My Money Or Your Life: The Habsburg Hunt For Uluc Ali

Abstract

This article deals with Habsburg efforts to eliminate the ottoman naval threat by employing clandestine measures and undertaking covert operations. Realizing the danger that the ottoman fleet and corsairs created for their defenses, the Habsburg secret service dispatched a number of go-betweens in order to remind Uluc Ali of his Christian past and obligations to his true monarch and thus convince him to switch allegiances. The Habsburgs also tried to arrange the assassination of this dangerous corsair who reached the zenith of his power as the ottoman Grand Admiral. While the efficiency of Habsburg secret service demonstrate us the strength of circum-Mediterranean information gathering mechanisms and epistolary networks, the attempts of assassination and defection point to an understudied aspect of inter-imperial rivalries: secret diplomacy.

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