The Holy League of 1571 the Diplomatic Background of the Battle of Lepanto
This study emphasizes the diplomatic maneuvers and negotiations which were necessary to achieve the Christian alliance of 1571. That alliance---the Holy League---signed in 1571 and dissolved in 1573, was climaxed by the battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The conflict was a decisive victory for the League culminating in the virtual annihilation of the Turkish fleet. No other full-scale battle was fought during the life of the alliance. Nevertheless, the Holy League nominally a perpetual alliance---was not disbanded until the Venetians worked out a separate peace with the Ottoman in 1573. The Venetian peace negotiations and those of the subsequent Spanish-Turkish armistice oh 1581 illustrate, as dc the discussions leading to the Holy League of 1571, the practice of sixteenth century diplomacy. | A case study of sixteenth century diplomacy, this paper is also a study of the increasingly secular nature of European politics during the sixteenth century. The interrelationships of Catholic Europe and the Muslim Empire were, at. the beginning of this period, totally hostile. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Turk had been assimilated into an active role in European politics---accepted by all the European powers, whether as friend or enemy. | This paper, therefore, has two objectives----it offers an example; of sixteenth century diplomacy, and it studies the development of a policy of coexistence by Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean basin and in Eastern Europe.
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