Hanseatic League v. Ottoman Empire | EU v. Turkey

‘Now shalt thou feel the force of Turkish arms 
 Which lately made all Europe quake for fear.’ 
Christopher Marlowe’s observation in Tamburlaine (1587) 

Hanseatic League v. Ottoman Empire | EU v. Turkey. The antagonism still goes on. 

The impact of the Ottoman Turks on sixteenth-century Europe was far-reaching. This explains why Charles V regarded them as a greater threat to Christendom than Luther; why Ferdinand II devoted the best part of his life to defending the Austrian heartlands; why Spain feared for its trade and dominions in the western Mediterranean and became paranoid over suspected links with Granadan Moriscos; why Portugal was prepared to neglect its transatlantic trade and colonies in order to defend its pepper monopoly with Asia; and why Venice saw its livelihood hang by a thread as Turkish fleets threatened to cut off its sea-borne trade. It also contributed to the ‘military revolution’ as European armies and navies learned how first to defend and then to defeat superior numbers and, in so doing, forged ahead of their eastern rivals. 

Africa was Europe’s most active trading partner.
The Hanseatic League controlled trade in the Black Sea.
Asians and Europeans traded primarily by water routes.[1][2]

The League’s creation reflected the weakness of medieval governments and the divergent interests of city dwellers and the feudal overlords with whom they were often in conflict. In the middle ages, the areas now known as Germany, Poland, the Baltic States, the Netherlands, Belgium and much of Russia consisted of a multitude of territories owing allegiance to a variety of kings, margraves and dukes often from remote locations, and to chivalric orders such as the Teutonic knights. The main activities of the groups of nobles involved marrying and feuding with one another and raising taxes from their subjects. They were rarely noted for their interest in trade except as a source of taxation. 

Map 1280 - 1500

Mavi Boncuk | 

Lübeck, Hamburg, Cologne, Osnabrück, Goslar, Erfurt, Berlin, Frankfurt (Oder), Rostock, Stade, Wismar, and Bremen all have in common?
What if I add Visby, Brügge, London, and Novgorod are not just cities & towns. They were all part of an international alliance known as the Hanseatic League, or Hansa, or Hanse, as it was sometimes called.

The Hansa was the brainchild of Henry the Lion, a 12th century Saxon Duke. Although, when he organized a bunch of towns along the Baltic Sea and North Sea coasts little did he know the power the merchant guilds would hold until around the 18th century — actually going until around the mid-19th century.
Trade around the Baltic Sea wasn’t all that lucrative until the Hanseatic League got in on the sailing action. Well, between the Vikings and pirates, who could afford to do anything? This is why so many towns and cities joined in, they all made a pact to help each other with aid. They even had their own legal system.

But, trade was their ultimate be-all end-all. See? Everything has to do with money. At the height of the League’s power in the 14th century, all sorts of new and exciting goods were making their way to/from Germany. They were getting things like herring from Scandinavia; and they were exporting salt — because Hamburg was at the epicenter of the Salt Routes.

One of the greatest achievements of the Hanseatic League wasn’t a church or castle, nor was it a typical building of any kind. They were lighthouses along the coasts. As with most things, nothing lasts. By the 16th century the Hanseatic League was losing its grip, caused by things like the Protestant Reformation and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. League prospered for 300 years before the rise of the nation state led to its dissolution.

Trade Routes 13-15 Centuries

One reason for the success of the cities in the Hanseatic League and the Italian city states
was that both were:

- protected by mountains
- isolated from the rest of Europe
- accessible by water[2]
- close to a network of navigable rivers

[1] In 1509, the Portuguese defeated a fleet of Arab and Indian Muslims, and, under Alfonso de Albuquerque, established trading centers at Goa on the Malabar Coast and at Malacca in Malaya. By 1513, Portuguese trade had extended to the East Indian Spice Islands and to Canton in China. Albuquerque's attacks on Muslim shipping and markets caused a shortage of spices in Alexandria, while the conquest of Egypt in 1517 by the Ottoman Turks temporarily cut off spice supplies to Venice. 

During the second decade of the 16th century, most of the spices for Europe arrived in Portuguese vessels by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and the Venetian merchants were forced to purchase spices in Lisbon to supply their customers. Soon, however, Venice reached a trade agreement with the Turks, the spice trade of the Levant returned to normal, and the Levantine trade in spices and Mediterranean goods remained larger and more important during the 16th century than oceanic commerce. The Venetians bought goods of better quality, while the expenses of long voyages, shipwrecks, and military forces for Portugal, and lack of goods for trading raised prices in the Portuguese trade.

[2] One of the League’s most successful joint enterprises was in shipbuilding: its Baltic Cog was tailor-made for the shallow waters of the Baltic coastline, being a flat-bottomed vessel with extensive cargo capacity. The cogs were built mostly in Lübeck and Danzig and were sold throughout Europe, including in the Mediterranean. In the 14th century the cog was replaced by a larger version called the Holk (hulk) which could transport as much as 300 tons of freight. The League also produced warships, with successful campaigns being waged with English help against pirates between 1394 and 1420 . In the 16th century the largest ship in the world at the time was the Hansa’s Adler von Lübeck. 

The Turkish navy never developed the flexibility in ship design or strategy achieved by its European counterparts. As the Spanish and Portuguese adapted their ocean-going galleons to sail the Mediterranean and modified their galleys into three-masted carracks capable of both trading and fighting, so they were able to counter the Ottoman fleet and merchant shipping which was composed solely of galleys. Though the Turks almost always put more ships to sea, the Christians had a better fleet and superior cannon fire.