Before the end of Suleiman's second year the Turks had lost all their conquests north of the Danube excepting Temesvar and Gross War dein. Kioprili-Lade Mustapha, a son of Me hemet Kioprili, was appointed Grand Vizier. He restored order and confidence, abolished abuses, administered even-handed justice and enforced religious toleration. He led a success ful campaign against Belgrade and defeated the Germans near Essek in 1689-90. Suleiman died in 1691, having reigned barely four years. His brother, Achmet II (1691-95), was an incapable weakling. Kioprili fell in battle with the Aus trians and his army was routed. Famine and pestilence fell upon Turkey; the imbecile ruler died and was followed by a worthier monarch, Mustapha II (1695-1703), who announced that he would himself begin the Holy War against the Christians?) At the outset his Danube campaign proved successful but he came to grief at the battle of Zenta, in Hungary, on 11 Sept. 1697, when the Austrians under Prince Eugene attacked the Turkish army as it was crossing a temporary bridge over the Theiss (Tisza) and, the cavalry being already across, cut it in two and completely routed the infantry, driving them into the river. The prince lost only 500 against the Turkish losses of 30,000. About this time the young Tsar Peter (the Great) of Muscovy sought to open a permanent (ice-free) water communication with the West, with civilized countries, through the Baltic or the Black Sea. But the first be longed to Sweden and the second to the Turks, while the Caspian was in the hands of the Persians. Existing treaties with Poland and Austria, as well as policy and religion, urged the tsar against the Turks, and Constantinople has always been the point of attraction for orthodox Russia. Peter decided to attack by the Don and besiege Azov, the key to the sea of that name and whence the Turks made their plundering expeditions. An army of 100,000 men, many of them French (according to Voltaire), and other foreigners, formed the heart of the expedition. The attempt failed owing to the lack of a fleet to invest Azov from the sea and the siege was raised in 1695. Within less than a year Peter had constructed a fleet of 22 galleys, 100 rafts and 1,700 boats by 26,000 workmen assembled at the small ports of the Don. By July 1696 part of the out works of Azov were capturefl and before the great assault was begun the place surrendered. This important event secured the Black Sea traffic to Russians and set a limit to Turkish power in that quarter. Ottoman power was practically broken by the Peace of Karlowitz on 26 Jan. 1699 between Austria, Poland, Rus sia, Venice and Turkey. Under that treaty Turkey ceded to Austria Transylvania, all Hun gary north of the Marosch and west of the Theiss and all Slavonia except a small part between the Save and the Danube. A 25-years' peace was also stipulated. With Poland and the Venetian Republic terms of peace were agreed to without limitation of time. Venice retained her conquests in Dalmatia and the Morea; Poland recovered Podolia and Kami nietz. The truce with Russia gave her Azov and was at first for only two years, but was afterward extended into a peace for 30 years. Mustapha was deposed in a revolution in 1703 and died a year later.
Achmet III came to the throne in 1703 after having spent his 30 years of life in his prison home. But he had spent part of his time in the profitable study of politics and gov ernment, so that, unlike most sultans, he was not altogether unfitted for his task. As soon as he felt himself securely installed he dis missed the Grand Vizier and Mufti and ordered all the ringleaders of the late •evolution to be put to death. He next appointed another mem ber of the eminent Kioprili family to be Grand Vizier, but the efforts of the latter failed before the internal confusion and discord. The pub lic and officials turned against him and he was dismissed 14 months later and replaced by Bal tadji Mehemet Pasha, a man risen from the people. Externally the country was at peace. After the defeat of Charles XII at Pultova by Peter the Great on 8 July 1709, the Swedish king made his escape from the field by swim ming the Borysthenes. He fled to Bender, in Bessarabia, then Turkish territory, where he collected the remnants of his army— some 18, 000 men — and endeavored for two years to entice the sultan into war with Russia. Achmet
III was anxious to recover Azov and, therefore, ordered his Grand Vizier to put army and fleet on a war basis by raising a force of 200,000 men (August 1710). War broke out in 1711. Peter the Great set out for Poland in March, accompanied by his wife, Catherine. In the ensuing struggle the Russian army got into difficulties on the Pruth from lack of provision and the defection of Moldavia and Wallachia. The Turks and Tatars, though suffering heavy losses in a two days' battle, forced the Rus sians almost to the point of surrender when the Empress Catherine, who attended a despondent council of war .in camp, suggested bribing the Grand Vizier, a notoriously avaricious man. Catherine gave her jewels and 200,000 rubles were collected and sent to the Turkish camp. Peter at the time lay sick in his tent, reluctantly consenting to make peace proposals. The Grand Vizier Baltadji agreed to make peace on remarkably mild terms, though the Russian envoys had been instructed to accede to any terms and sacrifices. By the Treaty of the Pruth (21 July 1711) Azov was restored to Turkey and the Russian fortresses built on Turkish territory at Taganrog, Saton, Kamen nov and elsewhere were to be demolished, while thee Azov Sea fleet was to be burnt. Further, Charles XII (who had not accompanied the Turkish army) was to be allowed to return to Sweden and left in peace by Russia. Peter the Great never recovered from this humiliation and it might be said that from this time Russia and Turkey were nearly always at war. In 1714 Turkey was again at war with the Venetian Republic. Austria intervened and declared war on Turkey and later dictated the Treaty of Passarowitz (21 June 1718), by which Austria obtained Belgrade and other cities, extending her influence over large portions of Wallachia and Serbia. The Turks lost Hungary. The interests of Venice suffered; the Morea was again confirmed to Turkey. In 1723 Peter the Great joined Turkey in an attempt to dismem ber Persia, a co-operation that was short-lived Mustapha III, who reigned from 1757 to 1774, became alarmed at the growing strength of Russia and demanded that Catherine II should remove her army from Poland. But during her reign the Russians ravaged the Crimea and put an end to Turkish rule in the peninsula, while the Wallachian army conquered Bes sarabia, including Bender, and penetrated into Bulgaria. While Turkey was preoccupied with the revolt in Egypt, which broke out in 1768, Catherine prepared further disaster for the Ottoman Empire. A Russian fleet defeated the Turkish navy at Chios and annihilated it in the port of Chesme with British aid. The Russian commander, Alexis Orloff, delayed his projected attack on Constantinople and found the Dardanelles had been too strongly fortified in the meantime. But the Russians had recov ered Azov, the Crimea, the shore of the Black Sea between the Dnieper and Dniester and made important gains in the Balkans. By the Peace of Kutchuk-Kainardji in 1774 Turkey was compelled to yield the Russian conquests, acknowledge Russian protection over the Chris tian subjects of the sultan and to open the Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian merchant ships. In 1787 Turkey again declared war against Russia. but suffered defeat except at the battle of Belgrade, where the force under Selim III was victorious. The Peace of Sistova (1791) ended the wars between Austria and Turkey. Russia began another war against Turkey in 1807 and succeeded in nearly every encounter. The insurrection in Greece at the time when the Turkish army was engaged else where was a severe blow to Mustapha IV. The Peace of Bucharest in 1812 closed a six years' struggle in favor of Russia. The Ser b;ans rose against the Turks in 1815; Greece revolted in 1821 and •declared her independence of Turkey in 1822. At the naval battle of Navarino (20 Oct. 1827) the allied fleets of France, Great Britain and Russia annihilated the Turkish and Egyptian fleets, thereby assur ing Greek independence. A short war raged between Russia and Turkey in 1828-29, the latter being the loser. The Turkish war with Ibrahim Pasha is related under Egypt (q.v.).