Ottoman advisers warned sultans that European naval power threatened Istanbul’s prosperity

Evidence

When Sultan Selim I (1512–20), who had already added Egypt and Syria to the Ottoman realms, remarked to his chief adviser that he intended to conquer the land of the Franks, the adviser replied: “My Sultan, you live in a city whose benefactor is the sea. When the sea is unsafe, no ship comes; when no ship comes, Istanbul’s prosperity is lost.” A few years later, Lutfi Pasha, the Grand Vizier of Suleyman the Magnificent, raised the matter again with his sovereign, and told him: “Of the previous Sultans, there were many who ruled the land, but few who ruled the sea. In the conduct of war at sea, the infidels are superior to us. We must overcome them.” — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 678

Categorization

• SHARE: The adviser’s warning that ‘when the sea is unsafe, no ship comes’ is exactly the kind of quote a maritime-history friend would savor.
• STORYSTEM: The image of an empire built on land warfare discovering it must become a sea power on its rival’s terms is a strong seed for a naval-military fiction arc.