Köprülü Era
Ottoman Imperial decadence was finally stopped by a remarkable family of imperial officials, Köprülü Family, which provided for more than forty years ago (1656-1703) the empire with grand viziers, combined ambition and ruthlessness, with real talent. Mehmet, his son Ahmet, outdated pursued by the bureaucracy and military reforms initiated. Crete and Lemnos were taken from Venice, and large provinces in Ukraine were temporarily wrested from Poland and Russia. The Köprülü family again urge the offensive against Austria, the Ottoman border to 120 kilometers from Vienna. An attempt in 1664 to the Habsburg capital return was recorded, beaten, but Ahmet Köprülü extorted a huge tribute as the price of a nineteen-year truce. When it expired in 1683, the Ottoman army invaded again in Austria, besieged Vienna for two months, only to eventually be routed by a relief force led by the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski.
The siege of Vienna was the high water mark of Ottoman expansion in Europe, and its failure Hungary opened by the European powers reconquest. In a ruinous sixteen-year war, Russia and the Holy League – Austria, Poland and Venice together and organized under the auspices of the pope – after the Ottomans drove south of the Danube and east of the Carpathians. Under the terms of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, were the first in which the Ottomans recognized defeat, Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia and Austria officially abandoned. Poland recovered Podolia and Dalmatia and the Peloponnesus were transferred to Venice. In a separate next year Russia received the Azov region (see Figure 6).
The last ruler of the Köprülü fell from power when Mustafa II (r. 1695-1703) was forced by rebellious Janissaries to abdicate. Under Ahmet III (r. 1703-1730), an effective government control over the military leadership. Ahmet III’s reign is referred to as the “Tulip Period” because of the popularity of the tulip cultivation in Istanbul in those years. At this time Peter the Great moved from Russia to the Ottoman presence in the north of the Black Sea off. Russia’s main objective in the region was then over access to water-win-ports on the Black Sea and then to get an opening to the Mediterranean by the Ottoman-controlled Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.Despite territorial gains at the expense of Ottoman but Russia was not able to achieve these goals, and the Black Sea remained for the duration of an “Ottoman lake”, were banned in the Russian warships.
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