Part 18 (2/2)

Venice appointed Sebastian Veniero to the command of her fleet, which consisted of 106 galleys, 6 galea.s.ses of enormous bulk and clumsy construction carrying each 40 guns, 2 nefs, and 20 fregatas. These vessels were, however, so miserably manned and equipped that Don John had to send on board Spaniards and Genoese to complete their complements. In a ma.n.u.script of the Bibliotheque du Roi (Number 10088) is an account of the battle of Lepanto by Commandeur de Romegas. He gives the number of the Turkish fleet at 333 s.h.i.+ps, of which 230 were galleys, the rest galea.s.ses and smaller craft. The total which he gives for the Christian fleet is 271.

Ali Basha was in supreme command of the Turkish forces, ”a man of an intrepid spirit, who had given many proofs of a humane and generous mature--qualities more rare among the Turks, perhaps among all nations, than mere physical courage.” With Ali was the Basha of Algiers, that other Ali, the corsair, who since his arrival at Coron had done more than his share of the fighting, marauding, and devastating which were the preliminaries to the battle of Lepanto. In this historic conflict he was to show once again how, on the face of the waters, the Sea-wolves were supreme; as it was he and his corsairs, out of the whole of the Moslem host, who acquitted themselves with the greatest credit on that day so fatal to the arms of the Ottoman Turk.

CHAPTER XXII

LEPANTO

How Ali Basha fought at the battle of Lepanto: his subsequent career--Conclusion.

Lepanto, the last battle of first-cla.s.s importance in which the Sea-wolves bore a leading part, is memorable in many ways. It is one of the most sanguinary which was ever fought, the element of personal hatred between the combatants, to which we have alluded more than once, being singularly in evidence on this occasion. As we have said, this campaign was brought about at the initiative of the Venetians, and an incident which occurred not long before the battle exacerbated the feelings with which the Turks were regarded by the Christians to the point of madness. The city of Famagusta, in Cyprus, had been captured by that Mustafa of whom we heard so much at the siege of Malta. The Venetian defenders made an honourable capitulation, but when the four princ.i.p.al Venetian captains were brought before Mustafa, that general caused three of them to be beheaded on the spot; the fourth, a n.o.ble and gallant gentleman who had been responsible for the magnificent defence of the city entrusted to his charge, he caused to be flayed alive in the market-square. He then had the skin stuffed with straw, and, with this ghastly trophy nailed to the prow of his galley, returned in triumph to Constantinople. Bragadino, the defender of Famagusta, did not die in vain; his terrible fate excited such a pa.s.sion of anger in the whole of the armada of Don John that each individual of which it was composed felt that the sacrifice of his own life would be but a small thing if it only led to the destruction of such fiends as those against whom they were arrayed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.]

Lepanto was a magnificent triumph for the arms of Christendom, and taught a much-needed lesson to Europe that the Ottoman Turk was not invincible upon the sea; it was not, however, an interesting battle from the point of view of the student of war and its combinations. Of all the high officers in command on that memorable day there was only one who displayed real generals.h.i.+p and a proper appreciation of the tactical necessities of the situation; that officer was Ali Basha, the leader of the Sea-wolves. The account of the battle is somewhat obscured by the fact that on the side of the Moslems the name of the Ottoman Commander-in-Chief was also ”Ali”; in order to avoid confusion in this narration, we shall allude to the Basha of Algiers by the name given to him by the Christians, ”Occhiali.”

It was on Sunday, October 7th, 1571, that the Christian fleet weighed anchor from Cephalonia and stood southwards along the Albanian coast, which is here fringed with rocky islets. The right wing was commanded by John Andrea Doria, the left wing by the Provediteur Barbarigo, the centre, or ”battle,” as it was called, by Don John in person, who had on the one side of him Mark Antony Colonna, the General of the Galleys of the Pope, and on the other that fiery veteran Sebastian Veniero, the commander of the Venetians. Here also were stationed the Prince of Parma, nephew to Don John, Admiral of Savoy; Duke Urbino, Admiral of Genoa; the Admiral of Naples, and the Commandeur of Castile. The reserve, under the command of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, consisted of thirty-five galleys. Immediately in rear of the _Real_, or royal galley of Don John, was that of the Grand Commander Requesens. The number of seamen, soldiers, officers, and galley-slaves in the fleet amounted to over eighty thousand persons; twenty-nine thousand infantry had been embarked, of which number nineteen thousand were Spaniards. Opposed to the Christians on this day was a Turkish fleet which had on board no less than one hundred and twenty thousand men embarked in two hundred and fifty galleys, without counting an innumerable host of smaller vessels.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEBASTIAN VENIERO. Inset, portraits of Don John and Pope Pius V. Heroic statue of Don John dominating Christian and Turkish Fleets.

The breath of the Almighty destroying the Turkish fleet at Lepanto.]

The authorities on whose accounts of the battle this description is based are Prescott, the famous historian; P. Daru, a member of the Academie Francaise, who wrote an exhaustive _Histoire de Venise_ and Don Cayetano Rosell, member of the Spanish Academy, who is responsible for an exposition of the subject, known as _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_. From a comparison of the works of these eminent men one fact emerges with great clearness, which is that the battle of Lepanto was an indiscriminate melee which was decided by some of the most desperate fighting ever recorded, but which depended hardly at all upon the tactical abilities of the men in chief command. It is true that we are told Don John issued written instructions to the commander of each s.h.i.+p, but we are left in the dark as to what these instructions were, while at the same time we discover that in his line of battle, which in the first instance appears to have been that of ”single line ahead,” the galleys of all nationalities were inextricably mixed up; making it thereby impossible for the Papal, Spanish, and Venetian commanders to deal, as they should have done, exclusively with their own men. On the other hand, Occhiali kept together the squadron of the Sea-wolves; he outgeneralled and had all but defeated John Andrea Doria, when the end came and he was obliged to retreat.

We are, however, antic.i.p.ating. Don John pa.s.sed down his own line in a light ”fregata” giving a few words of exhortation and advice to each s.h.i.+p under his command. If the b.a.s.t.a.r.d brother of the King of Spain did not exhibit any large measure of ability as a leader on this occasion, he was perhaps none the less the right man in the right place, as he had about him so winning a way, he was so striking and gallant a figure, that the hearts of all under his command went out to him. The seamen and soldiers of the great armada greeted him with enthusiastic shouts of delight as he bade them remember in whose cause it was that they fought. The last of the Knights-errant must have made a brave show as he pa.s.sed down that line four miles in length, the sun s.h.i.+ning on his damascened armour, and his yellow curls streaming out from beneath his helmet.

Soon after sunrise the Turkish fleet was descried sailing towards the Christians, in such apparently overwhelming force that several of the Spanish commanders represented to Don John that it would be imprudent to risk a battle. To his honour be it recorded that he replied he had come out to fight the Turks and that the time for talk was now over. He then hoisted all his banners, and the executive signal for the combat to begin was given by displaying at his mainmast head the sacred banner blessed by the Pope.

As this standard floated out upon the breeze there went up a great shout in unison from all that were under the command of Don John. The scene of the combat was that area of the Ionian Sea which is enclosed on the east by the coasts of Albania and Morea and on the west by the islands of Ithaca and Cephalonia, Just to the northward, at the entrance to the Gulf of Arta, sixteen hundred years before had been fought the battle of Actium between Antony and Octavius; the same spot had witnessed, in 1538, the memorable battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.

From the point of view of the seaman, who is naturally anxious to discover the dispositions of their fleets made by the rival Commanders-in-Chief, Lepanto is an almost hopeless puzzle. As far as can be gathered, however, it was that the two armadas approached one another in what is known as ”line ahead,” each s.h.i.+p being immediately astern of its next ahead in one long continuous line; and that, when they got within striking distance, these lines turned so that they formed ”line abreast,” when each s.h.i.+p, having turned at right angles, simultaneously the line advances abreast, the s.h.i.+ps forming it being broadside to broadside.

When the Turks discovered the allies they were issuing from between the islets and the sh.o.r.e. Seeing John Andrea Doria moving to the right, they judged that he was executing a turning movement with the object of escaping to the northwards, from whence he had come; they were, at the time, unable to see the rest of the fleet, which was hidden by the land. With sound tactical judgment they accordingly advanced to attack the allies before they should have time to issue from the strait. They were, however, too far off to accomplish this, and, by the time they arrived within striking distance, the Christian fleet had cleared the strait and was ready for them, ”drawn up for battle,” says Monsieur Daru, which is somewhat vague in describing the disposition of a fleet. What is certain, however, is that in advance of the galleys of Don John were six great galea.s.ses, which were armed with guns of immensely superior power to anything which could be mounted in galleys. As the Turks advanced to the attack these vessels opened fire, and did so much execution that Ali, the Turkish Commander-in-Chief, ordered his line to open out and thus avoid their fire.

Whatever formation the fleet was in at the time--which was, as far as we can gather, ”line abreast”--this opening-out process, to avoid the galea.s.ses, threw it into hopeless confusion. The Turkish right wing, which was hugging the coast, and was the first to come into action, pa.s.sed on in an endeavour to turn the left wing of the allies. While this manoeuvre was in progress Ali, the Capitan-Basha of the Turks, arrived in his vessel opposite to the royal galley of Don John. At the masthead of the galley of the Capitan-Bashaw floated the sacred standard of the Ottomans. This, the ancient banner of the Caliphs, was covered with texts from the Koran, and had upon it the name of Allah emblazoned no less than twenty-eight thousand nine hundred times in letters of gold. ”It was,” says Prescott, ”the banner of the Sultan, having pa.s.sed from father to son since the foundation of the dynasty, and was never seen in the field unless the Grand Seigneur or his lieutenant was there in person.” Ali, the Commander-in-Chief, a favourite of the Sultan, had been entrusted with this most precious of all the possessions of the Padishah, as an incentive to him and all under his command to fight their hardest to do honour to the Prophet, and to prevent this symbol of their religion from falling into the hands of the Christian.

Ali, like Don John, was young, and burning to distinguish himself; accordingly, as soon as the s.h.i.+ps of the two leaders came opposite to each other neither regarded any enemy save his rival Commander-in-Chief. Ali drove his great galley straight on board of the vessel of Don John, and a most obstinate conflict ensued. Veniero and Colonna hastened to the a.s.sistance of their chief, who was sore beset.

The combat now became general, and, as has been said, was for the most part nothing but a melee, in which each s.h.i.+p sought out the nearest of her foes and closed with her. For some time the fight went hard with Don John; time and again the galley of the Moslem leader was boarded, but on each occasion the Spaniards were hurled back upon their own decks. Loredano and Malipier, two Venetian captains, fell upon seven Turkish galleys which were hastening to reinforce the attack on Don John, and sank one of them. They then fought with such fury and resolution with the six that remained that, although both captains were killed, it was conceded that they had saved their general, entirely altered the complexion of the battle in their neighbourhood, and facilitated the capture of the Turkish admiral. The determined conduct of the two Venetians allowed the Spanish division to close in on the Turkish flags.h.i.+p, which, after an heroic resistance, was captured, princ.i.p.ally because there were practically none left alive to fight. The head of Ali was struck off by a Spanish soldier, the banner of the Moslems was replaced by the flag of the Cross, the head of Ali on a pike being exhibited in derision above it. The conquerors seem to have seen no incongruity in this performance. The lowering of the sacred standard of the Capitan-Basha had a disheartening effect upon the Turks; they knew by this that their Commander-in-Chief was dead and his s.h.i.+p captured, the result being that the resistance of the Ottomans began to weaken. Then thirty galleys took to flight from the neighbourhood of the Christian flags.h.i.+p; so hotly were they pursued that they ran on sh.o.r.e, the crews swimming or wading to the beach and making off inland.

On the right of the Christian line things had not been going so propitiously for them. Here Occhiali had managed, by his apparently persistent attempts to outflank John Andrea Doria, to decoy that commander away from his supports and from the main body of the Christians. This tactical manoeuvre of the corsair was successful; having drawn off some fifteen of the Christian galleys, he suddenly flung the whole of his greatly superior force into the gap and surrounded them. These galleys were Spanish, Venetian, and Maltese, and, although they offered a most vigorous resistance, they were mostly destroyed or captured. Doria, in spite of all his efforts, was on this day both outgeneralled and outfought: the Sea-wolves, under their grim leader, manoeuvring for position, obtaining it, and then falling like a thunderbolt on the foe. They were all brave men at Lepanto on this memorable October day; but few there were like the corsair king, in whom a heart of fire was kept in check by a brain of ice, who, during the whole combat, never gave away a chance, or failed to swoop like an eagle from his eyry when the blunders of his enemy gave him the opportunity for which he watched. It was the old story of ”the veritable man of the sea” pitted against gallant soldiers fighting on an unfamiliar element. And yet it was against the best seaman on the Christian side that Occhiali pitted himself on this stricken field; and none can deny that with him rested such honour as was gained by the Turks on this day, the day which broke up for ever the idea of the invincibility of the Ottomans on the water. It needs not to say, to those who have read the story of the siege of Malta, how the Knights comported themselves in the battle; and yet Occhiali captured the _Capitana_, or princ.i.p.al galley of the Order, He was towing her out of action, a prize, when the Marquis of Santa Cruz bore down upon him with the reserve. By this time the battle was lost; the Moslems were in full retreat.

The corsair recognised that he could do no more: sullenly he cast off the tow, and, forming up some thirty of his galleys, still in a condition to navigate, stood boldly through the centre of where the battle had once raged, and escaped. The _Capitana_ of Malta had been taken; and to the Sultan did Occhiali present the great standard of Saint John, as an earnest of his achievement.

Bernardino de Escalente, in his work _Dialogos del arte militar_, printed in Seville in 1583, says that the Captain Ojeda, of the galley _Guzmana_, recaptured the _Capitana_ of Malta; and that, in recognition thereof, ”the Religion” pensioned him for life. Ojeda, it is to be presumed, was under the orders of the Marquis of Santa Cruz during the battle.

There remains one incident connected with the battle of Lepanto which must be told. In the _Marquesa_ galley, in the division of Doria, was lying in his bed sick of a fever a young man twenty-four years of age; a Spaniard of Alcala de Henares, ”de padres hidalgos y honrados,” we are told, although these parents were poor. When this young man heard that a battle was imminent he rose from his bed and demanded of his captain, Francisco San Pedro, that he should be placed in the post of the greatest danger. The captain, and others, his friends, counselled him to remain in his bed.

”Senores,” replied the young man, ”what would be said of Miguel de Cervantes should he take this advice? On every occasion up to this day on which his enemies have offered battle to his Majesty I have served like a good soldier; and today I intend to do so in spite of this sickness and fever.” He was given command of twelve soldiers in a shallop, and all day was to be seen where the combat raged most fiercely. He received two wounds in the chest and another which cost him the loss of his left hand. To those to whom he proudly displayed them in after-years he was accustomed to say, ”wounds in the face or the chest are like stars which guide one through honour to the skies.” Of him the chronicler says: ”He continued the rest of his life with honourable memory of this wonderful occurrence, and, although he lost the use of his left hand, it added to the glory of his right.” How glorious was that right hand is known to all readers of _El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha._

The losses at the battle of Lepanto are something so prodigious that imagination boggles at them. It is said that the Christians lost five thousand men and the Turks no less than thirty thousand. Enormous as these numbers are, they represent probably a very conservative estimate of the loss. The Turks lost two hundred vessels, and when we recollect the number of men embarked on board of the sixteenth-century galleys we can see that the numbers are by no means exaggerated, especially as no quarter was given on either side. When the Captain Ojeda recaptured the battered wreck which had been the _Capitana_ of Malta, we are told that on board of her were three hundred dead Turks; if this were the cost of the capture of one galley we need not be surprised at the total.

With the results to Europe of this amazing battle we have nothing to do in this book. That which it demonstrated, as far as the Sea-wolves were concerned, was that they still remained the most competent seamen and sea-fighters in the Mediterranean, and that the legend of the invincibility of the Ottomans at sea rested on what had been accomplished during a long period of years by these insatiable pirates and magnificent warriors.

<script>