Empires of the Sea

by Crowley, Roger

  What the Christians lacked in maneuverability they made up in firepower. The Spanish Western-style galleys were weightier than their opponents’ and packed a heavier punch. The Christian ships, on average, possessed twice the number of artillery pieces; used judiciously, they could inflict grievous blows. As the slow miles shrank, Ali’s lookouts could see that the Christian center was packed with these heavier Spanish galleys. If not disrupted and outflanked by the Ottoman wings, these could bludgeon his center. This started to cause Ali concern.

  And the Christians had been innovating. At Doria’s suggestion Don Juan had ordered his commanders to shear off the rams from the front of their ships. These structures were more ornamental than practical; their removal permitted the guns to be trained lower and to hit the enemy at close range. Galleys could close the last hundred yards faster than gunners could reload, so there would be only one shot. Don Juan was determined to follow Don Garcia’s advice: to keep his nerve and his fire until the last minute, when the enemy was bearing down. He did not want his shots whistling harmlessly overhead. At the same time he ordered nets to be strung along the sides of the ships to entangle and impede would-be boarders.

  But it was the Venetians who brought the most radical innovation to the fleet that was now lumbering forward. They had stored for future use the performance of their heavily armed galleon at Preveza in 1538; it had inflicted considerable damage on Barbarossa’s galleys and held them off all day. When the Venetians cranked the arsenal shipyard up for war, they dusted off the hulls of six of their merchant great galleys, cumbersome heavyweight oared ships once used for the now-defunct trade with the Eastern Mediterranean. These galleasses, as they called them, had been reconditioned, heavily gunned, and bulwarked with defensive superstructures. On the morning of October 7 galleys were laboriously towing these floating gun platforms up ahead of the line. The Venetians had a definite purpose in mind.

  IT WAS A SUNDAY MORNING. Far away in Rome, Pius was conducting a fervent mass for Christian victory. In Madrid, Philip went on signing documents and dispatching memoranda to all parts of his farflung empire in between church services. Selim was departing from Istanbul for his capital at Edirne with the usual pomp of a sultan’s progress: a splendid cavalcade of jingling cavalry and plumed janissaries, pages, scribes, civil servants, dog handlers, cooks, and harem favorites. The departure was marked by ill omens: Selim’s turban slipped off twice, and his horse fell; a man hurrying to help him had to be hanged for touching the sultan’s person.

  Venetian galleass

  In the Gulf of Patras, sometime around midmorning, the wind that had been blowing strongly from the east since dawn, faltered and died. The sea glassed, just a light breeze from the west at Don Juan’s back. The Ottoman fleet promptly dropped its sails; conditions eased for the oarsmen in the Christian fleet. It was taken as a good sign—a wind from God.

  Pius had invested the Holy League venture with enormous Christian hope. The banners, the church services, the papal blessings as the ships left port had imparted to the expedition all the religious fervor of a crusade. The pope had asked Don Juan to ensure his men “lived in virtuous and Christian fashion in the galleys, not playing [gambling] or swearing.” Requesen’s private response had been muted. “We will do what we can,” he murmured, casting his eye over the hard-boiled Spanish infantry and the subspecies of Christian humanity chained to the rowing benches. Don Juan had thought it useful to hang a few blasphemers in front of the papal legate at Messina to encourage virtuous behavior. Moral purpose was critical to the success of the whole endeavor. There were priests on every ship; thousands of rosaries were handed to the men; services were held daily. Now, as everyone could see their fate drawing toward them over the calm sea, sober religious dread seized the Christian fleet. Mass was said on every ship with the reminder that there would be no heaven for cowards. The men were confessed of their sins. Immediately afterward, drums and trumpets sounded with cries of “Victory and long live Jesus Christ!”

  WITH THE SHIPS SPREADING OUT, Don Juan stepped down from the elaborately carved poop of the Real. He was wearing brilliant armor that glittered in the autumn sun, and carried a crucifix in his hand as he transferred into a light racing frigate and ran along the line of ships, putting heart into the men. As he passed under the stern of Sebastian Venier’s ship, the old hothead saluted him. With their minds fixed on ultimate things, all grievances were forgotten.

  To each national contingent Don Juan offered words of encouragement. He urged the Venetians to avenge the death of Bragadin. To the Spanish he called for religious duty: “My children, we are here to conquer or to die as heaven may determine. Do not let our impious foe ask of us ‘Where is your God?’ Fight in his holy name, and in death or victory you will win immortality.” He visited two of the lumbering galleasses passing through the fleet line and urged them to hurry to their station. He promised liberation for all the Christian galley slaves if they fought well, and ordered their shackles to be removed. It was in fact a promise that he could not guarantee, as only the oarsmen on his own ships were within his gift. The Muslims were now handcuffed as well as chained, for fear of uprisings during the fight. For them there would be no escape if the ship went down.

  Everywhere there were final preparations. Armorers moved among the Christian rowers, striking off shackles and handing out swords; weapons, wine, and bread were stockpiled in the gangways; priests offered words of comfort; the arquebusiers checked their powder and their slow-burning fuses; Spanish veterans of the Morisco wars sharpened their pikes and donned their steel casques. Commanders strapped on breastplates and helmets, flipping their visors up to catch the sea wind and the stink of the ships. Surgeons spread out their instruments and fingered the bite of their saws. Thousands of nameless galley slaves strained at the oars to the crack of the overseers’ whips and the steady pounding of drums. With their backs to the enemy, they rowed forward at a steady pace.

  A few individual names stand out among the anonymous thousands on the Christian ships: Aurelio Scetti, Florentine musician, had been twelve years in the galleys for murdering his wife. On the Marquesa, the Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes, twenty-four years old, bookish and desperately poor, was a volunteer; on the morning of the battle he was ill from fever but tottered from his bed to command a detachment of soldiers at the boat station. Another sick man, sergeant Martin Muñoz, aboard the San Giovanni from Sicily, also lay below with fever. Sir Thomas Stukeley, English pirate and mercenary, possibly the illegitimate son of Henry VIII, commanded three Spanish ships. Romegas, detached from the Malta galleys, was with Colonna on his flagship, an appointment that would save his life. Antonio and Ambrogio Bragadin, kinsmen of the martyr of Famagusta, commanding two galleasses, waited in the front line, itching for revenge. And on Don Juan’s flagship was one particularly fresh-faced Spanish arquebusier. Her name was Maria la Bailadora (the flamenco dancer); she had disguised herself to accompany her soldier lover to the wars.

  Five miles distant, the Muslims were making their own preparations. Ali’s fleet was also a mixture of elements: imperial squadrons from Istanbul and Gallipoli, the Algerians and more informal corsair bands in small galliots. All the great commanders were present: the beys of the maritime provinces of Rhodes, Syria, Naplion, and Tripoli; the sons of Barbarossa, Hasan and Mehmet; the commander of the Istanbul arsenal, Kara Hodja the Italian corsair; and Uluch Ali out on the left wing. There was evidently some small chafing between the different factions, between the “deep” Muslims and the opportunist renegades “with pork flesh still stuck between their teeth,” as well as between the skillful corsair captains and the sultan’s imperial placeholders. Ali Pasha’s plan was to run his galleys on the right wing under Shuluch Mehmet hard against the Greek shore; with their shallow draft and the commander’s knowledge of the coastal waters, Ali was confident they could outsmart and outflank the opposing Venetians. He ordered cavalry to stand to on the shore if the Venetians tried to beach their ships and run. Uluch Ali wa
s desperately worried by this tactic. The plan turned on a calculated gamble. If it failed, the reverse might happen: the Muslims could be tempted to escape by land. Uluch Ali would have preferred an open-sea engagement, where an outflanking movement would be more clear-cut.

  The Muslim fleet carried fewer cannon and arquebusiers than the enemy but many archers, whose vastly superior speed of fire could impale a Spanish hand gunner thirty times over while he was still reloading. They fought without armor, and their ships were not reinforced with wooden parapets that could protect the men against sustained gunfire. The aim was to be quick and agile.

  To the calling of the imams, the men performed ritual ablutions and prostrated themselves in prayer. They tensioned their bows and dipped their arrows in poison; the decking was smeared with oil and butter, making it slippery for the heavily shod Europeans to keep their footing in a boarding raid, while the Muslims generally fought barefoot. The Christian galley slaves were forbidden on pain of death to look over their shoulder at the approaching foe, for fear of breaking stroke; when the ships tangled, the slaves were to hide under the benches. But Ali was a generous commander with a strong sense of honor. While Don Juan was double-shackling his Muslim oarsmen, the pasha made his Christian slaves a promise. Speaking to them in Spanish, he said: “Friends, I expect you today to do your duty by me, in return for what I have done for you. If I win the battle, I promise you your liberty; if the day is yours, God has given it to you.” It was a promise certainly within his power to fulfill. Ali had his two sons of seventeen and thirteen on board with him. As they were being transferred to another ship, he called them to him and reminded them of their duty. “Blessed be the bread and the salt you have given us,” they gravely replied. It was a touching moment of filial piety. Then they were gone.

  Ali could now make out the Venetian galleasses becalmed on the water in front of the Christian fleet. They puzzled and worried him. In the Ottoman ranks, there was some general apprehension of heavily gunned round ships. The Turks had been warned of these vessels by captives, but the word was that the ships were armed with only three artillery pieces at bow and stern. It was impossible to understand what the Venetians were up to.

  Four miles off, the red-hulled Sultana fired a blank shot; it was a personal address to the Real, an invitation to fight. Don Juan replied with purpose: his shot contained a live round. Ali ordered his helmsman, Mehmet, to make for the Real. The great green banner of Islam, precious above all the emblems of Islamic war, with the names of God intertwined twenty-nine thousand times, was hoisted aloft—the green and the gold thread glittered in the sun that was now catching the Muslims in the eye.

  IN THE CHRISTIAN FLEET, Don Juan arranged a matching piece of religious theatre. At a signal, crucifixes were raised aloft on every ship; the pope’s mighty sky-blue banner decorated with the image of the crucified Christ was hoisted on the Real. Don Juan knelt at the prow in his dazzling armor, imploring the Christian God for victory. Thousands of armed men fell to their knees. Friars in brown or black robes held up crosses to the sun and sprinkled holy water on the men and murmured absolution. Then they stood up and roared the names of their protectors and saints in Spanish and Italian. “San Marco! San Stefano! San Giovanni! Santiago y cierra España! Victoria! Victoria!” Trumpets rang brightly; the low-frequency thudding of the timekeepers’ drums beat an insistent tattoo; on the Muslim ships, the blare of zornas and cymbals, the men calling out the names of God, chanting verses from the Koran, and shouting to the Christians to advance and be massacred “like drowned hens.” And in a fit of exuberance beyond rational thought, Don Juan, whose dancing had been so noted at Genoa, “inspired with youthful ardor, danced a galliard in the gun-platform to the music of fifes.”

  THERE WAS STILL TIME, in the words of Girolamo Diedo, a Venetian official at Corfu, for both sides to take in the frightening beauty of the spectacle. “Hurtling towards each other, the two fleets were a quite terrifying sight; our men in shining helmets and breastplates, metal shields like mirrors and their other weapons glittering in the rays of the sun, the polished blades of the drawn swords dazzling men full in the face even from a distance…. And the enemy were no less threatening, they struck just as much fear in the hearts of our side, as well as amazement and wonder at the golden lanterns and shimmering banners remarkable for the sheer variety of their thousands of extraordinary colours.”

  A third of a mile in front of the Christian fleet, four of the galleasses were now in position, spaced out at intervals; two on the right wing lagged and were only just up with the front line. The Venetian gunners crouched with lighted tapers, eyeing the two hundred eighty Muslim galleys closing fast. Arquebusiers fingered their rosaries and murmured prayers. Heartbeats raced. They braced themselves against the wall of noise. At one hundred fifty yards, an order: matches were set to the touchholes. It was just before noon.

  THERE WAS A SERIES OF BRIGHT FLASHES, a thunderous roar, then the smoke that would obscure everything. At this distance it was impossible to miss. Iron balls ripped into the advancing ships. Galleys just burst asunder under the impact. “It was so terrible that three galleys were sunk just like that,” recorded Diedo. Confusion checked the Ottoman advance; ships crashed into one another or tried to halt. The Sultana had a stern lantern shot away. The oared galleasses turned through ninety degrees to deliver a second round. Ali ordered up the stroke rate to shoot past the mouth of the guns as fast as possible. The line tacked and opened to avoid the floating gun towers. Broadside on, the Ottoman line was now raked by arquebus fire. When a helmsman was shot down, the vessel staggered and veered; then a row of turbaned soldiers caught in profile would be felled by a volley of bullets. The galleasses made another quarter turn. “God allow us to get out of here in one piece,” shouted Ali, watching the wreckage being inflicted on his battle line, now jagged, holed, and in disarray. Sweeping beyond the guns, the Ottoman galleys opened fire at the main Christian line, but they aimed too high. Don Juan waited for the Ottomans to close; with their rams cut away, the cannon could fire close and low. As Ali’s ships pressed forward, the Christian guns erupted, each commander choosing his moment. Black smoke blew favorably on the west wind, obscuring the Muslim aim. Even before the collision of the two lines, a third of Ali’s ships had been crippled or sunk, “and already the sea was wholly covered with men, yardarms, oars, casks, barrels, and various kinds of armaments—an incredible thing that only six galleasses should have caused such destruction.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Sea of Fire

  Noon to nightfall, October 7, 1571

  BY THIS TIME FURIOUS FIGHTING had already broken out close to the shore. The Ottoman right wing, under Shuluch Mehmet, had sheered away to avoid the withering fire of the galleasses. Now they looked to outflank the Venetian-led left under the command of Agostino Barbarigo. Shuluch aimed to exploit the narrow corridor of the coastal shallows, into which he knew the weightier Venetians dared not venture. “Shuluch and Kara Ali, outpacing all the other Ottoman galleys, drove furiously towards our line,” wrote Diedo. “As they neared the shore, they slid between the shallows with the foremost ships of their squadron. These waterways were familiar to them; they knew exactly the depth of the sea above the shoals. Followed by four or five galleys, they planned to take our left wing in the rear.”

  Before the Venetians knew what was happening, these galleys had slipped around the end of Barbarigo’s line and were assaulting the exposed vessels on the outer tip from both sides. If many more outflanked Barbarigo’s wing, the situation would be critical; the Christians would be suddenly taken from behind. Barbarigo interposed his own ship to block the way and was instantly engulfed in a firestorm. So many arrows whipped through the air that his stern lantern was bristling with shafts; the lead galleys were furiously assaulted, their decks swept by arquebus fire, their commanders and senior officers shot down one by one as the Ottomans attempted to crush the outer flank. For an hour Barbarigo’s ship struggled valiantly, its deck fiercely con
tested by boarding parties. Behind his visor, the commander’s muffled instructions were being lost in the din of battle. Incautiously he flipped the visor up, shouting that it was better to risk being hit than not to be heard. Minutes later an arrow struck him in the eye; he was carried below to die. The battle for the flagship intensified; Barbarigo’s nephew Giovanni Contarini brought his own galley up to help and was, in turn, shot dead.

  Shuluch looked close to success, but the Venetians had come for revenge; many of their ships were from Crete, the Dalmatian coast, and the islands, all ravaged by Ali Pasha’s summer raids. They fought desperately and without regard. Slowly the tide started to turn. Galleys from the reserve swung up to help; troops were fed onto the stricken ships from the rear. Panic erupted on an Ottoman galley when the Christian slaves broke free and launched a furious assault on their masters, raining smashing blows with their whirling chains. One of the galleasses crept toward the shore and began to pulverize the Ottoman ships. Shuluch’s flagship was rammed and had its rudder sheared off; then it was holed and started to sink; it just sat waterlogged in the shallows. Shuluch, identified by his brilliant robes, was fished out of the sea more dead than alive. So severe were his wounds that the Venetians decapitated him on the spot as an act of mercy. Following Shuluch’s ship, the whole squadron had drifted toward the shore and was now pinned there. “In this vast confusion,” wrote Diedo, “many of our galleys, especially those nearest the centre of the fleet…made a general turning movement toward the left in good order and came to envelop the Turkish ships, which were still putting up a desperate resistance to ours. By this adroit manoeuvre they held them enclosed, as in a harbour.” The Ottoman right wing was trapped.