Why no Austro-Ottoman detente in the 19th century?

The Ottomans and the Austrians are no historical friends as we all know, but wouldn't the early 19th century have been a prime moment for some kind of detente in the face of nationalism? The Austrians were well aware of the ethnic tensions they were facing in Hungary, as were the Ottomans in Serbia. After 1848, you'd think that the Austrians would have gotten over the idea of seeing the Balkans as land to conquer and instead as a land to keep subjugated, no?

Any speculation on why nothing like this came about? Was the 'eternal enemy' factor too strong for Austria to cast aside?
 
The Balkan were the only direction of expsnsion. They were expelled from Italy, lost out on Germany, and Russia was terrifying.
 
The Austrians pretty much had stopped being interested in conquering parts of the Balkans from the Ottomans. The last war between the two was The Austro-Turkish war of 1787.

After this, where the Austrians were involved with a military conflict involving the Ottomans they were generally allied to the Ottomans. They support the Ottomans against Egypt and, while technically neutral, were more on the side of the Ottomans than Russia in the Crimean War.

They took Bosnia in the Congress of Berlin, only because the Ottoman Empire was obviously falling apart and the alternative was risking it falling into the hands of Serbia or becoming a Russian Protectorate.

And eventually they found themselves allied in World War I.
 
There was a detente - of sorts. Austria was generally hostile to Balkan liberation/irredentist movements and never attacked the Ottomans after 1791.

Austria grabbed Bosnia and Herzegovina chiefly because it believed that the Ottoman Empire was bound to fall apart anyway, so Austria might as well expand.

The Ottomans also usually acted along these lines, although they did recognize independent Hungary and harbor Hungarian refugees.
 
I guess what I'm getting at is why the two didn't make a greater commitment to each other on the Balkans; a more reasonable Austro-Ottoman entente would have seen some form of pact to suppress Balkan nationalists, maybe even to the point of a formal alliance; Russian interests in the Balkans and in the Ruthenian/Polish regions of Austria should have made it clear that Russia and Austria would eventually collide. Not to mention that the most peripheral regions of the Ottoman Balkans being independent(Serbia and the Romanian Principalities) were a direct threat to Austrian possessions due to their nationalist claims.
 
Ahhh, the Crimean War. I read somewhere there may have been a bit of disbelieve by the Turks that the French and British got territorial gains in that war (or recognition of the facts in the ground) despite being their allies, while the Austrians didn't try invading or seizing anything despite being centuries old enemies. What with the Ottomans having constantly invading into Europe until they settled down a few hundred years ago,
 
The Ottomans and the Austrians are no historical friends as we all know, but wouldn't the early 19th century have been a prime moment for some kind of detente in the face of nationalism? The Austrians were well aware of the ethnic tensions they were facing in Hungary, as were the Ottomans in Serbia. After 1848, you'd think that the Austrians would have gotten over the idea of seeing the Balkans as land to conquer and instead as a land to keep subjugated, no?

Any speculation on why nothing like this came about? Was the 'eternal enemy' factor too strong for Austria to cast aside?

In addition to what was already written on this topic, I also believe that there *was* a détente, particularly after 1850ish:

- refusal to support the Russians in the Crimean war,
- a shared interest in suppressing Balkan/pan-Slavic nationalism,
- administration of Bosnia initially in the name of the Ottomans and with the intention of eventually ceding it back (until the Balkan wars made that moot, hence the 1908 annexation),
- increasing German domination in Austro-Hungarian affairs aligned them with the Ottomans.
 
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