Great Turkish War
The Great Turkish War (German: Großer Türkenkrieg), also called the Wars of the Holy League (Turkish: Kutsal İttifak Savaşları), was a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League consisting of the Holy Roman Empire, Poland-Lithuania, Venice, Russia, and the Kingdom of Hungary. Intensive fighting began in 1683 and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. The war was a defeat for the Ottoman Empire, which for the first time lost substantial territory, in Hungary and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as in part of the western Balkans. The war was significant also for being the first instance of Russia joining an alliance with Western Europe.
| Great Turkish War | |||||||||
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| Part of the Ottoman–Habsburg wars and the Russo–Ottoman Wars and Polish–Ottoman Wars | |||||||||
From top left: The Battle of Vienna, the Siege of Buda, the Azov campaigns, the Battle of Zenta | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Holy League: Holy Roman Empire Poland–Lithuania Tsardom of Russia Republic of Venice Spanish Empire | Ottoman Empire | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Leopold I Charles of Lorraine Eugene of Savoy Louis of Baden Rüdiger Starhemberg John III Sobieski Jan Jabłonowski Kazimierz Potocki Peter I Vasily Golitsyn Boris Sheremetev Francesco Morosini Bajo Pivljanin † Wilhelm Königsmarck Girolamo Corner |
Mehmed IV Suleiman II Ahmed II Mustafa II Mustafa Pasha Kara Ibrahim Pasha Süleyman Pasha Köprülü Pasha † Mehmed Pasha † Hüseyin Pasha Morto Hüseyin Pasha | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
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88,100 27,000 200,000 | 150,000 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 135,000 killed or wounded | 125,000 killed or wounded | ||||||||
| 384,000 military deaths | |||||||||
The French did not join the Holy League, as France had agreed to reviving an informal Franco-Ottoman alliance in 1673, in exchange for Louis XIV being recognized as a protector of Catholics in the Ottoman domains.
Initially, Louis XIV took advantage of the start of the war to extend France's eastern borders in the War of the Reunions, taking Luxembourg and Strasbourg in the Truce of Ratisbon. However, as the Holy League made gains against the Ottoman Empire, capturing Belgrade by 1688, the French began to worry that their Habsburg rivals would grow too powerful and eventually turn on France. The Glorious Revolution was also a matter of concern for the French, as William III of Orange-Nassau was being invited by English nobles in the Invitation to William letter to take control of England as king. Therefore, the French besieged Philippsburg on 27 September 1688, breaking the truce and triggering the separate Nine Years' War, which relieved the Turks.
As a result, the advance made by the Holy League stalled, allowing the Ottomans to retake Belgrade in 1690. The war then fell into a stalemate, and peace was concluded in 1699 which began following the Battle of Zenta in 1697 when an Ottoman attempt to retake their lost possessions in Hungary was crushed by the Holy League.
The war largely overlapped with the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), which took up the vast majority of the Habsburgs' attention while it was active. In 1695, for instance, the Holy Roman Empire states had 280,000 troops in the field, with England, the Dutch Republic, and Spain contributing another 156,000 specifically to the conflict against France. Of those 280,000, only 74,000, or about one quarter, were positioned against the Turks; the rest were fighting France. Overall, from 1683 to 1699, the Imperial States had on average 88,100 men fighting the Turks, while from 1688 to 1697, they had on average 127,410 fighting the French.