ABSTRACT
Provides the political background to sixteenth-century Turcica through a narrative description of Ottoman-European interactions during the Late Middle Ages and early modern periods. This chapter is perhaps one of the best succinct summaries of Hapsburg-Ottoman relations and of Turkish incursions into Central Europe available in English.
This chapter begins with a brief summary of the rise of the Ottoman Empire and of Hapsburg Imperial responses to the Ottomans prior to the reign of Sulaiman. The chapter then describes the Ottoman advance into Central Europe as well as Imperial responses, especially in regard to the German Reichstag. The Ottoman campaigns of 1526 (Mohacs), 1529 (Vienna), and 1532 (Austrian Styria) are described as well as Imperial and Ottoman interactions in Hungary in the 1540s. The focus of analysis in this book is the first half of the sixteenth century corresponding to the foundational establishment of German Protestant views of Islam, and therefore the historical context also is weighted toward this period. However, the chapter concludes with a summary of Ottoman-European interactions in Central Europe during the remainder of the sixteenth century, although the situation there enters into an uneasy status quo.
