Description

A rare large broadside, printed on a thin paper, shows the battle of Osijek, Croatia, in 1687, which was fought between the Ottoman army under the command of the Grand Vizier Sari Suleyman Pasa and the army oft he Holy Roman Empire under the command of Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria and Duke Charles of Lorraine. The in-set met shows the position of the battle in the Balkans.

In the summer of 1687 the armies met north of Osijek, which was at the time under Ottoman occupation. The Holy Roman Empire army was repelled by a well organised position of the Ottomans, as shown on the broadside.

Afterwards, mistaking the opponents’ retreat for a sign of a loss of morale, the Ottoman army followed the Habsburg troops to the north, where the armies clashed again at the town of Mohács, now a part of Hungary. At the so called Second Battle of Mohács, the Ottoman army suffered a major defeat. Sari Suleyman Pasa escaped to Istanbul, where he was executed later. 

The sheet was publshed in a series Ottoman State Military History (دولت عثمانيى تارخي عسكريسى) in the last years under the reign of Abdul Hamid II by a Royal War Office under the patronage of General Ahmed Muhtar (طويجى اركان حربيه سندن فريق احمد مختار). The series was suppose to educate people on the military history through the images of great Ottoman battles in the early 20^th century, when the Ottoman Empire was undergoing a great crisis. In 1908 year Sultan Abdul Hamid was deposed in the Young Turk Revolution.

Traditionally the focus of Ottoman map making was not on historical cartography. As such the present battle plan of a key historical engagement in South Easter Europe is remarkable. 

We could not trace any other examples of the map in instititutions worldwide.