The (Real) First World War (1517-1589)

The conflict that engulfed Europe and other parts of the globe from 1914 to 1918 was originally called the Great War. With the advent of a new global conflict in 1939, however, it became known as the First World War. But there had been other global conflicts before the Great War. Both the Napoleonic wars and the Seven Years war were fought on a global scale. The real “First World War” of the modern age was actually fought from 1517 to 1589 between the Ottoman Empire on one side and the empires of Spain and Portugal, as well as other combatants like Venice, Russia, and Persia on the other. The range of military operations between the combatants was truly on a global scale, stretching from the Eastern Atlantic, throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, into the Middle East and India, through the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean, all the way to the Straits of Malacca. This two-part lecture traces the rise of the combatants and the execution of their extensive military operations across a wide, global front as well as discusses how these empires were able to conduct such wide-ranging military operations – at distances 10,000 miles from their home bases – in a pre-modern world.

Richard Callas is a retired, 30-year career naval officer and former executive director of the Navy’s Surface Warfare Schools Command as a government civil servant, responsible for the training of 80,000 service members annually. He has an undergraduate degree from Boston College in Political Science and a master’s degree from Salve Regina University in International Relations. During his time in the Navy, he commanded two ships, USS AUSTIN (LPD-4) and USS IWO JIMA (LHD-7). In retirement, as an amateur historian, he has been researching and authoring a study in 16^th century geopolitics.