At the close of Selim's reign, the famous corsair Khair-ed-Din (Barbarossa), who ruled Algeria, placed himself under Turkish suzer ainty. Under Soloman the Magnificent (1520 66) the Ottoman Empire stood at the height of its power and splendor. Belgrade was taken in 1521 and Rhodes was conquered in the following year. The victory over the army of Louis H. of Hungary at Mohiles in 1526 broke up the Hungarian realm. It was followed by a succession of campaigns against the Hapsburgs, in one of which (1529) Vienna itself was be sieged, and which converted the heart of Hun gary (including the capital, Buda) into a Turk ish province. (See HUNGARY; SOLYMAN H.) Conquests were also made from Persia. On the Mediterranean Sea the Turks were the undis puted masters. Venice had been gradually stripped of her possessions in the Morea and the Archipelago. Tripoli became subject to Turkey in 1551. Toward the close of Solyman's reign in 1565, a vast Turkish force was beaten back by the heroic defenders of Malta. In the follow ing year the little Hungarian fortress of Szizet long kept at bay the Turkish host which the Sul tan had marshaled against the Austrians. Soly man (lied before the fortress fell. Selim 11. (1566-74) undertook to wrest Cyprus from the Venetians and this brought about a Holy League between Venice, Spain, and the Pope, whose fleets inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Turks in the battle of Lepanto (1571). Cyprus, never theless, was taken by the Turks. In the reign of &dim II. the subjugation of Yemen was com pleted. and about the time of his death the Span iards were driven from Tunis, which became subject to Turkey.
With the disaster at Lepanto the decline of the Ottoman power began. In the line of Osman the first impulse of barbaric vigor had been lost in the effeminacy that attends success. The European nationalities were now establishing their relations on broader grounds of policy and the Ottomon rulers found that diplomacy must in a measure take the place of conquest in the future. Under Amurath III, (1574-95) a war with Persia, in which conquests were made in Armenia, was followed by a contest with Aus tria, which continued under Mohammed Ill. (1595-1603) and extended into the reign of Aehmet or Ahmed I. (1603-17). At this time Persia rose to a high pitch of power under Abbas the Great, who in 1605 won a great victory over the Turks at Basra, and who wrested large terri tories from them, even making himself master of Bagdad (1623). The cruel but able and energetic Annirath IV. (1623-40) restored the fortunes of Turkey in•the East, retaking Bagdad in 1638. Af ter his death maladministration and internal dis orders hastened the decadence of the Empire. In 1656 the Venetians, on whom the Turks had made war for the possession of Crete, appeared in the Dardanelles and defeated the Turkish fleet. The realm was raised for a brief period from this state of depression by the abilities of Mohammed Kinprili and his son Ahmed (see KILTRILI). who successively held the position of Grand Vizier during part of the reign of Mohammed IV. (1648-87). They infused fresh vigor into the administration and to some extent enabled the Turkish arms to reassert themselves. A war with Austria. in which the Turks finally suffered a great defeat at the hands of Montecuccoli at Saint Gotthard, on the banks of the Raab (1664), was terminated by a peace slightly advantageous to Turkey. In 1669 the fortress of Candia fell and Venetian rule in Crete came to an end. In the regions to the north of the Black Sea the Turks fought with varying success against the Poles, and it was in the reign of Mohammed IV. that they first came in collision with the rising power of Russia, whose Czar, Feodor came off victorious in the conflict. In 1683 the Porte took up the cause of Tbkiilyi, the leader of the Hungarians in their rising against Leopold 1. of Austria, and once more the tide of Moslem invasion rolled up to the gates of Vienna. Kara Mustapha (q.v.), the successor of Ahmed Kiu prili, advanced with a vast army and laid siege to the Hapsburg capital. For a moment the fate of Central Europe hung in the balance, but after the siege had lasted two months, the chivalry of Poland, led by King John Sobieski, and a German army calm( to the relief of the city, and ou September 12th the Turkish army was put to flight in a great battle before its walls. The blow was a crushing one and ended the role of Turkey as a formidable aggressive power. Aus tria, Poland, and Venice now made a great on slaught upon the Ottoman Empire. The Aus
trians drove the Turks before them in Hungary, capturing city after city. In 1686 Buda, over whose walls the crescent had been displayed for a century and a half, fell into their hands. At the same time John Sobieski overran Moldavia and Wallachia and the Venetians success fully invaded the Norm In 1695 Peter the Great took up arms against the Turks and in 1696 lie wrested Azov from them. The Aus trians, under Prince Engine (q.v.), (innihilated the Turkish army opposed to Omit at Zenta in 1697. In the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699, Turkey was forced to give up all of Hungary between the Danube and the Theiss, to restore to Poland a great part of the Ukraine, acquired in 1672, and to surrender the Morea to the Vene tians. In the course of the seventeenth century Turkey had been gradually tightening her hold on Moldavia and Wallachia, which early in the following century were placed under the rule of Fan riot hospodars, appointed by the Porte.
la 1711 Sultan Aehmet IIl, took up arms for Charles X11. of Sweden against Peter the Great. of Russia, who had triumphed over his rival at Poltava (1709). The Czar invaded Moldavia, where he was hemmed in by the Turks on the banks of the Pruth, and was glad to purchase peace by the surrender of Azov. In 1715 the Turks reeonquered the :Mom', from the Vene tians. The struggle with Austria was renewed in 1716. The Austrian forces under Prince Eu gene gained a great victory in the same year at Peterwardein and another in 1717 at Belgrade, which they eaptured. In the Peace of Passarowitz (1718) the Turks were compelled to cede the Banat, part of Servia (with Belgrade), and parts of Bosnia and Wallachia to Austria. The Morea remained in their hands. In 1736 Russia entered upon her talc as a great assail ant of the Ottoman Empire with the seizing of Azov and the invasion of the Crimea, which were followed by the capture of Otchakov (1737), and a victorious advance into Bessarabia and Moldavia. Austria joined Russia in 1737; but a scheme for the partition of Turkey between the two powers was foiled by the defeats inflieted upon the Austrian armies by the Turks. In the Pliatee of Belgrade in 1739 Austria relinquished the Servian and Wallachia]] territories acquired in 1718, while Russia concluded a peace in which she gained but little. Alarmed at the aggressive intervention of the Empress Catharine II. in the affairs of Poland and believing the safety of his realm to be endangered by Russian intrigues, Sultan Mustapha III. ventured in 1768 on a war with Russia, which proved disastrous to Turkey. The Russians advanced victoriously through Mol davia and \Vallachia, defeated the Tatar Khan of the Crimea (the vassal of the Sultan), won a victory on the Naga] (in Bessarabia) , stormed Bender, broke into the Crimea, and in 1773-74 advanced into Bulgaria, where, however, the Turk ish fortresses withstood their attacks. In 1770 the Russians burned the Turkish fleet at Tchesme. Peace was concluded at Kutchuk-Kainardji in 1774, Turkey renouncing her suzerainty over the Crimea and other Tatar territories in the region of the Black Sea, and according to Russia a sort of protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia and the free navigation of the Turkish waters. During this war Turkey was to a certain extent crippled by the revolt of the Maincluke Governor of Egypt, Ali-Bey (q.v.). lu 1787 Sultan Abdul Ha mid I. plunged Turkey into a fresh war with Russia. Joseph II. of Austria seized the oppor tunity to make a sudden onslaught on the Turk ish territories, and fresh disasters befell the Ottoman arms. Potemkin stormed Otchakov (1788) ; the allies won a great victory at Fokshani (1789) ; Belgrade and Bender were cap tured in the same year• ; and Ismail was stormed by Suvaroff at the close of 1790, the Russians enacting a carnival of blood. Austria, through pressure from Prussia, withdrew from the struggle in 1791 without reaping any benefit from it, and Catharine II. in 1792 concluded the Peace of Jassy with Sultan Selim which made the Dniester the boundary be tween the Muscovite and Ottoman dominions. Rent by internal disorders, Turkey was unable to offer resistance when Bonaparte in 179S suddenly swooped down upon Egypt, which, under its Mameluke boys, was already almost severed from the Empire. lu Syria the advance of the French was stayed by the brave defenders of Acre (1799). Bonaparte returned to France, and in 1801 the English drove the French from Egypt. The downtrodden Servians rose in insurrection in 180.1 under the leadership of Czerny George.