Ottoman–Habsburg wars
1526–1791 series of wars in Europe / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Ottoman–Habsburg wars were fought from the 16th to the 18th centuries between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy, which was at times supported by the Kingdom of Hungary, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Habsburg Spain. The wars were dominated by land campaigns in Hungary, including Transylvania (today in Romania) and Vojvodina (today in Serbia), Croatia, and central Serbia.
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Ottoman–Habsburg wars | |||||||
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Part of the Ottoman wars in Europe | |||||||
Left to right from the top: the Siege of Vienna, the Siege of Szigetvár, the Long Turkish War, the Battle of Saint Gotthard, the Battle of Vienna, the Siege of Belgrade | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Vassal states:
Allies: |
Non-Habsburg states of the Holy Roman Empire: | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Mediterranean: 900,000–1,000,000 deaths (1470–1574)[5] |
By the 16th century, the Ottomans had become a serious threat to European powers, with Ottoman ships sweeping away Venetian possessions in the Aegean and Ionian seas and Ottoman-supported Barbary pirates seizing Spanish possessions in the Maghreb. The Protestant Reformation, French–Habsburg rivalry and the numerous civil conflicts of the Holy Roman Empire distracted 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 of central Hungary to the status of an Ottoman tributary.[6] Later, the Peace of Westphalia and the War of the Spanish Succession in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively left the Austrian Empire as the sole firm possession of the House of Habsburg. After the siege of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs assembled a large coalition of European powers known as the Holy League to fight the Ottomans and regain control over Hungary.[7] The Great Turkish War ended with the decisive Holy League victory at Zenta. The wars ended after Austria's participation in the war of 1787-1791, which Austria fought allied with Russia. Intermittent tension between Austria and the Ottoman Empire continued throughout the nineteenth century, but they never fought each other in a war and ultimately found themselves allied in World War I, after which both empires were dissolved.
Historians have focused on the second siege of Vienna of 1683, depicting it as a decisive Austrian victory that saved Western civilization and marked the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Recent historians have taken a broader perspective, noting that the Habsburgs at the same time resisted internal separatist movements and were fighting Prussia and France for control of central Europe. The key advance made by the Europeans was an effective combined arms doctrine involving the cooperation of infantry, artillery and cavalry. Nevertheless, the Ottomans were able to maintain military parity with the Habsburgs until the middle of the eighteenth century.[8] Historian Gunther E. Rothenberg has emphasized the non-combat dimension of the conflict, in which the Habsburgs built up military communities that protected their borders and produced a steady flow of well-trained, motivated soldiers.[9]