BATTLE OF LEPANTO This research paper discusses

This research paper discusses and chooses among various extant interpretations concerning the causes, course and consequences of the Battle of Lepanto which took place on October 7, 1571. That clash of arms was triggered by the invasion and eventual conquest of the Venetian colony of Cyprus by troops of the Ottoman Empire. Religious ideology was an important deeper cause of this battle which occurred at or near the peak of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and of Islamic (Turkish) dominion in Europe. However, fundamental conflicting national territorial, political and economic interests and ambitions on both sides also contributed to the outbreak of naval hostilities in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and influenced the outcome of the battle. The Battle of Lepanto itself proved to be a decisive victory for the Western Catholic powers involved over the Turks. However, the longer term consequences of that battle were in fact much less significant than has been claimed under many Western interpretations.

Ottoman Goals in the Mediterranean. The Battle of Lepanto occurred only six years after the death of the greatest of all Ottoman Sultans, Suleiman I (the Magnificent) (r. 1520-1566). Beeching said that as Caliph of all Islam, Suleiman had "the duty of spreading the True Faith at the point of his sword" (38). Under his leadership and that of his 15th and 16th century predecessors, Ottoman armies through a combination of able military ta

n protecting its trading interests than in defending Christendom. Beeching said "Venice lived off the trade of the Ottoman Empire" (123). As it lost naval supremacy in the Mediterranean to the Turks, it alternated between policies of appeasement and alliance with other western powers. Goffman said relations between the Ottoman and Venetian Empires "were always entangled" (138). So were relations among Venice, other Italian city states and Spain. The first anti-Turkish Holy League formed in 1538 among Venice, the Papal States, Genoa and Spain fell apart after the Turkish victory at Prevesa and was not effectively reconstituted (by Venice, Spain, the papal states, Florence, Genoa, Sicily, Naples and Monaco) until the summer of 1571, only a few months before the Battle of Lepanto. Pope Pius V, fresh from presiding over a resurgent and revived Catholic unity at the Council of Trent, urged the Christian powers to unite against the Church's mortal enemies, Protestantism and the infidel Turks. When Pius V died in 1572 a year after the Battle of Lepanto, Padfield said "the spirit went out of the League" (107). Spain had to assume leadership of any anti-Turkish naval effort because she had the best trained fighting men, the best situat