[6] Later, the Peace of Westphalia and the War of the Spanish Succession in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively left the Austrian Empire as the sole firm possession of the House of Habsburg.

After the siege of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs assembled a large coalition of European powers known as the Holy League to fight the Ottomans and regain control over Hungary.

Historians have focused on the second siege of Vienna of 1683, depicting it as a decisive Austrian victory that saved Western civilization and marked the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

Recent historians have taken a broader perspective, noting that the Habsburgs at the same time resisted internal separatist movements and were fighting Prussia and France for control of central Europe.

[8] Historian Gunther E. Rothenberg has emphasized the non-combat dimension of the conflict, in which the Habsburgs built up military communities that protected their borders and produced a steady flow of well-trained, motivated soldiers.

After King Louis II of Hungary was killed at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, his widow Queen Mary of Austria fled to her brother the Archduke of Austria, Ferdinand I. Ferdinand's claim to the throne of Hungary was further strengthened by his marriage to Anne, the sister of King Louis II and the only family member claimant to the throne of the shattered kingdom.

His annual revenues only allowed him to hire 5,000 mercenaries for two months, thus Ferdinand asked help from his brother Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and started to borrow money from rich bankers like the Fugger family.

Wheellock firearms were unfamiliar for Ottoman soldiers until the siege of Székesfehérvár in 1543, despite the fact they had been used for decades by Christian armies in Kingdom of Hungary and in Western Europe.

Considering the size of Suleiman's army and the devastation wrought upon Hungary in the previous few years it is not surprising that the will to resist one of the world's most powerful states was lacking in many of the recently garrisoned Habsburg settlements.

After a defence by a mere 700-strong force led by the Croatian earl Nikola Jurišić, the defenders accepted an "honorable" surrender of the fortress in return for their safety.

The siege of Eger (1552) become an emblem of national defense and patriotic heroism in Hungary's occupations In 1554, the town of Fiľakovo in south-central Slovakia with the castle of the same name was conquered by the Turks and was the seat of a sanjak until 1593, when it was reconquered by the Imperial troops.

[25][page needed] There were wasted opportunities on both sides in the Little War; Austrian attempts to increase their influence in Hungary were just as unsuccessful as the Ottoman drives to Vienna.

In any case Habsburg interests were split between fighting for devastated European land under Islamic control, trying to stop the gradual decentralization of Imperial authority in Germany, and for Spain's ambitions in North Africa, the Low Countries and against the French.

The Royal Physician was strangled[26] to prevent news from reaching the troops and the unaware Ottomans took the fort, ending the campaign shortly afterward without making a move against Vienna.

[35][36] During the 17th century, the bloody worldwide conflict between the Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was nevertheless a stalemate, since both powers were at similar population, technology and economic levels.

Due to the invasion of Hindu Tondo by the Sultanate of Brunei which set up the Muslim Rajahnate of Maynila as a puppet-state, the prince of Manila and grandson of Sultan Bolkiah, named Rajah Ache, served as the admiral of the Bruneian navy and had suppressed a Buddhist revolt in Southwest Borneo at the city of Loue[42] as well as served as the enforcer of Bruneian interests in Luzon.

Likewise, after the Ottoman expedition to Aceh, the Ottoman commander, Heredim Mafamede sent out from Suez by his uncle, Suleiman, Viceroy of Cairo, when his fleet later took Aru on the Strait of Malacca, which contained 4,000 Muslims from Turkey, Abyssinia, Malabar, Gujarat and Luzon, and following his victory, Heredim left a hand-picked garrison there under the command of a Luzones Filipino by the name of Sapetu Diraja.

However, the Spanish in Manila grew afraid of the power of Brunei and one Spaniard named Melchor Davalos warned of the constant migration of even the Turks/Ottomans to Borneo as well as other Muslims from the Middle East.

[55] Persians and Arabs and Egyptians and Turks brought [Muhammad's] veneration and evil sect here, and even Moors from Tunis and Granada came here, sometimes in the armadas of Campson [Kait Bey], former Sultan of Cairo and King of Egypt...

Thus it seems to me that these Moros of the Philippine Islands [are] mainly those who, as had been said, come from Egypt and Arabia and Mecca, and are their relatives, disciples and members, and every year they say that Turks come to Sumatra and Borneo, and to Ternate, where there are now some of those defeated in the famous battle which Señor Don Juan de Austria won.Increasing tension between Spain and Brunei plus its oppressed allies in the Philippines, mainly the Sultanates of Sulu, Maguindanao and Lanao, which was spurred on by the continual Ottoman and Arab migrations into Brunei some of whom were even defeated veterans of the Battle of Lepanto contrasted with the Spanish and Latin-American migrations to the Philippines, eventually erupted into the violence of the Castille War against Brunei and the Spanish-Moro Wars.

[59][60] The racial make-up of the Christian side was likely diverse, as documents a few decades later showed that the infantry was composed of Mestizos, Mulattoes, and "Indians" (From Peru and Mexico), led by Spanish officers who had worked together with native Filipinos in military campaigns across Southeast Asia.

At the Battle of Sisak, a group of ghazis sent to raid the insubordinate lands in Croatia were thoroughly defeated by tough Imperial troops fresh from savage fighting in the Low Countries.

Following the defeat of the Ottoman army in Wallachia (see the Battle of Călugăreni) and the series of unsuccessful confrontations with the Habsburgs (culminating in the devastating siege and fall of Ottoman-held Esztergom), and alarmed by the success and proximity of the threat, the new Sultan Mehmed III strangled his 19 brothers to seize power and personally marched his army to the north west of Hungary to counter his enemies' moves.

[71] In July 1644, an Ottoman ship bound for Egypt, carrying the former Chief Black Eunuch of the Harem, the kadi of Cairo, and many pilgrims heading to Mecca, was besieged and captured by the Knights of Malta.

The situation was complicated by naval engagements against Christian fleets in the Aegean, as well as internal political turmoil including the deposition of Sultan Ibrahim in favor of his son, Mehmed IV.

[78] In 1666, after the resolution of several other fronts, the Ottomans dispatched sizeable reinforcements towards Crete, under the personal command of Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha.

[79] Over the final two years of the siege, the Venetians, bolstered by Ottoman infighting and expecting reinforcements from France, refused several offers of peace treaties.

This time, the Holy League's army was twice as large, containing over 74,000 men, including German, Croat, Dutch, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Czech, Italian, French, Burgundian, Danish and Swedish soldiers, along with other Europeans as volunteers, artillerymen, and officers, the Christian forces reconquered Buda.

Austria and the other great powers (Britain, Prussia, Russia) saved the Ottoman dynasty from early collapse against the rebellious Egypt in the Oriental Crisis of 1840.

The Ottomans had hoped the Germans would industrialize their nation to defend itself against the Russians, who had taken the "anti-Turk crusade" to a more committed level, driving the Turks out of the Crimea and Caucasus.