An unusual topic, if a tad obscure for an English-speaking board. English and Dutch Protestants certainly shared common enemies with the Muslims—the Catholic Hapsburgs, and the Bourbons after them. To appease her more Puritan critics, Elizabeth, a religious pragmatist, agreed a line with the sultan that both Protestants and Muslims were at war with ‘idolaters’.

In the early days Turkish efforts in the Mediterranean probably did significantly relieve Spanish pressure on the Protestants in the north, while the break-up of Christendom also contributed to Ottoman military successes on the southern periphery of Europe.

The author doesn’t mention Suleiman’s equally cynical or pragmatic alliance with Francis I, the Catholic king of France, a keen persecutor of Protestants, who first enlisted the Turks into the European balance of power. The Diet of Worms’s neglect of the Turkish threat also contributed to the fall of Hungary, which turned to Calvinism in its own struggle for national survival.

English-readers tend to forget that the military power of Catholic Spain and France largely succeeded in reversing the gains of Protestantism on the continent.

Jonathan Scott:


The secret alliance between Charles II and Louis XIV against the English parliament was probably much more threatening to political and religious freedom than the intrigues of Protestants and Muslims. William of Orange and Marlborough had to win an uphill struggle against Louis XIV. Perhaps Ottoman subversion could be compared to the Soviets secretly funding Western leftists and trade unions in the Cold War: nuisance potential only. It was also good politics. It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that the Barbary corsairs and finally even the Sublime Porte itself only lasted as long as they did on English sufferance.

Turkey is again a great power with a promising future, and Turcophiles in the Foreign Office are busy courting it as a potential counterweight to the Franco-German axis in the European Union. To a degree, this is the revival of a traditional strategy.

[This message has been edited by Lord of Hosts (edited 01-15-2010 @ 00:38 AM).]

The first historical references to the Turks appear in Chinese records dating around 200 B.C. These records refer to tribes called the Hsiung-nu (an early form of the Western term Hun ), who lived in an area bounded by the Altai Mountains, Lake Baykal, and the northern edge of the Gobi Desert, and who are believed to have been the ancestors of the Turks (see fig. 3). Specific references in Chinese sources in the sixth century A.D. identify the tribal kingdom called Tu-Küe located on the Orkhon River south of Lake Baykal. The khans (chiefs) of this tribe accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Tang Dynasty. The earliest known example of writing in a Turkic language was found in that area and has been dated around A.D. 730.

This is all speculation as is the information on Suleyman. The Hun (Hsiung-nu) were not Turks. The Turks emerged after they migrated from China to Persia and then over to Byzantium. It was only after 1000 years of interbreeding between mongols, russians, persians, and a variety of asiatic peoples that the Turks emerged. Linking the Hun with Turks is like saying everyone in Southern Europe is Greek.

Suleyman had little influence on the West but he did try to create an Islamic world. A Islamic Kingdom. In the Koran it places the Turk highly with respect. He used this to ensure those he was annexing were entering into a holly state demanded by God. His son made a few steps forward but soon enough the whole plan seemed rather weak compared to Western powers at the time 1600+.

Quoted from Lord of Hosts:

An unusual topic, if a tad obscure for an English-speaking board.

Yes, I know. But its obscurity is what caught my fancy. How many times can we discuss the fall of Ancient Rome, etc.? And yet the Ottoman Empire which lasted hundreds of years is left untouched in this forum despite the fact in its early formation it triggered the era of the Crusades and later was very much on European minds, especially the Hapsburgs in Central Europe. Enough on their minds even to spawn attempts by Mozart and Beethoven to simulate Turkish-syle music/marches. I thought it refreshingly different and I hoped other forumers with strong historical interests might enjoy the detour.

[This message has been edited by Civis Romanus (edited 01-16-2010 @ 00:18 AM).]

To understand the Ottoman Empire we must understand the history of the Mediterranean, which even in the 16th Century was more or less the center of the Western world.

And I'm indeed including the Ottoman Empire as Western, just as Catholic Rome was. There are several reasons: Ottomans mantained a very similar relationship with the Catholics as the previous Ortodox Byzantines. They adopted political discourse and protocol of the Byzantine Emperors, and used most of their institutions.

Certainly the Hapsburgs were a serious threat to Ottoman influence in the Mediterranean. The Spanish monarchy was the most troublesome, much more than Austria and the Holy Roman Empire could have been. Castille laid claims on Northern Africa, and they excerted it by invading the Northern African coast in the early 16th Century, resulting in raids. The Ottoman Sultans also knew very well how to deal with European countries, even marrying with Christians for that purpose. It's not something surprising they would support protestants as to open a second front for the Habsburgs.

As for England, we could say it was secure indeed. Not so much because of it's strength: England was a backwater power, barely able to excert it's influence beyond it's island up until the 18th Century. Defences of England led to other powers avoid the invasion of it, as it would be too costly for such little reward. Spain, France and other powers were much more interested in the richess of the mediterranean and the Americas, though the last would be almost entirely dominated by Spain. They were content with the fact that they could crush, as they did, the English navy repeatedly beyond their inmediate shores.

Going back to the Ottoman Empire: I believe certainly it was one of the most important empires in European and world history. It's cultural influence was more than we imagine. They mantained very important institutions and protocol from their Byzantine past, just like other Muslim Empires did with their Sassanid and Roman past.

ok now lock the thread.

When people start ranting over cultural influences derived from the Turk then their ignorance completely shows. For one the Turks were Mongol derived culture that melded into an islamic culture eg Arabic. Between 1000AD towards the taking of Constantinople they became slightly Hellenised through Byzantine culture. The supposed Turkish culture was an Asiatic/Arabic/Byzantine culture that eventually became Hellenic. None of what the Turks have is theirs it is a borrowing of other peoples customs. The gave nothing to the world.

None of what the Turks have is theirs it is a borrowing of other peoples customs. The gave nothing to the world.

Humph. What about the supposed British culture? Or Roman/Byzantine? Didn't most of that start off getting borrowed? For that matter, America has got to be the greatest borrower of them all. You'd hardly deny American culture exists. As for giving something to the world... American culture's certainly arguable there .

Ephestion, keep your rants in OD.

Quoted from Alex_pharaoh:

As for England, we could say it was secure indeed. Not so much because of it's strength: England was a backwater power, barely able to excert it's influence beyond it's island up until the 18th Century.

Don't you dare, Alex_pharaoh, start an internecine war. I got you cold turkey waving the red flag in front of the bull well before "you-know-who" can jump in to retaliate. You are wrong, big-time, in making this particular assertion and I will not let your comment derail this thread by allowing that likely debate to go off target. Please don't try.

To "You-Know-Who": I am sending you a virtual sedative. Take it please, swallow it, and don't bite on Alex's bait. I got the magnifying glass well focussed where it belongs. Humor me please, and save this thread from what likely would have occured. I will recognize the effort (and the sacrifice it will entail).

Forumers: This thread is intended to foster history topics in The Library to show we can really do it if we try. Please don't do things to turn this effort into a circus.

Ephestion: Your bias is legendary. I won't abide any more outbursts like it in this thread or elsewhere in The Library. As bdf101 said, go do it in OD. That seems the home for it.

I don't agree with hazing newcomers, people, as it is a sure-fire way to prevent the growth of this forum. However, Temur is right in suggesting this isn't a time in which our posting is at its best. This is a new year and a new direction we're setting for The Library, and if it takes a brickbat to make it happen, I'm of a mind to wield one, even if it takes out a veteran Librarian in the process.

Now let's get on with it.

[This message has been edited by Civis Romanus (edited 01-15-2010 @ 01:56 PM).]

Ephestion, I'm going to ask you politely to either enter into a rational conversation or shut up and go back to OD to talk about chickens assholes. Just because most threads in HG which mention the Turks are intended to bait you it doesn't mean that they all have to be that way. Seeing as how it was Civis who started this one the intent is obviously very different, and as such we don't need your rants to ruin it.

Don't misinterpret my intentions. I'm being wholly honest. England was staying away from European matters, and nearly attempts in the early 17th Century to try and meddle were crushed.

Spain had other worries more important than England: Holland and the Ottoman Empire.

Anyway, I'll respond later to Ephestion.

The great monarchies of Spain, France and Turkey could call on mass levees, but I’m afraid they really were politically and economically backward compared to Elizabethan England and more especially the Netherlands, which in terms of income levels in the sixteenth century overtook Italy, the most highly-developed economy in the Mediterranean. Apparently somebody’s still confusing precious metals with real wealth. Wealth in the north was also more evenly distributed, and more readily taxed.

Protestant weakness on land was compensated for by strength at sea. The Spanish crown certainly thought the Netherlands were worth fighting for, which is why it was also fighting England in periods of the Eighty Years’ War. Elizabethan England may have been on the geographical periphery of the Mediterranean, but it operated the most powerful battle fleet in the world, while the Dutch had the largest mercantile marine and clearly predominated in global trade in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the seventeenth century the two Protestant naval powers did project themselves in strength into the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. The Protestant cause suffered many setbacks in Europe in the seventeenth century on account of English neutrality, imposed on a reluctant country by James, a peace-loving Scot, prompting at least a few English privateers to turn Turk, i.e. convert.

[This message has been edited by Lord of Hosts (edited 01-15-2010 @ 06:49 PM).]

Quoted from Alex_pharaoh:

Don't misinterpret my intentions.

I will always try not to. So do your best to display intentions contrary to my initial take. I shall appreciate that as well, and in fact, most of all.

Anyone: Were the Western Med and Ottoman Empire economies interwoven? If yes, how and when?

[This message has been edited by Civis Romanus (edited 01-15-2010 @ 03:27 PM).]

Sorry, it’s just me again. Yes, they were.

The spice and silk trade between the Levant and the Italian city-states was the most important and expanded rapidly after the papal ban of 1291 was formally lifted in 1348. The Ottomans in the East, like the Venetians in the West, rose to prominence partly because they were more trade-savvy than their piratical neighbours, and the Turks and Italians managed to hang onto the lion’s share of the transit trade until the end of the sixteenth century, when, in terms of volume, they began to be overtaken by the Dutch, outflanking them by the Cape route.

The centre of gravity in world trade shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic in the seventeenth century, but the Ottoman decline was relative rather than absolute: commercial integration of the Levantine and Atlantic economies also occurred in the seventeenth century, with the Dutch, English and French expanding their presence in the Mediterranean as well as the Far East, and developing regular direct trade with the Levant.

From a religious point of view, siding with the 16th century protestants would make more sense for the Ottomans, anyway - the 16th century iconoclasts would have found favour with the Ottomans, even if the complete interpretation of religion wouldn't. Furthermore, the protestants were generally operating on the Baltic and North Sea coasts and so didn't cause an immediate threat to Ottoman interests, while the Catholic powers on the Mediterranean - Spain/Austria, France (even though apparently, as LoH pointed out, they were subsidised by the Ottomans as well - they were probably viewed as a secondary threat after Spain), the Italian states - clearly did.

The Protestant cause suffered many setbacks in Europe in the seventeenth century on account of English neutrality, imposed on an unwilling country by James, a peace-loving Scot, prompting at least a few English privateers to turn Turk, i.e. convert.

And in the Netherlands, as you might know, the saying 'Rather Turkish than Papist' (Liever Turks dan paaps) is known to this day. I only know of one Dutchman who converted to Islam (to fight as a Barbary privateer), however, but then again the protestants won, so there was no need.

The largest merchant fleet in Europe was help by the Greeks who operated under the Ottomans. The ships were generally allowed free passage to most places in Africa, Russia, India and Europe. After a while as LOH points out the European powers started to replace the need for using Greek ships. Between 1600-1800 there were many political events that led to a restriction of Greek Merchant fleets eg Spanish-Turkish wars.

http://www.crwflags.com/FOTW/flags/gr_ottom.html

That’s actually an interesting point. With the exhaustion of Spain and the absolute decline of both the Italian city-states and the Ottoman navy in the seventeenth century, the French, Dutch and English gradually took over as the leading maritime powers in the Mediterranean.

But the Greek caravaneurs were important in the coastal trade of the Aegean and Black Sea. And with the retreat of Venice, the Greeks even managed for a time to take over the carrying trade between the Levant and Italy, and competed with the French in the eastern Mediterranean.

The regional fleet in the late seventeenth century consisted of up to 16,000 coasting boats—many of them Muslim-owned, as the Turks used Greeks as cover to discourage capture by Maltese corsairs—but if the total tonnage was on the order of, say, 400,000 tons, which seems plausible, the regional fleet might well have been comparable in its carrying capacity (though not in composition) to the contemporary long-distance, ocean-going trading fleets of the Dutch and English—amazingly enough.

[This message has been edited by Lord of Hosts (edited 01-16-2010 @ 00:10 AM).]

Protestant weakness on land was compensated for by strength at sea. The Spanish crown certainly thought the Netherlands were worth fighting for, which is why it was also fighting England in periods of the Eighty Years’ War. Elizabethan England may have been on the geographical periphery of the Mediterranean, but it operated the most powerful battle fleet in the world, while the Dutch had the largest mercantile marine and clearly predominated in global trade in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the seventeenth century the two Protestant naval powers did project themselves in strength into the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. The Protestant cause suffered many setbacks in Europe in the seventeenth century on account of English neutrality, imposed on a reluctant country by James, a peace-loving Scot, prompting at least a few English privateers to turn Turk, i.e. convert.

The problem of this is you are forgetting a key element in this equation: Portugal and it's navy, that through the 16th Century has the most powerful navy in the world, even moreso than the Dutch, and certainly more than the English. Portugal would also have one of the most sophisticated economies, even though after the exhaustion of the 30 years' war and Portuguese independence, the decline was clear. Even so, despite all this, the Portuguese navy was still powerful enougth to defend itself from the Dutch naval war machine being the latter at it's climax of power.

The English couldn't really ammount more than privateering expeditions under Elizabethan England. While it's future economic success could very well be a product of Elizabethan policies and success in defending English terrotories from Spanish and French intervention, such success was in it's craddle. The Dutch were a much more of a problem to Spain than England was. The Treaty of London is evidence for that.

The war itself was catastrophic after the Spanish Armada fiasco of 1588.

This certainly forced James I to reconsider any intervention in Europe for the next decades.

Remember that England had to go through the Anglo-Dutch Wars in order to decide what country would remain the dominant European merchantile power after the Spanish decline. But this would only happen after 1640, not before. Curiously, one of the aspects of English supremacy was the key alliance between England and Portugal.

The centre of gravity in world trade shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic in the seventeenth century, but the Ottoman decline was relative rather than absolute: commercial integration of the Levantine and Atlantic economies also occurred in the seventeenth century, with the Dutch, English and French expanding their presence in the Mediterranean as well as the Far East, and developing regular direct trade with the Levant.

I agree. The idea where the Mediterranean "declined" in favor of Atlantic routes is more of a myth than a reality, based on the idea in which the Ottomans caused difficulties of trade. But it's certainly not as simple as that.

Beyond international trade, tha is very important in this period, we must consider internal trade that, at this point, was probably more important for the economies of the time. Internal trade was a key issue for all monarchies, especially huge empires as the Ottomans were. They controlled at least two key ports, Instambul and Alexandria. They had a considerable merchant class and recieved huge income from silk-route trade, just as LoH well expressed. New intermediaries as well as old, like Tuscany or Genoa, mantained considerable income despite that supposed "decline".

Now, to reply something I saw before:

When people start ranting over cultural influences derived from the Turk then their ignorance completely shows. For one the Turks were Mongol derived culture that melded into an islamic culture eg Arabic. Between 1000AD towards the taking of Constantinople they became slightly Hellenised through Byzantine culture. The supposed Turkish culture was an Asiatic/Arabic/Byzantine culture that eventually became Hellenic. None of what the Turks have is theirs it is a borrowing of other peoples customs. The gave nothing to the world.

I'm sorry, Ephestion. The Ottoman Empire gave much more to Middle Eastern and European civilization than what we think. To simplify it all into an equation of "more hellenization, better culture" is an absurdity. The success of the Ottoman Empire has a lot more to do with their Muslim heritage, enabling them to have the tools for their expansion towards the Mediterranean coast.

Their key institution was their claim to the Muslim caliphate. Their conquest of Constntinople also laid claims to their "leadership" of the Greek Church, many of which preffered to have Mehmet II ruling over them than the hateful Latins of the West. It played perfectly into their hands.

The use of Muslim leaders of the claim of "leaders of Christian/Jewish communities" is common practice in the Middle Ages. The Caliph of Al-Andalus Abd al-Rahman III was the one of appointed bishops and leaders of Jewish communities. The Ottomans did something similar, and as such it was not contradictory to see them supporting protestant revolts. In their titles, they laid claims to be heads of the Christian communities, having conquered Constantinople itself: seat of the Roman Basileus.

But protocol and titles aside, there are many other things that we can percieve as having Ottoman influence. The Middle East is largely product of Ottoman presence.

Word vomit.

It’s just drivel.

People carp about newbies but some of the oldies are at least as bad. This is supposed to be a history thread. You claim to be a history student. It can’t be naval history you’ve been taught. It says something when ephestion’s posts are better than yours. I don’t like to be brusque, but it’s a little bit annoying that you still think you can brazen it out by making stuff up. It’s the dishonesty that’s the real turn-off. It just snowballs. It really is trolling. The upshot is that other people waste significant time responding to mendacity. It drags this venue down.

Spain’s role in Mediterranean trade was pretty marginal, and sixteenth-century Portugal was even poorer and less developed than Spain. As for the naval arms race, measurable unambiguously in ordnance by tons, by the Armada campaign, the Royal Navy outgunned the battle fleets of Spain and Portugal combined; it also outclassed those of the Dutch, the French, and the German and Italian maritime states, and was stronger at the end of the war than it had been at the start, while the English subsidy to the Netherlands was almost as big as the English naval budget itself. Although English ships raided Spanish harbours at will, the strategic role of a fleet is sea-keeping; it’s on that which its performance is to be primarily judged, and in that too it was obviously successful.

Uhhh... what about the discovery of the New World?

It's an irony but I think it's a just a shift in the balance of power. Suleyman was being the power broker. There's an old Chinese military adage, given to the duke of Qin. "Make enemies with your nearest neighbours, make allies with those from far away." (This reversed Qin's bad military fortune.)

The Protestant powers were on the other side of Europe -- what threat did they pose to Suleyman? The Orthodox and the Catholic Christians were Suleyman's immediate enemies.

I think Suleyman just simply forgot that the world was round. How was Suleyman supposed to anticipate that these Protestant powers were to dominate the New World and eventually bypass the Silk Road trade routes under Ottoman control? When Queen Elizabeth took the throne, she seemed in a weak position (after all, being a woman) and the crows were gathering around England, and England certainly didn't have any major English colonies.

Spain’s role in Mediterranean trade was pretty marginal, and sixteenth-century Portugal was even poorer and less developed than Spain. As for the naval arms race, measurable unambiguously in ordnance by tons, by the Armada campaign, the Royal Navy outgunned the battle fleets of Spain and Portugal combined; it also outclassed those of the Dutch, the French, and the German and Italian maritime states, and was stronger at the end of the war than it had been at the start, while the English subsidy to the Netherlands was almost as big as the English naval budget itself. Although English ships raided Spanish harbours at will, the strategic role of a fleet is sea-keeping; it’s on that which its performance is to be primarily judged, and in that too it was obviously successful.

It's easy to simplify a hugely complex and badly studied period and region. As far as I am concerned, you take part in a traditionalist position invented in the 18th Century by French historians, that tended to look down on Spain due to certain ideological or nationalist reasons.

There is a serious difference when it came to the Grand Armada, that few historians would claim to be a decisive victory for the English. First, Spain used mainly transport ships, preparing the invasion of the country. England didn't have such necessity.

It was only with Dutch naval power that Spanish and Portuguese fleets were surpassed.

I may not be an expert of naval history, especially in Early Modern Europe. However, to make such a bold claim where the English were inmediately superior to the most powerful country on Earth at the time is product of ignorance more than anything. England was unable to defeat the Iberian monarchy in the Anglo-Spanish war. The main victory of the English, the Armada fiasco of 1588, had much more to do with strategic faliure than with English superiority.

Leaving aside that, your ignorance of the subject is obvious coming from your naming of the Spanish Empire as "Spain" (especially as it didn't exist before 1812). In fact, it was a conglomeration of many monarchies. This includes, if you had any idea of it, Aragon and the Two Sicilies, both of which were the main investment of Madrid in the Mediterranean. This explains clearly the Spanish interventionist policy in Italy, source of credit as well as commercial revenue. This also explains Castillian intervention in Northern Africa, particularly Oran in the early 1500's.

The complexity of that system is recently reviewed by many historians today. At least, I don't make claims coming from biased sources from 300 years ago. The marriage of arrogance and certitude is the easiest way to not see one's own ignorance.

[This message has been edited by Alex_pharaoh (edited 01-18-2010 @ 09:41 AM).]

Returning to the subject at hand, the relationship between Italian States and the Ottoman Empire, or rather, the presence of Mediterranean European trade in the era of the Turk is more interlinked than what was traditionally expected:

MARINO, John A., "Economic structures and transformations" in MARINO, John A. (ed.), Early Modern Italy, Oxford University Press, 2002, pags. 62-64.

"The pax hispanica permitted the Italian States to return (from the Italian Wars) to their former local, regional, and international economic activities in trade and finance. Textiles led the manufacturing sector. Production of Florentine woollens doubled from 1553 to 1560 and registered more than 33,000 cloths in 1572; venetian woollens increased 9,6 per cent per annum from 1521 to 1569, and grew from about 10,000 cloths at mid-century to a peak of 29,000 pieces in 1602; and after the 1559 treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, Milan, Como, and Bergamo (...) developed significant production. Increased silk production was even more dramatic: four-fifths of workers in Naples were involved in the silk industry in 1580; 50,000 women worked in silk in the state of Milan in 1593; Milanese armour, Brescian armaments, Venetian and Milanese printing industries all expanded. In commerce, Medici patronage to the small coastal town of Leghorn (Livorno) saw its anual numbers of incoming ships rise eightfold between 1570s and 1600, thereby displacing Genoa as the chief Tyrrhenian port, while Venice retained its dominance of the Adriatic. Finnaly, Genoa emerged as a financial powerhouse as the Spanish crown's baker by replacing the Augsburg Fuggers after Philip II's first 'bankrupcy' (a debt crisis requiring refinancing and rescheduling of loans) in 1556. The Genoese held Spanish imperial finances in their hands until the 1620s, were the major underwriter of Spanish wars, and became the chief beneficiaries of Spanish New World wealth in repayment for their loans."

As for the influence of New World silver output by Castillian-held mines, the same author continues (regarding the long-term decline of Italy as the place for commercial powerhouses):

[...] "The effect of the five- or sixfold price rise of the sixteenth century, even before the dramatic increase of American silver shipments after 1570 increased the European money supply, cannot be overemphasized. This inflation -the so-called 'Price Revolution'- extended across Europe even into the Ottoman empire, where the absence of customs duties on silver imports brought large quantities of cheap European silver into the Levant market after the 1580s. Higher prices were not matched by higher wages or increased rents, so that landlords and property-owners as well as salaried employees and peasants found their real income fall and the power of credit markets rise. The credit shock of the second decade of the seventeenth century and the outbreak of the Thirty Years War burst the bubble of the Italian boom".

It is obvious that the Mediterranean was more dynamic than what was traditionally expected. Catholic powers had indeed access, even if indirectly, to Ottoman-held markets. Venice retained in the 16th Century half the pepper imports of Europe, for example.

The decline of the system came more from the exhaustion of the Castillian system and it's political collapse by mid-seventeenth Century, though also due to the increased competition. The Ottomans signed special trade priviledges with France by 1569, while Dutch and English ships gradually replaced Venetian, Genoese and Tuscan ones for the transport of goods. Though that, too, would develop mostly in the mid-seventeenth Century.

But what is most evident from this is the importance of Castillian and, of course, Aragonese presence in the Mediterranean, especially for the Italian City-States. Genoa was the main commercial partner of the Seville port. In exchange for the foreign debt, the Castillian monarchy tended to hand over key productive forces to these bankers, thus allowing to mantain the economic structure of the Empire. For example, the Mercury mine of Almaden was essencial for silver exploitation in Potosi, which at the same time was a real machine in the development of Peruvian regional trade, resulting in considerable income for the monarchy out of trading taxes as well for the silver output.

If we remain in the idea where the Hispanic monarchy (to not call it "Spain") was a mere unified juggernaut of massive yet inefficient proportions, we fall into the mistake of not seeing that this same monarchy retained it's empire for more than 200 years. The history of this entity is more complex than mere stereotypes, for better or for worse. And, sadly, stereotypes dominated Spanish history for up until last decades. I was even thinking of making a thread about that, though relating to the Medieval era and the apparent nationalistic nonesense.

[This message has been edited by Alex_pharaoh (edited 01-18-2010 @ 10:24 AM).]

Okay, guys. Point and counterpoint. Play nice, please, and end the "ignorance" accusations. I have plenty of problems right now in The Library and I don't need to add two more veterans to the problem pot. The ban button is well-lubricated and it's perfectly capable of taking forumers out two at a time. Please don't give me reason to try it out.

Ok, Civis, I will stop accusing people of ignorance. But I will point out that if there is something I dislike are people that take an arrogant tone on something they have no clue about. I always try to apply self-doubt in my posts, wether I achieve it or not. It's more than what another veteran forumer did recently.

[This message has been edited by Alex_pharaoh (edited 01-18-2010 @ 03:13 PM).]

Might I remind you that if Philip II hadn't sent his Armada against the rebellious Netherlands and England, he would have sent it against the Turks? The pope was continually harassing him to start a crusade against the Ottoman empire, and the only thing that withheld Philip from starting one was that he didn't have the means for it if he also had to fight the heretics in his own lands. What if the protestants had gone down? Would a united Catholic Europe have sent all its forces at the Ottoman empire? And what would its chances have been in that case?