What were the greatest battles of the Ottoman Empire?
In our ranking the two greatest are the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which gave the Ottomans their capital, and the relief of Vienna in 1683, which began their retreat from central Europe, followed by Gallipoli (1915 to 1916), Mohács (1526) and Lepanto (1571). The fifteen run from Kosovo in 1389 to Megiddo in 1918, victories and defeats alike, including Ankara in 1402, where Timur captured the sultan and the state nearly broke apart.
For centuries the Ottoman Empire was the great power astride Europe and Asia, and its story was written on the battlefield. These are the battles that built it and marked the limits of its reach, from the crusade crushed at Nicopolis and the walls of Constantinople to the turning points at Lepanto and Vienna and the last battles at Gallipoli and Megiddo, triumphs and defeats alike. They are ranked by a score, not by date, and how we chose and ranked them is explained right after the list.1
1 Constantinople, 1453
- Where
- Constantinople (today Istanbul), capital of the Byzantine Empire
- War
- Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire
- Sides
- Ottoman Empire (Sultan Mehmed II) against the Byzantine Empire (Emperor Constantine XI) and Genoese volunteers
- Strength
- More than 100,000 Ottomans (about 150,000 in some accounts) vs about 7,000 defenders
- Result
- Ottoman victory: the city stormed on 29 May 1453 after a 53-day siege
By 1453 the Byzantine Empire was little more than its capital. The young sultan Mehmed II laid siege to it in early April with an army that the Foundation of the Hellenic World and the Venetian eyewitness Nicolò Barbaro put at about 150,000 men and EBSCO’s account at more than 100,000. Emperor Constantine XI had about 7,000 men, 2,000 of them foreigners, reinforced by 700 Genoese under Giovanni Giustiniani.2
Mehmed’s answer to the old land walls was gunpowder. The cannon founder Urban had first served the Byzantines but went over to the sultan, who paid better. To get past the harbor boom, the Ottomans hauled about eighty ships overland on greased rollers behind Galata into the Golden Horn. After some seven weeks of bombardment the walls were badly cracked, and in the early hours of 29 May Mehmed launched the general assault. The last emperor died fighting and the city was looted for three days. A Byzantine quoted by the Foundation of the Hellenic World wrote that the cannon decided everything.3
For the Ottomans this was the making of an empire. Mehmed rode in as victor and made the city his capital, and he went down in history as Fatih, the Conqueror. Turkey still marks 29 May as the anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul.4
Why it ranks here: No. 1 because it is the only entry with full marks for recognition, decisiveness, consequence and memory: no other day mattered more to the Ottoman state, which gained its capital and its claim to empire. Only certainty holds it back, since the size of Mehmed’s army is still disputed.
2 Vienna, 1683
- Where
- Vienna and the Kahlenberg heights, Austria
- War
- Great Turkish War
- Sides
- Ottoman Empire (Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa) against the Habsburg garrison and a relief army of imperial, German and Polish troops (King John III Sobieski)
- Strength
- About 120,000 Ottomans at the siege vs 16,000 defenders and a relief army of 65,000 to 69,000
- Result
- Ottoman defeat: siege broken on 12 September 1683; 10,000 to 15,000 Ottoman losses
In 1683 Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa led one of the largest armies the Ottomans ever sent west: about 200,000 men left Edirne, 80,000 of them in the baggage train, and some 120,000 closed around Vienna on 14 July. Count Starhemberg held the Habsburg capital with about 11,000 soldiers and 5,000 militia. For two months Ottoman miners blew breaches in the walls, and by early September the city had lost half its defenders.5
On 12 September a relief army of 65,000 to 69,000 imperial, German and Polish troops under the Polish king John III Sobieski came down from the Kahlenberg. Late in the afternoon about 20,000 horsemen charged, and the Ottoman army broke and fled, losing some 10,000 to 15,000 men. Sobieski wrote to the Pope: “Venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit,” we came, we saw, God conquered.6
For the empire it was the end of an age. Kara Mustafa was strangled by the sultan’s envoys, the Pope drew Austria, Poland and Venice into a Holy League, and the long war that followed ended at Karlowitz in 1699, where the sultan accepted Austrian rule over Hungary and Transylvania. In the words of dzieje.pl, the defeat closed the era of Ottoman victories.7
Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, consequence, memory and certainty: this is the battle that turned the Ottoman tide in Europe, and the sources agree on its course. It drops a point on decisiveness because it won a campaign, not yet the war, which took sixteen more years to end.
3 Gallipoli, 1915 to 1916
- Where
- Gallipoli peninsula and the Dardanelles, Ottoman Empire (today Turkey)
- War
- World War I
- Sides
- Ottoman Empire (with some German officers) against Britain, the British Empire, Australia, New Zealand and France
- Strength
- Some 559,000 Allied troops over the campaign (Gallipoli Association); Ottoman strength not firmly known
- Result
- Ottoman victory; naval attack from 19 February 1915, landings from 25 April, evacuation complete 9 January 1916; about 250,000 Allied and 250,000 to over 300,000 Ottoman casualties
In 1915 Britain and France meant to force the Dardanelles, take Constantinople and knock the Ottomans out of the war. The naval bombardment began on 19 February, and on 18 March the fleet tried to force the strait: three battleships sank on mines laid by the Ottoman minelayer Nusret, and the attack was called off.8
On 25 April the Allies landed at Cape Helles and at what became Anzac Cove. Mustafa Kemal, commanding the 19th Division, the reserve of the Fifth Army, was on hand to meet the Anzacs, and after the August battles he commanded the whole Anafarta sector. A new landing at Suvla Bay on 6 August also stalled. The Allies left Anzac and Suvla on 19 to 20 December and Cape Helles on 8 to 9 January 1916. The Allies lost about 250,000 killed, wounded and sick and the Ottomans 250,000 to over 300,000, among them more than 58,000 Allied and 87,000 Ottoman dead; all such figures are approximate. Myth vs fact: Gallipoli is often remembered as an Anzac battle, but of some 559,000 Allied troops only about 63,000 were Australians and New Zealanders; most were British and other Empire soldiers, and 80,000 were French.9
For the empire it was the great victory of its last war, and Mustafa Kemal went on to found the Turkish Republic. Turkey marks 18 March as Çanakkale Victory and Martyrs’ Day, and Australia keeps 25 April as Anzac Day.10
Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, memory and certainty: it is remembered from Canberra to Çanakkale. It drops a point on decisiveness and on consequence because it decided a front, not the war; it ties Mohács on points and goes ahead on recognition.
4 Mohács, 1526
- Where
- Plain of Mohács by the Danube, southern Hungary
- War
- Ottoman-Hungarian wars
- Sides
- Ottoman Empire (Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent) against the Kingdom of Hungary (King Louis II)
- Strength
- 60,000 to 100,000 Ottomans vs about 25,000 Hungarians (disputed)
- Result
- Ottoman victory on 29 August 1526; Louis II drowned; 14,000 to 24,000 Hungarian losses
In the summer of 1526 Suleiman the Magnificent marched up the Danube into Hungary. King Louis II and Archbishop Pál Tomori met him on the plain of Mohács on 29 August with about 25,000 men by the count of the chancellor Brodarics, some 15,000 of them horsemen. The regular Ottoman troops numbered no more than 60,000, according to the Hungarian defense ministry’s account; other estimates run to about 100,000. The figures are disputed.11
The Ottoman army reached the field around two in the afternoon, and Tomori ordered the charge between three and four. By evening the Hungarian army had ceased to exist: 10,000 infantry and 4,000 horsemen fell, with seven prelates and 28 barons; another count gives 24,000 casualties. Louis II did not die on the field: he drowned in a marsh as he fled.12
For the Ottomans it opened Central Europe. Suleiman reached Buda in September and burned it, Louis’s lands passed to the Habsburg Ferdinand I, and Hungary stayed split into three until the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Hungarians still shrug off a lesser misfortune with “Több is veszett Mohácsnál”, more was lost at Mohács, a saying that took hold in the nineteenth century.13
Why it ranks here: Full marks for decisiveness, consequence and memory: one afternoon ended the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. It loses a point on recognition, being less known outside Central Europe, and a point on certainty for the disputed army sizes; it ties Gallipoli on points and falls behind on recognition.
5 Lepanto, 1571
- Where
- Off the Gulf of Lepanto (today Naupaktos), western Greece
- War
- Ottoman-Venetian War over Cyprus
- Sides
- Ottoman Empire (Ali Pasha) against the Holy League of Spain, Venice, the Papal States and Genoa (Don John of Austria)
- Strength
- About 220 to 300 Ottoman galleys and galliots vs over 200 League galleys
- Result
- Ottoman defeat on 7 October 1571; 25,000 to 30,000 Ottoman dead by most estimates
The Ottoman attack on Venetian Cyprus drove Spain, Venice and the Papacy into a Holy League, and on 7 October 1571 its fleet of over 200 galleys under Don John of Austria met Ali Pasha off the Gulf of Lepanto. Counts of the Ottoman fleet run from 222 galleys and more than 50 galliots to nearly 300 galleys. Famagusta, the last Venetian stronghold on Cyprus, had already fallen.14
Outnumbered on the wings, the Christians won in the center, and Ali Pasha was killed. Only about 40 Ottoman ships got back to Constantinople and more than 100 were captured. Most estimates put the Ottoman dead at 25,000 to 30,000 and the League’s at 7,500 to 8,000, though one account gives only 8,000 Turks killed and 10,000 captured; 12,000 to 15,000 Christian galley slaves were freed.15
Myth vs fact: Lepanto is often said to have broken Ottoman sea power, but a new fleet, built in five to six months, raided Sicily and southern Italy in 1573, and the Ottomans took Tunis from Spain the following year. Venice made a separate peace with the sultan in 1573, recognizing Ottoman rule over Cyprus and paying an indemnity of 300,000 ducats. For the empire it was a costly defeat it recovered from, though its mastery of the sea was no longer unchallenged.16
Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition and memory: it is the most famous Ottoman defeat at sea. Decisiveness and consequence score only 3 because Venice still formally ceded Cyprus to the sultan in the peace of 1573 and the sultan soon had a new fleet; it ties Ankara on points and goes ahead on recognition.
6 Ankara, 1402
- Where
- Outside Ankara, central Anatolia
- War
- Timur’s war against the Ottomans
- Sides
- Ottoman Empire (Sultan Bayezid I) with Serbian allies against Timur (Tamerlane)
- Strength
- About 85,000 Ottomans vs 140,000 Timurids by one estimate; some historians say under 20,000 a side (disputed)
- Result
- Ottoman defeat on 28 July 1402; Bayezid I captured
On 28 July 1402 Sultan Bayezid I met Timur, the conqueror from Central Asia, outside Ankara. How many fought is anyone’s guess. One modern estimate gives Bayezid about 85,000 men and Timur upward of 140,000; the German captive Johann Schiltberger, who served in the Ottoman army, claimed more than a million on each side, and some modern studies argue neither army can have topped 20,000.17
The battle turned when Tatar and Anatolian troops on Bayezid’s flanks left the field or went over to Timur. The Serbs under Stefan Lazarević held on a little longer before they too fell back. Bayezid tried to break out, his horse went down, and he was taken; he died a prisoner on 8 March 1403.18
For the Ottomans it was a disaster. EBSCO’s account puts the losses at 40,000 men besides the sultan and says the defeat threw the state into civil war. Bayezid’s sons fought one another for the throne in the Ottoman Interregnum of 1402 to 1413, which ended only when Mehmed I proclaimed himself sole ruler at Edirne. Those years brought the state to the brink of breaking apart, yet Mehmed I reunited it, and half a century later the Ottomans took Constantinople.19
Why it ranks here: Full marks for decisiveness and consequence: the sultan’s capture nearly ended the Ottoman state. It ties Lepanto on points and falls behind on recognition, and it scores only 3 for memory and for certainty, since estimates of the armies run from under 20,000 to over a million a side.20
7 Malta, 1565
- Where
- Island of Malta, base of the Knights of St John
- War
- Ottoman-Habsburg wars in the Mediterranean
- Sides
- Ottoman Empire (Mustafa Pasha and Piyale Pasha) against the Knights of St John (Grand Master Jean de La Valette) with Spanish, Italian and Maltese troops
- Strength
- 23,000 to 30,000 Ottomans vs 500 to 700 knights and some 8,000 to 8,500 other defenders
- Result
- Ottoman defeat: siege abandoned in September 1565 after a relief force landed
Driven from Rhodes by Suleiman in 1522, the Knights of St John had made Malta their new home. On 18 May 1565 an Ottoman armada under Piyale Pasha arrived, with Mustafa Pasha commanding the land forces, and the next day some 23,000 to 25,000 troops came ashore; another account gives about 30,000. Grand Master Jean de La Valette had 500 to 700 knights and some 8,000 to 8,500 soldiers and Maltese militia.21
Fort St Elmo held for over a month and fell on 23 June, its defenders fighting almost to the last man; it cost the Ottomans more than 6,000 men and the great corsair Dragut. The attackers then turned on Senglea and Birgu until, in EBSCO’s account, the garrison was down to barely 600 fighting men. A relief force from Sicily arrived on 7 September, and within days the Ottoman fleet sailed home. Malta still keeps 8 September as Victory Day.22
For the empire it was a humiliating failure, but how much it mattered is disputed. Myth vs fact: the siege is often credited with saving Christian Europe, yet Jonathan Sumption concludes it “made no difference to the course of history” and the Maltese historian Victor Mallia-Milanes writes that it “did not mark a decisive turning point”; within five years the Ottomans were conquering Venetian Cyprus.23
Why it ranks here: Full marks for memory, with Victory Day still kept every year. Consequence scores only 3 because historians doubt it changed the war, and it ties Navarino and Megiddo on points but stays ahead of both on recognition.
9 Megiddo, 1918
- Where
- Plain of Sharon, Judean Hills and the valley below Megiddo, Palestine
- War
- World War I, Sinai and Palestine campaign
- Sides
- British Empire under General Sir Edmund Allenby vs the Ottoman Yildirim Army Group under Otto Liman von Sanders
- Strength
- About 57,000 infantry and 12,000 mounted troops vs 34,000 to 35,000 Ottoman and German troops
- Result
- Ottoman defeat; about 25,000 prisoners in the battle, some 75,000 by 30 October
By September 1918 the Ottoman army in Palestine held a line it could not afford to lose. Allenby made the Ottoman high command expect his next blow across the Jordan, then secretly massed his strength on the coastal Plain of Sharon. Facing him stood three Ottoman armies of about 34,000 to 35,000 men under the German general Liman von Sanders, one of them led by Mustafa Kemal, the hero of Gallipoli.27
The battle ran from 19 to 25 September. At dawn on the 19th British and Indian infantry broke the line at its coastal end and the cavalry rode through into the Ottoman rear; by the evening of the 20th they were in Nazareth, which Liman von Sanders left just in time. The Eighth Army was destroyed, the Seventh routed, and the fall of Deraa cut off what was left of the Seventh and Fourth. John Rickard counts 25,000 prisoners in the battle itself; fewer than 10,000 men escaped north. Australian horsemen entered Damascus on 1 October and Aleppo fell on 25 October. For the empire it was the end: in six weeks it lost Palestine and Syria and some 75,000 men as prisoners, and on 30 October it signed the armistice of Mudros. Allenby himself chose the name, because the mound of Megiddo is the biblical Armageddon.28
Why it ranks here: Top marks for decisiveness, consequence and certainty, because three armies and the Levant were gone within weeks and the campaign is documented day by day; but the Western Front overshadows it, so recognition and memory are only 3. Level with Navarino on points, recognition and consequence, it gives way to the older battle.
10 Varna, 1444
- Where
- Near Varna on the Black Sea coast, Bulgaria
- War
- Crusade of Varna
- Sides
- Władysław III, king of Poland and Hungary, and John Hunyadi vs Sultan Murad II
- Strength
- Just under 20,000 crusaders vs 50,000 to 55,000 Ottomans (some sources say 100,000 or more)
- Result
- Ottoman victory; the king killed, about a quarter of his army lost
In 1444 the young Władysław III, king of Poland and Hungary, urged on by the papal legate Cardinal Cesarini, broke a freshly sworn truce with Murad II and marched through Bulgaria toward the Black Sea. Murad, who said he was marching against a king who had broken his oath, had about 40,000 men carried across the Bosporus on Genoese merchant ships and caught the crusaders near Varna.29
The historian Karol Olejnik puts the Christian army at just under 20,000 men and the Ottomans at no more than 50,000 to 55,000, noting that some sources inflate them to 100,000 and more. On 10 November the crusaders scattered the Ottoman cavalry on both wings, and men around the sultan began to think of retreat. Then Władysław charged the Janissaries around Murad with about 500 heavy cavalry; his horse went down and a Janissary cut off his head and carried it to the sultan on a lance. The Christian army fled in the night. Myth vs fact: stories that the king survived and lived on as a monk in Spain or a nobleman on Madeira circulated for centuries, but the sarcophagus in Wawel Cathedral is empty. For the Ottomans it meant that no broad Christian coalition marched against them again; Constantinople fell nine years later. At Varna a symbolic mausoleum has stood on the battlefield since 1935.30
Why it ranks here: Top marks for decisiveness, with strong consequence, memory and certainty, because it ended the last crusade in the Balkans and is still honored in Poland and Bulgaria; outside those two countries few readers know it, so recognition is only 3.
11 Kosovo, 1389
- Where
- Kosovo Polje, the Field of Blackbirds, near Pristina, Kosovo
- War
- Ottoman conquest of the Balkans
- Sides
- Prince Lazar of Serbia with Bosnian troops of King Tvrtko vs Sultan Murad I and his sons Bayezid and Yakub
- Strength
- Probably a little over 30,000 on each side (an estimate; the chronicles inflate them)
- Result
- Disputed; both rulers killed, the Ottomans held the field
In 1389 Murad I marched into Kosovo against Prince Lazar, the strongest of the Serbian lords, who had gathered Serbs, Bosnians sent by King Tvrtko and fighters from half the Balkans. The Turkish historian Feridun Emecen thinks each side had a little over 30,000 men and warns that the chronicles inflate them. Even the date is argued over: 15 June in the old calendar, 28 June in ours.31
What happened next rests on thin, late and partisan sources. Both rulers died: Ottoman chroniclers say a Serb lying among the wounded asked to approach the sultan and stabbed him with a hidden dagger, while Serbian and Western tradition makes it a planned strike by the knight Miloš Obilić, an epic that Emecen calls far from credible. Lazar was captured and killed. The first reports even disagreed on who had won: Tvrtko wrote to Florence of a great victory, and in Paris Philippe de Mézières heard the Turks had been routed, while the biographer of Lazar's own son admitted that Bayezid rallied the army and won. For the Ottomans it meant a dead sultan and a new one: Bayezid had his brother Yakub killed and took the throne, and Serbian resistance was broken. For Serbs it became the founding legend of the nation, remembered every Vidovdan, St Vitus's Day, at the Gazimestan monument.32
Why it ranks here: Top marks for memory and high recognition carry it this far, because Kosovo is the heart of Serbian identity; but the military result was unclear even at the time and the details rest on late, legendary sources, so decisiveness 3 and certainty only 2.
12 Plevna, 1877
- Where
- Pleven (Plevna), northern Bulgaria
- War
- Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878
- Sides
- Osman Pasha's Ottoman corps vs the Russian army and its Romanian allies
- Strength
- About 33,000 Ottomans in July; Russians and Romanians more than 100,000 by September (TDV)
- Result
- Ottoman surrender on 10 December after three repulsed assaults and a failed breakout
In the summer of 1877 the Russians crossed the Danube almost unopposed. Osman Pasha marched his corps to the small town of Plevna, where the roads from Sofia and Lovech meet, and ringed it with earthworks, rifle pits and guns dug in behind earth walls.33
The Russians attacked three times, and the figures that follow are those of the TDV encyclopedia’s account by M. Metin Hülagü. The first assault in July cost the Russians about 3,000 dead; in the second, some 60,000 Russians were thrown back by about 33,000 Ottomans, whose modern Martini rifles outmatched the Russian infantry’s older guns. The third, on 11 September, came after four days of bombardment by an army that with its Romanian allies now passed 100,000 men; it failed too, and the Russians lost 15,550 men. The sultan then gave Osman the title Gazi. The Russians sat down to starve the town out. On 10 December Osman tried to break out, was wounded, and surrendered. For the empire, Hülagü writes, the defense lit a new spirit of resistance at home, but its fall opened the road to Constantinople. On 3 March 1878 the Treaty of San Stefano made Bulgaria a self-governing principality stretching from the Danube to the Aegean. A Russian monument still stands in Pleven, on the site of an Ottoman mosque.34
Why it ranks here: Strong marks across the board, because the five-month defense held the Russian army and its fall led straight to a self-governing Bulgaria, but no 5 anywhere: it is little known outside the Balkans, Russia and Turkey, and it delayed the end of the war rather than deciding it.
13 First siege of Vienna, 1529
- Where
- Vienna, Austria
- War
- Ottoman-Habsburg wars
- Sides
- Sultan Suleiman I and Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha vs the Vienna garrison under Count Niklas Salm
- Strength
- About 150,000 Ottomans including some 60,000 in the baggage train vs about 17,000 defenders
- Result
- Siege abandoned after three weeks; Ottoman withdrawal
After Mohács the crown of Hungary was claimed by two kings, the Habsburg Ferdinand and John Szapolyai, who turned to the sultan for help. In May 1529 Suleiman set out from Istanbul with an army the Vienna city history puts at 150,000, including about 60,000 in the baggage train; he took Buda on 8 September and pitched his camp before Vienna on 26 September. Inside were about 17,000 men under Count Niklas Salm, among them 5,000 imperial troops who had slipped in at the last moment.35
The besiegers shelled the city, dug mines under the old walls and stormed the breaches on either side of the Carinthian Tower on 9, 12 and 14 October. Each assault failed, and on 14 October the army began to withdraw. Vienna's own historians credit luck as much as courage: disease broke out in the camp and the weather turned against the attackers, and on the march home wintry conditions reportedly killed some 30,000 soldiers. For the Ottomans the failure set the line of their advance: Hungary stayed divided in three for the next 150 years, and Vienna rebuilt itself as a modern bastion fortress from 1531. With the siege of 1683 it later fed a lasting myth of Christian victory over Islam.36
Why it ranks here: Its fame and its consequence put it here, because it marked the limit of Ottoman expansion into Central Europe; but disease and bad weather ended it rather than a decision in battle, and even Vienna remembers it far less than 1683, so decisiveness and memory are 3. It ties on points with Chaldiran and stays ahead on recognition.
14 Chaldiran, 1514
- Where
- Chaldiran plain, Iranian Azerbaijan (northwestern Iran)
- War
- Ottoman-Safavid wars
- Sides
- Sultan Selim I vs Shah Ismail I of Safavid Persia
- Strength
- Ottomans 100,000 (Varlık, TDV) or 60,000 (EBSCO); Safavids at least as many as the Ottomans (Varlık) or fewer than 60,000 (EBSCO)
- Result
- Ottoman victory; Tabriz occupied for about a week
Shah Ismail's preachers had won thousands of followers inside Anatolia, and Selim I came to the throne in 1512 determined to end the threat. Before marching, writes Mustafa Çetin Varlık in the TDV encyclopedia's article on the battle, he had some 40,000 of the shah's Kızılbaş supporters in Anatolia identified and put to death. Feridun Emecen, in the same encyclopedia's article on Selim I, calls the claim of 40,000 killed untrue: recent research, he writes, shows that those hunted down were mostly Safavid preachers and the dervish lodges that backed them, that some of them were exiled rather than executed (to the Morea and the Balkans, for example), and that many of the shah's sympathizers left their villages to join him. His army then marched some 2,500 kilometers, tired and short of food, until the two armies met at Chaldiran on 23 August 1514.37
Numbers are among the most disputed on this list. Varlık puts the Ottomans at 100,000 and says the shah’s army was at least as large. EBSCO gives smaller armies: about 60,000 Ottomans against fewer than 60,000 Persians. According to Varlık, the battle opened with a charge by some 40,000 picked Safavid horsemen. On the Ottoman right Sinan Pasha pulled his men back and drew the attackers onto the guns, which stood chained together, while Janissary musketeers waited behind a barrier of carts and camels. Selim entered Tabriz on 5 or 6 September and stayed about a week. For the Ottomans the victory brought eastern and southeastern Anatolia and the Kurdish lands under their rule and, by breaking Selim’s main rival in the east, cleared the way for his war on the Mamluks two years later.38
Why it ranks here: Top marks for consequence, because it brought eastern Anatolia under lasting Ottoman rule and largely halted the spread of Safavid Shi’ism there; but it is little known in the West and its army sizes vary wildly between sources, so recognition and certainty are 3. Tied on points with the first siege of Vienna, it loses on recognition.
15 Nicopolis, 1396
- Where
- Nicopolis (Nikopol) on the Danube, Bulgaria
- War
- Crusade of Nicopolis
- Sides
- King Sigismund of Hungary and John of Nevers with French, Burgundian and German knights vs Sultan Bayezid I with his Serbian vassals
- Strength
- Disputed: 16,000 crusaders according to an eyewitness, up to about 100,000 in later estimates
- Result
- Ottoman victory; crusading army destroyed, thousands of prisoners killed
By the 1390s the Ottomans stood on the Danube, the frontier of Hungary. King Sigismund called on Latin Christendom and got one of the largest crusades of the age: Hungarians, French and Burgundian knights under John of Nevers, Germans and men from many other lands, who crossed the Danube and laid siege to Nicopolis. How many they were is not known. Johann Schiltberger, a Bavarian of about sixteen who fought there, gives Sigismund 16,000 men; later historians put them at up to about 100,000.39
On 25 September 1396 Bayezid came up to relieve the town. Against Sigismund's advice the French knights insisted on charging first; they ran into the Ottoman line of sharpened stakes and archers and were cut down when the sultan's troops held back from the first clash counterattacked. The Hungarians coming behind were broken too, and Schiltberger says the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarević, now Bayezid's vassal, threw down the king's banner; Sigismund fled by boat. Bayezid then had the prisoners beheaded from morning until evening; Schiltberger survived only because he was under twenty. John of Nevers and other great nobles were spared and held for ransom. The victory gave Bayezid back everything the crusaders had taken from him and secured Ottoman rule along the Danube.40
Why it ranks here: Strong marks for decisiveness and consequence, because it crushed one of the largest crusades of its age and fixed Ottoman rule in the Balkans; but it is known mostly to specialists and its numbers are uncertain. It ties with Khotyn 1621 on points and recognition and takes the last place on consequence.
How we chose and ranked these Ottoman battles
We counted every battle the Ottoman state fought, won or lost, from Kosovo in 1389 to Megiddo in 1918, and we let in sieges when they decided the Ottoman story, which is why Constantinople in 1453, Malta in 1565 and Plevna in 1877 are here. Sieges ranked for their length and scale, such as Candia, are left to our guide to the greatest sieges in history, the sultans' generals to the greatest commanders of the Ottoman Empire, and Szigetvár, ranked as a last stand, to the greatest last stands.41
We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of which Ottoman battles are the greatest and best known; decisiveness, consequence and memory count twice and certainty once:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of its kind, 1 if only specialists know it.
- Decisiveness (×2). 5 if it decided a war or the fate of a state, 1 if it settled nothing beyond the day itself.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if it changed borders, dynasties or the balance of power for generations, 1 if the map looked the same a few years later.
- Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living tradition (a national day, a monument, a proverb, a song), 1 if it is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if the numbers and events are confirmed by independent sources, 1 if they rest on one source or are disputed.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better-known battle, then to the one with the greater consequence, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them, so you can see exactly why Constantinople is first and why Lepanto, as famous as any name here, sits only fifth: Venice still formally ceded Cyprus to the sultan two years later and the sultan had a new fleet at sea within a year.
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Decisiveness ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Memory ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Constantinople | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 49 |
| 2 | Vienna | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 48 |
| 3 | Gallipoli | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 46 |
| 4 | Mohács | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 46 |
| 5 | Lepanto | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 41 |
| 6 | Ankara | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 41 |
| 7 | Malta | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 40 |
| 8 | Navarino | 3 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 40 |
| 9 | Megiddo | 3 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 40 |
| 10 | Varna | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 39 |
| 11 | Kosovo | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 38 |
| 12 | Plevna | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 37 |
| 13 | First siege of Vienna | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 36 |
| 14 | Chaldiran | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 36 |
| 15 | Nicopolis | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 35 |
Close calls
Five battles came close and did not make the fifteen:
Khotyn, 1621. Osman II led some 100,000 men against the Polish-Lithuanian and Cossack camp on the Dniester and failed to take it between 2 September and 9 October; the humiliation led to his murder by the Janissaries in 1622, the first regicide in Ottoman history. Famous in Poland, much less elsewhere, it ties Nicopolis on points and recognition and loses on consequence.42
Zenta, 1697. Eugene of Savoy caught the Ottoman army half across the Tisza on 11 September; Austrian sources count about 30,000 Ottoman dead, Ottoman ones 7,000 to 8,000, and the grand vizier fell. The rout led directly to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. As decisive as any battle here, it is known to few outside specialists.43 › Battle of Zenta, 1697
Sarıkamış, 1914 to 1915. Enver Pasha sent the Third Army, some 96,550 strong, through the Caucasus snows against the Russians from 22 December 1914 to 4 January 1915. Myth vs fact: the often-quoted 90,000 dead is wrong; about 30,000 died, many frozen, and around 20,000 were captured. It holds a large place in Turkish memory but is little known abroad.44
Marj Dabiq, 1516. On 24 August 1516 Selim I's guns and musketeers stopped the Mamluk cavalry in northern Syria and Sultan Qansuh al-Ghawri died; a second victory at Ridaniya outside Cairo in January 1517 gave the Ottomans Egypt. Together they ended the Mamluk sultanate, but both are known mostly to specialists.45
Rhodes, 1522. Suleiman sailed against the Knights of St John in June 1522 and took Rhodes on 20 December after hard and bloody fighting; the Knights left under terms on 1 January 1523. In 1530 Charles V gave them Malta, and their defense of that island in 1565 made the list instead.46
Triumphs and the turning tide
Not every battle here was an Ottoman victory. Ankara in 1402 nearly broke the young state, yet from Constantinople to Chaldiran and Mohács the Ottomans rose to rule on three continents. Malta and Lepanto checked them at sea, Vienna in 1683 turned the tide in Europe, and Navarino and Megiddo stripped away Greece and the Levant, even as Gallipoli showed the old army could still win.47
What was the Ottoman Empire's greatest victory?
The victory most often named is the conquest of Constantinople on 29 May 1453, when Mehmed II took the Byzantine capital and made it the capital of his own empire. On the open battlefield the strongest claim belongs to Mohács on 29 August 1526, where Suleiman destroyed the army of Hungary and King Louis II died in the rout.48
Mohács had lasting consequences. According to Die Welt der Habsburger, the lands of Louis II passed to the Habsburg Ferdinand I, while EBSCO’s account notes that after 1540 Suleiman the Magnificent annexed the center of the country, leaving Hungary divided in three: Royal Hungary, the pashalik of Buda and Transylvania. The Hungarian Defence Ministry's account adds that the young king did not fall on the battlefield but drowned in a marsh while fleeing.49
What was the worst Ottoman defeat?
The Battle of Ankara in 1402 has the strongest claim. Timur routed Bayezid I and took him prisoner; the sultan died in captivity the next year, and his sons fought over the empire for a decade. Lepanto in 1571 cost most of the Ottoman fleet, and failure at Vienna in 1683 led to losing most of Hungary in 1699.50
The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi says the civil war after Ankara brought the Ottoman state to the brink of breaking apart. Yet the state survived: Mehmed I reunited it, and Mehmed II took Constantinople half a century after Ankara.51
The other two defeats were costly in different ways. At Lepanto on 7 October 1571 the Holy League destroyed most of the Ottoman fleet, but the sultan rebuilt his navy and was fighting the Holy League again the following year. The failure before Vienna in 1683 opened a long war that ended with the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, in which the sultan gave up most of Hungary as well as Transylvania.52
How big was the Ottoman Empire at its height?
About 5.2 million square kilometers, or roughly 2 million square miles, around 1683, according to the political scientist Rein Taagepera; the same figure appears in the table of large historical empires compiled by Peter Turchin and his colleagues. By then, in Taagepera's table, the empire included Hungary, Transcaucasia, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Hejaz and much of the North African coast.53
Taagepera's figures also show how fast the empire grew: about 1.2 million square kilometers in 1481, 3.4 million in 1521 and 4.7 million in 1571. He counts it as the most durable large state of modern times, holding more than half of its maximum size for about 390 years from 1525.54
When did the Ottoman Empire start to decline?
There is no agreed date. The traditional answer is 1566, when Suleiman the Magnificent died: Britannica treats 1566 to 1807 as a period of decline. Many Ottoman specialists now reject the idea; Baki Tezcan writes that the old story of a long decline from the late sixteenth century has been discarded.55
Even in its last decades the empire won major battles. In World War I its army held the Gallipoli peninsula against the Allied landings of 1915, and the last Allied troops left on 9 January 1916 (see the Battle of Gallipoli). On 29 April 1916 the British and Indian garrison besieged at Kut in Mesopotamia surrendered after a siege of nearly five months; by the National Army Museum's count 13,000 men marched into captivity. For the wider war, see the greatest battles of World War I.56
Meet the sultans who led them in the greatest commanders of the Ottoman Empire, or place these battles among the world's greatest in the greatest battles of all time. Six of the battles above (Nicopolis, Constantinople, Chaldiran, Mohács, Lepanto and Vienna) are questions in the Ottoman battles quiz.
