The Battle of Lepanto
October 7, 1571
The opening stanza of G. K. Chesterton’s poem “Lepanto” depicts a triumphant sultan of Constantinople smiling as he looks upon a splintered Europe in retreat from advancing Muslim forces.
But then came the naval battle at Lepanto. While not one of the official, numbered Crusades, this was the last time a pope personally led, defined, and spiritually framed a pan-Catholic military campaign in the traditional crusading model. Pope Pius V brought together disparate Catholic states and thousands of volunteer soldiers from across Europe to form a naval alliance known as the Holy League; its purpose was to defend Europe from the Ottoman navy that dominated the Mediterranean and threatened to reestablish Muslim rule over Spain.
King Philip II of Spain supplied most of the soldiers, with the Republic of Venice supplying most of the ships; there was also substantial support from the Papal States and the Knights of Malta (notably absent was Catholic France). The naval forces at Lepanto were under the command of Philip’s half-brother, Don Juan of Austria, immortalized in “Lepanto” as “the last knight of Europe.”
The Holy League was victorious at Lepanto, striking terror into the heart of the Turk, and thus was well-positioned to press its advantage and retake Constantinople from Muslim rule. The Venetians, however, had an eye on trade relations with Constantinople and so did not want to provoke the Turks unduly. They feared that a Holy League victory in Constantinople would hand the economic advantage to Spain over Venice. So the Holy League disbanded only two years later, when Venice signed a peace treaty with the Turks that re-established trade with Constantinople and even ceded Cyprus back to Ottoman rule.
J. Douglas Johnson is the executive editor of Touchstone and the executive director of the Fellowship of St. James.
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