Page 158 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

158 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

and had fought marvelously, as had his Hospitaller brethren. Less well publicized is the par-
ticipation in this fight and elsewhere during the siege of the citizens of Rhodes. The towns-
people had supported those defending their town not only in the carrying and hauling of
supplies, but by rebuilding the fortifications and even fighting beside the Hospitallers. The
victory was as much theirs as it was the more professional soldiers.
Belgrade and Rhodes had held out against Mehmed the Conqueror, but they could not
hold out against Suleyman I. In the first year of his reign, 1521, he conquered Belgrade
and in the second, 1522, Rhodes. Suleyman I, added so much territory to his Empire that
he earned the cognomen “the Magnificent” from his enemies (his own subjects called him
“the Lawgiver”): besides Belgrade and Rhodes, much of Hungary (at the battle of Mohács)
and Dubrovnik in 1526; Obrovac and Udbina in 1527; Jajce and Banja Luca in 1528; Güns
(Koszeg) in 1532; Baghdad and Iraq in 1534; Klis in 1537; the Red Sea coast, Yemen, Kar-
pathos, the northern Sporades, Castelnuovo and Jedisan (in Moldavia) also in 1538; Monem-
vasia and Naupalia in 1540; Pécs, Székesfehérvár and Gran (Esztergom) in 1543; Visegrád
in 1544; Samos in 1550; Temesvár in 1552; Chios in 1556; Naxos in 1566. But Suleyman’s
armies were not invincible. They could not capture Vienna in 1529, Corfu in 1537, Reggio in
1543, Erlau (Eger) in 1552, Malta in 1565, or Szigeth (Szigetvar) in 1566 (at which Suley-
man died). 27
He also did not capture the Venetian colonies in the Eastern Mediterranean, notably Cy-
prus and Crete. But this was for other than military reasons. The Venetians promised every-
thing they could to keep the Ottomans from attacking Cyprus and Crete, including granting
monopoly trading rights and ignoring the piracy of Christian ships – even papal ones – and
the enslaving of Christian people. Suleyman honored this deal during his reign, but this
merely put off the inevitable. When Venice could not sustain this rather one-sided deal, Cy-
prus was taken (1570-71) and later so too was Crete (1645-69). 28
By the last quarter of the sixteenth century Venetian military power had begun to decline,
and although it was their leadership and ships that had played a lead, perhaps the lead, role in
the defeat of the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, this was far from a decisive
victory. There was little disruption for Ottoman army movements, and the Ottoman navy –
which had been devastated at Lepanto – was quickly rebuilt and soon resumed its almost
uninhibited control of Eastern Mediterranean sea lanes. 29

27 Metin Kunt and Christine Woodhead, ed., Süleyman the Magnificent and His Age: The Ottoman Empire in
the Early Modern World (London, 1995) nicely covers the military endeavors of Suleyman. See also John
Francis Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in
the Sixteenth Century, 2 ed. (London, 2003).
nd
28 Stefano Carboni, ed., Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797, trans. Deke Dusinbere (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2007) is not only a beautiful catalogue of the Institut du Monde d’Arab/Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art exhibition of the same name, but it also contains numerous scholarly articles. On this subject
in particular, see Jean-Claude Hocquet, “Venice and the Turks,” pp. 36-51. Setton is always valuable. See
especially his last two volumes for a discussion of Venice’s dealings with the Ottomans in a vain attempt to
preserve Cyprus and Crete.
29 There are a large number of books written on the Battle of Lepanto, many of them appearing recently, for
example, Hugh Bicheno, Crescent and Cross: The Battle of Lepanto, 1571 (London: Cassell, 2003) and Nic-
colò Capponi, Victory of the West: The Great Christian-Muslim Clash at the Battle of Lepanto (New York:
Da Capo Press, 2006). Unfortunately both of these, and several others, overstate the importance of the battle