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Map tour · 1683–1699 · 7 stops · 3 min read
From the last great campaign to the first great loss of land: a sixteen-year war
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14 July 1683
Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha arrived before Vienna on 14 July 1683 with a very large army. The campaign's first targets had been the fortresses of Győr and Komárom; Mehmed IV, who stayed behind in Belgrade, was astonished to hear that the army had marched on Vienna. Emperor Leopold I left the defence to Starhemberg and withdrew to Linz. The map shows the state's borders that year, its last great extent.
12 September 1683
A relief army under the Polish king Jan Sobieski seized the Kahlenberg heights and got behind the Ottoman army. In the battle that began on 12 September the right wing broke first; when the help expected from the Crimean khan did not come, the left wing collapsed as well. Kara Mustafa Pasha held the centre for five or six hours before he had to withdraw. He planned to winter in Belgrade and rebuild the army, but was executed there on 25 December 1683.
2 September 1686
The defeat at Vienna showed that the old balance had shifted: Austria, Poland and Venice joined in the Holy League, and Russia joined later. The first target was Buda and Hungary. In the summer of 1686 a huge army besieged Buda; the general assault of 2 September took the city, Ottoman since 1541, and central Hungary was lost. Nové Zámky (Uyvar) had fallen the year before.
August – November 1687
In August 1687, at Mohács, where Suleiman the Magnificent had won in 1526, it was the Ottoman army's turn to be defeated. Claiming their pay had not been made, the soldiers mutinied and marched on Istanbul; on 8 November 1687 Mehmed IV was deposed and his brother Suleiman II took the throne. The same year Transylvania and Slavonia passed to the Habsburgs, and Venice completed its conquest of the Morea, begun in 1685.
1688 – 1690
The retreat reached Belgrade: the city fell to the Austrians in 1688. Köprülüzade Fazıl Mustafa Pasha took it back in 1690. Along the border, however, fortresses had fallen one by one: Požega in 1688, Lika in 1689, Kanizsa in 1690. Because Belgrade was lost only briefly, it keeps the Ottoman colour on the map.
11 September 1697
Mustafa II had taken the field at the head of the army for the third time. On 11 September 1697, while the army was crossing the bridge over the Tisza at Zenta, the Austrian army under Prince Eugene attacked. The bridge was broken, the soldiers who could not cross were almost wiped out, and Grand Vizier Elmas Mehmed Pasha was killed. Austrian sources put the losses at about 30,000. The fortress of Azov had fallen to the Russians the year before; peace was now unavoidable.
26 January 1699
After seventy-two days of talks the treaties were signed at Karlowitz. Hungary and Transylvania went to Austria, Podolia and Kamianets to Poland and the Morea to Venice; Temeşvar (the Banat) remained Ottoman. With Russia only a two-year truce could be agreed; peace was signed in Istanbul on 14 July 1700 and Azov was left to Russia. For the first time the state gave up so much land at a peace table.
The texts are based on the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam articles below. Borders are drawn from the atlas's regional data and are approximate; see the Method page.