Barbarossa and his army who came to succor all of us: Ottoman and French views of their joint campaign of 1543-1544

In the summer of 1543 the Ottoman fleet under the command of Hayreddin Barbarossa arrived off the Mediterranean coast of France to aid Francois I against his chief rival, Charles V. This expedition and the diplomacy associated with it led to the creation of an abundance of sources documenting various aspects of the events. Surprisingly, contemporary Ottoman and French sources expressing their views of this campaign have had little impact on subsequent Western historical studies of their alliance. As a result of this neglect of Ottoman and French sources, historians have accepted and perpetuated a distorted view of both this specific campaign of 1543-44 and more generally of the alliance, a view projected largely by the Hapsburgs, foes of the alliance. This article reconstructs the events of 1543-44, relying on contemporary Ottoman and French sources, and analyzes the historiographical implications of the neglect of the most relevant sources.