30YearsWar: #7 - "Turkish Delights, Habsburg Disasters" (Patreon)

[PATRONS]

In this episode, we look at an oft-forgotten theatre of the Thirty Years War, the east. Specifically, we examine the Habsburg border with the Ottoman Empire, and assess the conflicts and slights which the two radically different powers had committed in previous years. The conflict wasn’t merely religious, or opportunistic or political – it was also a matter of pride, since both the Turkish Sultan and the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor laid claim to that banner of tradition: the inheritor of Rome. The Turkish Sultan had earned this by conquest, the Emperor through the Pope, but both argued fiercely that theirs was the more legitimate, and battle had a way of simplifying the question. 

Interestingly, the urgency of war lends us some fascinating examples of realpolitik in the early modern era, as the enemy of my enemy is my friend was bought into wholly. While the Turks enjoyed healthy relations with all the traditional enemies of the Habsburgs, the latter were not above contacting the Islamic foes of the Sultan, Safavid Persia. With this border to the east effectively resembling a militarised wasteland, the Emperor would need every wile in his possession if he was to turn his attentions westward. In this episode, we examine how this balance was managed.