Holy Roman Emperor Charles V - Defenders of the faith : Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the battle for Europe, 1520-1536

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Table of Contents

ALSO BY JAMES RESTON, JR.

To Defend, to Destroy
The Amnesty of John David Herndon
The Knock at Midnight
The Innocence of Joan Little: A Southern Mystery
Our Father Who Art in Hell: The Life and Death of Jim Jones
Shermans March and Vietnam
Lone Star: The Life of John Connally
Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti
Galileo: A Life

The Last Apocalypse: Europe at the Year 1000 A.D.
Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade
Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors
Fragile Innocence: A Fathers Memoir of His Daughters Courageous Journey
The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews

THE PENGUIN PRESS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. , 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group
(Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson
Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland,
25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Australia Ltd,
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in 2009 by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright James Reston, Jr., 2009

All rights reserved

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Reston, James, 1941
Defenders of the faith : Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the
battle for Europe, 1520-1536 / James Reston, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-1-101-05711-7

1. Holy Roman EmpireHistoryCharles V, 1519-1556. 2. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 1500-1558.
3. TurkeyHistorySleyman I, 1520-1566. 4. Sleyman I, Sultan of the Turks, 1494 or 5-1566.
5. Holy Roman EmpireForeign relationsTurkey. 6. TurkeyForeign relationsHoly Roman Empire.
7. Holy Roman EmpireReligion16th century. 8. TurkeyReligion16th century. 9. Religion and
civilizationEurope. 10. Vienna (Austria)History-Siege, 1529Religious aspects. I. Title.
D231.R47 2009
940.232dc22 2008054655

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

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for

JOSEPH REGAL

Every era possesses a blessed individual
who is born under the fortunate star of that time.
When a person leaves this world another will take his place.
Truly this world is but a port of call,
he who has departed will not return and he who remains awaits
his own departure.

NASUH MATRAKCI SULEYMANNAME circa A.D. 1534

FOREWORD

This is a book about an epic clash of civilizations. In the years 1520 to 1536 the fate of Western civilization hung in the balance as two vast and vigorous empires came into conflict along the seam of the Alps. The powerful Ottoman Empire, centered in Constantinople, stood at the pinnacle of its glory and its expansionist ambitions. It was ruled by one of historys most fascinating figures, Suleyman the Magnificent, whose Islamic empire stretched from the Tigris River in the east to the shores of Algiers, up the Balkan Peninsula to the Pannonian plain of Hungary. In central Europe, this juggernaut faced a Christian empire with an equally impressive expanse. The Hapsburg Empire stretched from Denmark and the Netherlands in the north, Austria in the east, to Spain and beyond to the New World. This vast Christian dominion was ruled by a young, dynamic, and deeply devout Holy Roman emperor named Charles V. Both Charles and Suleyman regarded their roles as defender and propagator of their respective faiths against the infidel as an obligation received from the Almighty.

In this pivotal hinge of history, these two daunting empires came into their apocalyptic clash at the gates of Vienna in 1529 and 1532. The consequences of that clash held immense implications for the future of the civilized world. Had Suleyman prevailed at Vienna, as the odds suggest he should have, Europe would have been Islamic to the Rhine River in the early sixteenth century.

Beyond the clash of superpowers, this is a story of the clash of religions and the clash of historical giants, bent on fulfilling the grandiose aspirations of their forefathers and the challenge of their gods. In previous centuries the crusades of Christian leaders in Palestine and Spain had made the Christian side the aggressor against the nonbeliever. In this story, the situation is reversed. Suleymans ambitions were driven by his aggressive concept of jihad and his desire for world domination as an Islamic Alexander the Great. But his struggle with Charles V was personal, for Suleymans hostility toward Christian Europe came from his feeling that the sheer magnificence of his superior civilization and religion was not getting from Europe the respect it deserved.

These years encompass other important turning points of history. Both the Christianity of Charles V and the Islam of Suleyman faced heresies within their respective established doctrines. In Germany, a simple Augustinian monk named Martin Luther rattled the portals of the Vatican as he lashed out at the corruption of popes and the abuses of the Roman Church. So, simultaneously, Roman Catholicism faced military conquest from without, and rebellion from within. Similarly, the Sunni Islam of Suleyman, who as the official Defender of the Faith now held the mantle of the caliphate in Constantinople, faced the Shiite heresy in Persia. Suleyman would unsuccessfully attempt to exterminate Shiism as his father, Selim I, had before him. As the two emperors sought to engage one another in a final, apocalyptic battle, so they sought to smother the doctrinal dissension within their own respective faiths.

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