The Ottoman reconquest of the Morea took place in June-September 1715, during the Seventh Ottoman-Venetian War. The Ottoman army, under Grand Vizier Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha, aided by the fleet under Kapudan Pasha Canım Hoca Mehmed Pasha conquered the Morea peninsula in southern Greece, which had been captured by the Republic of Venice in the 1680s, during the Sixth Ottoman-Venetian War. The Ottoman reconquest inaugurated the second period of Ottoman rule in the Morea, which ended with the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821.
Following the Ottoman Empire's defeat in the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683, the Holy League of Linz gathered most European states (except for France, England and the Netherlands) in a common front against the Ottomans. In the resulting Great Turkish War (1684-1699) the Ottoman Empire suffered a number of defeats such as the battles of Mohács and Zenta, and in the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699), was forced to cede the bulk of Hungary to the Habsburg Monarchy, Podolia to Poland-Lithuania, while Azov was taken by the Tsardom of Russia.[1] Further south, the Republic of Venice had launched its own attack on the Ottoman Empire, seeking revenge for successive conquests of its overseas empire by the Turks, most recently (1669) the loss of Crete. During the conflict, Venetian troops seized the island of Cephalonia (Santa Maura) and the Morea peninsula, although they failed to retake Crete and expand their possessions in the Aegean Sea.[2]
The Ottomans were from the outset determined to reverse their territorial losses, especially the Morea, whose loss had been particularly keenly felt in the Ottoman court: a large part of the income of the Valide Sultan (the Ottoman queen-mother) had come from there. Already in 1702, there were tensions between the two powers and rumours of war because of the Venetian confiscation of an Ottoman merchant vessel. Troops and supplies were moved to the Ottoman provinces adjoining the Venetian "Kingdom of the Morea". The Venetian position there was weak, with only a few thousand troops in the whole peninsula, plagued by supply, disciplinary and morale problems. Nevertheless, peace was maintained between the two powers for twelve more years.[3] In the meantime, the Ottomans began a reform of their navy, while Venice found itself increasingly isolated diplomatically from the other European powers: the Holy League had fractured after its victory, and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) and the Great Northern War (1700-1721) preoccupied the attention of most European states.[4] The Ottomans took advantage of the favourable international situation and secured their northern flank by defeating Russia in 1710-1711. After the end of the Russo-Turkish war, the emboldened Ottoman leadership, under the new Grand Vizier, Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha, turned its attention to reversing the losses of Karlowitz. Profiting from the general war weariness that made any intervention by the other European powers unlikely, the Porte turned its focus on Venice.