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20 Evrim Türkçelik

squadrons of Naples and Sicily, led by Don Pedro de Toledo and Don
Pedro de Leyva, attacked in September 1595 to Patras, a major Otto-
man port city in Greece . Thus, the first year of Halil Pasha’s admi-
45
ralty brought a blow to the prestige of the sultan in the Mediterranean
as well as to the Ottoman authority over its Greek subjects .
46
The political and military conditions were somewhat different in
1596, when the international tensions peaked because of the simulta-
neous rise of conflicts in other parts of Europe that would affect Otto-
man geopolitical interests in the Mediterranean. After the capture of
the strategic fortress of Strigonia (Esztergom, in Hungary) by the Aus-
trian Habsburgs in 1595, Mehmed III decided to personally lead the
military campaign in Hungary with an aim to restore the sultanate’s
authority and prestige . Since the outbreak of the Spanish-French
47
War in 1595, Henry IV had been seeking Ottoman aid, and in 1596
asked the sultan to send a fleet to reduce the Spanish pressure on
Marseille . The capture of Clissa by the Uskoks in April 1596 also
48
constituted a significant threat to the Ottoman authority in the Adri-
atic and the Balkans, exacerbated by the concerns that the Spanish
Armada would attack Castelnuovo upon the request of the Papacy and
the Emperor so as to divert the Ottoman pressure over Hungary . In
49
this context, it was pretty evident the necessity of the presence of a
powerful navy to maintain the tension and the reputation of the sultan
in the Mediterranean. For Halil Pasha, it would be impossible and in-
appropriate to stay in Istanbul at a time when the sultan himself went
on an expedition. Thus, Halil Pasha set out with the fleet in June 1596
and arrived at Navarino (Pylos, Greece) at the end of September with
almost ninety galleys .
50

45 E. Türkçelik, Política de reputación y venganza en el Mediterráneo: el asalto espa-
ñol a Patras en 1595, M.G. Rosaria Mele (ed.), Mediterraneo e città. Discipline a confronto,
Franco Angeli, Milano, 2019, pp. 115-123.
46 Although the Spanish attacked the Muslim and Jewish houses in Patras, they did
not give any damage to the Greek population. The letter of Don Pedro de Toledo to Philip
II reads «en cuatro horas saqueamos las casas de los judios y turcos sin que las de los
griegos recibiesen daño». Ags.E, 1158, Naples, 28 September 1595, n. 69.
47 J. Schmidt, The Egri Campaign of 1596: military history and the problem of sources,
in A. Tietze (ed.), Habsburgisch-Osmanische Bezeihungen, VWGÖ, Vienna, 1985, pp.
125-44.
48 N. Michalewicz, Franco-Ottoman Diplomacy during the French Wars of Religion,
1559-1610, unpublished PhD thesis, George Mason University, 2020, p. 276.
49 E. Dursteler, Habsburgs, Ottomans, and Venetians on the Frontiers of Dalmatia:
The Capture of Clissa in 1596, in S. Hanß and D. McEwan (ed.), The Habsburg Mediter-
ranean 1500–1800, Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, Vienna, 2021, pp. 61-77; E.
Dursteler, Straddling Empires: Revolt and Religion in Early Modern Dalmatia, A. Fischer-
Kattner and J. Ostwald (ed.), The World of the Siege Representations of Early Modern
Positional Warfare, Brill, Leiden, 2019, pp. 129-155.
50 Selaniki, Tarih-i Selaniki cit., p. 608; Count of Olivares to Philip II, Naples, 17
September 1596, Ags.E, 1094, n. 257.

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