Like an angry lion, the Turkish menace growled at the frontiers of Europe. In 1453, the last remnant of the mighty Roman Empire was obliterated when Turkish forces overran Constantinople. Western civilisation was being threatened by medieval Islam. By 1570, a huge Turkish fleet had begun to turn the Mediterranean into a Muslim lake. A year later Pope Pius V created an anti-Ottoman alliance known as the Holy League - Christendom's answer to Jihad. One morning in October 1571, Don John of Austria, commanding the fleet of the Holy League, met the Ottoman Turks in the waters at the mouth of the Gulf of Patros. The future of a despairing, fragmented Europe was about to be decided... By four o'clock that afternoon the naval battle had become a mêlee, and the sea had literally turned from blue to red from all the blood shed. When the smoke cleared, the Turkish fleet had been broken. In sheer numbers of casualties there has never been a more costly naval battle than Lepanto. For the first time in more than a century, West had defeated East. The Christians had successfully taken the offensive. Lepanto was one of the greatest turning points in history, though the centuries to come would see many more battles in the continuing conflict between Christianity and Islam.