Бесплатный фрагмент - The Story of the Barbary Corsairs

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For more than three centuries the trading nations of Europe were suffered to pursue their commerce or forced to abandon their gains at the bidding of pirates. From the days when Barbarossa defied the whole strength of the Emperor Charles V., to the early part of the present century, when prizes were taken by Algerine rovers under the guns, so to say, of all the fleets of Europe, the Corsairs were masters of the narrow seas, and dictated their own terms to all comers. Nothing but the creation of the large standing navies of the present age crippled them; nothing less than the conquest of their too convenient coasts could have thoroughly suppressed them. During those three centuries they levied blackmail upon all who had any trading interest in the Mediterranean. The Venetians, Genoese, Pisans in older days; the English, French, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and American Governments in modern times, purchased security by the payment of a regular tribute, or by the periodical presentation of costly gifts. The penalty of resistance was too well known to need exemplification; thousands of Christian slaves in the bagnios at Algiers bore witness to the consequences of an independent policy. So long as the nations of Europe continued to quarrel among themselves, instead of presenting a united line of battle to the enemy, such humiliations had to be endured; so long as a Corsair raid upon Spain suited the policy of France; so long as the Dutch, in their jealousy of other states, could declare that Algiers was necessary to them; there was no chance of the plague subsiding; and it was not till the close of the great Napoleonic wars that the Powers agreed, at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, to act together, and do away with the scourge of Christendom. And even then little was accomplished till France combined territorial aggrandizement with the rôle of a civilizing influence.

GALLEONOF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. (Juriende la Gravière.)

There had been pirates in the Mediterranean long before the Turks took up the trade; indeed, ever since boats were built their capabilities for plunder must have been realized. The filibustering expedition of Jason and the loot of the Golden Fleece is an early instance, and the Greeks at all times have distinguished themselves by acting up to Jason’s example by sea and land. The Moslems, however, were sometime in accustoming themselves to the perils of the deep. At first they marvelled greatly at “those that go down to the sea in ships, and have their business in great waters,” but they did not hasten to follow them. In the early days of the conquest of Egypt the Khalif “Omar wrote to his general and asked him what the sea was like, to which “Amr made answer: “The Sea is a huge beast which silly folk ride like worms on logs;” whereupon, much distressed, the prudent Khalif gave orders that no Moslem should voyage on so unruly an element without his leave. But it soon became clear that if the Moslems were to hold their own with the irneighbours (still more if they meant to hold their neighbours’ own) they must learn how to navigate; and accordingly, in the first century of the Hijra, we find the Khalif “Abd-el-Melik instructing his lieutenant in Africa to use Tunis as an arsenal and dockyard, and there to collect a fleet. From that time forward the Mohammedan rulers of the Barbary coast were never long without ships of some sort. The Aghlabī princes sailed forth from Tunis, and took Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. The Fātimī Khalifs waged war with the navies of “Abd-er-Rahmān, the Great Khalif of Cordova, at a strength of two hundred vessels a side. The Al mohades possessed a large and capacious fleet, in which they transported their armies to Spain, and their successors in North Africa, though less powerful, were generally able to keep up a number of vessels for offensive as well as commercial purposes.

During the later Middle Ages the relations between the rulers of the Barbary coast — the kings of Tunis, Tilimsān, Fez, &c. — and the trading nations of Christendom were amicable and just. Treaties show that both parties agreed in denouncing and (so faras they could) suppressing piracy and encouraging mutual commerce. Itwas not till the beginning of the sixteenth century that a changecame over these peaceful conditions, and the way it happened wasthis.

When the united wisdom of Ferdinand and Isabella resolved on the expatriation of the Spanish Moors, they forgot the risk of an exile’s vengeance. No sooner was Granada fallen than thousands of desperate Moors left the land which for seven hundred years had been their home, and, disdaining to live under a Spanish yoke, crossed the strait to Africa, where they established themselves at various strong points, such as She rshēl, Oran, and notably at Algiers, which till then had hardly been heard of. No sooner were the banished Moors fairly settled in their new seats than they did what anybody in their place would have done: they carried the war into their oppressors’ country. To meet the Spaniards in the open field was impossible in their reduced numbers, but at sea their fleetness and knowledge of the coasts gave them the opportunity of reprisal for which they longed.

Science, tradition, and observation inform us that primitive man had certain affinities to the beast of prey. By superior strength or ingenuity he slew or snared the means of subsistence. Civilized man leaves the coarsest forms of slaughter to a professional class, and, if he kill sat all, elevates his pastime to the rank of sport by the refiningelement of skill and the excitement of uncertainty and personal risk. Butcivilized man is still only too prone to prey upon his fellows, though hardly in the brutal manner of his ancestors. He preys upon inferior intelligence, upon weakness of character, upon the greed and upon the gambling instinct of mankind. In the grandest scale he is called a financier; in the meanest, a pickpocket. This predator spirit is at once so ancient and so general, that the reader, who is, of course, wholly innocent of such reprehensible tendencies, must nevertheless make an effort to understand the delights of robbery considered as a fine art. Some cynics there are who will tell us thatthe only reason we are not all thieves is because we have not pluckenough; and there must certainly be some fascination, apart from natural depravity or original sin, to make a man prefer to run countless risks in an unlawful pursuit sooner than do an honest day’s work. And in this sentence we have the answer: It is precisely therisk, the uncertainty, the danger, the sense of superior skill andingenuity, that attract the adventurous spirit, the passion forsport, which is implanted in the vast majority of mankind.

Our Moorish robbers had all this, and more, to attract them. Brave anddaring men they had shown themselves often before in their tussles with the Spaniards, or in their wild sea courses and harryings of Christian shores, in Sardinia, perhaps, or Provence; but now the ypursued a quest alluring beyond any that had gone before, a righ teousvengeance upon those who had banished them from house and home, andcast them adrift to find what new anchorage they might in the world — aHoly Waragainst the slaughterers of their kith and kin, and the blasphemersof their sacred Faith. What joy more fierce and jubilant than to runthe light brigantine down the beach of Algiers and man her for acruise in Spanish waters? The little ship will hold but ten oars aside, each pulled by a man who knows how to fight as well as torow — as indeed he must, for there is no room for mere landsmen onboard a firkata. But if there be a fair wind off theland, there will be little rowing; the big lateen sail on her onemast will span the narrow waters between the African coast and theBalearic Isles, where a convenient look-out may be kept for Spanishgalleons or perhaps an Italian polacca. Drawing little water, a smallsquadron of brigantines could be pushed up almost any creek, or liehidden behind a rock, till the enemy hove in sight. Then oars out, and a quick stroke for a few minutes, and they are alongside theirunsuspecting prey, and pouring in their first volley. Then a scrambleon board, a hand-to-hand scuffle, a last desperate resistance on thepoop, under the captain’s canopy, and the prize is taken, theprisoners ironed, a jury crew sent on board, and all return intriumph to Algiers, where they are received with acclamations.

Orit might be a descent on the shores of their own beloved Andalusia. Then the little vessels are run into the crevices between the rocks, or even buried in the sand, and the pirates steal inland to one of the villages they know so well, and the loss of which they will never cease to mourn. They have still friends a-many in Spain, who arewilling enough to help themagainst the oppressor and to hide them when surprised. The sleeping Spaniards are roused and then grimly silenced by the points ofswords; their wives and daughters are borne away on the shoulders ofthe invaders; everything valuable is cleared; and the rovers are soonsailing merrily into the roads at Algiers, laden with spoil andcaptives, and often with some of the persecuted remnant of theirrace, who thankfully rejoin their kinsmen in the new country.To wreak such vengeance on the Spaniard added a real zest to life.

CARAVELOF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. (Juriende la Gravière.)

Withall their skill and speed, their knowledge of the coasts, and thehelp of their compatriots ashore, there was still the risk ofcapture. Sometimes their brigantines “caught a Tartar” when theyexpected an easy victim, and then the Moors found the tables turned, and had to grace their captors’ triumph, and for years, perhaps forever, to sit on the banks of a Venetian or Genoese galley, heavilychained, pulling the infidel’s oar even in the chase of the truebelievers, and gazing to satiety upon the weals which the lash keptraw on the bare back of the man in front. But the risk added a zestto the Corsair’s life, and the captive could often look forward tothe hope of recapture, or sometimes of ransom by his friends. Thecareer of the pirate, with all its chances, was a prosperous one. Theadventurers grew rich, and their strong places on the Barbary coastbecame populous and well garrisoned; and, by the time the Spaniardsbegan to awake to the danger of letting such troublesome neighboursalone, the evil was past a cure. For twenty years the exiled Moorshad enjoyed immunity, while the big Spanish galleys were obstinatelyheld in port, contemptuous of so small a foe. At last Don PedroNavarro was despatched by Cardinal Ximenes to bring the pirates tobook. He had little difficulty in taking possession of Oran andBujēya; and Algiers was so imperfectly fortified, that he imposedhis own terms. He made the Algerines vow to renounce piracy; and, tosee that they kept their word, he built and garrisoned astrong fort, the “Peñon de Alger,” to stop their boats from sallying forth. But the Moors had still morethan one strong post on the rocky promontories of Barbary, and havingtasted the delights of chasing Spaniards, they were not likely toreform, especially as the choice lay between piracy and starvation. Dig they would not, and they preferred to beg by force, like the“gentlemen of the road.” So they bided their time, till Ferdinandthe Catholic passed away to his account, and then, in defiance of thePeñon, and reckless of all the pains and penalties of Spanishretribution, they threw up their allegiance, and looked about forallies.

Helpwas not far off, though in this case it meant mastery. The day of theMoorish pirates was over; henceforth they might, and did, triumphantly assault and batter Spanish and Venetian ships, but theywould do this under the captaincy of the allies they had called in, under the leadership of the Turkish Corsairs. The Moors had shown theway, and the Corsairs needed little bidding to follow it.

Itis time to ask how it was that a spacious land seemed to lie vacantfor the Corsairs to occupy, and a land too that offered almost every feature that a pirate could desire for the safe and success fulprosecution of his trade. Geographers tell us that in climate and formation the island of Barbary, for such it is geologically, is really part of Europe, towards which, in history, it has played so un friendly a part. Once the countries, which we now know as Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco, stood up abruptly as an island, with a comparatively small lake washing its northern shore, and a huge oceanon the south (see the map). That ocean is now the Sahra or Sáhara, which engineers dream of again flooding with salt water, andso forming an inland African sea. The lake is now the Mediterranean, or rather its western basin, for we know that the Barbary island was once nearly a peninsula, joined at its two ends to Spain and Sicily, and that its Atlas ranges formed the connection between the Sierra Nevada and Mt. Aetna. By degrees the Isthmus between Cape Bona and Sicily sank out of sight, and the ocean flowed between Spain and Africa, while the great sea to the south dried up into the immense stony waste which is known preëminently as the Sahra, the Desert, “a tract of land, bare as the back of a beast, with out trees or mountains.”

After Bourguignat — Walker& Boutallsc.

THEBARBARY PENINSULA. (EliséeReclus.) have a port of his own at Algiers, with noSpanish bridle to curb him. He summoned Don Martin de Vargas tosurrender, and, on his refusal, bombarded the Peñon day and nightfor fifteen days with heavy cannon, partly founded in Algiers, partlyseized from a French galleon, till an assault was practicable, when the feeble remnant of thegarrison was quickly overpowered and sent to the bagnios. The stonesof the fortress were used to build the great mole which protectsAlgiers harbour on the west, and for two whole years the Christianslaves were laboriously employed upon the work.

To aggravate this disaster, a curious sight was seen a fortnight afterthe fall of the Peñon. Nine transports, full of men and ammunitionfor the reinforcement of the garrison, hove in sight, and long theysearched to and fro for the well-known fortress they had come tosuccour. And whilst they marvelled that they could not discover it, out dashed the Corsairs in their galleots and light shebēks, andseized the whole convoy, together with two thousand seven hundredcaptives and a fine store of arms and provisions.

Every thingthat Kheyr-ed-dīn took in hand seemed to prosper. His fleetincreased month by month, till he had thirty-six of his own galleotsperpetually on the cruise in the summer season; his prizes wereinnumerable, and his forces were increased by the fighting men of theseventy thousand Moriscos whom he rescued, in a series of voyages, from servitude in Spain. The waste places of Africa were peopled withthe industrious agriculturists and artisans whom the SpanishGovernment knew not how to employ. The foundries and dockyards of Algiers teemed with busy workmen. Seven thousand Christian slaveslaboured at the defensive works and the harbour; and every attempt ofthe Emperor to rescue them and destroy the pirates was repelled withdisastrous loss.

1470—1522

Noone appreciated better the triumphs of the Beglerbeg of Algiers thanSultan Suleymān. The Ottomans, as yet inexperienced in navalaffairs, were eager to take lessons. The Turkish navy had been of slow growth, chiefly because in early days there were always peopleready to act as sailors for pay. When Murād I. wished to cross fromAsia to Europe to meet the invading army of Vladislaus and Hunyady, the Genoese skippers were happy to carry over his men for a ducat ahead, just to spite their immemorial foes the Venetians, who wereenlisted on the other side. It was not till the fall ofConstantinople gave the Turks the command of the Bosphorus thatMohammed II. resolved to create for himself a naval power.

That fatal jealousy between the Christian States which so often aided theprogress of the Turks helped them now. The great commercial republics, Genoa and Venice, had long been struggling for supremacyon the sea. Venice held many important postsamong the islands of the Archipelago and on the Syrian coast, wherethe Crusaders had rewarded her naval assistance with the gift of thefortress of Acre. Genoa was stronger in the Black Sea and Marmora, where, until the coming of the Turks, her colony at Galata was littleless than an Oriental Genoa. The Genoese tower is still seen on thesteep slope of Pera, and Genoese forts are common objects in theBosphorus, and in the Crimea, where they dominate the little harbourof Balaklava. The Sea of Marmora was the scene of many a deadlycontest between the rival fleets. In 1352, under the walls of Constantinople, the Genoese defeated the combined squadrons of the Venetians, the Catalonians, and the Greeks. But next year the Brideof the Sea humbled the pride of Genoa in a disastrous engagement offAlghero; and in 1380, when the Genoese had gained possession ofChioggia and all but occupied Venice itself, the citizens rose likeone man to meet the desperate emergency, and not only repulsed, butsurrounded the invaders, and forced them to capitulate. From thistime Genoa declined in power, while Venice waxed stronger and morehaughty. The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, followedrapidly by the expulsion of the Genoese from Trebizond, Sinope, Kaffa, and Azov, was the end of the commercial prosperity of the Ligurian Republic in the East. The Black Sea and Marmora were now Turkish lakes. The Castles of the Dardanelles, mounted with heavyguns, protected any Ottoman fleet from pursuit; and though GiacomoVeniero defiantly carried his own ship underfire through the strait and back again with the loss of only elevenmen, no one cared to follow his example.

ANADMIRAL’S GALLEY. (Furttenbach, Architevalis,1629.)

WhenMohammed II. issued forth with a fleet of one hundred galleys and twohundred transports, carrying seventy thousand troops, and ravishedthe Negropont away from Venice in 1470, he had only to repass theHellespont to be absolutely safe. All that the Venetian admirals, thefamous Loredani, could do was to retaliate upon such islands of theArchipelago as were under Turkish sway and ravage the coasts of AsiaMinor. Superior as they were to the Turks in the building andmanagement of galleys, they had not the military resources of theirfoe. Their troops were mercenaries, not to be compared with theJanissaries and Sipāhis, though the hardy Stradiotes from Epirus, dressed like Turks, but without the turban, of whom Othello is afamiliar specimen, came near to rivalling them. On land, the Republiccould not meet the troops of the Grand Signior, and after her veryexistence had been menaced by the near approach of a Turkish army onthe banks of the Piave (1477),Venice made peace, and even, it is said, incited the Turks to the capture of Otranto. The Ottoman galleys were now free of the Adriatic, and carried fire and sword along the Italian coast, insomuch that whenever the crescent was seen at a vessel’s peak theterrified villagers fled inland, and left their homes at the mercy ofthe pirates. The period of the Turkish Corsairs had already begun.

Therewas another naval power to be reckoned with besides discredited Genoaand tributary Venice. The Knights Hospitallers of Jerusalem, drivenfrom Smyrna (in 1403) by Timur, had settled at Rhodes, which they hastened to render impregnable. Apparently they succeeded, for attackafter attack from the Mamlūk Sultans of Egypt failed to shake themfrom their stronghold, whence they commanded the line of commercebetween Alexandria and Constantinople, and did a brisk trade inpiracy upon passing vessels. The Knights of Rhodes were the ChristianCorsairs of the Levant; the forests of Caramania furnished them withships, and the populations of Asia Minor supplied them with slaves.So long as they roved the seas the Sultan’s galleys were ill atease. Even Christian ships suffered from their high-handedproceedings, and Venice looked on with open satisfaction when, in1480, Mohammed II. despatched one hundred and sixty ships and a largearmy to humble the pride of the Knights. The siege failed, however; D’Aubusson, the Grand Master, repulsed the general assault withfurious heroism, and the Turks retired with heavy loss.

Find in gthat the Ottomans were not quite invincible, Venice plucked up heart, and began to prepare for hostilities with her temporary ally. The interval of friendliness had been turned to good account by theTurks. Yāni, the Christian shipbuilder of the Sultan, had studiedthe improvements of the Venetians, and he now constructed two immense kokas, seventy cubits long and thirty in the beam, with masts of several trees spliced together, measuring four cubits round. Forty men in armour might stand in the maintop and fire down upon the enemy. There were two decks, one like a galleon’s deck, and the other like a galley, each with a big gun on either side. Four-and-twenty oars a side, on the upper deck, were propelled each by nine men. Boats hung from the stern; and the ship’s complement consisted (so says Hājji Khalīfa) oftwo thousand soldiers and sailors. Kemāl Reïs and Borāk Reïscommanded these two prodigies, and the whole fleet, numbering some three hundred other vessels, was despatched to the Adriatic under the command of Daūd Pasha. The object of attack was Lepanto.

Towardsthe end of July, 1499, they sighted the Venetian fleet, which was on the look-out for them, off Modon. They counted forty-four galleys, sixteen galleasses, and twenty-eight ordinary sail. Neither courtedan action, which each knew to be fraught with momentous consequences. Grimani, the Venetian admiral, retired to Navarino; the Turksanchored off Sapienza. On August 12 th Daūd Pasha, who knew theSultan was awaiting him with the land forces at Lepanto, resolved to push on at all costs. In those days Turkish navigators had littleconfidence in the open sea; they preferred to hug the shore, where they might run into a port in case of bad weather. Daūd according lyendeavoured to pass between the island of Prodano and the Morea, just north of Navarino. Perfectly aware of his course, the Venetians had drawn out their fleet atthe upper end of the narrow passage, where they had the best possiblechance of catching the enemy in confused order. The Proveditore of Corfu, Andrea Loredano, had reinforced the Christian fleet that veryday with ten ships; the position was well chosen; the wind was fair, and drove full down upon the Turks as they emerged from the strait. But the Venetian admiral placed his chief reliance in his galleasses, and as yet the art of manoeuvring sailing vessels in battle array wasin its youth. Bad steering here, a wrong tack there, and then shipran against ship, the great galleasses became entangled and helpless, carried by the wind into the midst of the enemy, or borne away where they were useless, and the Turkish galleys had it all their own way. Loredano’s flagship burnt down to the water, and other vessels were destroyed by fire. Yāni’s big ships played an important part in the action. Two galleasses, each containing a thousand men, and two other vessels, surrounded Borāk Reïs, but the smaller ships could not fire over the koka’s lofty sides, and were speedily sunk. Borāk Reïs threw burning pitch intothe galleasses, and burnt up crews and ships, till, his own vesselcatching fire, he and other notable captains, after performingprodigies of valour, perished in the flames. Wherefore the island of Prodano is by the Turks called Borāk Isle to this day.[16] Tothe Christians the action was known as “the deplorable battle ofZonchio,” from the name of the old castle of Navarino, beneathwhich it was fought.

GALLEASSE. (Furttenbach, ArchitecturaNavalis,1620.)

Inspite of his success at Zonchio, Daūd Pasha had still to fight hisway up to Lepanto. The Venetians had collected their scattered fleet, and had been reinforced by their allies of France and Rhodes; it wasclear they were bent on revenge. The Turks hugged the land, droppedanchor at night, and kept a sharp look-out. It was a perpetualskirmish all the way. The Venetians tried to surprise the enemy attheir moorings, but they were already at sea, and squally weatherupset Grimani’s strategy and he had the mortification of seeing hissix fire-ships burning innocuously with never a Turk the worse. Againand again it seemed impossible that Daūd could escape, but Grimani’sFabian policy delivered the enemy out of his hands, and when finallythe Turkish fleet sailed triumphantly into the Gulf of Patras, whereit was protected by the Sultan’s artillery at Lepanto, the GrandPrior of Auvergne, who commanded the French squadron, sailed away indisgust at the pusillanimity of his colleague. Lepanto fell, August 28 th; and Grimani was imprisoned, nominally for life, for hisblundering: nevertheless, after twenty-one years he was made Doge.

Venicenever recovered from her defeat. The loss of Lepanto and theconsequent closing of the gulfs of Patras and Corinth were followedby the capture of Modon, commanding the strait of Sapienza: the eastcoast of the Adriatic and Ionian seas was no longer open to Christianvessels. The Oriental trade of the republic was further seriouslyimpaired by the Turkish [Pg 72] conquestof Egypt (1517), whichdeprived her of her most important mart; and the discovery of the NewWorld brought Spanish traders into successful competition with herown. Venice indeed was practically an Oriental city; her skilledworkmen learned their arts in Egypt and Mesopotamia; her bazaars werefilled with the products of the East, with the dimity and othercloths and silks and brocades of Damietta, Alexandria, Tinnis, and Cairo, cotton from Ba’lbekk, silk from Baghdād, atlas satinfrom Ma’din in Armenia; and she introduced to Europe not only theproducts of the East, but their very names. Sarcenet is Saracenstuff; tabby is named after a street in Baghdād where watered silkwas made; Baldacchini are simply “Baldac,” i.e.,Baghdād, canopies; samite is Shāmī, “Syrian,” fabric; the verycoat of the Egyptian, the jubba, is preserved in giuppa, jupe. With the loss of her Oriental commerce, which the hostility of the Turksinvolved, Venice could no longer hold her own. She bowed to her fate and acknowledged the Turkish supremacy by sea as well as by land. She even paid the Sultan tribute for the island of Cyprus. When Suleymān the Magnificent succeeded Selīm and took Belgrade (1521), Venicehastily increased her payment and did homage for Zante as well. Someek had now become the Bride of the Sea.

Turkeystill suffered the annoyance of the Rhodian Corsairs, and till theywere removed her naval supremacy was not complete. Genoa and Venicehad beenhumbled: the turn of the Knights of St. John was come. Selīm hadleft his son, the great Suleymān, the legacy of a splendid fleet, prepared for this very enterprize. One hundred and three swiftgalleys, thirty-five galleasses, besides smaller craft, and 107transports, “naves, fustes, mahones, tafforées, galions, etesquirasses,” formeda noble navy, and Rhodes fell, after an heroic defence, at the closeof 1522. For six months the Knights held out, against a fleet whichhad swollen to four hundred sail and an army of over a hundred thousand men commanded by the Sultan in person. It was a crisis inthe history of Europe: the outpost of Christendom was at bay. The Knights realized their duty nobly, but they had the best engineers inthe world against them, and all the resources of a now mighty empire, wielded by a master-mind. Suleymān surrounded the city with his works, and made regular approaches for his advancing batteries andmines; yet at the end of a month not a wall was down, and the eightbastions of the eight Tongues of the Order — the English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Provençal, and Auvergnat — wereso far unmoved. Gabriel Martinego of Candia superintended thecountermines with marked success. At last the English bastion was blown up; the Turks swarmed to the breach, and were beaten back with a loss of two thousand men. A second assault failed, but on September 24th they succeeded in getting a foothold, and the destruction of the Spanish, Italian, andProvençal bastions by the Turkishmines and the consequent exposure of the exhausted garrison renderedthe defence more and more perilous. The Ottoman army too wassuffering severely, from disease, as well as from the deadly weaponsof the Knights, and in the hope of sparing his men Suleymān offeredthe garrison life and liberty if they would surrender the city. Atfirst they proudly rejected the offer, but within a fortnight, finding their ammunition exhausted and their numbers sadly thinned, on December 21st they begged the Sultan to repeat his conditions, and, with an honourable clemency, Suleymān let them all departunmolested in his own ships to such ports in Europe as seemed best to them.

The fall of Rhodes removed the last obstacle to the complete dominationof the Ottoman fleet in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. Henceforward no Christian ship was safe in those waters unless by the pleasure of the Sultan. The old maritime Republics were for the time reduced to impotence, and no power existed to challenge the Ottoman supremacy in the Aegean, Ionian, and Adriatic Seas.

Almostat the same time the brothers Barbarossa had effected a similartriumph in the west. The capture of Algiers and the firmestablishment of various strong garrisons on the Barbary coast hadgiven the Turkish Corsairs the command of the western basin of the Mediterranean. Suleymān the Magnificent saw the necessity of combination; he knew that Kheyr-ed-dīn could teach the Stambol navigatorsand ship-builders much that they ought to learn; his Grand VezīrIbrahīm strenuously urged a closer relation between the Turkish powers of the east and west; and Kheyr-ed-dīn received the Imperial command to present himself at Constantinople.

1533

Kheyr-ed-dīnwas in no hurry to visit the Sublime Porte. He had to provide for thesafety and government of Algiers during his absence, when exposed tothe dangers both of foreign attack and internal intrigue. He had toreckon with the galleys of the Knights of St. John, who, afterwandering homeless for a longer time than was at all creditable to that Christendom which they had so heroically defended at Rhodes, had finally settled in no less convenient a spot than Malta, whence they had every opportunity of harassing the operations of the Corsairs (1530). Moreover Andrea Doria was cruising about, and he was not the sort of opponent Barbarossa cared to meet by hazard. The great Genoese admiral considered it a personal duel with Kheyr-ed-dīn. Each held the supreme position on his own side of the water. Both were old men and had grown old in arms. Born in 1468, of a noble Genoese family, Doria was sixty-five years of age, of which nearly fifty had been spent in warfare. He had been in the Pope’s guard, and had seen service under the Dukeof Urbino and Alfonso of Naples, and when he was over forty he had taken to the sea and found himself suddenly High Admiral of Genoa (1513). His appointment to the command of his country’s galleys was due to his zealous services on shore, and not to any special experience of naval affairs; indeed the commander of the galleys was as much a military as a naval officer. Doria, however, late as headopted his profession, possessed undoubted gifts as a seaman, andhis leadership decided which of the rival Christian Powers shouldrule the Mediterranean waves. He devoted his sword to France in 1522, when a revolution overthrew his party in his own republic; and solong as he was on the French side the command of the sea, so far asit did not belong to the Barbary Corsairs, belonged to France. When in 1528 he judged himself and his country ill-used by Francis I., hecarried over his own twelve galleys to the side of Charles V.; andthen the Imperial navies once more triumphed. Doria was the arbiterof fortune between the contending states. Doria was the liberator ofGenoa, and, refusing to be her king, remained her idol and herdespot. No name struck such terror into the hearts of the Turks; manya ship had fallen a prey to his devouring galleys, and many a Moslemslave pulled at his oars or languished in Genoese prisons. Officiallyan admiral, he was at the same time personally a Corsair, and usedhis private galleys to increase his wealth.

Kheyr-ed-dīn’sfame among Christians and Turks alike was at least as great andglorious as his rival’s. He had driven the Spaniards out of Algiersand had inflictedincalculable injuries upon the ships and shores of the Empire. Thoughthe two had roved the same sea for twenty years, they had never metin naval combat: perhaps each had respected the other too much torisk an encounter. Long ago, when Kheyr-ed-dīn was unknown to fame, Doria had driven him from the Goletta (1513); and in 1531 the Genoeseadmiral made a descent upon Shershēl, which Kheyr-ed-dīn had beenstrengthening, to the great detriment and anxiety of the oppositecoast of Spain. The Imperialists landed in force, surprised the fort, and liberated seven hundred Christian slaves. Then, contrary toorders and heedless of the signal gun which summoned them on board, the soldiery dispersed about the town in search of pillage, and, being taken at a disadvantage by the Turks and Moriscos of the place, were driven in confusion down to the beach, only to perceive Doria’sgalleys rapidly pulling away. Nine hundred were slaughtered on theseashore and six hundred made prisoners. Some say that the admiralintended to punish his men for their disobedience; others that hesighted Kheyr-ed-dīn’s fleet coming to the rescue. At all eventshe drew off, and the two great rivals did not meet. The Genoesepicked up some Barbary vessels on his way home to console him for hisfailure.

ANDREADORIA

In the following year he retrieved his fame by a brilliant expedition tothe coasts of Greece. With thirty-five sail and forty-eight galleyshe attacked Coron, by way of making a diversion while Sultan Suleymānwas invading Hungary, andafter a heavy bombardmentsucceeded in landing his men on the curtain of the fort. The Turkishgarrison was spared and marched out, and Mendoza was left in command, while Doria bore up to Patras and took it, occupied the castles which guard the Gulf of Corinth, and returned in triumph to Genoa before the Turkish fleet could come up with him. This was in September, 1532. In the following spring a yet more daring feat wasaccomplished. Coron was running short of supplies, and a Turkish fleet blockaded the port. Nevertheless Cristofero Pallavicini carried his ship in, under cover of the castle guns, and encouraged the garrison to hold out; and Doria, following in splendid style, fough this way in, notwithstanding that half his fleet, being sailinggalleons, became becalmed in the midst of the Turkish galleys, andhad to be rescued in the teeth of the enemy. Lutfi Pasha wasoutmanoeuvred and defeated. This revictualling of Coron, says AdmiralJurien de la Gravière, was one of the skilfullest naval operationsof the sixteenth century.

Itwas clear that, while Doria had effected almost nothing against theBarbary Corsairs, he always mastered the Turks. The Sultan was eagerto discover Kheyr-ed-dīn’s secret of success, and counted the daystill he should arrive in the Golden Horn. The Corsair, for his part, had heard enough of Doria’s recent exploits to use more than hishabitual caution, and he was not disposed to cheapen his value in the Sultan’s eyes by a too precipitate compliance with his Majesty’scommand. At last, in August, 1533, having appointed Hasan Aga, aSardinian eunuch, in whomhe greatly confided, to be viceroy during his absence, Kheyr-ed-dīnset sail from Algiers with a few galleys; and after doing a littlebusiness on his own account — looting Elba and picking up someGenoese corn-ships — pursued his way, passing Malta at a respectfuldistance, and coasting the Morea, till he dropped anchor in the Bayof Salonica. Byhis route, which touched Santa Maura and Navarino, he appears to havebeen looking for Doria, in spite of the smallness of his own force (which had, however, been increased by prizes); but, fortunately, perhaps, for the Corsair, the Genoese admiral had returned to Sicily, and the two had missed each other on the way.

Soon the eyes of the Sultan were rejoiced with the sight of a Barbary fleet, gaily dressed with flags and pennons, rounding Seraglio Point, and, in perfect order, entering the deep water of the Golden Horn; and presently Kheyr-ed-dīn and his eighteen captains were bowing before the Grand Signior, and reaping the rewards due to their fameand services. It was a strange sight that day at Eski Serai, and the divan was crowded. The tried generals and statesmen of thegreatest of Ottoman emperors assembled to gaze upon the roughsea-dogs whose exploits were on the lips of all Europe; and most ofall they scrutinized the vigorous well-knit yet burly figure of theold man with the bushy eyebrows and thick beard, once a brightauburn, but now hoary with years and exposure to the freaks offortune and rough weather. In his full and searching eye, that could blaze with ready and unappeasable fury, they traced the resolute mind which was to show them the way to triumphs at sea, comparable even to those which their victorious Sultan had won before strong walls andon the battle plain. The Grand Vezīr Ibrahīmrecognized in Kheyr-ed-dīn the man he needed, and the AlgerineCorsair was preferred before all the admirals of Turkey, and appointed to reconstruct the Ottoman navy. He spent the winter in the dockyards, where his quick eye instantly detected the faults of the builders. The Turks of Constantinople, he found, knew neither how tobuild nor how to work their galleys. Theirswere not so swift as the Christians’; and instead of turningsailors themselves, and navigating them properly, they used to kidnapshepherds from Arcadia and Anatolia, who had never handled a sail ora tiller in their lives, and entrust the navigation of their galleysto these inexperienced hands. Kheyr-ed-dīnsoon changed all this. Fortunately there were workmen and timber inabundance, and, inspiring his men with his own marvellous energy, he laid out sixty-one galleys during the winter, and was able to takethe sea with a fleet of eighty-four vessels in the spring. The periodof Turkish supremacy on the sea dates from Kheyr-ed-dīn’s winterin the dockyards.

1534—1535

The dwellers on the coasts of Italy soon discovered the new spirit in the Turkish fleet; they had now to dread Corsairs on both hands, east as well as west. In the summer of 1534 Kheyr-ed-dīn led his new fleetof eighty-four galleys forth from the Golden Horn, to flesh their appetite on a grand quest of prey. Entering the Straits of Messina, he surprised Reggio, and carried off ships and slaves; stormed and burnt the castle of S. Lucida next day, and took eight hundred prisoners; seized eighteen galleys at Cetraro; put Sperlonga to the sword and brand, and loaded his ships with wives and maidens. Astealthy inland march brought the Corsairs to Fondi, where lay GiuliaGonzaga, the young and beautiful widow of Vespasio Colonna, Duchessof Trajetto and Countess of Fondi. She was sister to the “heavenlyJoanna of Aragon,” on whose loveliness two hundred and eighty Italian poets and rimesters in vain exhausted the resources ofseveral languages; — a loveliness shared by the sister whose devicewas the “Flower of Love” amaranth blazoned on her shield. Thisbeauty Kheyr-ed-dīndestined for the Sultan’s harem, and so secret were the Corsairs’movements that he almost surprised the fair Giulia in her bed. Shehad barely time to mount a horse in her shift and fly with a single attendant, — whom she afterwards condemned to death, perhaps because

the beauty revealed that night had made him over bold Enraged at her escape the pirates made short work of Fondi; the church was wrecked, and the plundering went on for four terrible hours, never to be forgotten by the inhabitants.

Refreshed and excited by their successful raid, the Turks needed little encouragement to enter with heartiness upon the real object of the expedition, which was nothing less than the annexation of the kingdom of Tunis. Three centuries had passed since the Sultans of the race of Hafs had established their authority on the old Carthaginian site, upon the breaking up of the African empire of the Almohades. Theirrule had been mild and just; they had maintained on the whole friendly relations with the European powers, and many treaties record the fair terms upon which the merchants of Pisa, Venice, and Genoawere admitted to the port of Tunis. Saint Louis had been so struck with the piety and justice of the king that he had even come t oconvert him, and had died in the attempt. Twenty-one rulers of their line had succeeded one another, till the vigour of the Benī Hafs wassapped, and fraternal jealousies added bloodshed to weakness. Hasan, the twenty-second, stepped to the throne over the bodies offorty-four slaughtered brothers, and when he had thus secured his place he set a pattern of vicious feebleness for all sovereigns to avoid. A rival claimant served as the Corsair’spretext for invasion, and Kheyr-ed-dīn had hardly landed when this miserable wretch fled the city, and though supported by some of the Arab tribes he could make no head against the Turkish guns. Tunis, like Algiers, had been added to the Ottoman Empire, against its will, and by the same masterful hands. It may be doubted whether the Sultan’s writ would have run in either of his new provinces had their conqueror gainsaid it.

TUNIS,1566. (Froma Map in the British Museum.)

Tunisdid not long remain in the possession of Barbarossa. The banishedking appealed to Charles V., and, whatever the emperor may havet hought of Hasan’s wrongs, he plainly perceived that Barbarossa’spresence in Tunis harbour was a standing menace to his own kingdom of Sicily. It was bad enough to see nests of pirates perched upon therocks of the Algerine coast; but Tunis was the key of the passagefrom the west to the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, and to leaveit in the Corsairs’ hands was to the last degree hazardous.Accordingly he espoused the cause of Hasan, and at the end of May,1535, he set sail from Barcelona with six hundred ships commanded byDoria (who had his own grudge to settle), and carrying the flower ofthe Imperial troops, Spaniards, Italians, and Germans. In June helaid siege to the Goletta — or halk-el-wēd,“throat of the torrent,” as the Arabs called it — those twintowers a mile asunder which guarded the channel of Tunis. The greatcarack St.Ann, sent, with four galleys, by “the Religion” (so the Knights ofMalta [Pg 89] styledtheir Order), was moored close in, and her heavy cannon soon made abreach, through which the Chevalier Cossier led the Knights of St.John, who always claimed the post of danger, into the fortress, andplanted the banner of “the Religion” on the battlements[30] (14July). Three desperate sallies had the besieged made under theleadership of Sinān the Jew; three Italian generals of rank hadfallen in the melley; before they were driven in confusion back uponthe city of Tunis, leaving the Goletta with all its stores of weaponsand ammunition, and its forty guns, some of them famous for theirpractice at the siege of Rhodes, and more than a hundred vessels, inthe hands of the enemy. Barbarossa came out to meet the emperor atthe head of nearly ten thousand troops; but his Berbers refused tofight, the thousands of Christian slaves in the Kasaba (or citadel),aided by treachery, broke their chains and shut the gates behind him; and, after defending his rampart as long as he could, the Corsairchief, with Sinān and Aydīn “Drub-Devil,” made his way to Bona, where he had fortunately left fifteen of his ships. The lines of Kheyr-ed-dīn’s triple wall may still be traced across the neck ofland which separates the lake of Tunis from the Mediterranean.Fifteen years ago this rampart was cut through, when nearly twohundred skeletons, some Spanish money, cannon balls, and brokenweapons were found outside it.

For three days Charles gave up the city of Tunis to the brutality of hissoldiers. They were days of horrible license and bloodshed. Men, women, and children were massacred, and worse than massacred, inthousands. The infuriated troops fought one with the other for thepossession of the spoil, and the luckless Christians of the Kasabawere cut down by their deliverers in the struggle for Kheyr-ed-dīn’streasures. The streets became shambles, the houses dens of murder andshame: the very Catholic chroniclers admit the abominable outragescommitted by the licentious and furious soldiery of the greatEmperor. It is hard to remember that almost at the very time whenGerman and Spanish and Italian men-at-arms were outraging andslaughtering helpless, innocent people in Tunis, who had taken littleor no hand in Kheyr-ed-dīn’s wars and had accepted his authoritywith reluctance, the Grand Vezīr Ibrahīm was entering Baghdād andTebrīz as a conqueror at the head of wild Asiatic troops, and not ahouse nor a human being was molested. Fas est et ab hostedoceri.

Sofar as Tunis was concerned the expedition of Charles V. was fruitless. Before he sailed in August he made a treaty with Hasan, which stipulated for tribute to Spain, the possession of the Golettaby the crown of Castile, the freeing of Christian slaves, thecessation of piracy, and the payment of homage by anannual tribute of six Moorish barbs and twelve falcons; and he andthe Moor duly swore it on Cross and sword. But the treaty was so muchparchment wasted. No Moslem prince who had procured his restorationby such means as Hasan had used, who had spilt Moslem blood withChristian weapons and ruined Moslem homes by the sacrilegiousatrocities of “infidel” soldiers, and had bound himself thevassal of “idolatrous” Spain, could hope to keep his throne long. He was an object of horror and repulsion to the people upon whom hehad brought this awful calamity, and so fierce was their scorn of thetraitor to Islam that the story is told of a Moorish girl in theclutch of the soldiers, who, when the restored King of Tunis soughtto save her, spat in his face; anything was better than the dishonourof his protection. Hasan pretended to reign for five years, but thecountry was in arms, holy Kayrawān would have nothing to say to agovernor who owed his throne to infidel ravishers; Imperial troops invain sought to keep him there; Doria himself succeeded only for a brief while in reducing the coast towns to the wretched prince’s authority; and in 1540 Hasan was imprisoned and blinded by his son Hamīd, and none can pity him. The coast was in the possession of the Corsairs, and, as we shall see, even the Spaniards were forced erelong to abandon the Goletta.

Nevertheless, the expedition to Tunis was a feat of which Europe was proud. Charles V. seldom suffered from depreciation of his exploits, and, as Morganquaintly says, “I have never met with that Spaniard inmy whole life, who, I am persuaded, would not have bestowed on me atleast forty Boto a Christo’s, had I pretended to assert Charles V. not to have held this wholeuniversal globe in a string for four-and-twenty hours; and then it broke: though none had ever the good nature or manners to inform or correctmy ignorance in genuine history, by letting me into the secret when that critical and slippery period of time was.” Naturally admirers so thoroughgoing made the most of the conquest of Tunis, the reduction of the formidable Goletta, the release of thousands of Christian captives, and, above all, the discomfiture of that scourgeof Christendom, Barbarossa himself. Poets sang of it, apainter-in-ordinary depicted the siege, a potter at Urbino burnt thescene into his vase; all Europe was agog with enthusiasm at the feat. Charles posed as a crusader and a knight-errant, and commemorated hisgallant deeds and those of his gentlemen by creating a new order ofchivalry, the Cross of Tunis, with the motto “Barbaria,” of whichhowever we hear no more. Altogether “it was a famous victory.”

Thejoy of triumph was sadly marred by the doings of Kheyr-ed-dīn. Thatincorrigible pirate, aware that no one would suspect that he could beroving while Charles was besieging his new kingdom, took occasion toslip over to Minorca with his twenty-seven remaining galleots; andthere, flying Spanish and other false colours, deceived the islandersinto the belief that his vessels were part of the Armada; upon whichhe rowed boldly into[Pg 93] PortMahon, seized a rich Portuguese galleon, sacked the town, and, ladenwith six thousand captives and much booty and ammunition, led hisprize back in triumph to Algiers. In the meanwhile Doria wasassiduously hunting for him with thirty galleys, under the emperor’sexpress orders to catch him dead or alive. The great Genoese had towait yet three years for his long-sought duel.

Having accomplished its object, the Armada, as usual, broke up wit houtmaking a decisive end of the Corsairs. Kheyr-ed-dīn, waiting atAlgiers in expectation of attack, heard the news gladly, and, whenthe coast was clear, sailed back to Constantinople forreinforcements. He never saw Algiers again.

1537

WhenBarbarossa returned to Constantinople Tunis was forgotten and Minorca alone called to mind: instead of the title of Beglerbeg of Algiers, the Sultan saluted him as Capudan Pasha or High Admiral of theOttoman fleets. There was work to be done in the Adriatic, and nonewas fitter to do it than the great Corsair. Kheyr-ed-dīn hadacquired an added influence at Stambol since the execution of the Grand Vezīr Ibrahīm, and he used it in exactly the opposite direction. Ibrahīm, a Dalmatian by birth, had always striven to maintain friendly relations with Venice, his native state, and for more than thirty years there had been peace between the Republic and the Porte. Barbarossa, on the contrary, longed to pit his galleys against the most famous of the maritime nations of the Middle Ages, and to make the Crescent as supreme in the waters of the Adriatic as it was in the Aegean. Francis I. was careful to support this policy out of his jealousy of the Empire. The Venetians, anxious to keep on good terms with the Sultan, and to hold a neutral position between Francis and Charles V., found themselves gradually committed to a war, and by their own fault. Their commanders in the Adriatic and at Candia were unable to resistthe temptation of chasing Ottoman merchantmen. Canale, the Proveditore of Candia, caught a noted Corsair, the “Young Moor of Alexander,” as his victims called him, sunk or captured his galleys, killed his Janissaries, and severely wounded the young Moorhimself; — and all this in Turkish waters, on Turkish subjects, andin time of peace. Of course when the too gallant Proveditore came tohis senses and perceived his folly, he patched the young Moor’swounds and sent him tenderly back to Algiers: but the Sultan’s irewas already roused, and when Venetian galleys actually gave chase toa ship that carried a Turkish ambassador, no apologies that the Signoria offered could wipe out the affront. War was inevitable, and Venice hastily made common cause with the Pope and the Emperor against the formidable host which now advanced upon the Adriatic.

Before this, some stirring actions had been fought off the coasts of Greece. Doria, sallying forth from Messina, had met the governor of Gallipoli off Paxos, and had fought him before daybreak. Standing erect on the poop, conspicuous in his cramoisy doublet, the tall figure of the old admiral was seen for an hour and a half directing the conflict, swordin hand, an easy mark for sharpshooters, as a wound in the kneereminded him. After a severe struggle the twelve galleys of the enemy were captured and carried in triumph to Messina. Barbarossa was sorely wanted now, and in May, 1537, he sailed wit hone hundred and thirty-five galleys to avenge the insult. For a whole month he laid waste the Apulian coast like a pestilence, and carriedoff ten thousand slaves, while Doria lay helpless with a far inferiorforce in Messina roads. The Turks were boasting that they might soonset up a Pope of their own, when the war with Venice broke out, andthey were called off from their devastation of Italy by the Sultan’scommand to besiege Corfu. The Ionian islands were always a bone ofcontention between the Turks and their neighbours, and a war withVenice naturally began with an attack upon Corfu. The Senate had shutits eyes as long as possible to the destination of the huge armamentswhich had left Constantinople in the spring: Tunis, or perhapsNaples, was said to be their object. But now they were undeceived, and on the 25th of August, Captain Pasha Barbarossa landedtwenty-five thousand men and thirty cannon under Lutfi Pasha, threemiles from the castle of Corfu. Four days later the Grand VezīrAyās, with twenty-five thousand more and a brilliant staff, joinedthe first-comers, and the Akinji or light troops spread fire andsword around. A fifty-pounder fired nineteen shots in three days, butonly five struck the fortress: the Turks fired too high, and many of their missiles fell harmlessly into the sea beyond. In spite of storm and rain the Grand Vezīr would not desist from making the round ofthe trenches by night. Suleymān offered liberal terms ofcapitulation, but the besieged sent back his messenger with never ananswer. Alexandro Tron worked the big guns of the castle withterrible precision. Two galleys were quickly sunk, four men were killed in the trenches by a single shot — a new and alarming experience in those early days of gunnery — four times the Fort of St. Angelo was attacked in vain; winter was approaching, and the Sultan determined to raise the siege. In vain Barbarossa remonstrated: “A thousand such castles were not worth the life ofone of his brave men,” said the Sultan, and on the 17th of September the troops began to re-embark

Then began a scene of devastation such as the isles of Greece have too often witnessed, — not from Turks only, but from Genoese andVenetians, who also came to the Archipelago for their oarsmen, — butnever perhaps on so vast a scale. Butrinto was burnt, Paxosconquered, and then Barbarossa carried fire and sword throughout theAdriatic and the Archipelago. With seventy galleys and thirty galleots, he raged among the islands, most of which belonged to noblefamilies of Venice — the Venieri, Grispi, Pisani, Quirini. Syra, Skyros, Aegina, Paros, Naxos, Tenos, and other Venetian possessions were overwhelmed, and thousands of their people carried off to pull aTurkish oar. Naxos contributed five thousand dollars as her first year’s tribute; Aegina furnished six thousand slaves. Many trophies did Barbarossa bring home to Stambol, whose riches certainly did his own and the Sultan’s, if not “the general coffer, fill.” Fourhundred thousand pieces of gold, a thousand girls, and fifteen hundred boys, were useful resources when he returned to “rub his countenance against the royal stirrup.” Two hundred boys in scarlet, bearing gold and silver bowls; thirty more laden with purses; two hundred with rolls of fine cloth: such was the present with which the High Admiral approached the Sultan’spresence

Suleymān’ sgenius was at that time bent upon three distinct efforts: he was carrying on a campaign in Moldavia; his Suez fleet — a novelty in Ottoman history — was invading the Indian Ocean, with no very tangible result, it is true (unless a trophy of Indian ears and nosesmay count), save the conquest of Aden on the return voyage, but stilla notable exploit, and disturbing to the Portuguese in Gujerat; and his High Admiral was planning the destruction of the maritime powe rof Venice.

In the summer of 1538, Barbarossa put off to sea, and soon had one hundred and fifty sail under his command. He began by collectin growers and tribute from the islands, twenty-five of which had now been transferred from the Venetian to the Turkish allegiance, and then laid waste eighty villages in Candia. Here news was brought thatthe united fleet of the Emperor, Venice, and the Pope was cruising in the Adriatic, and the Captain Pasha hastened to meet it. The pick of the Corsairs was with him. Round his flagship were ranged the galleys of Dragut, Murād Reïs, Sinān, Sālih Reïs with twenty Egyptian vessels, and others, to the number of one hundred and twenty-two ships of war. The advance guard sighted part of the enemy off Prevesa — a Turkish fortress opposite the promontory of Arta or Actium, where Antony suffered his memorable defeat.

COMPASSOF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. (Juriende la Gravière.)

The Christian strength was really overwhelming. Eighty Venetian, thirty-six Papal, and thirty Spanish galleys, together with fifty sailing galleons, made up a formidable total of nearly two hundred ships of war, and they carried scarcely less than sixty thousand men, and two thousand five hundred guns. Doria was in chief command, and Capello and Grimani led the Venetian and Roman contingents. Barbarossa had fortunately received but an imperfect report of the enemy’s strength and so boldly pursued his northerly course up the Adriatic. When he reached Prevesa, the combined fleets had gone on to Corfu, and he was able to enter unopposed the spacious gulf of Arta, where all the navies of the world might safely anchor and defypursuit.

On September 25th, the allied fleets appeared off the entrance to the gulf, and then for the first time Barbarossa realized his immensegood fortune in being the first in the bay. Outnumbered as he was, afight 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. The danger was that Doria might disembark his guns and attack from the shores of the gulf, and to meet this risk some of the Turkish captains insisted on landing their men and trying to erect earthworks for their protection; but the fire from the Christian ships soon stopped this manoeuvre. Barbarossa had neverexpected Doria to hazard a landing, and he was right. The old admiralof Charles V. was not likely to expose his ships to the risk of asally from the Turks just when he had deprived them of the men andguns that could alone defend them.

Thetwo fleets watched each other warily. Doria and Barbarossa had atlast come face to face for a great battle, but, strange as it mayseem, neither cared to begin: Barbarossa was conscious of seriousnumerical inferiority; Doria was anxious for the safety of his fiftybig sailing vessels, on the heavy artillery of which he most relied, but which a contrary wind might drive to destruction on the hostilecoast. As it was, his guideship on the extreme left had but a fathomof water under her keel. Each felt keenly the weighty responsibilityof his position, and even the sense that now at last the decisive dayof their long rivalry had come could not stir them from their policyof prudence. Moreover, it was no longer a question of the prowess ofhot-blooded youth: Doria and Barbarossa and Capello were all men ofnearly seventy years, and Doria was certainly not the man he oncewas; politics had spoilt him.

Sothe two great admirals waited and eyed each other’s strength. WillBarbarossa come out? Or must Doria risk the passage of the bar andforce his way in to the encounter? Neither event happened: but on themorning of the 27th the Corsairs rubbed their eyes to feel if theywere asleep, as they saw the whole magnificentnavy of Christendom, anchor a-peak, sailing slowly andmajestically — away! Werethe Christians afraid? Anyhow no one, not even Barbarossa, could holdthe Turks back now. Out they rushed in hot pursuit, not thinking orcaring — save their shrewd captain — whether this were not a feint of Doria’s to catch them in the open. “Get into line,” said Barbarossa to his captains, “and do as you see me do.” Draguttook the right wing, Sālih Reïs the left. Early on the 28th the Christian fleet was discovered at anchor, in a foul wind, off SantaMaura, thirty miles to the south. Doria was not at all prepared forsuch prompt pursuit, and eyed with anxiety the long battle line ofone hundred and forty galleys, galleots, and brigantines, bearingdown upon him before the wind. His ships were scattered, for thesails could not keep up with the oars, and Condulmiero’s huge Venetian carack was becalmed off Zuara, a long way behind, and other swere in no better plight. Three hours Doria hesitated, and then gavethe order to sail north and meet the enemy. Condulmiero was alreadyfiercely engaged, and soon his carack was a mere unrigged helmlesswaterlog, only saved from instant destruction by her immense size andterrific guns, which, well aimed, low on the water, to gainthe ricochet, did fearful mischief among the attacking galleys. Two galleons wereburnt to the water’s edge, and their crews took to the boats; athird, Boccanegra’s, lost her mainmast, and staggered a waycrippled. What was Doria about? The wind was now in his favour; theenemy was in front: but Doria continued to tack and manoeuvreat adistance. What he aimed at is uncertain: his colleagues Grimani andCapello went on board his flagship, and vehemently remonstrated withhim, and even implored him to depart and let them fight the battlewith their own ships, but in vain. He was bent on tactics, when whatwas needed was pluck; and tactics lost the day. The Corsairs took, itis true, only seven galleys and sailing vessels, but they held thesea. Doria sailed away in the evening for Corfu, and the whole alliedfleet followed in a gale of wind.

OBSERVATIONWITH THE ASTROLABE. (Juriende la Gravière.)

So, after all, the great duel was never fairly fought between thesea-rivals. Barbarossa was willing, but Doria held back: he preferredto show his seamanship instead of his courage. The result was ineffect a victory, a signal victory, for the Turks. Two hundredsplendid vessels of three great Christian states had fled before aninferior force of Ottomans; and it is no wonder that Sultan Suleymān, when he learnt the news at Yamboli, illuminated the town, and addedone hundred thousand aspres a year to the revenues of the conqueror.Barbarossa had once more proved to the world that the Turkish fleetwas invincible. The flag of Suleymān floated supreme in all thewaters of the Mediterranean Sea

1539—1546

Barbarossa’slife was drawing to a close, but in the eight years that remained heenhanced his already unrivalled renown. His first exploit afterPrevesa was the recapture of Castelnuovo, which the allied fleets hadseized in October, as some compensation on land for their humiliationat sea. The Turkish armies had failed to recover the fortress inJanuary, 1539; but in July Barbarossa went to the front as usual, with a fleet of two hundred galleys, large and small, and all hisbest captains; and, after some very pretty fighting in the Gulf ofCattaro, landed eighty-four of his heaviest guns and bombarded Castelnuovo, from three well-placed batteries. On August 7th, a sanguinary assault secured the first line of the defences; three dayslater the governor, Don Francisco Sarmiento, and his handful of Spaniards, surrendered to a final assault, and were surprised to find themselves chivalrously respected as honourable foes. Three thousand Spaniards had fallen, and eight thousand Turks, in the course of the siege.

One more campaign and Barbarossa’s feats are over. Great events were happening on the Algerine coasts, where we must return after too longan absence in the Levant and Adriatic: but first the order of yearsmust be neglected that we may see the last of the most famous of all the Corsairs. To make amends for the coldness of Henry VIII., FrancisI. was allied with the other great maritime power, Turkey, againstthe Emperor, in 1543; and the old sea rover actually brought hisfleet of one hundred and fifty ships to Marseilles. The French captains saluted the Corsair’s capitana, and the banner of Our Lady was lowered to be replaced by the Crescent. Well may a French admiral call this “the impious alliance.” On his way Barbarossa enjoyed a raid in quite his old style; burnt Reggio andcarried off the governor’s daughter; appeared off the Tiber, and terrified the people of Cività Vecchia; and in July entered the Gulfof Lyons in triumph. Here he found the young Duke of Enghien, François de Bourbon, commander of the French galleys, who receivedhim with all honour and ceremony.

GALLEYAT ANCHOR. (Juriende la Gravière.)

Barbarossahad hardly arrived when he discovered that his great expedition wasbut a fool’s errand. The King of France was afraid of attempting aserious campaign against the Emperor, and he was already ashamed ofhis alliance with the Musulmans: his own subjects — nay, allEurope — were crying shame. Barbarossa grew crimson with fury, andtore his white beard: he had not come with a vast fleet all the wayfrom Stambol to be made a laughing-stock. [Pg 109]Somethingmust evidentially be done to satisfy his honour, and Francis I. unwillingly gave orders for the bombardment of Nice. Accompanied by afeeble and ill-prepared French contingent, which soon ran short ofammunition—“Fine soldiers,” cried the Corsair, “to fill theirships with wine casks, and leave the powder barrelsbehind!”—Barbarossa descended upon the Gate of Italy. The citysoon surrendered, but the fort held out, defended by one of thoseinvincible foes of the Turk, a Knight of Malta, Paolo Simeoni, whohad himself experienced captivity at the hands of Barbarossa; and asthe French protested against sacking the town after capitulation onterms, and as Charles’s relieving army was advancing, the campswere broken up in confusion, and the fleets retired from Nice.

Thepeople of Toulon beheld a strange spectacle that winter. Thebeautiful harbour of Provence was allotted to the Turkish admiral forhis winter quarters. There, at anchor, lay the immense fleet of theGrand Signior; and who knew how long it might dominate the fairestprovince of France? There, turbaned Musulmans paced the decks andbridge, below and beside which hundreds of Christian slaves satchained to the bench and victims to the lash of the boatswain.Frenchmen were forced to look on, helplessly, while Frenchmen groanedin the infidels’ galleys, within the security of a French port. Thecaptives died by hundreds of fever during that winter, but noChristian burial was allowed them — even the bells that summon thepious to the Mass were silenced, for are they not “thedevil’s[Pg 110] musicalinstrument”?[37]—andthe gaps in the benches were filled by nightly raids among theneighbouring villages. It was ill sleeping around Toulon when theCorsair press-gangs were abroad. And to feed and pay these rapaciousallies was a task that went near to ruining the finances of France.

TheFrench were not satisfied of the Corsair’s fidelity, and it must beadded that the Emperor might have had some reason to doubt thehonesty of Doria. The two greatest admirals of the age were both inthe Western Mediterranean, but nothing could tempt them to come toblows. The truth was that each had a great reputation to lose, andeach preferred to go to his grave with all his fame undimmed. FrancisI. had a suspicion that Barbarossa was meditating the surrender ofToulon to the Emperor, and, improbable as it was, some colour wasgiven to the King’s anxiety by the amicable relations which seemedto subsist between the Genoese Corsair and his Barbary rival. Doriagave up the captive Dragut to his old captain for a ransom of threethousand gold crowns — a transaction on which he afterwards lookedback with unqualified regret. The situation was growing daily moreunpleasant for France. From his easy position in Toulon, Barbarossasent forth squadrons under Sālih Reïs and other commanders to laywaste the coasts of Spain, while he remained “lazily engaged inemptying the coffers of the French king.”

Atlast they got rid of him. Francis was[Pg 111] compelledto furnish the pay and rations of the whole crews and troops of theOttoman fleet up to their re-entry into the Bosphorus; he had to freefour hundred Mohammedan galley slaves and deliver them to Barbarossa; he loaded him with jewellery, silks, and other presents; the Corsairdeparted in a Corsair’s style, weighed down with spoil. Hishomeward voyage was one long harrying of the Italian coasts; hisgalley sailed low with human freight; and his arrival atConstantinople was the signal for the filling of all the harems ofthe great pashas with beautiful captives. Barbarossa, laden with suchgifts, was sure of his welcome.

Twoyears later he died, in July, 1546, an old man of perhaps nearninety, yet without surviving his great fame. “Valorous yetprudent, furious in attack, foreseeing in preparation,” he ranks asthe first sea captain of his time. “The chief of the sea is dead,“expressed in three Arabic words, gives the numerical value 953, theyear of the Hijra in which Kheyr-ed-dīn Barbarossa died.

Longafterwards no Turkish fleet left the Golden Horn without her crewrepeating a prayer and firing a salute over the tomb at Beshiktash, where lie the bones of the first great Turkish admiral.

1541

WhenBarbarossa left Algiers for ever in 1535 to become the High Admiralof the Ottoman Empire, the Corsairs lost indeed their chief; but somany of his captains remained behind that the game of sea roving wenton as merrily as ever. Indeed so fierce and ruthless were theirdepredations that the people of Italy and Spain and the islands beganto regret the attentions of so gentlemanly a robber as Barbarossa. His successor or viceroy at Algiers was a Sardinian renegade, Hasanthe Eunuch; but the chief commanders at sea were Dragut, Sālih Reïs, Sinān, and the rest, who, when not called to join the CaptainPasha’s fleet, pursued the art of piracy from the Barbary coast. Dragut (properly Torghūd) worked measureless mischief in theArchipelago and Adriatic, seized Venetian galleys and laid waste theshores of Italy, till he was caught by Giannettino Doria, nephew ofthe great admiral, while unsuspectingly engaged in dividing hisspoils on the Sardinian coast (1540). Incensed to find his vastempire perpetuallyharassed by foes so lawless and in numbers so puny, Charles theEmperor resolved to put down the Corsairs’ trade once and for ever. He had subdued Tunis in 1535, but piracy still went on. Now he wouldgrapple the head and front of the offence, and conquer Algiers.

Hehad no fears of the result; the Corsair city would fall at the meresight of his immense flotilla; and in this vainglorious assurance heset out in October, 1541. He even took Spanish ladies on board toview his triumph. The season for a descent on the African coast wasover, and every one knew that the chance of effecting anything beforethe winter storms should guard the coast from any floating enemy wasmore than doubtful; but “the Spaniards commonly move with gravity”; and besides, Charles had been delayed during a busy summer by histroubles in Germany and Flanders, and could not get away before.

Nowat last he was free; and, in spite of the earnest remonstrances ofDoria and the entreaties of the Pope, to Algiers he would go. Everything had long been prepared — a month, he believed, at theoutside would finish the matter — in short, go he would. At Spezziahe embarked on Doria’s flagship; the Duke of Alva, of sanguinarymemory, commanded the troops, many of whom had been brought by theEmperor himself from the German highlands. Ill-luck attended themfrom the outset: a storm, no unusual phenomenon with November comingon, drove the ships back into shelter at Corsica. At length the seassubsided, and the fleet, pickingup allies as it went along, cautiously hugged the land as far as Minorca, where the mistral, the terror of seamen, rushed down uponthe huge armada — masts strained, yards cracked, sails were torn torags, and there was nothing for it but to row — row for their livesand for Charles. They were but seven miles from Port Mahon, yet it took half the night to win there — an endless night which the pantingcrews never forgot.

In the bay of Palma, at Majorca, the fleet was assembled. There were the Emperor’s hundred sailing vessels carrying the German and Italian troops, commanded by such historic names as Colonna and Spinosa; there were Fernando Gonzago’s Sicilian galleys, and a hundred and fifty transports from Naples and Palermo; there were the fifty galleys of Bernadino de Mendoza, conveying two hundred transportswith the arms and artillery, and carrying the corps of gentlemenadventurers, mustered from the chivalry of Spain, and including one only who had climbed up from the ranks — but that one was Cortes, theconqueror of Mexico. Over five hundred sail, manned by twelvethousand men, and carrying a land force of twenty-four thousand soldiers, entered the roads of Algiers on October 19, 1541.

SIEGEOF ALGIERS, 1541. (Froma map in the British Museum.)

At last the great Emperor set eyes upon the metropolis of piracy. On the rocky promontory which forms the western crest of the crescent bay, high up the amphitheatre of hills, tier upon tier, in their narrowovershadowed lanes, the houses of the Corsairs basked in the autumnsun, crowned by the fortresswhich had known the imperious rule of two Barbarossas. On the rightwas the mole which Spanish slaves had built out of the ruins of theSpanish fort. Two gates fronted the south and north, the Bab Azūnand Bab-el-Wēd.

Avoidingthe promontory of Cashina, the galleys, with furled sails, drew upbefore the low strand, backed by stretches of luxuriant verdure, south of the city, and out of range, at the spot which is stillcalled the “Jardin d’essai.” A heavy swell prevented theirlanding for three days, but on the 23rd, in beautiful weather, thetroops disembarked. The Berbers and Arabs, who had lined the shoreand defied the invaders, hastily retired before the guns of thegalleys, and the Spaniards landed unopposed. The next day they beganthe march to the city some few miles off. The Spaniards formed theleft wing on the hill side; the Emperor and the Duke of Alva with theGerman troops composed the centre; the Italians and one hundred andfifty knights of Malta marched on the right by the seashore. Drivingback the straggling bands of mounted Arabs, who ambushed among therocks and ravines, and picked off many of the Christians, theinvaders pushed steadily on, till Algiers was invested on all sidessave the north. Its fate appeared sealed. A brief bombardment fromCharles’s heavy cannon, and the Spaniards would rush the breach andstorm the citadel. Hasan Aga, within, with only eight hundred Turks, and perhaps five thousand Arabs and Moors, must almost have regrettedthe proud reply he had just made to the Emperor’s summons tosurrender.

Then, when the end seemed close at hand, the forces of Nature came to therescue. The stars in their courses fought for Algiers: the rainsdescended and the winds blew and beat upon that army, till thewretched soldiers, with neither tents nor cloaks, with barelyfood — for the landing of the stores had hardly begun — standing allnight knee-deep in slush in that pinguid soil, soaked to the skin, frozen by the driving rain and bitter wind, were ready to drop withexhaustion and misery. When morning dawned they could scarcely bear up against the blustering gale; their powder was wet; and a sudden sally of the Turks spread a panic in the sodden ranks which neededall the courage and coolness of the Knights of Malta to compose. Atlast the enemy was driven out of the trenches and pursued, skirmishing all the way, to the Bab Azūn. It looked as though pursuers and pursued would enter together; but the gate was instantly shut, and a daring Knight of Malta had barely struck his dagger in the gate to defy the garrison, when the Christians found them selvesunder so heavy a fire from the battlements, that they were forced tobeat a retreat: the Knights of Malta, last of all, their scarletdoublets shining like a fresh wound, and their faces to the foe, covered the retreat.

Hasanthen led out his best horsemen from the gate, and driving their heelsinto their horses’ flanks, the cloud of Moslems poured down thehill. The Knights of Malta bore the shock with their iron firmness, though they lost heavily. The Italians ran for their lives. TheGermans whom Charles hurriedly despatched to the rescue came back atthe double with outdrawing a sword. The Emperor himself put on his armour, spurred his charger into the midst of the fugitives, sword in hand, and withvehement reproaches succeeded in shaming them into fight. “Come, gentlemen,” then said he to the nobles around, “forwards!” Andthus he led his dispirited troops once more to the field; this timethe panic alarm of the rank and file was controlled and banished bythe cool courage of the cavaliers, and the Turks were driven backinto the town. The skirmish had cost him three hundred men and adozen Knights of Malta. All that day the Emperor and his officers, great signiors all, stood at arms in the pouring rain, with the wateroozing from their boots, vigilantly alert.

Had Charles now run his ships ashore at all hazard, and dragged up his heavy siege train and stores and tents and ammunition, all might yetт have been won. But several precious days were wasted, and on the morning of the 25th such a storm sprang up as mortal mariner rarely encountered even off such a coast — a violent north-easterly hurricane — still known in Algiers as “Charles’s gale” — such as few vessels cared to ride off a lee shore. The immense flotilla in the bay was within an ace of total destruction. Anchors and cables were powerless to hold the crowded, jostling ships. One after the other they broke loose, and keeled over to the tempest till their decks were drowned in the seas. Planks gaped; broadside to broadside the helpless hulks crashed together. Many of the crews threw themselves madly on shore. In six hours one hundred and fifty ships sank. The rowers of the galleys, worn out with toiling at the oar, at last succumbed, and fifteen of the vessels ran on shore, only to be received by the Berbers of the hills, who ran their spears through the miserable shipwrecked sailors as soon as they gained the land.

The worst day must come to an end: on the morrow the storm was over, and Doria, who had succeeded in taking the greater part of the fleet out to sea, came back to see what new folly was in hand. He was indignant with the Emperor for having rejected his advice and so led the fleet and army into such peril; he was disgusted with his captains, who had completely lost their coolness in the hurricane, and wanted to run their vessels ashore, with the certainty of wreck, sooner than ride out the storm — and yet called themselves sailors!

He found Charles fully aware of the necessity for a temporary retreat, till the army should be revictualled and reclothed. The camp wasstruck: the Emperor himself watched the operation, standing at thedoor of his tent in a long white cassock, murmuring quietly the Christian’s consolation: “Thy will be done” — Fiat voluntasTua! Baggage and ordnance were abandoned; the horses of the field artillery were devoured by the hungry troops; and then themarch began.

To retreat at all is humiliation, but to retreat as this luckless armydid was agony. Deep mud clogged their weary feet; when a halt wascalled they could but rest on their halberts, to lie down was to besuffocated in filth; mountain torrents swollen breast-high had to becrossed, the wading men were washed away till they built a rude bridge — O crowning humiliation! — out of thewreckage of their own ships. Hasan and a multitude of Turks and Arabs hung forever on their flanks. The dejected Italians, who had no stomach for this sort of work, fell often into the hands of the pursuers; the Germans, who could do nothing without their customaryinternal stuffing, were mere impedimenta; and only thelean Spaniard covered the retreat with something of his naturalcourage.

At last the dejected army reached the Bay of Temendefust (Matifoux),where the remains of the fleet were lying at anchor. It was resolved, in view of the approach of winter and the impossibility of sendingsupplies to an army in stormy weather, to reëmbark. Cortes in vainprotested: the council of war agreed that it was too late in the yearto attempt retaliation. Then a new difficulty arose: how was room tobe found in a flotilla, which had lost nearly a third of its ships, for an army which was but a couple of thousand less than when itlanded? Regretfully Charles gave orders for the horses to be castinto the sea, and, despite their masters’ entreaties, favouritechargers of priceless value were slaughtered and thrown overboard.The famous breed of Spanish horses was well-nigh ruined. It was butone tragedy more. On the 2nd of November most of the troops were onboard. Charles resolved to be the last to leave the strand; but thewind was getting up, the sea rising, and at last he gave the order toweigh anchor. Often is the story told in Algiers how the greatEmperor, who would fain hold Europe in the palm [Pg 122] ofhis hand, sadly took the crown from off his head and casting it intothe sea said, “Go, bauble: let some more fortunate prince redeemand wear thee.”

Hedid not sail a moment too soon. A new and terrific storm burst forth.The ships were driven hither and thither. Where the tempest drovethem, there they helplessly wandered, and many men died from famineand exposure. Some of the Spanish vessels were wrecked at Algiers, and their crews and troops were sent to the bagnios. Charles himselfand Doria arrived safely at Bujēya — then a Spanish outpost — withpart of the flotilla. Here the unexpected visitors soon caused afamine — and still the tempest raged. The half-starved rovers in vaintried to make head against the waves, and carry the Emperor back toSpain: eighty miles out they gave in, and the ships returneddisconsolately to the harbour. Twelve days and nights the storm bellowed along the treacherous coast, and not till November 23rdcould the Imperial fleet set sail for the coast of Spain.

There was mourning in Castile that Yuletide. Besides eight thousand rank and file, three hundred officers of birth had fallen victims to the storm or the Moorish lance. Algiers teemed with Christian captives, and it became a common saying that a Christian slave was scarce a fair barter for an onion.

Soended this famous expedition. It was begun in glory, and ended inshame. The whole of Christendom, one might say — for there wereEnglish knights there, like Sir Thomas Challoner, as well as Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians in the army — had goneforth to destroy a nest of pirates, and behold, by the fury of theelements and the foolishness of their own counsels, they were almostdestroyed themselves. They had left behind them ships and men andstores and cannon: worse, they had left Algiers stronger and moredefiant than ever.

The Algerines, for their part, never forgot the valour of the Knights of Malta, and the spot where they made their stand is still called “The Grave of the Knights.” High up on the hillside may be seen “the Emperor’s Castle,” which marks the traditional place where Charles’ great pavilion was pitched on the morning of the fatal23rd of October.

“The climate of Africa” — it is the caustic comment of Admiral Jurien dela Gravière — “was evidently unsuited to deeds of chivalry.”

1543—1560

Thename of Dragut has already occurred more than once in this history: it was destined to become as notorious as Barbarossa’s as thecentury advanced. Dragut — or Torghūd — was born on the Caramaniancoast opposite the island of Rhodes. Unlike many of his colleagues heseems to have been the son of Mohammedan parents, tillers of the earth. Being adventurous by nature, he took service as a boy in the Turkish fleet and became “a good pilot and a most excellentgunner.” At last he contrived to purchase and man a galleot, with which he cruised the waters of the Levant, where his intimateacquaintance with all the coasts and islands enabled him to seize anddispose of many prizes. Kheyr-ed-dīn Barbarossa soon came to hear ofhis exploits, and welcomed him heartily when he came to pay hisrespects at Algiers, in so far that he gave him the conduct ofvarious expeditions and eventually appointed him his lieutenant with the command of twelve galleys. “From thenceforward this redoubtableCorsair passed not one summer without ravaging the coasts of Naples and Sicily: nor durst any Christian vessels attempt to passbetween Spain and Italy; for if they offered it, he infalliblysnapped them up: and when he missed any of his prey at sea, he madehimself amends by making descents along the coasts, plunderingvillages and towns, and dragging away multitudes of inhabitants intocaptivity.”

CASTLEOF JERBA. (EliséeReclus.)

In 1540, as we have seen, Dragut was caught by Giannettino Doria, whomade him a present to his great kinsman Andrea, on whose galleys hewas forced to toil in chains. La Valette, afterwards Grand Master ofMalta, who had once pulled the captive’s oar on Barbarossa’sships and knew Dragut well, one day saw the ex-Corsair straining on the galley bank: “Señor Dragut,” said he, “usanzade guerra! — ‘tisthe custom of war!’ And the prisoner, remembering his visitor’sformer apprenticeship, replied cheerfully, ‘Ymudanza de fortuna — achange of luck!’ He did not lose heart, and in 1543 Barbarossa ransomed him for 3000 crowns, andmade him chief of the galleys of the western Corsairs. Imprisonment had sharpened his appetite for Christians, and he harried the Italian coasts with more than his ancient zeal. Surrounded by bold spiritsand commanding a fleet of his own, Dragut had the Mediterranean inhis grasp, and even ventured to seize the most dreaded of all foes, a Maltese galley, wherein he found 70,000 ducats intended for therepair of the fortifications of Tripoli, which then belonged to” the Religion.\

“As the Turkish annalist says, “Torghūd had become the drawn swordof Islam.”

Dragut’slair was at the island of Jerba, which tradition links with thelotus-eaters, perhaps because of the luxuriant fertility of the soil.The people of Jerba, despite their simple agricultural pursuits, wereimpatient of control, and, as often as not, were independent of theneighbouring kingdom of Tunis or any other state. Here, with orwithout their leave, Dragut took up his position, probably in thevery castle which Roger Doria, when lord of the island, began tobuild in 1289; and from out the wide lake at the back the Corsair’s galleots issued to ravage the lands which were under the protection of Roger Doria’s descendants. Not content with the rich spoils ofEurope, Dragut took the Spanish outposts in Africa, one by one — Susa, Sfax, Monastir; and finally set forth to conquer “Africa.”

SIEGEOF “AFRICA,” 1390. (Froma MS.)

Itis not uncommon in Arabic to call a country and its capital by thesame name. Thus Misr meant and still means both Egypt and Cairo; El-Andalus, both Spain and Cordova. Similarly “Africa” meant tothe Arabs the province of Carthage or Tunis and its capital, whichwas not at first Tunis but successively Kayrawān and Mahdīya.Throughout the later middle ages the name “Africa” is applied byChristian writers to the latter city. Here it was that in 1390 a“grand and noble enterprize” came to an untimely end. “TheGenoese,” says Froissart, “bore great enmity to this town; forits Corsairs frequently watched them at sea, and when strongest fellon and plundered their ships, carrying their spoils tothis townof Africa, which was and is now their place of deposit and may becalled their warren.” It was “beyond measure strong, surroundedby high walls, gates, and deep ditches.”

The chivalry ofChristendom hearkened to the prayer of the Genoese and the people ofMajorca and Sardinia and Ischia, and the many islands that groanedbeneath the Corsairs’ devastations; the Duke of Bourbon tookcommand of an expedition (at the cost of the Genoese) which includednames as famous as the Count d’Auvergne, the Lord de Courcy, SirJohn de Vienne, the Count of Eu, and our own Henry of Beaufort; andon St. John Baptist’s Day, with much pomp, with flying banners andthe blowing of trumpets, they sailed on three hundred galleys forBarbary. Arrived before Africa, not without the hindrance of a storm, they beheld the city in the form of a bow, reaching out its arms tothe sea; high were its ramparts; and a colossal tower, armed with stone-projectiles, guarded the harbour. Nevertheless the Knights landed in good heart, after a cup of Grecian or Malmsey wine, on the Vigil of Magdalen Day (July 22nd), unopposed, and each great lord set up his pennon beforehis tent over against the fortress, with the Genoese crossbows on theright. Here they remained nine weeks. The Saracens never offeredbattle, but harassed the enemy with their skirmishers, who firedtheir arrows, then dropped down behind their targets of Cappadocianleather to avoid the enemy’s return volley; then, risingagain, casttheir javelins with deadly aim. What was to be done? The Duke ofBourbon spent his time in sitting crosslegged before his tent; thenobles and knights had plenty of excellent wine and food; but it wasvery hot and uncomfortable — the assault had failed — many had died — the Genoese wanted to get their galleys back safe in port before the autumn gales came on; so they packed up their baggage, andre-embarked, blowing their horns and beating their drums for very joy.

This was the city which Dragut took without a blow in the spring of 1550. Mahdīya was then in an anarchic state, ruled by a council of chiefs, each ready to betray the other, and none owing the smallest allegiance to any king, least of all the despised king of Tunis, Hamīd, who had deposed and blinded his father Hasan, CharlesV.‘s protégé. One of these chiefs let Dragut and his merry men into the city by night, and the inhabitants woke up to find “Africa” in the possession of the bold Corsair whose red andwhite ensign, displaying a blue crescent, floated from the battlements.

Soeasy a triumph roused the emulation of Christendom. Where the Duke ofBourbon had failed, Dragut had conspicuously succeeded. Don Garcia deToledo dreamed of outshining the Corsair’s glory. His father, theViceroy of Naples, the Pope, and others, promised their aid, and oldAndrea Doria took the command. After much delay and consultation alarge body of troops was conveyed to Mahdīya, and disembarked onJune 28, 1550. Dragut, thoughaware of the project, was at sea, devastating the Gulf of Genoa, andpaying himself in advance for any loss the Christians might inflictin Africa: his nephew, Hisār Reïs commanded in the city. WhenDragut returned, the siege had gone on for a month, without result; atremendous assault had been repulsed with heavy loss to thebesiegers, who were growing disheartened. The Corsair assembled abody of Moors and Turks and attempted to relieve the fortress; buthis ambuscade failed, Hisār’s simultaneous sally was driven back, and Dragut, seeing that he could do nothing, fled to Jerba. Hisretreat gave fresh energy to the siege, and a change of attack discovered the weak places of the defence. A vigorous assault on the8th of September carried the walls, a brisk street fight ensued, and the strong city of “Africa” was in the hands of the Christians.

The Sultan, Suleymān the Great, was little pleased to see a Moslemfortress summarily stormed by the troops of his ally, the Emperor.Charles replied that he had fought against pirates, not against theSultan’s vassals; but Suleymān could not perceive the distinction, and emphasized his disapproval by giving Dragut twenty galleys, whichsoon found their way to Christian shores. The lamentations of hisvictims roused Doria, who had the good fortune to surprise theCorsair as he was greasing his keels in the strait behind Jerba. Thisstrait was virtually a cul-de-sac. Between the island and the great lake that lay behind it, the sea had worn a narrow channel on the northern side, through which light vessels could pass, withcare; but to go out of the lake by the souther nside involved a voyage over what was little better than a bog, and noone ever thought of the attempt. Doria saw he had his enemy in atrap, and was in no hurry to venture in among the shoals and narrowsof the strait. He sent joyous messages to Europe, announcing histriumph, and cautiously, as was his habit, awaited events.

Dragut, for his part, dared not push out against a vastly superior force; his only chance was a ruse. Accordingly, putting a bold face on the matter, he manned a small earthwork with cannon, and played upon the enemy, with little or no actual injury, beyond the all-importanteffect of making Doria hesitate still more. Meanwhile, in the night, while his little battery is perplexing the foe, all is prepared at the southern extremity of the strait. Summoning a couple of thousand field labourers, he sets them to work; here a small canal isdug — there rollers come into play; and in a few hours his smallfleet is safely transported to the open water on the south side ofthe island. Calling off his men from the illusive battery, theCorsair is off for the Archipelago: by good luck he picks up a finegalley on the way, which was conveying news of the reinforcementscoming to Doria. The old Genoese admiral never gets the message: heis rubbing his eyes in sore amazement, wondering what had happened tothe imprisoned fleet. Never was admiral more cruelly cheated: neverdid Doria curse the nimble Corsair with greater vehemence or bettercause.

Nextyear, 1551, Dragut’s place was with the Ottoman navy, thencommanded by Sinān Pasha. He hadhad enough of solitary roving, and found it almost too exciting: henow preferred to hunt in couples. With nearly a hundred and fiftygalleys or galleots, ten thousand soldiers, and numerous siege guns, Sinān and Dragut sailed out of the Dardanelles — whither bound no Christian could tell. They ravaged, as usual, the Straits of Messina, and then revealed the point of attack by making direct for Malta. TheKnights of St. John were a perpetual thorn in the side of the Turks, and even more vexatious to the Corsairs, whose vessels they, and theyalone, dared to tackle single-handed, and too often with success.Sultan and Corsair were alike eager to dislodge the Knights from therock which they had been fortifying for twenty years, just asSuleymān had dislodged them from Rhodes, which they had beenfortifying for two hundred. In July the Turkish fleet appeared beforethe Marsa, wholly unexpected by the Knights. The Turks landed on thetongue of promontory which separates the two great harbours, andwhere there was as yet no Fort St. Elmo to molest them. Sinān wastaken aback by the strong aspect of the fortress of St. Angelo on the further side of the harbour, and almost repented of his venture. To complete his dejection, he seems to have courted failure. Instead of boldly throwing his whole force upon the small garrison and over whelming them by sheer weight, he tried a reconnaissance, andfell into an ambuscade; upon which he incontinently abandoned allthought of a siege, and contented himself with laying waste theinterior of Malta, and taking the adjacent island of Goza.

The quantity of booty he would bring back to Constantinople might perhaps avail, he thought, to keep his head on his shoulders, after soconspicuous a failure; but Sinān preferred not to trust to the chance. To wipe out his defeat, he sailed straight for Tripoli, some sixty-four leagues away. Tripoli was the natural antidote to Malta: for Tripoli, too, belonged to the Knights of St. John — much against their will — inasmuch as the Emperor had made their defence of this easternmost Barbary state a condition of their tenure of Malta. Sofar they had been unable to put it into a proper state of defence, and with crumbling battlements and a weak garrison, they had yearly expected invasion. The hour had now come. Summoned to surrender, the Commandant, Gaspard de Villiers, of the Auvergne Tongue, replied that the city had been entrusted to his charge, and he would defend it to the death. He had but four hundred men to hold the fort withal.

Six thousand Turks disembarked, forty cannons were landed, Sinān himself directed every movement, and arranged his batteries and earthworks. Aheavy cannonade produced no effect on the walls, and the Turkishadmiral thought of the recent repulse at Malta, and of the stern face of his master; and his head sat uneasily upon his neck. The siegeappeared to make no progress. Perhaps this venture, too, would have failed, but for the treachery of a French renegade, who escaped in to the trenches and pointed out the weak places in the walls. Hiscounsel was taken; the walls fell down; the garrison, in wearinessand despair, had lain down to sleep off their troubles, and no reproaches and blows could rouse them. On August 15th Gaspard de Villiers was forced to surrender, on terms, as he believed, identical with those which Suleymān granted to the Knights of Rhodes. But Sinān was no Suleymān; moreover, he was in a furious rage with the whole Order. He put the garrison — all save a few — in chains, and carried them off to grace his triumph at Stambol.

Thus did Tripoli fall once more into the hands of the Moslems, forty-one years after its conquest by the Count Don Pedro Navarro.

Them is fortunes of the Christians did not end here. Year after year the Ottoman fleet appeared in Italian waters, marshalled now by Sinān, and when he died by Piāli Pasha the Croat, but always with Dragut in the van; year by year the coasts of Apulia and Calabria yielded up more and more of their treasure, their youth, and their beauty, to the Moslem ravishers; yet worse was in store. Unable as they felt them selves to cope with the Turks at sea, the Powers of Southern Europe resolved to strike one more blow on land, and recover Tripoli. A fleet of nearly a hundred galleys and ships, gathered from Spain, Genoa, “the Religion,” the Pope, from all quarters, with the Dukede Medina-Celi at the head, assembled at Messina. Doria was too old to command, but his kinsman, Giovanni Andrea, son of his loved and lost Giannettino, led the Genoese galleys. The Fates seemed adverse from the outset. Five times the expedition put to sea; five times was it driven back by contrary winds. At last, on February 10, 1560, it was fairly away for the African coast. Here fresh troubles awaited it. Long delays in crowded vessels had produced their disastrous effects: fevers and scurvy and dysentery were working their terrible ravages among the crews, and two thousand corpses were flung into the sea. It was impossible to lay siege to Tripoli with a diseased army, and when actually in sight of their object the admirals gave orders to return to Jerba.

Asudden descent quickly gave them the command of the beautiful island. The Arab sheykh whose people cultivated it was as ready to pay tribute to the Spaniard as to the Corsair. Medina-Celi and his troops accordingly set to work undisturbed at the erection of a fortress strong enough to baffle the besieging genius even of the Turks. In two months a strong castle was built, with all scientific earth works, and the admiral prepared to carry home such troops as were not needed for its defence.

Unhappily for him, he had lingered too long. He had wished to see the defences complete, and had trusted to the usual practice of the Turks, not to put to sea before May was advanced. He was about to prepare for departure when news came that the Turkish fleet had been seen atGoza. Instantly all was panic. Valiant gentlemen forgot their valour, forgot their coolness, forgot how strong a force by sea or land theymustered: one thought alone was uppermost — the Turks were upon them! Giovanni Doria hurried on board and embarked his Genoese; Medina-Celimore methodically and with something like sangfroid personally supervised the embarcation of his men; but before they could make out of the strait, where Dragut had sonarrowly escaped capture, the dread Corsair himself, and Ochiali, and Piāli Pasha were upon them. Then ensued a scene of confusion that baffles description. Despairing of weathering the north side of Jerbathe panic-stricken Christians ran their ships ashore, and desertedthem, never stopping even to set them on fire. The deep-draught galleons stuck fast in the shallow water. On rowed the Turks; galley sand galleons to the number of fifty-six fell into their hands; eighteen thousand Christians bowed down before their scimitars; thebeach, on that memorable 11th of May, 1560, was a confused medley ofstranded ships, helpless prisoners, Turks busy in looting men andgalleys — and a hideous heap of mangled bodies. The fleet and thearmy which had sailed from Messina but three months ago in suchgallant array were absolutely lost. It was a dies nefas forChristendom.

Medina-Celiand young Doria made good their escape by night. But when the oldGenoese admiral learnt the terrible news, the loss of the fleet heloved, the defeat of the nephew he loved yet more, his dim eyes werewet. “Take me to the church,” he said; and he soon received thelast consolations of religion. Long as he had lived, and many as hadbeen the vicissitudes of his great career, he had willingly beenspared this last most miserable experience. On November 25, 1560, hegave up the ghost: he was a great seaman, but still more a passionatelover of his country; —despotic in his love, but not the less anoble Genoese patriot.

1565

WhenSultan Suleymān reflected on the magnanimity which he had displayedtowards the Knights of Rhodes in allowing them to depart in peace in1522, his feelings must have resembled those of Doria when he thoughtof that inconsiderate release of Dragut in 1543. Assuredly the royalclemency had been ill-rewarded; the Knights had displayed a singularform of gratitude to the sparer of their lives; they had devotedthemselves to him, indeed, but devoted themselves to his destruction.The cavaliers whom Charles V. suffered to perch on the glaring whiterock of Malta, in 1530, proved in no long time to be a pest asvirulent and all-pervading as even Rhodes had harboured. Sevengalleys they owned, and never more, but the seven were royal vessels, splendidly armed and equipped, and each a match for two or threeTurkish ships. Everyyear they cruised from Sicily to the Levant, and many a prizeladen withprecious store they carried off to Malta. The commerce of Egypt andSyria was in danger of annihilation; the Barbary Corsairs, evenDragut himself, shunned a meeting with the red galleys of “theReligion,” or their black capitana; and the Turkish fleet, while holding undisputed sway over theMediterranean, was not nimble enough to surprise the Maltese squadronin its rapid and incalculable expeditions. Jean de la ValetteParisot, General of the Galleys and afterwards Grand Master, Francisof Lorraine, Grand Prior of France, Romegas, prince ofknights-errant, scoured the seas in search of prey: — they were astrue pirates as ever weathered the “white squall.” The Knightslived by plunder as much as any Corsair; but they tempered theirfreebooting with chivalry and devotions; they were the protectors ofthe helpless and afflicted, and they preyed chiefly upon the enemiesof the Faith.

Meanwhilethey built and built; Fort St. Elmo rose on the central promontory, Forts St. Michael and St. Angelo were strengthened; bastions wereskilfully planned, flanking angles devised, ravelins and cavalierserected, ditches deepened, parapets raised, embrasures opened, andevery device of sixteenth-century fortification as practised byMaster Evangelista, chief engineer of the Order, was brought intouse. For the Knights knew that Suleymān lived and was mightier thanever. Their cruisers had wrought sad havoc among his subjects, andthe Sultan would not long suffer the hornets of Rhodes to swarm atMalta. They lived in constant expectation of attack, and they spentall their strength and all their money[Pg 143] inpreparing for the day of the Sultan’s revenge. At last the timecame: Suleymān swore in his wrath that the miscreants should nolonger defy him; he had suffered them to leave Rhodes as gentlemen ofhonour — he would consume them in Malta as one burns a nest of wasps.

Atthe time of the siege of 1565 the city or fortress of Malta wassituated, not as Valetta now stands on the west, but on the east sideof the Marsa or great harbour. To understand even the briefestnarrative of one of the most heroic deeds of war that the world hasseen, the position of the forts must be understood. (See thePlan.) On the northern coast of the rocky island a bold promontory or ruggedtongue of land, Mount Sceberras, separates two deep bights or inlets.The eastern of these was called Marsa Muset, or “Middle Port,“but was unoccupied and without defences at the time of the siege, except that the guns of St. Elmo, the fortress at the point of theSceberras promontory, commanded its mouth. The Marsa Kebir, or simplyLa Marsa, the “Great Port,” was the chief stronghold of theKnights. Here four projecting spits of rock formed smaller harbourson the western side. The outermost promontory, the Pointe desFourches, separated the Port de la Renelle or La Arenela, from theopen sea; Cape Salvador divided the Arenela from the English Harbour; the Burg, the main fortress and capital of the place, with Fort St. Angelo at its point, shot out between the English Harbour and the Harbour of the Galleys; and the Isle of La Sangle, joined by a sandyisthmus to the mainland, and crowned by Fort St. Michael, severed the Galley Harbour from that of La Sangle. All round these inletshigh hills dominated the ports. Behind Fort St. Elmo, the Sceberrasclimbed steeply to a considerable height. Behind the Arenela andEnglish Harbour rose Mount Salvador, Calcara, and further back theHeights of St. Catherine. The Burg and Fort St. Michael wereovertopped by the Heights of St. Margaret, whilst the Conradinplateau looked down upon the head of the Marsa and the Harbour of La Sangle. To modern artillery and engineering the siege would have beeneasy, despite the rocky hardness of the ground, since the Knights had not had time to construct those field-works upon the surround ingheights which were essential to the safety of the forts. Even to the skilled but undeveloped artillery of the Turks, the destruction ofMalta ought not to have been either a difficult or lengthy operation, had they begun at the right place.

To those who were acquainted with the ground, who had heard of the siege of Rhodes, and knew that the Turks were not less but more formidable in 1565 than in 1522, the issue of the struggle must have appeared inevitable, when the huge Ottoman fleet hove in view on the 18th of May, 1565. One hundred and eighty vessels, of which two-thirds were galleys-royal, carried more than thirty thousand fighting men — the pick of the Ottoman army, tried Janissaries and Sipāh is, horsemenfrom Thrace, rough warriors from the mountains of Anatolia, eager volunteers from all parts of the Sultan’s dominions. Mustafa Pashawho had grown old in the wars of his master, commanded on land, and Piāli was admiral of the fleet. Dragut was to join the mimmediately, and the Sultan’s order was that nothing should be done till he arrived.

TheKnights had not remained ignorant of the preparations that weremaking against them. They sent to all Europe for help, and the Popegave money, and Spain promises: the Viceroy of Sicily would sendSpanish reinforcements by the 15th of June. They worked unceasinglyat their defences and did all that men could do to meet the advancingstorm. All told, they mustered but seven hundred Knights, and betweeneight and nine thousand mercenaries of various nations, but chieflyMaltese, who could only be trusted behind walls.

TheOrder was fortunate in its Grand Master. Jean de la Valette, born in1494, a Knight of St. John before he was of age, and a defender ofRhodes forty-three years ago, though now an old man retained to thefull the courage and generalship which had made his career ascommander of the galleys memorable in the annals of Mediterraneanwars. He had been a captive among the Turks, and knew their languagesand their modes of warfare; and his sufferings had increased hishatred of the Infidel. A tall, handsome man, with an air of calmresolution, he communicated his iron nerve to all his followers. Coldand even cruel in his severity, he was yet devoutly religious, andpassionately devoted to his Order and his Faith. A true hero, but ofthe reasoning, merciless, bigoted sort: not the generous, recklessenthusiast who inspires by sympathy and glowing example.

Whenhe knew that the day of trial was at hand, Jean de la Valetteassembled the Order together, and bade them first be reconciled withGod and one another, and then prepare to lay down their lives for theFaith they had sworn to defend. Before the altar each Knight foreswore all enmities, renounced all pleasures, buried allambitions; and joining together in the sacred fellowship of theSupper of the Lord, once more dedicated their blood to the service of the Cross.

At the very outset a grave mischance befell the Turks; Dragut was afortnight late at the rendezvous. His voice would have en forced Piāli’s advice, to land the entire force and attack the Burg andSt. Michael from the heights behind. Mustafa, the Seraskier, was determined to reduce the outlying Fort of St. Elmo on the promontory of Sceberras before attacking the main position, and accordinglylanded his men at his convenience from the Marsa Muset, and laid outhis earthworks on the land side of St. Elmo. He had not long begun when Ochiali arrived with six galleys from Alexandria, and on June2nd came Dragut himself with a score or more galleys of Tripoli and Bona. Dragut saw at once the mistake that had been made, but saw also that to abandon the siege of St. Elmo would too greatly elate the Knights: the work must go on; and on it went with unexampled zeal.

The little fort could hold but a small garrison, but the force was a corps d’élite: De Broglio of Piedmont commanded itwith sixty soldiers, and was supported by Juan de Guar as, bailiff of the Negropont, a splendid old Knight, followed by sixty more of the Order, and some Spaniards under Juan de la Cerda: — a few hundred of men to meet thirty thousand Turks, but men of no common mettle. They had not long to wait. The fire opened from twenty-one guns on the last day of May and continued with little intermission till June 23rd. The besiegers were confident of battering down the little fort in a week at most, but they did not know their foes. As soon as one wall crumbled before the cannonade, a new work appeared behind it. The first assault lasted three hours, and the Turks gained possession of the ravelin in front of the gate; so furious was the onset that the defenders sent to the Grand Master to tell him the position was untenable; they could not stand a second storming party. La Valetterep lied that, if so, he would come and withstand it himself: St. Elmomust be held to keep the Turks back till reinforcements arrived. Soof course they went on. Dragut brought up some of his largest yards and laid them like a bridge across the fosse, and a tremendous struggle raged for five terrible hours on Dragut’s bridge. Again and again Mustafa marshalled his Janissaries for the attack, and every time they were hurled back with deadly slaughter. As many as four thousand Turks fell in a single assault. St. Elmo was little more than a heap of ruins, but the garrison still stood undaunted among the heaps of stones, each man ready to sell his life dearly for the honour of Our Lady and St. John.

The Turks at last remedied the mistake they had made at the beginning. They had left the communication between St. Elmo and the harbour unimpeded, and reinforcements had frequently been introduced into the besieged fortress from the Burg. On June 17th the line of circumvallation was pushed to the harbour’s edge, and St. Elmo was completely isolated. Yet this prudent precaution was more than outweighed by the heavy loss that accompanied its execution: for Dragut was struck down while directing the engineers, and the surgeons pronounced the wound mortal. With the cool courage of his nation, Mustafa cast a cloak over the prostrate form, and stood in Dragut’s place.

Five days later came the final assault. On the eve of June 23rd, after the cannonade had raged all the forenoon, and a hand-to-hand fight had lasted till the evening, when two thousand of the enemy and five hundred of the scanty garrison had fallen, the Knights and their soldiers prepared for the end. They knew the Grand Master could not save them, that nothing could avert the inevitable dawn. They took the Sacrament from each other’s hands, and “committing their souls to God made ready to devote their bodies in the cause of His Blessed Son.” It was a forlorn and sickly remnant of the proudestchivalry the world has ever known, that met the conquering Turks that June morning: worn and haggard faces, pale with long vigils and open wounds; tottering frames that scarce could stand; some even for very weakness seated in chairs, with drawn swords, within the breach. But weary and sick, upright or seated, all bore themselves with unflinching courage; in every set face was read the resolve to diehard.

The ghastly struggle was soon over: the weight of the Turkish column boredown everything in its furious rush. Knights and soldiers alikerolled upon the ground, every inch of which they had disputed to the last drop of their blood. Not a man escaped.

Dragut heard of the fall of St. Elmo as he lay in his tent dying, and said his Moslem Nunc Dimittis with a thankful heart. He had been struck at the soldier’s post of duty; he died with the shout of victory ringing in his ears, as every general would wish to die. His figure stands apart from all the men of his age: — an admiral, the equal of Barbarossa, the superior of Doria; a generalfit to marshal troops against any of the great leaders of the armiesof Charles V.; he was content with the eager rush of his life, and asked not for sovereignty or honours. Humane to his prisoners, a gay comrade, an inspiriting commander, a seaman every inch, Dragut is the most vivid and original personage among the Corsairs.

St. Elmo had fallen: but St. Angelo and St. Michael stood untouched. Three hundred Knights of St. John and thirteen hundred soldiers had indeed fallen in the first, but its capture had closed the lives of eight thousand Turks. “If the child has cost us so dear,” said Mustafa, “what will the parent cost?” The Turkish general sent a flag of truce to La Valette, to propose terms of capitulation, but in vain. Mutual animosity had been worked to a height of indignant passion by a barbarous massacre of prisoners on both sides, each in view of the other. The Grand Master’s first impulse was to hang themes senger of such foes: he thought better of it, and showed him the depth of the ditch that encircled the twin forts: “Let your Janissaries come and take that,” he said, and contemptuouslydis missed him.

Anew siege now began. The forts on the east of La Marsa had beensorely drained to fill up the gaps in the garrison at St. Elmo, andit was fortunate that Don Juan de Cardona had been able to send arein forcement, though only of six hundred men, under Melchior deRobles, to the Old Town, whence they contrived to reach Fort St. Michael in safety. Evensix hundred men added materially to the difficulties of the siege: for, be it remembered, six hundred men behind skilfully constructed fortifications may be worth six thousand in the open. It was veryhard for the besiegers to find cover. The ground was hard rock, andcutting trenches was extremely arduous work, and the noise of thepicks directed the fire of the forts by night upon the sappers.Nevertheless by July 5th four batteries were playing upon St. Michaelfrom the heights of St. Margaret and Conradin, while the guns of FortSt. Elmo opened from the other side; and soon a line of cannon onMount Salvador dominated the English Port. An attempt to bring aflotilla of gun-boats into the Harbour of the Galleys failed, after avigorous conflict between a party of Turkish swimmers, who strovewith axes to cut the chain that barred the port, and some Maltese whoswam to oppose them, sword in teeth. The battle in the water ended inthe flight of the Turks.

SKETCHOF THE PORT OF MALTA IN 1565

Tendistinct general assaults were delivered with all the fury of Janissaries against the stronghold. First, a grand assault by sea wasordered on July 15th. Three columns simultaneously advanced by nighton Fort St. Michael: one landed in the Arenela and marched to attackthe eastern suburb La Bormula; the second came down from the heightsof St. Margaret and made straight for the bastion defended by DeRobles; the third advanced from Conradin on the south-west, andassaulted the salient angle at the extreme point of the spit of landon which the fort was built. In vain the Turks swarmed up thescaling-ladders; company after company was hurled down, a huddledmass of mangled flesh, and the ladders were cast off. Again theescalade began: — the Knights rolled huge blocks of masonry on thecrowded throng below; when they got within arms’ reach the scimitarwas no match for the long two-handed swords of the Christians. At allthree points after a splendid attack, which called forth all thefinest qualities of the magnificent soldiery of Suleymān the Great, the Turks were repulsed with terrible loss. The Knights lost some oftheir bravest swords, and each one of them fought like a lion: buttheir dead were few compared with the unfortunate troops of Barbary, who had cut off their retreat by dismissing their ships, and wereslaughtered or drowned in the harbour by hundreds. The water was redwith their blood, and mottled with standards and drums and floatingrobes. Of prisoners, the Christians spared but two, and these theydelivered over to the mob to be torn in pieces.

Afterthe assault by water came the attack by mines; but the result was nobetter, for the Knights were no novices in the art of countermining, and the attempt to push on after the explosion ended in rushing intoa trap. Mustafa, however, continued to work underground and ply hisheavy artillery, with hardly a pause, upon the two extremities of theline of landward defences — the Bastion of De Robles, and the Bastionof Castile: both were in ruins by the 27th of July, as Sālih Reïs, son of Barbarossa’s old comrade, satisfied himself by areconnaissance pushed into the very breach. An assault was orderedfor midday of August 2nd, when the Christians were resting after thetoils of the sultry morning. Six thousand Turks advanced in absolutesilence to Melchior de Robles’ bastion; they had almost reachedtheir goal when the shout of the sentry brought that gallant Knight, readily awakened, to the breach, followed by Muñatones and threeSpanish arquebusiers. These five warriors held twenty-six Janissariesand Sipāhis in check till reinforcements came; and they killedfifteen of them. Their valour saved the fort. Four hours longer thestruggle lasted, till neither party could deal another blow in theraging August sun; and the Turks at last retired with a loss of sixhundred dead.

Nothingdaunted, the 7th of August saw them once more scaling the walls and rushing the breaches of the two bastions, this time with nearlytwenty thousand men. They poured over the ravelin, swarmed up thebreach, and were on the point of carrying the fort. All was nearlylost, and at that supreme moment even theaged Grand Master, whose place was to direct, not to imperil hislife, came down to the front of battle, and used his sword and pikelike a common soldier. Eight long hours they fought, six times camefresh reserves to the support of the Turks; the Christians wereexhausted, and had no reserves. One rush more and the place would becarried.

Just then a body of cavalry was seen riding down from the direction of the Old Town. The Turks took them to be the long-expected reinforcementsfrom Sicily. They are seen to fall upon stray parties of Turks; theymust be the advance guard of Philip’s army. Piāli in alarm runs tohis galleys; the Turks who had all but carried the long-contestedbastion pause in affright lest they be taken in rear. In vainMustafa, in vain the King of Algiers shows them that the horsemen arebut two hundred of the Old Town garrison, with no army at all behindthem. Panic, unreasoning and fatal as ever, seizes upon the troops: the foothold won after eight hours of furious fighting is surrenderedto a scare; not a Turk stays to finish the victory. The lives oftheir two thousand dead need not have been sacrificed.

StillMustafa did not despair. He knew that the main defences of thebastions had been destroyed — a few days more, a heavy cannonade, theexplosion of a series of mines which thousands of his sappers werepreparing would, he was certain, ensure the success of a finalassault. The day came, August 20th, and Mustafa himself, in his coatof inlaid mail and robe of cramoisy, led his army forward; but awell-directed fire drove him into a trench, whence he emergednot tillnight covered his path. When at last he got back, he found his armyin camp; another assault had been repulsed. The next day they went upagain to the fatal embrasures, and this time the failure was evenmore signal; repeated repulses were telling on the spirits of themen, and the veteran Janissaries went to their work with unaccustomedreluctance. Nevertheless, the trenches, cut in the hard rock, continued to advance slowly, and the cavalier behind the ravelin wastaken after a severe struggle: — just taken, when La Valette’smines blew the victorious assailants into the air. On the 30thanother well-planned assault was repelled. One more effort — a lastand desperate attempt — was to be made on the 7th of September; buton the 5th the news arrived that the Spanish army of relief had atlength, after inconceivable delays and hesitations, actually landed on the island. The worn-out Turks did not wait to recon noitre, they had borne enough: a retreat was ordered, the siege was abandoned, the works that had cost so much labour and blood were deserted, and there was a general stampede to the galleys. It is true they landed againwhen they learnt that the relieving army numbered but six thousandmen; but their strength was departed from them. They tried to fightthe relieving army, and then again they ran for the ships. The Spaniards cut them down like sheep, and of all that gallant armaments carce five thousand lived to tell the tale of those terrible threemonths in Malta.

No more moving sight can be imagined than the meeting of the new-come Brethren of the Order and their comrades of St. Michael’s Fort. The worn remnant of the garrison, all told, was scarcely six hundred strong, and hardly a man was without a wound. The Grand Master and his few surviving Knights looked like phantoms from another world, so pale and grisly were they, faint from their wounds, their hair and beardun kempt, their armour stained, and neglected, as men must look whohad hardly slept without their weapons for more than three memorable months. As they saw these gaunt heroes the rescuers burst into tears; strangers clasped hands and wept together with the same over poweringemotion that mastered relievers and relieved when Havelock and Colin Campbell led the Highlanders into Lucknow. Never surely had mendeserved more nobly the homage of mankind. In all history there is nore cord of such a siege, of such a disproportion in the forces, of such a glorious outcome. The Knights of Malta live for ever among the heroes of all time.

1571

The failure of the siege of Malta was a sensible rebuff, yet it cannot be said that it seriously injured the renown of the Turks in the Mediterranean. They had been resisted on land; they had not yet been beaten at sea. Nor could they look back on the terrible months of the siege without some compensating feeling of consolation. They had taken St. Elmo, and its fall had aroused general jubilation in every Moslem breast; the Moors of Granada went near to rising against the Spaniards on the mere report of this triumph of the Turkish arms. Though they had failed to reduce St. Michael, the cause was to be found, at least in part, in a false alarm and an unreasoning panic.To be defeated by such warriors as the Knights of St. John was not adisgrace; like the Highlanders in the Crimean War, these men were notso much soldiers, in their opponents’ eyes, as veritable devils; and who shall contend against the legions of the Jinn? Moreover, forced as they were to abandon the siege, had they not left theisland a desert, its people reduced by half, its fortifications heaps of rubbish, itsbrave defenders a handful of invalids?

Soreasoned the Turks, and prepared for another campaign. They had lostmany men, but more were ready to take their place; their immensefleet was uninjured; and though Dragut was no more, Ochiali — as theChristians called “Ali El-Ulūji “theRenegade” — the Turks dubbed him Fartās,“Scurvied,” from his complaint — was following successfully inhis old master’s steps. Born at Castelli (Licastoli) in Calabriaabout 1508, Ochialiwas to have been a priest, but his capture by the Turks turned him tothe more exciting career of a Corsair. Soon after the siege of Maltahe succeeded Barbarossa’s son Hasan as pasha or Beglerbeg ofAlgiers (1568), and one of his first acts was to retake Tunis (allbut the Goletta) in the name of Sultan Selīm II., who, to theunspeakable loss of the Mohammedan world, had in 1566 succeeded hisgreat father Suleymān. In July, 1570, off Alicata, on the southerncoast of Sicily, Ochiali surrounded four galleys of “theReligion” — they then possessed but five — and took three of them, including the flagship, which Saint-Clément, the general of thegalleys, abandoned in order to throw himself and his treasure onshore at Montichiaro. One galley alone, the St.Ann, made a desperate resistance; the others surrendered. Sixty Knights orServing Brothers of the Order were killed or made prisoners on thisdisastrous day, and so intense was the indignation in Malta, that the Grand Master had much ado to save Saint-Clément from beinglynched by the mob, and was obliged to deliver him up to the secularcourt, which at once condemned him to death. He was strangled in hiscell, and his body thrown in a sack into the sea. Such a success wentfar to atone for Mustafa Pasha’s unfortunate siege.

Afar more important triumph awaited the Turks in 1570–1:—a siege, and a conquest. The new Sultan, like his father, saw in the island ofCyprus a standing affront to his authority in the Levant. Then, asnow, Cyprus was a vital centre in all maritime wars in the EasternMediterranean; a convenient depôt for troops and stores; awatch-tower whence the movements of the Turkish fleet could beobserved; a refuge for the numberless Christian Corsairs thatinfested the coast of Syria. Cyprus belonged to Venice, and on thescore of her protection of piracy the Sultan found no difficulty inpicking a quarrel with the Senate. War was declared, and Piāli Pashatransported a large army under Lala Mustafa (not the Seraskier whocommanded at Malta) to lay siege to Nicosia, the capital of theisland. After forty-eight days, the city fell, September 9th, andbecame a shambles. The catastrophe might have been averted, had theChristian fleet owned a single competent chief; but unhappily therelief of Cyprus was entrusted to the least trustworthy of allinstruments — a coalition.

PopePius V., a man of austere piety, full of the zeal of his high office, and in energy and intellect a born leader, spared no effort tosupport the Venetians as soon as war became inevitable. Few of thestates [Pg 163] ofEurope found it convenient to respond to his appeal, but Philip ofSpain sent a numerous fleet under Giovanni Andrea Doria, and the Popehimself, aided in some degree by the Italian princes, added animportant contingent, which he confided to the care of the Grand Constable of Naples, Mark Antony Colonna. Giovanni Zanne commanded the Venetian fleet. The whole force, when united, amounted to no lessthan two hundred and six vessels, of which eleven were galleasses, and nearly all the rest galleys; while the soldiers and crews numbered forty-eight thousand men. So dire was the dread then inspired by the Turks that this vast armament dared not move till it was known that Ochiali had left the neighbourhood of Italy, and eventhen the rivalries of the different admirals tended rather to warbetween the contingents than an attack upon the enemy’s fleet. While the Christians were wrangling, and Doria was displaying the same Fabian caution that had led his grand-uncle to lose the battle of Prevesa, Piāli Pasha, wholly regardless of danger, had bared his galleys almost entirely of soldiers, in order to aid Lala Mustafa inthe final assault on Nicosia. Had the allied fleets attacked him on the 8th or 9th of September it is doubtful whether a single Turkish galley could have shown fight. But Colonna and Doria wasted the irtime in wrangling and discussing, while the foe lay powerless at their feet. Finally they sailed back to Sicily, for fear of bad weather. Such were the admirals who furnished the gibes of Ochialiand his brother Corsairs. Famagusta surrendered August 4, 1571, and despite the promise of life and liberty, the garrison was massacred and the Venetian commander, Bragadino, cruelly burnt to death. Cyprus became a Turkish possession then ceforward to this day.

Meanwhile, the Turkish and Barbary fleets, commanded by “Ali Pasha, thesuccessor of Piāli, and Ochiali, ravaged Crete and other islands, and coasting up the Adriatic, worked their will upon every town orvillage it suited their pleasure to attack. Thousands of prisoners, and stores and booty of every description rewarded their industry. Atlength, in September, they anchored in the Gulf of Lepanto. They had heard that the united Christian fleets were on the move, and nothingwould suit the victors of Cyprus better than a round encounter withthe enemy. Flushed with success, they had no fear for the issue.

Manya Christian fleet had gathered its members together before then inthe waters of the Adriatic. The great battle off Prevesa was in thememory of many an old sailor as the galleys came to the rendezvous inthe autumn of 1571. But there was an essential difference between then and now. Preves a was lost by divided counsels; at Lepanto there was but one commander-in-chief. Pope Pius V. had laboured unceasingly at the task of uniting the Allies and smoothing away jealousies, and he had succeeded in drawing the navies of Southern Europe on to another year’s campaign; then, warned by what he had learned of the wranglings off Cyprus, he exerted his prerogative as Vicar of God, and named as the sole commander-in-chief of the whole fleet, Don John of Austria.

ENGAGEMENTBETWEEN A SPANISH GALLEON AND A DUTCH SHIP. (Juriende la Gravière.)

Sonof the most illustrious monarch of the age, Don John was born togreatness. His mother was the beautiful singer, Barba Blomberg; hisfather was Charles V. The one gave him grace and beauty; the other, the genius of command. He was but twenty-two when his half-brother, Philip, confided to him the difficult task of suppressing therebellion of the Moors in the Alpuxarras. Where the experienced veterans of Spain had failed, the beardless general of twenty-two succeeded to admiration. And now, two years later, hew as called to the command of the whole navy of Southern Europe. Heaccepted the post with joy. He had all the hopeful confidence of youth, and he longed to fight one of the world’s great battles. Hi sent husiasm glowed in his face: one sees it in his portraits and on the medals struck to commemorate his victory. “Beau comme un Apollon, il avait tout le prestige d’un archange envoyé par le Seigneur pour exter miner les ennemis de la Foi.”

Squadron after squadron begins to crowd the Straits of Messina. Veniero, the Venetian admiral, is already there with forty-eight galleys, andsixty more expected, when Colonna enters, in July, with eighteen vessels and moors alongside. Don John has not yet arrived. He has had much ado to get his squadron ready, for no nation understands better than the Spanish the virtue of the adage festinalente.At last he puts off from Barcelona, and laboriously crosses the Gulfof Lyons. One may smile now at the transit, but in those days, whatwith the mistral andthe risk of Corsairs, to cross the Gulf of Lyons was a thing to bethought about. At Genoa Don John is entertained by G. Andrea Doria, and attends a fancy ball in a gay humour that becomes his youth andbuoyancy with all his perils still ahead. As he proceeds, he hearshow the Turks are laying waste Dalmatia, and how the Allies arequarrelling at Messina, but he hastens not: he knows that a galley ona long voyage has as much a fixed pace as a horse, and that floggingis of no use except for a short course. At Naples he reverentlyreceives the standard blessed by his Holiness himself, and on August23rd he joins the fleet at Messina. Time is still needed for theother ships to come up, and for the commander-in-chief to mature hisplans; before they start, each captain of a galley will have aseparate written order, showing him his place during the voyage andhis post in any engagement, whereby the risk of confusion and hastymarshalling is almost done away. On the 16th of September the signalis given to weigh anchor. Don John is off first, in his Reale, a splendid capitana galleyof sixty oars, with a poop carved with allegorical designs by Vasquezof Seville. After him come two hundred and eighty-five vessels, comprising six galleasses and two hundred and nine galleys, carryingtwenty-nine thousand men, and commanded by the most famous names ofthe great families of Spain, Genoa, Venice, Naples, Rome, Vicenza, Padua, Savoy, and Sicily. DonJuan de Cardona leads the van with seven galleys; DonJohn himself, between Marcantonio Colonna and Veniero, commands thecentre of sixty-two large galleys; G. A. Doria has fifty in the rightwing; Barbarigo of Venice fifty-three in the left; Don Alvaro deBazan commands the reserve of thirty galleys: the galleasses areranged before the lines, each with five hundred arquebusiers onboard. After ten days rowing and sailing they reach Corfu, and thecastle greets them with thunders of joy-guns, for the fear of theTurk is removed.

ARABICASTROLABE

“AliPasha, hard by in the Gulf of Lepanto, sent out scouts to ascertainthe enemy’s strength. A bold Barbary Corsair pushed his bark unseenby night among the Christian galleys, but his report was imperfect, and till the day of conflict neither side knew the exact strength ofhis opponent. The Turkish fleet numbered about two hundred and eightgalleys and sixty-six galleots, and carried twenty-five thousand men. Constantinople furnished ninety-five galleys; twenty-one came fromAlexandria, twenty-five from Anatolia, ten from Rhodes, ten fromMitylene, nine from Syria, twelve from Napoli di Romania, thirteenfrom the Negropont, and eleven from Algiers and Tripoli. The galleotswere chiefly Barbary vessels, more useful for piracy than a setbattle.

The two fleets unexpectedly came in sight of each other at seven o’clockon the morning of October 7th, at a point just south of theEchinades, and between Ithaca and the Gulf of Patras or Lepanto. Awhite sail or two on the horizon was descried by Don John’slook-out on the maintop; then sail after sail rose above thesea-line, and the enemycame into full view. Don John quickly ran up a white flag, the signalof battle, and immediately the whole fleet was busily engaged inclewing up the sails to the yards, and making all snug for theconflict. The central banks were removed to make room for thesoldiers, and the slaves were served with meat and wine. Old seamen, who had met the Turks again and again from their youth up, preparedgrimly for revenge; sanguine boys, who held arms in set fight for thefirst time that day, looked forward eagerly to the moment of action. Even to the last the incurable vacillation of the allied admirals wasfelt: they suggested a council of war. Don John’s reply was worthy of him: “The time for councils is past,” he said; “do not trouble yourselves about aught but fighting.” Then he entered his gig, and went from galley to galley, passing under each stern, crucifix in hand, encouraging the men. His calm and confident mien, and the charm of his address, excited universal enthusiasm, and hewas met on all hands with the response: “Ready, Sir; and the sooner the better!” Then Don John unfurled the Blessed Standard with the figure of the Saviour, and falling on his knees commended his causeto God.

Abouteleven o’clock a dead calm set in. The Turks shortened sail andtook to their oars: in perfect order and with matchless speed andprecision they formed in line of battle, while drums and fifesannounced their high spirits. The Christian fleet was slower infalling into line; some of the galleys and most of the galleasseswere behindhand. Don John let drop some pious oaths, and sent swiftvessels tohurry them up. At last they began to get into order. Barbarigo, the“left guide,” hugged the coast with the left wing; Don John withthe centre corpsde bataille kepttouch with him; but where was the “right guide”? Giovanni Doria, infected with the tactical vanity of his family, resolved to showthese landsmen how a sailor can manoeuvre. Conceiving that Ochiali, on the Ottoman left, was trying to outflank the Christian fleet, hebore out to sea in order to turn him. In vain Don John sent to recallhim; he had gone out of reach, and the battle had to be foughtwithout the right wing. Doria’s precious manoeuvring went near tolosing the day.

The Ottoman fleet was marshalled in the same order as the Christian, except that there were no galleasses. The line of battle, nearly amile long, was divided into centre, and right and left wing, andbehind the centre was the reserve. Mohammed Shaluk (called byEuropeans Scirocco) commanded the right wing, opposed to Barbarigo’sleft; “Ali Pasha opposed Don John in the centre; Ochiali was overagainst the post where Doria should have been. Between the two linesstood forth the heavy galleasses, like great breakwaters, turningaside and dividing the flowing rush of the Ottoman galleys. The fireof these huge floating castles nearly caused a panic among the Turks, but they soon pulled past them, and a general melley ensued. In the Christian left, after a deadly struggle, in which both Barbarigo andScirocco lost their lives, the Turks were repulsed, and, deprived oftheir chief, took to the shore, but not before the Christians hadlost many galleys and a hostof brave men. Soon after the left had been engaged, the centre cameinto action. “Ali Pasha made straight for Don John’s Reale, and his beak rammed it as far in as the fourth bank of oars. Close bywere Pertev Pasha and the capitanas of Colonna and Veniero. The ships became entangled, and formed one largeplatform of war. Twice the Spaniards of the Reale boarded the Fanal of’ Ali Pasha as far as the mainmast, and twice they were driven backwith terrible loss. “Ali himself was preparing to leap upon Don John’s galley when Colonna rammed him on the poop, penetrating asfar as the third oar, and delivered a withering fire from hisarquebuses. The Christians had all the advantage of armour and firearms, and fired behind bulwarks; the Turks were unprotected bycuirass or helmet or bulwark, and most of them had bows instead ofguns. Colonna’s volleys decided the fate of the Fanal, and “Ali Pasha departed this life. An hour and a half had sufficedto disperse the Ottoman right and to overpower the flagship in chief. When the fleet saw the Christian ensign at the peak of the Turkish capitana theyredoubled their efforts: Veniero, severely wounded, still fought withthe Seraskier Pertev Pasha; the Turks fled, and Pertev took to the land. In half an hour more Don John’s centre was completely victorious. Then a new danger arose: Ochiali, seeing that Doria was well away to sea, sharply doubled back with all the right wing, and bore down upon the exhausted centre. He rushed upon the capitana of Malta, and massacred every soul on board. Dragut is avenged! Juande Cardonahastened to the rescue, and of his five hundred soldiers but fifty escaped; on the Fiorenza seventeenmen alone remained alive; and other terrible losses were incurred inthe furious encounter. Upon this the ingenious Doria perceived that he had outwitted only his own cause, and at last turned back. The Marquis de Santa Cruz was already upon the enemy; Don John was after him with twenty galleys; Ochiali was outnumbered, and after abrilliant effort, made off in all haste for Santa Maura, bearing withhim the Standard of “the Religion” to be hung up in St. Sophia.The battle of Lepanto is fought and won: the Turks have been utterlyvanquished. Wellmight the good Pope cry, as the preacher cried in St. Stephen’s a century later when Sobieski saved Vienna, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”

The Turkish fleet was almost annihilate: one hundred and ninety galleyswere captured, besides galleots, and fifteen more burnt or sunk; probably twenty thousand men had perished, including an appalling list of high dignitaries from all parts of the empire. The Christians lost seven thousand five hundred men, including many of the most illustrious houses of Italy and Spain. Cervantes, who commanded acompany of soldiers on board the Marquesa, fortunate lyes caped with a wound in his left arm; and to many the Battle of Lepanto is familiar only from the magical pages of Don Quixote. Seventeen Venetian commanders were dead, and among them Vicenzo Quirini and the valiant, chivalrous, and venerable Proveditore Barbarigo. Sixty Knights of the diminished Order of St. John had given up the ghost. Twelve thousand Christian slaves were freed from the Ottoman galleys.

Thebrilliant young conqueror did not wear his well-earned laurels long. His statue was erected at Messina; his victory was the subject ofTintoret and Titian; he was received with ovations wherever he went.Two years later he recaptured Tunis. Then he was employed in themelancholy task of carrying on Alva’s detestable work in Flanders. He inflicted a sanguinary defeat upon the Dutch at Gembloux, and then, struck down by fever, the young hero died on October 1, 1578,in his thirty-first year, the last of the great figures of medieval chivalry — a knight worthy to have been commemorated in the Charlemagne gestes and to have sat at Arthur’s Round Table with Sir Galahad himself.

16th,17th, and 18th Centuries

Theage of the great Corsairs may be said to have ended with the battleof Lepanto, which sounded the knell of the naval supremacy of theOttomans. It is true that they seemed to have lost little by DonJohn’s famous victory; their beard was shorn, they admitted, but itsoon grew again: — their fleet was speedily repaired, and the Venetians sued for peace. But they had lost something more preciousto them than ships or men: their prestige was gone. The powers of Christendom no longer dreaded to meet the invincible Turk, for the yhad beaten him once, and would beat him again. Rarely after this did an Ottoman fleet sail proudly to work its devastating way along the coasts of Italy. Small raids there might be, but seldom a great adventure such as Barbarossa or Sinān led. Crete might be besieged for years; but the Venetians, pressed by land, nevertheless shattered the Turkish ships off the coast. Damad “Ali might recover the Morea, and victoriously surround the shores of Greece with his hundred sail; but he would not venture to threaten Venice, to lay siege to Nice, to harry Naples, or attack Malta. The Turks had enough to do to hold their own in the Black Sea against theencroaching forces of Russia.

Deprived of the protection which the prestige of the Turks had afforded, the Barbary Corsairs degenerated into petty pirates. They continued towaylay Christian cargoes, to ravish Christian villages, and carry off multitudes of captives; but their depredations were not on the same grand scale, they robbed by stealth, and never invited a contest with ships of war. If caught, they would fight; but their aim was plunder, and they had no fancy for broken bones gained out of mere ambition of conquest.

Ochialiwas the last of the great Corsairs. He it was who, on his return toConstantinople after the fatal October 7, 1571, cheered the Sultan with the promise of revenge, was made Captain-Pasha, and sailed from the Bosphorus the following year with a fleet of two hundred and thirty vessels, just as though Lepanto had never been fought and lost. He sought for the Christian fleets, but could not induce them to offer battle. His operations in 1574 were limited to the recapture of Tunis, which Don John had restored to Spain in 1573. With two hundred and fifty galleys, ten mahons or galleasses, and thirty caramuzels, and supported by the Algerine squadron under Ahmed Pasha, Ochiali laid siege to the Goletta, which had owned a Spanish garrison ever since the conquest by Charles V. in 1535.Cervellon defended the fort till he had but a handful of men, and finally surrendered at discretion. Then Ochiali disappeared from the western seas; he fought for his master in the Euxine during the Persian War, and died in 1580, aged seventy-two, with the reputation of the most powerful admiral that had ever held sway in the Golden Horn.

TUNISIN 1573. (Froma Map in the British Museum.)

Wehave not closely followed the succession of the Pashas or Beglerbegsof Algiers, because more important affairs absorbed the wholeenergies of the Turkish galleys, and the rulers on land had little ofconsequence to do. Ochiali was the seventeenth pasha of Algiers, butof his predecessors, after the deaths of Urūj and Kheyr-ed-dīnBarbarossa, few attained special eminence. Hasan the son ofBarbarossa took part in the siege of Malta, Sālih Reïs conqueredFez and Bujēya; but the rest were chiefly occupied with repressinginternal dissensions, fighting with their neighbours, and organizingsmall piratical expeditions. After Ochiali had been called to Stambolas Captain-Pasha, in 1572, when he had been Pasha of Algiers for fouryears, nine governors succeeded one another in twenty-four years. Atfirst they were generally renegades: Ramadān the Sardinian (1574—7),Hasan the Venetian (1577—80 and 1582—3), Ja’far the Hungarian (1580—2), and Memi the Albanian (1583—6), followed one another, and (with the exception of the Venetian) proved to be wise, just, andclement rulers. Then the too usual practice was adopted of allottingthe province to the highest bidder, and rich but incompetent orrascally Turks bought the reversion of the Pashalik. The reign of there negades was over; the Turks kept the government in their own hands, and the rôle of the ex-Christian adventurers was confined to the minor but more enterprising duties of a Corsair reïs or the “general of the galleys.” The Pashas, and afterwards the Deys, with occasion alexceptions, gave up commanding piratical expeditions, and theinterest of the history now turns upon the captains of galleys.

Piracywithout and bloodshed and anarchy within form the staple of therecords. Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers showed very similar symptoms. T ripoli was the least powerful, and therefore the least injurious; Algiers dominated the Western Mediterranean and to a considerable extent the Atlantic; Tunis, less venturesome, but still formidable, infested the Eastern Mediterranean, and made the passage of Malta and the Adriatic its special hunting grounds. At Tunis thirty Deys, appointed by the Sublime Porte, succeeded one another from 1590 to1705—giving each an average reign of less than four years. Most ofthem were deposed, many murdered, and one is related on credibleauthority to have been torn to pieces and devoured by the enragedpopulace. In 1705 the soldiery, following the example of Algiers, elected their own governor, and called him Bey; and the Porte wasobliged to acquiesce. Eleven Beys followed one another, up to theFrench “protectorate.” The external history of these threecenturies is made up of lawless piracy and the levying of blackmailfrom most of the trading powers of Europe, accompanied by acts ofinsufferable insolence towards the foreign representatives; all ofwhich was accepted submissively by kings and governments, insomuch [Pg 187] thatWilliam III. treated a flagrant Corsair, “Ali Reïs, who had becomeDey, with the courtesy due to a monarch, and signed himself his“loving friend.” The earliest English treaty with Tunis was dated1662; many more followed, and all were about equally inefficacious.Civil anarchy, quarrels with France, and wars with Algiers, generallystopped “by order” of the helpless Porte, fill up the details ofthis uninteresting canvas.

Preciselythe same picture is afforded by the modern annals of Algiers. Takethe Deys at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Hasan Chāwushwas deposed in 1700, and succeeded by the Aga of the Sipāhis, Mustafa, nicknamed Bogotillos or “Whiskerandos,“who, though something of a coward, engaged in two successfulcampaigns against Tunis and one with Morocco, until he had themisfortune to find the bow-string round his throat in 1706. UzeynKhōja followed, and Oran fell during his one year’s reign, afterwhich he was banished to the mountains, and died. Bektāsh Khōja, the next Dey, was murdered on his judgment-seat in the third year ofhis reign. A fifth Dey, Ibrahīm Deli, or “the Fool,” madehimself so hated by his unconscionable licentiousness that he wasassassinated, and his mutilated body exposed in the street, within afew months, and ‘Ali, who succeeded in 1710, by murdering somethree thousand Turks, contrived to reign eight years, and by somemistake died in his bed.

Thekingdom of Morocco is not strictly a Barbary state, and its historydoes not belong to this volume Nevertheless, the operations of the Morocco pirates outside the Straits ofGibraltar so closely resemble those of the Algerine Corsairs within, that a few words about them will not be out of place. At one timeTetwān, within the Straits, in spite of its exposed haven, was afamous place for rovers, but its prosperity was destroyed by PhilipII. in 1564. Ceuta was always semi-European, half Genoese, thenPortuguese (1415), and finally Spanish (1570 to this day). Tangiers, as the dowry of Charles II.‘s Queen, Catherine of Portugal, was forsome time English territory. Spanish forts at Peñon de Velez de laGomera and Alhucemas, and Portuguese garrisons, repressed piracy intheir vicinity; and in later times Salē was perhaps the only port inMorocco that sent forth buccaneers. Reefs of rocks and drifts of sandrender the west coast unsuitable for anchorage, and the roads areunsafe when the wind is in the south-west. Consequently the piracy of Salē, though notorious and dreaded by merchantmen, was on a smallscale; large vessels could not enter the harbour, and two-hundred-tonships had to be lightened before they could pass the bar. The cruisers of Salē were therefore built very light and small, with which they did not dare to attack considerable and well-armed ships. Indeed, Capt. Delgarno and his twenty-gun frigate so terrified theSalē rovers, that they never ventured forth while he was about, andmothers used to quiet naughty children by saying that Delgarno wascoming for them, just as Napoleon and “Malbrouk” were used as bugbears in England and France. There was not a single full-sized galley at Salē in 1634,and accounts a hundred years later agree that the Salē rovers hadbut insignificant vessels, and very few of them, while their dockswere practically disused, in spite of abundance of timber. In thelatter part of the eighteenth century there seems to have been anincrease in the depredations of the Salē pirates, which probably earned them their exaggerated reputation. At that time they had vessels of thirty and thirty-six guns, but unwieldy and badly built, with which they captured Provençal ships and did considerablemischief, till the Chevalier Acton in 1773, with a single Tuscanfrigate, destroyed three out of their five ships. About 1788 the whole Morocco navy consisted of six or eight frigates of two hundred tons, armed with fourteen to eighteen six-pounders, and some galleys. The rovers of Salē formed at one time a sort of republic of pirates, paying the emperor a tithe of prize-money and slaves, in return fornon-interference; but gradually the Government absorbed most of the profits, and the trade declined, till the emperors, in return forrich presents, concluded treaties with the chief maritime Powers, andto a large extent suppressed piracy.

SALĒIN 1637. (Froma Map in the British Museum.)

Turningfrom the monotonous records of internal barbarism, the more adventurous side of Algerine history claims a brief notice.Among the captains who continued to make the name of Corsair terribleto Christian ears, Murād Reïs holds the foremost place; indeed, hebelongs to the order of great Corsairs. There were several of thename, and this Murād was distinguished as the Great Murād. He wasan Arnaut or Albanian, who was captured by an Algerine pirate at theage of twelve, and early showed a turn for adventure. When his patronwas engaged at the siege of Malta in 1565, young Murād gave him theslip, and went on a private cruise of his own, in which he contrivedto split his galleot upon a rock. Undeterred by this misadventure, assoon as he got back to Algiers he set out in a brigantine of fifteenbanks, and speedily brought back three Spanish prizes and one hundredand forty Christians. He was with Ochiali when that eminent roverseized Saint-Clément’s galleys, and was with difficulty restrainedfrom anticipating his admiral in boarding the St.Ann. He soon gained the reputation of a Corsair of the first water, and “aperson, who, for our sins, did more harm to the Christians than anyother.” In 1578, while cruising about the Calabrian coast with eight galleots in search of prey, he sighted the Capitana of Sicily and a consort, with the Duke of Tierra Nuova and his retinueon board. After a hot pursuit the consort was caught at sea; the flagship ran on shore; the Duke and all the ship’s company deserted her; and the beautiful vessel was safely brought into Algiersharbour. In 1585 Murād ventured out into the Atlantic out ofsight ofland, which no Algerine had ever dared to do before, and picking up areinforcement of small brigantines at Salē, descended at daybreakupon Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, sacked the town withoutopposition, and carried off the governor’s family and three hundredcaptives. This done, he unblushingly ran up a flag of truce, andpermitted the Count and the chief families to come on board and buyback their relations. In 1589, after picking up a stray trader ortwo, he fell in with LaSerena, a galley of Malta, which had a Turkish prize in tow. Far from shirking a conflict with so formidable an antagonist, Murād gave hotpursuit with his single galleot, and coming up with the Serena, boarded and mastered her in half an hour. Then, after stopping toarrest the misdoings of a Majorcan pirate, who was poaching on his own private manor, the Corsair carried his prizes into Algiers, where he was honourably mounted on the Pasha’s own horse and escorted intriumph to the Palace by a guard of Janissaries. In 1594, when he hadattained the dignity of “General of the Algerine Galleys,” Murād, with four galleots, encountered two Tuscan galleys off Tripoli; lowering the masts of two of his galleots, so that they should escapeobservation, he towed them behind the other two, and when the Tuscanshad drawn near in full expectation of a couple of prizes, he loosedthe vessels astern, and with all four bore down upon the enemy; bothgalleys were taken, and the Florentine knights and soldiers werechained to the oars in place of the Turks who had lately satthere.