ges, the power of
the Turks was broken at Lepanto and that of Spain at Gravelines
notwithstanding deceptive appearances afterwards. Venice was
soon confronted on the sea by a new rival. The Turkish naval
historian, Haji Khalifeh,[30] tells us that, 'After the taking of
Constantinople, when they [the Ottomans] spread their conquests
over land and sea, it became necessary to build ships and make
armaments in order to subdue the fortresses and castles on the
Rumelian and Anatolian shores, and in the islands of the
Mediterranean.' Mohammed II established a great naval arsenal at
Constantinople. In 1470 the Turks, 'for the first time, equipped
a fleet with which they drove that of the Venetians out of the
Grecian seas.'[31] The Turkish wars of Venice lasted a long time.
In that which ended in 1503 the decline of the Venetians' naval
power was obvious. 'The Mussulmans had made progress in naval
discipline; the Venetian fleet could no longer cope with theirs.'
Henceforward it was as an allied contingent of other navies that
that of Venice was regarded as important. Dyer[32] quotes a striking
passage from a letter of AEneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II,
in which the writer affirms that, if the Venetians are defeated,
Christendom will not control the sea any longer; for neither the
Catalans nor the Genoese, without the Venetians, are equal to
the Turks.

[Footnote 30: _Maritime_Wars_of_the_Turks_, Mitchell's trans.,
p. 12.]

[Footnote 31: Sismondi, p. 256.]

[Footnote 32: _Hist._Europe_, i. p. 85.]

SEA-POWER IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

The last-named people, indeed, exemplified once more the rule
that a military state expanding to the sea and absorbing older
maritime populations becomes a serious menace to its neighbours.
Even in the fifteenth century Mohammed II had made an attack on
Southern Italy; but his sea-power was not equal to the undertaking.
Suleyman the Magnificent directed the Ottoman forces towards
the West. With admirable strategic insight he conquered Rhodes,
and thus freed himself from the danger of a hostile force on
his flank. 'The centenary of the conquest of Constantinople was
past, and the Turk had developed a great naval power besides
annexing Egypt and Syria.'[33] The Turkish fleets, under such
leaders as Khair-ad-din (Barbarossa), Piale, and Dragut, seemed
to command the Mediterranean including its western basin; but the
repulse at Malta in 1565 was a serious check, and the