The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

~ OF PRISONERS, SLAVES AND THE CHARITY OF STRANGERS ~ 123
North Africa or the Knights of Malta. But as it was, Uskok attacks on Ottoman
shipping did not result in resource accumulation that could have enabled some
particularly successful captain to set himself up as a minor prince. 16 In part such a
development was prevented by the strong reaction of the Ottoman sultans, who
frequently sent out their messengers (çavuş) in order to put pressure upon the
Venetian Signoria. If the latter was unable or unwilling to honour its commitment
to protect peaceful shipping, so the Ottoman argument went, it would become
necessary to send a naval force from Istanbul to deal with the problem. But this
was an eventuality the authorities in Venice wished to avoid at all costs; for it
was unclear whether the Ottoman navy, once it had come so close to the rich and
almost unfortified city, would limit itself to reducing the infertile rock of Senj. In
addition, allowing the Ottomans into the northern Adriatic would greatly lower
Venetian prestige, not very high even under normal circumstances, in the eyes of
the powerful Spanish viceroys of Milan and Naples. It was even feared that such
a situation might give rise to a Spanish attack on Venetian territories. In consequence,
as we have seen, Venice went so far as to fight a brief war with the
Habsburgs (1615–17/1023–7) in order to ensure that Senj did not become the
centre of a small but aggressive semi-independent border state.
Other pirates who viewed themselves as defenders of Christianity were the
Cossacks of the Ottoman–Polish–Russian borderlands, whom we have already
encountered in their steppe conflicts with the Tatars. But at present it is their
activity at sea that will concern us. In the years before and after 1600/1008–9, the
Cossacks built small but sturdy ships able to weather the dangerous storms of the
Black Sea, and began to attack Ottoman port towns and villages. Thus they surprised
Sinop, whose inhabitants, guardsmen included, had left the fortified
settlement to attend a fair in the vicinity (1615/1023–4). 17 They also briefly occupied
Trabzon, the most important town on the Black Sea coast, famous for its
gold- and silversmiths. There was even a Cossack attack on Beykoz, a Bosphorus
village on the outskirts of Istanbul (documented 1592–4/1000–3). All this piratical
activity forced the Ottomans to maintain a coastguard to protect the Anatolian
shores, even though – if official boundaries are considered – at this time the
Black Sea constituted an Ottoman lake. 18 Once again, as in the Uskok case, we
are confronted with a failed attempt at state formation; the Cossack leaders tried
to break loose from the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom, but seem to have realized
that they needed resources from outside ventures in order to obtain the funding
for such an enterprise. In the long run, however, even the booty gained from
Anatolian towns was not sufficient to finance the constitution of an independent
state and, as we have seen (Chapter 3), a large section of the Cossacks in the end
accepted the suzerainty of the Russian tsar.