25. The Ottoman Sultan Who Came Closest to Conquering Europe
The closest Islamic armies ever came to conquering Europe was not in 732, when the Franks under Charles Martel defeated a Muslim army at the Battle of Tours. That had been a raid, not an attempted conquest. Nor was it in 1683, when forces under Polish king John Sobieski broke a Turkish siege of Vienna with a dramatic charge. By then, European armies had already gained a qualitative edge over the Turks that rendered Ottoman attempts to conquer Europe unrealistically. The closest Islamic armies came to conquering Europe was in 1529, when Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent attempted to seize Vienna, for use as a base of operations for further advances.
In 1526, the Turks defeated the Kingdom of Hungary at the Battle of Mohacs, and annexed it to their growing empire. It was the latest episode in nearly a century of Ottoman conquests in eastern and central Europe. It brought the confident and expansionist Ottoman Empire into direct contact with the Habsburg Empire along the Hungarian border. It did not take long for the Turks to decide upon having a go at the Habsburgs.
