Ottoman
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To make matters worse, Spain and France now again fell out, and Philip II of Spain found it necessary to retain part of his fleet to protect his North African possessions.
Nonetheless, the Christian fleet did reassemble in June. Uncertain that this would ever happen, Hawkwood persuaded Fascarini to put to sea with the Venetian fleet alone — and off Cape Malea the Turks were sighted. But, to Anthony’s chagrin, Fascarini was so alarmed by the incredible sight of no less than three hundred Turkish galleys that he refused to attack. In vain did Anthony remind him that neither ships nor men were a match for the Venetians; the chance was lost. That Uluch did not pursue them was evidence that Hawkwood was right.
Later in the year Don Juan himself returned to the east and took command of the full allied fleet. Again the Turkish fleet was sighted, in October, this time off the Bay of Navarino; but this time it was Uluch Ali who declined battle, and escaped to the east.
“We must plan our next year’s campaign more carefully,” Hawkwood advised Don Juan. “We must force him to battle. Thus we must escort a fleet of transports with sufficient soldiers on board to be set ashore to ravage the coast of Anatolia. That will bring Uluch to action.”
“Next year,” Don Juan said despondently.
He was looking ill, his features drawn and pale, his shoulders hunched.
“Will there be a next year?”
*
There was not, for the allied fleet. The fatal divisions which had always endangered Christian unity now wrecked the great concept of bringing the Turks to their knees. When, during the winter, Philip of Spain decided not to send his fleet back to the eastern Mediterranean, but to concentrate upon the growing revolt in his Dutch provinces and his prospective naval war with England — both people being more hateful to him than the Turks because of their Protestant heresy — the Doge Alvise Mocenigo lost patience.
He recalled Viniero, and Fascarini, and Hawkwood from Corfu, with all the Venetian fleet, and sent an embassy to Istanbul to make peace.
“But that means abandoning Cyprus,” Viniero protested.
“Cyprus is lost,” the Doge told him. “Nothing we can do will bring it back. Thanks to the Spaniards, the war is lost. Now we must cut our losses — or we will find ourselves fighting the Ottomans on our own.” He turned to Hawkwood. “You have not yet claimed your promised reward for your services before Lepanto, Hawk. As the war is now over, for us at least, will you not do so now?”
Anthony gazed at him.
He had dreamed of so many things. Perhaps even of tumbling Selim from his throne — the tyrant who had besmirched his honour.
As his mother had dreamed of so many things, too — especially of returning to England. But he had never known England, and the England which Felicity had known, the England of King Henry VIII, was vanished into history.
The fact was that life was not composed of dreams — although Barbara might have realised hers in returning at last to Venice, her home. Was not that simple dream the only one attainable? Here they were amongst friends, their best ally of all being this very Doge. Here he was all of a hero. And though he might now despair of ever bringing down the Turks in his lifetime, here was where his duty — as well as his instincts — commanded him to be.
And what of his ancestors? Had they all been renegades, as the world considered them? He did not believe that. The Hawkwoods had been forced by circumstances into the life and careers they had followed so successfully. Once adopted by the Ottoman sultans, they had served their masters with the utmost fidelity. It was the decline in the nature of these sultans that had eventually driven him out, and taken him to Lepanto — the first ever important Christian victory over the Turks.
Perhaps, therefore, that had been his allotted role in history: to help drive the first nail into the coffin of the Ottoman Turks.
“Well?” Mocenigo inquired.
“My reward, monsignore? Why, it is simply to be allowed to reside here in Venice, and fight for you. Even if we make peace now, there will yet be battles to be won before long, you may depend upon it.”
Alvise Mocenigo grasped his hand.
Postscript
Anthony Hawkwood was right, although his prophecy was not immediately apparent. The disunity into which Christendom fell during the next century — the wars of England against Spain, and the religious wars in Germany — seemed to leave Turkish power as great as ever before.
Don Juan of Austria, after pursuing schemes of romantic ambition — which included invading England to rescue and marry Mary Queen of Scots — died on 1 October 1578, just short of seven years after his great victory at Lepanto. He was thirty-one years old.
With his half-brother Philip II wholly committed to the Atlantic war with the Dutch and the English, Ottoman armies were able to besiege Vienna again and again, and the tread of the Janissaries was still heard from the Danube to the Euphrates.
Philip’s dreams of conquering England were to lead to a naval battle inferior only to that of Lepanto. Fought in July 1588, in the English Channel, between the Spanish and English fleets.
Miguel de Cervantes, returning from Lepanto a hero, was taken prisoner by Barbary pirates, to remain a prisoner until 1580. On his return to Madrid, he did indeed continue to write.
The victory of Lepanto still ranks amongst the decisive battles of the world and was indeed the beginning of the end for the Ottoman dynasty. Although the sultans clung precariously to their heritage until 1918, there would never be another Mahomet the Conqueror, another Selim the Grim, or another Suleiman the Magnificent. Looking back from the perspective of time, it is now clear that the immense power which came to fruition when Constantinople fell in 1453, and dominated world history for a century, received its death blow on the waters of the Gulf of Patras on 7 October 1571 — a day still celebrated in Rome.
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