Eli5 Why didn’t the Ottoman Empire expand more into Africa?
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Expanding south into the Sahara was more trouble than it was worth. The Ottomans didn’t even conquer the interior of Arabia either. Along the coasts, the Ottomans did attempt to expand even further, but the further from Constantinople they got, the more difficult it became to exert control.
In the west, the Ottoman Empire fought against Morocco in the 1550s in the hopes of turning it into a vassal state. They fought a few inconclusive battles, but the Ottomans were ultimately unsuccessful, largely because they were also preoccupied fighting Spain for control of Oran. Ottoman hopes to conquer Morocco effectively ended after the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, as the Ottomans had lost their ability to project power to the west. Even their existing North African territories would gain more autonomy beginning in the 1600s.
To the south, the Ottomans tried to expand down the African Red Sea coast. They quickly came into conflict with the Ethiopian Empire though, and this effectively blocked Ottoman expansion toward the Indian Ocean. First, they vassalized the neighboring Adal Sultanate and invaded Ethiopia together in 1529. Ethiopia managed to hold out and, with support from Portugal, drive out the Ottoman-Adal forces in 1543. Then, the Ottomans invaded again starting in 1557, but after decades of conflict, they only managed to hold on to the port of Massawa in modern-day Eritrea. Meanwhile, Ethiopia managed to remain independent. Even within nominally Ottoman-held territory, they had little direct control beyond Egypt and a few southern Red Sea port cities. The rest of the Red Sea coast was held indirectly through local tributaries.
Without conquering Morocco or Ethiopia, the Ottomans couldn’t expand further down the coast, and their existing control over the African coasts would only weaken over time. Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and eventually Egypt would all become semi-independent by the early 1800s.
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