Why did the Christian world never team up to take down the Ottomans?

by [deleted]

So I’m not sure if this has been asked before, I’m aware of the crusades but I’m just wondering why there was never any attempt for the Christian countries to retake Constantinople/ defeat the Ottomans in Europe. If there were, what was the result?

kooowhip_m16

There were a couple of times that nations teamed up to beat the Ottomans.

The reasons why they didn’t just simply beat the Ottomans is because the Ottoman Empire was extremely strong for the early centuries of the empire. They controlled Anatolia and then the levant and soon Egypt. Christian states didn’t attack because they were too busy themselves and they each had their own rivalries to deal with in their kingdoms and empires.

One famous team up was the “Holy league” and this was a response of ottoman aggressive action. Notable states were the Papal States, Venice, Genoa and probably the strongest power, the Spanish empire. They fought at Lepanto and this was one of the most famous battles in world history. It stopped ottoman conquest in the mediterranean and stopped Ottoman naval expansion.

The other major event was the siege of Vienna. The Austrian City was sieged by a massive ottoman army and the inhabitants were terrified of the ottomans as they’d be enslaved. But an imperial ( HRE ) army combined with a Polish army arrived to save the city and they did just that and smashed the ottoman army.

There were other events. Russia, Poland and Austria formed alliances with one another to stop ottoman expansion. But as the centuries went on the Ottoman Empire became on the decline. But many Christian empires wanted to keep it there because a weak empire could be exploited and manipulated. A fresh power from its remnants would be too much to bear. Not only that but one power, for example Russia, could grab a lot of land from it and then be too powerful. So each nation fought wars to limit the other and keep them weaker as not to fully take over the ottomans. Most famous example is the Crimean war which saw the Christian France and Britain team up with the ottomans to stop Russian expansion.

So overall there were a couple of attempts. But early on the ottomans were too strong to get rid of and later on no one really wanted to do so, that is until the First World War.

Noble_Devil_Boruta

In addition to what has already been said, I would like to say that One of the main problems that a potential anti-Ottoman crusade trying to capture the Constantinople would face was the relatively simple fact that at the moment of the capture in 1453, the aforementioned city lied more or less in the middle of the Ottoman territory that after the conquests of Mehmed II spanned the Aegean, Black Sea and Central Anatolia regions in Asia Minor, entire territories of what is now continental Greece and Bulgaria as well as that of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and southern Croatia. Few decades later, under Suleiman I, the northern borders of the Ottoman Empire expanded again with the acquisition of the southern part of Hungary as well as the vassalization of Crimean Khanate and the Moldavian and Transylvanian duchies what essentially caused the Ottoman Empire to share borders with Kingdom of Hungary and Polish-Lithuanian Union (I'm using this term as the countries will officially transform into Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth only in 1569).

Now, what is important to note, that the 'Christian Europe' in the sense applicable to the times of Crusades essentially ceased to exist in 1520s having been dealt a deadly blow by the Reformation. From the religious standpoint, all the countries remained Christian but they lacked the political unity expressed by the institution of papacy (this is one of the reasons why Orthodox Ruthenians were not really involved in the Holy Land Crusades). With new form of religious, legal and political conflict between the Catholics and Protestants, unification of all these nations under the banner of an anti-Ottoman Christian coalition was almost impossible.

It should also be noted that the Ottoman Empire, although initially sequestered and not really involved in the European politics as a member of a completely different culture, was more or less factored in the political calculations of European rulers. Territorial and dynastic conflicts between the latter eventually caused the Ottomans to be considered a political or military ally in the emerging system of 'checks and balances'. This became apparent during the struggle for the Hungarian crown between Habsburgs and French house of de Valois in early 16th century, what coincided with the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. Ottomans, strongly conflicted with Austrian branch of Habsburgs vying for control of Hungary and Spanish branch of the family attempting to secure their position in the Mediterranean found unlikely sympathizer in Francis I, king of France. In addition, Selim I successfully attempted to sign the peace with Polish-Lithuanian Union in 1519 with the treaty being subsequently prolonged by Suleiman the Magnificent who hoped to secure the northern border with generally non-expansionist neighbour and potentially ally with him against Habsburg influence in the Central Europe, what was aligned aligned with French and Italian interests (the latter were evidenced by good diplomatic contacts maintained by both Zygmunt I of Jagiellon dynasty and Bona Sforza d'Aragon, his wife). Relatively amiable relations between Poland-Lithuania and Ottomans continued throughout 16th century despite occasional border struggles between Cossacks and Tartars or militant actions of Ottoman vassals, such as Petru Rareș, hospodar of Moldavia who tried to use the Habsburgs, Poles and Ottomans in an unsuccessful attempt to gain independence. There were some anti-Ottoman alliances, as those already mentioned by u/kooowhip_m16, but these were part of the aforementioned 'checks and balances'.

So, shortly after the Ottomans became a significant power, Europe became more fractured in the wake of Reformation and emergence of the absolutist states, while the proximity of the Ottoman Empire meant that all actions taken against it will either favour some of the potential rivals or create a vacuum that might be used by the latter. Last but not least, the discovery of the Americas predating the Ottoman conquests made their dominance in the Middle East and southeastern Europe not that a pressing matter for all powers participating in the conquest of newly discovered regions.