~ The Great Turkish War ~
Part II:
- The One-Eyed Sultan -
Mehmet III
"I who am the Sultan of Sultans,
the sovereign of sovereigns,
the dispenser of crowns to the monarchs on the face of the earth,
the shadow of God over the Earth,
the Sultan and sovereign lord of the Mediterranean Sea and of the Black Sea, of Rumelia and of Anatolia, of Karamania, of the land of Romans, of Dhulkadria, of Diyarbakir, of Kurdistan, of Azerbaijan, of Persia, of Damascus, of Aleppo, of Cairo, of Mecca, of Medina, of Jerusalem, of all Arabia, of Yemen and of many other lands which my noble forefathers and my glorious ancestors (may God light up their tombs!) conquered by the force of their arms and which my August Majesty has made subject to my radiant sword and my victorious blade,
I, Sultan Mehmet Khan,
son of Sultan Musa Khan,
son of Sultan Selim Khan:
To thee who art Philippus, son of Carolus, king of the province of Austria...”
The words with which Mehmet III addressed Philipp II in 1560 made clear the sultan’s regard for the office inherited by the newly crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The letter came at a moment of serious tension: Ottoman soldiers were present in the kingdom of Hungary, having invaded from Belgrade in 1558 and had already seized and were garrisoning a number of towns. Around the time of the battle of Darmstadt in 1554, the very name of Charles V had begun to carry an aura of dread in the courts of his rivals, and the High Porte was uncharacteristically (if understandably) trepidatious in its decision to finally re-invade Hungary. This uneasiness subsided when word arrived that the Iron Kaiser had breathed his last in 1560, emboldening Mehmet III to express his intentions more openly and more brashly.
The difficulty in maintaining supply lines across the Pannonian Basin (and the closeness of the region to Vienna) had been sufficiently emphasized during the past invasions, and consequently Mehmet III was uninterested in a full annexation of Hungary. What the sultan instead desired was a solution to the Habsburg problem that was long-term enough to allow the High Porte to divert much-needed resources to more pressing theatres - namely North Africa and the Mediterranean - where the Ottoman state could gather up the loyalties of the nearby Sunni princes and thereby bring the full weight of Islam to bear on the heavily divided Christians. With Belgrade in Turkish hands, the Danubian frontier was well-protected geographically - all that remained was to break the Hungarian and German spirit and force House of Habsburg to kneel before the Sultan of Sultans. Nothing less than an overwhelming strike at the heart of Hungary would suffice.
Mehmet III offered Philipp II something the latter desperately needed: a lasting peace between them and their subjects. Mehmet III promised a withdrawal across the Danube aso long as Philipp II could submit to his humble terms: an annual tribute of 400,000 ducats, along with 100 boys and 100 girls of good health, and the permanent withdrawal of Imperial and Hungarian garrisons from Bácspalánka, Újvidék, Eszék, Arad, Déva, Vajdahunyad, and Vukovár. If Philipp II found the yearly surrender of 200 Christian youths to Konstantiniyye to be intolerable, the Sultan was willing to alternatively accept 600,000 ducats a year. Needless to say, Philipp II was insulted by such outrageous terms, and ordered his scribe to inform Mehmet III that the Sultan would sooner be cut down on the Hungarian plain than be allowed to pry a single coin from the Imperial coffers. This was all very well for Mehmet III, who anticipated Philipp II’s rejection. The Shadow of Allah upon the earth began to move, and the earth shook with the approach of more than one hundred thousand of his soldiers, thundering onward under the red banners of Osman Gazi.
- Selbstmord durch Schulden -
Philipp II von Habsburg & Philippine Welser
The Kaiser, meanwhile, was scrambling to rake together the funds to raise his own troops and buy over the cooperation of hundreds of quarreling princes. The news of the intensification of the Ottoman invasion of Hungary had first found its way to George Zápolya (the pretender John Zápolya’s brother, who had been given a prestigious position on the newly formed command council of the Hungarian Royal Army by Charles V): the Hungarian scouting parties in the desolate no-man’s land of Temesköz reported in December of 1559 that a massive reinforcement - larger than they had ever seen before - was assembling outside the walls of Belgrade and Pancsova. Zápolya requested a meeting with Johann Karl, Philipp II’s younger brother and his
Reichsvikar in the lands of the Bohemian Crown and representative in the Hungarian Diet. After convening with Zápolya, Johann Karl immediately sent a messenger to Philipp II, who found the Kaiser at Reims, where he was in the midst of overwhelming exasperation over the quickly unraveling peace talks with the French.
Had the House of Hapsburg been less ambitious, or - more importantly - not so intensely assailed on all sides during the 16th century, they easily could have been the wealthiest potentates in the Western world. The Hapsburgs could for the most part hoist all of their elaborate machinations with the exceptional tax revenue extracted from their affluent vassals in the Low Countries, as well as on the many silver and copper mines of Tyrol, Bohemia, and the Carpathian Mountains. In fact, before the treasure fleets began rolling in from Spanish America, the lands held by the Hapsburgs made them the most silver-rich family in Europe. However, 12 years of war with the League of Fulda and 20 years of war with France, numerous invasions and raids from the Ottoman Turks, countless popular rebellions, and, of course, the massive payoffs that were needed to keep the Imperial crown in Hapsburg hands had all placed a tremendous weight on the Imperial treasury during the reign of Charles V, who, by the time of his death, had left a floating debt of 9 million ducats, with a repayment obligation of 20 million ducats. During Charles V’s later years this debt had led to an increasing reliance on the Fugger and Welser banking families, who were rewarded with a plethora of aristocratic titles in exchange for their loans. The Welsers in particular attained the capstone of their influence over the Emperor with the betrothal of Franz Welser’s daughter, Philippine, to Charles V’s eldest son, Philipp - although their marriage was partly due to the insistence of Philipp, who from a young age was taken with Philippine, a woman renowned for her intelligence and beauty.
Anton Fugger burning banknotes to get a point across to Charles V
The institution of the Gemeiner Pfennig (Common Penny) at the Diet of Mühlhausen mollified the Hapsburgs’ creditors and ensured that the Imperial treasury would sidestep certain financial disaster, but Philipp II was still limited in its use. The Gemeiner Pfennig was a bitter pill for both the Imperial princes and the Imperial cities, and - even after the emperor’s decisive victory and display of might at Darmstadt in 1554 - would never have tolerated its passage unless serious concessions were made. The concession that was made would place the disbursement of the Gemeiner Pfennig under the absolute supervision of the Reichkreisrat - a council of individuals elected to represent each of the Imperial circles. Of the 9 Imperial circles, the Hapsburgs could only rely on 4 at most to consistently fall in line with their objectives. To make matters worse, the League of Fulda’s “Unbesiegte Fürsten” (“undefeated princes”) - Wilhelm III of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and Ernst I of Brunswick-Lüneburg - were invariably chosen to represent their respective Imperial circles, and used this authority to subvert Hapsburg dominance in whatever way they could (without openly challenging the emperor, of course).
In order to maintain the Protestant-Catholic concord that was reached at the Diet of Mühlhausen, Philipp would have to ensure that the leading Protestant princes of the Empire made good on their gestures of support in the inevitable conflict against the Turk. Securing the military assistance of these Protestant princes was vitally important for both the defense of Hungary and for the continuation of inter-confessional peace in Germany. This importance was not lost on Philipp in the months following the news from Johann Karl. As he was hesitant to swell the loathsome debt hovering over his court and was constrained by his overbearing creditors in regards to when and where he could spend his money, Philipp knew that he would never come close to numerically matching Mehmet III’s armies unless he could see to it that the powerholders of the Holy Roman Empire all pulled together.
Philipp, the Landgrave of Hesse, as one of the most prominent defenders of Protestantism in the Empire and the former guardian of Johann Albrecht Meyer, was the most symbolically important prince to persuade. Deciding to make use of the weight of imperial presence, Philipp personally rode to the landgrave’s hunting lodge in the Habichtswald to guarantee his support. Philipp of Hesse gradually came around, and pledged to send his son, Wilhelm, to Vienna in the Spring. Philipp needed to make more tangible overtures to secure his old Protestant allies, particularly the esteemed commander Maurice of Saxony, to whom Philipp had to relinquish the Silesian enclave of Schwiebus and a protectorate over the Imperial cities of Goslar and Nordhausen.
The Catholic princes were much easier to rally: Philipp II’s brother-in-law Albrecht V, duke of Bavaria, Wolfgang, Elector of the Palatinate, Julius, the son of Heinrich V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and Philibert, Margrave of Baden-Baden, and Adriano I, Duke of Savoy all arrived in Vienna with their retinues and soldiery by June, without Philipp ever needing to request their help. By August, the scions of the House of Hapsburg had assembled in Vienna - Philipp II was joined by his brothers Johann Karl and Maximilian (Philipp’s
Reichsvikar in Flanders), and also by his cousins, Ferdinand’s sons Karl (
Landkomtur of the bailiwick of Austria) and Cardinal Heinrich (bishop of Brixen and Konstanz). After nearly 7 months of maddening labor, Philipp had managed to assemble more than 75,000 troops in Vienna, to which was added another 15,000 after his large army had lumbered down the Danube to Pressburg in October. He was running out of time however - as soon as he had arrived in Pressburg, Mehmet III was approaching the royal city of Buda.
The ease with which the Ottomans entered the Pannonian Basin during their 1526-1529 and 1535-1541 invasions had terrified the Hungarian populace and convinced Charles V to improve the fortifications of the vulnerable Alföld, re-fortifying Kecskemét, Pécs, Kiskunfélegyháza, Szekszárd, Szabadka, Szeged, Kiskunhalas, Zombor, Csongrád, Szolnok, Eszék, Szentes, Arad, and Baja. Charles V was prudent to order the construction of additional fortifications, but even these improvements underestimated the expertise of the Ottomans in siege warfare, which they handled with an unmatched ingenuity and ferocity. Beginning in late March of 1560, the Turks blasted through Eszék, Arad, Zombor, and Szabadka in a matter of weeks, and moved to encircle the war council in Szeged. István Dobó, head of the council, had to hold the city with only 8,000 Hungarians men-at-arms (the kingdom’s only year-round standing army) against 134,000 Turks, Slavs, and Tatars under Mehmet III.
The sheer size of the Ottoman army and Mehmet’s decision to assault Szeged rather than to immediately follow the Danube up to Buda led Philipp II and the Hungarian war council to believe that Mehmet intended to methodically and permanently subdue every inch of the Pannonian Basin, just as his father had done in Egypt and the Levant. In reality, the sack of Buda was Mehmet’s only goal in this campaign, and the siege of Szeged was meant merely to remove a threat to his army’s supply lines. While busy in Germany, Philipp kept a line of communication to Szeged, where he directed whatever arms, armor, soldiers, and funds he could spare, keeping in frequent contact with István Dobó in order to remind him of the absolute seriousness of Szeged’s defense and to urge him not to lose heart. Whatever Dobó took from Philipp’s letters, he served his king honorably, refusing Mehmet’s generous terms for his surrender and miraculously holding out against the sultan for nearly two months. When the Ottomans finally captured Dobó after breaching the city’s defenses, Mehmet requested that he be brought to his tent, where the sultan personally decapitated the Hungarian general.
After making short work of the defenses of Baja and Szekszárd, Mehmet encamped along the Danube near Paks to prepare for the winter and to amass further reinforcement in order to counter the impending arrival of Philipp II’s sizeable army. When Philipp II and his princely cohorts finally neared Buda in late February of 1561, Mehmet III had already been settled in before its walls for two weeks. While stationed in Vác, Philipp’s outriders reported that the sultan commanded a force of nearly 134,000. The desperation of besieged Buda and the solemn spirit of crusade within Philipp’s camp forbade any further tarrying.
Neither Philipp nor Mehmet truly desired a set piece battle, but the unusual circumstances now forced both armies into an engagement of apocalyptic proportion. As a flat-out withdrawal from Buda would render either entire campaign an expensive waste of time, both emperors decided that the infidel was to be confronted directly, and Philipp moved his army south while Mehmet ordered his army on the west bank of the Danube into a defensive arrangement. The Imperial army did not, however, approach from the west bank of the Danube and proceed under the protection of the fortifications of Buda, but instead moved down the east bank with unexpected speed, keeping a distance from Pest as well. Under the impression that Philipp was trying to take the sultan’s camp by surprise, Rüstem Pasha, the grand vizier, convinced Mehmet III to withdraw whatever forces he could across the Danube to draw up a line against the cascading Germans. What Philipp and the Imperial leadership had actually elected to do was simply take the field without fully probing the layout of the Ottoman army, not to force a pitched battle right away.
The Battle of Lerchenfeld/Rákos
Clashing on the old marshaling field of Rákos, the Imperial army gained the momentum when a large regiment of light
deli cavalry attempted to circle around the field and descend on Philipp’s rearguard, but were intercepted and dispersed by heavy Hungarian lancers, who then drove straight into a now unprotected line of
yaya peasant infantry. The odds reversed when a cavalry charge led by Albrecht V of Bavaria and Albrecht II of Brandenburg-Kulmbach veered too close to the banks of the Danube, bringing it within range of a line of Ottoman artillery on the west side. Their attention drawn to the bicephalous eagle of the Imperial banners, the Ottoman cannons turned away from the walls of Buda and opened fire, sending the Imperial cavalry into a frenzy. A company of timariots noticed the disruption and moved to flank their opponents, which in turn rallied the fleeing Ottoman infantry to re-enter the fray. The morale of the Imperial cavalry wavered, and ultimately fell to pieces when Albrecht V was unhorsed by a Turkish lance. The opening provided by the retreat of the Bavarian and Franconian cavalry was misleading, however: the Ottomans spilling through stretched their army further alongside the Danube, while also blocking the assistance of their own artillery and bringing themselves within range of the late-arriving Imperial cannons. With the Ottomans’ west flank suddenly setting itself up thinly the Danube and with most of the Ottoman artillery still in position around the southern and western walls of Buda, Maurice of Saxony advised Philipp to focus as much of his resources on Mehmet III’s east flank in order to keep a proper distance from the feared Turkish cannons and also to more fully force the sultan’s back against the river.
Karl, Philipp II’s cousin, and Emanuele, the Avís-Trastámara Duke of Calabria, volunteered to lead the first westward charge, and Philipp II and Maurice of Saxony followed them closely. Disarray now eagerly consumed both armies, but Philipp had managed a slight advantage, which now sent hundreds of Ottoman soldiers fleeing into the river. Mehmet III discreetly ferried himself and his baggage across the Danube to the southwest, and then ordered a general retreat over the river. While there were a small number of boats capable of ferrying the withdrawing troops, the Ottomans only had one narrow pontoon bridge available, which was destroyed on Mehmet III’s order when his forces on the east bank became completely encircled. After overwhelming the Turkish garrison in the city of Pest, the Imperial and Ottoman armies exchanged potshots across the Danube as the battle entered a standoff. To the surprise of Philipp II and the exhausted defenders of Buda, the Ottomans began to clear out their trenches and pack up their tents, moving southward. The Imperial army cautiously began to assemble its own pontoon bridge and cross the river in order to reinforce the city. They awaited the Ottoman army to reposition itself and return to battle, but Mehmet’s withdrawal continued and the Turks did not return. The Ottomans made one detour to Kecskemét - which they sacked mercilessly - and then carried on towards Belgrade.
The Christian army could hardly believe its triumph over the warriors of Islam, but the reality of their success was much bleaker than it first appeared. Buda and most of Hungary may have been saved, but the relief of the city came only with serious sacrifice. The Turks may have significantly outnumbered the army of Philipp II, but most of Mehmet’s troops were either at the walls of Buda itself or elsewhere foraging supplies and garrisoning other Hungarian towns, and therefore were not present for the deciding battle on the banks of the Danube. While the Ottoman army suffered heavy losses, many of the casualties came from their Slavic auxiliaries - most of whom, ironically, were Christian. Notably, of the 8,000 janissaries deployed, only 1,500 were slain, wounded, or taken prisoner despite bearing the brunt of the Imperial assault while guarding Mehmet’s retreat. In a combination of desperation and crusading fervor, the Imperial army had paid little attention to its own losses as it pushed the Turks back, and consequently lost a comparable (and possibly larger) share of its troops. Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria, and Julius, the son of Heinrich V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, had both been cut down on the field, which was worrying for Philipp II: Albrecht had been one of the Hapsburg’s most vigorous Catholic allies and now left his duchy to his 13 year old son, and Heinrich V - virtually the last prominent Catholic prince in Northern Germany - was now deprived of his only heir. What was more, the Ottomans had made off with their trump card: Philipp’s brother Maximilian, who had been captured after leading a cavalry charge too deep into a company of retreating janissaries.
Less than one month after the defense of Buda, an imperial envoy rode into Mehmet’s camp outside of Zombor at full tilt. The sultan was said to have greeted the man with an enigmatic smile, fully aware of why he had arrived and satisfied that he had achieved his goal in Hungary. As the word spread that the great One-Eyed Sultan had been heroically repulsed by the Holy Roman Emperor, princes and bishops near and far ordered the singing of Te Deum’s while crowds jubilantly celebrated in the streets of Vienna, Rome, and Naples. All were equally dumbstruck when word arrived that Philipp II would now be paying the Sultan an annual tribute of 100,000 ducats in exchange for a ten-year peace treaty and the return of his brother. With the House of Hapsburg humbled by Mehmet III, the inhabitants of Southern Italy crossed themselves in fear as the High Porte turned its gaze to the west.
- O Espadarte Preto -
The treaty of 1535 may have been observed in Europe, but, in the lawless waters of the Indian Ocean, the violent struggle between the Spanish and Ottoman empires carried on without interruption. After gaining access to the Red Sea - and therefore to the Indian Ocean - with the downfall of the Mamluk Sultanate, the Ottomans began probing the region at once, reaching out to the local Islamic states as soon as it could. The Ottomans were too late to offer any aid to the Sultanate of Adal in its perennial struggle against Ethiopia, nor to the city of Harar - which had been seized by the Ethiopians and forced to pay tribute - and the port of Zeila - which had been sacked by the Portuguese navy twice. Spain, meanwhile, had successfully gained the trust and partnership of the Ethiopian emperor, Dawit II, after providing him with assistance in developing the port of Massawa and pushing back a Somali invasion with 7 ships and 400 Portuguese musketeers under Cristóvão da Gama. However, Ottoman emissaries and small shipments of arms and artillery still made their way to the seafaring Somalis, and East Africa soon became another battleground between the Spaniards and Turks - whether directly or by proxy.
Of greater concern to the Spanish was the Ottoman takeover of Mamluk Egypt. The port of as-Suways - while marginal - could easily be developed into a major shipyard, against which the Portuguese were already stretched too thin to withstand. Although the Turks needed to ship massive quantities of building material overseas to Egypt and then overland across the Isthmus of Suez in order to deploy a fleet in the Red Sea, this distance was insignificant compared to that which the Portuguese needed to cover. The resources available to the Ottomans for shipbuilding were also vastly superior. The construction and manning of a warship in the 16th century was a highly expensive undertaking, but the Ottoman Empire was truly fortunate in its possession of the Balkans, which supplied a profusion of lumber, iron, pitch, and, of course, slaves - all of which was fed ravenously into the foundries and maritime facilities on the waterfront of Konstantiniyye, unleashing galley upon galley to terrorize the Mediterranean. In contrast, it was not uncommon for the construction of Spanish-made vessels to require shipments of pinewood from as far away as Scotland or Poland.
With fewer than 10,000 Spaniards to be found anywhere from Boa Esperança to Malaca, the Spanish presence in the Indian Ocean was also chronically undermanned and could only be expanded with severe logistical difficulty. These Spaniards ground their teeth at the thought that, had they simply elected to travel west instead of east, at this point they could easily have been living the good life on a Brazilian plantation, spending their days getting drunk on cachaça and enjoying the company of a dozen or so African and Indio concubines. Instead, as fate would have it, they had chosen to insert themselves into the crowded, complicated, conflictual world of the Orient, where they were bound to remain by duty to God and country, to continue fighting the good fight against impossible odds with almost nonexistent resources. A Portuguese campaign ravaged the Ottoman-held ports of Jeddah, Hala’ib, and el-Qoseir, but by the 1560s the Ottoman presence in the Red Sea had grown too large for the Portuguese to stamp out, and as-Suways became the sizeable naval base that they feared it would. Control of Aden became critically important, and needed as large a garrison as it could hold, supported by special shipments of fruit from Moçambique and Sofala, rice from Malabar, and wine from Portugal (sometimes from the budding vineyards of Boa Esperança). The Portuguese likewise invested in fortifying and garrisoning the port of Massawa in order to safeguard their connection with Ethiopia.
A bizarre stroke of fate confounded the Ottoman entry into the Indian Ocean early on, however. When the sharif of Mecca, Abu Numayy II, offered his fealty to Mehmet III, the Portuguese reached out to the sharif’s youngest son, Hasan, and promised him a massive reward if he smuggled the Abbasid Caliph and the relics of Muhammad to the port of Jeddah. In 1551, Hasan - keen on living a life of luxury beyond the reach of his father and older brother - narrowly made it out of Mecca with Caliph Al-Musta'in II just before a 15,000 man Turkish army entered the city and took full control of the sharifate. Mehmet may have gained the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, but the titular caliph and Muhammad’s relics were now en route to the port of Aden. A personal letter from Sultan Mehmet very quickly found its way to the commander of Portuguese Aden, António de Noronha, warning him that Aden would be put to siege and no quarter would be given to any Spaniard if Al-Musta'in II and his possessions were not immediately relinquished. João de Castro, viceroy of the Estado da Índia, made the momentous decision to hand over Al-Musta'in II and his sons to the delegate of none other than Tahmasp I - Shah of Persia. Against all odds, the sword and mantle of Muhammad and the living Sunni caliph were swiped yet again from Ottoman capture, and had instead found their way into the hands of the Shia Safavid dynasty.
Afonso de Albuquerque's dream of a seemingly paradoxical Hispano-Persian-Ethiopian alliance had finally begun to be realized, although military cooperation between the three regional powers was still very meager. Yet even on the far side of the globe were relations unfolding and lessons being learned that would have an effect on the conflict in the Mediterranean. For one, what the intermittent naval warfare in the Indian Ocean did teach the Spaniards was that - if properly used - they possessed a major advantage in their multi-decked sailing ships. The superiority of the galleon over the galley and galiot, and of overwhelming firepower over older strategies had become more and more obvious to the Portuguese in Asia after countless battles with the local seafarers. Nicknamed by wokou sailors as the “black swordfish,” the galleon was virtually unassailable in most encounters, and came to be feared and avoided. With the Turks sinking Spain’s Italian mercenary galleys faster than they could be replaced, the Spanish monarchy would need to call up its galleons to replace them.
Some final thoughts though:
