Treaty of (1774)
A peace treaty signed on July 21, 1774, at the conclusion of the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768–1774 between the Ottoman Empire and Russia at Küçük Kaynarca south of the Danube in present-day Bulgaria. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca marked the end of Ottoman control over the Crimea and the rise of Russia as the dominant power in the Black Sea.
Beginning in the 1760s, czarist Russia had emerged as the principal threat to Ottoman rule in the Crimea and the Balkans (Hale: 21). The conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Russia began after Catherine the Great embarked on a campaign to establish Russian rule over the Black Sea, the Crimea, and Poland (Jelavich: 68–69). She used the death of Polish king August III to install her former lover, Stanislaw Poniatowski, as the new ruler (Shaw: 1:247; Aksan: 115; Finkel: 374).
The Polish nobles, who opposed Russian and Prussian intervention, organized an uprising and appealed for support from the sultan (Jelavich: 69). Painfully aware of the Russian designs on their territory, the Crimean Tatars echoed the Polish plea for assistance. After Russian forces, which were pursuing Polish rebels, crossed the Ottoman frontier and burned a village, the Ottomans demanded that Russia withdraw its forces from Poland. When the demand was ignored, the Ottoman Empire, with strong encouragement from France and the Crimean Tatars, declared war on Russia on October 8, 1768 (Jelavich: 69). The Ottoman declaration of war provided Catherine with the justification to order her troops to mobilize. The Russian armies attacked Ottoman positions on several fronts. They first targeted Moldavia, destroying Ottoman defenses on the Danube and then pushing into Wallachia in September 1769. The native elite, who resented the Greek governors who ruled on behalf of the sultan, joined the Russians and called on the populace to rise in support of the invading army. When the Ottomans finally managed to organize a counteroffensive, their army was destroyed by the Russians on August 1, 1770, at Kagul (Danube Delta). A second front for the Russian invasion of Ottoman territory was the Caucasus. The occupation of Georgia allowed Russia to enter Anatolia from the northeast, forcing the sultan to divide his army and engage in a much wider conflict.
The most successful front for the Russians, however, proved to be the Crimea. Encouraging division and infighting among the Tatar leadership, Russia pushed deep into the Crimea and installed its puppet as the new khan of an autonomous Tatar state under Russian protection in the summer of 1771 (Shaw: 1:249). Many Tatars and their leaders, who resented and opposed Russian occupation, fled to the Ottoman territory and settled in Rusçuk (Ruschik, Ruse) in present-day northeastern Bulgaria (Shaw: 1:249). The last and perhaps the most surprising front was the Mediterranean, which provided the setting for a series of naval encounters between the two powers. Using the English port of Portsmouth and receiving direct support from English naval officers, the Russian fleet, which had embarked on its journey from the Baltic, sailed through the Atlantic into the Mediterranean and attacked several Greek islands, while Russian agents fanned the flames of an anti-Ottoman rebellion in the Morea. The decisive battle took place at the harbor of Çeşme (Cheshme) on July 5–7, 1770, when the Russian fleet, under the command of Admiral (Count) Alexei Orlov, destroyed the Ottoman naval force and killed a large number of its sailors and officers.
The occupation of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Crimea alarmed Prussia and the Habsburgs. To neutralize their opposition, Russia agreed to the first partition of Poland in 1772. To the relief of the European powers and the Ottoman Empire, the Pugachev Rebellion (1773–1775) distracted the Russians and forced Catherine to focus on suppression of the peasants and the Cossacks who had revolted against her authority. Both sides were ready for peace, but the sultan insisted on retaining his suzerainty over the Crimea. Catherine ordered the Russian commander, Alexander Suvorov, to attack Ottoman positions in the southern Balkans. The Russian forces defeated the Ottoman army in 1774, forcing the sultan to sue for peace, which was signed on July 21, 1774, at Küçük Kaynarca south of the Danube in present-day Bulgaria (Sugar: 140).
According to the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, Russia and the Ottoman Empire recognized the independence of the Crimean Tatars and promised that “neither the Court of Russia nor the Ottoman Porte shall interfere with the election” of the Crimean khan or “in the domestic, political, civil, and internal affairs” of the country (Hurewitz: 1:55). The establishment of Crimea as an independent state was used as the first step to impose Russian control over the country.
Russia received the port of Azov, as well as the fortresses of Kerch and Yenikale on the eastern end of the Crimean Peninsula, thus extending the Russian frontier to the southern Bug River. The Russians also seized a part of the province of Kuban and the estuary formed by the Dnieper and Bug Rivers, including the Kinburn fortress. The treaty also recognized the Ottoman sultan as the caliph of all Muslims, including the Tatars, stating that because in religion, the Crimean Tatars professed “the same faith as the Mahometans [Muslims], they shall regulate themselves, with respect to His Highness, in his capacity of Grand Caliph of Mahometanism [Islam], according to the precepts prescribed to them by their law” (Hurewitz: 1:55–56). Thus the title of caliph was revived to establish the Ottoman claim to the religious leadership of the Islamic world. The Russians withdrew their forces from Wallachia and Moldavia and the Caucasus. In return, the sultan agreed to the establishment of Russian protection over all Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, “especially in the Danubian Principalities” of Moldavia and Walachia (Aksan: 167). The Ottomans also agreed to pay a large war indemnity, which drained the central government’s treasury.
See also: Sultans: Abdülhamid I; Mustafa III; Primary Documents: Document 8; Document 9
Further Reading
Aksan, Virginia A. An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace: Ahmed Resmi Efendi 1700–1783. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1995.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Fisher, Alan W. Between Russians, Ottomans and Turks: Crimea and Crimean Tatars. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1998.
Fisher, Alan W. The Crimean Tatars. Stanford, CA: Hoover Press, 2014.
Hale, William. Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774–2000. London: Frank Cass, 2000.
Hurewitz, J. C. Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1956.
Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Vol 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
McCarthy, Justin. The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923. London and New York: Wesley Longman Limited, 1997.
Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Sugar, Peter. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1805. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Lausanne, Treaty of (1923)
A treaty signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on July 24, 1923, by the representatives of the newly established government of Turkey on one side, and by Britain; France; Italy; Japan; Greece; Romania; and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes on the other. The signatories recognized the boundaries of the newly established Republic of Turkey. The Turkish government renounced its claims to the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The government of Turkey also recognized British rule over the island of Cyprus, as well as Italian control over the Dodecanese. The British and the French abandoned their original plan to create an autonomous Kurdish state in southeastern Anatolia. They also dropped their demand for cession of territory from Turkey to Armenia. The Treaty of Lausanne also recognized that the Turkish straits extending from the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea were to r
emain open to all shipping. The Treaty of Lausanne is considered to be the final treaty concluding World War I.
A Turkish delegation, led by Ismet Inonu (center), negotiated a peace treaty with representatives of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Treaty of Lausanne signed in 1923 established the boundaries of the newly created Republic of Turkey. In return, the Turkish government renounced its claims on the Ottoman Empire’s Arab provinces, and agreed to recognize British rule over Cyprus and Italian rule over the Dodecanese. (Library of Congress)
See also: Battles and Treaties: Sèvres, Treaty of; Empire and Administration: Atatürk, Kemal
Further Reading
Mango, Andrew. Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey. New York: Overlook Press, 1999.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Lepanto, Battle of (1571)
A naval engagement between the Ottoman Empire and the allied Christian forces of the Holy League, which took place in the waters off southwestern Greece on October 7, 1571. The battle marked the first major victory of a European naval force over the Ottoman fleet.
The Battle of Lepanto, fought in October 1571 between the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire, marked the first major victory of a Christian European naval force over an Ottoman fleet. (Jupiterimages)
The Battle of Lepanto was the direct result of the Ottoman-Venetian rivalry over domination of the eastern Mediterranean and control of the island of Cyprus. On September 9, 1570, Ottoman forces captured Nicosia in northern Cyprus. They went on to attack and seize Famagusta in eastern Cyprus in August 1571. The fall of Cyprus convinced the Christian powers of Europe to unify their forces in an attempt to regain the island.
Since 1566 the pope, Pius V, had tried unsuccessfully to form an alliance of the Catholic states of Europe. After Venice appealed to him for assistance, Pius V approached Philip II of Spain, who agreed to join a Christian crusade against the Ottomans. Venice was determined to regain its control over Cyprus, while Spain intended to extend its rule over North Africa by capturing Tunis and Algiers. Don Juan of Austria (1547–1578), the half brother of King Philip of Spain, was appointed the commander of the Holy League’s naval forces, with the papal general, Marcantonio Colonna, acting as his lieutenant.
The Holy League forces, consisting of 44-gun galleasses, over 200 oar-propelled galleys, and many auxiliary vessels, representing Venice, Spain, the papacy, Malta, Genoa, and Savoy, first sailed to Corfu, a Greek island in the Ionian Sea in the northwesternmost part of present-day Greece on September 15, 1571. It was at Corfu that the naval commanders of the Holy League learned about the fall of Famagusta in eastern Cyprus. The Holy League forces attacked and trapped the Ottoman fleet, which had recently returned from the conquest of Cyprus and was anchored at Lepanto on the Greek coast. The Christian fleet destroyed most of the Ottoman ships, killing a large number of sailors.
The victory at Lepanto on October 7, 1571, was hailed throughout Europe as the beginning of the end of Ottoman domination in the eastern Mediterranean. The victory also was viewed as a major psychological boost to the morale of Christian European powers, which had suffered repeated defeats at the hands of Ottoman armies. To the disappointment of Europe, however, the Ottomans bounced back from the humiliation at Lepanto within a short time. The Ottoman navy was rebuilt within a year and immediately began to challenge the Holy League and its fleet in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean. In 1573 Venice, which constituted the most important naval power within the Holy League, sued for a separate peace with the sultan. In August 1574 the reorganized Ottoman fleet attacked and occupied Tunis, establishing a territorial base for the Ottoman Empire in North Africa.
See also: Sultans: Murad III; Selim II; Süleyman I
Further Reading
Capponi, Niccolo. Victory of the West: The Great Christian-Muslim Clash at the Battle of Lepanto. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2008.
Crowley, Roger. Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World. New York: Random House, 2009.
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Wright, Elizabeth R., Sarah Spence, and Andrew Lemons, trans. The Battle of Lepanto. The I Tatti Renaissance Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
Marj Dabiq (Mercidabik), Battle of (1516)
A military engagement between the armies of the Ottoman sultan, Selim I (r. 1512–1520), and the Mamluk sultanate based in Egypt, which took place near the town of Dabiq (Dabik), 44 miles north of Aleppo in present-day northern Syria, on August 24, 1516. The result of the battle was a decisive victory for the Ottomans, who emerged as the masters of Syria and Palestine. Selim built on this impressive victory and invaded and conquered Egypt in 1517.
After defeating the Safavid monarch, Shah Ismail I, at the battle of Chaldiran in August 1514, Selim I shifted his focus to the conquest of the Arab world, in particular Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, which had been ruled since the 13th century by the Mamluk sultanate, based in Egypt. The Mamluks had been a source of great anxiety and irritation to the Ottomans. Mamluk sultans had at times supported pretenders to the Ottoman throne. They had also provided refuge and a safe base of operation for the rulers of Turkoman principalities that had been defeated by Ottoman armies. The Mamluks also had laid claim to territories in southern Anatolia, particularly the region of Cilicia, which blocked Ottoman access to the Arab world. Finally, by holding claim to the holiest sites of Islam, namely Mecca and Medina, the Mamluks challenged the claim of the Ottoman sultan to act as the caliph, or the religious and spiritual head of Sunni Islam.
Selim used the imaginary alliance between the Mamluks and the Safavids in Iran as his principal justification to attack Syria. Unlike the Iranians, the Mamluks were Sunni Muslims, but they had supported the Shia heretics who ruled Iran and could therefore be attacked. Having annexed the Dulkadir principality that served as a buffer between the Ottomans and the Mamluks, the sultan’s forces entered Syria and inflicted a crushing defeat on the main Mamluk army at Dabiq (Dabik) on August 24, 1516. The Mamluk sultan, Qansu al-Ghawri, was killed on the battlefield. The cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem soon surrendered to the Ottoman sultan. As they had in the campaign against the Safavids, and in particular the Battle of Chaldiran, the Ottoman cannons and muskets proved to be the most important factor in the Ottoman victory over the Mamluks.
Despite the Mamluks’ best efforts to reorganize their forces under Tuman Bey, who had proclaimed himself the new sultan, Selim arrived at the gates of Cairo by January 1517, having defeated the remaining Mamluk forces at Ridaniya near the Egyptian capital. Tuman Bey tried to organize a guerrilla force, but he was captured and executed by the Ottomans, who established themselves as the new masters of the Arab world. With the defeat of the Mamluks, Egypt, Syria, and Hijaz (western Arabia) were incorporated into the Ottoman state, and the sultan received the title “Protector of the Two Holy Cities” (Mecca and Medina).
See also: Empire and Administration: Ismail I, Shah of Iran; Sultans: Selim I
Further Reading
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.
Muslu, Cihan Yüksel. The Ottomans and the Mamluks: Imperial Diplomacy and Warfare in the Islamic World. London: I. B. Tauris, 2014.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Sugar, Peter. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1805. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Uğur, Ahmed. The Reign of Sultan Selim I in the Light of the Selim-name Literature. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1985.
Wasserstein, David J., and Ami Ayalon, eds. Mamluks and Ottomans: Studies in Honour of Michael Winter. London: Routledge, 2010.
Waterson, James. The Knights of Islam: The Wars of the Mamluks. Barnsley, UK: Greenhill Books, 2007.
Mezőkeresztes, Battle of (1596)
The Battle of Mezőkeresztes, also known as the Battle of Keresztes, was a military engagement between the armies of the Habsburgs and their allies and the Ottoman forces under the command of Sultan Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603). The battle took place near the village of Mezőkeresztes (Turkish: Haçova), in northern Hungary, on October 25–26, 1596, and ended with Ottoman victory.
After the death of Murad III (r. 1574–1595), his son Mehmed III ascended the Ottoman throne. The sultan’s mother, Safiye Sultan, continued to exercise enormous power and influence, while the grand vizier conducted the ongoing military campaigns against the Habsburgs and the insurgency in the Romanian-populated principality of Wallachia. The Ottoman forces managed to invade Wallachia and capture Bucharest. However, the Wallachian counterattacks, combined with a very harsh winter, forced the Ottoman army to retreat, while the other Romanian-populated principality, Moldavia, joined the rebellion. With Wallachia and Moldavia in turmoil, the sultan appealed to his ally, the Crimean khan, to attack the two principalities from the north. The Ottoman decision to involve Crimean Tatars rang alarm bells in Poland, which responded by sending its armies into Moldavia to stop the Tatars.
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