The threat of militant Islam was a major factor in precipitating the English Civil War

It is sometimes forgotten that the conquest of Europe has been an aim of many Middle Eastern Muslims for well over a thousand years

We take it for granted in the modern world that while Islam has a strong presence in Asia and North Africa, it is only recently that militant Muslims have turned their eyes towards Europe. Surely, until 30 or 40 years ago, we in Europe had never heard of Muslim extremists operating in our own countries? In fact, Christian Europe has always been a prize which the forces of Islam have eyed longingly, and several times in the past, the continent has almost fallen to Muslim armies.

      In the early years of Islam’s expansion from its original home in Arabia, Muslim armies invaded parts of the Middle East and then swept through North Africa. From Africa, the Muslim expansion continued across the Straits of Gibraltar and into the Iberian Peninsula. By 715 AD, the whole of Spain was in Muslim hands and the following year, the Portuguese city of Lisbon fell. Having gained a foothold in Europe, the time seemed ripe to ride north, just as the Muslim hosts had swept east and west, encountering no opposition which could not be brushed aside in short and bloody wars. In 720, a huge army of 90,000 Arabs crossed the Pyrenees mountain range and entered France. Over the next few years, the invading Arabs occupied a number of cities and thrust into the heart of the country. Then, in 732, they were halted at Poitiers and defeated by a Christian army. It was a turning point in world history, because it prevented Europe becoming Muslim as so many other parts of the world had done at that time. The Middle East, North Africa, Persia, Afghanistan; all have remained Muslim to this very day. The Battle of Poitiers though meant that Europe was, in the main, destined to be Christian, at least for a while.

     Because Islam is regarded by its followers as an eternal struggle, there was no particular hurry for the next attempt to be made to conquer Europe. Those who advocated the submission of Europe to Islam could afford to wait a thousand years if need be. It was centuries until the armies of Islam once more marched into Europe, reaching the very gates of Vienna. In 1526 Suleiman the Magnificent, most famous of all the Ottoman sultans, invaded Hungary and extended his power into central Europe. The Hapsburg Empire, whose capital was Vienna, fought against this encroachment over the next century and a half, with limited success. The Muslims controlled the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, parts of Russia and Ukraine and were now edging forward menacingly towards Europe. In 1529 and again in 1532, his forces reached as far as Vienna before withdrawing to the Balkans.

     It was rightly guessed by those Muslims determined to take Europe, that before such a thing might be possible, a ‘softening up’ process would be necessary, to weaken the resistance of the Christian forces. There logistical difficulties too, in that better constructed roads would be needed for the next army to travel along. Some of these preliminary skirmishes, which continued for 150 years, were conducted by means of open warfare against European possessions in the  Mediterranean, islands such as Cyprus and Rhodes, combined with operations by privateers and corsairs operating out of ports such as Algiers and Tunis. Those manning such vessels are sometimes known today as the Barbary Pirates, but their actions were ultimately tied in with those of the Muslim armies of the Ottoman Empire and the aim was to weaken Europe in preparation for another invasion. The activities of these privateers has been described as the ‘Marine Jihad’.

     Some readers might recall from their schooldays that one of the things which triggered the confrontation between King Charles I and Parliament, which of course led ultimately to the English Civil War, was protests about a form of taxation known as ‘Ship Money’. James I, who was King Charles’ father, had neglected the navy, by continuing to levy Ship Money on ports, but then using the revenue raised for his own purposes. As a consequence, the Royal Navy was a shadow of what it had been under Elizabeth, in the days when it had defeated the Spanish Armada. By the time that James died and his son became King Charles I, the navy was hardly ‘fit for purpose’, as we would say today. Since the twelfth century, coastal towns in England had had a duty to provide fighting ships for the defence of the realm. Over time, this obligation had been replaced with a tax known as ‘Ship Money’. This meant that instead of actually building and fitting out warships, those in maritime towns paid the Crown to do so on their behalf.

      By spending the money on other things, rather than the navy, James I weakened England’s defences to such an extent that Muslim raiders were patrolling the English Channel and seizing the crews of ships to sell into slavery in North Africa. Coastal villages were raided too and because of the enfeebled state of the Royal Navy, nothing could be done to prevent this. After his death, James’ son inherited the throne, together with the tricky situation of the country’s naval defences.

     Realising that he had inherited a navy in urgent need of overhaul and requiring many new ships to bring it up to scratch, Charles I decided to levy Ship Money not just upon towns on the coast, but rather on every county in England. Because parliament had not authorised this, the demand, made in 1628, was viewed unfavourably and abandoned after stiff opposition. It was not the end of the matter and in 1634, when he issued another writ to raise Ship Money, Charles decided to claim that he wished to strengthen the navy to protect the country from the attacks of the Muslim corsairs. In fact, the king had signed a secret treaty with Spain to join them in their war against the Netherlands; which struggle formed part of the Thirty Years War. Knowing that this would not prove popular with those who were being taxed, he concealed his true purpose in wanting to revitalise the Royal Navy.

     Charles’ demand for money in October 1634 was limited to ports and required them either to provide a certain number of fully equipped warships or to supply the treasury with their equivalent cost in hard cash. To raise this money, the citizens of the towns would be taxed according to their means. This time, the Ship Money was a brilliant success and brought £104,000 into the exchequer. The following year, the tax was extended to the entire country and was for the sum of £208,000, which was also grudgingly paid. When, in 1636, the same thing happened once more, it was clear that the king was going to use Ship Money as a form of regular and general taxation.

     Several high-profile court cases were heard which centred around the refusal of some individuals to pay Ship Money. In 1640, a group of citizens in London sent a petition to the king, stating their grievances. Heading the list was Ship Money and the petition mentioned:

      The pressing and unusual Impositions upon Merchandise,  

      Importing and Exporting, and the urging and Levying of Ship-

      money, notwithstanding both which, Merchants Ships and

      Goods have been taken and destroyed both by Turkish and

      other Pirates

Put plainly, they were saying, what is the use of our paying all this money for ships if the navy can’t even protect shipping from the corsairs? Two years later, the English Civil War began and the question of Ship Money, and by extension the raids by the corsairs from the Barbary Coast, was a major factor in precipitating the conflict between Parliament and the Crown. It was upon the ports that the burden of raising Ship Money first fell and they felt aggrieved that despite paying such vast sums to the exchequer, their citizens were still being captured and taken off into slavery. Little wonder that these cities chose not to back the king when the civil war began. This was enough to give the Parliamentary side a distinct edge when the civil war began and so it might justly be said that the Marine Jihad helped change the course of English history.

     The sultans who had succeeded Suleiman the Magnificent all had their eyes on Vienna, but were in no particular hurry. For over 100 years they built roads through Hungary and repaired bridges, slowly, but surely, planning for the inevitable day when the forces of Islam would sweep through Hungary and take Vienna; signalling the end of Christian dominance in Europe. This activity took place at the same time as the raids on Europe by the Muslim privateers, which might be seen as probing attacks. Finally, on 14 July 1683, an army over 100,000 strong arrived at the gates of Vienna. Just 15,000 soldiers defended the city and the Ottomans must have felt unbeatable. What they could not have known was that Leopold I, the Hapsburg emperor, had been engaged over the summer, ever since it became plain that the sultan in Constantinople was intent upon a new war of expansion, in making treaties and alliances with other powers in Christian Europe. Whatever differences they had previously had were put aside in the face of an existential threat to Christendom.

     There seemed to be little point to the attackers in mounting a direct assault on the city, with all the resultant casualties. The defender in such cases always has the advantage, from a purely military perspective. Instead, the Ottoman forces settled down for a siege, intending to starve Vienna into submission. They dug trenches and defensive positions around Vienna and simply waited. The Austrians though were not about to fight this battle single-handedly. Although Vienna had been the most likely target for Ottoman aggression, it was by no means impossible that they would choose instead to attack Poland. After all, there were already Ottoman forces in Russia and the Ukraine. Poland had therefore that year signed a mutual assistance pact with the Hapsburgs, whereby if Poland was attacked, the Austrians would come to their aid and if it was Vienna which was struck, then the Polish army would ride to the rescue. The stage was now set for a monumental clash of civilisations, as the Christian West prepared to fight with the Muslim East to decide the fate of Europe.

     Vienna was protected by stout city walls and had more artillery than the attackers. The siege was thus likely to be a long and protracted one. By the end of August, food had run out in the city and the situation was desperate. The attacking Muslims were digging tunnels beneath the city walls, with a view to setting off large charges of gunpowder and so breaching the defences. This they managed to do and it looked as though it could only be a matter of time before Vienna fell and the Holy Roman Empire was, at a stroke, deprived of both its capital and its emperor. It was at this critical time that the forces of the King of Poland arrived.

     Vienna was surrounded by now with some 140,000 enemy soldiers and the army of Germans, Austrians and Poles which arrived to relieve the siege numbered barely half that. At 4:0 AM on 11 September 1683, battle was joined. The Ottomans were a little dispirited by this time. They had, after all, been sitting before the walls of Vienna for almost two months and their efforts to bring down the walls had met with only limited success. The fighting was fierce and lasted for 12 hours, until the Polish army delivered the death blow. They had held in reserve no fewer than 18,000 mounted men and at 4:0 PM this huge body of men swept down from the hills upon the Ottoman forces. It was by far the biggest cavalry charge in history and proved decisive. The Ottoman army was comprehensively defeated. In 1683, the Ottoman Empire reached its greatest extent and after the failed siege of Vienna was destined slowly to shrink in size. Europe was saved.

     The ambition to turn Europe into Muslim territory was though never abandoned, and it exists to this day. It is perhaps nearer to fruition than at the time of the Battle of Poitiers or the Siege of Vienna, because the whole enterprise is now being conducted in a clandestine manner, one which is proving enormously difficult to combat. The virtual abandonment of Christianity by many Europeans does not help and nor does the modern trend of teaching children that white Europeans have been responsible for many of the ills of the world. It may well be that the will to resist this latest stage of a slow-moving Jihad which has been at work since the 8^th century will not be strong enough to repel this latest assault on Europe by the forces of militant Islam.