Venice and War

Wars and their atrocities were largely responsible for the founding of Venice.

In 452, the Huns, led by Attila, ravaged Europe and reached the Venetian mainland.

They sacked and destroyed the city of Aquileia and forced the inhabitants of the mainland to take refuge on the islands of the lagoon, which would later become modern-day Venice.

Although the Huns were terrible warriors, they were poor navigators, and the water surrounding Venice effectively protected its inhabitants and refugees from the barbarian hordes.

It was this same water and a complex network of navigation channels, undetectable to non-Venetians, that would protect the city of Venice in the same way for centuries to come, until its fall in 1797.

Securing the Adriatic

But Venice began its career as a state not only as the attacked, but also as the attacker.

It was an attacker primarily concerned with securing and expanding its trade rather than conquering territory.

This difference in Venice's motives for waging war compared to other peoples is also what allowed the Serenissima to maintain its independence for over a thousand years.

While its neighbours near and far dreamed only of conquering new territories, Venice limited its ambitions to a few ports along its sea routes.

Very few wars of territorial conquest

The aim of Venice's main ‘territorial’ wars, at least for a very long time, was to allow its ships to dock safely along the sea routes to the East.

The first wars with its close neighbours were therefore mainly intended to secure the Adriatic, an essential lifeline for Venetian trade.

Later, things became more complicated with the emergence of the Ottoman Empire, which began to learn to ‘navigate’ as well as Venice, having had the intelligence to use the maritime knowledge of the Greeks, who were the first true sailors of this empire.

Preserving its trade

Preserving its trade and maritime routes was also the cause of numerous wars with Genoa, the city that posed the greatest threat to Venetian trade.

The Genoese were also outstanding traders and navigators, capable of competing easily with Venice in the trade of spices and silks from the East.

There were many particularly bloody clashes between the two rival republics, occurring sporadically over several centuries and culminating in 1379 when Genoa succeeded in capturing the island of Chioggia, just opposite Venice.

After a year of siege and encirclement of Venice in the lagoon, the Venetians managed to defeat the Genoese and in 1381, with the Peace of Turin, Genoa recognised Venice's pre-eminence for more than a century.

Political and Economic Stability

Fortunately for Venice, its political and economic stability enabled it to withstand the various military attempts of its belligerent neighbour.

The Venetian political system was at the root of Venice's resilience. Venice was a perfectly organised state in times of peace, but also in times of war.

The noble citizens of Venice also actively participated in the war effort by paying taxes proportional to their wealth, and this solidarity, even if it was partly enforced, enabled the Republic to remain strong in the face of regular attacks from its enemies.

A perfectly organised state, Venice managed its war efforts in an almost industrial manner, creating tools for this purpose, in particular the famous Venice Arsenal, unique in the world at the time, a uniqueness that would lead to the word ‘arsenal’ being reused as such in several languages.

The Crusades

Venice certainly took full advantage of the Crusades to expand its land empire by exploiting the Crusaders and knowing how to support the right parties at the right time.

The diplomatic and strategic skills of Venice's rulers would leave their mark on the entire history of the city.

Originally a simple ‘transporter’ of Crusaders, Venice was in fact able to charge the Crusaders a very high price for transport by allowing them to pay in ‘territorial conquests ’.

And this continued, as we know, until the fall of Constantinople!

The quest for neutrality

However, Venice sought peace above all else, and its entire history is marked by a political balancing act between itself and the powers that surrounded it.

Venice's primary objective had always been independence, not the conquest of new territories. In this sense, it did not threaten the interests of some of its much more greedy neighbours.

This quest for neutrality at all costs ultimately proved very rewarding, bringing Venice a stability that its neighbours lacked at the time. While they were tearing themselves apart, Venice was able to develop its trade and consolidate some of its commercial monopolies, a winning strategy that brought it the wealth we know today.

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