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THE NAVIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES [Continued]: VENICE AND THE TURK

The city-state of Venice owed its origin to the very same barbarian invasions that wrecked the old established cities of the Italian peninsula. Fugitives from these towns in northern Italy and the outlying country districts fled to the islets and lagoons for shelter from the Hun, the Goth, and the Lombard. As the sea was the Venetians' barrier from the invader, so also it had to be their source of livelihood, and step by step through the centuries they built up their commerce until they practically controlled the Mediterranean, for trade or for war.

As early as 991 a Doge of Venice made a treaty with the Saracens inaugurating a policy held thereafter by Venice till the time of Lepanto; namely, to trade with Mohammedans rather than fight them. The supreme passion of Venice was to make money, as it had been of ancient Phœnicia, and to this was subordinated every consideration of race, nationality, and religion. The first important step was the conquest of the Dalmatian pirates at the beginning of the 11th century. This meant the Venetian control of the Adriatic. When the Crusades began, the sea routes to the Holy Land were in the hands of the Venetians; indeed it was this fact that made the Crusades possible. As the carrying and convoying agent of the Crusaders, Venice developed greatly in wealth and power. With direct access to the Brenner Pass, she became a rich distributing center for Eastern goods to northern Europe. In all important Levantine cities there was a Venetian quarter, Venetians had special trading privileges, and many seaports and islands came directly under Venetian rule.

THEATER OF OPERATIONS, VENICE AND THE TURK

This rapid expansion naturally roused the jealousy of others. In 1171 Venice fought an unsuccessful war with Constantinople, and yet continued to grow in wealth and power. In 1204, as we have seen, Venice avenged herself by diverting the Fourth Crusade to the siege and sack of her eastern rival. As the reward of that nefarious exploit Venice received the greater part of the eastern empire, and became the dominating power in the Mediterranean. During the 13th and 14th centuries, however, she was compelled to fight with her rebellious colonies and her new rivals, Genoa and Padua. The wars with Genoa very nearly proved fatal to Venice, but just when matters seemed most desperate she was saved by a naval victory against a Genoese fleet in her own waters. In consequence of these wars between Venice and Genoa both were heavy losers in wealth and lives; Genoa never recovered from her defeat, but her rival showed amazing powers of recuperation. She extended her territory in Italy to include the important cities of Treviso, Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, and in 1488 acquired the island of Cyprus in the Levant. At this time the Venetian state owned 3300 ships, manned by 36,000 men, and stood at the height of her power.

Already, however, a new enemy had appeared who threatened not only Venice but all Europe. This was the Ottoman Turk. The Turks were not like the Arabs, members of the Indo-European family, but a race from the eastern borders of the Caspian Sea, a branch of the Mongolian stock. As these peoples moved south and west they came in contact with Mohammedanism and became ardent converts. Eventually they swept over Asia Minor, crossed the Dardanelles, took Adrianople, and pushed into Serbia. Thus, when Constantinople fell in 1453 it had been for some time a mere island of Christianity surrounded by Moslems. Indeed it was only the civil wars among the Turks themselves that held them back so long from the brilliant career of conquest that characterized the 15th and early 16th centuries, for these later followers of Mohammed had all the fanaticism of the Saracens. Before the fall of Constantinople and the transfer of the Turkish seat of government to that city, a corps of infantry was organized that became the terror of the Christian world—the Janissaries. By a grim irony of the Sultan, who created this body of troops, these men were exclusively of Christian parentage, taken as children either in the form of a human tribute levied on the Christian population of Constantinople, or as captives in the various expeditions in Christian territory. The Janissaries were brought up wholly to a military life, they were not permitted to marry, and their lives were devoted to fighting for the Crescent. For a long time they were invincible in the open field.

The first half of the 16th century saw the Turks in Persia, in the east, and at the gates of Vienna in the west. For a time they got a foothold in Italy by seizing Otranto. They had conquered Egypt and Syria, penetrated Persia, and in Arabia gained the support of the Arabs for the Turkish sultan as the successor to the Caliphs. Constantinople, therefore, became not only the political capital for the Turkish empire but the religious center of the whole Moslem world. Moreover, the Arab states on the southern borders of the Mediterranean acknowledged the suzerainty of the Turkish ruler.

This fact was of great importance, for it enabled the Turks to become masters of the inland sea. In 1492 the greater part of the Moors—the descendants of the Arab conquerors of Spain—were expelled from the Peninsula by the conquest of Granada. This event was hailed with joy throughout Christendom, but it had an unexpected and terrible consequence. Flung back into northern Africa, and filled with hatred because of the persecution they had endured, these Moors embarked on a career of piracy directed against Christians. In making common cause with the Turks they supplied the fleets that the Turkish power needed to carry out its schemes of conquest. Apparently the Turks had never taken to salt water as the Arabs had done, but in these Moorish pirates they found fighters on the sea well worthy to stand comparison with their peerless fighters on land, the Janissaries. Between 1492 and 1580, the date of Ali's death, there was a period in which the Moorish corsairs were supreme. It produced three great leaders, each of whom in turn became the terror of the sea: Kheyr ed Din, known as Barbarossa, Dragut, and Ali. It is a curious fact that the first and third were of Christian parentage.

So long as the Turk invaded Christian territory by land alone, the Venetians were unconcerned. They made what treaties they could for continuing their trade with communities that had fallen into the conquerors' hands. But when the Turk began to spread out by sea it was inevitable that he must clash with the Venetian, and so there was much fighting. Yet even after a successful naval campaign the emissary of Venice was obliged to come before the Sultan, cap in hand, to beg trading privileges in Turkish territory. Everything in Venetian policy was subordinated to the maintenance of sufficient friendly relations with the Turk to assure a commercial monopoly in the Levant. Although the Moslem peril grew more and more menacing, Venice remained unwilling to join in any united action for the common good of Europe.

Of course Venice was not alone in this policy. In 1534 Francis the First, for example, in order to humiliate his rival, Charles V, secretly sent word to Barbarossa of the plans being made against him. Indeed France showed no interest in combating the Turk even at the time when he was at the summit of his power. But Venice, as the dominating naval power, had the means of checking the Turkish invasion if she had chosen to do so. Instead she permitted the control of the Mediterranean to slip from her into the hands of the Moslems with scarcely a blow.

The leading part in the resistance to the Moslem sea power was taken by Spain under Charles V. He had, as admiral of the navy, Andrea Doria, the Genoese, the ablest seaman on the Christian side. Early in his career he had captured a notorious corsair; later in the service of Spain, he defeated the Turks at Patras (at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth), and again at the Dardanelles. These successes threatened Turkish supremacy on the Mediterranean, and Sultan Soliman "the Magnificent," the ruler under whom the Turkish empire reached its zenith, summoned the Algerian corsair Barbarossa and gave him supreme command over all the fleets under the Moslem banner. At this time, 1533, Barbarossa was seventy-seven years old, but he had lost none of his fire or ability. On the occasion of being presented to the Sultan, he uttered a saying that might stand as the text for all the writings of Mahan: "Sire, he who rules on the sea will shortly rule on the land also."

The following year Barbarossa set out from Constantinople with a powerful fleet and proceeded to ravage the coast of Italy. He sacked Reggio, burnt and massacred elsewhere on the coast without opposition, cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber and if he had chosen could have sacked Rome and taken the Pope captive. He then returned to Constantinople with 11,000 Christian captives.

Charles V was roused by this display of corsair power and barbarity to collect a force that should put an end to such raids. Barbarossa had recently added Tunis to his personal domains, and the great expedition of ships and soldiers which the emperor assembled was directed against that city. Despite the warning given by the King of France, Barbarossa was unable to oppose the Christian host with a force sufficiently strong to defend the city. The Christians captured it and the chieftain escaped only by a flight along the desert to the port of Bona where he had a few galleys in reserve. With these he made his way to Algiers before Andrea Doria could come up with him. The Christians celebrated the capture of Tunis by a massacre of some 30,000 inhabitants and returned home, thanking God that at last Barbarossa was done for. Indeed, with the loss of his fleet and his newly acquired province it seemed as if the great pirate was not likely to give much trouble, but the Christians had made the mistake of leaving the work only half done.

In 1537, two years after the fall of Tunis, the Sultan declared war on Venice. The Turkish fleet, although led by the Sultan Soliman himself, was defeated by the Venetians off Corfu. Doria, in the service of Charles V, caught and burned ten richly laden Turkish merchant ships and then defeated a Turkish squadron. The prestige of the Crescent on the sea was badly weakened by these events, but suddenly Barbarossa appeared and raided the islands of the Archipelago and the coasts of the Adriatic with a savagery and sweep unmatched by anything in his long career. He arrived in the Golden Horn laden with booty, and delivered to his master, the Sultan, 18,000 captives.

This exploit changed the complexion of affairs. During the winter of 1537–1538 the naval yards of Constantinople were busy with the preparations for a new fleet which should take the offensive against the Venetians and the Christians generally. In the spring Barbarossa got out into the Archipelago and, raiding at will, swept up another batch of prisoners to serve as galley slaves for the new ships. Meanwhile the Mediterranean states nerved themselves for a final effort. Venice contributed 81 galleys, the Pope sent 36, and Spain, 30. Later the Emperor sent 50 transports with 10,000 soldiers, and 49 galleys, together with a number of large sailing ships. Venice also added 14 sailing ships of war, or "nefs," and Doria 22; these formed a special squadron. The Venetian nefs were headed by Condalmiero in his flagship the Galleon of Venice, the most formidable warship in the Mediterranean, and the precursor of a revolution in naval architecture and naval tactics.

16TH CENTURY GALLEY

Although the sailing ship was coming more and more into favor because of the discoveries across the Atlantic, the galley was the man of war of this period. The dromons of the Eastern empire, with their stout build and two banks of oars, had given way to a long, narrow vessel with a single bank of oars which had been developed by men who lived on the shores of the sheltered lagoons of the Adriatic. The prime characteristic of this type was its mobility. For the pirate whose business it was to lie in wait and dash out on a merchantman, this quality of mobility—independence of wind and speed of movement—was of chief importance. Similarly, in order to combat the pirate it was necessary to possess the same characteristic. Of course, as in all the days of rowed ships, this freedom of movement was limited by the physical exhaustion of the rowers. In the ships of Greek and Roman days these men had some protection from the weapons of the enemy and from the weather, but in the 16th century galley, whether Turkish or Christian, they were chained naked to their benches day and night, with practically nothing to shelter them from the weather or from the weapons of an enemy. So frightful were the hardships of the life that the rowers were almost always captives, or felons who worked out their sentences on the rowers' bench. An important difference between the galley of this period and the earlier types of rowed ship is the fact that in the galley there was but one row of oars on a side, but these oars were very long and manned by four or five men apiece.

A typical galley was about 180 feet over all with a beam of 19 feet and a depth of hold of about 7–½ feet. A single deck sloped from about the water line to a structure that ran fore and aft amidships, about six feet wide, which served as a gangway between forecastle and poop and gave access to the hold. The forecastle carried the main battery of guns, and was closed in below so as to provide quarters for the fighting men. The poop had a deck house and a smaller battery; this deck also was closed in, furnishing quarters for the officers. There were two or three masts, lateen rigged, adorned in peace or war with the greatest profusion of banners and streamers. Indeed huge sums of money were expended on the mere ornament of these war galleys, particularly in the elaborate carvings that adorned the stern and prow.

In the conflict of Christian and Moslem, when Constantinople was the capital of Christendom, Greek fire on two critical occasions routed the Saracens. This substance was never understood in western Europe, and for centuries the secret was carefully preserved in the eastern capital. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it was used by the Moslem against the Christian, but the discovery of gunpowder soon made the earlier substance obsolete. In the 16th century cannon had already reached considerable dimensions, but in a naval battle between galleys these weapons were not used after the first volley or so. The tactics were little different from those of the day of the trireme, consisting simply of ramming, and fighting at close quarters with arquebus, bows, pike, and sword.

Twenty feet from the bows of every galley projected her metal beak, and all her guns pointed forward; hence in the naval tactics of the period everything turned on a head-on attack. The battle line, therefore, was line abreast. For the same reasons a commander had to fear an attack on his flank, and he maneuvered usually to get at least one flank protected by the shore. The battle line in the days of the galley could be dressed as accurately as a file of soldiers, but the fighting was settled in a close mêlée in which all formation was lost from the moment of collision between the two fleets.

The Campaign of Prevesa

Such were the men of war and the tactics common to Christian and corsair during the 16th century. While the Christians were slowly collecting their armada, Barbarossa, with a force of 122 galleys, set out to catch his enemy in detail if he could. Pirate as he was, the old ruffian had a clear strategic grasp of what he might do with a force that was inferior to the fleet collecting against him. The Christians were to mobilize at Corfu. The Papal squadron had collected in the Gulf of Arta, and Barbarossa made for it. By sheer luck just before he arrived it had moved to the rendezvous. If he had followed it up immediately, he might have crushed both the Papal and Venetian contingents, because Doria and the Spanish fleet had not yet arrived; but apparently he felt uncertain as to just how far off these reënforcements were and therefore did not attempt the stroke. Instead, he took up a defensive position in the Gulf of Arta, exactly where Antony had collected his fleet before the battle of Actium.

In September (1538) the Christian fleet under Doria left Corfu and crossed to the Gulf. Barbarossa had drawn up his force in battle array inside the entrance, under the guns of the Turkish fortress at Prevesa. Since this entrance is obstructed by a bar with too little water for Doria's heavier ships, he lay outside. Thus the two fleets faced each other, each waiting for the other to make the next move. For the first time in their careers the greatest admiral on the Christian side was face to face with the greatest on the Moslem side. Both were old men, Doria over seventy and Barbarossa eighty-two. The stage was set for another decisive battle on the scene of Actium. The town of Prevesa stood on the site of Octavius's camp, and again East and West faced each other for the mastery of the sea. With the vastly greater strength of the Christian fleet, and the known skill of its leader, everything pointed to an overwhelming victory for the Cross. What followed is one of the most amazing stories in history.

Having the interior lines and the smooth anchorage, Barbarossa had only to watch his enemy go to pieces in the open roadstead in trying to maintain a blockade. His officers, however, scorned such a policy, and, being appointees of the Sultan and far from subordinate in spirit to their chief, they were finally able to force his hand and compel him to offer battle to the Christians by leaving the security of the gulf and the fortress and going out into the open, exactly where Doria wanted him. Accordingly on the 27th of September, the Turkish fleet sailed out to offer battle. It happened that Doria had gone ten miles away to Sessola for anchorage, and the Galleon of Venice lay becalmed right in the path of the advancing fleet. Condalmiero sent word for help, and Doria ordered him to begin fighting, assuring him that he would soon be reënforced.

The Turkish galleys, advancing in a crescent formation, soon enveloped the lonely ship. Her captain ordered his crew to lie down on her deck while he alone stood, in full armor, a target to the host of Moslems who pushed forward in their galleys anxious for the honor of capturing this great ship. Condalmiero ordered his gunners to hold their fire until the enemy were within arquebus range. Then the broadsides of the galleon blazed and the surrounding galleys crumpled and sank. A single shot weighing 120 pounds sank a galley with practically all on board. The signal to retreat was given and speedily obeyed.

Thereafter there were to be no more rushing tactics. Barbarossa organized his galleys in squadrons of twenty, which advanced, one after the other, delivered their fire, and retired. All the rest of the day, from about noon till sunset, this strange conflict between the single galleon and the Turkish fleet went on. The ship was cumbered with her fallen spars; she had lost thirteen men killed and forty wounded. The losses would have been far greater but for the extraordinarily thick sides of the galleon. After sundown the Turkish fleet appeared to be drawing up in line for the last assault. On the Galleon of Venice there was no thought of surrender; the ammunition was almost spent and the men were exhausted with their tremendous efforts, but they stood at their posts determined to defend their ship to the last man.

Then, to their astonishment Barbarossa drew off, sending some of his galleys to pursue and cut off certain isolated Christian units, but leaving the field to the Venetian galleon. Meanwhile, during all that long, hot afternoon the great fleet of Andrea Doria, instead of pressing forward to the relief of the Galleon of Venice and crushing Barbarossa with its great superiority in numbers, was going through strange parade maneuvers about ten miles away. Doria's explanation was that he was trying to decoy Barbarossa out into deeper water where the guns of the nefs could be used, but there is no other conclusion to be reached than that Doria did not want to fight. Fortune that day offered him everything for an overwhelming victory, one that might have ranked with the decisive actions of the world's history, and he threw it away under circumstances peculiarly disgraceful and humiliating. Never did commander in chief so richly deserve to be shot on his own deck. The following day as a fair wind blew for Corfu, Doria spread sail and retired from the gulf, while Barbarossa, roaring with laughter, called on his men to witness the cowardice of this Christian admiral.

The victory lay with Barbarossa. With a greatly inferior force he had challenged Doria and attacked. Doria had not only declined the challenge but fled back to Corfu. No wonder the Sultan ordered the cities of his domain to be illuminated. Barbarossa's prizes included two galleys and five nefs, but he, too, had failed in an inexplicable fashion in drawing off from the assault on the Galleon of Venice at the end of the day's fighting. It is with her, with the gallant Condalmiero and his men, that all the honor of the day belongs. Nothing in the adventurous 16th century surpasses their splendid, disciplined valor on this occasion.

The astonishing powers of resistance and the deadly effect of the broadsides of the Galleon of Venice displayed in a long and successful fight against an entire fleet of galleys should have had the effect of making a revolution in naval architecture fifty years before that change actually occurred. But men of war of those days were built after the models of Venetian architects, and the latter clung doggedly to the galley. They overlooked the great defensive and offensive powers of the galleon displayed in this story and saw only the fact that she was becalmed and unable to move.

Doria's failure left conditions in the Mediterranean as bad as ever. Barbarossa died at the age of ninety, but one of the last acts of his life was to ransom a follower of his, Dragut, Pasha of Tripoli, who had served under him at Prevesa and, having been captured two years later, served four years as a galley slave on the ship of Gian Andrea Doria, the grandnephew and heir of Andrea Doria. Dragut soon assumed the leadership laid down by Barbarossa, his master, fighting first the elder Doria and then his namesake with great skill and audacity. For years the Knights of Malta had been a thorn in the side of the Moslems who roamed the sea, and in 1565 a gigantic effort was made by the Sultan, together with his tributaries from the Barbary states, to wipe out this naval stronghold. The siege that followed was distinguished by the most reckless courage and the most desperate fighting on both sides. It extended from May 18 to September 8, costing the Christians 8000 and the Moslems 30,000 lives. In the midst of the siege Dragut himself was slain, and the conduct of the siege fell into less capable hands. Finally the Turks withdrew.

The death of Soliman the Magnificent, in 1566, brought to the head of the Turkish state a ruler known by the significant name, Selim the Drunkard. Weak and debauched as he was, nevertheless he aspired to add to the Turkish dominions as his father had done. Accordingly, he informed Venice that she must evacuate Cyprus. Previous to this time Venice had succeeded, by means of heavy bribes to the Sultan's ministers, in keeping her hold on this important island, but this policy only tempted further arrogance on the part of the Turk. Further, the time was propitious for such a stroke because Venice was impoverished by bad harvests and the loss of her naval arsenal by fire, Spain was occupied in troubles with the Moors, and France, torn with civil war, wanted to keep peace with the Sultan at any price. During the terrible siege of Malta Venice had remained neutral; now that the danger came home to her she cried for help, and not unnaturally there were those who sneered at her in this crisis and bade her save herself.

The Pope, however, had long been anxious to organize a league of Christian peoples to win back the Mediterranean to the Cross and draw a line beyond which the Crescent should never pass. In this plight of Venice he saw an opportunity, because hitherto the persistent neutrality or the unwillingness of the Venetians to fight the Turk to the finish had been one of the chief obstacles to concerted action. He therefore pledged his own resources to Venice and attempted to collect allies by the appeal to the Cross. The results were discouraging, but a force of Spanish, Papal, and Venetian galleys was finally collected and after endless delays dispatched to the scene in the summer of 1570.

Meanwhile the Turks had been pressing their attack on Cyprus and were besieging the city of Nicosia. If the Christians had been moved by any united spirit they could have relieved Nicosia and struck a heavy blow at the Turkish fleet, which lay unready and stripped of its men in the harbor. But Gian Doria, who inherited from his great uncle his great dislike of Venetians, and who probably had secret instructions from his master, Philip II, to help as little as possible, succeeded in blocking any vigorous move on the part of the other commanders. Finally, after a heated quarrel, he sailed back to Sicily with his entire fleet, and the rest followed. The allies had gone no nearer Cyprus than the port of Suda in Crete. The whole expedition, therefore, came to nothing.

In September Nicosia fell to the Turk, who then turned to the conquest of Famagusta, the last stronghold of the Venetians on the island. Bragadino, the commander of the besieged forces, fought against desperate odds with a courage and skill worthy of the best traditions of his native city, hoping to repulse the Turks until help could arrive. But Doria's defection in 1570 decided the fate of the city the following year. After fifty-five days of siege, with no resources left, Bragadino was compelled, on August 4, 1571, to accept an offer of surrender on honorable terms. The Turkish commander, enraged at the loss of 50,000 men, which Bragadino's stubborn defense had cost, no sooner had the Venetians in his power than he massacred officers and men and flayed their commander alive. This news did not reach the Christians, however, until their second expedition was almost at grips with the Turks at Lepanto.

The Campaign of Lepanto

Undismayed by the failure of his first attempt, Pope Pius had immediately gone to work to reorganize his Holy League. He had to overcome the mutual hatred and mistrust that lay between Spain and Venice, aggravated by the recent conduct of Doria, but neither the Pope nor Venice could do without the help of Spain. There was much bickering between the envoys in the Papal chambers, and it was not till February, 1571, that the terms of the new enterprise were agreed upon. By this contract no one of the powers represented was to make a separate peace with the Porte. The costs were divided into six parts, of which Spain undertook three, Venice, two, and the Pope, one. Don Juan, the illegitimate brother of Philip II, was to be commander in chief. Although only twenty-four, this prince had won a military reputation in suppressing the Moorish rebellion in Spain, and, having been recognized by Philip as a half brother, he had a princely rank that would subordinate the claims of all the rival admirals. Finally, the rendezvous was appointed at Messina.

The aged Venetian admiral, Veniero, had been compelled by the situation in the east to divide his force into two parts, one at Crete, and the other under himself at Corfu. By the time he received orders to proceed to the rendezvous, he learned that Ali, the corsair king of Algiers, known better by his nickname of "Uluch" Ali, was operating at the mouth of the Adriatic with a large force. To reach Messina with his divided fleet, Veniero ran the risk of being caught by Ali and destroyed in detail, but the situation was so critical that he took the risk and succeeded in slipping past the corsair undiscovered. In permitting this escape, and in fact in allowing all the other units of the Christian fleet to assemble at Messina, Ali missed a golden opportunity to destroy the whole force before it ever collected. Instead, he continued his ravages on the coasts of the Adriatic, bent only on plunder. He carried his raids almost to the lagoons of Venice itself, and indeed might have attacked the city had he not been hampered by a shortage of men.

Although the Turks were having their own way, unopposed, and the situation was growing daily more critical, the Christian fleet was slow in assembling. For a whole month Veniero waited in Messina for the arrival of Don Juan and the Spanish squadrons. Philip, apparently, used one pretext after another to delay the prince, and once on his way Don Juan had to tarry at every stage of the journey to witness ceremonial fêtes held in his honor. Philip acted in good faith as far as his preparations went, but he wanted to save his galleys for use against the Moors of the Barbary coast, which was nearer the ports of Spain, and was indifferent to the outcome of the quarrel between Venice and the Porte. Undoubtedly Doria and the other Spanish officers were fully informed of their royal master's desires in this expedition as in the one of the year before. They were to avoid battle if they could.

On August 25 Don Juan arrived at Messina and was joyously received by the city and the fleet. Nevertheless, it was the 12th of September before the decision was finally reached to seek out the Turkish fleet and offer battle. Fortunately Don Juan was a high-spirited youth who shared none of his brother's half-heartedness; he went to work to organize the discordant elements under his command into as much of a unit as he could, and to imbue them with the idea of aggressive action. In this spirit he was seconded by thousands of young nobles and soldiers of fortune from Spain and Italy, who had flocked to his standard like the knight errants of the age of chivalry, burning to distinguish themselves against the infidel. Among these, oddly enough, was a young Spaniard, Cervantes, who was destined in later years to laugh chivalry out of Europe by his immortal "Don Quixote."

In order to knit together the three elements, Spanish, Venetian, and Papal, Don Juan so distributed their forces that no single squadron could claim to belong to any one nation. As the Venetian galleys lacked men, he put aboard them Spanish and Italian infantry. Before leaving Messina, he had given every commander written instructions as to his cruising station and his place in the battle line. The fighting formation was to consist of three squadrons of the line and one of reserve. The left wing was to be commanded by the Venetian Barbarigo; the center, by Don Juan himself, in the flagship Real, with Colonna, the Papal commander on his right and Veniero, the Venetian commander, on his left, in their respective flagships. The right wing was intrusted to Doria, and the reserve, amounting to about thirty galleys, was under the Spaniard, Santa Cruz. In front of each squadron of the line two Venetian galleasses were to take station in order to break up the formation of the Turkish advance. The total fighting force consisted of 202 galleys, six galleasses, and 28,000 infantrymen besides sailors and oarsmen.

The Venetian galleasses deserve special mention because they attracted considerable attention by the part they subsequently played in the action. Sometimes the word was applied to any specially large galley, but these represented something different from anything in either Christian or Turkish fleets. They were an attempt to reach a combination of galleon and galley, possessing the bulk, strength, and heavy armament of the former, together with the oar propulsion of the latter to render them independent of the wind. But like most, if not all, compromise types, the galleass was short-lived. It was clumsy and slow, being neither one thing nor the other. Most of the time on the cruise these galleasses had to be towed in order to keep up with the rest of the fleet. It is interesting to note that, despite the example of the Galleon of Venice at Prevesa, there was not a single galleon in the whole force.

On September 16 the start from Messina was made. The fleet crossed to the opposite shore of the Adriatic, creeping along the coast and in the lee of the islands after the manner of oar driven vessels that were unable to face a fresh breeze or a moderate sea. Delayed by unfavorable winds, it was not till October 6 that it arrived at the group of rocky islets lying just north of the opening of the Gulf of Corinth, or Lepanto[1] where the Turkish fleet was known to be mobilized. Meanwhile trouble had broken out among the Christians. Serious fighting had taken place between Venetians and Spaniards, and Veniero, without referring the case to Don Juan, had hanged a Spanish soldier who had been impudent to him, thus enraging the commander in chief. In a word, the various elements were nearly at the point of fighting each other before the object of their crusade was even sighted.

[Footnote 1: Lepanto is the modern name of Naupaktis, the naval base of Athens in the gulf. It had been a Venetian stronghold, but fell to the Turks in 1499. The name Lepanto is given to both the town and the gulf.]

At dawn of the 7th the lookout on the Real sighted the van of the Turkish fleet coming out to the attack, and this news had a salutary effect. Don Juan called a council of war, silenced those like Doria who still counseled avoiding battle, and then in a swift sailing vessel went through the fleet exhorting officers and men to do their utmost. The sacrament was then administered to all, the galley slaves freed from their chains, and the standard of the Holy League, the figure of the Crucified Savior, was raised to the truck of the flagship.

As the Christians streamed down from the straits to meet their enemy, they faced a serious peril. The Turks were advancing in full array aided by a wind at their backs; the same wind naturally was against the Christians, who had to toil at their oars with great labor to make headway. If the wind held there was every prospect that the Turks would be able to fall upon their enemy before Don Juan could form his line of battle. Fortunately, toward noon the wind shifted so as to help the Christians and retard the Turks. This shift just enabled most of the squadrons to fall into their appointed stations before the collision. Two of the galleasses, however, were not able to reach their posts in advance of the right wing before the mêlée began, and the right wing itself, though it had ample time to take position, kept on its course to the south, leaving the rest of the fleet behind. To Turk and Christian alike this move on the part of Doria meant treachery, for which Doria's previous conduct gave ample color, but there was no time to draw back or reorganize the line.

The Turkish force, numbering 222 galleys, swept on to the attack, also in three divisions, stretched out in a wide crescent. The commander in chief, Ali Pasha, led the center, his right was commanded by Sirocco, the Viceroy of Egypt, and his left by "Uluch" Ali. This arrangement should have brought Ali, the greatest of the Moslem seafighters of his day, face to face with Doria, the most celebrated admiral in Christendom. The two opposing lines swung together with a furious plying of oars and a tumult of shouting. The four galleasses stationed well in front of the Christian battle line opened an effective fire at close quarters on the foremost Turkish galleys as they swept past. In trying to avoid the heavy artillery of these floating fortresses, the Turks fell into confusion, losing their battle array almost at the very moment of contact, and masking the fire of many of their ships. This was an important service to the credit of the galleasses, but as they were too unwieldy to maneuver readily they seem to have taken no further part in the action.

The first contact took place about noon between Barbarigo's and Sirocco's squadrons. The Venetian had planned to rest his left flank so close to the shore as to prevent the Turks from enveloping it, but Sirocco, who knew the depth of water better, was able to pour a stream of galleys between the end of Barbarigo's line and the coast so that the Christians at this point found themselves attacked in front and rear. For a while it looked as if the Turks would win, but the Christians fought with the courage of despair. There was no semblance of line left; only a mêlée of ships laid so close to each other as to form almost a continuous platform over which the fighting raged hand to hand. Both the leaders fell. Barbarigo was mortally wounded, and Sirocco was killed when his flagship was stormed. The loss of the Egyptian flagship and commander seemed to decide the struggle at this point. The Christian slaves, freed from the rowers' benches, were supplied with arms and joined in the fighting with the fury of vengeance on their masters. A backward movement set in among the Turkish ships; then many headed for the shore to escape.

Meanwhile, shortly after the Christian left had been engaged the two centers crashed together. Such was the force of the impact that the beak of Ali Pasha's galley drove as far as the fourth rowing bench of the Real. Instantly a fury of battle burst forth around the opposing flagships. Attack and counter attack between Spanish infantry and Turkish Janissaries swayed back and forth across from one galley to another amid a terrific uproar. Once the Real was nearly taken, but Colonna jammed the bows of his galley alongside and saved the situation by a counter attack. On the other side of the flagship Veniero was also at one time in grave peril but was saved by the timely assistance of his comrades. Though wounded in the leg, this veteran of seventy fought throughout the action as stoutly as the youngest soldier.

The prompt action of Colonna turned the tide in the center, for after clearing the Turks from the deck of the Real, the Christians, now reënforced, made a supreme effort that swept the length of Ali Pasha's galley and left the Turkish commander in chief among the slain. In fighting of this character no quarter was given; of the 400 men on the Turkish flagship not one was spared. Don Juan immediately hoisted the banner of the League to the masthead of the captured ship. This sign of victory broke the spirit of the Turks and nerved the Christians to redoubled efforts. As on the left wing so in the center the offensive now passed to the allies. Thus after two hours' fighting the Turks were already beaten on left and center, though fighting still went on hotly in tangled and scattered groups of ships.

BATTLE OF LEPANTO, OCT. 7. 1571

Formation of the two fleets just before contact, about 11 a. m.