21.7. 1718 Peace of Požarevac

From 1776 the Ottoman Empire was again at war with the Habsburg Monarchy, itsthe last major fortress in Hungary, Temesvár, was captured in the summer by its commander, Eugene of Savoy. Then Belgrade and invaded Serbia.

In July 1718, the two powers concluded the so-called Peace of Požarevac. "It was undoubtedly the most advantageous convention of its kind ever concluded by the Habsburgs with the Ottoman Empire. Charles VI. on that day annexed to his hereditary lands the Banat of Temeš, Lesser Wallachia and Belgrade, together with the surroundingSerbian territory as far as the Timok River," writes Vít Vlnas in his book Prince Eugene of Savoy:The Life and Glory of a Baroque Warrior.

The authority of the Habsburg monarchy in the Balkans was great. The Peace Convention shifted the Hungarian border back in Vienna's favour. The credit of Eugene of Savoy also rose. Leopold I himself entrusted him with some delicate diplomatic matters, which he always carried out to his full satisfaction. In this way he gained valuable political experience, and as early as 1703 he became chairman of the court war council, a position comparable to that of today's minister of defence.

Within the Austrian army, Eugene of Savoy made some important changes. For example, he ensured that the soldiers were properly armed and fed and promoted a completely new principle of warfare. "He argued that the enemy should not only be defeated but also destroyed. This was a novelty in the way of warfare at that time, since most wars were primarily a struggle to gain a better"Vladimír Liška writes in his book The Greatest Conquerors and Warlords.

The idea was to inflict as much damage as possible on the enemy and then use this advantage in diplomatic negotiations for peace, which often dragged on for years. So wars were really just a sort of adjunct to high diplomacy and were more or less a gentleman's affair.

The aforementioned Austro-Turkish War was the sixth in the series, and disputes between these powers had been going on since the early sixteenth century. Everything was already heading towards a state of war at the beginning of April 1716, when Eugene of Savoy sent a letter to the Grand Vizier...referring to the terms of the so-called Treaty of Carlsbad and the Turkish arms race.

He called on the Turks to stop hostilities against Venice. He also demanded payment for the damage. As this was an ultimatum, there was no way the Turks could agree to such a thing. And so the Emperor and the Venetian Republic entered into an alliance on 13 April 1716, bringing the Ottoman Empire into a state of war.

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