The Ottomans: Europe's Muslim Emperors

I hope wherever you're located , that you can access this BBC link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03d0d5d/The_Ottomans_Europes_Muslim_Emperors_Episode_1/



Osman /Othman

It was the world's last Islamic empire - a super-power of a million square miles. From its capital in Istanbul it matched the glories of Ancient Rome. And after six centuries in power it collapsed less than a hundred years ago.

Rageh Omaar, who has reported from across this former empire, sets out to discover why the Ottomans have vanished from our understanding of the history of Europe. Why so few realise the importance of Ottoman history in today's Middle East. And why you have to know the Ottoman story to understand the roots of many of today's trouble spots from Palestine, Iraq and Israel to Libya, Syria, Egypt, Bosnia and Kosovo.

In this first episode, the unlikely roots of the Ottomans are revealed. From nomadic horsemen, in a rural backwater of modern day Turkey, they became rulers of a vast empire spanning three continents. At an incredible speed they came to rule over Baghdad and Cairo in the south, where they controlled the holiest sites of Islam - Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, and they reached deep into Europe, taking in Sarajevo and threatening the gates of Vienna.

This is the forgotten story of how one dynasty, a single family, became Islamic rulers over huge swathes of the modern world.
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I look forward to the next episodes . (wink)

 

The interesting stuff. Btw how do you think what the main reasons for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire were?

 

I'd dare say there are dozens of theories .

imo - like all other Empires - it had served its purpose + time.


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I agree...

 

it has never matched the glories of Ancient Rome...BBC likes such lines

 

Here's a map :

Well I would'n't have thought the reigns of Emperors like Caligula and Nero , as Rome's glories .







The program shows some spectacular examples of Islamic art and architecture in this series.
There may have been no civilisation worthy of the name in most of Africa, but the Ottoman Empire was second only to the British Empire, and in many ways just as beneficial to Mankind.


Episode 2 Tonight


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03dwq95

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( partition of the Roman Empire in 395, at the death of Theodosius I: the Western in red and the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) in purple)

The Roman Empire had been repeatedly attacked by invading armies from Northern Europe and in 476, Rome finally fell. Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire surrendered to the Germanic King Odoacer. The British historian Edward Gibbon argued in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that the Romans had become decadent, they had lost civic virtue.

Gibbon said that the adoption of Christianity, meant belief in a better life after death, and therefore made people lazy and indifferent to the present.
Many blame the initiation of Christianity for the decline. Christianity made many Roman citizens into pacifists, making it more difficult to defend against the barbarian attackers. Also money used to build churches could have been better used to maintain the empire.

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Rome was not just the Mediterranean´s capital (political, economical, culture ) but capital of the whole the world , the OE has never been even close to this level



once the biggest European country ever , but maps usually say very little about state power

 

Rubbish !

The map you've posted has absolutely nothing to do with the Roman Empire . those borders + nation states did not exist at that time.

The Romans regarded/considered , ALL people in every area beyond the map which I've already posted , as barbarians . That includes Poles/ Slavs / Germanic TRibes/ Danes/ -Scandanavians /Bulgars/Scots/Irish etc. etc.


if you're not happy with that map then see this :




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which part is Rubbish? i never said that the GDL has something to do with the Roman Empire, i said that your Ottoman map proved nothing , in this case size doest matter

 

IMO - the map I've posted is more relevant than yr irrelevant (rubbish ) map

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btw - what the fek is GDL ?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Lithuania

 

Oh ! that myth



.

 

LOL ye, like anything else, PMS?

 

Episode 2 on BBC iplayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03dwq95/The_Ottomans_Europes_Muslim_Emperors_Episode_2/

if you can't access Iplayer then try the clips :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03dwq95

/

 

I haven't see the episodes yet on the other hand I would like to join to topic;

Ottomans was most powerful Empire of the terms as military power there is no doubth for this.
Big Empires grown up by using the know-how from previous Empires. For sure Ottomans used the know-how of the Bizantian Empire and Seljuk Empire but also they invented new genious systems for them such as Yeniceri system (Janiceries), new tax and land sharing system e.g. Another key of the growing up was the tolerance to other religions (I consider this for middle age darkness term), While Europe is in a chaos with religional fights, Ottoman collected the sunni islam under one power. The only missed they couldn't cover shia muslims too. There is still anger to Ottoman in Shia (alawite) wrold because Ottoman Empire was not as generous as they were to Christian or Jewish wrold.

It was difficult to war aganist to crussades.
Actually for Ottomans there were 2 critical loose 1st is Malta Deffence where Ottomans saw there is a point they will not able to pass in Mediterrianne and Vienna Deffence where they understand
there is a end where military power can't reach. If Malta would fall down all Mediterrianne would fall if Vienna would fall Rome could follow it. And now we could see much more different Europe. I don't know it would be nice or bad for sure it could be more mixed and maybe chaotic..

The reason of Falling of Ottomans are basic and clasical;

1) While Europe is rebuilding with reforms and renaisances Ottoman couldn't pass 1 step over bloody monarchy.
2) Ottomans were keeping all different Muslim nations with ''Ummah'' when natinalism is grown up as guessed all nations wanted to seperate their nations (thanx to Brisitish agents in Arap wrold)
3) Ottoman based on to ''concure'' when they finished to concure story started to finish.
4) Even Ottoman made effort to catch the Sience, devolopments, modern reforms, it was diifcult to do it considering Sultan was also Chalif (think that Papa was also king and he has to catch the sience and modern life)
5) Last one and most important one Ottomans couldn't built a fair sytem between its citizens. (This item actually is valid for many Empier we can't say European Countries was different)

As summary we call it it's time was over.

 

Thanks for your input - I'm sure you'll find the BBC documentary also informative . I don't know whether you can access the BBC links which I've already posted , in your country, if not then try this :

http://www.tvrage.com/shows/id-34699

the program is in three episodes. Final - is on 20th October .


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a liberal / turk -nationalists myth, the OE took advantage of declining the E- roman civilization . the OE could never compare with western Europeans super powers , that why you had never be able to take Winna

 

Yes! Serbia, Grecee, Constantinapole, Bosnia, Hersek from Italy to Vienna all costs and lands are given because crussades loved Ottomans very much, Do you mean this?. During 300 hundred years Ottomans didn't lost any serious war. Frech King wrote a letter to Suleyman the magnificant to take him under his protection. For a long period non of kings couldnt attack ottomans without crussades. You should stop to
mix your wishes and realities.

 

Magnificent building - I regret not having spent more time there . I'm now reluctant to endure airport hassles. and will just have to put up with t whatever's available on YouTube .

(wink)

 

all those lands belonged to the east roman civilization, right?

 

IMO - it belonged to whichever people (Scythian/Phrygians/Indo-Aryan etc tribes) who inhabited the lanf before Graeco-Roman expansions/conquests ,

The Ottomans grabbed it from them in the same manner as they grabbed it from others. It was quite legal and morally acceptable - that's the way it worked in those days . (wink)

The Ottomans: Europe's Muslim Emperors - Episode 3
(final episode )


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03fg1mj/The_Ottomans_Europes_Muslim_Emperors_Episode_3/

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03fg1mj

So what led to the demise of this once mighty state?

In this last episode, Rageh Omaar discovers how it was finally destroyed, why its achievements were largely lost in the trauma of its final years, and how the fallout from its collapse created tensions that still resonate across Europe and the Middle East today.

Rageh also tells the story of Mustafa Kemal-Ataturk, the founder of the modern state of Turkey.

Under the leadership of this secular visionary, the heartland of the former empire turned its back on its Islamic past, and underwent a social revolution.

Finally, Rageh considers the future, looking at why almost 100 years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, some politicians in the West are hoping that Turkey can be a role model as a modern, Islamic democracy.

If you're unable to access BBC Iplayer then try TV Catchup

http://www.tvcatchup.com/programme/211258


cheers.


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point is that the east roman civilization was deep in crisis, and could not resist

and Ottomans had 0-chance against Western European super powers like France. Ottoman E was just a regional (the eastern Mediterranean) power

 

That's was the way of the world , in those days . There was no such thing as INternational Law- Geneva Convention/ UN Charter etc.etc.

" Western Europe " could hardly have been described as superpowers at that time .The Ancien Régime (- France was in a mess a jig-saw puzzle :



Pre - Industrial revolution Western Europe was far too busy fighting each other + colonial competition with each other. to have confronted the Ottomans. (wink)


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Charles XII of Sweden

Exile in the Ottoman Empire


Royal Monogram
The Turks initially welcomed the Swedish king, who managed to provoke a war between the Ottomans and the Russians. His expenses during his long stay in the Ottoman Empire were covered from the Ottoman state budget, as part of the fixed assets (Demirbaş in Turkish), hence his nickname Demirbaş Şarl (Fixed Asset Charles) in Turkey. Demirbaş, the Turkish word for fixed asset, is literally ironhead (demir = iron, baş = head), which is the reason why this nickname has often been translated as Ironhead Charles. Eventually a small village named Karlstad had to be built near Bender to accommodate the ever growing Swedish population there. Sultan Ahmet III, as gesture to the King, had bought some of the Swedish women and children put up for sale by the Russians and turned them over to the Swedes, thus further strengthening the growing community of Caroleans.

However, the sultan Ahmed III's subjects in the empire eventually got tired of Charles' scheming. His entourage also ended by accumulating huge amounts of debt to Bender merchants. Eventually "crowds" of townpeople attacked the Swedish colony at Bender and Charles had to defend himself against the mobs and the Ottoman Janissaries involved. This uprising was called "kalabalik" (crowd) which after this event found a place in Swedish lexicon as "kalabalik" referring to a ruckus. The Janissaries did not shoot Charles during the skirmish at Bender, but captured him and put him under house-arrest at Dimetoka (nowadays Didimoticho) and Constantinople. During his semi-imprisonment the King played chess and studied the Ottoman Navy and the naval architecture of the Ottoman galleons. His sketches and designs eventually led to the famous Swedish war ships Jarramas (Yaramaz) and Jilderim (Yıldırım).

Meanwhile, Russia and Poland regained and expanded their borders. Great Britain, an adversary of Sweden, defected from its alliance obligations while Prussia attacked Swedish holdings in Germany. Russia occupied Finland (the Greater Wrath 1713 - 1721). After defeats of the Swedish army consisting mainly Finnish troops in Pälkäne 1713 and Storkyro 1714 the military, administration and clergymen escaped from Finland which fell under Russian military regime.

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_XII_of_Sweden

 

SWEDEN, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE CRIMEAN TARTARS, c 1580 – 1714 – THE REALPOLITIK OF A CHRISTIAN KINGDOM
Background

In 1656 the diplomat Claes Rålamb was sent from Stockholm to Constantinople to become the first Swedish ambassador to the Porte.

Around thirty years later a large Ottoman army invaded Austria. The Habsburg Emperor Leopold I asked Christian kingdoms in Europe to contribute in defense of Austria. In reply Sweden’s King Charlex XI (the father of Charles XII) sent one of his most trusted generals, Niels Bielke. General Bielke took part in the Battle of Mohacs in 1687, in which he joined the storming of the camp of the Grand Vizier.

When Charles XII was in exile in today’s Moldavia (then part of the Ottoman Empire) the Swedish ambassador to the Ottoman Empire was Thomas Funck.

In 2001 the Royal Armory in Stockholm exhibited ts collection of diplomatic gifts to the Swedish monarchs from the Orient (“Gifts from the Orient”). Envoys of the Tartar Khan of Crimea arrived in Sweden already in the 1580s. 0)

The Crimean Tatars are a Turkic people who inhabited the Crimean peninsula for more than seven centuries, descendants of Tatars who moved west with the Mongols and other Turkic groups (Khazars, Petchenegs, and Kipchacks) who had settled in eastern Europe as early as the 7th century. The Crimean peninsula itself was inhabited by various peoples, such as the Goths. The ancient Greeks established colonies on the coast in the 6th century B.C., and later the control of the sea ports passed on to the Romans, the Goths and eventually the Byzantines. After the invasion of Crimea by the Golden Horde forces in the 1230s, the Genoese who had been trading in the Black Sea began paying tribute to the new rulers .

Following the disintegration of the Golden Horde a Crimean Khanate was established under Haci Giray in the 1440s. The Khanate became subject to the Ottoman influence in 1475, following the capture of the Genoese ports on the Crimean coast by the Ottoman naval forces. In the next three hundred years, the Crimean Khanate remained an important semiautonomous political power in eastern Europe, continuing to raid Muscovy and making alliances with Poland, Lithuania, and Sweden. The Ottoman influence on the Crimean society was profound. Early political conflicts within the ruling Giray family were often settled by the appointment of the Khan by the Ottoman court in Istanbul, and in the 16th century Ottoman appointments became a standard policy. In 1783, Russian forces occupied the Crimea, officially ending the rule of the Khanate. In the 1950s the Crimea was transferred from Russia to Ukraine.

Early Swedish Contacts with the Crimean Khanate

The first diplomatic contacts between Sweden and the Crimean Tatars took place during the reign of King Johan III (1568 – 1592). A Tatar delegation arrived in Stockholm.

As a result, Swedish delegates Erik Falck and Sigfrid Raalamb were dispatched to Crimea to negotiate for a Swedish-Crimean Tatar alliance against Russia.

A Crimean Tatar delegation arrived in Stockholm in 1630. Chief Delegate Kamber Aga offered Sweden 40,000 men for an attack against Poland or Germany. The answer to the proposal by the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus is in the Swedish National Archive.

Swedish delegate Benjamin Baron arrived in Crimea in 1630. He was seeking the aid of the Khan for attacking King Sigismund of Poland. Baron remained in Crimea until 1631.

Baron returned to Stockholm in 1632, accompanied by a Crimean Tatar delegation. The gifts brought by the delegation are still in the Royal Armory in Stockholm, see above (“Gåvor från Österland”, catalogue of the exhibition in Tidskriften Livrustkammaren [Journal of the Royal Armory], Stockholm 2001, pp. 60-61).

The delegation continued to Germany. It returned to Sweden in 1633. An exchange of letters between the delegation and the Swedish government can be found in the Swedish National Archive.

The next Crimean Tatar delegation arrived in Stockholm in 1637.
Contacts were continued after 1637 and during the reign of Swedish Kings Charles X Gustavus, Charles XI and Charles XII.

For the period between 1709 – 1714, the Swedish Officer Sven Lagerberg (after 1717 Major General in the Swedish Army) was military advisor to the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray. General Lagerberg’s diary kept during his stay in Crimea (_Dagbok under vistelsen hos tatarchan Dowlet-Gherey 1710 – 1711_) was published in Sweden in 1896.

Sweden, the Crimean Khanate, and Ukraine after 1709

When the Turkish Grand Vizier Mehemed Baltadshi marched out of Constantinople on 6 March 1711, leading an army of perhaps 80,000 soldiers (1), Swedish King Charles XII, in exile in Bendery (in the present republic of Moldova then part of the Ottoman empire), was greatly relieved. His representatives (2) at the court of Sultan Ahmed III had been working hard for a follow up of the Ottoman declaration of war in November 1710 against Russia. It had been the main reason for his stay in the northern outskirts of the Ottoman empire.

After Czar Peter’s defeat of the Swedish-Ukrainian armies at Poltava in June 1709 and the Swedish capitulation at Perevolochna a few days later, around 1,000 Swedish troops and the remnants of the army of Hetman Ivan Mazepa and Koshovyi Ataman Konstantin Hordienko, leader of the Zaphorozhian Kozaks, had crossed the river Dnepr and via Shvedinovka, Reshetilovka, Poltavka, Peski and Fedorovka crossed the river Bug and reached the Turkish territory.

The policy of Charles XII, Mazepa (from the spring of 1710 his successor Hetman Pylyp Orlyk) and Hordienko during the forced exile in Bendery was to find Turkish aid against Russia. The Swedish mission in Constantinople worked hard to persuade Sultan Ahmed to take military action against Czar Peter. The goal was a formal Swedish-Ukrainian-Turkish-Crimean Tartar alliance.

The Sultan promised Charles an escort of 50,000 soldiers for the safe return home of the Swedes via Poland. The strategy would be to have a Turkish army invade Poland. At the same time a Swedish army would attack Poland from the west, from Swedish Pomerania, a Swedish territory in northern Germany (3). A Turkish attack in Ukraine would draw Russian troops from Poland leaving it less defended and Peter’s ally, King Augustus II, unsupported. Allied troops would then drive Augustus from Poland and replace him with the alliance supporter and Swedish ally, King Stanislaus I, and add Poland to the coalition aiming at containing Russia. Among the European powers, England, the Netherlands and the German emperor were at best neutral. The only supporter of the alliance was France.

Constantinople was now the center of intensive intrigue. On one side Swedish, French and Ukrainian diplomats attempting to persuade Turkey to join the alliance. On the other, hand Polish (loyal to King Augustus) and Russian representantives tried to prevent it. Targets of influence were the grand vizier and other high Turkish officials.

In 1710 the Russians managed to conclude a peace treaty with Turkey. As a result Charles tried to find ways to topple the grand vizier. At work for Swedish interests in Constantinople at that time was a formidable Polish nobleman and long time admirer of Charles XII, Major General Stanislaus Poniatowski. (4) His amiable ways, intelligence and mastery of Near East intrigue made him an excellent choice. The grand vizier was later sacked and replaced with a pro-Swedish successor. Poniatowski presented Charles as a manly, impressive hero and managed to win over the Sultan’s mother, Gylnysh, and the high ladies of the harem. Also the Sultan’s lifeguard and elite troop, the Janissar Corps, was pro-Swedish admiring Charles for his military accomplishments.

French diplomats as well were active in the Ottoman capital. Their goal was to persuade the Sultan to have Turkish troops attack Austria and Poland to relieve the pressure on France. General Poniatowski and the French ambassador, Marquis Des Alleurs, frequently met to discuss policy. Swedish agents were active in Constantinople spreading propaganda pamphlets depicting Charles as a strong leader and hero.

Ukrainians also took part in the grand strategy game. On 10 May 10 1710, Charles XII had welcomed Pylyp Orlyk’s election in April as hetman in a letter of confirmation in Latin. (5) In the letter, Orlyk was lauded as the leader of ”the heroic Ukrainian people, who are suffering terribly powerless under Muscovite rule.” Charles promised not to lay down arms against ”Czarus Moskovia”, to seek to reestablish Kozak freedom, to safeguard the Kozaks of Ukraine and to defend them against mutual enemies.

The same year the Zaporozhian Kozaks in Bendery under Hordienko signed a treaty with Sultan Ahmed III, a ”pacta conventa”. The treaty was signed in the presence of the Khan of Crimea, Devlet Geray, a representative of the Sultan and Pasha Ismail of Moldavia. Hordienko later established a new Zaporozhian fortress by the Lake Jalpuch in Moldavia.

In May 1710 a Zaporozhian delegation travelled to Constantinople to sign a formal treaty of alliance with Turkey against Russia. According to the document in the Swedish National archive (Riksarkivet) the members of the delegation were: Koshovyi Ataman Konstantin Hordienko, Colonel Dimitryi Horlenko, Judge General Kilian Dolhopoly, General Asaul Grigoryi Hertsik and Chancellor Jean Maximovicz and a Colonel Kyryl.

When the Turks in the spring of 1711 marched toward Ukraine from the southwest, Charles sent a Swedish military adviser to the Ottoman military forces in the east, Major General Karl-Gustaf Haard (6), an experienced cavalry fighter. Ismail Pasha had been detailed by the grand vizier to attack the Russian strongholds of Taganrog and Azov on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. 5,000 Ukrainians under Pylyp Orlyk, 4,000 Poles commanded by General Joseph Potocki (7) and 1,000 Swedes joined the Turkish forces.

Meanwhile in late spring 1711, 40,000 Crimean Tartars led by the son of the Crimean Khan with Swedish military adviser Major Sven Lagerberg ( moved northward into Ukraine to join the Turkish forces advancing from the southwest. Czar Peter’s 38,000 Russian troops now faced 170,000 alliance troops. On 11 July, 1711, Czar Peter found himself trapped on the banks of the river Pruth. The Russian army was low on provisions. The horses were unfed. Czar Peter, often prone to rages, according to a pro-Russian Danish source, was running around the camp tearing his hair.

When the news reached King Charles on the evening of 12 July that the Russians under Peter were trapped, he immediately took off on horse for the Turkish camp on the River Pruth, riding for 17 hours with little rest. He arrived at 3 p.m. on 13 July with members of the Swedish staff at Bendery, Muellern (9), Feif (10), Bunge (11), von Kochen (12) and the secretary Hoegvall. Already in the Turkish camp were the Swedes Sparre (13), Daldorff (14), Zuelich (15), Lagerberg, Bousquet (16), Duvall (17) and Hierta (1.

The grand vizier and the Turkish generals had by then already signed the peace treaty with Czar Peter allowing him to retreat with his troops northward. The Turks had even provided the Russian army with provisions for one week during the retreat. There are several accounts of a meeting that afternoon between Charles, the grand vizier and the Khan. A popular, and not implausible, Swedish account reports the following conversation (translated from Swedish) (19):

Though filled with rage Charles managed to keep cool and calm when the grand vizier offered him Turkish coffee. The same day the king started back to Bendery. His first attempt to bring about an anti-Russian alliance after the battle of Poltava had failed.

But he continued the attempts to persuade Turkey to start hostilities once again during the second half of 1711 and 1712. Charles promised the Sultan that a Swedish army would attack Poland from the west if only Ahmed would send his army against Poland from the south. But problems continued. Russian and Augustus’ Polish agents in Turkey had managed to influence the grand vizier. Charles ordered the Swedish representatives in Constantinople to double their efforts to have the Grand Vizier Yussuf Pasha, removed. On 31 October 1712, he had to resign and was replaced by Soliman Pasha. The Russian representatives were thrown in jail. Once more Turkey declared war on Russia. A Turkish army was to march northward in the spring of 1713. The prospects of an alliance against Moscow seemed good. Charles sent orders to Sweden for Count Magnus Stenbock (20) to prepare the shipment of a Swedish army from the homeland across the Baltic Sea to Swedish Pomerania. But the Royal Council in Stockholm refused to fund the enterprise. Count Stenbock had to persuade the good burghers of Stockholm to lend him the money to equip and transport the Swedish troops.

Meanwhile King Augustus was busy trying to convince the Crimean Khan and Governor General Ismail Pasha in Bendery to join him and Czar Peter. Charles tried to borrow money from the Sultan to equip Swedes, Ukrainians and Poles in Moldavia. To complete the intrigues the Bendery pasha was active in persuading Poles and Ukrainians with Charles to defect. The Turks and Tartars in Moldavia instead of following the orders of the Sultan to help Charles equip his army sabotaged the efforts. In Constantinople, the grand vizier moved to isolate the Swedish embassy no doubt pressed on by the Russians and Augustus’ Poles.

In the beginning of 1713 Count Stenbock won a decisive military victory at Gadebusch in northern Germany against a Danish-Saxonian army allied to Czar Peter. The route seemed to open for the 14,000 man strong Swedish army to march eastward and meet Swedish and Turkish armies entering Poland from the south to finish Augustus and at last capture the evasive Czar Peter.

Turkish dignitaries and agents of the Crimean Khan meanwhile were active spreading the rumour that Charles was joining with his arch enemy Peter to march on Constantinople, the old dream of the Russian czars.

On 31 July 31 1713, Charles received a letter from the Sultan. The Khan and Ismail Pasha had orders to escort him to Poland. If he refused he would be forced to leave. The king barricaded himself and the staff in the Swedish camp in Bendery. During the following attack Charles was taken prisoner.

What happened in Bendery even upset the British and the ambassador of England in Constantinople, Lord Sutton, who for the first time lent support to the Swedish king. The Sultan reacted by firing the grand vizier and the Crimean Khan. They were exiled. Also the pasha of Bendery was removed. The Turkish Great Admiral Ibrahim Pasha was appointed grand vizier and he promised that the war with Russia would be commenced as soon as possible. Ibrahim mobilised 30,000 Bosnians (in present day Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina then part of the Ottoman empire). But his enemies in Constantinople managed to convince the Sultan that Ibrahim Pasha planned to march on Constantinople with the Bosnian troops and seize power for himself. Ibrahim was arrested and executed. Ali Kumurdji was appointed grand vizier in his place. He immediately changed Turkish policy altogether negotiating peace with Poland and Russia. A peace treaty was signed with Moscow in 1713 and with Warsaw in April 1714. Augustus was recognised by Turkey as Poland’s rightful king.

The grand alliance to contain Russia sought by Charles had collapsed. In the autumn of 1714 he rode north through Europe toward Sweden returning to fight new battles until he was killed by a bullet in the trenches outside the Norwegian fortress of Fredrikshald in 1718. It is still not determined if it was an enemy bullet or an assassin’s bullet. Maybe some Swedish soldier believed that 18 years of war was enough

http://http://varldsinbordeskriget.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/sweden-the-ottoman-empire-and-the-crimean-tartars-c-1580-%E2%80%93-1714-%E2%80%93-the-realpolitik-of-a-christian-kingdom/