In the 1730s, the allied Russian and Austrian Empires looked upon a weakening Ottoman Empire and saw an opportunity to expand into the Balkans and along the Black Sea coast. The Russian commander-in-chief boldly outlined his ambitions to Empress Anna: "In 1739, the banners and standards of Her Majesty shall be raised in Constantinople."
The Austrians were less eager for war. Their army still needed time to recover and rebuild, yet they could not allow Russia to dominate the Balkans unchecked. Confident in Ottoman weakness, some Austrian leaders believed they would "only need to march without fighting."
They were badly mistaken. The Ottomans proved far more resilient than expected. Russian armies paid dearly for every mile gained in Ukraine, while Ottoman forces defeated the Austrians in Bosnia and Serbia. When the war ended, Russia had secured only modest gains, and Austria had lost its foothold in Serbia, including the key fortress city of Belgrade.
Today, this war is largely forgotten. Yet hundreds of thousands of men fought in it, and many died-more from disease than from enemy action. Few memorials remain to mark their struggle. Soldiers of fortune arrived from across Europe to serve in all three armies. Germans and Jacobites commanded Russian and Austrian forces, French advisers assisted the Ottomans, and even a Scottish earl appeared in both Russian and Austrian service before suffering a fatal wound on the banks of the Danube.
This book tells the story of that momentous conflict: the leaders, soldiers, battles, and sieges that shaped the great clash of empires in the eighteenth-century Balkans.