The Franco-Ottoman alliance or Franco-Turkish alliance was established in 1536 between Francis I, King of France and Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire. The strategic and sometimes tactical alliance was one of the longest-lasting and most important foreign alliances of France, and was particularly influential during the Italian Wars. The Franco-Ottoman military alliance reached its peak with the Invasion of Corsica in 1553, during the reign of Henry II of France.
As the first non-ideological alliance in effect between a Christian and Muslim state, it attracted heavy controversy for its time and caused a scandal throughout Christendom. Carl Jacob Burckhardt (1947) called it "the sacrilegious union of the lily and the crescent". It lasted intermittently for more than two and a half centuries,Merriman, p.132 until the Napoleonic campaign in Ottoman Egypt from 1798 to 1801.
Background
Following the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II and the unification of swaths of the Middle East under Selim I, Suleiman I, the son of Selim, managed to expand Ottoman rule to Serbia in 1522. The Holy Roman Empire thus entered in direct conflict with the Ottomans.
Some early contacts seem to have taken place between the Ottomans and the French. Philippe de Commines reports that Bayezid II sent an embassy to Louis XI in 1483, while Cem, his brother and rival pretender to the Ottoman throne was being detained in France at Bourganeuf by Pierre d'Aubusson. Louis XI refused to see the envoys, but a large amount of money and Christian relics were offered by the envoy to keep Cem in custody in France. Cem was transferred to the custody of Pope Innocent VIII in 1489.
France had signed a first treaty or Capitulation with the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt in 1500, during the reigns of Louis XII and Sultan Bayezid II, in which the Sultan of Egypt had made concessions to the French and the Catalans, and which was later extended by Suleiman.
The 1536 agreement was not a static treaty but a dynamic framework subject to constant renegotiation and expansion throughout the alliance's duration. Subsequent Capitulations (notably in 1569, 1581, 1597, 1604, 1673, and the pivotal 1740 agreement) progressively extended French privileges far beyond the original military pact. These later agreements solidified extensive extraterritorial jurisdiction for French consuls, granted France protective rights over Catholic holy sites in the Ottoman Empire, and cemented a near-monopoly status for French merchants in the Levantine trade, profoundly shaping French economic and political influence.
France had already been looking for allies in Central Europe. The ambassador of France Antonio Rincon was employed by Francis I on several missions to Poland and Hungary between 1522 and 1525. At that time, following the 1522 Battle of Bicoque, Francis I was attempting to ally with king Sigismund I the Old of Poland. Finally, in 1524, a Franco-Polish alliance was signed between Francis I and king Sigismund I of Poland.
There was a momentous intensification of the search for allies in Central Europe when the French ruler Francis I was defeated at the Battle of Pavia on February 24, 1525, by the troops of Emperor Charles V. After several months in prison, Francis I was forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Madrid, through which he had to relinquish the Duchy of Burgundy and the Charolais to the Empire, renounce his Italian ambitions, and return his belongings and honours to the traitor Constable de Bourbon. This situation forced Francis I to find an ally against the powerful Habsburg Emperor, in the person of Suleiman the Magnificent.
Alliance of Francis I and Suleiman
The alliance was an opportunity for both rulers to fight against the hegemony of the House of Habsburg. The objective for Francis I was to find an ally against the Habsburgs, although his predecessors had never courted a Muslim power. The pretext used by Francis I was the protection of the Christians in Ottoman lands, through agreements called "Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire".
King Francis was imprisoned in Madrid when the first efforts at establishing an alliance were made. A first French mission to Suleiman seems to have been sent immediately after the Battle of Pavia by the mother of Francis I, Louise de Savoie, but the mission was lost on its way in Bosnia.Merriman, p.129 In December 1525 a second mission was sent, led by John Frangipani, which managed to reach Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, with secret letters asking for the deliverance of king Francis I and an attack on the Habsburg. Frangipani returned with an answer from Suleiman, on 6 February 1526:
The plea of the French king nicely corresponded to the ambitions of Suleiman in Europe, and gave him an incentive to attack Hungary in 1526, leading to the Battle of Mohács. The Ottomans were also greatly attracted by the prestige of being in alliance with such a country as France, which would give them better legitimacy in their European dominions.
Meanwhile, Charles V was manoeuvring to form an alliance with Persia, so that the Ottoman Empire would be attacked on its rear. Envoys were sent to Shah Tahmasp I in 1525, and again in 1529, pleading for an attack on the Ottoman Empire.
With the War of the League of Cognac (1526–1530) going on, Francis I continued to look for allies in Central Europe, and in 1528 formed an alliance with the Hungarian king Zapolya, who had himself become a vassal of the Ottoman Empire that year. In 1528 also, Francis used the pretext of the protection of Christians in the Ottoman Empire to again enter into contact with Suleiman, asking for a mosque to be reinstated as a Christian Church. In his 1528 letter to Francis I Suleiman politely refused, but guaranteed the protection of Christians in his states. He also renewed the privileges of French merchants which had been obtained in 1517 in Egypt.
Francis I lost in his European campaigns, and had to sign the Paix des Dames in August 1529. He was even forced to supply some galleys to Charles V in his fight against the Ottomans. However, the Ottomans continued their campaigns in Central Europe, and besieged the Habsburg capital in the 1529 siege of Vienna and again in 1532.
Exchange of embassies
In early July 1532, Suleiman was joined by the French ambassador Antonio Rincon in Belgrade. Antonio Rincon presented Suleiman with a magnificent four-tiered tiara, made in Venice for 115,000 ducats. Rincon also described the Ottoman camp:
Francis I explained to the Venetian ambassador Giorgio Gritti in March 1531 his strategy regarding the Turks:
Ottoman embassies were sent to France, with the Ottoman embassy to France (1533) led by Hayreddin Barbarossa, and the Ottoman embassy to France (1534) led by representatives of Suleiman.
Combined operations (1534–35) Suleiman ordered Barbarossa to put his fleet at the disposition of Francis I to attack Genoa and the Milanese. In July 1533 Francis received Ottoman representatives at Le Puy, and dispatched Antonio Rincon in return to Barbarossa in North Africa and then to Asia Minor. Suleiman explained that "he could not possibly abandon the King of France, who was his brother". The Franco-Ottoman alliance was by then effectively made.
In 1534 a Turkish fleet sailed against the Habsburg Empire at the request of Francis I, raiding the Italian coast and finally meeting with representatives of Francis in southern France. The fleet went on to capture Tunis on 16 August 1534, and continued raiding the Italian coast with the support of Francis I. In a counter-attack however, Charles V dislodged them the following year.
Permanent embassy of Jean de La Forêt (1535–1537)
Trade and religious agreements
Treaties, or capitulations, were passed between the two countries starting in 1528 and 1536. The defeat in the 1535 conquest of Tunis by Andrea Doria motivated the Ottoman Empire to enter into a formal alliance with France. Ambassador Jean de La Forêt was sent to Istanbul, and for the first time was able to become permanent ambassador at the Ottoman court and to negotiate treaties.
Jean de La Forêt negotiated the capitulations on 18 February 1536, on the model of previous Ottoman commercial treaties with Venice and Genoa, although they only seem to have been ratified by the Ottomans later, in 1569, with ambassador Claude Du Bourg. These capitulations allowed the French to obtain important privileges, such as the security of people and goods, extraterritoriality, and freedom to transport and sell goods subject to the payment of the selamlik and customs fees. These capitulations in effect gave the French a near-monopoly in trade with seaport-towns that would be known as les Échelles du Levant. Foreign vessels had to trade with Turkey under the French banner, after the payment of a percentage of their trade.
A French embassy and a Christian chapel were established in the town of Galata across the Golden horn from Constantinople, and commercial privileges were also given to French merchants in the Turkish Empire. Through the capitulations of 1535, the French were awarded the right to trade freely in all Ottoman ports. A formal alliance was signed in 1536. The French were free to practice their religion in the Ottoman Empire, and French Catholics were given custody of holy places. The capitulations were again renewed in 1604, and lasted until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.
Military and financial agreements Jean de la Forêt also had secret military instructions to organize a combined offensive on Italy in 1535.Garnier, p.92 Through the negotiations of de La Forêt with Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha it was agreed that combined military operations against Italy would take place, in which France would attack Lombardy while the Ottoman Empire would attack from Naples. The Ottoman Empire also provided considerable financial support to Francis I. In 1533, Suleiman sent Francis I 100,000 gold pieces, so that he could form a coalition with England and German states against Charles V. In 1535, Francis asked for another 1 million ducats. The military instructions of Jean de la Forêt were highly specific:
Finally, Suleiman intervened diplomatically in favour of Francis on the European scene. He is known to have sent at least one letter to the Protestant princes of Germany to encourage them to ally with Francis I against Charles V. Francis I effectively allied with the Schmalkaldic League against Charles V in 1535.
Italian War of 1536–1538
There was Franco-Ottoman military collaboration during the Italian War of 1536–1538 following the 1536 Treaty negotiated by Jean de La Forêt.
Campaign of 1536
Francis I invaded Savoy in 1536, starting the war. A Franco-Turkish fleet was stationed in Marseille by the end of 1536, threatening Genoa. While Francis I was attacking Milan and Genoa in April 1536, Barbarossa was raiding the Habsburg possessions in the Mediterranean.
In 1536 the French Admiral Baron de Saint-Blancard combined his twelve French galleys with a small Ottoman fleet (a galley and 6 galiotes) belonging to Barbarossa in Algiers, to attack the island of Ibiza in the Balearic Islands. After failing to capture the tower of Salé, the fleet raided the Spanish coast from Tortosa to Collioure, finally wintering in Marseille with 30 galleys from 15 October 1536, the first time a Turkish fleet had laid up for the winter in Marseille.
Joint campaign of 1537