Almost immediately there came worse news still: Nicosia had fallen. Another council was called. Now, for the first time, the Marquis of Santa Cruz, who as commander of the Neapolitan contingent was technically a subordinate of Doria’s but who had hitherto taken a considerably more robust line than his chief, also advised turning back. The capture of Nicosia, he pointed out, would mean a vast increase in the number of fighting men available for the Turkish fleet, and a corresponding upsurge in enemy morale–all this at the worst possible time, when the allied crews were becoming more and more dispirited. Colonna agreed with him; so, reluctantly, did Zane. The only voice raised in favour of a continued advance was that of Sebastiano Venier, who argued that however strong the Turks might be, they would almost certainly be a good deal stronger next year, when the allies were most unlikely to have a fleet of over 200 sail to throw against them.
They were brave words; but they failed to convince, and the mighty fleet, flying the banners of Christendom, turned about without once having come within sight of its enemy. In an almost pathetic attempt to salvage the last shreds of his reputation, poor Zane proposed that the allies should at least try to inflict some damage on enemy territory during their return journey; once again, his hopes were sabotaged by Doria’s impatience to get home. By the time his ships reached Corfu on 17 November a new epidemic had broken out and he himself was, mentally and physically, a broken man. Lacking even the heart to return home, he wrote to the Senate in Venice asking to be relieved of his post. His request was granted, and on 13 December Sebastiano Venier was appointed Captain-General in his stead. Later Zane was to be summoned to Venice to answer several grave charges relating to his conduct during the expedition. After a long enquiry he was acquitted–but too late. In September 1572 he had died in prison.
The fate of Gian Andrea Doria was somewhat different. Philip II had been left in no doubt of the bitter feelings his admiral had aroused; Pope Pius, on receiving Colonna’s report, had sent him a formal letter of complaint. But Philip chose to ignore it. Doria had obeyed his instructions to the letter, and was rewarded by immediate promotion to the rank of general, with seniority over all the commanders of the fleets of Spain, Naples and Sicily–in which capacity he was to do still further damage to the allied cause before his disastrous career was over.
In 1570 Venice had held Cyprus for eighty-one years. In 1489 Queen Caterina had been replaced by a Venetian governor–known as the Lieutenant–based in Nicosia. The military headquarters, on the other hand, was at Famagusta, where both the standing garrison and the Cyprus-based fleet were under the command of a Venetian captain. Famagusta, unlike Nicosia, was superbly fortified. Historically it was the island’s principal harbour, although by 1570 Salines (the modern Larnaca) had overtaken it in terms of commercial traffic. The total population was about 160,000, still living under an anachronistically feudal system which the Republic had made little or no effort to change. At the top was the nobility, partly Venetian but for the most part still of old French crusader stock like the former royal house of Lusignan; at the bottom was the peasantry, many of them still effectively serfs. Between the two was the merchant class and urban bourgeoisie, a Levantine melting pot of Greeks, Venetians, Armenians, Syrians, Copts and Jews.
Cyprus, in short, cannot have been an easy place to govern, though it must be admitted that the Venetians–whose own domestic administration was the wonder and envy of the civilised world–might have governed it a good deal better than they did. By the time the Turks landed in the summer of 1570 the Republic had acquired a grim record of local maladministration and corruption, and had made itself thoroughly unpopular with its Cypriot subjects. Thus, even if the allied expedition for the relief of Cyprus had arrived on time and fought valiantly, it could scarcely have saved the island. A major victory at sea might perhaps have proved temporarily effective, delaying the inevitable for a year or two, but since the Turkish invasion fleet that dropped anchor on 3 July at Larnaca numbered not less than 350 sail–more than double Colonna’s estimate–such a victory would have been, to say the least, unlikely. The truth is that, from the moment that Sultan Selim decided to incorporate the island into his empire, Cyprus was doomed.
It was doomed for the same fundamental reason that Malta, five years before, had been saved: the inescapable fact that the strength of any army in the field varies inversely with the length of its lines of communication and supply. Since Cyprus had neither the means, the ability, nor–probably–the will to defend itself, it could be defended only by Venice, from which all military supplies, arms and ammunition and the bulk of the fighting men and horses would have to come. But Venice lay over 1,500 miles away across the Mediterranean, much of which was now controlled by the Turks. They, on the other hand, had only fifty miles to sail from ports on the southern coast of Anatolia, where they could count on an almost limitless supply of manpower and materials.
Their success seemed the more assured in that the Cypriot defences, apart from those of Famagusta, were hopelessly inadequate. Nicosia, it is true, boasted a nine-mile circuit of medieval walls, but they enclosed an area considerably larger than the town and needed a huge force to defend them. They were moreover far too thin–the siege techniques of the sixteenth century were vastly different from those of the fourteenth–and despite the feverish last-minute efforts of Venetian engineers to strengthen them they stood a poor chance of survival against the massive artillery that had long been a speciality of the Turks. Kyrenia had once been a splendid fortress, but had long since fallen into ruin and was unlikely to withstand any serious attack. The defences of all other Cypriot towns were either negligible or nonexistent. Manpower and weaponry were both in short supply. Fra Angelo Calepio, who was present throughout, tells us that there were 1,040 arquebuses in the magazines, but that no instructions had been given as to their use, with the result that many soldiers found it impossible to fire them without setting light to their beards.
For this and many other shortcomings the principal blame must attach to the Lieutenant, Niccolò Dandolo. Uncertain, timid, forever vacillating between bouts of almost hysterical activity and periods of apathetic inertia, he was totally unsuited to the supreme command. Through the agonising months that were to follow he was to prove a constant liability, his lack of judgement and immoderate caution giving rise to suspicions–as it happened, unfounded–that he was in enemy pay. Fortunately, there was a better man at Famagusta: its captain, Marcantonio Bragadin.
The Turkish fleet had appeared off the coast on 1 July. Once again it was under the command of Piale Pasha. The army, on the other hand, had a new chief: Lala Mustafa Pasha, who thanks to Dandolo’s timidity was able to land his entire force at Larnaca without opposition. By the 24th he and his men were encamped outside the walls of Nicosia. Now once again a chance was lost: the Italian commander of infantry begged for permission to mount an immediate attack while the enemy were still tired by their march of thirty miles through the heat of a Cyprus summer, their artillery and heavy cavalry still unprepared. But Dandolo declined to take the risk, and the Turks dug themselves in undisturbed.
And so the siege began. Dandolo, fearing a shortage of gunpowder, had rationed its use to the point where even those of his soldiers who had firearms and knew how to use them were forbidden to shoot at any group of Turks numbering fewer than ten. Yet somehow the city held out for forty-five days, all through a sweltering August; it was only on 9 September, after fourteen major assaults had been fought back and after Lala Mustafa’s men had given a noisy and jubilant welcome to a further 20,000 troops freshly arrived from the mainland, that it finally yielded. Dandolo, who had taken refuge in the Lieutenant’s palace some hours before, while his men were still fighting on the ramparts, now appeared at the doorway in his crimson velvet robes, hoping to receive the favoured treatment due to his rank. Scarcely had he reached the foot of the steps when a Turkish officer struck his head from his shoulders.
The usual atrocities followed, the usual massacres, q
uarterings and impalements, the usual desecrations of churches and violations of the youth of both sexes. Nicosia was a rich city, generously endowed with treasures ecclesiastical and secular, western and Byzantine; it was a full week before all the gold and silver, the precious stones and enamelled reliquaries, the jewelled vestments, the velvets and brocades had been loaded on to carts and trundled away–the richest spoils to fall into Turkish hands since the capture of Constantinople itself, well over a century before. Lala Mustafa, however, had no intention of losing momentum. Already on 11 September, just two days after the fall of Nicosia, he had sent a messenger to the commanders at Famagusta calling on them to surrender and bearing, as an additional inducement, the head of Niccolò Dandolo in a basin. The implication was plain. It would be their turn next.
Nicosia had given the Turks a good deal more trouble than they had expected, but the challenge of Famagusta was more formidable still. With all its recent new fortifications it was now, to all appearances, as nearly impregnable as any town could be. Behind those tremendous walls the defenders were admittedly few–some 8,000 as compared with a Turkish force which, with new contingents arriving regularly from the mainland, probably now fell not far short of 200,000. On the other hand, they had in Marcantonio Bragadin and the Perugian captain Astorre Baglioni two superb leaders, for whom their admiration was steadily to grow during the trials that lay ahead.
The siege began on 17 September and continued all through the winter, the defenders–very unlike those of Nicosia–making frequent sorties outside the walls and occasionally even carrying the battle right into the Turkish camp. Towards the end of April Lala Mustafa ordered his corps of Armenian sappers to dig a huge network of trenches to the south. As they numbered some 40,000 and were further supplemented by forced labour from the local peasantry, work progressed rapidly; by the middle of May the whole region was honeycombed for a distance of three miles from the walls, the trenches numerous enough to accommodate the whole besieging army and so deep that the cavalry could ride along them with only the tips of their lances visible to the watchers on the ramparts. The Turks also constructed a total of ten siege towers, progressively closer to the town, from which they could fire downward on to the defenders. It was from there, on 15 May, that the final bombardment began.
The Venetians fought back with courage and determination, but slowly, as the weeks dragged on, they began to lose heart. Hopes of a great Venetian–Spanish relief expedition had faded. Powder was running short, food was even shorter. By July all the horses, donkeys and cats in the town had been eaten; nothing was left but bread and beans. Of the defenders, only 500 were now capable of bearing arms, and they were dropping through lack of sleep; yet still they fought on. Not until the last day of that nightmare month did Bragadin and Baglioni face the fact that they could hold out no longer. Only by a voluntary surrender might they still, by the accepted rules of warfare, avoid the massacres and the looting that were otherwise inevitable. Dawn broke on 1 August to reveal a white flag fluttering on the ramparts of Famagusta.
The peace terms were surprisingly generous. All Italians were to be allowed to embark, with colours flying, for Crete, together with any Greeks, Albanians or Turks who wished to accompany them. Greeks who chose to stay behind would be guaranteed their personal liberty and property, and would be given two years in which to decide whether they would remain permanently or not; those who then elected to leave would be given safe conduct to the country of their choice. The document setting out these terms was signed personally by Lala Mustafa and sealed with the Sultan’s seal; it was then returned to Bragadin and Baglioni, with a covering letter complimenting them on their courage and their magnificent defence of the city.
On 5 August Bragadin sent word to Lala Mustafa proposing to call and formally present him with the keys of Famagusta; back came the reply that the general would be delighted to receive him. He set off that evening wearing his purple robe of office, accompanied by Baglioni with a number of senior officers and escorted by a mixed company of Italian, Greek and Albanian soldiers. Lala Mustafa received them with every courtesy; then, without warning, his face clouded and his manner changed. In a mounting fury, he began to hurl baseless accusations at the Christians standing before him. They had murdered Turkish prisoners; they had concealed munitions instead of handing them over according to the terms of the surrender. Suddenly he whipped out a knife and cut off Bragadin’s right ear, ordering an attendant to cut off the other and his nose. Then, turning to his guards, he ordered the immediate execution of the whole delegation. Baglioni was beheaded; so, too, was the commander of the artillery, Luigi Martinengo. One or two managed to escape but most were massacred, together with a number of other Christians who happened to be within reach. Finally the heads of all those who had been murdered were piled in front of Lala Mustafa’s pavilion. They are said to have numbered 350.
The worst fate of all was reserved for Marcantonio Bragadin. He was held in prison for nearly a fortnight, by which time his untreated wounds were festering and he was seriously ill. Only then, however, did his real torment begin. First he was dragged round the walls of Famagusta, with sacks of earth and stones on his back; next, tied to a chair, he was hoisted to the yardarm of the Turkish flagship and exposed to the taunts of the sailors. Finally he was taken to the place of execution in the main square, tied naked to a column and, literally, flayed alive. Even this torture he is said to have borne in silence for half an hour until, as the executioner reached his waist, he finally expired. After the grim task was completed his head was cut off, his body quartered, and his skin, stuffed with straw and cotton and mounted on a cow, paraded through the streets.
When, on 22 September, Lala Mustafa sailed for home, he took with him as trophies the heads of the principal victims and the skin of Marcantonio Bragadin, which he proudly presented to the Sultan. The fate of the heads is unknown, but nine years later one of the survivors of the siege, a certain Girolamo Polidoro, managed to steal the skin from the Arsenal of Constantinople and returned it to Bragadin’s sons, who deposited it in the church of S. Gregorio in Venice. From here it was transferred in 1596 to SS. Giovanni e Paolo where, in the south aisle near the west door, it was placed in a niche just behind the urn which forms part of the hero’s memorial.
On 24 November 1961, with the consent of Bragadin’s direct descendant, the niche was opened. It was found to contain a leaden casket, in which were several pieces of tanned human skin.
CHAPTER XVII
Lepanto and the Spanish Conspiracy
The failure of the Cyprus expedition had been, both for Venice and for the Papacy, a humiliating blow; but already negotiations were under way for a firmer and more effective alliance. The prime mover of this new initiative was the Pope. Pius V had thought long and hard about the Turkish threat, and had realised that the principal obstacle to any close understanding between Venice and Spain was that Venice saw the problem in terms of her colonies in the Levant, while Spain was a good deal more anxious about the danger presented by the Sultan’s Moorish vassals to her own possessions in North Africa. He had therefore concluded that the primary aim of Christendom should be to reestablish control of the central Mediterranean, cutting off the Sultan’s African territories from those in Europe and Asia and thus effectively splitting his empire into two. In July 1570 he accordingly called a conference to draft the charter of a new Christian League, and over the following months, by patient argument and with active Venetian help, he gradually won King Philip round.
The resulting treaty was formally proclaimed on 25 May 1571 in St Peter’s. It was to be perpetual, offensive as well as defensive, and directed not only against the Ottoman Turks but also against their Moorish vassals and co-religionists along the North African coast. The signatories–Spain, Venice and the Papacy (the way was left open for the Emperor and the Kings of France and Poland to join if they wished)–were together to furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot soldiers and 4,500 cavalry, with the requisite a
rtillery and ammunition. These forces were to foregather every year, in the month of April at the latest, for a summer campaign wherever they thought fit. Every autumn there would be consultations in Rome to determine the next year’s activity. If either Spain or Venice were attacked, the other would go to her assistance; both undertook to defend papal territory with everything they had. All fighting would be under the banner of the League; important decisions would be taken by a majority vote of the three generals commanding: Sebastiano Venier for Venice, Marcantonio Colonna for the Papacy, and for Spain the Captain-General of the combined fleet, the King’s half-brother Don John of Austria.
Don John was the bastard son of Charles V by a German lady called Barbara Blomberg. Twenty-six years old, outstandingly good-looking and a natural leader of men, he had already gained a degree of fame–or notoriety–in the previous year by putting down a serious Morisco rising in Spain.151 The Venetians expressed themselves delighted at the appointment–as well they might have been, since the King’s first choice, about which he had luckily had second thoughts, had been Gian Andrea Doria. They would have felt rather less pleasure had they known that Philip, who suspected that the young prince’s courage was apt to override his judgement, had ordered him on no account to give battle without Doria’s express consent.
Although it was clearly too late to observe the timetable stipulated in the treaty, the allies had agreed that the summer of 1571 should not be wasted, and that the forces for the first year’s campaign should muster as soon as possible at Messina, from which they would sail in search of the Ottoman navy. By August all had arrived, and Don John drew up his sailing orders. He himself, with Venier and Colonna, would take the centre, with sixty-four galleys. The right wing, with fifty-four, would be under Doria; the left, with fifty-three, under the Venetian Augustino Barbarigo. In addition there was to be a small vanguard of eight galleys and a rearguard of six, to be respectively commanded by Don Juan de Cardona and the Marquis of Santa Cruz. To each group were allotted six galleasses. The galleons and heavy transports, which–not being oared like the galleys–were considerably less manoeuvrable, were to form a separate convoy.152
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