Crimea: Military History and Notable Events

1596 - Battle of Mezőkeresztes (All Facts)

• Battle in which Mehmed III and his Ottoman forces defeated Sigismund Bathory and his Habsburg forces and allies during the Long Turkish War / Thirteen Years’ War / Fifteen Years’ War / Sixth Habsburg-Ottoman War

• Battle in which Mehmed III

  • was personally responsible for turning the tide of battle, despite a mass desertion by the Ottoman Turkish infantry

  • in one fell swoop, saved a huge swathe of territory for the Ottoman Empire, saving its possessions in Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Hungary despite a string of previous Hungarian military victories

  • tried to follow the “siphahis” when they walked off the battlefield, but his generals held a council of war to persuade him to stay with the rest of his army

• Battle which

  • began badly for the Ottoman forces, when early reverses caused the “sipahis,” the fief-holding backbone of the Ottoman forces, to simply walk off the battlefield

• Battle in which the overconfident Christian Habsburg forces broke rank to plunder the Ottoman Turkish camp, only for the Ottoman cavalry to kill them and take enormous booty including a hundred cannons

• Battle in which 30K Hungarians and Germans died

1666 - 1671 - Polish-Cossack-Tatar War (All Facts)

• War in which John III Sobieski and his Polish-Lithuanian forces defeated Petro Doroshenko and his Cossack forces and Sultan Mehmed IV and his Ottoman forces and their combined Crimean forces, in which Poland-Lithuania regained control over Ukraine

1672 - 1676 - Fourth Polish-Ottoman War (All Facts)

• War in which John III Sobieski and his Polish-Lithuanian forces fought against Sultan Mehmed IV and Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha and their Ottoman forces, which ended in a stalemate

• War during which Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki and Poland-Lithuania was forced to sign the Treaty of Buchach

1683 - Battle of Vienna / Battle of Kahlenberg (All Facts)

• Battle in which John III Sobieski and his Polish-Lithuanian forces and Charles V of Lorraine and his Holy Roman and Austrian forces defeated Kara Mustafa Pasha and his Ottoman forces in the Great Turkish War / Eighth Ottoman-Habsburg War

• Battle in which 70K Christian forces led by John III Sobieski and Charles V (of Lorraine) routed the vast Ottoman army that had been encamped around Vienna for eight weeks prior to the namesake battle

• Battle in which there was no effective opposition the moment Kara Mustafa Pasha’s Ottoman forces marched towards Vienna and besieged it

• Battle in which the Viennese (Austrian forces) had an advantage in artillery and had a 13K-strong garrison which resisted strongly, but could not survive the Ottoman siege forever

• Battle which turned around when Kara Mustafa Pasha made fatal errors, including his having allowed his relief forces to cross the Danube River and occupy the Kahlenberg Heights (the latter namesake mountain range) where he then tried to repel the attacks with cavalry alone and did not commit his main force of Janissaries until it was too late, and the initiative had been lost

1686 - 1700 - Third Russo-Turkish War (All Facts)

• War in which Tsar Peter and his Russian forces defeated the Ottoman forces and Crimean Khanate

• War which Russia declared after joining Pope Innocent XI’s Holy League and ensuring the safety of Kiev by a treaty with Poland

• War which was part of the Great Turkish War / Eighth Ottoman-Habsburg War