Ottoman wars in Europe

Lore & Background

The Ottoman wars in Europe began with the Byzantine–Ottoman wars in Anatolia in the late 13th century, followed by the Bulgarian–Ottoman wars in the mid-14th century. The mid-15th century saw the Serbian–Ottoman wars and the Albanian-Ottoman wars, characterized by Ottoman expansion into the Balkans. The Ottoman Empire made further inroads into Central Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, culminating in the peak of Ottoman territorial claims in Europe.

Reader's Guide

The Ottoman wars in Europe were a prolonged series of conflicts that fundamentally altered the political and cultural map of the continent. The wars saw Ottoman expansion into the Balkans and Central Europe, followed by a gradual reversal in the late 17th century. In the 19th century, insurrections in Serbia, Greece, and Romania, along with Russo-Turkish wars, destabilized the empire.

Did You Know?

• The island of Venetian-ruled Corfu remained the only Greek island not conquered by the Ottomans.

The European Breakthrough and Balkan Conquest (1354–1389)

The Ottoman presence on European soil began almost by accident. Within a month, Süleyman Pasha moved in, fortifying the abandoned site and settling Turkish families from Anatolia. This single event gave the Ottoman emirate a permanent foothold on the European continent and launched a westward expansion that would reshape the Balkans. The conquests that followed were accelerated by Byzantine internal strife. During the civil war between John V Palaiologos and the Kantakouzenos faction, Ottoman forces were first deployed as mercenaries and then as conquerors. The conquered European territory became known as Rumelia. The expansion reached its most dramatic moment on the plains of Kosovo, where Murad I was killed, marking both a high point and a turning point in Ottoman European ambitions.

Four Centuries of Ottoman-Venetian Maritime Rivalry

Few rivalries in European history stretched as long as the one between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice. Yet the Ottomans recovered quickly, and the war continued for generations. Through all of this, one Greek island under Venetian rule, Corfu, never fell to Ottoman arms, standing as a remarkable exception in an otherwise vast Ottoman conquest of the Greek islands.

The Byzantine Endgame and the Fall of Constantinople

The final decades of the Byzantine Empire were defined by a desperate cycle of Ottoman siege, Byzantine manipulation of rival claimants, and temporary reprieves that never lasted. The Byzantines exploited this chaos, recovering Thessalonica and much of the Peloponnese. John VIII attempted to destabilize the Ottoman state by releasing a man claiming to be Bayezid's lost son, and later by backing Kucuk Mustafa, Murad's brother, in a rebellion that reached as far as Bursa. The final act came under Constantine XI and Mehmed II. Constantine threatened to release Orhan Çelebi, a grandson of Bayezid, to spark another Ottoman succession crisis.

The Long Retreat and Final Reclamation (1683–1923)

The Ottoman hold on European territory, which had peaked in the sixteenth century, began its irreversible decline in the late seventeenth century. Still, Ottoman armies managed to hold their own against European rivals until the second half of the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century brought a different kind of threat: internal insurrection. These rebellions coincided with a series of Russo-Turkish wars that further destabilized the empire's position in the Balkans and beyond. The final retreat came in two phases. After World War I, the Treaty of Sèvres formalized the partitioning of the empire.

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