Radio War Nerd EP111—The Battle of Lepanto

What this episode covers

The War Nerd brings some belated justice to long-maligned southern Europeans for their forgotten heroic battles against the fearsome Ottoman Empire war machine. We look at some of the major Ottoman-Hapsburg battles of the mid-late 16th c. with a special focus on one of the most incredible naval battles in history: The Battle of Lepanto. If we were to see the North/South divide in Europe from a perspective of something like historical justice, all this talk about the North supporting the lazy South and East would be reversed. There's a reason British and French fleets were free to sail for easier, more lucrative conquests: because the people of the Eastern Mediterranean fought through centuries of raiding, enslavement, pillage, and sheer terror to hold the great Ottoman Empire at bay. Think of those EU fees as reparations.  At 1:34:00 the Nerd and Ames discuss today's war news: the latest North Korea ICBM; Sinai mosque attack that killed over 300; Israel military think-tank talking up alliance with Islamic State, again; Saudis whipping up anti-Iran war fever; weird "coup" in breakaway pro-Russian Luhansk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine; Chechen IS commander Akhmed Chatayev killed in Georgia...