The Sultan's Admiral (9 page)

Kara Hassan was tricked into believing that Aruj had come to solicit his help, but before he had time to realise his mistake, he felt the wind of the corsair’s scimitar. “This execution done, he [Barbarossa] hastened to take possession of his late legacy; and without more ado forced all the Turks he found there to list into his service, and caused himself to be proclaimed Sultan, or King of Shershell, and its small dominion.”

The Spanish chronicler Haedo refers to the murder of Kara Hassan as “this barbarous cruelty,” but Morgan in his History of Algiers concedes that “some would call it state-policy.” Certainly the act was infamous by modern standards (when political rivals are usually assassinated by word rather than deed), yet in terms of the sixteenth century Aruj was no more cynically murderous than many of the Italian princes and condottieri who have attracted European admiration. In any event, the act was certainly statesmanlike, for Aruj was now the master of a town and harbour on either flank of Algiers. Even if he were to fail now against the city, he would be in an admirable position to exert a pincers movement upon it and its territory at a future date.

Leaving a garrison of his own men, a personally selected band who could be trusted to hold Shershell for him and not to get ambitious on their own account, Aruj now swung right and marched up the coast. Arriving off Algiers he and his men were welcomed into the town by Sheikh Selim, and Aruj undertook the siege of the garrison.

But on this occasion his comparatively light cannons were inadequate for the reduction of a fortress that had been designed to resist heavy siege guns. Almost certainly Aruj Barbarossa had some inkling of this before he began the attack, for he sent a messenger across to the Spanish commander offering him and his troops a free passage if they would submit. Courage was something that the Spaniards never lacked, and back came the swift answer: “Neither your threats, nor your proffered courtesies, can have any effect upon men like us—although they might perhaps work upon cowards. But don’t forget what happened at Bougie—you may come off even worse here!”

On receipt of this contemptuous reply Aruj opened the siege. For twenty days his guns played upon the walls and defences of the island fort, but without making enough impression to open a breach in the walls. Realising that he was unlikely to be able to dislodge the garrison until he had really heavy ordnance at his command, Aruj decided that the time had come to make himself master of Algiers. Once this was done, he would be able to subdue the Spanish garrison at his leisure.

Sheikh Selim and his followers now found that they had made the mistake of the frogs in the fable, and merely exchanged King Log for King Stork. The fate of Kara Hassan should perhaps have warned them that a Turk like Barbarossa might indeed be a fellow Moslem, but he was first and foremost a Turk. Events in Egypt and other parts of the Moslem world were soon to show the Arabic peoples that their Turkish coreligionists were intent on establishing a vast empire—and whether they carved it out of Europe or the Middle East did not greatly matter to them. “Allah,” as an Arabic proverb runs, “has an army which he has named the Turks. Whenever he is angry with a people, he lets loose his army upon them.” Allah, as events were to prove, was just as likely to be angry with a Moslem people as with Christians.

There are two versions of the way in which Sheikh Selim met his end. One suggests that he retired with his followers to the mountains, and was lured down by Barbarossa to a meeting “where, instantly at his arrival … he was caused to be hanged in his own turban, at the eastern gate of the city.” This is the version given by the Spanish writer Marmol, but the Abbot Diego de Haedo provides the following account, which in many respects sounds more typical of the elder Barbarossa. “As Barbarossa’s thoughts were day and night employed in contriving how to make himself master of the place [Algiers], he at length resolved to put his project into execution. The better to bring it about, without noise or tumult, one day, about noon, as Sheikh Selim was bathing alone, in order to prepare himself for the Mosque, he [Barbarossa] slily entered the Prince’s bath, or Bagnio, within the palace, accompanied by only one Turk, where the poor Prince, who, naked and defenceless, mistrusting no treachery, was by them easily surprised and strangled with a wet towel, or napkin.” It was then given out that he had succumbed to a stroke in the heat of the bath. Too late the dismayed Algerians discovered that their new “protector” had his own interests at heart long before anything else, and that he was likely to be a more imperious Sultan than any who had reigned in the city for many years.

Aruj’s first act was to start repairing and fortifying the Casbah against the day when, having eliminated the Spanish garrison, he would be able to dominate Algiers from his own fortress. He had himself formally proclaimed Ruler or Sultan of Algiers, and instructed the mint to issue money, both gold and silver, on which was stamped in Turkish characters “Sultan Aruj.” Meanwhile the citizens were made miserably aware of the presence of the Spanish garrison. Prior to the arrival of the Turks, there had been an unwritten agreement between the Spaniards and the Algerians that, provided the latter conducted themselves well and did not try to engage in piracy, they would be left alone. But the presence of Turkish troops in the town, and of Barbarossa’s ships off the port, activated the garrison into a bombardment of the city. The Algerians found themselves unable to conduct any business, while at the same time their houses and their families were under constant threat from the Spanish gunners.

They decided that the devil they knew was infinitely preferable to this devil whom they were reluctantly beginning to know only too well. Messages were secretly exchanged with the garrison, and a plot was hatched to lure the Turks outside the walls and massacre them. Barbarossa’s galleots, now twenty-two in number (having been joined by the former followers of Kara Hassan), were all beached ashore out of range of the fortress’s guns. The Algerians’ plan was simple: to set fire to the galleots and then, when the Turks rushed down to save their vessels, to shut the gate of the city against them. At the same time the Spanish troops were to embark in some small boats that they had ready on the island and cross to the mainland. Together with the fighting men of the town and a band of Arab cavalry from the hinterland, they would fall upon the Turks and cut them to pieces round their ruined boats.

Unfortunately for the Algerians, Aruj had never for a moment trusted them, let alone believed that they found his presence in their city attractive. His spies had infiltrated the leaders of the dissident citizens, and he had every detail of the plot to hand long before it was ready to be put into execution. So on the day selected for setting fire to the galleots, the Algerians who had been chosen for the task found to their dismay that every vessel was guarded by a band of armed Turks, who afforded a simple, and reasonable, explanation for their presence: “Sultan Aruj was worried that possibly the Spanish garrison might make an attempt upon our ships.”

Foiled in their plan, the Algerians were in a desperate position, for they did not know—but could only suspect—how well the Barbarossas were acquainted with their plot. Aruj bided his time, did nothing to show that he mistrusted any of the leading citizens, and “artfully dissembled, making not the least show of mistrust.” But on the Moslem sabbath, the Friday following the attempt on his ships, Aruj and Khizr went with their close circle of followers to the main mosque in Algiers, theoretically to perform their devotions. Aruj knew that all the chief citizens, and among them the ringleaders in the plot, would inevitably be present on such an occasion. When all the Algerians had entered the mosque they were startled to hear the clash of the great wooden doors behind them, and to find that at every door stood a body of armed Turks.

Aruj now addressed the congregation, as it were; told them that he had anticipated their designs against him, and that he had little or no use for men who were prepared to trade and act in concert with the hated Christians in order to save their own lives and property. Trembling with fear, the imprisoned Arabs and Moors of Algiers heard him out—this red-bearded, broadshouldered tyrant who had suddenly come to trouble their comparatively easy peace with the Spaniards.

His cool discourse concluded, Aruj made a motion with his hand, and a second later his Turks were moving amongst the assembled faithful. All were bound, “using their own turbans,” and then a selected few—names that Aruj had learned through his agents—were taken to the main door of the mosque. Twenty men, according to the most reliable authority, were hauled outside. There, in front of the terrified people in the street, their heads were struck from their shoulders and their bodies left to lie in the dust, under the summer sun, with the swarming flies of Algeria buzzing over the black blood round the severed trunks. Aruj now turned upon the rest of the silent and bound company, and told them that, for their own security, it would be best if they co-operated with him. As Sultan of Algiers he needed money in order to improve the city and make good its defences against the Christians. He intended to make Algiers the supreme city in North Africa. Naturally, as leading citizens, they would be only too willing to invest in such a sensible and profitable enterprise. There were no dissenters.

Sultan and ruler of Djidjelli to the east, Shershell to the west, and now of Algiers, the elder Barbarossa was a formidable figure in the Mediterranean. In the space of six years, despite two major reverses, he had carved out an Ottoman empire on shores that had hitherto been dominated by Arabs, Berbers, or Spaniards. He had laid the foundations of a North African power that was to trouble all Europe for over three centuries.

In May 1517 a galleot came scudding into Algiers with the news that a powerful Spanish fleet was on its way to attack the city. Rumours of activity in Spain during the winter had already reached Aruj, for there was a steady flow of intelligence between the Moriscos in Spain and their brothers on the North African coast. Admiral Diego de Vera, one of Spain’s most distinguished fighting men, at the instigation of Cardinal Ximenes of Toledo, had brought out the most powerful elements of the Spanish fleet. Together with a force of some ten thousand soldiers, he intended to cure finally and forever this running sore on the flank of Spain. It was unthinkable that the might of the greatest European power should any longer be mocked, let alone challenged, by a handful of Turks and dissident Moors on the bare North African coast. There could, he must have felt, be no doubt about the outcome.

Aruj and Khizr and their Turkish followers were not unprepared for the attack. Part of the Spanish plan hinged on the participation of local forces, who had been incited to rise against the Turks by the son of the murdered Selim, eager to revenge his father’s death. But now that Shershell and other areas west of Algiers were under Barbarossa’s rule, he had, as it were, excellent listening posts to protect his flank on the side towards Oran and the towns and ports that were still under Spanish domination.

The Spanish war galleys hovered around the transports to protect them, while the latter backed in under oars towards the coast and ran out their landing stages. Troops and horses streamed ashore for the assault on the city. But Aruj was never dilatory. As an able commander, he well knew that the moment to strike an enemy landing force is when it is in the process of getting ashore and re-forming. At the head of his Turkish brigade, backed by mounted troops from the interior, he swept down on the beachhead. Diego de Vera, however competent he may have previously proved himself in the Spanish war against France, seems to have had little knowledge of the hazards involved in a sea-borne invasion. Although he immediately attempted to throw up trenches around his beachhead, he was too late. Aruj and his men, sweeping down from the hillside overlooking the invasion area, cut the Spaniards to pieces.

As Sandoval, Bishop of Pamplona, commented in his
History of Charles V
: “One day Barbarossa came out, noticed that the Spaniards were in poor array, and fell upon them with his forces shouting war cries. So great was the fear that his very name inspired that the Spaniards were totally routed, with very little loss to the attackers. Almost effortlessly the Turks and their followers killed over 3000 men as well as capturing 400.” The small number of prisoners is unusual, and it may mean that the Turks, contrary to their normal practice, were bent on slaughter rather than the capture of potential slaves. On the other hand, it may only be a proof that the soldiers of Spain, always among the bravest in the world, refused to yield, and so were cut down without mercy on the hostile shore. Despairingly the galleys and transports backed and filled off the coast, totally unable to help their stricken comrades—for they could not risk their ships falling into enemy hands if they were to beach themselves in an attempt to evacuate the army.

A disaster for Spain, a triumph for Aruj—such was the outcome of the great expedition of 1517. As if to ensure the ruin of the Spaniards, the weather now blew foul. A sudden storm sprang up towards nightfall and drove many of the ships ashore. It is possible that they had made a last-minute attempt to evacuate what was left of their ruined army. Sailing vessels of that period, caught on a lee shore, had little or no hope of ever clawing windward to safety. Even well-manned galleys could make little headway against a heavy wind and sea. Discounting one report which says that “almost the whole Armada was totally destroyed,” there can be no doubt that the damage to the ships, as well as loss of life, was considerable. When Admiral Diego de Vera finally staggered homeward to Spain, he left Aruj Barbarossa undisputed master of the coast.

According to Haedo, “his good fortune on this occasion greatly enhanced his reputation, firmly establishing him in rulership. He was, indeed, looked upon as something of a prodigy . . Not the man to miss such an opportunity, with the enemy’s fleet in ruins and so many Spanish soldiers dead, captured, or returned to Spain with shattered morale, Aruj summoned out the galleots. A cloud of them, under Khizr and other leading corsairs, descended suddenly upon the coasts of Spain, burning, harrying, looting, carrying off slaves, and bringing back freed Moriscos to join their own forces.