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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2015
The Ottoman-Venetian war for the island of Crete in the middle of the 17th century (1645-1669) was in some ways an anachronistic struggle. The era of imperial struggle in the Mediterranean had come to a close in 1578 when the Portuguese army, assisted by Spain, was defeated at Alcazar in Morocco by the army of the Ottoman protégé, Abd al-Malik. The Ottoman victory was followed by a Spanish-Ottoman truce signed in 1580 which, though it seemed tentative at the time, ushered in a long period of peace in the Mediterranean region. The Spanish acquiesced to Ottoman control of North Africa and turned their attention to their acquisitions in the new world. The Ottomans, for their part, occupied themselves with military conquests in the East and no new campaigns were launched in the Mediterranean.