Imperial Ambassador Walter Leslie in Ottoman Realms: Constructing an Historical Narrative (1665-1666) Habsburg Elçisi Walter Leslie’nin Osmanlı Ziyareti: Bir Tarihsel Anlatı İnşası (1665-1666)

Abstract

The Ottomans and the Austrian Habsburgs signed a peace treaty on 10 August 1664. The last article of the treaty of Vasvár stipulated that two ambassadors were to be exchanged between the two courts. Walter Leslie was tasked by the emperor Leopold I to represent his sovereign to the Porte. Leslie embarked on his diplomatic journey from Vienna and was ceremonially exchanged with the Ottoman ambassador Kara Mehmed Paşa near the fortress of Komárom. The imperial ambassador stayed in Ottoman lands nearly ten months. He held several diplomatic talks with Ottoman officials and was granted audiences by Mehmed IV both in Adrianople and Istanbul. The secretary of Leslie’s embassy, in his official diary, listed the towns and cities that the Habsburg delegation passed through on their itinerary to the Porte, noted the daily interactions of W. Leslie in Ottoman settlements, and described ceremonies held by Ottoman authorities for the imperial embassy. This paper aims to reconstruct an historical narrative of Walter Leslie’s embassy to the Ottoman court by using a wide range of primary sources: the official diary kept by the embassy’s secretary, the reports and letters of W. Leslie, travel books of several members of the imperial entourage, and Ottoman financial records pertaining to the expenditures made by the Ottoman government for the imperial embassy.