Walter Leslie Habsburg-követ látogatása a Portán
The visit of the Habsburg envoy Walter Leslie at the Porte

Additions to diplomatic history (1665-1666)

Summary/Abstract: The last point of the treaty of Vasvár, concluded on 10 August 1664 between the Ottoman and the Habsburg courts, declared that the two states would mutually send envoys to each other. Walter Leslie, who departed from Vienna on behalf of Leopold I, was exchanged at the border with Kara Mehmed Pasha, the representative of Mehmed IV, in the last days of May 1665. Tasked with reestablishing diplomatic relationships, the Habsburg envoy spent almost ten months on the soil of the Ottoman state. He held negotiations with Ottoman statesmen in both Istanbul and Edirne. The secretary of the Habsburg mission was keeping a diary of their travels, in which he recorded the resting places where the mission stopped on its way to Edirne; what the envoy did in the towns they visited; and described those events and celebrations that were organized by the Ottoman officials in honor of the diplomatic mission. The paper aims at outlining chronologically the diplomatic mission of the Habsburg envoy Leslie on the basis of the daily reports provided by the mission secretary, Leslie's reports, the memoirs and notes of some members of the entourage, and lastly using information from Ottoman archival documents containing financial registers related to the supply of the mission.

• Details
• Contents