Empire and Holy War in the Mediterranean

In the century after 1530 the Habsburgs of Spain and the Ottoman Turks fought a maritime war that seemed destined to lead nowhere. Lasting peace was as unlikely as final triumph, in part because the principal beneficiaries of the fighting were pirates or ''corsairs'' based in ports such as Malta and Algiers. It was also a war of unequal means, since the Habsburgs had too few good warships and th...