Spanish–Ottoman wars

Spanish–Ottoman wars
Part of Ottoman–Habsburg wars, Ottoman–Venetian wars, Italian Wars, European wars of religion, Ottoman wars in Africa, Ottoman–Iranian Wars
Battle of Tunis (1535), Battle of Preveza (1538), Siege of Castelnuovo (1539), Sieges of Oran and Mers El Kébir (1563), Great Siege of Malta (1565), Battle of Lepanto (1573), Siege of Navarino (1572), Conquest of Tunis (1574)
Date 1492 – 1792 Location Mainly Mediterranean (Southern Europe and North Africa). Also Central Europe, Balkans, East Africa, Indian Ocean (Red Sea, Persian Gulf), Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia Result Inconclusive Territorial changes Full territorial changes Divisio Imperii instead of Imperium Universale between Holy Roman Empire and Ottoman Empire, in which both mutually recognise the other to be Roman Emperors. End of Charles V and Suleiman the Magnificent aspirations for World domination or at least Indo-Mediterranean. Repartition of Sphere of Influences between both empires: Western Mediterranean, Southern Europe and East Indies for Iberians and Catholics. Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and Middle East for Ottomans and Muslims. Turkish conquest of Cyprus, Crete, Morea, Ottoman Algeria, Ottoman Tunisia, Ottoman Libya and Habesh Eyalet. Deposition of Hafsids, Zayyanids and other anti-Ottoman Maghrebi dynasties Spanish Conquest of Spanish Oran, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, Melilla and Philippines are recognised by Ottomans. Expulsion of the Moriscos and Mudejar community from Southern Spain by the Spanish branch, exterminating the historical presence of muslims in Spain since Umayyad times to ensure Reconquista and end all islamic hopes of restoring Al Andalus. Portuguese Conquest of Ceuta, Tangier, Mazagan, Portuguese India and Portuguese Insulindia are recognised by Ottomans. Conquest of Hungary-Croatia by the Austrian branch of Habsburg Monarchy Safavid Persia consolidates it's western borders, expeling both Ottomans from Caspian Sea and Portuguese from Persian Gulf. Independence of Morocco and Hospitaller Malta as buffer states. Decadence of Venetian colonies, Genoese colonies, Barbary Coast, Ethiopian Empire, Gujarat Sultanate, Aceh Sultanate, Bruneian Empire, Sultanate of Ternate, Sulu Sultanate, Sultanate of Maguindanao. Catholic Evangelisation of Goa, East Timor and Philippines. Dutch Colonial Empire and English Colonial Empire consolidates in the Indian Ocean (Indonesia and India) in detriment of both exhausted Great Powers, dominating Indian Ocean trade against local Muslims and Catholics. Rise of Russian Empire in the Balkans in detriment of Habsburg Monarchy and Poland-Lithuania.
Belligerents
Spain Naples Sicily Duchy of Milan Spanish Tripoli Spanish Oran Spanish Netherlands Philippines Portugal Portuguese India Ormus Papal States Order of Malta  Republic of Venice Republic of Ragusa  Holy Roman Empire Savoy Republic of Genoa Florentine Republic Tuscany Mantua Montferrat Ferrara Urbino Bavaria Austria Bohemian Crown Duchy of Carniola Flanders Hungary Croatia Holy Leagues Supported by: Safavid Iran Kingdom of Kartli Hafsid Tunisia Kingdom of Tlemcen (Zayyanids) Sultanate of Tidore Ethiopian Empire Poland–Lithuania Tsardom of Russia Montenegro Serbian disidents Greek disidents Albanian disidents Morocco (1554, 1576)	Ottoman Empire Regency of Algiers Ait Abbas Kuku Eyalet of Tunis  Ottoman Tripolitania  Egypt Sultanate of Aceh Eyalet of Bosnia Eastern Hungary Transylvania Moldavia Wallachia Crimean Khanate Barbary corsairs Supported by: France Dutch Republic Kingdom of England Morocco Sulu Sultanate Maguindanao Bruneian Empire Sultanate of Ternate Adal Sultanate Kathiri Sultanate Ajuran Sultanate Gujarat Sultanate Deccan Sultanates Huguenots Morisco/Mudejar disidents Marrano/Sephardic disidents
Commanders and leaders
Ferdinand II of Aragon Isabella I of Castile Charles V Felipe II Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros Pedro Navarro Francisco de Sarmiento Juan de la Cerda Álvaro de Sande Luis de Ávalos Luis de la Cueva y Toledo Bernardo de Aldana Giovanni Battista Castaldo Gian Giacomo Medici Pedro de Toledo García Álvarez de Toledo Juan de Austria Álvaro de Bazán Luis de Requesens Carlo d'Aragona Tagliavia Diego de Medrano Manuel I John III Sebastião I John of God Ferdinand I Maximilian II Mary of Hungary Pope Paul III Pope Pius V Marco Grimani Marcantonio Colonna Jean Parisot de Valette Jean de la Cassière Mathurin Romegas Andrea Gritti Alvise I Mocenigo Vincenzo Cappello Sebastiano Venier Marco Antonio Bragadin Agostino Barbarigo Andrea Doria Gianandrea Doria Cosimo I de' Medici Chiappino Vitelli Ferrante Gonzaga Wilhelm von Roggendorf Mohammed al-Shaykh Abu Abdallah Mohammed II Saadi	Bayezid II Selim I Suleiman the Magnificent Selim II Murad III Mehmed III Kemal Reis Dragut Piali Pasha Şehzade Mehmed Seydi Ali Reis Sinan Reis Ayas Mehmed Pasha Mahomet Sirocco Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Müezzinzade Ali Pasha Lala Mustafa Pasha Aruj Barbarossa Hayreddin Barbarossa Hasan Pasha Occhiali John Zápolya John Sigismund Zápolya Peter IV Rareș Francis I Henry II Henry III of Navarre Bertrand d'Ornesan Elizabeth I Abu Abd Allah al-Burtuqali Muhammad ibn Muhammad Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ali Abu Hassun Aben Humeya

The Spanish–Ottoman wars were a series of wars fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish Empire for Mediterranean and Oversea Sphere of influence, and specially for global religious dominance between the Catholic Church and Ottoman Caliphate. The peak of the conflict was on 16th century, during the reigns of Charles V-Philip II of Spain and Suleiman the Magnificent on the years 1515–1577, although formally ended on 1782.

The Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula, which began in 711, experienced its last glorious period during the reign of Abd ar-Rahman III (929–961); after his death, the Andalusian Umayyad State began to decline, and with the collapse of this state in 1031, the Tawaif-i Mulûk period, in which various Muslim emirates (at one point 34) ruled together, took place between 1031 – 1090. Although Muslims tried to resist the attacks of the Christian kingdoms in the peninsula (León, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Galicia and Portugal) within the framework of the goal of Reconquista during the Almoravid and Almohad periods (1090–1248), the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, which took place in 1212, was an important turning point in Islamic history. After the decisive victory of the Christians, the Emirate of Granada continued its existence in the lands confined to the south of the peninsula as a dependency of Castile between 1232 and 1492, but with the unification of Castile and Aragon in 1469, it began to face a more aggressive Spanish policy. Having lost its lands one by one in the Granada War that began in 1482, the Emirate of Granada was wiped off the stage of history when its capital, Granada, fell on January 2, 1492 after an eight-month siege.^[1] The relations between the Ottoman Empire and Spain also began indirectly with the Granada War. Emir Abu Abdullah, who was in a difficult situation due to the serial land losses during the war, sent an ambassador to the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II and asked for help. However, Bayezid II was busy with his brother Cem on the one hand and fighting with the Mamluks on the other, so he could not send the requested help.^[2]

The Spanish Empire expanded its military operations to the North African coast and, with the help of its strengthened navy, occupied Melilla on the Moroccan coast and the island of Djerba on the Tunisian coast in 1497, Mers El Kebir in 1505, Oran in 1509, and Béjaïa and Tripoli in 1510. It also built a fortress on the island opposite the city of Algiers and took the city indirectly under its control.

On 1509, the Crown of Castile and Crown of Portugal signed the Capitulation of Cintra in which both Kingdoms partitioned Maghreb into two Spheres of influence, in which Morocco and Western Sahara were considered part of Portuguese Empire's projection of power and territorial expansionism, while Algeria, Tunisia and Libya were part of the Spanish Empire's one. The main objective was to establish cooperation between the Iberian kingdoms for the conquest of North Africa, which was considered a continuation of Reconquista to avoid further berber-islamic interventions in Iberia like in times of Marinid dynasty (legitimizing it by claiming that Mauretania Tingitana was part of the Hispanidad/Iberism due to former links with Visigothic and Roman Hispania, along the existent in Al-Andalus era), so it was needed to avoid a Luso-Castilian war for the control of the Berber states, so it was agreed that the Portuguese would abandon the conquest of Vélez de la Gomera and the rest of the eastward territories (ensuring the Castilian sovereignty of Melilla and Cazaza), while the Castilians accepted Portuguese sovereignty over the North African territories between Vélez and Cape Bojador (on the Atlantic coast)^[3]

During this period, all of North Africa, except Egypt, was ruled by local emirates that lacked military power and were not strong enough to resist the Spanish invasions. Two developments changed this disadvantageous situation in the early 1500s. The first was that after the prohibition of Islam in Spain in 1502, tens of thousands of Muslims from Andalusia migrated to North Africa, creating a fresh and dynamic population. The second important development was that Turkish sailors from the western Anatolian coasts based themselves in the region and began resistance against the Spanish.

Within this framework, Oruç Reis and Kemal Reis, who were based on the island of Djerba in 1503, carried Muslims and Jews from Spain to North Africa and also started to clash with the Spanish. Oruç Reis and Hızır Reis (Hayreddin Barbarrosa), who joined him, made an agreement with the Hafsid Ruler of Tunisia, Muhammed El-Mutawakkil IV, and settled in La Goulette in 1504. From here until 1513, and from 1513 onwards, they began to struggle with the Spanish and their allies on land and sea from their new base in Cherchell. However, since they did not have enough power to cope with the Spanish Navy, in 1515 they sent gifts to the Ottoman Padishah Sultan Selim I by ship and showed their loyalty, and in return they were granted the authority to collect ships and soldiers from the Western Anatolian coasts. In this way, fighting began between the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish Empire over Algeria and Tunisia (which would later turn into all-out war).

Since both empires coincided in the development of a great naval power, they would begin to carry out large expeditions that would increase their diplomatic rank, which would involve more regional powers from very different territories into the Spanish-Ottoman and Catholic-Islamic conflict, being in some ways a World war in the long-term. Moreover, after Ottoman emperors got the tittle of Ottoman caliphs by overwhelming Abbasid Dynasty after the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517), they were considered heads of the Dar as-Islam and have the power to involve the rest of the Sunni Muslim states (focusing to involve the Berber States, Horn of Africa Sultanates, Arabian Emirates, Indian Sultanates, Malaysian Sultanates and Indonesian sultanates affected by Iberian Colonialism), despite that already having the possesion of Ottoman Balkans, Levant and Egypt. Also, Habsburg Spain would be intimately bound with the Austrian branch of Habsburg monarchy (Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Bohemia, Kingdom of Hungary-Croatia) and would be in posession of Habsburg Netherlands and Italian domains (Kingdom of Naples, Kingdom of Sicily, Kingdom of Sardinia, Duchy of Milan), of which the latter allowed for closer ties with the Papal States (an Universal power amon the Res publica Christiana) and restore the Gelasian political philosophy of Dominium Mundi to involve all Christendom against the Türkenkriege in Europe and also to start campaigns for Catholic Church's Potestas over Infidel societies outside Europe (which justificated 1st wave of European colonialism). This made the first stages of the Spanish-Ottoman struggle into a total global war between Muslim World and Christendom for the conquest of an Universal monarchy (The Pope and Holy Roman Emperor vs the Ottoman Caliph to be King of Kings of the Abrahamic world) and suppress the existence of the other "False religion", while also Evangelizing the Pagans of Africa and Asia, adding also a maximalist goal for World domination, and a minimalist goal of being considered the Successor of the Roman Empire and have political preponderance on Europe.^[4][5]

The first contacts were carried with Safavid Iran through Petrus de Monte Libano (Maronite ambassador), who developed a report to Shah Ismail I of the political situation in Europe and the greatness of Charles V, King of Spain and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (being compared with Charlemagne), as well as brother-in-law of the King of Hungary Louis II of Hungary. This informs were done to reach a possible ally for Persia against the Ottomans after the Turkish conquest of Egypt.^[6] The Venetian republic was considered first, but they rejected the offers, although Spanish envoy in the Mamluk Court, Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, hear about the Persian-Venetian conversations and communicated it to Pedro Fajardo with stories that the Shah was a powerful sovereign capable of challenging all the princes of the world, generating fascination among Spanish diplomacy (which already were interested in Persia since the suggestion of Pope Leo X to Ferdinand II of Aragon about a mutual Catholic-Shia alliance between Portugal, Castile-Aragon Union, Jagiellonian Hungary and Ṣafavids against Sunni Ottoman Caliphate), motivating Spain to send missions to Iran in 1516 to 1519.^[7] So it was developed a Habsburg–Persian alliance, and the Persians in 1524 propossed to Habsburg Spain the development of a Two-front war against Ottoman Empire with the condition to not conclude separate peaces. Also Charles V communicated to Persians about the French–Habsburg rivalry and the need of Persian support against a possible Franco-Ottoman alliance.^[6] However, the subsequent Shah Tahmasp I encountered logistical difficulties implementing the agreements reached due to delayed communications (having long delays of between 7-8 years due to technological deficiencies).^[8] However, the Iranians and the Spanish were de facto allies, and Ottoman war plans always included securing the border with Persia when campaigning against Spain, and vice versa, even Álvaro de Bazán, testified in his Chronicles that Suleiman the Magnificent had fears of a two-front war against Spain and Persia simultaneously.^[7] To reforce this project, Persians under Qadi Jahan Qazvini reforced their contacts with the Portuguese, the Venetians, the Mughals, and the Shiite Deccan sultanates.^[9] Also influenced in this approach the Portuguese maritime exploration, which brought news of the Turkish-Iranian Wars (full of victories for the Persians until the Battle of Chaldiran) and the testimonies of the travels of explorers, both foreigners such as the Italian Ludovico de Varthema, and those of Spaniards such as Martín Fernández de Figueroa (a Spanish soldier in the Portuguese Empire during his expeditions to the Persian Gulf and India) and his work Tratado de la conquista de las Islas de Persia y Arabia, edited by Juan Agüero de Trasmiera. Even Ferdinand Columbus would tell King Charles I that Spain had the right to conquer Persia.^[7]

In turn, Spaniards such as Martín de Salinas became involved as intermediaries for embassies from other European powers to Persia, specially the ones which were favorable to the Habsburg Empire of Charles V (in his case, serving the Archduchy of Austria of Franz Ferdinand, brother of Charles), who in 1524 communicated that a Persian ambassador would appear in Burgos to communicate with Charles, in response to the proposals of alliance with the Holy Roman Empire that were sent by Ferdinand of Austria.^[10] Another Persian embassy arrived in Spain in late 1528, with ambassador Gabriel Sánchez [es] imploring the Persians to expedite the conclusion of joint operations during 1529. Therefore, another ambassador, Jean de Balbi (a Savoyard of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem), was sent via Portuguese Goa. He was to report on the latest developments in Europe (especially the Treaty of Madrid (1526), the League of Cognac, and the Battle of Mohács) to commit the Persians to the alliance and ensure unity against the common enemy. Later, in the 1540s, another Persian emissary visited Charles V in Germany, and there was also a covert mission to Spain (possibly carried out by the Venetian Michele Membré); however, there is no precise information about the meeting. All of this Iberian-Italian-German-Hungarian-Persian communications revealed the existence of a formal Anti-Ottoman Coallition leaded by Spanish diplomacy.^[7]

Another involvement came from the Ethiopian Empire, an Eastern Christian nation that was under the king Alfonso V of Aragon's inferests, who wanted to make an alliance with Yeshaq I and Zara Yaqob against Mamluks of Egypt and Ottoman Turks.^[11] The Ethiopian Monarchy increased it's foreign relations with Europe with the main objective to get help against the Ottoman wars in Africa, which in turn made Ethiopia from 1500 to 1672 a part of the Kingdom of Portugal's Sphere of influence (after the embassy of Pêro da Covilhã of 1493 in search of Prester John, and the Cristóvão da Gama expedition of 1541-43), and then of the Habsburg Spain's one through the Iberian Union since 1580, and before through Ignatian missionaries at service of John III of Portugal (like Andrés de Oviedo, who presided the first permanent Roman catholic mission on Ethiopian Catholic Church since 1557).^{[12] [13]}The years of 1556 to 1632 were very important in due to the political influence of the Jesuits in the internal affairs of the Solomonic dynasty despite the logistical problems due to Turkish military (Pope Gregory XIII didn't want to quit the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia, as he feared losing the Christian country to the Muslim world), being relevant the influence of Spanish missionaries like Pedro Páez, who converted Emperor Susenyos I, who in turn desired the Catholicisation of his country despite the hostility from Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.^[14][15] The Iberians believed that the alliance with the Ethiopians would facilitate their control of maritime traffic through the Red Sea, an objective that, with the rise of Ottoman power in the area, became one of the unresolved issues for the Portuguese crown during its expansion in the Eastern Hemisphere (as stipulated with Spain in the Treaty of Tordesillas) and the ambitious project of Manuel of Portugal and Philip II of Spain to destroy the centers of Islam in Arabia and Egypt.^[16][17]

The Barbarrosa brothers, who came under the protection of Sultan Selim in 1515, captured the city of Algiers in 1516 after a delegation from Algeria asked for their help against the Spanish. After Oruç Reis was declared the Sultan of Algeria in Cherchell, he captured Tenes and Tlemcen and expanded his territory to Morocco, but he lost his life in the Spanish counter-attack in May 1518. Tlemcen fell back into the hands of the Zayenids under Spanish protection.

Hayreddin Barbarosa replaced Oruç Reis and in October 1519, this time he sent a delegation of Algerian dignitaries and Muslim jurists to Sultan Selim with a petition of the Algerian people asking for help and be annexed to the Ottoman Empire. This solicitation would be answered positively by Suleiman the Magnificent, who then turned the Regency of Algiers into an Ottoman Eyalet in 1521.^[18]

The loss of the island of Algiers caused a major shock in Spain. In 1529, a Spanish fleet of 10 ships carrying reinforcements to the besieged island was destroyed by the skillful counter-attack of Hayreddin Barbarosa Pasha, who had already passed the island. In July 1531, the 50-man Spanish-Genoese fleet under the command of Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria suffered an even greater defeat in the Cherchell Campaign. Likewise, the Ottomans in 1534 were able to recapture the port of Koroni (at the tip of the Morea), which Andrea Doria had captured in 1532.

It was in these years that another war front opened for the Spanish Monarchy in Central Europe during the Little War in Hungary (1526–1568), in which after the Battle of Mohács, Charles summoned the Spanish Cortes in Valladolid requesting that Spanish military assistance should be provided to the Holy Roman Empire, Austria and Habsburg Hungary to prevent the Turks from advancing into Hungary, Germany and Italy (arguing that Spanish interests were menace there and also of the Christendom as a whole). So, since 1529, Charles V and Mary of Hungary sent an Spanish Expeditionary force compossed by the Tercio of Flanders (which included also Italians and Portugueses) that fought along Germans, Flemish, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Hungarians and Romanians in major battles of the 1529–1533 campaign like the 1st Siege of Vienna or 2nd Siege of Buda, in addition to participating in the battles of the Hungarian castles, in defense of the fortress of Visegrád, Szeged, Lippa and Timisoara for Ferdinand I of Hungary against the Ottoman puppet John Zápolya of Hungary with his Transylvanian, Moldavian, Serbian and Turkish troops. Some subjects of Habsburg Spain that resalted in the Austro-Hungarian theater were Luis de Ávalos, Luis de la Cueva y Toledo, Luis de Guevara, Juan de Salinas, Jaime García de Guzmán, Jorge Manrique, Cristóbal de Aranda, John of God, Bernaldo de Aldana, Hurtado de Mendoza, Gianbattista Castaido and Caste Lluvio.^[19][20] However, the year 1533 also witnessed important turning points in the Ottoman-Spanish War. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire signed a peace treaty for the first time with the Holy Roman Empire, which also included the Spanish Empire. With this treaty, the war between the Ottomans and the Austrian Archduchy on the Hungarian front ended, while the war with the other vassals of the Holy Roman Empire (the Spanish Empire, the Kingdom of Naples and the Republic of Genoa) not covered by the treaty continued uninterruptedly in the Mediterranean.

The second important development in 1533 was that the Ottoman fleet under the command of Kemankeş Ahmed Paşa, who wanted to retake Koroni, was ineffective against the Genoese fleet, and the Ottoman capital turned to Hayreddin Barbarosa and the Turkish leaders for a stronger fleet in the Mediterranean. Barbaros, who was called to Istanbul in 1532, was appointed Kapudan Pasha in 1533. Hayreddin Barbarosa Pasha, who set sail for the Mediterranean with the strong fleet he had prepared in the winter of 1533–1534, devastated the coasts of the Kingdom of Naples and then conquered Tunis on August 16, 1534.

This strategic move by the Ottomans caused the attention of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to turn completely to the Mediterranean. In 1535, Charles V personally led an expedition and took back Tunis in June. In response, Hayreddin Barbarosa Pasha, who managed to smuggle his fleet to Annabe, sailed to the Western Mediterranean and invaded Minorca, one of the Balearic Islands of the Spanish Empire. In September, the Spanish attack on Tlemcen was also repelled by the Ottomans.

In 1537, the Ottoman navy under the command of Barbarosa, and the Turkish troops under the command of Lutfi Pasha, invaded Puglia, the lands of the Kingdom of Naples. The Ottoman-Venetian War began in the same year. Thereupon, with the encouragement of Pope Paul III, the Holy Alliance was formed with the participation of the Republic of Venice, the Spanish Empire, the Papal States, the Republic of Genoa and the Knights of Malta. However, in the Battle of Preveza on September 28, 1538, the Ottoman navy under the command of Barbarosa won a great victory (the Christian navy also included 50 Spanish galleons and 61 Genoese-Papal warships).

Castelnouvo, which was captured by the Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria (at the service of Habsburg Spain) in the same year to be used as a base against the Ottomans in the future, was recaptured by Barbarosa in 1539 in a siege in which the 6,000-man Spanish garrison was annihilated. During the Spanish occupation of Herceg Novi, they made incursions into Dubrovnik to defend Habsburg Croatia and Republic of Ragusa interests.^[21] This was the last military operation of the Spanish Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean until the Battle of Lepanto. In particular, the hesitation of the Genoese Admiral Doria to include Genoese ships in the battle of Preveza, even though he was allied with Venice, Genoese's historical rival, led to criticism of the said person. (Ultimately, the Holy Alliance soon fell apart.)

In 1540, an Ottoman fleet from Algeria invaded Gibraltar, but the Spanish Navy balanced the situation with its success in the Battle of Alborán, while the Spanish-Genoese fleet under the command of Giannettino Doria defeated another Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Girolata on June 15, 1540 and managed to capture Turgut Reis. Taking advantage of Turgut Reis' defeat, Andrea Doria set sail from Messina in the summer of 1540 with a fleet of over 80 ships (51 galleys and over 30 galleys and fustas) and 14 Spanish infantry divisions led by Garcia de Toledo, the Governor General of Sicily of the Kingdom of Spain, and landed in Tunis, capturing the fortresses of Monastir, Sousse, Hammamet and Kelibia held by the Hafsids, thus expanding Spanish rule in Tunis.

The year 1541 marked the peak of Spain's attacks, which had been ongoing since 1529. After Barbarosa rejected the offer to take command of the Holy Roman Empire's navy, Charles V gathered a large navy (580 ships and 36,000 sailors and soldiers), and was devastated by a storm during the Algiers Naval Expedition of 1541, and suffered a great defeat in front of Algiers, which was defended by Hasan Ağa.^[22][23]

The Holy Roman Empire's great defeat in Algeria temporarily ended the Spanish attacks on Ottoman lands, and the Ottomans carried the struggle to the Western Mediterranean, where the Spanish Empire was the dominant element. With the Ottoman Empire's involvement in the Italian Wars within the framework of its alliance with France, the Ottoman fleet under the command of Barbarosa invaded the ports held by the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, the Republic of Genoa and the Duchy of Savoy in 1543 and wintered in Toulon in the winter of 1543–1544, continuing its operations on these coasts in 1544. In 1546, the great Turkish sailor Hayreddin Barbarossa Pasha passed away.

Meanwhile, due to the throne dispute in the Kingdom of Hungary, which was subject to the Ottomans, the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire began a new war in 1540. In this context, the two empires continued their fierce struggle in the Mediterranean and Hungary. After the Ottomans emerged victorious from the war, the parties signed a ceasefire in 1545 and a peace treaty in 1547, and entered a period of relative calm in the Mediterranean. Despite it, another Spanish expeditionary force in Hungary was sent on 1548, compossed this time by the Tercio Viejo de Nápoles (which had Italians and Germans) under the leadership of Bernardo de Aldana and Giovanni Battista Castaldo, fighting on Transdanubia until 1554 agaisnt the oligarchs of Northern Hungary and Slovakia, as well as the Transylvanians, Romanians, Frenchs and Turks who backed them. Those Spaniards defended Habsburg Hungary on Csábrág, Léva, Murány, Szolnok and Temesvár (althoug there they surrendered the fort of Lippa without resistance due to economical problems, which caused Aldana's enemies to imprison him in Trencsén until 1556). Their greatest successes were suppressing the robber knights on Hungarian Highlands, the rebuild of Szolnok and the occupation of Ottoman Transylvania that briefly depossed John Sigismund Zápolya from 1551 to 1556.^[24][25][20]

The calm between the parties was short-lived, and the Spanish Empire sent a fleet in June 1550 to capture the Ottoman fortress of Mahdia in Tunisia, and Emperor Ferdinand's efforts to recapture Hungary and Transylvania through George Martinuzzi led to the start of a new war that would last until 1562. In this war, Turgut Reis, who took over the leadership of the Ottoman fleet, and Piyale Pasha, who was appointed Kapudan Pasha in 1553, brought the Ottoman military presence in the Western Mediterranean to its peak, in defiance of the Spanish Empire.

The Mediterranean was the scene of larger-scale operations and important victories for the Ottomans. The operations of the Ottoman Navy in the Mediterranean, in alliance with the Kingdom of France against the Holy Roman Empire, led to the start of an Italian War that lasted until 1559.

In 1551, the Ottoman navy invaded the island of Gozo, which belonged to the Knights of Malta, one of Spain's allies, in July and conquered Tripoli with the land support of the Libyan Arabs as a result of the siege from 14 to 15 of August.

In 1552, the Ottoman navy also sailed to the Western Mediterranean, invaded Calabria, which was part of the Kingdom of Naples, and defeated the Genoese navy under the command of Andrea Doria in the Battle of Ponza.

In 1553, the struggle in the Mediterranean continued to be active. The Ottoman fleet under the command of Sinan Pasha and Turgut Reis, combined with the French fleet under the command of Antoine Escalin des Aimars, struck the coasts of Naples, Sicily and Corsica, and in August and September captured Corsica, which was under the control of the Genoese, an ally of the Kingdom of Spain. On the other hand, the Kingdom of Spain realized that it could no longer hold Mahdia, which it had occupied in 1550. Emperor Charles V offered to hand the castle over to the Knights of Malta, but when his offer was rejected, he evacuated the castle.^[26] Thereupon, the Ottomans recaptured the castle.

In 1554, the Ottoman fleet plundered the coast of Pula, which was part of the Kingdom of Naples, Spain, and invaded Viesta, then bombarded the coast of Tuscany, which was part of the Republic of Florence, and invaded Orbetello. However, the Ottoman fleet was unable to meet the French fleet and abandoned the planned joint operation on Corsica, returning due to the advance of the season.^[27]

In 1555, the activities of the Ottoman navy under the command of Piyale Pasha and Turgut Reis in the Western Mediterranean continued without slowing down. While the navy devastated the coasts of Calabria, Tuscany, Corsica and Liguria, the Turkish-French raid on Piombino was fruitless. The Governor of Algiers, Salih Reis, managed to capture Béjaïa, one of the few bases left by the Spanish in North Africa, on September 28. This loss caused anger in Spain and the commander who surrendered the castle to the Ottomans, Alonso Peralta, was executed in Valladolid.

On the other hand, the Holy Roman Empire was also going through a historical turning point. The Imperial Diet convened in Augsburg to broker peace between the Catholics and Lutheran princes. With the Peace of Augsburg signed on September 25, 1555, the formula cuius regio, eius religio (the religion of the ruler is the religion of his country) was adopted, granting each ruler the authority to determine the religion of his own lands. However, Charles V, who had suffered continuous military defeats against the Ottoman Empire, had failed to bring France to heel, had lost Metz in 1554, and had also failed to establish religious unity within his country, was psychologically collapsed and prepared to abdicate, dividing the Empire between the Spanish and German/Austrian branches. These shocking developments in the Holy Roman Empire continued on January 16, 1556, when Charles V formally abdicated and retired to a monastery in Spain. Charles V's brother and Archduchy of Austria, Ferdinand, ascended the throne of the empire, while Charles V's son, Felipe II (1556–1598), became King of Spain.

In 1557, the Ottoman fleet of 60 ships under the command of Turgut Reis and Piyale Pasha hit the coast of Apulia, then landed troops on the coast of Calabria and invaded Cariati. Then, they headed towards Tunisia and managed to conquer Bizerte, which had been under the occupation of the Spanish Empire since 1534. In 1558, the Ottoman fleet under the command of Turgut Reis and Piyale Pasha carried out a larger-scale operation in the Western Mediterranean, invading Reggio in Calabria, plundering the Lipari Islands, and capturing Massa Lubrense, Cantone and Sorrento on the Amalfi coast of the Kingdom of Naples. The fleet then bombarded Piombino on the Tuscan coast, headed south and defeated a fleet of the Knights of Malta off the coast of Malta, then headed for the Balearic Islands and captured Ciutadella, the capital of the island of Minorca, after an eight-day siege (July 17).

While this struggle was ongoing in the Mediterranean, as a result of diplomatic negotiations between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire that had been ongoing since 1557, a permanent armistice was signed between the Ottomans and the Germans on January 31, 1559. On April 29, 1558, Emperor Ferdinand sent four drafts of the Ahidname to the Ottoman side. Although the German ambassador Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq appeared before Suleiman the Magnificent on June 8, he did not receive a positive response to the drafts of the Ahidname. However, it was agreed that the negotiations would continue. Because, in the Ottoman Empire, which had eliminated the Safavid Persian threat in the east with the Treaty of ya in 1555, the ongoing civil war based on succession among the princes (since the assassination of Prince Mustafa in 1553) had turned Suleiman's attention to the struggles between his sons. The period between Prince Bayezid's defeat by Selim in Konya in 1559, his subsequent refuge with the Safavids, and his strangulation by Ottoman executioners in Kazvin as a result of the Ottoman-Safavid reconciliation in 1561, occupied the Ottoman state mechanism considerably.

During the same period, the Spanish branch of the Habsburg Dynasty also sought peace with the Ottomans. So, in March 1558, both the King Philip II of Spain and Pope Pius IV decided to send an emissary to talk with Persian ambassadors via Michel Cernovic, the chief dragoman of the Venetians and agent of Ferdinand I of the HRE, as well as of Habsburg Spain, in Constantinople. However, he was more concerned with negotiating (together with the Flemish ambassador for the Kingdom of Germany, Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq) the Ottoman border treaties in Transylvania and Hungary with the Vienna-based Habsburgs, than with finalizing anything with Safavid Persia, which also which also made him neglect the negotiations concerning the Spanish-Ottoman conflict.^[7] In this context, the ambassadors sent to the Ottoman palace in November 1558 and June 1559 were unable to even conclude an armistice, unlike Busbecq, and the Ottoman-Spanish War, which had been going on since 1515, entered its most difficult period in 1560.

The Ottoman Empire's transfer of the war to the Western Mediterranean from 1542 onwards and the devastating attacks of the Ottoman navy on the lands of Spain and its dependencies every year caused the Spanish Empire to turn its attention entirely to the struggle there and appeal to Pope Paul IV. Upon the Pope's call, the Holy Alliance armada of approximately 200 ships, consisting of warships from the Papacy, Genoa, Malta, Naples-Sicily and Savoy, in addition to Spain, targeted Tripoli, the base of Turgut Reis, who had caused the greatest destruction to Spanish lands between 1551 and 1559 (February 20, 1560). In response, the armada, which headed for the island of Djerba for logistical reasons, captured it and built a fortress, but was forced into battle with the Ottoman fleet under the joint command of Piyale Pasha and Turgut Reis, which reached the island on May 11. While the Ottoman navy won a great victory in the Battle of Djerba, the Crusader armada lost half of its ships and suffered between 9 to 18,000 deaths and 5,000 prisoners. Spanish Admiral D. Alvaro de Sande, who took over command of the Holy Alliance armada after Genoese Admiral Giovanni Andrea Doria withdrew from the battlefield, was among the prisoners.^[29]

While the victory at Djerba was in a sense the peak of the Ottoman navy, for the next 10 years there was no power left to oppose it in the Mediterranean. Indeed; it took a certain amount of time for Spain, which had lost 600 skilled sailors and 2,400 harquebusiers, to recover.^[30] However; the Ottomans were not able to reinforce this superiority with additional gains. Because; although during this period, Turgut Reis destroyed the Naples-Sicily fleet in the Battle of Lipari in 1561^[31] and captured the remaining ships of the Kingdom in the blockade of Naples [tr], the Ottoman navy under the joint command of Piyale Pasha and Turgut Reis could not take Oran, which it besieged (for the second time) in 1563. In the same year, the Spanish fleet and troops under the command of Sancho Martínez de Leyva [es] suffered a heavy defeat in front of the Ottoman base of Peñon de Velez on the northern coast of Morocco, which they besieged,^[32] but the following year the Spanish fleet managed to recapture the base that the Ottomans had evacuated (the mentioned lands are still part of Spain).^[33]

The year 1565 saw one of the largest operations of the Ottoman navy. The navy, carrying a force of approximately 25,000 men, reached Malta on May 18, 1565 and laid siege to the castles on the island defended by the Knights Hospitaller. The Ottoman forces, who had difficulty capturing the St. Elmo Castle, launched a heavy bombardment on August 7 of the island's main fortified positions, St. Michel and St. Angelo, but were unable to capture them with general attacks. The losses suffered and the necessity of the Ottoman navy returning to Istanbul for the winter (due to the change of season to autumn) led Serdar Lala Mustafa Pasha to decide to evacuate the island. When a rescue party of 8,000 men^[34] under the command of Don Garcia, sent by the Kingdom of Spain, landed in Malta on September 7, the Ottomans evacuated the island on September 8. In this way, the Knights Hospitaller, an important ally of Spain, and the island of Malta, which protected the Kingdom's lands in Southern Italy, were saved.

Although the Ottoman forces suffered losses in Malta, the Ottoman navy continued to maintain its power. Indeed, while the Ottoman army was marching to Hungary in 1566 for the Siege of Szigetvar, the last campaign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman navy under the command of Piyale Pasha conquered Chios, which was ruled by the Genoese, an ally of Spain, in the same year. Then, sailing to the Mediterranean, they struck the Pula coast of the Kingdom of Naples, also an ally of Spain. During this period, the Kingdom of Spain was busy with the Granada Revolt. After Felipe II further tightened his assimilation policy with the decree he issued in 1567, the Moriscos of Granada, who took advantage of the King's dealing with the rebellions launched by Protestants in Germany and Calvinists in the Netherlands, revolted in 1568 under the leadership of Aben Humeya^[35] and requested that the Ottoman navy organize an expedition to aid them in a letter they sent to the Beylerbeyi of Algeria, Kılıç Ali Pasha, on 20 April 1568.^[36] Ottoman Sultan Selim II, to whom the Moriscos conveyed their requests for aid, stated in a response letter he sent on 16 April 1569 that he was following the uprising closely and was doing his best to provide the necessary aid in a timely manner, but that it was not possible to send the Ottoman navy to the region immediately, as the navy was preparing for the Cyprus expedition.^[37] However, Selim II ordered Kılıç Ali Pasha to support the rebels. Although Kılıç Ali Pasha's attempt to send a fleet to Almería in 1569 to bring soldiers, provisions and weapons failed due to a storm, he managed to send 400-500 soldiers and provisions and weapons in the attempt in 1570.^[38] King Felipe II took action in the winter of 1570-71 against the danger of increasing this aid and the spread of the uprising and suppressed the uprising violently. In response, taking advantage of Spain's preoccupation with the uprising, Kılıç Ali Pasha captured Tunis, which was under the control of the Hafsids under Spanish protection, in his expedition at the end of 1569.^[39]

After suppressing the Granada Revolt, the Kingdom of Spain refocused on its direct struggle with the Ottoman Empire. During the Ottoman attacks on Cyprus in the early years of the 1570–1573 Ottoman-Venetian War, the Holy Alliance established between the Kingdom of Spain and its dependencies and Venice on 25 May 1571 could not prevent the Ottomans from capturing Famagusta and completing the conquest of Cyprus, but it did manage to inflict a major defeat on the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Lepanto on 7 October 1571 (Spain contributed 49 galleys to the Allied navy in the battle).^[40] The Ottomans, who had completely rebuilt their navy, set out for the Mediterranean under the command of Kılıç Ali Pasha in the summer of 1572, but did not engage in a major battle with the Allied navy, to which the Spanish also contributed 55 galleys.

The same year saw the first peace offer of the Kingdom of Spain, but it did not bring any results. In contrast, the peace negotiations of the Ottomans with Venice were concluded positively and the Holy Alliance was effectively ended as a result of the agreement signed between the parties on March 7, 1573. With Venice's withdrawal from the war, the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish Empire were left alone in the struggle. Indeed, in the summer of 1573, while the Ottoman navy under the command of Piyale Pasha and Kapudan Pasha Kılıç Ali Pasha targeted the Apulia lands of the Kingdom of Naples, which was affiliated with Spain, the Spanish navy under the command of Juan de Austria took advantage of this and targeted the city of Tunis (which had been annexed to the Ottoman lands in 1569) and captured it on October 10, 1573.

Thereupon, the main objective of the Ottoman navy in the following campaign season (1574) was to liberate Tunis from occupation. The Ottoman navy under the command of Kılıç Ali Pasha and the Ottoman forces under the command of Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha, as a result of the successful military operations between 12 July and 13 September 1574, finally annexed Tunisia to the Ottoman lands (until the French occupation in 1881).^[41]

Following the conquest of Tunisia by the Ottomans, the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish Empire realized that their borders in the Mediterranean had come to an end. Although the Ottomans continued to gain territory with Tunisia, the expedition, which required the equipping of a large Ottoman fleet and the transportation of a significant landing force over a long distance, caused great expenses.^[42] (The income from Tunisia was far below this expense). In addition, the internal unrest in Persia following the death of Shah Tahmasb I of Iran on 25 May 1576 began to draw the Ottomans' attention to the eastern front. In this context, the Ottomans, who had made peace with Venice in 1573, established a supportive administration in the north by placing the Voivode of Transylvania, Stephen Báthory, on the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1575 (being perceived as the establisment of a vassal government in the north), and after Rudolf II ascended to the throne on 25 December 1576, they renewed the 1568 treaty with the Holy Roman Empire, so Ottomans were in a position to close other fronts in the west.

The problems in the Spanish Empire were much greater. In addition to the large sums spent on the struggle against the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean, the Dutch Revolt that began in 1568 began to strain the budget of King Felipe II, who pursued an economic policy focused on excessive debt, and in November 1575 the King declared the treasury bankrupt.^[43] Following these developments, King Felipe II secretly offered a ceasefire/peace to the Ottomans.^[44]

Essentially, an ambassador named Martin de Acuña ensured that a five-year armistice agreement was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Naples (which was vassal of the Crown of Aragon) in February 1577.^[45] The same ambassador also offered mediation to the Crown of Castile and, after King Philip II found it appropriate, he began making efforts at the Ottoman Palace in the same year. A draft text emerged on March 18, 1577.^[46]

In this way, an unofficial ceasefire environment was established between the parties. The parties did not allow their navies to attack each other's lands, and Philip II did not send the troops he had withdrawn from the Spanish Netherlands against the Ottomans. As a result of the negotiations provided by this environment, the Spanish ambassadors Giovanni Margliani and Bruti, who delivered the letter of the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha to Philip II, ensured that the draft ceasefire agreement was signed on 18 March 1578 (7 February 1578 according to some sources).^[47]

The agreement was written to include the states clustered around the two powers' Sphere of influence at either end of the Mediterranean. Within this framework; the Kingdom of France, which was allied with the Ottomans, and the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania, the Republic of Venice and the Sultanate of Morocco (all of them which were seen as tributary states by the Ottoman dynasty), were included in the armistice on the Ottoman Empire side of influence, while the Papal States, the Kingdom of Portugal, the Knights Hospitaller of Malta, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Lucca, the Duchy of Savoy, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Ferrara, the Duchy of Mantua, the Duchy of Parma, the Duchy of Urbino and the Principality of Piombino were included in the armistice on the Spanish Empire side of influence. The Portuguese Empire and Spanish Reinos de Indias [es] (Spanish America and East Indies) were included in the armistice only in the context of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean war zone, while in the Red Sea and the Indo-Pacific were excluded of the truce. Although Ottomans and Iberians initially agreed not to harm their colonial interests in Persia (Portuguese Kingdom of Hormuz and Ottoman Mesopotamia) as a condition of the truce in Mediterranean.^[48]

Following this first agreement, which foresaw a ceasefire between the parties for a period of three years (1577–1580), a one-year ceasefire agreement was signed between March 21, 1580 and January 1581, and then a three-year ceasefire agreement was signed on February 4, 1581. The 1581 agreement was renewed in 1584, 1587 and 1591.^[49] Although the signed armistice was renewed several times, it could not be converted into a formal peace treaty and the state of war between the two parties continued (specially in Spanish Philippines and Portuguese India against Aceh Sultanate, an Ottoman vassal in modern Indonesia) until the signing of a definitive Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Commerce (the so-called Treaty of Constantinople [es]) of 1782.^[50] In between succeded some Ottoman-Spanish conflicts of minor impact (except for the Long Turkish War, Bohemian Revolt and the Great Turkish War, although Spain was a minor party), like the 3rd Duke of Osuna corsair war during 1620s, the Ottoman–Venetian War (1714–1718) or the Spanish–Algerian War (1775–1785), among others.

• Barbary Coast
• Barbary corsairs
• Spanish-Moroccan Wars
• Moroccan–Portuguese conflicts
• Anglo-Moroccan alliance
• Anglo-Turkish piracy
• Protestantism and Islam
• Turco-Calvinism
• Franco-Ottoman alliance
• Habsburg–Persian alliance
• Ottoman–Habsburg wars
• Holy League
• Iberian Union
• Ottoman–Portuguese confrontations
• Portuguese–Safavid wars
• Morisco
• Mudéjar
• Marrano