The Janissaries at Lepanto

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The th century was, above all, the century of two empires : the Spanish and the Ottoman. The Habsburg monarchy and the Sublime Porte were two expanding empires and the only ones with resources, structures and men capable of dealing with the other for world domination. World hegemony, despite the discovery of America by the Spanish and the opening of the Route to India by the Portuguese, continued to be settled in the Mediterranean and not in the Atlantic and the rivalry between Spanish thirds and Turkish janissaries was proof of this.

It would not be until the th century when the needle of the global compass turned in the direction of the Atlantic and Indian oceans, at which time Holland and England became truly important. By , despite BTC Users Number Data contrary opinions, Holland and England were secondary and marginal powers; which would never have been able to confront the Spanish Habsburgs on their own. The same thing happened with France, a France that had been defeated time after time by the Spanish; expelled from Italy, constrained by the dynastic alliance of the Habsburgs and mired in internal religious conflicts; and that, aware that she could no longer dispute the hegemony of the Hispanic Monarchy , she had become an ally of the Sublime Porte.Thus, in there were only two true Empires on the globe: the Hispanic Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire , and both collided in the Mediterranean.



However, the power of an empire is not only measured by its geographical extension, its population, or the power of its armies, but above all by its financial capacity. And in that vital and central sense, the Ottoman Empire of Selim II far surpassed the imperial monarchy of Philip II . While the latter managed to earn annually, through ordinary and extraordinary means, about ,, ducats, and the ordinary income of Selim II assured him about ,, ducats – very similar amounts, by the way –, Philip II accumulated in the s an annual deficit of about ,, ducats, and Selim II, for his part, had a surplus of ,, And that made the difference. Big difference, since the Turks, having a treasury full of monetary reserves, could confidently face large and long campaigns, in addition to putting more and more ships into war, in order to cover losses and expand conquests. Therefore, the Hispanic Monarchy had to be careful of going to war and if so, it had to measure its effort very well and do it by going into debt.