ABSTRACT
In the half-century following the Peace of Zsitva-Torok in 1606, AustroTurkish relations verged almost on the cordial with hostilities limited to routine skirmishes over the Military Frontier, while the diplomatic crisis of 1645 was dealt with swiftly since the two antagonists had worries elsewhere. Ferdinand II, in marked contrast to Rudolf II, never dreamt of reconquering Pannonia and Thrace since his particular wish was to submit Germany to his authority. His principal adversary was not the infidel but the heretic. The Grand Turk had turned once again against his mortal enemy, the shah of Persia, retaking Baghdad and Mesopotamia. As Robert Mantran has shown so well,1 the Ottoman Empire was then suffering a grave economic crisis, or, more precisely, downright impoverishment and the public treasury’s difficulties gave rise to discontent among the janissaries which led to a series of coups d'etat and lent credence to the myth of the ‘sick man’ of Europe. This thesis, which arose at the end of the sixteenth century, was complacently maintained by experts who mistook their desires for realities and so revealed only a superficial understanding of the Ottoman empire and misled men as clear-sighted even as Mazarin. Once the Albanian viziers came to power at Constantinople in 1656, the political crisis came to a close, a crisis which was simply a crisis of authority in central power. When the grand vizier Mehmet Koprulii inaugurated a period of firm government in the name of the young sultan Mehmed IV, Christendom, aghast, quickly realized that the Turks remained a force still to be feared.
