Distinguished scholar James D. Tracy shows how the Ottoman advance across Europe stalled in the western Balkans, where three great powers confronted one another in three adjoining provinces: Habsburg Croatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Venetian Dalmatia. Until about 1580, Bosnia was a platform for Ottoman expansion, and Croatia steadily lost territory, while Venice focused on protecting the Dalmatian harbors vital for its trade with the Ottoman east. But as Habsburg-Austrian elites coalesced behind military reforms, they stabilized Croatia’s frontier, while Bosnia shifted its attention to trade, and Habsburg raiders crossing Dalmatia heightened tensions with Venice. The period ended with a long inconclusive war between Habsburgs and Ottomans, and a brief inconclusive war between Austria and Venice. Based on rich primary research and a masterful synthesis of key studies, this book is the first English-language history of the early modern Western Balkans. More broadly, it brings out how the Ottomans and their European rivals conducted their wars in fundamentally different ways. A sultan’s commands were not negotiable, and Ottoman generals were held to a time-tested strategy for conquest. Habsburg sovereigns had to bargain with their elites, and it took elaborate processes of consultation to rally provincial estates behind common goals. In the end, government-by-consensus was able to withstand government-by-command.
James D. Tracy is emeritus professor of history at the University of Minnesota.
Table of Contents
Introduction Map 1: The Western Balkans Map 2: East Central Europe, ca. 1480 Prologue: Ottoman Expansion in the Balkans, 1453–1499 Map 3:Akinci Attacks from Bosnia, fifteenth century Chapter 1: Hungary and Venice Defeated, 1499–1526 Map 4: Hungary and Croatia under Matthias Corvinus Chapter 2: Ottoman Advances in Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia, 1527–1542 Map 5: Croatia under Ottoman Pressure ca. 1525–1550 Chapter 3: Diplomacy and Kleinkrieg, 1542–1556 Map 6: The Contado of Zadar in the Sixteenth Century Chapter 4: War by Consultation vs. War by Command, 1556–1576 Map 7: Hungary Divided in Three Parts, ca. 1570 Map 8: The Six Sectors of the Hapsburg Monarchy’s Ottoman Frontier Chapter 5: War in a Time of Peace, 1576–1593 Map 9: East Central Europe, ca. 1580 Chapter 6: Two Wars and Three Borders, 1593–1618 Map 10: Europe during the Long Turkish War Conclusion Bibliography Glossary
