The island of Crete is the last…
1638 CE
The island of Crete is the last major overseas possession of Venice, Cyprus having been lost in the early 1570s in the fifth Ottoman–Venetian War.
Its important strategic position makes it an obvious target for future Ottoman expansion, while its size and fertile ground, together with the bad state of its fortresses, make it a more tempting prize than Malta.
The Serenissima, with its weak military and great dependence on uninterrupted trade, is anxious not to provoke the Ottomans.
Hence Venice’s scrupulous observance of the terms of its treaty with the Ottomans, which has secured the Republic over sixty years of peaceful relations.
Moreover, in the early seventeenth century Venetian power had declined considerably.
Its economy, which had once prospered because of its control over the Eastern spice trade, has suffered as a result of the opening of the new Atlantic trade routes, and from the loss of the important German market because of the Thirty Years' War.
In addition, the Republic had become embroiled in a series of wars in northern Italy like the Mantuan War, and had been further weakened in 1629–1631 by an outbreak of the plague.
The potential for conflict between the Ottomans and Venice is still present, as evidenced in 1638, when a Venetian fleet attacks and destroys a fleet of Barbary pirates that had sought protection in the Ottoman port of Valona, bombarding the city in the process.
Sultan Murad IV is enraged: he threatens to execute all Venetians in the Empire, and put an embargo on Venetian trade.
Eventually, and given that the Ottomans are still engaged in a war with the Persians, the situation is defused with the Republic paying the Ottomans an indemnity of two hundred and fifty thousand sequins.
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