Throughout my previous articles (here and here), I have consistently drawn parallels between Ukraine’s current struggle against Russia - supported by its Western allies - and the 17th-century battle of Central-Eastern European states against the Ottoman Empire. That earlier conflict, which culminated in the formation of the Holy League, offers a historical precedent for what we are witnessing today. The Holy League, an alliance forged under the leadership of the Habsburgs, united the Holy Roman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Kingdom of Hungary in a collective effort to repel Ottoman aggression.
The decisive turning point in that struggle came in 1683 with the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna, which ignited the Great Turkish War - a war that pitted the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire. Over the next sixteen years, the coalition achieved a series of victories that eventually forced the Ottomans into retreat. The war concluded with the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, which marked the beginning of the Ottoman Empire’s long and irreversible decline. From that point forward, the Ottomans, once a formidable expansionist power, would be relegated to a purely defensive posture, continually losing ground rather than gaining it.
The War of the Holy League stands as a powerful example of what a unified European effort can achieve in the face of an existential threat. It was a victory not only of military coordination but of civilizational defense, demonstrating that when European states work together, they can push back against an aggressive invader and preserve their shared heritage.
But this story has a deeper, more troubling layer - one that echoes eerily in our present day. While Central Europe stood united in its struggle against the Ottomans, one great European power was conspicuously absent from the alliance: France. Under the reign of Louis XIV, France not only refused to join the Holy League but actively worked against it, forming an alliance with the Ottoman Empire to weaken the Habsburgs. This policy was not an anomaly; it was the continuation of a Franco-Ottoman alliance that had been cultivated since the 16th century, when King Francis I first aligned with Suleiman the Magnificent against their mutual enemy, the Habsburg Emperor Charles V.
Louis XIV’s actions during the Great Turkish War can be seen as the birth of a self-serving, petty (proto-)nationalist approach that would come to define French foreign policy for centuries. Rather than standing in solidarity with fellow European states against an existential threat, Louis saw the war as an opportunity to advance his own short-term interests at the expense of his historical rivals. His short-sighted pragmatism weakened the unity of Christian Europe at a moment when it was most needed.
As the Ottomans prepared for their grand invasion of Vienna in 1683, they hesitated. Their military planners were uncertain whether France - the most powerful European state at the time - would intervene on behalf of the Holy League. Such an intervention could have tipped the scales against them. However, Louis XIV swiftly removed their doubts. He assured Sultan Mehmed IV that France would remain neutral, giving the Ottomans the confidence to proceed with their campaign. More than that, he actively encouraged the invasion when the Sultan himself considered pulling back, sensing the danger of overreach. Had France signaled even the slightest intention to resist, it is possible that the Ottomans would have reconsidered their march toward Vienna. Instead, they advanced.
Louis XIV’s betrayal of Christendom did not stop at mere diplomatic assurances. As the Ottoman armies laid siege to Vienna, he sought to sabotage the Holy League from within, working to prevent a unified European response. He attempted to dissuade the Polish King, Jan III Sobieski, from marching to the city’s defense. Fortunately, Sobieski ignored these efforts, leading his legendary cavalry charge that shattered the Ottoman lines and saved Vienna. But Louis XIV’s treachery did not end there. While the Holy Roman Empire struggled to repel the Ottoman assault, Louis XIV was already plotting to strike.
Jan III Sobieski at the Siege of Vienna
Five years later, in 1688, with the Holy League still engaged in battle against the Ottoman Empire in Hungary, Louis XIV launched an invasion of the Holy Roman Empire’s western territories. His forces ravaged the Rhineland in what became known as the War of the Palatinate Succession (or the Nine Years' War, 1688–1697). Cities like Heidelberg, Mannheim, and Speyer were burned and devastated as part of his brutal scorched-earth campaign, an act that shocked contemporary Europe. The timing of the attack was no coincidence: it was designed to cripple the Holy Roman Empire while it was still waging war against the Ottomans in the east. This forced the Habsburgs to divert troops away from the anti-Ottoman front, weakening the European war effort.
Louis XIV’s duplicity extended even further. While the Holy League waged its war of survival, France continued to wage war against its other European neighbors on multiple fronts. The Dutch, the English, and various German principalities were forced to divert resources and manpower to contain French aggression. Had they not been occupied with this task, they likely would have contributed more forcefully to the war against the Ottomans, strengthening the Holy League’s position. France, therefore, did not merely refuse to aid the fight against Ottoman expansion - it actively weakened Europe’s ability to resist.
Louis XIV’s actions provoked widespread condemnation across Europe. In England and the Netherlands, he was decried for his opportunism and accused of betraying Christendom by exploiting the Ottoman war to expand his own power. Across Protestant and Catholic Europe alike his invasion of the Rhineland was viewed as a calculated act of treachery, deliberately orchestrated to ensure that the Habsburgs were weakened. Among others, Pope Innocent XI strongly condemned Louis XIV’s aggression and instead supported the Habsburgs in their struggle against both the Ottomans and the French.
And yet, despite France’s betrayal, the Holy League triumphed. Against all odds, the coalition of Central and Eastern European states managed to crush the Ottomans and force them into permanent retreat. The war culminated in the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, marking the beginning of the Ottoman Empire’s decline. The Habsburgs, the Poles, and other defenders of Europe succeeded without the help of Europe’s most powerful state at the time - and in spite of its active sabotage.
If history is to serve as a guide, then the failed Russian assault on Kyiv in 2022 must become Russia’s own Vienna 1683 moment - not just a successful defense but the beginning of an offensive war that will push Russia into a permanent retreat. Ukraine’s resistance, with the support of its allies, has the potential to transform from a fight for survival into a decisive counterattack - one that does not merely repel Russia’s invasion but ensures its ability to threaten Europe is permanently curtailed.
At this critical juncture, however, history offers us another parallel - one that is equally troubling. In the 17th century, France, under Louis XIV, did not just refuse to join the struggle against the Ottoman Empire; it actively worked against European unity, sabotaging the Holy League, attacking its neighbors, and ensuring that the Habsburgs remained too weak to fully crush the Ottoman threat. France’s century-long strategic alignment with the Ottomans reached its most blatant and destructive form under Louis XIV.
Today, Trump’s America threatens to play the same role that Louis XIV’s France did in the 17th century. Now, during Trump’s second term there are clear signs that his administration will try to undermine Western unity at the precise moment when it is most needed. His hostility toward NATO and the European Union, his antagonistic posturing toward allies like Canada and Denmark, and his sympathy towards Russia, all mirror Louis XIV’s self-serving and destructive geopolitical maneuvering.
One striking example has been Trump’s attempt to acquire Greenland from Denmark, a bizarre and unprecedented move that, when Denmark refused, led him to threaten punitive measures against one of America’s closest allies. As a direct consequence, Denmark was forced to divert additional military resources to Greenland - resources that otherwise could have been deployed where they are needed most: in Europe to defend against Russian aggression. Instead, Denmark found itself needing to defend territory from a potential American encroachment, just like back in the 17th century western German principalities, the Dutch Republic and England needed to divert their resources to counter Louis XIV’s aggression instead of helping the Holy League in its war against the Ottomans.
For more than a century, the United States has harbored an unrealistic, often naïve view of Russia - seeing it not as a rival, but as a potential ally, albeit an imperfect and wayward one. This historical pattern has repeated itself in various forms: from American material aid to Russia in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union in World War II, to the belief that post-Soviet Russia could be integrated into the Western order.
Trump’s foreign policy represents the most extreme version of this century-old American tendency to accommodate Russia. Just as Louis XIV’s France was the culmination of a century of Franco-Ottoman alignment, Trump’s America is the clearest expression of a misguided U.S. tendency to treat Russia as a misunderstood partner rather than a civilizational enemy.
At the very moment when Western civilization faces an existential threat from Russian expansionism, Trump - alongside figures like Elon Musk and J.D. Vance - is embracing a petty, destructive form of nationalism, abandoning America’s role as the cornerstone of the Western alliance. Louis XIV’s betrayal of European unity in favor of his own short-term gains echoes Trump’s willingness to sacrifice long-term Western interests for his own narrow self-interest.
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Caricature depicting Louis XIV as Apollo in his chariot, 1701
It is increasingly evident that the new Trump administration, along with the broader MAGA movement that propelled it to power, is positioning itself on Russia’s side. Its rhetoric is laced with hostility toward Europe - America’s natural civilizational brethren - while its actions, cloaked in empty platitudes about “peace” in Ukraine, are designed to secure a Russian victory. Just as Louis XIV quietly wished for Ottoman banners to fly over Vienna and took every measure to facilitate that outcome, so too does the Trump administration seek to “freeze” the war at this pivotal moment - not to end the bloodshed, but to rescue Russia from a catastrophic defeat. By cutting aid to Ukraine just as a final push could shatter Russia’s war effort, Trump and his circle aim to buy time for Moscow to regroup, recover, and strike again. Their sympathies are thinly veiled; had Russian tanks rolled into Kyiv in 2022, Trump, Musk, and J.D. Vance would not have mourned - they would have celebrated.
But history offers an encouraging lesson: just as the Holy League prevailed in the 17th century despite the treachery of Europe’s strongest power at the time, today’s European coalition can crush Russia even without America’s support - and even in the face of its hostility. The balance of power overwhelmingly favors Europe. If the Holy League of the past - without France - managed to break the Ottomans and push them into permanent retreat, then today’s European coalition, with or without the United States, can do the same to Russia. And in fact, the conditions are even more favorable today than they were in the 17th century.
A military alliance of Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states, and the Nordic countries alone could overpower Russia - far exceeding the relative strength that the Holy League had against the Ottomans. And beyond this core, Germany, Britain, and France remain deeply invested in European security. Should they fully commit to the cause - which, as it seems now, they will - the balance of power would become so lopsided that defeating Russia would be not merely possible, but inevitable - a task as simple as swatting away a nuisance. Even without American support, Europe today is vastly superior to Russia in terms of economic strength, technological advancement, military potential, and even demographic resilience.
In these fateful times, Europeans must not despair. They must look to history - not as a relic of the past, but as an inspiration for the present. Time and again, Europe has faced barbarian invasions, imperial aggression, and existential threats, only to emerge stronger, triumphant, and undefeated. Vienna 1683 was not the end of European civilization - it was its rebirth. Kyiv 2022 will be the same. Just as the Ottomans never recovered from their failed siege, so too will Russia be permanently weakened - pushed back beyond its ability to wage another war. The West must only do what history demands: stand firm, remain resolute, and finish what has been started.
Europe will prevail.
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