MUSTAPIIA II., the son of Mahomet IV., upon his accession to the throne, adopted rigorous measures of reform throughout the empire. lie summoned to his councils some of the able and experienced pachas who had been driven to retirement by the intrigues and cupidity of the favourites of Achmet; and he endeavoured to reanimate the military spirit of his subjects, by directing in person the Hunga rian war. During two campaigns, he maintained against the Elector of Saxony the honour of the Ottoman arms; but he was at last defeated by Prince Eugene at the battle of Zenta, with the loss of fifteen pachas of the highest rank, and two-thirds of his bravest troops. Mustapha escaped from the field in disguise, and was so overcome with grief and disappointment, that he submitted to sue for peace. The treaty of Carlowitz included all the belligerents. It ceded to the emperor, Hungary, Transylvania, and Esclavonia, with the exception of the Bannat of Temeswar; Podolia, the Ukraine, and Kaminiek were restored to the Poles; the Rus sians retained Azoff; and the Venetians the Mo rea.
These hard terms excited universal murmurs among the Turkish populace, and withdrew from the unfortunate sultan that confidence and respect with which he had formerly been regarded. His fall, however, was precipitated by the dissensions of the mufti and the grand vizier, Mustapha Dal taban. This minister was a favourite with the sol diery and the people; and his death, which was accomplished through the intrigues of the mufti, produced a general insurrection. The mufti and his family were the first victims; and the sultan Mustapha was compelled to relinquish the throne in favour of his brother ACHMET III.
The war of the Spanish succession, which occu pied all the great powers of Europe, enabled Ach met to devote his attention to the internal affairs of his empire. He exacted a severe retribution from those pachas and janissaries who had been engaged in the last revolt; and within the space of five months, 14,000 victims were silently disposed of without any public alarm. Though eagerly soli cited by France to make a diversion on the side of Hungary, and though the Russian Czar was con tinually evincing a spirit of hostility by encroaching on the Turkish frontier, and by building forts on the Don and the Dnieper, Achmet maintained in violate the treaty of Carlowitz.
The Ottoman dominions were thus enjoying pro found peace, when the battle of Pultowa threw Charles II. Of Sweden upon the protection and hos pitality of the Sublime Porte. This monarch took up his residence at Bender, and was incessant in his endeavours to hasten a rupture with Russia. Aehmet was proof against his intrigues, till the public mind was inflamed, and hostilities precipi tated by the appearance of a Russian squadron in the Propontis, bearing an envoy of the czar to the Ottoman court. This violation of the Bosphorus would admit of no extenuation, and war was inevi table. The czar Peter crossed the Pruth with a large army, and incautiously penetrating into Mol davia, at a distance from his resources, he was sur rounded by the Ottoman army in an angle of the Pruth, near Falezi. Cut off from all supplies, and suffering from the want of food and forage, the czar was meditating the desperate attempt of opening a retreat sword in hand through the enemy's camp, when the czarina suggested the project of a paci fication. This was assented to by the Turkish vizier, and Peter was relieved from his perilous situation by the restoration of Azoff and its depen dencies, the demolition of the fortresses on the confines of Tartary, and the enlarging and strength ening the Ottoman frontiers.
The abandonment of the Morea to the republic of Venice at the peace of Carlowitz had sorely galled the pride of the Ottomans; and its recovery, there fore, was an object that could not be long neglected. In one short campaign the Venetians were dispos sessed of all their fortresses within the peninsula, and also the places which they had retained in Candia. The interposition of the emperor Charles VII. as the guarantee of the treaty of Carlowitz was rejected by the Porte, which hastened another Hungarian war. The hostile armies met in the vicinity of Peterwaradin, and the defeat of the Turks by Prince Eugene was followed by the reduction of Temeswar. The following campaign was equally disastrous. The Ottomans were routed with great slaughter before Belgrade, and that city was sur rendered to the victor. Achmet, alarmed by these defeats, eagerly solicited peace, by which he was allowed to retain the Morea in exchange for the fortresses of Temeswar and Belgrade.