Selim II

Selim II was sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 to 1574, succeeding his father Suleiman the Magnificent. Born in 1524, he survived a fierce dynastic struggle among Suleiman’s sons and inherited an empire at the height of its territorial and administrative power. Selim relied heavily on experienced ministers, above all Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, while the imperial government continued campaigns across the Mediterranean and eastern Europe.

His reign saw the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus from Venice, an operation that helped produce the Holy League and the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The Ottoman fleet suffered a major defeat there, but naval strength was rebuilt rapidly and Cyprus remained in Ottoman hands. Campaigns and diplomacy also continued against Habsburg and Persian rivals. Selim’s reputation in later writing was often coloured by criticism of his drinking and dependence on ministers, but his reign remained one of substantial imperial activity. He died in 1574.

William Napier’s Clash of Empires: The Red Sea and The Last Crusaders: Blood Red Sea place English adventurers inside the Mediterranean war of 1571, when Selim II’s conquest of Cyprus provokes the Holy League and leads to the Battle of Lepanto. The Last Crusaders: Ivan the Terrible carries the survivors through Constantinople and towards Muscovy, using the Ottoman state ruled by Selim as the political power through which their diplomatic journey must pass. Roger Crowley’s Empires of the Sea supplies the historical scale: Selim’s Cyprus campaign is the immediate cause of Lepanto, but the book also stresses that the Ottoman navy was rapidly rebuilt, so the defeat did not end the empire’s maritime strength.