Page 187 - Il Mediterraneo quale elemento del Potere Marittimo - Atti 16-18 settembre 1996

VENICE ANO HER ENEMIES, 1453-1573

A CASE STUDY IN STRATEGIC FLEXIBILITY

}OHN F. GUILMARTIN

Few nations have confronted strategie challenges of a gravity to match those
faced by the Venetian Republic during the period between the fall of Constanti no-
pie in 1453 and the Republic's abandonment of the Holy Alliance and conclusion
of a separate peace with the Ottoman state in 15 7 3.
When, in 1452. Sultan Mehmet II began marshaling bis forces for bis assault
on Constantinople, contemporaries might legitimately bave regarded Venice as a
power of the first rank, though the terminology is anachronistic. The ranking would
ha ve applied economically, for the Mediterranean was the epicenter of western Eu-
rasia's economie center of gravity and Venice was the dominant commerciai power
of the Mediterranean with trade links that extended east along the traditional spice
routes through Alexandria, Aleppo and Damascus, west to Florence, Genoa and
Milan, and north through the Alpine passes to the commerciai centers of Germa-
ny. lt would have applied geo-politically as well, for Venice exercised physical con-
tro! over most of the strategically choice real estate of the eastern Mediterranean
- real estate which assumed strategie importance in no small measure because of
its congruence with the trade routes alluded to above- including Negroponte, Crete,
a chain of fortified Adriatic island bases and mainland ports extending south to
Corfu, and key island bases in the Aegean. Conversely, Venice's position on the
ltalian mainland was, in a relative sense, marginai, for mid-fifteenth century Veni-
ce was, first and foremost, a commerciai republic that lived off the proceeds of
maritime trade. The core of that trade was between Muslim east and Christian W est,
a reality which demanded high standards of diplomatic dexterity.
In March- 0f. l> 13, dramatic Christian victory at Lepanto two years- earlier
notwithstanding, Venice broke ranks with her western allies and concluded a sepa-
rate peace with the Turk following the loss of Cyprus in 15 71 an d an expensive
and indecisive campaign in 1572. At that point, the Serene Republic was at best
a power of the second rank- the terminology is marginally less anachronistic -
in view of the emergence in the interim of recognizably modern nation states in
France. England and Spain. But simple survival represented a strategie feat of the
first magnitude, for in the preceding century and a quarter Venice had taken on,
individually and in combination, her ltalian rivals, the Ottoman Turks, and, final-
ly, France and the Habsburgs. The Venice of 1573 was bereft of Cyprus, a source