Passarowitz, Treaty of

▪ Europe [1718]

      (July 21, 1718), pact signed at the conclusion of the Austro-Turkish (1716–18) and the Venetian–Turkish (1716–18) wars at Passarowitz (now Požerevac, Yugos.). By its terms the Ottoman Turks lost substantial territories in the Balkans to Austria, thus marking the end of Ottoman westward expansion.

      In 1715 the Ottomans forced Venice to surrender the Morea (the Peloponnesus Peninsula, Greece), the major Venetian gain under the Treaty of Carlowitz (1699), and threatened Venetian possessions in Dalmatia and the Ionian Islands. At this point Austria intervened by concluding an alliance with Venice (1716). In ensuing hostilities the Ottomans suffered a series of disastrous defeats at the hands of the Habsburg general Prince Eugene of Savoy. In 1718, at the initiation of Great Britain and Holland, whose eastern Mediterranean trade was disrupted by the war, a treaty was concluded at Passarowitz that provided for a 24-year peace between the Ottoman Empire and Austria and that gave to Austria the Banat of Temesvár (the last important Ottoman stronghold in Hungary), Little Walachia, and Belgrade with parts of northern Serbia. The pact stipulated that Venice surrender the Morea to the Ottomans while retaining the Ionian Islands and making gains in Dalmatia. At the same time an Austro-Turkish commercial treaty was signed, granting Austria commercial privileges in the Ottoman Empire.

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