There were wasted opportunities on both sides in the Little War; Austrian attempts to increase their influence in Hungary were just as unsuccessful as the Ottoman drives to Vienna. Nonetheless, there were no illusions as to the status quo: the Ottoman Empire was still a very powerful and dangerous threat. Even so, the Austrians would go on the offensive again, their generals building a bloody reputation for so much loss of life. Costly battles like those fought at Buda and Osijek were avoided but not absent in the upcoming conflicts. In any case Habsburg interests were split between fighting for devastated European land under Islamic control, trying to stop the gradual decentralization of Imperial authority in Germany, and for Spain's ambitions in North Africa, the Low Countries and against the French. Nevertheless, the Ottomans, whilst hanging on to their supreme power, could not expand as they had in the days of Mehmet and Bayezid. To the east lay further wars against their Shi'ite opponents, the Safavids. Both the French (since 1536) and the Dutch (since 1612) occasionally worked together against the Habsburgs with the Ottomans.