Chapter 113: Constantinople Recovers
After the War of the Cretan Coalition, the Ottoman Empire was in a state of disarray, having lost a major conflict and forced to cede long-held territories for the first time in decades. This defeat had also taken place amidst the fatal depositions of the reigning padishah Ibrahim and his vizier Sofu Mehmed Pasha, politically destabilizing the realm. The state of political disarray would continue even after the war’s end, with the new padishah’s grandmother and regent Kosem Sultan rumored to be plotting the murder and replacement of padishah Mehmed IV in favor of his younger half-brother Suleiman. As a result, she was assassinated on the orders of Mehmed in 1651 and soon the padishah’s mother Turhan Sultan became the new regent. Unfortunately, Turhan’s political experience led to palace intrigue dominating the Sublime Porte, leading to a string of short-term grand viziers unable to confront the empire’s financial issues and the Celali revolts that continued to plague Anatolia.
Realizing that her son’s realm would become more vulnerable without a course correction in Constantinople, Turhan Sultan turned to the 81 year old Koprulu Mehmed Pasha, an experienced official who had served in numerous positions, and asked him to become the new grand vizier of the empire. In return, Koprulu asked for total authority, leading to the end of Turhan Sultan’s regency over her son although he continued to involve the padishah’s mother in the governance of the Ottoman realm. He immediately began using his newly concentrated power to crack down on the palace intrigue and revive old modes of governance to the Sublime Porte, ruthlessly removing any corrupt and ineffective officials from office. Koprulu was even able to implement economic reforms and end the Celali revolts for good in 1658 [1], things his predecessors had been unable to do.
Depiction of grand vizier Koprulu Mehmed Pasha
One method he sought to consolidate his support in Constantinople, especially among the Janissaries, was to authorize war against the Safavids from 1659, ending 20 years of peace between the two dynasties brought about by the Treaty of Zuhab from 1639. At this point in time, Safavid Persia was experiencing financial decline and a decay in the state of its military under Shah Abbas II and his corrupt, ineffective vizier Mohammed Beg. As a result, Ottoman offensives into Transcaucasia and even western Persia saw initial, unchecked success, with key strongholds like Ganja and Tabriz falling into Turkish hands in the first 2 years of the war. However, this success would soon grind to a halt as the shah took to the field, defeating an Ottoman force at what would be known as the 2nd Battle of Nahavand [2] in 1661. Meanwhile, in the Caucuses, Vakhtang V of Kartli would resist Ottoman occupation after initially bending the knee in the face of the seemingly unstoppable Turkish offensive. The reprieve from the Ottoman offensive earned by the Safavids, however, would be short-lived for the next year Abbas would contract syphilis in 1662 due to years of self-indulgent alcoholism. He had also relieved Mohammed Beg from his post as vizier in 1661 in an attempt to pave the way towards proper financial reform in the empire, only to be replaced by the equally incompetent Mirza Mohammad Karaki who failed to enact fiscal changes.
Things looked dire for the Safavid realm as it became more likely that the Sublime Porte would be able to swipe portions of western Iran, potentially even regaining territories briefly held after 1590 in Khuzestan and Luristan. Fortunately, another war on the Ottoman’s European frontier would break out and distract Constantinople from making further progress against the Safavids. The ban of Croatia, Nikola Zrinski, had been organizing raids against the Turks since 1661 while also petitioning Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I to declare war and take back occupied Hungarian lands from the Ottomans. Seeing that Constantinople’s war machine was now fully deployed on the other side of its empire, Leopold reluctantly obliged in 1663. An army of 30,000 gathered under imperial commander Raimondo Montecuccoli while Zrinski backed him with 15,000 of his own men. Zrinski began marching straight into Slavonia, capturing Virovitica immediately. Meanwhile, Montecuccoli seized the initiative and began besieging Buda before a significant enemy force could march into their Hungarian lands.
However, the Imperial army was underestimating the loyalty and prowess of the Turks’ vassals, specifically the prince of Transylvania. George II Rakoczi [3], by now a matured ruler worthy of his father’s legacy, quickly mobilized his men and headed towards Buda. Despite being outnumbered, he managed to repulse Montecuccoli. After halting the siege, Rakoczi would be joined by a proper Ottoman army led by Fazil Ahmad Pasha, who had succeeded his father as grand vizier with the latter’s passing in 1661. The combined Ottoman-Transylvanian forces would then move to simultaneously enter Austrian Hungary and enemy-occupied Slavonia. In response, Leopold would summon an Imperial Diet, asking the princes and electors of the Empire to assist. 30,000 more men would subsequently be raised primarily between Bavaria, Brandenburg, and Saxony. Even a handful of Commonwealth magnates would independently contribute after the Sejm rejected a call to aid by king John II Casimir [4].
Depiction of Koprulu’s son and successor, grand vizier Fazil Ahmed Pasha
As the Austro-Turkish War heated up and Constantinople’s war against the Safavids continued, Fazil Ahmed Pasha decided to pivot towards concluding the latter as soon as possible. He had already diplomats to Isfahan before he left Constantinople, and by the end of 1663 a treaty was in the works. The following year, the Treaty of Ganja would be agreed upon by both sides, which ceded all Safavid possessions in the Caucasus region to the Ottomans as well as Khuzestan, further cessions prevented by the upswing in Persian fortunes and the necessity of the Turks to pivot entirely to Europe. The kings of Kartli and Kakheti would also henceforth become vassals of the Ottoman padishah. With the Ottoman-Safavid war of 1659-1664 having concluded, the Sublime Porte fully turned its attention to the Austrian front. Even this conflict, however, would seldom last long. On August 1st, the armies of Montecuccoli and Ahmed Pasha clashed at St. Gotthard where despite being outnumbered, a surprise cavalry charge by Polish magnate John Sobieski interrupted a river crossing by the Ottomans, triggering a chaotic retreat and leading to the drowning of many Turks. 9 days later, however, Nikola Zrinski was killed while skirmishing with Ottoman-Transylvanian forces near the city of Osijek. For both sides, the prospects of war now looked less enticing, the Habsburgs now on the defensive for the most part and the Ottomans looking at heavy casualties and risking formal Polish intervention down the line. Therefore, at the end of the year, the Peace of Vasvar was signed that maintained the status quo and required the Habsburgs to pay Constantinople a large indemnity for starting the war.
Engraving of the Battle of Saint Gotthard
The successful conquest of Safavid lands in the territories and defense of Ottoman Hungary were not the only achievements of Constantinople’s recovery under Mehmed IV early in what would be known as the Koprulu era, after the string of viziers from Koprulu Mehmed Pasha’s family. Fazil Ahmed Pasha, even amidst the duo of conflicts, re-energized trade and diplomatic relations with Southeast Asia that had waned throughout the century. In addition to its longtime partner Aceh, strong relations would either be rekindled or newly formed with sultanates like Johor, Brunei, Mataram, and Tidore. Their importance to the Sublime Porte would be especially magnified with the absence of independent Indian sultanates like Gujarat that once formed a core part of Ottoman foreign policy and interests. A rebuilding effort of Constantinople also took place in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1660, with a grand mosque sponsored by Turhan Sultan opening in 1665. The reconstruction, however, was notable in that synagogues and churches that had burned down were mostly not rebuilt under restrictions set by the government.
The Ottoman Empire entered the 1670s recovered from its embarrassing defeat in the War of the Cretan Coalition, having experienced territorial gains and established a more robust foreign policy in Southeast Asia under the vizierships of Koprulu and Fazil Ahmed. It was at this stage that they would be witness to a continental war in Europe of a scale not yet seen up to that point. Inevitably, it would have some connection to it through its ambitious vassal, George II Rakoczi, and the complex relationships it had to its most significant participants and decision makers.
[1]: Accomplished one year earlier ITTL due to the Ottoman Empire being at peace and more able to resolve domestic matters.
[2]: Called the 2nd Battle of Nahavand as the 1st battle is the more famous one from 642 between the Rashida Caliphate and Sassanid Persia.
[3]: He wasn’t replaced by the Ottomans as he hadn’t been involved in foreign wars up to that point.
[4]: Unlike OTL, the French did not assist the emperor in the Austro-Turkish War of 1663-1664.
