Hungarian Hopes for Ottoman Protection and Habsburg Fears: Pál Szepessy’s Mission to Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (July 1671)

Abstract Hungarian efforts to solicit Ottoman military help against the Habsburg Empire have not received much scholarly attention. The meeting of Calvinist noble Pál Szepessy with Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü, the ruler of the Ottoman Empire, reveals that Hungarian Protestants, faced with the Counter-Reformation and military occupation, opted for the Ottomans as more tolerant and more humane overlords. Szepessy did not share the Turkophobia of Christian Europe—he perceived the Muslim Turks as divinely appointed agents of justice and liberation. The Szepessy-Köprülü encounter and its consequences were closely followed by Habsburg intelligence; Vienna feared that an Ottoman invasion of Hungary was imminent.