Contested Borderlands: war and territorial disputes between Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire (1594-1595)

Abstract

A few years after the Long Turkish War (1591-1606) began, Sigismund Báthory, ruler of Transylvania, decided to join the Habsburgs and the other members of the Holly League in their war against the Ottomans. Through this political decision Báthory interrupted several decades of good relations between his country and the Sublime Porte. Although Transylvania was a rather small state, with limited military and economic potential, Prince Sigismund had great ambitions. Joined by the rulers of Moldavia and Wallachia he attacked the Ottoman Empire on three fronts. In this article I will analyse the military operations on the frontier of Transylvania with the Ottoman province (vilayet) of Timișoara (Temesvár/Temeşvar) in the years 1594-1595. The various forms of regular and irregular warfare employed by the two opponents show the complexity of this confrontation. Major campaigns and sieges, which involved large numbers of combatants, were accompanied by frequent raids and skirmishes, typical for frontier warfare. These events also reveal the specific social and economic dynamic of frontiers in early modern Central and South-Eastern Europe.