| Ottoman–Venetian War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theOttoman–Venetian wars | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Republic of Venice Papal States Principality of Zeta Kingdom of Hungary Despotate of Epirus Knights Hospitaller[1] Crown of Aragon[1] Kingdom of Naples Aq Qoyunlu League of Lezhë Duchy of Burgundy[2] Holy Roman Empire[3] Principality of Moldavia Kingdom of Croatia Duchy of Saint Sava Kingdom of France[4] Republic of Ragusa Grand Duchy of Lithuania[3] Crown of Castile Florence[3] Karamanids Maniots Greek rebels | Ottoman Empire | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Alvise Loredan Giacomo Loredan Sigismondo Malatesta Vettore Cappello Antonio da Canal Pietro Mocenigo Skanderbeg (until 1468) Lekë Dukagjini Ivan Crnojević Uzun Hasan Matthias Corvinus Stephen the Great | Mehmed the Conqueror Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey Mahmud Pasha Angelović | ||||||||
TheFirst Ottoman–Venetian War was fought between theRepublic of Venice with its allies and theOttoman Empire from 1463 to 1479. Fought shortly after thecapture ofConstantinople and the remnants of theByzantine Empire by the Ottomans, it resulted in the loss of several Venetian holdings in Albania and Greece, most importantly the island of Negroponte (Euboea), which had been aVenetian protectorate for centuries. The war also saw the rapid expansion of the Ottoman navy, which became able to challenge the Venetians and theKnights Hospitaller for supremacy in the Aegean Sea. In the closing years of the war, however, the Republic managed to recoup its losses by thede facto acquisition of the CrusaderKingdom of Cyprus.
Following theFourth Crusade (1203–1204), the lands of theByzantine Empire were divided among severalLatin states, ushering in the period known in Greek asLatinokratia. Despite the resurgence of the Byzantine Empire under thePalaiologos dynasty in the later 13th century, many of these "Latin" states survived until the rise of a new power, theOttoman Empire. Chief among these was the Republic of Venice, which had founded an extensive maritime empire, controlling numerous coastal possessions and islands in theAdriatic,Ionian, andAegean Seas. In its first conflict with the Ottomans, Venice had already lost the city ofThessalonica in 1430, following a longsiege, but the resulting peace treaty left the other Venetian possessions intact.[5]
In 1453, the Ottomans captured the Byzantine capital,Constantinople, and continued to expand their territories in theBalkans,Asia Minor, and the Aegean.Serbia was conquered in 1459, and the last Byzantine remnants, theDespotate of Morea and theEmpire of Trebizond were subdued in 1460–1461.[6] The Venetian-controlledDuchy of Naxos and theGenoese colonies ofLesbos andChios became tributary in 1458, only for the latter to be directly annexed four years later.[7] The Ottoman advance thus inevitably posed a threat to Venice's holdings in southern Greece, and, following theOttoman conquest of Bosnia in 1463, in the Adriatic coast as well.[8][9]
According to the Greek historianMichael Critobulus, hostilities broke out because of the flight of an Albanian slave of the Ottoman commander of Athens to the Venetian fortress of Coron (Koroni) with 100,000 silveraspers from his master's treasure. The fugitive then converted to Christianity, and demands for his rendition by the Ottomans were therefore refused by the Venetian authorities.[10] Using this as a pretext, in November 1462,Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey, the Ottoman commander in central Greece, attacked and very nearly succeeded in taking the strategically important Venetian fortress of Lepanto (Nafpaktos). On 3 April 1463 however, the governor of the Morea,Isa-Beg Ishaković, took the Venetian-held town ofArgos by treason.[10]
Although Venice, dependent on the trade with the Ottomans, had in the past been reluctant to confront them in war, the urgings of the papal legate, CardinalBessarion, and an impassioned speech by the distinguished Council memberVettore Cappello, tipped the balance, and on 28 July 1463, theSenate narrowly voted for declaring war on theSublime Porte.[11] Simultaneously, Venice entered into awar with Trieste on its eastern frontier.[12]
PopePius II used this opportunity to form yet another Crusade against the Ottomans: on 12 September 1463, Venice andHungarian kingMatthias Corvinus signed an alliance, followed on 19 October by an alliance with the Pope and DukePhilip the Good ofBurgundy.[13] According to its terms, upon victory, the Balkans would be divided among the allies. The Morea and the western Greek coast (Epirus) would fall to Venice, Hungary would acquireBulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, andWallachia, thePrincipality of Kastrioti underSkanderbeg would expand intoMacedonia, and the remaining European territories of the Ottomans, includingConstantinople, would form a restored Byzantine Empire under the surviving members of thePalaiologos family.[14] Negotiations were also begun with other rivals of the Ottomans, such asKaramanids,Uzun Hassan, and theCrimean Khanate.[14]
The new alliance launched a two-pronged offensive against the Ottomans: a Venetian army, under theCaptain General of the SeaAlvise Loredan, landed in the Morea, while Matthias Corvinus invaded Bosnia.[8] At the same time, Pius II began assembling an army atAncona, hoping to lead it in person.[14]
In early August, the Venetians retookArgos and refortified theIsthmus of Corinth, restoring theHexamilion wall and equipping it with many cannons.[15] They then proceeded to besiege the fortress of theAcrocorinth, which controlled the northwestern Peloponnese. The Venetians engaged in repeated clashes with the defenders and with Ömer Bey's forces, until they suffered a major defeat on 20 October 1463, which resulted in the wounding and subsequent death of the MarquisBertoldo d'Este [it] (son ofTaddeo d'Este). The Venetians were then forced to lift the siege and retreat to the Hexamilion and to Nauplia (Nafplion).[15] In Bosnia, Matthias Corvinus seized over sixty fortified places and succeeded in taking its capital,Jajceafter a 3-month siege, on 16 December 1463.[16]
Ottoman reaction was swift and decisive: SultanMehmed II dispatched hisGrand Vizier,Mahmud Pasha Angelović, with an army against the Venetians. To confront theVenetian navy, which had taken station outside the entrance of theDardanelles Straits, the Sultan further ordered the creation of the new shipyard of Kadirga Limani in theGolden Horn (named after the "kadirga" type ofgalley), and of two forts to guard the Straits,Kilidulbahr andSultaniye.[17] The Morean campaign was a swift victory for the Ottomans: although messages received from Ömer Bey had warned of the strength and firepower of the Venetian position at the Hexamilion, Mahmud Pasha decided to march on, hoping to catch them unawares.[15] In the event, the Ottomans reached the Isthmus just in time to see the Venetian army, demoralized and riddled withdysentery, leave its positions and sail to Nauplia.[13] The Ottoman army razed the Hexamilion, and advanced into the Morea. Argos fell, and several forts and localities that had recognized Venetian authority reverted to their Ottoman allegiance.Zagan Pasha was re-appointed governor of the Morea, while Ömer Bey was given Mahmud Pasha's army and tasked with taking the Republic's holdings in the southern Peloponnese, centered around the two forts of Coron and Modon (Methoni).[13]
Sultan Mehmed II, who was following Mahmud Pasha with another army to reinforce him, had reached Zeitounion (Lamia) before being apprised of his Vizier's success. Immediately, he turned his men north, towards Bosnia.[17] However, the Sultan's attempt to retake Jajce in July and August 1464 failed, with the Ottomans retreating hastily in the face of Corvinus' approaching army. A new Ottoman army under Mahmud Pasha then forced Corvinus to withdraw, but Jajce was not retaken for many years after.[16] However, the death of Pope Pius II on 15 August in Ancona spelled the end of the Crusade.[14][18]
In the meantime, for the upcoming campaign of 1464, the Republic had appointedSigismondo Malatesta, the ruler ofRimini and one of the ablest Italian generals, as land commander in the Morea.[19] The forces available to him along with mercenaries andstratioti, however, were limited, and in his tenure in the Morea he was unable to achieve much. Upon his arrival in the Morea in mid-summer, he launched attacks against Ottoman forts, and engaged in a siege ofMistra in August–October. He failed to take the castle, however, and had to abandon the siege at the approach of a relief force under Ömer Bey.[20] Small-scale warfare continued on both sides, with raids and counter-raids, but a shortage of manpower and money meant that the Venetians remained largely confined to their fortified bases, while Ömer Bey's army roamed the countryside. The mercenaries and stratioti in Venice's employ were becoming disgruntled at the lack of pay, while increasingly, the Morea was becoming desolate, as villages were abandoned and fields left untended.[21] The bad supply situation in the Morea forced Ömer Bey to withdraw to Athens in fall 1465.[22] Malatesta himself, disenchanted by the conditions he encountered in the Morea and increasingly anxious to return to Italy and attend to hisfamily's affairs and the ongoing feud with the Papacy, remained largely inactive throughout 1465, in spite of the relative weakness of the Ottoman garrisons following the withdrawal of Ömer Bey from the peninsula.[23]
In the Aegean, the new Venetian admiral,Orsato Giustinian, tried to takeLesbos in the spring of 1464, and besieged the capitalMytilene for six weeks, until the arrival of an Ottoman fleet under Mahmud Pasha on 18 May 1464 forced him to withdraw.[24] Another attempt to capture the island shortly after also failed, and Giustinian died at Modon on 11 July. His successor,Jacopo Loredan, spent the remainder of the year in ultimately fruitless demonstrations of force before the Dardanelles.[24] In early 1465, Mehmed II sent peace feelers to the Venetian Senate. Distrusting the Sultan's motives, these were rejected.[25] Soon after, the Venetians were embroiled in a conflict with theKnights Hospitaller ofRhodes, who had attacked a Venetian convoy carrying Moorish merchants from theMamluk Sultanate.[26] This event enraged the Mamluks, who imprisoned all Venetian subjects living in theLevant, and threatened to enter the war on the Ottoman side. The Venetian fleet, under Loredan, sailed to Rhodes under orders to release the Moors, even by force. In the event, a potentially catastrophic war between the two major Christian powers of the Aegean was avoided, and the merchants were released to Venetian custody.[26]
By 1465 theManiot Kladas brothers,Krokodelos and Epifani, were leading bands of stratioti on behalf of Venice against the Ottomans in Southern Peloponnese. They putVardounia and their lands into Venetian possession, for which Epifani then acted as governor.
In April 1466,Vettore Cappello, the most vociferous proponent of the war, replaced Loredan as Captain General of the Sea. Under his leadership, the Venetian war effort was reinvigorated: the fleet took the northern Aegean islands ofImbros,Thasos andSamothrace, and then sailed into theSaronic Gulf.[27] On 12 July 1466, Cappello landed atPiraeus, and marched againstAthens, the Ottomans' major regional base. He failed to take theAcropolis, however, and was forced to retreat toPatras, which was being besieged by the Venetians under theprovveditore of the Morea, Jacopo Barbarigo. Before Cappello could arrive there, and as the city seemed on the verge of falling, Omar Beg suddenly appeared with 12,000 cavalry, and drove the outnumbered Venetians off. Six hundred Venetians fell and a hundred were taken prisoner out of a force of 2,000, while Barbarigo himself was killed, and his body impaled.[22] Cappello, who arrived some days later, attacked the Ottomans trying to avenge this disaster, but was heavily defeated. Demoralized, he returned to Negroponte with the remains of his army. There, the Captain General fell ill, and died on 13 March 1467.[28]
In 1470, SultanMehmed II campaigned against Negroponte (Chalcis) on the island ofEuboea. After aprotracted and bloody siege (10 July – 5 August 1470), the well-fortified city was taken by the Ottoman troops. The whole island came under Ottoman control.
In spring 1466, Sultan Mehmed marched with a large army against the Albanians. Under their leader,Skenderbeg, they had long resisted the Ottomans, and had repeatedly sought assistance from Italy.[8] For the Albanians, the outbreak of the Ottoman–Venetian War offered a golden opportunity to reassert their independence; for the Venetians, they provided a useful cover to the Venetian coastal holdings ofDurazzo andScutari. Notable Montenegrin feudal lordIvan Crnojević was of high significance for the defence of Scutari, for which he gained fame in Venice. The major result of this campaign was the construction of the fortress ofElbasan, allegedly within just 25 days. This strategically-sited fortress, at the lowlands near the end of the oldVia Egnatia, cut Albania effectively in half, isolating Skenderbeg's base in the northern highlands from the Venetian holdings in the south.[29] However, following the Sultan's withdrawal Skanderbeg himself spent the winter in Italy, seeking aid. On his return in early 1467, his forces sallied from the highlands, defeatedBallaban Pasha and lifted thesiege of the fortress of Croia (Krujë), attacked Elbasan but failed to capture it.[30][31] Mehmed II responded by marching again against Albania. He energetically pursued the attacks against the Albanian strongholds, while sending detachments to raid the Venetian possessions to keep them isolated.[30] The Ottomansfailing again to take Croia, and they failed to subjugate the country but they overthrowTomornitsa. However, the winter brought an outbreak of plague, which would recur annually and sap the strength of the local resistance.[27] Skanderbeg himself died of malaria in the Venetian stronghold of Lissus (Lezhë), ending the ability of Venice to use the Albanian lords for its own advantage.[29] Venice provided no further aid to the Albanians, who were gradually subdued by the Ottomans over the next decade.
After Skanderbeg died, some Venetian-controlled Albanian garrisons continued to hold territories coveted by the Ottomans, such asŽabljak Crnojevića,Dagnum,Drisht,Krujë,Lezhë andShkodër—the most significant. Mehmed II sent his armies to take Shkodra in 1474,[32] but they failed to do so. Then he went personally to lead thesiege of Shkodra of 1478–79. The Venetians and Shkodrans resisted the assaults and continued to hold the fortress until Venice ceded Shkodër to the Ottoman Empire in theTreaty of Constantinople on 25 January 1479, as a condition of ending the war.
After the Venetian War, the Ottomans attackedHungary, but their army was defeated in theBattle of Breadfield.
TheDespotate of Epirus, the last surviving rump state of theByzantine Empire, helped the Venetians. However,Leonardo III Tocco, the ruler of Epirus at the time, wasn't a party in the peace treaty negotiations, or included in its terms.[33] Although he had supported Venice during the war and provided accommodation to its refugees, he caused offence to Venice by seeking friendship and support with its rival, theKingdom of Naples, since the latter claimed sovereignty in theIonian islands. As such, the Despotate of Epirus was left undefended against the Ottomans, who conquered it in the summer of 1479, in order to create a base for the plannedOttoman invasion of Italy.[33]