Ahmed III


Ahmed III,

1673–1736, Ottoman sultan (1703–30), brother and successor of Mustafa II to the throne of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). He gave asylum to Charles XIICharles XII,
1682–1718, king of Sweden (1697–1718), son and successor of Charles XI. The regency under which he succeeded was abolished in 1697 at the request of the Riksdag. At the coronation he omitted the usual oath and crowned himself.
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 of Sweden and to MazepaMazepa, Ivan
, c.1640–1709, Cossack hetman [leader] in the Russian Ukraine. He was made hetman (1687) on the insistence of Prince Gallitzin, adviser to the Russian regent, Sophia Alekseyevna, and he aided Gallitzin in his campaign against the Tatars (1689).
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 after Peter the Great of Russia had defeated (1709) them at Poltava. Charles's advice helped to bring about war between Turkey and Russia (1710–11). By the Treaty of the Pruth (1711), Turkey recovered Azov and the surrounding territory from Russia. Ahmed seized (1715) the Peloponnesus and the Ionian Isles (except Corfu) from Venice, but he was defeated by the Austrians under Prince Eugene of SavoyEugene of Savoy,
1663–1736, prince of the house of Savoy, general in the service of the Holy Roman Empire. Born in Paris, he was the son of Eugène, comte de Soissons of the line of Savoy-Carignano, and Olympe Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin.
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 in 1716–18. By the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718), Banat, Lesser Walachia, and N Serbia, including Belgrade, were lost to the Hapsburg emperor. Ahmed's grand vizier (chief executive officer) after 1718 was Ibrahim, who encouraged learning by establishing several notable libraries and favored the rise of Greek Phanariots (see under PhanarPhanar
or Fanar
, Greek quarter of Constantinople (now İstanbul). Under the Ottoman Empire, Phanar was the residence of the privileged Greek families, called Phanariots. They came into prominence in the late 17th cent.
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) to high offices. The sultan and his minister were overthrown by the JanissariesJanissaries
[Turk.,=recruits], elite corps in the service of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). It was composed of war captives and Christian youths pressed into service; all the recruits were converted to Islam and trained under the strictest discipline.
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, who were jealous of the new aristocracy. Ahmed's nephew Mahmud I became sultan, and Ahmed died in prison.