LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

FRANCISCO: POLEMICAL WORKS AGAINST ISLAM, 1529-43 41
THE EXPANSION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
At the very beginning of the fourteenth century the Ottoman Turks began
their steady ascent to power. Originating as a small ghazi emirate located in
Anatolia, they eventually came to dominate the Middle East and the lands
surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. 4 Following the conquest of
Constantinople in 1453 and the annexation of the Arab Mamlûk Empire in
1517, the Turks were ready to begin enveloping central and western Europe
into the sphere of Islam (dâr al-Islâm).
Sultan Süleyman I (1520-1566) led the charge. By 1526 he made his way
into the plains of Hungary and, after decimating the Hungarian army at
Mohács, continued up the Danube River, capturing Buda and Pest ten days
later. Fortunately for Hungary and the rest of Europe, a Shî‘a revolt in
Anatolia forced him to recall his troops, but not before appointing the native
prince John Zapolya as vassal king (24 September 1526). Seizing the
opportunity to annexe an unstable Hungary for the Habsburgs, Archduke
Ferdinand occupied the capital of Buda. Angry and uncomfortable with
Charles V’s empire encroaching upon the Ottoman Balkans, Süleyman
responded the following year. By late fall 1528 he regained Buda and all of
central Hungary. Less than a year later he continued his assault upon Europe
by marching his army to Vienna and laying siege on the imperial city from
27 September to 15 October 1529. With winter fast approaching and the
Austrians showing no sign of surrender, though, the Ottomans had to return
to Istanbul lest they run out of troops and supplies. Before they withdrew, a
detachment of Turkish raiders managed to cross the Alps, ravaging Bavaria
and Bohemia, which consequently sent Europe into a panic. In retrospect,
had Süleyman continued the assault a little while longer, Stanford Shaw
posits that “his forces might well have broken into Vienna, where they could
have remained for the winter before pushing onward” into western Europe. 5
A contemporary account suggests the same idea, for the city was seen to be
the “gate and key to German lands”. 6
“To destroy the German Empire and make it clear that the sultan of the
Ottomans was the supreme ruler of all the world”, Süleyman returned to
Hungary the following year. 7 Although no territorial expansion was
achieved, the show of power frightened Austria and the Habsburgs so much
4 For a good overview, see vol. 1 of Stanford Shaw’s History of the Ottoman Empire and
Modern Turkey (London: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
5 Shaw, History, 93.
6 Peter Stern, Warhafftige handlung Wie und welcher massen der Türck die stat Ofen und
Wien belegert … (n.p., 1530), a2v.
7 Shaw, History, 94.