Despite the success of Fernando and Isabella in driving out the Muslims from the Iberian peninsula, Muslim Corsairs continued to raid the Mediterranean coasts of Spain, capturing and making slaves of White Europeans from as far as Irelands (though historians can only estimate the numbers taken, some have suggested a figure as high as the later trade in black slaves taken in the cross-Atlantic trades).
The major threat from the Muslims came mostly in the lands adjacent to the Ottoman Empire, and especially the Balkans and Hungary. In that side of the world the Ottoman and the Habsburg fought one another constantly; the prize to rule Rome. To get to Rome, the Turks had to get through Hungary and the Balkans. In 1512 the Turks had captured Bosnia. Though Pope Leo X had attempted to raise a multi-national crusade against them in 1514, they managed to take the capital city of Belgrade in 1521. The following year they raided and drove out the Hospitallers from the island of Rhodes. The Hospitallers reestablished their base to the island of Malta, a gift from the Emperor, Charles V. More disastrous was the infamous Battle of Mohács in 1526, when Hungary was taken. This opened the door to the heartland of the Habsburg Empire. And as everyone expected, three years later, Ottoman forces besieged Vienna; they were beaten off only because they started the sieze late in its season and were forced to retreat by the approving snow which threatened to lock them in. But they would try again, more seriously, in 1683.
In 1565, the Hospitallers faced the Ottomans again; this time at their new base on Malta. Five years previously the Ottaman had won a decisive victory over the joint Christian forces at Djerba, off the coast of Tunisia. Now they aimed the even more strategic island of Malta, from which they hope to leapfrog into the heart of the Europe. The Hospitallers, though small in numbers, managed to hold off the attack until they were relief forces arrived. This battle was particularly important, especially for the Europeans, for it shattered the Ottoman's reputation of invincibility. The Turks, however, would not be deterred in their appetite for the European cake. In 1571, under Sultan Ali Pasha, they attacked the island of Cyprus, and before the Christian forces of Venice (the island was then Venetian controlled), Spain, Genoa, Malta, Savoy and the Papacy, they had taken the cities of Nicosia and Famgusta. The two sides met in a naval battle at Lepanto, in eastern Greece. Though slightly outnumbered, the Christian forces prevailed. Lepanto represented a major setback for the Turks. Internal quarrels among the Christians, however, made it impossible for the Venetians to keep the island, and Venice ceded Cyprus to the Ottomans in 1573. It would be 90 years before the Turks accepted their lack of likelihood of taking Europe when they were again defeated in their siege of Vienna in 1683. But it was not these battles that had names that engendered the fear that permeated the background to the Reformation in Europe. It was the un-named but terrorizing raids, so constant and wearisome at the frontiers, that ground down morale.
For a useful overview of this crucial background to the Reformation, see Andrew Wheatcroft, The Enemy at the Gate. Habsburg, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe. London: Pimlico, 2009.
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