The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of thewriters of the 1988 edition of Turkey: A Country Study, edited byPaul M. Pitman III. Their work provided general backgroundfor the present volume.The authors are grateful to individuals in various government agencies and private institutions who gave of their time,research materials, and expertise in the production of thisbook. These individuals include Ralph K. Benesch, who oversees the Country Studies/Area Handbook program for theDepartment of the Army. The authors also wish to thank members of the Federal Research Division staff who contributeddirectly to the preparation of the manuscript. These peopleinclude Sandra W. Meditz, who reviewed all drafts, served asliaison with the sponsoring agency, and managed book production; Marilyn L. Majeska, who managed editing; Andrea T. Merrill, who edited tables and figures; Lauren Morris, who assistedwith bibliographic research; Barbara Edgerton and Izella Watson, who did word processing; David P. Cabitto, Stephen C.Cranton,Janie L. Gilchrist, and Izella Watson, who preparedthe camera-ready copy; and Rita M. Byrnes, who assisted withproofreading.
The Ottomans had always dealt with the European states from a position of strength. Treaties with them took the form of truces approved by the sultan as a favor to lesser princes, provided that payment of tribute accompanied the settlement. The Ottomans were slow to recognize the shift in the military balance to Europe and the reasons for it. They also increasingly permitted European commerce to penetrate the barriers built to protect imperial autarky. Some native craft industries were destroyed by the influx of European goods, and, in general, the balance of trade shifted to the disadvantage of the empire, making it in time an indebted client of European producers.
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European political intervention followed economic penetra tion. In 1536 the Ottoman Empire, then at the height of its power, had voluntarily granted concessions to France, but the system of capitulations introduced at that time was later used to impose important limitations on Ottoman sovereignty. Com mercial privileges were greatly extended, and residents who came under the protection of a treaty country were thereby made subject to the jurisdiction of that country's law rather than Ottoman law, an arrangement that led to flagrant abuses of justice. The last thirty years of the sixteenth century saw the rapid onset of a decline in Ottoman power symbolized by the defeat of the Turkish fleet by the Spanish and Portuguese at 21 Turkey: A Country Study the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and by the unbridled bloody suc cession struggles within the imperial palace, the Seraglio of Constantinople.
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Koprulu Era Ottoman imperial decadence was finally halted by a notable family of imperial bureaucrats, the Koprulu family, which for more than forty years (1656-1703) provided the empire with grand viziers, combining ambition and ruthlessness with genu ine talent. Mehmet, followed by his son Ahmet, overhauled the bureaucracy and instituted military reforms. Crete and Lem nos were taken from Venice, and large provinces in Ukraine were wrested temporarily from Poland and Russia. The Koprulu family also resumed the offensive against Austria, pushing the Ottoman frontier to within 120 kilometers of Vienna. An attempt in 1664 to capture the Habsburg capital was beaten back, but Ahmet Koprulu extorted a huge tribute as the price of a nineteen-year truce. When it expired in 1683, the Ottoman army again invaded Austria, laying siege to Vienna for two months, only to be routed ultimately by a relief force led by the king of Poland, Jan Sobieski.
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The siege of Vienna was the high-water mark of Ottoman expansion in Europe, and its failure opened Hungary to recon quest by the European powers. In a ruinous sixteen-year war, Russia and the Holy League-composed of Austria, Poland, and Venice, and organized under the aegis of the pope-finally drove the Ottomans south of the Danube and east of the Car pathians. Under the terms of the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, the first in which the Ottomans acknowledged defeat, Hun gary, Transylvania, and Croatia were formally relinquished to Austria. Poland recovered Podolia, and Dalmatia and the Morea were ceded to Venice. In a separate peace the next year, Russia received the Azov region (see fig. 6).
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