The Fourth Ottoman-Venetian War

The Fourth Ottoman-Venetian War, also known as the War of Cyprus, was a war between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian Republic over control of the Island of Cyprus. This war was fought mainly through naval conflicts between the two states. After years of warfare, the conflict ended in an Ottoman victory over the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus, giving its new rulers considerable power over Levant Trade and power in the Eastern Mediterranean. The war between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian Republic was started because of the economic and geographic advantages of controlling Cyprus, and would not have begun if the location of the island was not advantageous to both states.

Located in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the island of Cyprus was a very important territory of the Venetians prior to the Fourth Ottoman-Venetian War. The island is located in a part of the world that allowed the Venetians to rival the Ottomans in trade. This can be seen by Looking at the map in Woodward’s article, “The Ottomans in Europe.” This map shows that Cyprus was closer to the Ottoman Empire than the Venetian Republic (Woodward, “The Ottomans in Europe”). Due to the location, the Ottomans had the ability to easily send its army to the island for conquest, while the Venetians had a harder time sending troops because the Republic was located farther away.

Consequently, it proved to be a challenge for the Republic of Venice to protect its territory and eventually was one of the causes of its defeat and loss of Cyprus. According to The Ottomans in Europe, the loss of Cyprus flipped the balance of Mediterranean trade, with Venice losing important economic territory to the Ottomans. This, in turn, gave the Ottoman Empire greater economic power within the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, and proved to be a major setback to the Venetians, as they lost important territory that allowed them to maintain a heavy influence in Levant Trade (Woodward, “The Ottomans in Venice”).

Cyprus was important to the Venetians due to the economic advantages it provided the Republic. Cyprus was rich with two valuable commodities: wine and grain (Woodward, “The Ottomans in Europe”). Venice, being entirely on the water with very little arable land, relied on imports of grain as a source of food. Wine served as an item of cultural importance to Western Europeans and acted as a valuable commodity for trade. These economic advantages of Cyprus made it even more important to the Republic that they defended the island. The Venetians built impressive fortifying walls around the capital city of Nicosia in hopes that they would protect the important city from the imminent Ottoman Attack (whatson-northcyprus.com, “The Venetian Walls”).

However, these defenses did not hold the Ottomans due to the Ottoman’s superior tactics involving weapons utilizing gunpowder such as cannons and guns. The Ottoman siege on the city resulted in Ottoman control of the capital city as well as the massacre of 20,000 citizens of Nicosia (“War Between Turks and Venice”). The Ottoman conquest of this city was important to the Venetians because of the Venetian’s desire to maintain this important territory that provided them with key economic exports as well as a supply of food that the Republic could utilize. The Ottoman Empire was interested in Cyprus for the same reasons. The Ottomans not only wanted increased power in the Eastern Mediterranean, but a land that could provide both valuable commodities for trade and a supply of food for the empire.

Owing to the location of Cyprus, neither the Ottomans nor the Venetians could directly send troops to fight for the island. Instead, both powers used their naval fleets to fight for control of the island, and the majority of the conflicts between the states took place between their navies. The battles that involved infantry forces took place on the island of Cyprus. The Venetians, commanding a large navy, surrounded the capital city of Nicosia with a protective wall known as The Venetian Wall(whatson-northcyprus.com, “The Venetian Walls”).

This should have given the Venetians an advantage against the Ottoman invaders, but what the Ottomans lacked in naval power, they made up for in infantry. The Ottoman Empire, today, is known as one of the Gunpowder Empires, so they naturally made use of their superior military tactics involving cannons and other weapons utilizing gunpowder. Even though the Venetians had a more significant naval presence than the Ottomans, Ottoman tactics involving gunpowder weapons ultimately gave them the upper-hand in naval conflict. Without these tactics, the Ottomans would have been outnumbered by the Venetians.

The geographic location of Cyprus provided any state that controlled it a substantial amount of power in the Eastern Mediterranean. This was one of the main reasons why the Ottoman Empire decided to invade Cyprus, dragging the two powers into the fourth war the two states have waged against each other. The geography of Cyprus also allowed for both the presence of grain and the production of wine on the island, both proving to be influential forces behind the desires to conquer and defend the island. The geographic location also influenced how the war was fought, mainly on the Mediterranean in the form of naval conflict. If it were not for the geographic location and economic advantages of the island of Cyprus, the Ottoman Empire would not have had any interest in conquering invading the island.