The Great Turkish War was a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League consisting of the Holy Roman Empire, Poland-Lithuania, Venice, Russia, and the Kingdom of Hungary. Intensive fighting began in 1683 and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. The war was a resounding defeat for the Ottoman Empire, which for the first time lost substantial territory, in Hungary and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as in part of the western Balkans. The war was also the first instance of Russia joining an alliance with Western Europe.
The French did not join the Holy League, as France had agreed to reviving an informal Franco-Ottoman alliance in 1673, in exchange for Louis XIV being recognized as a protector of Catholics in the Ottoman domains.
Initially, Louis XIV took advantage of the conflict to extend France's eastern borders, seizing Luxembourg in the War of the Reunions, but deciding that it was unseemly to be fighting the Holy Roman Empire at the same time of its struggle with the Ottomans, he agreed to the Truce of Ratisbon in 1684. However, as the Holy League made gains against the Ottoman Empire, capturing Belgrade by 1688, the French began to worry that their Habsburg rivals would grow too powerful and eventually turn on France. Therefore, the French besieged Philippsburg on 27 September 1688, breaking the truce and triggering the separate Nine Years' War against the Grand Alliance, which included the Dutch Republic, the Holy Roman Empire and, after the Glorious Revolution, England as well. The war drew Imperial resources to the west and relieved the Turks. This was partially compensated by the entrance of Russia into the war in 1687. While the war started off with the Ottomans facing Imperial forces in the west, the Venetians to the south, and Poland-Lithuania to the north, which stretched Ottoman military resources across multiple fronts. As a result, they positioned about 60,000 men against the Holy Roman Empire, 37,000 against the Polish-Lithuanians, 35,000 against the Venetians, and a smaller force against Russians between 1684 and 1687.
As a result, the advance made by the Holy League stalled, allowing the Ottomans to retake Belgrade in 1690. The war then fell into a stalemate, and peace was concluded in 1699, which began following the Battle of Zenta in 1697 when an Ottoman attempt to retake their lost possessions in Hungary was crushed by the Holy League.
The war largely overlapped with the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), which took up the vast majority of the Habsburgs' attention while it was active. In 1695, for instance at the height of Imperial military deployment in the west, the Holy Roman Empire states had 263,000 troops in the field, with England, the Dutch Republic, and Spain contributing another 173,000, specifically to the conflict against France. Of those 263,000, only 74,000, or about one quarter, were positioned against the Turks; ~190,000 were positioned against the French. Overall, from 1683 to 1699, the Imperial States had on average 88,100 men fighting the Turks, while from 1688 to 1697, they had on average 127,410 fighting the French.
The term Great Turkish War comes from German: Großer Türkenkrieg. Names for the war include the "Last Crusade",
or the "Fourteenth Crusade" launched against the Turks by the papacy. It is also called in Ottoman sources the "Disaster Years" (Turkish: Felaket Seneleri).
Following Bohdan Khmelnytsky's rebellion, the Tsardom of Russia in 1654 acquired territories from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (currently parts of eastern Ukraine), while some Cossacks stayed in the southeastern part of the Commonwealth. Their leader, Petro Doroshenko, sought the Ottoman Empire's protection and in 1667 attacked the Polish commander John Sobieski.
In August 1672, Sultan Mehmed IV, who knew that the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was weakened by internal conflicts, attacked Kamenets Podolski, a large city on the border of the Commonwealth. The small Polish force resisted the siege of Kamenets for two weeks but was then forced to surrender. The Polish army was too small to resist the Ottoman invasion and could score only some minor tactical victories. After three months, the Poles were forced to sign the Treaty of Buchach in which they agreed to cede Kamenets, Podolia and to pay tribute to the Ottomans. When the news of the defeat and treaty terms reached Warsaw, the General Sejm refused to pay the tribute and organized a large army under Sobieski; subsequently, the Poles won the Battle of Khotyn (1673). After the death of King Michael in 1673, Sobieski was elected king of Poland. He tried to defeat the Ottomans for four years, with no success. The war ended on 17 October 1676 with the Treaty of Żurawno in which the Turks retained control over only Kamenets-Podolski. This Turkish attack also led in 1676 to the beginning of the Russo-Turkish Wars.
After a few years of peace, the Ottoman Empire, encouraged by successes in the west of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, attacked the Habsburg monarchy. The Turks almost captured Vienna, but John III Sobieski led a Christian alliance that defeated them in the Battle of Vienna (1683), stalling the Ottoman Empire's hegemony in south-eastern Europe.
A new Holy League was initiated by Pope Innocent XI and encompassed the Holy Roman Empire (headed by the Habsburg monarchy), the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Venetian Republic in 1684, joined by Russia in 1686. Holy League's troops besieged and in 1686 conquered Buda, which had been under Ottoman rule since 1541. The second battle of Mohács (1687) was a crushing defeat for the Sultan. The Turks were more successful on the Polish front and were able to retain Podolia during their battles with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Russia's involvement marked the first time the country formally joined an alliance of European powers. This was the beginning of a series of Russo-Turkish Wars, the last of which was part of World War I. As a result of the Crimean campaigns and Azov campaigns, Russia captured the key Ottoman fortress of Azov.
Following the decisive Battle of Zenta in 1697 and lesser skirmishes (such as the Battle of Podhajce in 1698), the League won the war in 1699 and forced the Ottoman Empire to sign the Treaty of Karlowitz. The Ottomans ceded most of Hungary, Transylvania and Slavonia, as well as parts of Croatia, to the Habsburg monarchy while Podolia returned to Poland. Most of Dalmatia passed to Venice, along with the Morea, which the Ottomans reconquered in 1715 and regained in the Treaty of Passarowitz of 1718.
After allied Christian forces had captured Buda from the Ottoman Empire in 1686 during the Great Turkish War, Serbs from Pannonian Plain (present-day Hungary, Slavonia region in present-day Croatia, Bačka and Banat regions in present-day Serbia) joined the troops of the Habsburg monarchy as separate units known as Serbian Militia. Serbs, as volunteers, massively joined the Habsburg side. In the first half of 1688, the Habsburg army, together with units of Serbian Militia, captured Gyula, Lippa (today Lipova, Romania) and Borosjenő (today Ienu, Romania) from the Ottoman Empire. After the capture of Belgrade from the Ottomans in 1688, Serbs from the territories in the south of the Sava and Danube rivers began to join Serbian Militia units.
The Roman Catholic bishop and philosopher Pjetër Bogdani returned to the Balkans in March 1686 and spent the next years promoting resistance to the armies of the Ottoman Empire, in particular in his native Kosovo. He and his vicar Toma Raspasani played a leading role in the pro-Austrian movement in Kosovo during the Great Turkish War. He contributed a force of 6,000 Albanian soldiers to the Austrian army which had arrived in Pristina and accompanied it to capture Prizren. There, however, he and much of his army were met by another equally formidable adversary, the plague. Bogdani returned to Pristina but succumbed to the disease there on 6 December 1689. His nephew, Gjergj Bogdani, reported in 1698 that his uncle's remains were later exhumed by Turkish and Tatar soldiers and fed to the dogs in the middle of the square in Pristina.