File:OTTOMAN WARS IN EUROPE (Türkenkriege), Austria. Vienna. Besieged by the Ottomans under Sulayman I Qanuni ('the Lawgiver'), 1529. AR.jpg

English: OTTOMAN WARS IN EUROPE (Türkenkriege), Austria. Vienna. Besieged by the Ottomans under Sulayman I Qanuni ('the Lawgiver'), 1529. AR 6 Kreuzer Klippe (20x22mm, 3.39 g, 6h). Dated 1529. TVRCK/BLEGERT/WIEN/15Z9 in four lines; floral ornaments at each cardinal poit / Cross pattée; in each quarter, coats-of-arms of Niederösterreich, Castile, Hungary, and Bohemia. Markl 298; Mailliet 9; Cejnek, p. 14. VF, toned.

CNG is pleased to present the Jonathan K. Kern Collection of Siege Coinage. Comprising 119 coins, one remarkable and extremely rare medal, and an original Dutch edition of Gerard Van Loon’s 1723 Beschryving der Nederlandsche historipenningen, this collection was lovingly assembled by Jon with an eye to acquiring examples of these emergency issues, struck during a tumultuous period in Europe’s history. No stranger to the field, his broad numismatic knowledge has helped others in building their collections. At the same time, he has collected for himself coins that have a strong academic and historical appeal.

The Ottoman wars in Europe were a series of military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and various European states from the thirteenth century to World War I. The earliest of these wars were the Byzantine–Ottoman wars of the 13th century, followed by the Bulgarian–Ottoman wars, and the Serbian–Ottoman wars of the 14th century. This period saw extensive Ottoman expansion into the Balkans. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottomans push further into Central Europe, culminating in the Siege of Vienna in 1529.

The Ottoman–Venetian Wars lasted from 1423 to 1718. During this time, many formerly Venetian trading centers fell, including Negroponte in 1470, and Famagusta (Cyprus) in 1571. The defeat of the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the fall of Candia (Crete) in 1669, the Venetian reconquest of Morea (Peloponnese) in the 1680s, checked the Ottoman advance for a short while, but Morea’s loss again in 1715 left Corfu the only Greek island not conquered by the Ottomans.

In the late seventeenth century, European powers began to consolidate against the Ottomans and formed the Holy League, reversing a number of Ottoman gains during the Great Turkish War of 1683–99. Nevertheless, Ottoman armies were able to hold off European armies until the second half of the eighteenth century. The Serbian (1804–1817) and Greek (1821–1832) insurrections demonstrated the weakening of Ottoman power in the Balkans. The final retreat of Ottoman rule came with the First Balkan War (1912–1913), followed by the World War I, which brought about the collapse of the empire as a whole.

The siege of Vienna in 1529 was the first of two sieges by the Ottoman Turks against the city (the later coming in 1683). After a successful military campaign in Hungary, the Ottoman Sultan Sulayman I advanced on Vienna with an enormous force in the fall of 1529. However, due to poor weather and a strong defense of the city, he was soon forced to abandon the siege. This event was a high-water mark for the Turkish expansion. For more than a century afterwards, the Ottoman Empire would not have the power to threaten central Europe.