Introduction
The sixteenth century was marked by the rise of two hegemonic powers, the Ottoman and the Habsburg dynasties, which created many history pages because of their rivalry. The Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry was generated by several causes such as their hegemonic intentions of dominating new territories, their plans of settling their religion (Muslim versus Christian) in the conquered territories, their believed affiliation with the Roman Empire, or their millenary pride of ancient civilizations, which will be further elaborated within this essay.
Body
Being the two greatest powers of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg dynasty practically divided the world in two influence spheres, dominating countries, regions of the world and other great powers, separated not solely from a lifestyle point of view (imposed more or less by the Dominating Great Powers) but also from an ideological point of view, placing Islam, the specific religion of the Ottoman Empire in a direct conflict with the Habsburg’s interests of protecting and promoting the Catholicism (Gurkan, “The Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry”).
Another point of the rivalry between Ottoman and Habsburg dynasties was related to their political strategy of claiming themselves as the successors of the Roman Empire, as both dynasties had previous domination of Roman Empire, allowing them to consider the direct descendants of the Romans (Gurkan, “The Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry”). As such, Ottomans would not recognize Charles the V as a King, but the “Ban of Vienna”, in order not to directly associate him with the idea of successor of the Roman throne, since they consider themselves as the successors of Roman Empire.
The territorial rivalry separated the world between the Occidental and Western regions, wherein the Occidental regions were under the control of Ottoman Sultans and the Western regions were dominated or under the influence of the Habsburgs, having as frontier the Moldavia, Walachia (dominated by the Ottomans), Transylvania (under the Habsburg reign) and later Hungary (Faroqhi 78).
Agoston (78) reflects at the Habsburg and Ottoman’s polities from the sixteenth century and at their rivalry and considers that the Ottomans and Habsburgs used the propaganda to enhance their ideology, their religion, their millenarianism and for competing against each other.
The rivalry between the two dynasties was also sustained by information – gathering network, acting as espionage strategies that both powers used to find out more about what their rival was doing, so that in the Ottoman Empire the secrete espionage was a sovereign condition both in times of peace and in times of war, for assuring the integrity of its people and prosperity of the Empire (Agoston 79).
In another study, Agoston (110-111) indicates that the Ottomans have won more military conflicts with Habsburgs because the Habsburgs had multiple and diverse political and military commitments such as the rivalry with France or the Protestantism in the Holy Roman Empire and Netherlands among others, besides the actual Ottoman – Habsburg conflict, which caused the decentralization of the Habsburg resources for achieving multiple purposes. As such, while Habsburgs were busy with internal conflicts, the Turks killed King Louis II of Hungary in the Battle of Mohacs, and getting closer to the Habsburg Empire (Aksan & Goffman 100). Nevertheless, the Habsburgs allied, so that Ferdinand I, the Archduke of Austria married Anne, King Louis II’s sister and claimed the throne of Hungary, discouraging like this the Ottomans’ plans of placing John Szapolay on Hungary’s throne, which would had been serving the Turk’s political intentions and regaining the territories that Turks have gained after killing King Louis II of Hungary (Aksan & Goffman 100).
Although the Ottomans managed to gain back the territories that Ferdinand I captured from them, except Bratislava (Faroqhi 32), conferring the Turks advantage in their rivalry with the Habsburgs, towards the end of the seventeenth century the Habsburgs had the capabilities to match the Ottoman military troupes in terms of number and military hardware, having the support of other Holy League countries (Venice, Poland, Russia), interested in protecting the Christianity (Agoston 111).
The Christian religion represented a major cause of the rivalry and disputes between Ottomans and Habsburgs. As such, physically, the Ottomans reigned over the four holy cities: Mecca, Medina, Hebron and Jerusalem, the latter being included in the titles of Charles V, in his propagandistic plans of recapturing this city from the “infidels”, as the Habsburgs called the ones who did not recognize the Christian religion as their confession (Agoston 97). In their efforts of settling the Christian faith in the barbarian territories, the Habsburgs prepared several campaigns, out of which the most successful was the one conducted by Charles V in 1535 against Tunis, which marked a successful victory of the Catholic crusades against the infidels (Agoston 98).
However, the Habsburgs started their tactic strategy to conquer Muslim territories and to settle the Christian religion there three years earlier, when they invaded the Ottoman city of Coron in southern Greece, influencing the Sultan Suleyman to return from its campaign from Balkans, which brought him threatening close to the Austrian territories (Aksan & Goffman 108). Therefore, this move was intended to sabotage the Ottomans, shifting their plan of entering Habsburg territories, towards focusing on defending their own territories from Habsburg troops. After the Habsburgs conquered the Tunis, Carol V’s image was propagated throughout the Europe and entire world as similar with the images of Roman Caesars (Agoston 98), which contributed to developing the rivalry with the Ottomans, who also aspired at the title of the Roman Empire successors.
This may be a reason for which in the upcoming years the Habsburgs suffered various defeats from the Ottomans. As such, in 1541 when Habsburgs tried to conquer Algiers they were defeated; in 1551, the city of Tripoli was occupied by Ottomans; in 1558 the Ottomans defeated the Spanish troops from the Algerian coast and settled in the Minorca island; later on, the Turks again beaten the Habsburgs, this time in the central Mediterranean sea, in the island of Gerba (Aksan & Goffman 108).
However, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Habsburgs started to gain the lost territories, because their war technology advanced much faster than the Ottomans’, being closer to the Western military modernization, driven by the new world powers Britain and France, who were practicing a politics of global imperialism (Aksan & Goffman 117). In fact, the rise of global imperialism moved the focus from Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry to Britain-France rivalry.
Conclusion
Territorialism, religion, ideology, millenary pride were the most significant determinants of the rivalry between the Ottoman and Habsburg dynasties. Throughout centuries Ottomans and Habsburgs fought for supremacy, for conquering new territories while settling their religion, their ideology, their lifestyle and their politics. They fought against each other, yet learned from each other, challenging their war technology and military strategies, which lead them to development.
Works Cited
Agoston, Gabor. Information, Ideology, and Limits of Imperial Policy: Ottoman Grand Strategy in the Context of Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
Agoston, Gabor. Empires and warfare in East-Central Europe, 1550-1750: The Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry and Military Transformation. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 2010. Print.
Aksan, Virgina, H & Goffman, Daniel. The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire. New York, Cambridge University Press. 2007. Print.
Faroqhi, Suraiya, The Ottoman Empire and the World Around it. London, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd. 2004. Print.
The Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry with Emrah Safa Gurkan. Accessed on 4 January, 2014, retrieved from http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2011/04/ottoman-hapsburg-rivalry-with-emrah.html. 2011. Web.
