The large and wealthy island of
Cyprus had been
under Venetian rule since 1489. Together with
Crete, it was one of the major
overseas possessions of the republic, with the indigenous Greek population reaching an estimated 160,000 in the mid-16th century. Aside from its location, which allowed the control of the
Levantine trade, the island possessed a profitable production of cotton and sugar. To safeguard their most distant colony, the Venetians paid an annual tribute of 8,000 ducats to the
Mamluk sultans of Egypt, and after their
conquest by the
Ottomans in 1517, the agreement was renewed with the
Ottoman Porte. Nevertheless, the island's strategic location in the Eastern Mediterranean, between the Ottoman heartland of
Anatolia and the newly acquired provinces of the Levant and Egypt, made it a tempting target for future Ottoman expansion. In addition, the protection offered by the local Venetian authorities to corsairs who harassed Ottoman shipping, including Muslim
pilgrims to
Mecca, rankled the Ottoman leadership. After concluding a
prolonged war in Hungary with the
Habsburgs in 1568, the Ottomans were free to turn their attention to Cyprus. Sultan
Selim II had made the conquest of the island his first priority already before his accession in 1566, relegating Ottoman aid to the
Morisco Revolt against Spain and
attacks against Portuguese activities in the Indian Ocean to a secondary priority. Not surprisingly for a ruler nicknamed "the Sot", popular legend ascribed this determination to his love of Cypriot wines, Despite the existing peace treaty with Venice, renewed as recently as 1567, and the opposition of a peace party around
Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, the war party at the Ottoman court prevailed. Money for the campaign was raised by the confiscation and resale of monasteries and churches of the
Greek Orthodox Church. The Sultan's old tutor,
Lala Mustafa Pasha, was appointed as commander of the expedition's land forces.
Müezzinzade Ali Pasha was appointed as
Kapudan Pasha; being totally inexperienced in naval matters, he assigned the able and experienced
Piyale Pasha as his principal aide. On the Venetian side, Ottoman intentions had been clear and an attack against Cyprus had been anticipated for some time. A war scare had broken out in 1564–1565, when the Ottomans eventually
sailed for Malta, and unease mounted again in late 1567 and early 1568, as the scale of the Ottoman naval build-up became apparent. The Venetian authorities were further alarmed when the Ottoman fleet visited Cyprus in September 1568 with Nasi in tow, ostensibly for a goodwill visit, but in reality a poorly concealed attempt to spy on the island's defences. The defences of Cyprus, Crete,
Corfu, and other Venetian possessions were upgraded in the 1560s, employing the services of the noted military engineer
Sforza Pallavicini. Their garrisons were increased, and attempts were made to make the isolated holdings of Crete and Cyprus more self-sufficient by the construction of foundries and gunpowder mills. However, it was widely recognized that Cyprus could not hold for long unaided. In the event, lack of supplies and even gunpowder would play a critical role in the fall of the Venetian forts to the Ottomans. Another problem for Venice was the attitude of the island's population. The harsh treatment and oppressive taxation of the local Orthodox Greek population by the Catholic Venetians had caused great resentment, so that their sympathies generally lay with the Ottomans. By early 1570, the Ottoman preparations and the warnings sent by the Venetian
bailo at Constantinople,
Marco Antonio Barbaro, had convinced the
Signoria that war was imminent. Reinforcements and money were sent post-haste to Crete and Cyprus. In March 1570, an Ottoman envoy was sent to Venice, bearing an ultimatum that demanded the immediate cession of Cyprus. The siege of Nicosia began on 22 July and lasted for seven weeks, until 9 September. Finally, after 45 days of siege, on 9 September, the 15th assault succeeded in breaching the walls after the defenders had exhausted their ammunition. A
massacre of the city's 20,000 inhabitants ensued. Even the city's pigs, regarded as
unclean by Muslims, were killed, and only women and boys who were captured to be
sold as slaves were spared. , Venetian commander of
Famagusta, was gruesomely killed after the Ottomans took the city. Following the fall of Nicosia, the fortress of
Kyrenia in the north surrendered without resistance, and on 15 September, the Turkish cavalry appeared before the last Venetian stronghold,
Famagusta. At this point already, overall Venetian losses (including the local population) were estimated by contemporaries at 56,000 killed or taken prisoner. The Venetian defenders of Famagusta numbered about 8,500 men with 90 artillery pieces and were commanded by
Marco Antonio Bragadin. They would hold out for 11 months against a force that would come to number 200,000 men, with 145 guns, providing the time needed by the Pope to cobble together an anti-Ottoman league from the reluctant Christian European states. The Turks set up their guns on 1 September. Over the following months, they proceeded to dig a huge network of criss-crossing trenches for a depth of three miles around the fortress, which provided shelter for the Ottoman troops. As the siege trenches neared the fortress and came within artillery range of the walls, ten forts of timber and packed earth and bales of cotton were erected. At the same time, an initiative by Sokollu Mehmed Pasha to achieve a separate peace with Venice foundered. The Grand Vizier offered to concede a trading station at Famagusta if the Republic would cede the island, but the Venetians, encouraged by their recent capture of
Durazzo in
Albania and the ongoing negotiations for the formation of a Christian league (see below), refused. Thus on 12 May 1571, the intensive bombardment of Famagusta's fortifications began, and on 1 August, with ammunition and supplies exhausted, the garrison surrendered the city. The
siege of Famagusta cost the Ottomans some 50,000 casualties. The Ottomans allowed the Christian residents and surviving Venetian soldiers to leave Famagusta peacefully, but when
Lala Mustafa Pasha learned that some Muslim prisoners had been killed during the siege, he had Bragadin mutilated and flayed alive, while his companions were executed. Bragadin's skin was then paraded around the island, before being sent to
Constantinople. ==Holy League==