War Diplomacy and Trade in Ottoman Empire

Ottoman

As Emrah Safa Gurkan points out in "The Centre and the Frontier," the Ottoman Empire made strategic political decisions in part due to a shifting balance of power in Europe. Head to head with the Habsburg Empire, the Ottomans saw great opportunity and power in the incorporation of the North African corsairs for geographic, geopolitical, economic, and social reasons.

Although European exploits abroad were far more ambitious and large scale, the Ottoman response was by no means puny. The Ottoman model of expansion and empire was simply different from the Iberian, English, or French models. Geographically speaking, the Ottoman participation in the Age of Exploration included escapades to and around India, with remarkably important exploits that helped the Empire forge its own trade routes with India. This was of course motivated by competition with the Portuguese explorers, who can be conceived of as reacting to the Ottoman expansion rather than vice versa.

Acquiring the Magreb was a strategic measure that exemplified Ottoman ingenuity in its diplomacy and foreign policy. Bonding with the corsairs was a critical move, predicated in part on the Muslim conquest of North Africa that had enabled some degree of cultural continuity between Ottoman and Berber. With relatively little resistance and not nearly the type of colonial enterprise that Portuguese explorations entailed, the Ottomans were supremely well positioned on the "forgotten frontier." The Ottoman infiltration of the Berber front allowed for an extension of the empire that was geographically, politically, and economically important. It gave the Ottomans power over the long-established trade routes that had permeated North Africa; insight into Corsair military and political intelligence; and extended Ottoman cultural hegemony over the Muslim world.

Corsair political intelligence had been driven by years on conflict with the European powers. This was especially important from the perspective of the looming culture clash between the Christian "west" and Ottoman "east" looming throughout Europe. The corsairs were a thorn in the side of Europe already. The Corsairs aligning with the Ottoman Empire was an added phenomenon that made North Africa seem that much more of a threatening front. This was in the face of rapid and ambitious expansionism. It prevented Spain and Portugal from having direct access to those territories, and proved to the Habsburgs who would reign supreme over the region. The clash of civilizations, between Christian Habsburg and Muslim Ottoman Empires manifested especially on the North coast of Africa, which is why Ottoman control of the Magreb was so important at this particular moment. It also extended the coastline of the Empire by quite a large margin, in direct competition with the Portuguese eye on West African territories.