The Ottomans’ professional military, always at the ready for battle, far outshone any force in Europe, where states had to round up an army of mercenaries and irregulars every time they went to war. Not only was this cumbersome and slow, but the recruits were woefully unreliable and undertrained, often fighting for personal gain rather than for the interest of the state. It was no wonder, observed Niccolò Machiavelli, that the Ottomans were in the ascendancy in the Mediterranean.
