The Sultan's Admiral (21 page)

The Franco-Turkish alliance had been secretly concluded in 1536. France’s part in this, as a Christian nation allying herself with the Moslem enemy, has often been denounced. Sir Godfrey Fisher in his
Barbary Legend
has succinctly stated the pros and cons of the French behavior: “Francis I, with his erratic conscience and unpredictable changes of foreign policy, hardly appeared to advantage as a Paladin or champion of Christendom … The special denunciation of Turkey, and eventually of Algiers, arose out of the existence of the Franco-Turkish alliance, usually assigned to the year 1536, which is represented as essentially wicked and ‘unhallowed’, the source, it is claimed with a singularly ungrateful lack of realism, of so many of the misfortunes of France. More logically, perhaps, any sense of shame might have been derived from the discreditable state of affairs created by the duplicity and insatiable ambition of the princes, popes, and republics who showed no hesitation in paying tribute to the Sultan for his favour and protection, or invoking his aid against each other. The mutual recrimination and public washing of dirty linen must have been largely responsible for the contempt in which, according to Haedo and later writers, the Turks held the Christians.”

It was indeed hardly surprising that the Turks despised the Christians. Everywhere they saw them professing one thing and doing another. If the intrigue in the seraglio of Constantinople was contemptible, it was little worse than in the courts of Europe. If France, through fear and hatred of the Emperor Charles V, wanted to come to a private agreement with the Sublime Porte, the Sultan’s ministers were perfectly willing to oblige. Barbarossa had spent many years in the western Mediterranean. He had met many men of all conditions from the European countries bordering on the Mediterranean, and he had no illusions about them. The Christians, despite all their protestations, were interested primarily in territorial and economic gain. Barbarossa’s policy of siding with France in order to weaken the Emperor and ruin Genoa and Venice was thoroughly intelligent.

Throughout the winter of 1537, the arsenals and the dockyards were once again working at full pressure. The maintenance of the new fleet, its replacement and extension, were largely made possible by the financial success of the past year. The Sultan’s expedition to Valona had been costly, but Barbarossa’s ravaging of Apulia, and of the Ionian and the Aegean Islands, had yielded an over-all profit in men, materiel, and money. At the end of the year 1537 the Ottoman Empire was at the peak of its power. Europe—dissident, divided Europe— waited uneasily for the spring.

The islands of the Aegean, barren and poverty-stricken as so many of them are, shining like bare bones under the brilliant sky, were once prosperous and fertile. Their spoliation had begun as early as classical times, for man had little or no understanding of the need to replace the trees he had cut down for his ship- and house-building, in order to conserve the soil. Nevertheless, during the long centuries of Byzantine rule many of them had regained a considerable prosperity; piracy was eliminated in the Aegean Sea; agriculture was encouraged; and trade flourished. Similarly, in many of the islands that had become fiefs of rich Genoese and Venetian families after the partition of the Byzantine Empire by the conquering Latins there was order and prosperity. Islands like Chios, Samos, Mitylene, and many others had benefited by the attentions of men who were interested in seeing that their possessions showed a profit. It is significant, for instance, that Hydrz, now treeless and waterless, was known in the sixteenth century as Tchamliza, “the Place of Pines.”

But under the rule of the Turks, who introduced the ubiquitous goat (that murderer of saplings), and who cared little so long as the islanders somehow or other produced their yearly tribute, the islands suffered that long decline which is only just beginning to be arrested in our own century. The war between Venice and the Turks now inflicted a new devastation upon many of the Aegean Islands that had, until then, survived in comparative peace and prosperity.

In the spring of 1538 Barbarossa again led out a fleet of over one hundred galleys, and descended upon the islands conquered the previous year, to demand the annual tribute. In passing, he did not neglect some of the smaller islands which were under Venetian or Genoese sway. The first to feel the power of the Ottoman fleet was little Skiathos, lying just off the southern tip of Euboea, and commanding the entrance to the Gulf of Volos. The long sand beach of Koukkonaries Bay invited the smaller vessels to beach themselves, while the larger galleys swept round the island to seize the main harbour on the south coast. Halfway between the harbour and Koukkonaries lay the castle and the small fortified township (known like all similar Greek walled places as castra). Attacking it on both sides, the Turks took no more than six days to batter its poor defences into submission, swarm in, and massacre the garrison. Then, leaving a number of janissaries in command, they took what men and plunder they could find in the island, and moved on to their next target.

Such was the pattern of this spring raid through the Aegean. The small fortified castra had no chance of holding out against the massive force of men and cannon that were deployed against them. One by one, the islands that had for so long contributed to the power and prosperity of Venice fell into Turkish hands. Skiathos had given the Turks the command of the important Gulf of Volos. The other islands of the Sporades group, Skope-los, Khelidromi, and Pelagos, would be easy to subjugate in due course. Moving forty miles south across the windy sea, the fleet next ravaged lonely Skyros, capturing the castle that belonged to the Venetian Dukes of Naxos. The lifeline of islands that Venice had established in the great days of her trade with Constantinople were one by one falling into the hands of the Sultan. It was the Republic’s turn to learn the hard lesson that she had in her time taught many others: those who wish to trade far afield must either possess a powerful fleet or must be on good terms with the people in whose territory they are trading. Venice’s fleet was nowadays no match for the Ottoman, and she had forfeited her friendly relationship with the Sultan.

South again from Skyros lies the long island of Andros, commanding the Doro Channel, which in its turn is the main shipping route from the north Aegean to Athens and the Cyclades. The island’s importance had long been recognised by the Venetians and, under their protection, it was governed by the Zeno and Sommariva families. Although it was not until 1566 that Andros was to come totally under Turkish rule, yet it, too, was now forced to pay tribute to the Sultan, in lieu of a levy being made upon its man power. Other islands which were not as prosperous as Andros were forced to provide rowers for the oar benches.

Inevitably, since Kheir-ed-Din had set out to challenge the large galleys of the naval powers of Europe, he had been forced to abandon his early preference for small galleots manned solely by Turks. His raids in 1537 and 1538 on the Ionian and Aegean Islands were not dictated solely by a desire to extend the Sultan’s dominions, but by the necessity of finding enough oarsmen for the huge fleet he was building. Although there are no certain records, it may be assumed that his own High Admiral’s galley was manned by janissaries. At this time the whole janissary corps did not number more than twenty thousand men, so it is unlikely that men from this elite could be spared for many vessels other than the Admiral’s flagship. At a later date, when the corps of janissaries had been considerably expanded, it was quite customary for janissaries to be employed as oarsmen. In Barbarossa’s fleet a leavening of janissaries among the slaves was found not only to improve their discipline and performance, but to provide an “ear” against the slave revolts that were always one of the terrible concerns of the officers and masters of a galley. If, in a sea fight, the slaves managed to break or slip their chains, then the ship would almost automatically be overwhelmed. To have some janissaries among the crew was, therefore, a good insurance policy.

Moving southward through the islands, Barbarossa and his ships passed the lofty sides of volcanic Santorin and came down through the Sea of Crete to complete their complement of oarsmen. Crete had been a Venetian possession since 1204, and its capital, Candia, was one of the principal ports in Venice’s eastern communications chain. The Turks fell upon the city but, unable to reduce the fortifications, had to content themselves with capturing those inhabitants who had not had time to take refuge with the garrison. They then passed on down the coast, laying waste the small villages and fishing ports. Over eighty villages, according to one account, were put to fire and the sword, and their young men enslaved. The off-lying islands of Dia, Yiani-sadhes, Koufonisi, and Gaidhouronisi yielded their quota of sea-hardened fishermen for the benches. Gavdos, the ancient Clauda, saw the sails lift like great wings over the eastern horizon. It was here that St. Paul on his voyage to Rome had nearly come to grief prior to his ultimate shipwreck on Malta: “And when the south wind blew softly … they sailed close by Crete. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon. And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat …”

It was while the Turkish fleet was casually sweeping along this southern coast of Crete, diverging occasionally to seize provisions from the fertile countryside, to water the ships, and loot what they could from the peasant villages, that a galleot came running down from the Ionian Islands with an urgent despatch for the High Admiral. The combined fleets of Venice, Genoa, and the Pope, under the over-all command of Andrea Doria, Admiral of the Emperor Charles V, were at sea. They had been sighted in the Adriatic, heading south towards the Ionian Islands.

This, or something like it, must have been what Barbarossa was expecting. He can never have believed that his actions of the previous year would be allowed to go unchallenged. Indeed, it would seem more likely that in his ravaging of Apulia and the Venetian islands in the Ionian and the Aegean he had been deliberately “trailing his coat.” His immediate reaction to the news seems to confirm this. Far from withdrawing into the security of the Aegean, he gathered his fleet about him and headed northwest for the Ionian. He had recently been reinforced by a contingent of some twenty galleys from Egypt, among whose commanders were the formidable Sinan, Murad, and Salah, as well as Dragut. The arrival of the Egyptian squadron was certainly no accident. One can reasonably assume that all Barbarossa’s actions had been deliberately designed to lure Doria and the fleets of Venice and the Emperor down into the Ionian—for a major “set-piece” sea battle.

On the west coast of Greece, north of the Gulf of Patras, and slightly north again of the island of Levkas lies the narrow entrance to the Gulf of Arta. Known in classical times as the Ambracian Gulf, this giant inlet of the Ionian Sea is about twenty-five miles from east to west, and ten miles from north to south. The entrance to the gulf is narrow and winding, little more than a quarter of a mile wide in places. Furthermore, it is barred by offshore sandbanks which are difficult for even small vessels to penetrate in fair weather, and almost impassable when the wind sets in from the north. Between these various hazards a channel, little more than a cable wide, permits the careful navigator to reach the safety of this inland sea.

It was off here, in 31 B.C., that the forces of Antony and Cleopatra were decisively defeated in one of the most important sea battles in history—the battle that gave the world to the future Augustus Caesar. By a strange coincidence, the Battle of Actium took place in the month of September, and it was once again in September that another great conflict to decide the fate of the Mediterranean was destined to take place off the Ambracian Gulf. This was the Battle of Preveza, called after the Turkish village that now dominated the narrow strait.

The assembly of the allied fleets of the Emperor was a long and slow business: something that was almost inevitable in the days when only oars and sails gave a man power upon the sea. The fleet that was sailing southward for Corfu—the news of which had brought Barbarossa up north into the Ionian—was only a part of the huge fleet that was intended to be used against him. Even so, it was an impressive collection of fighting vessels, with Vincenzo Capello leading the Venetian squadron and Marco Grimani the papal contingent, that was now gathering in Corfu roads.

Eighty-one Venetian vessels—galleys and sailing ships—were soon supplemented by the papal squadron of thirty-six galleys and an additional thirty galleys from Spain. This was a formidable enough array in itself. Numerically it should have been quite adequate to deal with Barbarossa’s fleet, which consisted of about 150 ships altogether. But this time the Emperor wanted to be so superior that there could be absolutely no doubt of his chosen Admiral, Andrea Doria, utterly crushing the Ottomans. To ensure this superiority he had mustered together a further forty-nine galleys under Doria’s immediate command. These should have already been down at Corfu, but they were held up waiting for what both Doria and the Emperor believed would prove their trump card. This was the arrival of no less than fifty large sailing ships or “galleons.” These square-sailed fighting vessels, mounting a formidable number of guns, had already established their dominance over the Atlantic and the seas of the New World. It was confidently expected that their massive fire power could be used to destroy the Ottomans before their galleys ever had a chance to get to grips with the sailing ships.

“Nothing rots ships and men,” Nelson would one day remark, “so quickly as lying in harbour.” If this was true in the eighteenth century, it was even more true in the sixteenth, when standards of hygiene were notoriously low and when any great assembly of troops in camps and aboard ships almost inevitably led to disease. But quite apart from this danger, the uneasy relationships that existed between the various commanders were not improved by their delay in Corfu. Venice had few friends among the other Italian states, and her deadliest enemy for centuries had been Genoa. The Spaniards, for their part, had little love or respect for any Italians. Grimani and Capello, whatever their personal feelings towards each other, were now united in resentment against the absent Doria. It was bad enough, Capello must have felt, to be second-in-command to a Genoese—no matter how great Doria’s reputation. But to be kept idling in Corfu while Doria, inexplicably as it seemed, failed to put in an appearance added insult to injury. While Barbarossa’s fleet, with nothing but success in its wake, worked its way up the western coastline of the Peloponnese, the Italians and the Spaniards fumed and fretted in their anchorage.