The Treaty of Karlowitz (1699)

The Treaty of Karlowitz, signed on 26 January 1699 in the town of Sremski Karlovci in what is now Serbia, was the first major peace treaty in which the Ottoman Empire was forced to cede substantial European territory to its enemies. It ended the Great Turkish War of 1683 to 1699 and marked a decisive shift in the long contest between the Ottomans and the European powers. The treaty is one of the central events of decline and reform in the Ottoman Empire and a turning point in the wider history of the Ottoman Empire. Caroline Finkel, in Osman’s Dream (2005), puts the point well: Karlowitz is the moment at which an Ottoman generation had to admit, for the first time, that the empire could lose on the European stage.

Key dates

12 September 1683 — Relief of Vienna; Jan III Sobieski lifts the second Ottoman siege.
2 September 1686 — Buda falls to the Habsburgs.
1688 — Habsburgs take Belgrade; lost again after Kaçanik (1690).
26 January 1699 — Treaty of Karlowitz signed with the Habsburgs.
3 November 1700 — Treaty of Constantinople, the Russian peace.

The Great Turkish War

The war had begun with the second Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683. The siege was lifted in September of that year by the Polish king Jan III Sobieski, whose famous charge by the Polish hussars has been called the largest cavalry charge in history. The relief of Vienna was followed by a counter-attack by a Holy League of the Habsburg Empire, Poland, Venice, and, after 1686, Russia.

The campaign that followed was one of the most decisive in Ottoman history. The Habsburgs took Buda in 1686 and Belgrade in 1688, although Belgrade was lost back to the Ottomans after the Battle of Kaçanik in 1690 and would not be finally Habsburg until 1717. The Venetians, under Francesco Morosini, took the Morea in 1687. The Russians, under the leadership of Vasily Golitsyn, advanced into the Crimea and the lower Danube. By 1690, the Ottomans had been pushed back to a line that approximated the frontier of 1541.

The negotiations

The negotiations for peace began in 1698, after a series of inconclusive campaigns and the deposition of Sultan Mehmed IV in 1687. The new sultan, Mustafa II, was determined to recover lost territory, but the military situation was unfavourable. The choice of Sremski Karlovci, in the Vojvodina region of what is now northern Serbia, was a compromise between the Habsburg and Ottoman delegations.

The negotiations lasted several months and produced not a single treaty but a series of separate instruments signed between January and October 1699. The British and Dutch, who were eager to reopen the Mediterranean trade, mediated. The Russians, who had not been part of the original 1684 Holy League and joined the alliance only in 1686, were a difficult partner, and they eventually signed a separate peace at the Treaty of Constantinople in 1700.

The terms

The Treaty of Karlowitz was signed on 26 January 1699. By its terms, the Ottomans ceded Hungary, Transylvania, and most of Croatia to the Habsburgs, Podolia to Poland, and the Morea to Venice. The treaty was the first major European peace in which the Ottomans accepted the principle of territorial compensation for their enemies.

The treaty also made provision for the release of prisoners, the regulation of trade, the status of the Orthodox Church in Ottoman territory, and a 20-year truce with the Habsburgs. It did not address the question of Russia, which was settled separately. The diplomatic mechanism of the treaty, including the use of British and Dutch mediators, was a sign of the changing nature of the European state system, and the long-term result of the territorial settlements was to be the gradual incorporation of the Balkans into the Habsburg and Russian spheres of influence.

The consequences

The Treaty of Karlowitz was a major shock to the Ottoman establishment. For the first time, the empire had been forced to negotiate a peace in which it lost substantial territory. The traditional view of the empire as the dominant power of the eastern Mediterranean was no longer credible. The period of reform that began in the eighteenth century, culminating in the Tanzimat of the nineteenth, can be dated from the shock of Karlowitz. The dynasty itself had been established, against the odds, by Osman I four centuries earlier, and the cumulative effect of Karlowitz was to make clear that the empire that Osman had founded was now on the defensive.

The treaty also had important consequences for the regions it affected. Hungary and Transylvania entered the Habsburg monarchy, where the Catholic and Protestant populations were brought into a new relationship with Vienna. The Morea, the peninsula of the Peloponnese, was the last major Venetian territorial acquisition in the eastern Mediterranean. The Russian frontier in the south moved closer to the Black Sea, and the long contest with Russia for the region began in earnest. The Treaty of Karlowitz has been called the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire. That is an overstatement, since the empire survived for another two centuries, but the treaty did mark a decisive shift in the long contest between the Ottomans and the European powers.

Frequently asked questions

What did the Ottomans lose at Karlowitz?

Hungary, Transylvania, and most of Croatia went to the Habsburgs; Podolia to Poland; the Morea (Peloponnese) to Venice. It was the first time the empire had been compelled to cede substantial European territory in a single treaty.

Who negotiated Karlowitz?

The Ottoman side was led by the grand admiral Rami Mehmed Pasha and the reisülküttab Alexander Boratini. The Habsburg side was led by Count Kinský and Count Zinzendorf. The British ambassador William Paget and the Dutch delegation acted as mediators. The Russian tsardom, which had joined the Holy League in 1686, sat out the main negotiation and signed a separate peace at Constantinople in 1700.

Did Karlowitz start the “Eastern Question”?

In a real sense, yes. The treaty established the principle of European intervention in Ottoman affairs, and the diplomatic and military contest it set in motion would dominate the next two centuries of European politics.