Page 14 - mediterranea 57

14 Evrim Türkçelik

Halil Pasha’s appointment as grand admiral in its international
and domestic context

During the last decade of the sixteenth century, the political and
military context of the Mediterranean was conditioned by the simulta-
neous emergence of several international tensions with the potential
to produce a renewed open conflict between the Spanish Monarchy
and the Ottoman Empire. The active intervention of Philip II in the
French succession crisis since 1589 in favour of the Catholic League
and against the Protestant candidate Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV)
was interpreted by the Ottomans as a threat to their strategical inter-
ests in Europe and the Mediterranean . Similarly, the end of the pro-
17
longed hostilities between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavids in
1590 was seen by the Spanish as an occurrence that could lead to a
new Ottoman offensive in the Mediterranean, which was dormant for
almost a decade . Yet, the French and especially the English pressure
18
on the Ottoman government to act as a counterweight against Philip II’s
intentions to consolidate his hegemonic power in Europe was leading
the Ottomans to reconsider their Mediterranean policy . This was fur-
19
ther encouraged by the fact that the Ottoman-Spanish armistice agree-
ments, which had been implemented with relative stability since the
1580s, had lost their validity in the 1590s . Although the area of belli-
20
cose prominence became Central Europe with the breakout of the so-
called “Long War of Hungary” in 1593, the Ottoman armada maintained
an active Mediterranean policy being its objective for the most part the
Italian domains of Philip II. The aspirations of Pope Clemente VIII, with
explicit references to Pious V, to establish a Holy League among Chris-
tian powers by ensuring the participation of Venice and France, the for-
mer pursuing a policy of neutrality and the latter in alliance with the

17 İ. Bostan, Garp Ocaklarının Avrupa Ülkeleri ile Siyasi ve Ekonomik İlişkileri (1580-
1624), «Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi», 4 (1994), pp. 59-86; F. Emecen, 16. Asır Sonlarında
Batı Akdeniz’de Siyaset Sahnesi: Osmanlılar-Fransızlar-İspanyollar, in Kanunî’den
Günümüze Türk Fransız-Münasebetleri, Mostar Yayınları, Istanbul, 2012, pp. 75-93.
18 P. Fodor, Between Two Continental Wars: the Ottoman Naval Preparations in
1590-1592, in P. Fodor (ed.), In Quest of the Golden Apple, Imperial Ideology, Politics,
and Military Administration in the Ottoman Empire, The Isis Press, Istanbul, 2000,
pp. 171-190.
19 E. Türkçelik, El Imperio Otomano y la política de alianzas: las relaciones franco-
otomanas en el tránsito del siglo XVI al XVII, «Hispania», 249 (2015), pp. 39-68.
20 S. Skilliter, The Hispano-Ottoman Armistice of 1581, in C.E. Bosworth (ed.), Iran
and Islam: in memory of the late Vladimir Minorsky, Edinburgh University Press, Edin-
burgh, 1971, pp. 491-515; R. González Cuerva, Mediterráneo en tregua: Las negociacio-
nes de Ruggero Marliani con el Imperio Otomano (1590-1592), in M.R. García Hurtado
(ed.), El Mar en los Siglos Modernos, Xunta de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, 2009,
vol. II, pp. 209-220.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XX - Aprile 2023
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)