constitute a decisive strategic asset.  The control of continental routes of communication in Thrace also isolates Byzantium, which loses contact with potential allies in the Balkans.  Jean V Paleologue must recognize the loss of territories by treaty in 1356. Mourad I succeeds Orhan around 1360.

 Conquest of the Balkans (1356-1402) 

 The temporary loss of Gallipoli by the Ottomans between 1366 and 1376 blocks Murad in Anatolia.  The Turks present in Thrace, under the more or less theoretical authority of the Ottomans, however, achieved success, in the face of adversaries whose respective empires were dislocated into rival principalities under the influence of separatist movements.  Adrianople was taken on an uncertain date (between 1361 and 1371), and the Serbs who sought to expel them from Europe were beaten at the Battle of Maritsa in 1371, allowing the Ottomans to vassalize subsequently part of the multiples  Serbian and Bulgarian sovereigns.

 Probably after 1377, Mourad transferred his capital to Edirne (Adrianople) at the expense of Bursa, marking his plans for expansion in Europe.  The different Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian principalities are progressively vassalized and sometimes conquered by Mourad and his successor Bayezid I (battles of Kosovo, Nicopolis etc.).

 The invasion of Tamerlane in Anatolia and the Ottoman interregnum give respite to the Ottoman neighbors, some of whom regain their independence.

 Resumption of conquest (1430-1478) 

 Eastern Mediterranean in 1450: in magenta, Byzantine empire;  in green, possessions of the Republic of Venice;  in orange, duchy of Naxos;  in blue, Order of Hospitallers;  in orange, possessions of the Republic of Genoa.

 Mehmed I's victory over his rivals allowed the Ottomans to resume their expansion policy in Europe.  Under his rule and that of his successors, almost all of the Balkans came under direct Ottoman control: conquest of Thessalonica (1430), Battle of Kosovo (1448), capture of Constantinople (1453), formal annexation of the despotates of Serbia,  Morea (1460), then Bosnia.

 Around the Black Sea, the Genoese counties of Amastris in Asia Minor, Constanza, San Giorgio, Barilla, Caladda and Montecastro around the mouths of the Danube, and Gazarie in Crimea and around the Strait of Vosporo, pass under Ottoman trusteeship  in 1475-78, with the help of the Crimean khanate .

 Clashes with the Danubian principalities and Poland-Lithuania

 After his victories in the Balkans: Battle of Kosovo Polje, Battle of Nicopolis and capture of Constantinople (1453), the Ottoman Empire fortified its European border on the Danube and launched with various successes to conquer the Christian states to the north  (left bank) of the river: Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and republic of the Two Nations federating by the union of Lublin the kingdom of Poland and the grand-duchy of Lithuania.  These states resist, negotiate, compose with the Ottoman expansionism which often uses, in this fight, its Tatar allies of the Crimean khanate to take them back.  In the end, the Ottoman sultans managed to temporarily remove territories (such as the reayas of Giurgiu, Brăila, Boudjak, Otchak and even briefly Podolia and the citadel of Hotin) but not to transform them into the provinces of the Empire  Ottoman, contrary to what many of the modern maps mistakenly  On the other hand, between two battles, he compelled the two Danubian principalities, thus, after the conquest of Hungary, that that of Transylvania, to pay him a tribute.  The three Carpathian-Danubian principalities thus became, in the fifteenth century, tributary states of the Ottomans, having been vassals of Hungary and Poland.

 Main articles: Battle of Rovine, Battle of Călugăreni, Moldovan-Ottoman Wars and Polish-Turkish Wars.

 Clashes with the Venetians and the Hospitaller Order

 The Ottomans had become masters of all mainland Greece, but a few islands in the southern Mediterranean escaped them for a few decades.  Venice, which has been trying for several decades to strengthen its influence in the Aegean Sea, has to maintain its commercial relations with the Sublime Porte.  Rhodes is taken by the Ottomans in 1522 to the Hospitaller Order, Cyprus to the Venetians in 1571 and Crete is controlled by the Venetians until 1669 .  Hospitallers retreat to Malta where they repel the Ottomans during the Great Siege of 1565. In the margins of the Great War, the raids of corsairs continued uninterrupted until the eighteenth century, Barbarians on the Muslim side and Knights of Malta on the Christian side  .

 Related Articles: Rhodes Seat (1522), Great Siege of Malta and Barbaresques.

 The conquest of Hungary

 Ottoman conquests in Hungary between 1526 and 1568 (in green);  Western Hungary ("Royal Hungary") passes to the Habsburgs (in orange), while in Eastern Hungary a Hungarian state, Transylvania (in blue) acquires an international status to the Treaty of Speyer.

 Turkish silk coat (sixteenth century) (treasure of the Estherazy family)

 With its victory of Mohács over Hungary, the Ottoman Empire no longer hides its ambition to expand in Central Europe.  Hungary, in the grip of internal turmoil due to the rivalry between Ferdinand I and John I Zapolyia, is a tempting prey for the Grand Turk.  The Ottoman army, supported by the pretender John I, fell on Presburg, then went to Vienna.  The siege of Vienna, at the beginning of October 1529, is a failure but does not begin the ambition of the Sultan.  Now the threat of invasion is permanent and Charles V deploys throughout his reign an active defense strategy on the Hungarian border: in 1530, he faces the Turks repeatedly in this region .   It is not only for him to defeat infidels, but also to obtain the crown of Hungary  In 1532 he concluded the peace of Nuremberg with the Protestant princes of Germany, forcing Soliman I, who encamped on the borders of the Holy Roman Empire with his army, to retreat without fighting.  On July 23, 1533, the emperor concluded a peace treaty with the Ottomans, and an armistice with John I Zapolyia.  The Turks resumed hostilities as early as 1537 and defeated King Ferdinand's army at the borders of Slovenia.  The following year, Jean Zapolyia signs with the emperor a new armistice.  In 1541, the Turks seized Buda and militarily occupied all Hungary and part of Croatia.  In 1544, they take the town of Kraljeva Velika, back base for their attacks on Zagreb.  Soliman, then over 71, still tries a campaign in Hungary in 1566, but dies at the Szigetvár headquarters on September 7, 1566.

 The burden of the defensive war of the Europeans, assumed until 1525 by the Kingdom of Hungary and the Danubian principalities, passes to the Holy Empire which creates in particular a militarized march in Croatia, occupied by peasant women's militias.

 Main articles: Hungarian-Ottoman War, Austro-Turkish War and Ottoman Hungary.

 But the confrontation between the Christian states of Europe and the Ottoman Empire now extended to three continents.  In addition to the Balkans, Italy, where from 1480 an Ottoman army had seized Otranto, was disputed.  The barbarians, vassals of the Ottomans, led throughout the sixteenth century a series of lootings against the Spanish and Italian trading posts.  For this very reason, Habsburg Spain undertook several military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire and its vassals in North Africa, including the abduction of Tunis (1535);  the Siege of Algiers (1541) failed.