Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Ottoman-Habsburg Wars

 

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In the Spring of 1716, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu left England to accompany her husband, ambassador Edward Wortley Montagu, on a diplomatic mission to the Ottoman court in Constantinople. Over the course of her travels she wrote a series of letters to her friends back in England, detailing her adventures; these letters were later published under the title The Turkish Embassy Letters.

 

Lady Mary's Letters are set against the backdrop of the Ottoman-Habsburg Wars, a complex struggle in Eastern Europe that began in the 16th century and lasted into the late 18th century. Although the wars were the reason for her husband’s journey to Turkey, Lady Mary seems remarkably disinterested in the conflict until she comes face to face with its grim physical realities while traveling through Hungary. The ongoing war is a strangely distant force in Lady Mary’s early letters, contributing to the romantic ruins along the Danube or the foreign customs and diversions of the Habsburg court, but remaining for the most part off-stage and in the shadows.

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That is, until Lady Mary is put in a situation where she feels personally endangered. We can see a sudden shift in her awareness of the wars in Letter 23 when she writes, 

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I am threatened at the same time with being froze to death, buried in the snow, and taken by the Tartars who ravage the part of Hungary I am to pass. 'Tis true, we shall have a considerable escort, so that, possibly I may be diverted with a new scene by finding myself in the midst of a battle. 

 

The war becomes uncomfortably present and visible to Lady Mary, and by Letter 24, her previous apathy towards military history is gone. She becomes actively interested in the centuries-long back and forth between the two empires, writing long descriptions of various battles and fortifications for her English audience, including a vivid account of touring the field of a recent battle at Peterwaradin, where the corpses still lay on the ground.

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Lady Mary swiftly turns her keen eyes from the physical impact of the war to its social aspects, discussing the various factions of the conflict, and relating their dress, habits, and beliefs with the same razor-sharp wit and intuition with which she had previously written on the great courts of Europe. Throughout, she manages to maintain the ethos of a removed and impartial viewer, taking equal interest in both East and West, Christian and Muslim, and thus giving us valuable insight into the complex dynamics of both sides. This is perhaps most evident in her treatment of the Ottoman Janissaries, whom she both condemns as ruthless pillagers and praises as loyal, valiant warriors.

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With this map, I have attempted to connect Lady Mary's growing perception of the Ottoman-Habsburg Wars and their impact with her physical movement across Europe. I have selected key moments from the first 29 of The Turkish Embassy Letters in order to illustrate Lady Mary's initial indifference towards the war and her sudden transition t0 attentive study of its history and major players. This focus on Lady Mary's shifting interest in the war means that large portions of her travels have been omitted. Therefore, this map should not be taken as a complete representation of her physical journey so much as a portrayal of her growing awareness as she moves from the security of Western Europe, through an active warzone, into the Ottoman Empire. It is my hope that this project will provide readers of Lady Mary's Turkish Embassy Letters not only with a greater insight into the political backdrop of her journey, but also an appreciation for her impartial treatment of both sides of the conflict.