FOOTNOTES:

[13] See S. Lane-Poole, The Story of Turkey, 135.

[14] See The Story of Turkey, 136.

[15] History of the Maritime Wars of the Turks, 20.

[16] Hājji Khalīfa, 21.

[17] Jurien de la Graviere, Doria et Barberousse, Pt. I., ch. xv.

[18] See the Story of Turkey, 158-163.

[19] See S. Lane-Poole, The Art of the Saracens, 239, &c.

[20] Doria et Barberousse, Pt. II., ch. vii.

[21] Ibid., Pt. II., ch. vii., p. 106 ff.

[22] See the Story of Turkey, 170; and the illustrations, pp. 137, 147, 171, 175, 177.



VII.

DORIA AND BARBAROSSA.

1533.

Kheyr-ed-dīn was in no hurry to visit the Sublime Porte. He had to provide for the safety and government of Algiers during his absence, when exposed to the dangers both of foreign attack and internal intrigue. He had to reckon with the galleys of the Knights of St. John, who, after wandering homeless for a longer time than was at all creditable to that Christendom which they had so heroically defended at Rhodes, had finally settled in no less convenient a spot than Malta, whence they had every opportunity of harassing the operations of the Corsairs (1530). Moreover Andrea Doria was cruising about, and he was not the sort of opponent Barbarossa cared to meet by hazard. The great Genoese admiral considered it a personal duel with Kheyr-ed-dīn. Each held the supreme position on his own side of the water. Both were old men and had grown old in arms. Born in 1468, of a noble Genoese family, Doria was sixty-five years of age, of which nearly fifty had been spent in warfare. He had been in the Pope's guard, and had seen service under the Duke of Urbino and Alfonso of Naples, and when he was over forty he had taken to the sea and found himself suddenly High Admiral of Genoa (1513). His appointment to the command of his country's galleys was due to his zealous services on shore, and not to any special experience of naval affairs; indeed the commander of the galleys was as much a military as a naval officer. Doria, however, late as he adopted his profession, possessed undoubted gifts as a seaman, and his leadership decided which of the rival Christian Powers should rule the Mediterranean waves. He devoted his sword to France in 1522, when a revolution overthrew his party in his own republic; and so long as he was on the French side the command of the sea, so far as it did not belong to the Barbary Corsairs, belonged to France. When in 1528 he judged himself and his country ill-used by Francis I., he carried over his own twelve galleys to the side of Charles V.; and then the Imperial navies once more triumphed. Doria was the arbiter of fortune between the contending states. Doria was the liberator of Genoa, and, refusing to be her king, remained her idol and her despot. No name struck such terror into the hearts of the Turks; many a ship had fallen a prey to his devouring galleys, and many a Moslem slave pulled at his oars or languished in Genoese prisons. Officially an admiral, he was at the same time personally a Corsair, and used his private galleys to increase his wealth.

Kheyr-ed-dīn's fame among Christians and Turks alike was at least as great and glorious as his rival's. He had driven the Spaniards out of Algiers and had inflicted incalculable injuries upon the ships and shores of the Empire. Though the two had roved the same sea for twenty years, they had never met in naval combat: perhaps each had respected the other too much to risk an encounter. Long ago, when Kheyr-ed-dīn was unknown to fame, Doria had driven him from the Goletta (1513); and in 1531 the Genoese admiral made a descent upon Shershēl, which Kheyr-ed-dīn had been strengthening, to the great detriment and anxiety of the opposite coast of Spain. The Imperialists landed in force, surprised the fort, and liberated seven hundred Christian slaves. Then, contrary to orders and heedless of the signal gun which summoned them on board, the soldiery dispersed about the town in search of pillage, and, being taken at a disadvantage by the Turks and Moriscos of the place, were driven in confusion down to the beach, only to perceive Doria's galleys rapidly pulling away. Nine hundred were slaughtered on the seashore and six hundred made prisoners. Some say that the admiral intended to punish his men for their disobedience; others that he sighted Kheyr-ed-dīn's fleet coming to the rescue. At all events he drew off, and the two great rivals did not meet. The Genoese picked up some Barbary vessels on his way home to console him for his failure.



In the following year he retrieved his fame by a brilliant expedition to the coasts of Greece. With thirty-five sail and forty-eight galleys he attacked Coron, by way of making a diversion while Sultan Suleymān was invading Hungary,[23] and after a heavy bombardment succeeded in landing his men on the curtain of the fort. The Turkish garrison was spared and marched out, and Mendoza was left in command, while Doria bore up to Patras and took it, occupied the castles which guard the Gulf of Corinth, and returned in triumph to Genoa before the Turkish fleet could come up with him. This was in September, 1532. In the following spring a yet more daring feat was accomplished. Coron was running short of supplies, and a Turkish fleet blockaded the port. Nevertheless Cristofero Pallavicini carried his ship in, under cover of the castle guns, and encouraged the garrison to hold out; and Doria, following in splendid style, fought his way in, notwithstanding that half his fleet, being sailing galleons, became becalmed in the midst of the Turkish galleys, and had to be rescued in the teeth of the enemy. Lutfi Pasha was outmanoeuvred and defeated. This revictualling of Coron, says Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, was one of the skilfullest naval operations of the sixteenth century.[24]

It was clear that, while Doria had effected almost nothing against the Barbary Corsairs, he always mastered the Turks. The Sultan was eager to discover Kheyr-ed-dīn's secret of success, and counted the days till he should arrive in the Golden Horn. The Corsair, for his part, had heard enough of Doria's recent exploits to use more than his habitual caution, and he was not disposed to cheapen his value in the Sultan's eyes by a too precipitate compliance with his Majesty's command. At last, in August, 1533, having appointed Hasan Aga, a Sardinian eunuch, in whom he greatly confided, to be viceroy during his absence, Kheyr-ed-dīn set sail from Algiers with a few galleys; and after doing a little business on his own account—looting Elba and picking up some Genoese corn-ships—pursued his way, passing Malta at a respectful distance, and coasting the Morea, till he dropped anchor in the Bay of Salonica.[25] By his route, which touched Santa Maura and Navarino, he appears to have been looking for Doria, in spite of the smallness of his own force (which had, however, been increased by prizes); but, fortunately, perhaps, for the Corsair, the Genoese admiral had returned to Sicily, and the two had missed each other on the way.

Soon the eyes of the Sultan were rejoiced with the sight of a Barbary fleet, gaily dressed with flags and pennons, rounding Seraglio Point, and, in perfect order, entering the deep water of the Golden Horn; and presently Kheyr-ed-dīn and his eighteen captains were bowing before the Grand Signior, and reaping the rewards due to their fame and services. It was a strange sight that day at Eski Serai,[26] and the divan was crowded. The tried generals and statesmen of the greatest of Ottoman emperors assembled to gaze upon the rough sea-dogs whose exploits were on the lips of all Europe; and most of all they scrutinized the vigorous well-knit yet burly figure of the old man with the bushy eyebrows and thick beard, once a bright auburn, but now hoary with years and exposure to the freaks of fortune and rough weather. In his full and searching eye, that could blaze with ready and unappeasable fury, they traced the resolute mind which was to show them the way to triumphs at sea, comparable even to those which their victorious Sultan had won before strong walls and on the battle plain. The Grand Vezīr Ibrahīm recognized in Kheyr-ed-dīn the man he needed, and the Algerine Corsair was preferred before all the admirals of Turkey, and appointed to reconstruct the Ottoman navy. He spent the winter in the dockyards, where his quick eye instantly detected the faults of the builders. The Turks of Constantinople, he found, knew neither how to build nor how to work their galleys.[27] Theirs were not so swift as the Christians'; and instead of turning sailors themselves, and navigating them properly, they used to kidnap shepherds from Arcadia and Anatolia, who had never handled a sail or a tiller in their lives, and entrust the navigation of their galleys to these inexperienced hands.[28] Kheyr-ed-dīn soon changed all this. Fortunately there were workmen and timber in abundance, and, inspiring his men with his own marvellous energy, he laid out sixty-one galleys during the winter, and was able to take the sea with a fleet of eighty-four vessels in the spring. The period of Turkish supremacy on the sea dates from Kheyr-ed-dīn's winter in the dockyards.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] See the Story of Turkey, 191.

[24] Doria et Barberousse, Pt. II. ch. xxv.

[25] The Spanish historians are silent on the subject of this expedition: or, rather, Haedo positively denies it, and says that Kheyr-ed-dīn sent an embassy to the Sultan, but did not go in person. Hājji Khalīfa, however, is clear and detailed in his account of the visit.

[26] For an account of Stambol and the old Seraglio see the Story of Turkey, 260 ff.

[27] See Chapter XVI., below.

[28] So says Jean Chesneau, French secretary at Constantinople in 1543. See Jurien de la Graviere, Les Corsaires Barbaresques, 13.



VIII.

TUNIS TAKEN AND LOST.

1534-1535.

The dwellers on the coasts of Italy soon discovered the new spirit in the Turkish fleet; they had now to dread Corsairs on both hands, east as well as west. In the summer of 1534 Kheyr-ed-dīn led his new fleet of eighty-four galleys forth from the Golden Horn, to flesh their appetite on a grand quest of prey. Entering the Straits of Messina, he surprised Reggio, and carried off ships and slaves; stormed and burnt the castle of S. Lucida next day, and took eight hundred prisoners; seized eighteen galleys at Cetraro; put Sperlonga to the sword and brand, and loaded his ships with wives and maidens. A stealthy inland march brought the Corsairs to Fondi, where lay Giulia Gonzaga, the young and beautiful widow of Vespasio Colonna, Duchess of Trajetto and Countess of Fondi. She was sister to the "heavenly Joanna of Aragon," on whose loveliness two hundred and eighty Italian poets and rimesters in vain exhausted the resources of several languages;—a loveliness shared by the sister whose device was the "Flower of Love" amaranth blazoned on her shield. This beauty Kheyr-ed-dīn destined for the Sultan's harem, and so secret were the Corsairs' movements that he almost surprised the fair Giulia in her bed. She had barely time to mount a horse in her shift and fly with a single attendant,—whom she afterwards condemned to death, perhaps because the beauty revealed that night had made him overbold.[29] Enraged at her escape the pirates made short work of Fondi; the church was wrecked, and the plundering went on for four terrible hours, never to be forgotten by the inhabitants.

Refreshed and excited by their successful raid, the Turks needed little encouragement to enter with heartiness upon the real object of the expedition, which was nothing less than the annexation of the kingdom of Tunis. Three centuries had passed since the Sultans of the race of Hafs had established their authority on the old Carthaginian site, upon the breaking up of the African empire of the Almohades. Their rule had been mild and just; they had maintained on the whole friendly relations with the European powers, and many treaties record the fair terms upon which the merchants of Pisa, Venice, and Genoa were admitted to the port of Tunis. Saint Louis had been so struck with the piety and justice of the king that he had even come to convert him, and had died in the attempt. Twenty-one rulers of their line had succeeded one another, till the vigour of the Benī Hafs was sapped, and fraternal jealousies added bloodshed to weakness. Hasan, the twenty-second, stepped to the throne over the bodies of forty-four slaughtered brothers, and when he had thus secured his place he set a pattern of vicious feebleness for all sovereigns to avoid. A rival claimant served as the Corsair's pretext for invasion, and Kheyr-ed-dīn had hardly landed when this miserable wretch fled the city, and though supported by some of the Arab tribes he could make no head against the Turkish guns. Tunis, like Algiers, had been added to the Ottoman Empire, against its will, and by the same masterful hands. It may be doubted whether the Sultan's writ would have run in either of his new provinces had their conqueror gainsaid it.



Tunis did not long remain in the possession of Barbarossa. The banished king appealed to Charles V., and, whatever the emperor may have thought of Hasan's wrongs, he plainly perceived that Barbarossa's presence in Tunis harbour was a standing menace to his own kingdom of Sicily. It was bad enough to see nests of pirates perched upon the rocks of the Algerine coast; but Tunis was the key of the passage from the west to the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, and to leave it in the Corsairs' hands was to the last degree hazardous. Accordingly he espoused the cause of Hasan, and at the end of May, 1535, he set sail from Barcelona with six hundred ships commanded by Doria (who had his own grudge to settle), and carrying the flower of the Imperial troops, Spaniards, Italians, and Germans. In June he laid siege to the Goletta—or halk-el-wēd, "throat of the torrent," as the Arabs called it—those twin towers a mile asunder which guarded the channel of Tunis. The great carack St. Ann, sent, with four galleys, by "the Religion" (so the Knights of Malta styled their Order), was moored close in, and her heavy cannon soon made a breach, through which the Chevalier Cossier led the Knights of St. John, who always claimed the post of danger, into the fortress, and planted the banner of "the Religion" on the battlements[30] (14 July). Three desperate sallies had the besieged made under the leadership of Sinān the Jew; three Italian generals of rank had fallen in the melley; before they were driven in confusion back upon the city of Tunis, leaving the Goletta with all its stores of weapons and ammunition, and its forty guns, some of them famous for their practice at the siege of Rhodes, and more than a hundred vessels, in the hands of the enemy. Barbarossa came out to meet the emperor at the head of nearly ten thousand troops; but his Berbers refused to fight, the thousands of Christian slaves in the Kasaba (or citadel), aided by treachery, broke their chains and shut the gates behind him; and, after defending his rampart as long as he could, the Corsair chief, with Sinān and Aydīn "Drub-Devil," made his way to Bona, where he had fortunately left fifteen of his ships. The lines of Kheyr-ed-dīn's triple wall may still be traced across the neck of land which separates the lake of Tunis from the Mediterranean. Fifteen years ago this rampart was cut through, when nearly two hundred skeletons, some Spanish money, cannon balls, and broken weapons were found outside it.[31]

For three days Charles gave up the city of Tunis to the brutality of his soldiers. They were days of horrible license and bloodshed. Men, women, and children were massacred, and worse than massacred, in thousands. The infuriated troops fought one with the other for the possession of the spoil, and the luckless Christians of the Kasaba were cut down by their deliverers in the struggle for Kheyr-ed-dīn's treasures. The streets became shambles, the houses dens of murder and shame: the very Catholic chroniclers admit the abominable outrages committed by the licentious and furious soldiery of the great Emperor. It is hard to remember that almost at the very time when German and Spanish and Italian men-at-arms were outraging and slaughtering helpless, innocent people in Tunis, who had taken little or no hand in Kheyr-ed-dīn's wars and had accepted his authority with reluctance, the Grand Vezīr Ibrahīm was entering Baghdād and Tebrīz as a conqueror at the head of wild Asiatic troops, and not a house nor a human being was molested. Fas est et ab hoste doceri.

So far as Tunis was concerned the expedition of Charles V. was fruitless. Before he sailed in August he made a treaty with Hasan, which stipulated for tribute to Spain, the possession of the Goletta by the crown of Castile, the freeing of Christian slaves, the cessation of piracy, and the payment of homage by an annual tribute of six Moorish barbs and twelve falcons; and he and the Moor duly swore it on Cross and sword. But the treaty was so much parchment wasted. No Moslem prince who had procured his restoration by such means as Hasan had used, who had spilt Moslem blood with Christian weapons and ruined Moslem homes by the sacrilegious atrocities of "infidel" soldiers, and had bound himself the vassal of "idolatrous" Spain, could hope to keep his throne long. He was an object of horror and repulsion to the people upon whom he had brought this awful calamity, and so fierce was their scorn of the traitor to Islam that the story is told of a Moorish girl in the clutch of the soldiers, who, when the restored King of Tunis sought to save her, spat in his face; anything was better than the dishonour of his protection. Hasan pretended to reign for five years, but the country was in arms, holy Kayrawān would have nothing to say to a governor who owed his throne to infidel ravishers; Imperial troops in vain sought to keep him there; Doria himself succeeded only for a brief while in reducing the coast towns to the wretched prince's authority; and in 1540 Hasan was imprisoned and blinded by his son Hamīd, and none can pity him. The coast was in the possession of the Corsairs, and, as we shall see, even the Spaniards were forced ere long to abandon the Goletta.

Nevertheless, the expedition to Tunis was a feat of which Europe was proud. Charles V. seldom suffered from depreciation of his exploits, and, as Morgan quaintly says, "I have never met with that Spaniard in my whole life, who, I am persuaded, would not have bestowed on me at least forty Boto a Christo's, had I pretended to assert Charles V. not to have held this whole universal globe in a string for four-and-twenty hours; and then it broke: though none had ever the good nature or manners to inform or correct my ignorance in genuine history, by letting me into the secret when that critical and slippery period of time was."[32] Naturally admirers so thoroughgoing made the most of the conquest of Tunis, the reduction of the formidable Goletta, the release of thousands of Christian captives, and, above all, the discomfiture of that scourge of Christendom, Barbarossa himself. Poets sang of it, a painter-in-ordinary depicted the siege, a potter at Urbino burnt the scene into his vase; all Europe was agog with enthusiasm at the feat. Charles posed as a crusader and a knight-errant, and commemorated his gallant deeds and those of his gentlemen by creating a new order of chivalry, the Cross of Tunis, with the motto "Barbaria," of which however we hear no more. Altogether "it was a famous victory."

The joy of triumph was sadly marred by the doings of Kheyr-ed-dīn. That incorrigible pirate, aware that no one would suspect that he could be roving while Charles was besieging his new kingdom, took occasion to slip over to Minorca with his twenty-seven remaining galleots; and there, flying Spanish and other false colours, deceived the islanders into the belief that his vessels were part of the Armada; upon which he rowed boldly into Port Mahon, seized a rich Portuguese galleon, sacked the town, and, laden with six thousand captives and much booty and ammunition, led his prize back in triumph to Algiers. In the meanwhile Doria was assiduously hunting for him with thirty galleys, under the emperor's express orders to catch him dead or alive. The great Genoese had to wait yet three years for his long-sought duel.

Having accomplished its object, the Armada, as usual, broke up without making a decisive end of the Corsairs. Kheyr-ed-dīn, waiting at Algiers in expectation of attack, heard the news gladly, and, when the coast was clear, sailed back to Constantinople for reinforcements. He never saw Algiers again.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Von Hammer, Gesch. d. Osm. Reiches, ii. 129.

[30] Broadley, Tunis, Past and Present, i. 42, quoting a narrative by Boyssat, one of the Knights of Malta, written in 1612.

[31] On Charles's expedition to Tunis, consult Marmol, Hājji Khalīfa, Robertson, Morgan, Von Hammer, and Broadley. In the last will be found some interesting photographs of Jan Cornelis Vermeyen's pictures, painted on the spot during the progress of the siege, by command of the Emperor, and now preserved at Windsor. All the accounts of the siege and capture show discrepancies which it seems hopeless to reconcile.

[32] Hist. of Algiers, 286.



IX.

THE SEA-FIGHT OFF PREVESA.

1537.

When Barbarossa returned to Constantinople Tunis was forgotten and Minorca alone called to mind: instead of the title of Beglerbeg of Algiers, the Sultan saluted him as Capudan Pasha or High Admiral of the Ottoman fleets. There was work to be done in the Adriatic, and none was fitter to do it than the great Corsair. Kheyr-ed-dīn had acquired an added influence at Stambol since the execution of the Grand Vezīr Ibrahīm,[33] and he used it in exactly the opposite direction. Ibrahīm, a Dalmatian by birth, had always striven to maintain friendly relations with Venice, his native state, and for more than thirty years there had been peace between the Republic and the Porte. Barbarossa, on the contrary, longed to pit his galleys against the most famous of the maritime nations of the Middle Ages, and to make the Crescent as supreme in the waters of the Adriatic as it was in the Aegean. Francis I. was careful to support this policy out of his jealousy of the Empire. The Venetians, anxious to keep on good terms with the Sultan, and to hold a neutral position between Francis and Charles V., found themselves gradually committed to a war, and by their own fault. Their commanders in the Adriatic and at Candia were unable to resist the temptation of chasing Ottoman merchantmen. Canale, the Proveditore of Candia, caught a noted Corsair, the "Young Moor of Alexander," as his victims called him, sunk or captured his galleys, killed his Janissaries, and severely wounded the young Moor himself;—and all this in Turkish waters, on Turkish subjects, and in time of peace. Of course when the too gallant Proveditore came to his senses and perceived his folly, he patched the young Moor's wounds and sent him tenderly back to Algiers: but the Sultan's ire was already roused, and when Venetian galleys actually gave chase to a ship that carried a Turkish ambassador, no apologies that the Signoria offered could wipe out the affront. War was inevitable, and Venice hastily made common cause with the Pope and the Emperor against the formidable host which now advanced upon the Adriatic.

Before this, some stirring actions had been fought off the coasts of Greece. Doria, sallying forth from Messina, had met the governor of Gallipoli off Paxos, and had fought him before daybreak. Standing erect on the poop, conspicuous in his cramoisy doublet, the tall figure of the old admiral was seen for an hour and a half directing the conflict, sword in hand, an easy mark for sharpshooters, as a wound in the knee reminded him. After a severe struggle the twelve galleys of the enemy were captured and carried in triumph to Messina. Barbarossa was sorely wanted now, and in May, 1537, he sailed with one hundred and thirty-five galleys to avenge the insult. For a whole month he laid waste the Apulian coast like a pestilence, and carried off ten thousand slaves, while Doria lay helpless with a far inferior force in Messina roads. The Turks were boasting that they might soon set up a Pope of their own, when the war with Venice broke out, and they were called off from their devastation of Italy by the Sultan's command to besiege Corfu. The Ionian islands were always a bone of contention between the Turks and their neighbours, and a war with Venice naturally began with an attack upon Corfu. The Senate had shut its eyes as long as possible to the destination of the huge armaments which had left Constantinople in the spring: Tunis, or perhaps Naples, was said to be their object. But now they were undeceived, and on the 25th of August, Captain Pasha Barbarossa landed twenty-five thousand men and thirty cannon under Lutfi Pasha, three miles from the castle of Corfu. Four days later the Grand Vezīr Ayās, with twenty-five thousand more and a brilliant staff, joined the first-comers, and the Akinji or light troops spread fire and sword around. A fifty-pounder fired nineteen shots in three days, but only five struck the fortress: the Turks fired too high, and many of their missiles fell harmlessly into the sea beyond. In spite of storm and rain the Grand Vezīr would not desist from making the round of the trenches by night. Suleymān offered liberal terms of capitulation, but the besieged sent back his messenger with never an answer. Alexandro Tron worked the big guns of the castle with terrible precision. Two galleys were quickly sunk, four men were killed in the trenches by a single shot—a new and alarming experience in those early days of gunnery—four times the Fort of St. Angelo was attacked in vain; winter was approaching, and the Sultan determined to raise the siege. In vain Barbarossa remonstrated: "A thousand such castles were not worth the life of one of his brave men," said the Sultan, and on the 17th of September the troops began to re-embark.[34]

Then began a scene of devastation such as the isles of Greece have too often witnessed,—not from Turks only, but from Genoese and Venetians, who also came to the Archipelago for their oarsmen,—but never perhaps on so vast a scale. Butrinto was burnt, Paxos conquered, and then Barbarossa carried fire and sword throughout the Adriatic and the Archipelago. With seventy galleys and thirty galleots, he raged among the islands, most of which belonged to noble families of Venice—the Venieri, Grispi, Pisani, Quirini. Syra, Skyros, Aegina, Paros, Naxos, Tenos, and other Venetian possessions were overwhelmed, and thousands of their people carried off to pull a Turkish oar. Naxos contributed five thousand dollars as her first year's tribute; Aegina furnished six thousand slaves. Many trophies did Barbarossa bring home to Stambol, whose riches certainly did his own and the Sultan's, if not "the general coffer, fill." Four hundred thousand pieces of gold, a thousand girls, and fifteen hundred boys, were useful resources when he returned to "rub his countenance against the royal stirrup."[35] Two hundred boys in scarlet, bearing gold and silver bowls; thirty more laden with purses; two hundred with rolls of fine cloth: such was the present with which the High Admiral approached the Sultan's presence.

Suleymān's genius was at that time bent upon three distinct efforts: he was carrying on a campaign in Moldavia; his Suez fleet—a novelty in Ottoman history—was invading the Indian Ocean, with no very tangible result, it is true (unless a trophy of Indian ears and noses may count), save the conquest of Aden on the return voyage, but still a notable exploit, and disturbing to the Portuguese in Gujerat; and his High Admiral was planning the destruction of the maritime power of Venice.

In the summer of 1538, Barbarossa put off to sea, and soon had one hundred and fifty sail under his command. He began by collecting rowers and tribute from the islands, twenty-five of which had now been transferred from the Venetian to the Turkish allegiance, and then laid waste eighty villages in Candia. Here news was brought that the united fleet of the Emperor, Venice, and the Pope was cruising in the Adriatic, and the Captain Pasha hastened to meet it. The pick of the Corsairs was with him. Round his flagship were ranged the galleys of Dragut, Murād Reis, Sinān, Sālih Reis with twenty Egyptian vessels, and others, to the number of one hundred and twenty-two ships of war. The advance guard sighted part of the enemy off Prevesa—a Turkish fortress opposite the promontory of Arta or Actium, where Antony suffered his memorable defeat.



The Christian strength was really overwhelming. Eighty Venetian, thirty-six Papal, and thirty Spanish galleys, together with fifty sailing galleons, made up a formidable total of nearly two hundred ships of war, and they carried scarcely less than sixty thousand men, and two thousand five hundred guns. Doria was in chief command, and Capello and Grimani led the Venetian and Roman contingents. Barbarossa had fortunately received but an imperfect report of the enemy's strength and so boldly pursued his northerly course up the Adriatic. When he reached Prevesa, the combined fleets had gone on to Corfu, and he was able to enter unopposed the spacious gulf of Arta, where all the navies of the world might safely anchor and defy pursuit.

On September 25th, the allied fleets appeared off the entrance to the gulf, and then for the first time Barbarossa realized his immense good fortune in being the first in the bay. Outnumbered as he was, a fight in the open sea might have ended in the total destruction of his navy; but secure in an ample harbour, on a friendly coast, behind a bar which the heavier vessels of the enemy could not cross, he could wait his opportunity and take the foe at a disadvantage. The danger was that Doria might disembark his guns and attack from the shores of the gulf, and to meet this risk some of the Turkish captains insisted on landing their men and trying to erect earthworks for their protection; but the fire from the Christian ships soon stopped this manoeuvre. Barbarossa had never expected Doria to hazard a landing, and he was right. The old admiral of Charles V. was not likely to expose his ships to the risk of a sally from the Turks just when he had deprived them of the men and guns that could alone defend them.

The two fleets watched each other warily. Doria and Barbarossa had at last come face to face for a great battle, but, strange as it may seem, neither cared to begin: Barbarossa was conscious of serious numerical inferiority; Doria was anxious for the safety of his fifty big sailing vessels, on the heavy artillery of which he most relied, but which a contrary wind might drive to destruction on the hostile coast. As it was, his guideship on the extreme left had but a fathom of water under her keel. Each felt keenly the weighty responsibility of his position, and even the sense that now at last the decisive day of their long rivalry had come could not stir them from their policy of prudence. Moreover, it was no longer a question of the prowess of hot-blooded youth: Doria and Barbarossa and Capello were all men of nearly seventy years, and Doria was certainly not the man he once was; politics had spoilt him.

So the two great admirals waited and eyed each other's strength. Will Barbarossa come out? Or must Doria risk the passage of the bar and force his way in to the encounter? Neither event happened: but on the morning of the 27th the Corsairs rubbed their eyes to feel if they were asleep, as they saw the whole magnificent navy of Christendom, anchor a-peak, sailing slowly and majestically—away! Were the Christians afraid? Anyhow no one, not even Barbarossa, could hold the Turks back now. Out they rushed in hot pursuit, not thinking or caring—save their shrewd captain—whether this were not a feint of Doria's to catch them in the open. "Get into line," said Barbarossa to his captains, "and do as you see me do." Dragut took the right wing, Sālih Reis the left. Early on the 28th the Christian fleet was discovered at anchor, in a foul wind, off Santa Maura, thirty miles to the south. Doria was not at all prepared for such prompt pursuit, and eyed with anxiety the long battle line of one hundred and forty galleys, galleots, and brigantines, bearing down upon him before the wind. His ships were scattered, for the sails could not keep up with the oars, and Condulmiero's huge Venetian carack was becalmed off Zuara, a long way behind, and others were in no better plight. Three hours Doria hesitated, and then gave the order to sail north and meet the enemy. Condulmiero was already fiercely engaged, and soon his carack was a mere unrigged helmless waterlog, only saved from instant destruction by her immense size and terrific guns, which, well aimed, low on the water, to gain the ricochet, did fearful mischief among the attacking galleys. Two galleons were burnt to the water's edge, and their crews took to the boats; a third, Boccanegra's, lost her mainmast, and staggered away crippled. What was Doria about? The wind was now in his favour; the enemy was in front: but Doria continued to tack and manoeuvre at a distance. What he aimed at is uncertain: his colleagues Grimani and Capello went on board his flagship, and vehemently remonstrated with him, and even implored him to depart and let them fight the battle with their own ships, but in vain. He was bent on tactics, when what was needed was pluck; and tactics lost the day. The Corsairs took, it is true, only seven galleys and sailing vessels, but they held the sea. Doria sailed away in the evening for Corfu, and the whole allied fleet followed in a gale of wind.[36]



So, after all, the great duel was never fairly fought between the sea-rivals. Barbarossa was willing, but Doria held back: he preferred to show his seamanship instead of his courage. The result was in effect a victory, a signal victory, for the Turks. Two hundred splendid vessels of three great Christian states had fled before an inferior force of Ottomans; and it is no wonder that Sultan Suleymān, when he learnt the news at Yamboli, illuminated the town, and added one hundred thousand aspres a year to the revenues of the conqueror. Barbarossa had once more proved to the world that the Turkish fleet was invincible. The flag of Suleymān floated supreme in all the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] See the Story of Turkey, 195.

[34] Von Hammer, Gesch. d. Osm. Reiches, ii. 142.

[35] Hājji Khalīfa, 58.

[36] Jurien de la Graviere, Doria et Barberousse, Pt. II., ch. xlii.-xlv.; Hājji Khalīfa, 62; Von Hammer, ii. 155; Morgan, 290.



X.

BARBAROSSA IN FRANCE.

1539-1546.

Barbarossa's life was drawing to a close, but in the eight years that remained he enhanced his already unrivalled renown. His first exploit after Prevesa was the recapture of Castelnuovo, which the allied fleets had seized in October, as some compensation on land for their humiliation at sea. The Turkish armies had failed to recover the fortress in January, 1539; but in July Barbarossa went to the front as usual, with a fleet of two hundred galleys, large and small, and all his best captains; and, after some very pretty fighting in the Gulf of Cattaro, landed eighty-four of his heaviest guns and bombarded Castelnuovo, from three well-placed batteries. On August 7th, a sanguinary assault secured the first line of the defences; three days later the governor, Don Francisco Sarmiento, and his handful of Spaniards, surrendered to a final assault, and were surprised to find themselves chivalrously respected as honourable foes. Three thousand Spaniards had fallen, and eight thousand Turks, in the course of the siege.

One more campaign and Barbarossa's feats are over. Great events were happening on the Algerine coasts, where we must return after too long an absence in the Levant and Adriatic: but first the order of years must be neglected that we may see the last of the most famous of all the Corsairs. To make amends for the coldness of Henry VIII., Francis I. was allied with the other great maritime power, Turkey, against the Emperor, in 1543; and the old sea rover actually brought his fleet of one hundred and fifty ships to Marseilles. The French captains saluted the Corsair's capitana, and the banner of Our Lady was lowered to be replaced by the Crescent. Well may a French admiral call this "the impious alliance." On his way Barbarossa enjoyed a raid in quite his old style; burnt Reggio and carried off the governor's daughter; appeared off the Tiber, and terrified the people of Civita Vecchia; and in July entered the Gulf of Lyons in triumph. Here he found the young Duke of Enghien, Francois de Bourbon, commander of the French galleys, who received him with all honour and ceremony.



Barbarossa had hardly arrived when he discovered that his great expedition was but a fool's errand. The King of France was afraid of attempting a serious campaign against the Emperor, and he was already ashamed of his alliance with the Musulmans: his own subjects—nay, all Europe—were crying shame. Barbarossa grew crimson with fury, and tore his white beard: he had not come with a vast fleet all the way from Stambol to be made a laughing-stock. Something must evidentially be done to satisfy his honour, and Francis I. unwillingly gave orders for the bombardment of Nice. Accompanied by a feeble and ill-prepared French contingent, which soon ran short of ammunition—"Fine soldiers," cried the Corsair, "to fill their ships with wine casks, and leave the powder barrels behind!"—Barbarossa descended upon the Gate of Italy. The city soon surrendered, but the fort held out, defended by one of those invincible foes of the Turk, a Knight of Malta, Paolo Simeoni, who had himself experienced captivity at the hands of Barbarossa; and as the French protested against sacking the town after capitulation on terms, and as Charles's relieving army was advancing, the camps were broken up in confusion, and the fleets retired from Nice.

The people of Toulon beheld a strange spectacle that winter. The beautiful harbour of Provence was allotted to the Turkish admiral for his winter quarters. There, at anchor, lay the immense fleet of the Grand Signior; and who knew how long it might dominate the fairest province of France? There, turbaned Musulmans paced the decks and bridge, below and beside which hundreds of Christian slaves sat chained to the bench and victims to the lash of the boatswain. Frenchmen were forced to look on, helplessly, while Frenchmen groaned in the infidels' galleys, within the security of a French port. The captives died by hundreds of fever during that winter, but no Christian burial was allowed them—even the bells that summon the pious to the Mass were silenced, for are they not "the devil's musical instrument"?[37]—and the gaps in the benches were filled by nightly raids among the neighbouring villages. It was ill sleeping around Toulon when the Corsair press-gangs were abroad. And to feed and pay these rapacious allies was a task that went near to ruining the finances of France.

The French were not satisfied of the Corsair's fidelity, and it must be added that the Emperor might have had some reason to doubt the honesty of Doria. The two greatest admirals of the age were both in the Western Mediterranean, but nothing could tempt them to come to blows. The truth was that each had a great reputation to lose, and each preferred to go to his grave with all his fame undimmed. Francis I. had a suspicion that Barbarossa was meditating the surrender of Toulon to the Emperor, and, improbable as it was, some colour was given to the King's anxiety by the amicable relations which seemed to subsist between the Genoese Corsair and his Barbary rival. Doria gave up the captive Dragut to his old captain for a ransom of three thousand gold crowns—a transaction on which he afterwards looked back with unqualified regret. The situation was growing daily more unpleasant for France. From his easy position in Toulon, Barbarossa sent forth squadrons under Sālih Reis and other commanders to lay waste the coasts of Spain, while he remained "lazily engaged in emptying the coffers of the French king."

At last they got rid of him. Francis was compelled to furnish the pay and rations of the whole crews and troops of the Ottoman fleet up to their re-entry into the Bosphorus; he had to free four hundred Mohammedan galley slaves and deliver them to Barbarossa; he loaded him with jewellery, silks, and other presents; the Corsair departed in a Corsair's style, weighed down with spoil. His homeward voyage was one long harrying of the Italian coasts; his galley sailed low with human freight; and his arrival at Constantinople was the signal for the filling of all the harems of the great pashas with beautiful captives. Barbarossa, laden with such gifts, was sure of his welcome.

Two years later he died, in July, 1546, an old man of perhaps near ninety, yet without surviving his great fame. "Valorous yet prudent, furious in attack, foreseeing in preparation," he ranks as the first sea captain of his time. "The chief of the sea is dead," expressed in three Arabic words, gives the numerical value 953, the year of the Hijra in which Kheyr-ed-dīn Barbarossa died.

Long afterwards no Turkish fleet left the Golden Horn without her crew repeating a prayer and firing a salute over the tomb at Beshiktash, where lie the bones of the first great Turkish admiral.

FOOTNOTE:

[37] See S. Lane-Poole, The Speeches and Tabletalk of the Prophet Mohammad, 168.



XI.

CHARLES AT ALGIERS.

1541.

When Barbarossa left Algiers for ever in 1535 to become the High Admiral of the Ottoman Empire, the Corsairs lost indeed their chief; but so many of his captains remained behind that the game of sea roving went on as merrily as ever. Indeed so fierce and ruthless were their depredations that the people of Italy and Spain and the islands began to regret the attentions of so gentlemanly a robber as Barbarossa. His successor or viceroy at Algiers was a Sardinian renegade, Hasan the Eunuch; but the chief commanders at sea were Dragut, Sālih Reis, Sinān, and the rest, who, when not called to join the Captain Pasha's fleet, pursued the art of piracy from the Barbary coast. Dragut (properly Torghūd) worked measureless mischief in the Archipelago and Adriatic, seized Venetian galleys and laid waste the shores of Italy, till he was caught by Giannettino Doria, nephew of the great admiral, while unsuspectingly engaged in dividing his spoils on the Sardinian coast (1540). Incensed to find his vast empire perpetually harassed by foes so lawless and in numbers so puny, Charles the Emperor resolved to put down the Corsairs' trade once and for ever. He had subdued Tunis in 1535, but piracy still went on. Now he would grapple the head and front of the offence, and conquer Algiers.

He had no fears of the result; the Corsair city would fall at the mere sight of his immense flotilla; and in this vainglorious assurance he set out in October, 1541. He even took Spanish ladies on board to view his triumph. The season for a descent on the African coast was over, and every one knew that the chance of effecting anything before the winter storms should guard the coast from any floating enemy was more than doubtful; but "the Spaniards commonly move with gravity"; and besides, Charles had been delayed during a busy summer by his troubles in Germany and Flanders, and could not get away before.

Now at last he was free; and, in spite of the earnest remonstrances of Doria and the entreaties of the Pope, to Algiers he would go. Everything had long been prepared—a month, he believed, at the outside would finish the matter—in short, go he would. At Spezzia he embarked on Doria's flagship; the Duke of Alva, of sanguinary memory, commanded the troops, many of whom had been brought by the Emperor himself from the German highlands. Ill-luck attended them from the outset: a storm, no unusual phenomenon with November coming on, drove the ships back into shelter at Corsica. At length the seas subsided, and the fleet, picking up allies as it went along, cautiously hugged the land as far as Minorca, where the mistral, the terror of seamen, rushed down upon the huge armada—masts strained, yards cracked, sails were torn to rags, and there was nothing for it but to row—row for their lives and for Charles. They were but seven miles from Port Mahon, yet it took half the night to win there—an endless night which the panting crews never forgot.

In the bay of Palma, at Majorca, the fleet was assembled. There were the Emperor's hundred sailing vessels carrying the German and Italian troops, commanded by such historic names as Colonna and Spinosa; there were Fernando Gonzago's Sicilian galleys, and a hundred and fifty transports from Naples and Palermo; there were the fifty galleys of Bernadino de Mendoza, conveying two hundred transports with the arms and artillery, and carrying the corps of gentlemen adventurers, mustered from the chivalry of Spain, and including one only who had climbed up from the ranks—but that one was Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico. Over five hundred sail, manned by twelve thousand men, and carrying a land force of twenty-four thousand soldiers, entered the roads of Algiers on October 19, 1541.



At last the great Emperor set eyes upon the metropolis of piracy. On the rocky promontory which forms the western crest of the crescent bay, high up the amphitheatre of hills, tier upon tier, in their narrow overshadowed lanes, the houses of the Corsairs basked in the autumn sun, crowned by the fortress which had known the imperious rule of two Barbarossas. On the right was the mole which Spanish slaves had built out of the ruins of the Spanish fort. Two gates fronted the south and north, the Bab Azūn and Bab-el-Wēd.

Avoiding the promontory of Cashina, the galleys, with furled sails, drew up before the low strand, backed by stretches of luxuriant verdure, south of the city, and out of range, at the spot which is still called the "Jardin d'essai." A heavy swell prevented their landing for three days, but on the 23rd, in beautiful weather, the troops disembarked. The Berbers and Arabs, who had lined the shore and defied the invaders, hastily retired before the guns of the galleys, and the Spaniards landed unopposed. The next day they began the march to the city some few miles off. The Spaniards formed the left wing on the hill side; the Emperor and the Duke of Alva with the German troops composed the centre; the Italians and one hundred and fifty knights of Malta marched on the right by the seashore. Driving back the straggling bands of mounted Arabs, who ambushed among the rocks and ravines, and picked off many of the Christians, the invaders pushed steadily on, till Algiers was invested on all sides save the north. Its fate appeared sealed. A brief bombardment from Charles's heavy cannon, and the Spaniards would rush the breach and storm the citadel. Hasan Aga, within, with only eight hundred Turks, and perhaps five thousand Arabs and Moors, must almost have regretted the proud reply he had just made to the Emperor's summons to surrender.

Then, when the end seemed close at hand, the forces of Nature came to the rescue. The stars in their courses fought for Algiers: the rains descended and the winds blew and beat upon that army, till the wretched soldiers, with neither tents nor cloaks, with barely food—for the landing of the stores had hardly begun—standing all night knee-deep in slush in that pinguid soil, soaked to the skin, frozen by the driving rain and bitter wind, were ready to drop with exhaustion and misery. When morning dawned they could scarcely bear up against the blustering gale; their powder was wet; and a sudden sally of the Turks spread a panic in the sodden ranks which needed all the courage and coolness of the Knights of Malta to compose. At last the enemy was driven out of the trenches and pursued, skirmishing all the way, to the Bab Azūn. It looked as though pursuers and pursued would enter together; but the gate was instantly shut, and a daring Knight of Malta had barely struck his dagger in the gate to defy the garrison, when the Christians found themselves under so heavy a fire from the battlements, that they were forced to beat a retreat: the Knights of Malta, last of all, their scarlet doublets shining like a fresh wound, and their faces to the foe, covered the retreat.

Hasan then led out his best horsemen from the gate, and driving their heels into their horses' flanks, the cloud of Moslems poured down the hill. The Knights of Malta bore the shock with their iron firmness, though they lost heavily. The Italians ran for their lives. The Germans whom Charles hurriedly despatched to the rescue came back at the double without drawing a sword. The Emperor himself put on his armour, spurred his charger into the midst of the fugitives, sword in hand, and with vehement reproaches succeeded in shaming them into fight. "Come, gentlemen," then said he to the nobles around, "forwards!" And thus he led his dispirited troops once more to the field; this time the panic alarm of the rank and file was controlled and banished by the cool courage of the cavaliers, and the Turks were driven back into the town. The skirmish had cost him three hundred men and a dozen Knights of Malta. All that day the Emperor and his officers, great signiors all, stood at arms in the pouring rain, with the water oozing from their boots, vigilantly alert.

Had Charles now run his ships ashore at all hazard, and dragged up his heavy siege train and stores and tents and ammunition, all might yet have been won. But several precious days were wasted, and on the morning of the 25th such a storm sprang up as mortal mariner rarely encountered even off such a coast—a violent north-easterly hurricane—still known in Algiers as "Charles's gale"—such as few vessels cared to ride off a lee shore. The immense flotilla in the bay was within an ace of total destruction. Anchors and cables were powerless to hold the crowded, jostling ships. One after the other they broke loose, and keeled over to the tempest till their decks were drowned in the seas. Planks gaped; broadside to broadside the helpless hulks crashed together. Many of the crews threw themselves madly on shore. In six hours one hundred and fifty ships sank. The rowers of the galleys, worn out with toiling at the oar, at last succumbed, and fifteen of the vessels ran on shore, only to be received by the Berbers of the hills, who ran their spears through the miserable shipwrecked sailors as soon as they gained the land.

The worst day must come to an end: on the morrow the storm was over, and Doria, who had succeeded in taking the greater part of the fleet out to sea, came back to see what new folly was in hand. He was indignant with the Emperor for having rejected his advice and so led the fleet and army into such peril; he was disgusted with his captains, who had completely lost their coolness in the hurricane, and wanted to run their vessels ashore, with the certainty of wreck, sooner than ride out the storm—and yet called themselves sailors!

He found Charles fully aware of the necessity for a temporary retreat, till the army should be revictualled and reclothed. The camp was struck: the Emperor himself watched the operation, standing at the door of his tent in a long white cassock, murmuring quietly the Christian's consolation: "Thy will be done"—Fiat voluntas Tua! Baggage and ordnance were abandoned; the horses of the field artillery were devoured by the hungry troops; and then the march began.

To retreat at all is humiliation, but to retreat as this luckless army did was agony. Deep mud clogged their weary feet; when a halt was called they could but rest on their halberts, to lie down was to be suffocated in filth; mountain torrents swollen breast-high had to be crossed, the wading men were washed away till they built a rude bridge—O crowning humiliation!—out of the wreckage of their own ships. Hasan and a multitude of Turks and Arabs hung forever on their flanks. The dejected Italians, who had no stomach for this sort of work, fell often into the hands of the pursuers; the Germans, who could do nothing without their customary internal stuffing, were mere impedimenta; and only the lean Spaniard covered the retreat with something of his natural courage.

At last the dejected army reached the Bay of Temendefust (Matifoux), where the remains of the fleet were lying at anchor. It was resolved, in view of the approach of winter and the impossibility of sending supplies to an army in stormy weather, to reembark. Cortes in vain protested: the council of war agreed that it was too late in the year to attempt retaliation. Then a new difficulty arose: how was room to be found in a flotilla, which had lost nearly a third of its ships, for an army which was but a couple of thousand less than when it landed? Regretfully Charles gave orders for the horses to be cast into the sea, and, despite their masters' entreaties, favourite chargers of priceless value were slaughtered and thrown overboard. The famous breed of Spanish horses was well-nigh ruined. It was but one tragedy more. On the 2nd of November most of the troops were on board. Charles resolved to be the last to leave the strand; but the wind was getting up, the sea rising, and at last he gave the order to weigh anchor. Often is the story told in Algiers how the great Emperor, who would fain hold Europe in the palm of his hand, sadly took the crown from off his head and casting it into the sea said, "Go, bauble: let some more fortunate prince redeem and wear thee."

He did not sail a moment too soon. A new and terrific storm burst forth. The ships were driven hither and thither. Where the tempest drove them, there they helplessly wandered, and many men died from famine and exposure. Some of the Spanish vessels were wrecked at Algiers, and their crews and troops were sent to the bagnios. Charles himself and Doria arrived safely at Bujēya—then a Spanish outpost—with part of the flotilla. Here the unexpected visitors soon caused a famine—and still the tempest raged. The half-starved rovers in vain tried to make head against the waves, and carry the Emperor back to Spain: eighty miles out they gave in, and the ships returned disconsolately to the harbour. Twelve days and nights the storm bellowed along the treacherous coast, and not till November 23rd could the Imperial fleet set sail for the coast of Spain.

There was mourning in Castile that Yuletide. Besides eight thousand rank and file, three hundred officers of birth had fallen victims to the storm or the Moorish lance. Algiers teemed with Christian captives, and it became a common saying that a Christian slave was scarce a fair barter for an onion.

So ended this famous expedition. It was begun in glory, and ended in shame. The whole of Christendom, one might say—for there were English knights there, like Sir Thomas Challoner, as well as Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians in the army—had gone forth to destroy a nest of pirates, and behold, by the fury of the elements and the foolishness of their own counsels, they were almost destroyed themselves. They had left behind them ships and men and stores and cannon: worse, they had left Algiers stronger and more defiant than ever.

The Algerines, for their part, never forgot the valour of the Knights of Malta, and the spot where they made their stand is still called "The Grave of the Knights." High up on the hillside may be seen "the Emperor's Castle," which marks the traditional place where Charles' great pavilion was pitched on the morning of the fatal 23rd of October.

"The climate of Africa"—it is the caustic comment of Admiral Jurien de la Graviere—"was evidently unsuited to deeds of chivalry."



XII.

DRAGUT REIS.

1543-1560.

The name of Dragut has already occurred more than once in this history: it was destined to become as notorious as Barbarossa's as the century advanced. Dragut—or Torghūd—was born on the Caramanian coast opposite the island of Rhodes. Unlike many of his colleagues he seems to have been the son of Mohammedan parents, tillers of the earth. Being adventurous by nature, he took service as a boy in the Turkish fleet and became "a good pilot and a most excellent gunner." At last he contrived to purchase and man a galleot, with which he cruised the waters of the Levant, where his intimate acquaintance with all the coasts and islands enabled him to seize and dispose of many prizes. Kheyr-ed-dīn Barbarossa soon came to hear of his exploits, and welcomed him heartily when he came to pay his respects at Algiers, in so far that he gave him the conduct of various expeditions and eventually appointed him his lieutenant with the command of twelve galleys. "From thenceforward this redoubtable Corsair passed not one summer without ravaging the coasts of Naples and Sicily: nor durst any Christian vessels attempt to pass between Spain and Italy; for if they offered it, he infallibly snapped them up: and when he missed any of his prey at sea, he made himself amends by making descents along the coasts, plundering villages and towns, and dragging away multitudes of inhabitants into captivity."[38]



In 1540, as we have seen, Dragut was caught by Giannettino Doria, who made him a present to his great kinsman Andrea, on whose galleys he was forced to toil in chains. La Valette, afterwards Grand Master of Malta, who had once pulled the captive's oar on Barbarossa's ships and knew Dragut well, one day saw the ex-Corsair straining on the galley bank: "Senor Dragut," said he, "usanza de guerra!—'tis the custom of war!" And the prisoner, remembering his visitor's former apprenticeship, replied cheerfully, "Y mudanza de fortuna—a change of luck!" He did not lose heart, and in 1543 Barbarossa ransomed him for 3000 crowns,[39] and made him chief of the galleys of the western Corsairs. Imprisonment had sharpened his appetite for Christians, and he harried the Italian coasts with more than his ancient zeal. Surrounded by bold spirits and commanding a fleet of his own, Dragut had the Mediterranean in his grasp, and even ventured to seize the most dreaded of all foes, a Maltese galley, wherein he found 70,000 ducats intended for the repair of the fortifications of Tripoli, which then belonged to "the Religion." As the Turkish annalist says, "Torghūd had become the drawn sword of Islam."

Dragut's lair was at the island of Jerba, which tradition links with the lotus-eaters, perhaps because of the luxuriant fertility of the soil. The people of Jerba, despite their simple agricultural pursuits, were impatient of control, and, as often as not, were independent of the neighbouring kingdom of Tunis or any other state. Here, with or without their leave, Dragut took up his position, probably in the very castle which Roger Doria, when lord of the island, began to build in 1289; and from out the wide lake at the back the Corsair's galleots issued to ravage the lands which were under the protection of Roger Doria's descendants. Not content with the rich spoils of Europe, Dragut took the Spanish outposts in Africa, one by one—Susa, Sfax, Monastir; and finally set forth to conquer "Africa."



It is not uncommon in Arabic to call a country and its capital by the same name. Thus Misr meant and still means both Egypt and Cairo; El-Andalus, both Spain and Cordova. Similarly "Africa" meant to the Arabs the province of Carthage or Tunis and its capital, which was not at first Tunis but successively Kayrawān and Mahdīya. Throughout the later middle ages the name "Africa" is applied by Christian writers to the latter city. Here it was that in 1390 a "grand and noble enterprize" came to an untimely end. "The Genoese," says Froissart, "bore great enmity to this town; for its Corsairs frequently watched them at sea, and when strongest fell on and plundered their ships, carrying their spoils to this town of Africa, which was and is now their place of deposit and may be called their warren." It was "beyond measure strong, surrounded by high walls, gates, and deep ditches." The chivalry of Christendom hearkened to the prayer of the Genoese and the people of Majorca and Sardinia and Ischia, and the many islands that groaned beneath the Corsairs' devastations; the Duke of Bourbon took command of an expedition (at the cost of the Genoese) which included names as famous as the Count d'Auvergne, the Lord de Courcy, Sir John de Vienne, the Count of Eu, and our own Henry of Beaufort; and on St. John Baptist's Day, with much pomp, with flying banners and the blowing of trumpets, they sailed on three hundred galleys for Barbary. Arrived before Africa, not without the hindrance of a storm, they beheld the city in the form of a bow, reaching out its arms to the sea; high were its ramparts; and a colossal tower, armed with stone-projectiles, guarded the harbour. Nevertheless the Knights landed in good heart, after a cup of Grecian or Malmsey wine, on the Vigil of Magdalen Day (July 22nd), unopposed, and each great lord set up his pennon before his tent over against the fortress, with the Genoese crossbows on the right. Here they remained nine weeks. The Saracens never offered battle, but harassed the enemy with their skirmishers, who fired their arrows, then dropped down behind their targets of Cappadocian leather to avoid the enemy's return volley; then, rising again, cast their javelins with deadly aim. What was to be done? The Duke of Bourbon spent his time in sitting crosslegged before his tent; the nobles and knights had plenty of excellent wine and food; but it was very hot and uncomfortable—the assault had failed—many had died—the Genoese wanted to get their galleys back safe in port before the autumn gales came on; so they packed up their baggage, and re-embarked, blowing their horns and beating their drums for very joy.[40]



This was the city which Dragut took without a blow in the spring of 1550. Mahdīya was then in an anarchic state, ruled by a council of chiefs, each ready to betray the other, and none owing the smallest allegiance to any king, least of all the despised king of Tunis, Hamīd, who had deposed and blinded his father Hasan, Charles V.'s protege. One of these chiefs let Dragut and his merry men into the city by night, and the inhabitants woke up to find "Africa" in the possession of the bold Corsair whose red and white ensign, displaying a blue crescent, floated from the battlements.

So easy a triumph roused the emulation of Christendom. Where the Duke of Bourbon had failed, Dragut had conspicuously succeeded. Don Garcia de Toledo dreamed of outshining the Corsair's glory. His father, the Viceroy of Naples, the Pope, and others, promised their aid, and old Andrea Doria took the command. After much delay and consultation a large body of troops was conveyed to Mahdīya, and disembarked on June 28, 1550. Dragut, though aware of the project, was at sea, devastating the Gulf of Genoa, and paying himself in advance for any loss the Christians might inflict in Africa: his nephew, Hisār Reis commanded in the city. When Dragut returned, the siege had gone on for a month, without result; a tremendous assault had been repulsed with heavy loss to the besiegers, who were growing disheartened. The Corsair assembled a body of Moors and Turks and attempted to relieve the fortress; but his ambuscade failed, Hisār's simultaneous sally was driven back, and Dragut, seeing that he could do nothing, fled to Jerba. His retreat gave fresh energy to the siege, and a change of attack discovered the weak places of the defence. A vigorous assault on the 8th of September carried the walls, a brisk street fight ensued, and the strong city of "Africa" was in the hands of the Christians.

The Sultan, Suleymān the Great, was little pleased to see a Moslem fortress summarily stormed by the troops of his ally, the Emperor. Charles replied that he had fought against pirates, not against the Sultan's vassals; but Suleymān could not perceive the distinction, and emphasized his disapproval by giving Dragut twenty galleys, which soon found their way to Christian shores. The lamentations of his victims roused Doria, who had the good fortune to surprise the Corsair as he was greasing his keels in the strait behind Jerba. This strait was virtually a cul-de-sac. Between the island and the great lake that lay behind it, the sea had worn a narrow channel on the northern side, through which light vessels could pass, with care; but to go out of the lake by the southern side involved a voyage over what was little better than a bog, and no one ever thought of the attempt. Doria saw he had his enemy in a trap, and was in no hurry to venture in among the shoals and narrows of the strait. He sent joyous messages to Europe, announcing his triumph, and cautiously, as was his habit, awaited events.

Dragut, for his part, dared not push out against a vastly superior force; his only chance was a ruse. Accordingly, putting a bold face on the matter, he manned a small earthwork with cannon, and played upon the enemy, with little or no actual injury, beyond the all-important effect of making Doria hesitate still more. Meanwhile, in the night, while his little battery is perplexing the foe, all is prepared at the southern extremity of the strait. Summoning a couple of thousand field labourers, he sets them to work; here a small canal is dug—there rollers come into play; and in a few hours his small fleet is safely transported to the open water on the south side of the island. Calling off his men from the illusive battery, the Corsair is off for the Archipelago: by good luck he picks up a fine galley on the way, which was conveying news of the reinforcements coming to Doria. The old Genoese admiral never gets the message: he is rubbing his eyes in sore amazement, wondering what had happened to the imprisoned fleet. Never was admiral more cruelly cheated: never did Doria curse the nimble Corsair with greater vehemence or better cause.

Next year, 1551, Dragut's place was with the Ottoman navy, then commanded by Sinān Pasha. He had had enough of solitary roving, and found it almost too exciting: he now preferred to hunt in couples. With nearly a hundred and fifty galleys or galleots, ten thousand soldiers, and numerous siege guns, Sinān and Dragut sailed out of the Dardanelles—whither bound no Christian could tell. They ravaged, as usual, the Straits of Messina, and then revealed the point of attack by making direct for Malta. The Knights of St. John were a perpetual thorn in the side of the Turks, and even more vexatious to the Corsairs, whose vessels they, and they alone, dared to tackle single-handed, and too often with success. Sultan and Corsair were alike eager to dislodge the Knights from the rock which they had been fortifying for twenty years, just as Suleymān had dislodged them from Rhodes, which they had been fortifying for two hundred. In July the Turkish fleet appeared before the Marsa, wholly unexpected by the Knights. The Turks landed on the tongue of promontory which separates the two great harbours, and where there was as yet no Fort St. Elmo to molest them. Sinān was taken aback by the strong aspect of the fortress of St. Angelo on the further side of the harbour, and almost repented of his venture. To complete his dejection, he seems to have courted failure. Instead of boldly throwing his whole force upon the small garrison and overwhelming them by sheer weight, he tried a reconnaissance, and fell into an ambuscade; upon which he incontinently abandoned all thought of a siege, and contented himself with laying waste the interior of Malta, and taking the adjacent island of Goza.

The quantity of booty he would bring back to Constantinople might perhaps avail, he thought, to keep his head on his shoulders, after so conspicuous a failure; but Sinān preferred not to trust to the chance. To wipe out his defeat, he sailed straight for Tripoli, some sixty-four leagues away. Tripoli was the natural antidote to Malta: for Tripoli, too, belonged to the Knights of St. John—much against their will—inasmuch as the Emperor had made their defence of this easternmost Barbary state a condition of their tenure of Malta. So far they had been unable to put it into a proper state of defence, and with crumbling battlements and a weak garrison, they had yearly expected invasion. The hour had now come. Summoned to surrender, the Commandant, Gaspard de Villiers, of the Auvergne Tongue, replied that the city had been entrusted to his charge, and he would defend it to the death. He had but four hundred men to hold the fort withal.

Six thousand Turks disembarked, forty cannons were landed, Sinān himself directed every movement, and arranged his batteries and earthworks. A heavy cannonade produced no effect on the walls, and the Turkish admiral thought of the recent repulse at Malta, and of the stern face of his master; and his head sat uneasily upon his neck. The siege appeared to make no progress. Perhaps this venture, too, would have failed, but for the treachery of a French renegade, who escaped into the trenches and pointed out the weak places in the walls. His counsel was taken; the walls fell down; the garrison, in weariness and despair, had lain down to sleep off their troubles, and no reproaches and blows could rouse them. On August 15th Gaspard de Villiers was forced to surrender, on terms, as he believed, identical with those which Suleymān granted to the Knights of Rhodes.[41] But Sinān was no Suleymān; moreover, he was in a furious rage with the whole Order. He put the garrison—all save a few—in chains, and carried them off to grace his triumph at Stambol.

Thus did Tripoli fall once more into the hands of the Moslems, forty-one years after its conquest by the Count Don Pedro Navarro.[42]

The misfortunes of the Christians did not end here. Year after year the Ottoman fleet appeared in Italian waters, marshalled now by Sinān, and when he died by Piāli Pasha the Croat, but always with Dragut in the van; year by year the coasts of Apulia and Calabria yielded up more and more of their treasure, their youth, and their beauty, to the Moslem ravishers; yet worse was in store. Unable as they felt themselves to cope with the Turks at sea, the Powers of Southern Europe resolved to strike one more blow on land, and recover Tripoli. A fleet of nearly a hundred galleys and ships, gathered from Spain, Genoa, "the Religion," the Pope, from all quarters, with the Duke de Medina-Celi at the head, assembled at Messina. Doria was too old to command, but his kinsman, Giovanni Andrea, son of his loved and lost Giannettino, led the Genoese galleys. The Fates seemed adverse from the outset. Five times the expedition put to sea; five times was it driven back by contrary winds.[43] At last, on February 10, 1560, it was fairly away for the African coast. Here fresh troubles awaited it. Long delays in crowded vessels had produced their disastrous effects: fevers and scurvy and dysentery were working their terrible ravages among the crews, and two thousand corpses were flung into the sea. It was impossible to lay siege to Tripoli with a diseased army, and when actually in sight of their object the admirals gave orders to return to Jerba.

A sudden descent quickly gave them the command of the beautiful island. The Arab sheykh whose people cultivated it was as ready to pay tribute to the Spaniard as to the Corsair. Medina-Celi and his troops accordingly set to work undisturbed at the erection of a fortress strong enough to baffle the besieging genius even of the Turks. In two months a strong castle was built, with all scientific earthworks, and the admiral prepared to carry home such troops as were not needed for its defence.

Unhappily for him, he had lingered too long. He had wished to see the defences complete, and had trusted to the usual practice of the Turks, not to put to sea before May was advanced. He was about to prepare for departure when news came that the Turkish fleet had been seen at Goza. Instantly all was panic. Valiant gentlemen forgot their valour, forgot their coolness, forgot how strong a force by sea or land they mustered: one thought alone was uppermost—the Turks were upon them! Giovanni Doria hurried on board and embarked his Genoese; Medina-Celi more methodically and with something like sang froid personally supervised the embarcation of his men; but before they could make out of the strait, where Dragut had so narrowly escaped capture, the dread Corsair himself, and Ochiali, and Piāli Pasha were upon them. Then ensued a scene of confusion that baffles description. Despairing of weathering the north side of Jerba the panic-stricken Christians ran their ships ashore, and deserted them, never stopping even to set them on fire. The deep-draught galleons stuck fast in the shallow water. On rowed the Turks; galleys and galleons to the number of fifty-six fell into their hands; eighteen thousand Christians bowed down before their scimitars; the beach, on that memorable 11th of May, 1560, was a confused medley of stranded ships, helpless prisoners, Turks busy in looting men and galleys—and a hideous heap of mangled bodies. The fleet and the army which had sailed from Messina but three months ago in such gallant array were absolutely lost. It was a dies nefas for Christendom.

Medina-Celi and young Doria made good their escape by night. But when the old Genoese admiral learnt the terrible news, the loss of the fleet he loved, the defeat of the nephew he loved yet more, his dim eyes were wet. "Take me to the church," he said; and he soon received the last consolations of religion. Long as he had lived, and many as had been the vicissitudes of his great career, he had willingly been spared this last most miserable experience. On November 25, 1560, he gave up the ghost: he was a great seaman, but still more a passionate lover of his country;—despotic in his love, but not the less a noble Genoese patriot.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Morgan, Hist. of Algiers, 439.

[39] Brantome, Hommes illustres etrangers. [OE]uvres, i. 279.

[40] Froissart's Chron., transl. T. Johnes (1844) ii. 446, 465, ff.

[41] See the Story of Turkey, 170.

[42] See Jurien de la Graviere, Les Corsaires Barbaresques, 193-215.

[43] Les Corsaires Barbaresques, 266.



XIII.

THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.

1565.

When Sultan Suleymān reflected on the magnanimity which he had displayed towards the Knights of Rhodes in allowing them to depart in peace in 1522, his feelings must have resembled those of Doria when he thought of that inconsiderate release of Dragut in 1543. Assuredly the royal clemency had been ill-rewarded; the Knights had displayed a singular form of gratitude to the sparer of their lives; they had devoted themselves to him, indeed, but devoted themselves to his destruction. The cavaliers whom Charles V. suffered to perch on the glaring white rock of Malta, in 1530, proved in no long time to be a pest as virulent and all-pervading as even Rhodes had harboured. Seven galleys they owned, and never more, but the seven were royal vessels, splendidly armed and equipped, and each a match for two or three Turkish ships.[44] Every year they cruised from Sicily to the Levant, and many a prize laden with precious store they carried off to Malta. The commerce of Egypt and Syria was in danger of annihilation; the Barbary Corsairs, even Dragut himself, shunned a meeting with the red galleys of "the Religion," or their black capitana; and the Turkish fleet, while holding undisputed sway over the Mediterranean, was not nimble enough to surprise the Maltese squadron in its rapid and incalculable expeditions. Jean de la Valette Parisot, General of the Galleys and afterwards Grand Master, Francis of Lorraine, Grand Prior of France, Romegas, prince of knights-errant, scoured the seas in search of prey:—they were as true pirates as ever weathered the "white squall." The Knights lived by plunder as much as any Corsair; but they tempered their freebooting with chivalry and devotions; they were the protectors of the helpless and afflicted, and they preyed chiefly upon the enemies of the Faith.

Meanwhile they built and built; Fort St. Elmo rose on the central promontory, Forts St. Michael and St. Angelo were strengthened; bastions were skilfully planned, flanking angles devised, ravelins and cavaliers erected, ditches deepened, parapets raised, embrasures opened, and every device of sixteenth-century fortification as practised by Master Evangelista, chief engineer of the Order, was brought into use. For the Knights knew that Suleymān lived and was mightier than ever. Their cruisers had wrought sad havoc among his subjects, and the Sultan would not long suffer the hornets of Rhodes to swarm at Malta. They lived in constant expectation of attack, and they spent all their strength and all their money in preparing for the day of the Sultan's revenge. At last the time came: Suleymān swore in his wrath that the miscreants should no longer defy him; he had suffered them to leave Rhodes as gentlemen of honour—he would consume them in Malta as one burns a nest of wasps.

At the time of the siege of 1565 the city or fortress of Malta was situated, not as Valetta now stands on the west, but on the east side of the Marsa or great harbour. To understand even the briefest narrative of one of the most heroic deeds of war that the world has seen, the position of the forts must be understood. (See the Plan.) On the northern coast of the rocky island a bold promontory or rugged tongue of land, Mount Sceberras, separates two deep bights or inlets. The eastern of these was called Marsa Muset, or "Middle Port," but was unoccupied and without defences at the time of the siege, except that the guns of St. Elmo, the fortress at the point of the Sceberras promontory, commanded its mouth. The Marsa Kebir, or simply La Marsa, the "Great Port," was the chief stronghold of the Knights. Here four projecting spits of rock formed smaller harbours on the western side. The outermost promontory, the Pointe des Fourches, separated the Port de la Renelle or La Arenela, from the open sea; Cape Salvador divided the Arenela from the English Harbour; the Burg, the main fortress and capital of the place, with Fort St. Angelo at its point, shot out between the English Harbour and the Harbour of the Galleys; and the Isle of La Sangle, joined by a sandy isthmus to the mainland, and crowned by Fort St. Michael, severed the Galley Harbour from that of La Sangle. All round these inlets high hills dominated the ports. Behind Fort St. Elmo, the Sceberras climbed steeply to a considerable height. Behind the Arenela and English Harbour rose Mount Salvador, Calcara, and further back the Heights of St. Catherine. The Burg and Fort St. Michael were overtopped by the Heights of St. Margaret, whilst the Conradin plateau looked down upon the head of the Marsa and the Harbour of La Sangle. To modern artillery and engineering the siege would have been easy, despite the rocky hardness of the ground, since the Knights had not had time to construct those field-works upon the surrounding heights which were essential to the safety of the forts. Even to the skilled but undeveloped artillery of the Turks, the destruction of Malta ought not to have been either a difficult or lengthy operation, had they begun at the right place.

To those who were acquainted with the ground, who had heard of the siege of Rhodes, and knew that the Turks were not less but more formidable in 1565 than in 1522, the issue of the struggle must have appeared inevitable, when the huge Ottoman fleet hove in view on the 18th of May, 1565. One hundred and eighty vessels, of which two-thirds were galleys-royal, carried more than thirty thousand fighting men—the pick of the Ottoman army, tried Janissaries and Sipāhis, horsemen from Thrace, rough warriors from the mountains of Anatolia, eager volunteers from all parts of the Sultan's dominions. Mustafa Pasha who had grown old in the wars of his master, commanded on land, and Piāli was admiral of the fleet. Dragut was to join them immediately, and the Sultan's order was that nothing should be done till he arrived.

The Knights had not remained ignorant of the preparations that were making against them. They sent to all Europe for help, and the Pope gave money, and Spain promises: the Viceroy of Sicily would send Spanish reinforcements by the 15th of June. They worked unceasingly at their defences and did all that men could do to meet the advancing storm. All told, they mustered but seven hundred Knights, and between eight and nine thousand mercenaries of various nations, but chiefly Maltese, who could only be trusted behind walls.

The Order was fortunate in its Grand Master. Jean de la Valette, born in 1494, a Knight of St. John before he was of age, and a defender of Rhodes forty-three years ago, though now an old man retained to the full the courage and generalship which had made his career as commander of the galleys memorable in the annals of Mediterranean wars. He had been a captive among the Turks, and knew their languages and their modes of warfare; and his sufferings had increased his hatred of the Infidel. A tall, handsome man, with an air of calm resolution, he communicated his iron nerve to all his followers. Cold and even cruel in his severity, he was yet devoutly religious, and passionately devoted to his Order and his Faith. A true hero, but of the reasoning, merciless, bigoted sort: not the generous, reckless enthusiast who inspires by sympathy and glowing example.

When he knew that the day of trial was at hand, Jean de la Valette assembled the Order together, and bade them first be reconciled with God and one another, and then prepare to lay down their lives for the Faith they had sworn to defend. Before the altar each Knight foreswore all enmities, renounced all pleasures, buried all ambitions; and joining together in the sacred fellowship of the Supper of the Lord, once more dedicated their blood to the service of the Cross.

At the very outset a grave mischance befell the Turks; Dragut was a fortnight late at the rendezvous. His voice would have enforced Piāli's advice, to land the entire force and attack the Burg and St. Michael from the heights behind. Mustafa, the Seraskier, was determined to reduce the outlying Fort of St. Elmo on the promontory of Sceberras before attacking the main position, and accordingly landed his men at his convenience from the Marsa Muset, and laid out his earthworks on the land side of St. Elmo. He had not long begun when Ochiali arrived with six galleys from Alexandria, and on June 2nd came Dragut himself with a score or more galleys of Tripoli and Bona. Dragut saw at once the mistake that had been made, but saw also that to abandon the siege of St. Elmo would too greatly elate the Knights: the work must go on; and on it went with unexampled zeal.