The Sultan's Admiral (22 page)

If the object of the Emperor was to use his combined fleet to break the Turkish sea power once and for all, the Venetians— while naturally agreeing with this aim—were primarily conceded for the security of their Ionian Islands. Grimani’s interest was for the papal dominions, and for eliminating the threat that the Turks posed to the western seaboard of Italy. The Spaniards, a long way from home, were the Emperor’s men, but had no interest in pulling papal or Venetian chestnuts out of the fire. Curiously enough, it was Grimani rather than the Venetian Capello who first tired of the inactivity at Corfu and decided to make a raid southward into the Sultan’s dominions in Greece. It is impossible to know whether this was purely an independent action, or whether it was concerted between Grimani and Capello in an effort to stir up the Turks and lure them northward. At any rate, Marco Grimani now led the papal squadron down from Corfu and struck at Preveza at the entrance to the Bay of Arta. This move was perhaps intended as no more than a lightning raid, although it is possible that Grimani wanted to find out whether the Turkish fleet was by any chance esconced in the great bay. In either case, he failed in his objective. The Turkish fleet was not in Arta, and he was forced to retire before the guns of Preveza fortress with some losses in men and damage to his ships.

The news soon reached Barbarossa, who was approaching from south of Zante and Cephallonia. He quickened his pace, hoping no doubt to catch the enemy somewhere in the open sea between Antipaxos Island and Preveza. But Grimani, after his brief incursion into the Sultan’s dominions, had retired north to Corfu. Barbarossa turned his fleet to starboard and headed for the Preveza channel. Not since the forces of the future Augustus Caesar had entered these waters, over 1500 years before, had the inhabitants of the country around the Gulf seen so massive an assembly of ships. On they came, galley after galley, to the sigh, creak, and rattle of oars and chains; to the steady plash like summer rain as innumerable oar blades struck the water in unison; and to the rumble of tambours like distant thunder in the hills. Barbarossa was taking the Ottoman fleet up the winding channel and into the great Gulf of Arta, where he could withstand the assault of all the navies in the world.

He brought his fleet to anchor just inside the Gulf. The galleys were moored in a great semicircle with their bow chasers all pointed towards the narrow entrance between Port Vathi to the north and Actium point to the west. No hostile ship would ever be able to round that point and live—and, so narrow was the approach channel, only one ship at a time could navigate it. Barbarossa had chosen one of the strongest natural defensive positions to be found anywhere in the Mediterranean. As Hamilton Currey rightly pointed out: “Barbarossa now occupied the same position as did Octavius in his combat with Anthony. The role of the latter general was now taken by Doria . .

With the arrival of Doria and his squadron in Corfu, the scene was set for a conflict of giants.

It was not until September 22 that the imperial fleet was at last augmented by the arrival of the fifty sailing ships which had been delayed by the long calms of midsummer. Now that the Mediterranean weather was beginning to break, and the winds to blow, the sailing ships were in their element. But the problem of a mixed fleet of this type was that the weather which suited the galleon did not suit the galley, and vice versa. Andrea Doria was in the position that was to vex many commanders until such a time as the predominance of the sailing vessel was definitely established.

On September 25, having waited for a favourable wind, he took a northerly under his stern and headed down towards Preveza and the Gulf of Arta. It was no accident that Kheir-ed-Din Barbarossa had already taken his fleet into the Gulf, and was waiting there for his enemy. Even so astute a naval historian as Lane-Poole in The Barbary Corsairs made the mistake of assuming that sea battles in the sixteenth century were fought by men who did not understand their trade:

“On September 25 th. the allied fleets appeared off the entrance to the gulf, and then for the first time Barbarossa realised 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 …”

This is to suggest that a man who had made himself master of the western Mediterranean, who had created the Kingdom of Algiers and the Turkish navy, and who had proved himself over and over again a great sea captain, just “arrived” and took up his position in Preveza by sheer luck. It was not simply a matter of Barbarossa’s “immense good fortune” that he was in the Gulf of Arta, behind the sheltering guns of Preveza fort, at the moment when Andrea Doria brought down the combined fleet past Anti-paxos, through Gomaros Bay, to drop anchor off Preveza strait.

From a first glance at the chart, it might seem that Barbarossa was trapped in the Gulf of Arta, blockaded in the real sense of the word, but a man who has a friendly country behind him is in no danger of shortage of supplies. Quite apart from that, he was in an impregnable position. All he had to do was wait until the enemy made some false move, and then pursue his advantage. This, in fact, was exactly what he did.

The northerly wind which had sped the galleons southwards, and had pressed behind the lean sterns of the galleys, did not turn into the fearsome bora, that hundred-knot north wind of the Adriatic which might well have wrecked the whole fleet. Calm fell. The ships anchored comfortably under the sheltering arm of Preveza point. It is a distance of some three miles up the winding narrow entrance to Preveza and round the inlet of Port Vathi to where the Turkish fleet lay at anchor. Doria can never at any moment have considered taking his fleet up this hazardous channel, dominated as it was by the fort at Preveza—and then to emerge round Actium point straight into the full fire power of Barbarossa’s galleys. In any case a great number of his vessels, particularly the large galleys and the deep-draughted sailing ships, could never have crossed the sandbars that cluster like knotted sinews off the approaches to the channel. Even as it was, the guide ship of the fleet, a large sailing galleon on the extreme left wing, was only anchored in two and a half fathoms. This meant that she had less than six foot beneath her keel. Also there was always a grave danger at this time of the year that a gale might blow up from the west, and catch the fleet on a lee shore. Doria’s position was not a happy one.

Barbarossa, too, had his problems. There was the danger that Doria might disembark his troops and cannon and lay siege to Preveza. If he did so, there could be no doubt as to the outcome. The fort and the town walls were comparatively weak, and certainly not designed to withstand the weight of metal that Doria could bring to bear upon them. If Preveza fell then Barbarossa would indeed be trapped. From the heights commanding the channel, the imperial troops would be able to forbid him access to the sea, while at the same time they would be able to bombard his fleet. It was true that he could always withdraw deeper into the Ambracian Gulf, but that would be to little purpose if the shores were occupied by the enemy. Doria would then be able to bring nearly all his fleet (excluding some of the deepest-draught ships) up the Preveza channel in his own good time. If Doria was in danger of hazarding his fleet on a hostile shore, Barbarossa was in some danger of being trapped in the capacious, but narrow-mouthed, “lobster pot” of the Gulf.

Barbarossa also had political problems somewhat similar to those of Doria and his Venetian and Genoese commanders. Although he was High Admiral, he was still compelled to pay considerable attention to his senior commanders. Many of them considered that, as men who had always served in the established forces of the Ottoman Empire, they deserved to rank higher than this former corsair who had been appointed over their heads. Sinan Rais in particular, a fanatically brave but strategically ignorant warrior of the old Ottoman school, was among Barbarossa’s principal critics. He and his faction maintained that they should immediately land as many men as possible and establish them in trenches on the shore opposite Doria’s fleet. In this way, he argued, they would prevent the enemy from landing and attacking Preveza. Barbarossa was adamant that this would be folly, and that any force that came within range of Doria’s cannon would be wiped out. If they were to lose a large proportion of their finest troops in this way, it would so weaken the fleet that any subsequent naval engagement might prove disastrous.

In the meantime, the course that Barbarossa feared was being actively discussed in a council of war held aboard Doria’s flagship. Fernando de Gonzaga, General in charge of the imperial forces, was urging the Admiral to make a large-scale landing and capture Preveza. He pointed out that, since it was clear the fleet could not possibly advance up the channel commanded by the guns of Preveza, the logical action was to storm the fort, capture the heights, and spring the trap on the Turkish fleet. It was sound advice, but Doria rejected it. The grounds for his refusal to disembark the troops were similar to Barbarossa’s. If they were to suffer heavy losses on the land, the fleet would be disastrously weakened for any sea fight that might then ensue. In view of the fact that he had an immense number of troops on board—many of whom were no more than passengers embarked for a military action—his argument sounds weak. But more cogent, and probably the real reason for his refusal to permit a landing, was his stated fear that if a gale blew up while the troops were ashore he would be forced to withdraw the fleet. The soldiers would be left unsupported in hostile territory, ultimately to be cut to pieces by Barbarossa’s janissaries.

It was the weather—the danger of a gale—that really prompted the whole of Doria’s conduct during this phase of the operations. He was rightly fearful of losing the whole fleet on the shores of Preveza and Demata Bay to the south, if either a westerly or a northerly gale should chance to blow. The whole of Doria’s conduct during the series of operations that constitute the Preveza campaign must be seen in the light of the time of the year. It was late September, a period when the Mediterranean is notoriously unstable. This is the month when the calm conditions of summer break down in gales, violent electric storms, and dangerous local phenomena like waterspouts. By waiting so long for the sailing galleons, Doria had thrown away his chances of a successful campaign. He had arrived at the very time when most Mediterranean shipping tends to keep as near as possible to some secure harbour. August would have been the moment to bring Barbarossa to battle.

While Doria’s advice seems to have been accepted without query by General de Gonzaga, Barbarossa, on the other hand, was less successful in restraining the fire-eating element among his military commanders. Much against his will, he was persuaded on the second day, September 26, to allow a force of janissaries under Murad Rais to land at Preveza. They made their way over the narrow neck of land down to the beach which lay opposite the combined fleet of Spaniards and Italians. It was just as Kheir-ed-Din had foreseen. No sooner had the troops begun to start entrenching themselves on the shore than the guns of the galleys and the galleons opened up. It was a massacre. The immense fire power of the galleons was something that few Turks had seen before. Barbarossa himself had never encountered it (although he was too well informed not to have heard rumours of its power and accuracy). It was probably the fact that men like Sinan and Murad were unaware that the Europeans could mount such heavy cannons in their ships which led to the debacle. Unable to entrench themselves, devastated by the hail of shot from the fleet, the janissaries under Murad Rais were forced to retreat in disorder. They left many dead behind them on the cannon-scarred sands.

Barbarossa’s opinion had been amply, if sadly, justified by this unnecessary loss of men. From now on there was no more questioning his decisions. The military had learned the hard way. They had learned, too, that in any matters relating to warfare—whether on land or sea—the counsel of a man who had spent his whole life in battle, and who had achieved his current position through his ability, and nothing else, was not to be lightly disregarded.

On the afternoon of the same day Doria detached a squadron of his galleys and sent them south from the main body of the fleet across the mouth of the strait. Possibly it was an attempt to lure Barbarossa out from his safe anchorage. If so, the wily old seaman was not to be taken by so simple a ruse. Barbarossa, secure in his niche on the western shores of Greece, was like an octopus in a cleft of rock—ready to lash out with his tentacles if something really worthwhile was offered, but not to be tempted by a small and unimportant lure. He contented himself with sending down the strait an equivalent number of galleys to those that Doria was offering him.

A spirited but inconclusive action developed. Doria’s galleys tried to entice the Turks out of the cover of Preveza point so that they could be destroyed by the heavy guns of the fleet, while Barbarossa’s galleys tried to entice the Christians up the strait so that they would come under the guns of Preveza. Neither side was successful in its transparent manoeuvres. Apart from some exchange of shot at extreme ranges, no real action developed.