after long years of peace between the two powers, summoned Venice, in
1570, to surrender the Island of Cyprus. One hundred and seventy-one
Ottoman galleys supported the demand. Venice had tried to get the
Christian powers to coöperate against the Turks, even calling on the
Persians and the Arab tribes of Yemen to aid her in the defense of the
island. But the arms of the Turkish generals soon prevailed. The chief
fortress of the island, Famagusta, capitulated in 1571; and with its
fall the Turks began the occupation of the island, which only ended
after the war between Turkey and Russia in 1878.
During the progress of the siege an anti-Turkish league had been
completed, composed of Venice and the Papacy, Spain, the Knights of
Malta, and many Italian states. The result was the despatch of a large
fleet under the command of Don John of Austria, at this time a youth
of only twenty-two years. The objective of the armada was Patras,
because, in the Gulf of Lepanto, close at hand, all of the squadrons
of the Turkish navy were assembled. In all, the allies had 208 ships
of war, the Ottomans slightly more, but the weakness of the Turks was
due to the lack of soldiers to defend their fleet. There were but
2500 Janitschars on their galleys, the rest were troops raised from
continental Greece, 22,000 in all, who were either new recruits or
were not trained for naval warfare. Among the Turkish captains were
present many older men who desired to avoid conflict with the Christian
armada. Of a different temper were Hassan Pasha, the son of the famous
Kheir-ed-Din, and Ali-Muezzin-Zade, the new captain pasha of the whole
fleet.
The Christian fleet was in an admirable state of preparation for the
fight. It was composed entirely of armed vessels directed by skilful
rowers; besides the 203 galleys there were six galiasses, great
floating citadels carrying heavy artillery and 500 soldiers. Don
John had also armed the Venetian vessels with contingents of Spanish
infantry. On the side of the Christians there was the additional
advantage of superior equipment in armor and weapons for the individual
warrior. The soldiers wore helmets and breastplates, and were armed
with arquebuses, while the Turks used lances and arrows. There were
also superior numbers on the side of the allies, the fighting men
numbering between 28,000 and 29,000.
The two fleets took up the same position and adopted the same tactics.
In the center on each side were collected the largest ships under the
command of the respective chief admirals. Some initial successes were
won by the Ottomans over the division made up of the Venetian vessels,
but in the center, after desperate fighting, the men under Don John,
owing to their superior weapons, got the better of their enemies, and
the captain pasha was killed. The Algerian vessels showed much tactical
superiority to the Christian right wing, under the command of John
Andrew Doria; but, although they inflicted much damage, they could not
save the day for the Ottomans. The victory cost the Christians dear,
for they lost 12 galleys and 7500 men. But the defeat of the Turks was
overwhelming; 15 galleys were sunk, 177 were captured, and many pashas
and governors of provinces lost their lives; 12,000 to 15,000 of the
galley slaves on the Turkish vessels, Christian captives, were set free.
Such was the remarkable victory of October 7, 1571, remarkable not only
for the heroism displayed, and the sensation caused by the success of
the Christians, who had for so long been incapable of resisting Ottoman
aggression, but also because of the small practical results produced.
The Christian armada returned to Corfu, and from there made for the
coast of Italy, where it disbanded. On the side of the vanquished,
Euldj-Ali, gathering together eighty-seven ships as a nucleus for a
new Ottoman fleet, sailed into the harbor of Constantinople, and was
welcomed as a conqueror by the Sultan and the grand vizier, Sokoli. New
honors were heaped upon him, not altogether undeserved, for during the
winter a new fleet, larger and better armed than the one destroyed, was
made ready for sea.
The recuperative energy of the Ottoman Empire was not lost on the
Venetians, and their agent at Constantinople, Antonio Barbaro, saw that
there was more than an empty boast in the words of the Vizier, who
said to him, “There is a great difference between your loss and ours.
By taking from you the Kingdom of Cyprus we have cut off your arm; by
defeating our fleet you have only shaved our beard. A beard grows out
thicker for being shaven.” This argument appealed to the republic, and
in 1573 peace was made. The conditions were the cession of Cyprus,
the payment of a heavy war indemnity by Venice, and a regulation of
the frontier in Albania and Dalmatia, that secured to the Turks their
ancient possessions there. The Venetians also were required to increase
the annual tribute exacted for the Island of Zante, which was still in
their hands.
Three generations after the taking of Cyprus the long-coveted island
of Crete, or Candia, was annexed to the Ottoman Empire. Hostilities
began between Venice and Sultan Ibrahim I, because of the seizure by
the Knights of Malta of a Turkish vessel carrying high officials of the
court to Egypt. The Maltese ships were received in the friendly harbors
of Crete, where they took refuge. In April, 1645, a great fleet of 302
ships, and a large army of over 100,000 men, commanded by a Dalmatian,
Pasha Joseph Markovitch, set sail for Crete. In June, one of the two
chief fortresses of the island, Canea, was invested. After two months’
siege it surrendered. In 1648 began the first siege of Candia, but this
stronghold proved as hard to capture as Rhodes. During the course of
twenty-one years it was the objective of repeated attacks on the part
of the Turks, and only fell into their hands in 1669.
As has been seen, the Ottoman Empire began to decay from the top. The
Sultan finally became the mere figurehead of palace intrigues, and the
effect of the rottenness in the supreme head of a centralized military
despotism was widespread. Taxation became extravagantly burdensome;
the royal domains were alienated, the coinage was debased, offices
were sold to the highest bidder, and this general venality caused the
disappearance of the military fiefs from which the armies of the empire
had been recruited.
The Janitschars lost their characteristic qualities as warriors when
the custom of recruiting them from the Christian population was
abandoned. They finally degenerated into a mere rabble of turbulent
blackguards, composed of the worst elements of all nationalities,
Christian and Moslem, who disappeared from the ranks during a war,
or fled from the battlefield and lived normally by blackmail or
by illicit trading. The abandonment of this living tithe was due
probably to the jealousy of the Moslem families, who objected to the
monopolizing by men of Christian birth of the lucrative privileges
attached to an élite corps. The last time the tithe was collected
was in 1676, when 3000 youths were brought in as recruits. With the
abolition of the Janitschars dates the rise of the bands of brigands
among both the Slavic and Hellenic populations. The able-bodied members
of the conquered races found in this sphere of activity a chance for
developing their capacities in guerrilla warfare; with the training
and traditions so acquired they were able in later years to act as
the leaders in the national movements which, during the course of the
nineteenth century, ended in the dismemberment of the Ottoman provinces
in Europe.
* * * * *
SPANISH CONQUERORS
I THE SPANIARD AND THE NEW WORLD
In the century which followed the discovery of America, not only was
the lead in initiative taken by Spain never lost, but she practically
had no competitors in the conquest and colonization of the New World.
If the lines of medieval enterprise had been followed in the opening
up of new territories for economic development, it should have fallen
either to Venice or to Genoa to undertake the work of exploration
and exploitation of these unknown regions. But times had changed,
and the Italian republics had changed with them. Under the stress of
the Turkish conquests, which had led to the organization of a great
military and naval power in the East, Venice could follow nothing but
a policy of self-protection that admitted neither of expansion nor of
adventure. Internal changes in the Italian peninsula, indicated by
the overlordship of Milan, had reduced the power of Genoa, which had
already been weakened by her long contest with Venice for the naval
mastery of the Mediterranean.
The rise of Spain was phenomenal; nothing exactly resembling it had
been seen before, except in the case of those great tribal or national
invasions that so often altered the face of Europe. For centuries,
like Italy before the advent of Italian unity, Spain was only a
geographical expression. Only fourteen years before Columbus’ first
voyage, the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile had
consolidated the royal power on the Iberian peninsula and made these
two Spanish monarchs lords of the whole land south of the Pyrenees,
except in the kingdoms of Granada in the south, of Portugal in the
west, and of Navarre in the north. A steady policy of aggression and
conquest soon brought about the disappearance of the small kingdom of
Granada. Between 1486 and 1489 Loja, Malaga, and Baza had been taken;
Granada alone held out a few years more. Ferdinand, a most astute
monarch of the type of Louis XI of France and Henry VII of England, had
already crushed the Portuguese faction in Castile, who had favored the
alliance of their queen with the King of Portugal. His ideals were for
an absolute monarchy, which, by the elimination of feudal traditions
and by the accumulation of wealth, might become the predominant power
in western Europe.
There was no reason for Spain to become a colonizing power in the
modern sense, since the peninsula was a sparsely populated country,
large tracts of land having been opened up for occupation by the
Christian conquests of Moorish territory. In preceding centuries,
when the Christian princes began to win back, piece by piece, the
lands belonging to the Moslems, a conciliatory policy had been adopted
towards the conquered race; the Moors had kept their personal liberties
and had been encouraged to group themselves in autonomous communities
in the suburbs of Christian cities. Even when Granada was taken,
favorable terms were given to its inhabitants, although in the end the
promises were broken. They were conceded liberty of person, trade,
education, and worship, the protection of Mohammedan law, administered
by Mohammedan judges, and the benefit of mixed tribunals. But here and
elsewhere Ferdinand’s methods were a consistent application of the
principles of an autocrat, and, when the New World fell as a prize to
the Spanish conquerors, the usages of expansion by conquest at home
in the Iberian peninsula were mercilessly applied. When Malaga was
taken, the captive inhabitants were sold as slaves; one-third of the
proceeds of the sale was taken for the redemption of Christian captives
in Africa; another was given to those who had served in the army of
occupation either as mercenaries or as officials, and the remaining
portion was paid into the royal treasury. As to the land, it was laid
out for a colony. The large tracts opened to colonization were offered
on easy conditions to the Christian inhabitants of Spain.
It was not land hunger, therefore, which prompted the Spanish monarchs
to accept Columbus’ scheme of a westward route to the rich empires of
the Orient. Profit-bringing trade by which stores of specie could be
accumulated attracted the founders of Spanish absolutism. The project
itself was not viewed with skepticism; its scientific basis was cogent;
there were besides widely circulated stories of land existing in the
West. But the one practical difficulty in the way of fitting out the
proposed expedition was the war with the Moors of Granada, by which the
Spanish treasury had been exhausted. After the city fell in January,
1492, several months were spent in haggling over terms. Columbus
had made up his mind that if the voyage were sucessful he should be
adequately rewarded for his trouble. Apart from conditions as to
offices and the administration of the newly acquired possessions, it
was agreed that he was to receive one clear tenth of all merchandise,
whether gold, silver, pearls, spices, or whatsoever else was gained
or gotten for the crown in his new jurisdiction. Moreover, there was
a further clause inserted that in case Columbus should choose to
contribute to the equipment of vessels employed in the new trade to
the extent of one-eighth, he was to be at liberty to do so, thereby
entitling himself to one-eighth part of the profits.
The prospects of a great trading adventure seemed altogether alluring.
It must be remembered that the discoverer carried with him a letter
from the Catholic monarchs to the Grand Khan of Tartary; and that
it was this opening up of a direct trade route, with enormous
possibilities for commercial profit, that inspired the Spanish conquest
of America. Even after the configuration of the new continent had
been made out by later voyagers, the fascination of establishing
a connection with the Orient remained a strong inducement. Then
as it faded away as an immediate possibility, the opportunity of
securing large hoards of the precious metals stimulated discovery and
exploration. The lust of territorial conquest remained associated with
the lust of gold. The Spanish adventurer had no ideal aims; he was
not attracted by the American continent because it offered a new home
or because it presented a chance for trying political experiments.
There was the same single-mindedness in the conquistador ideal as is
seen to-day in the trust magnate who is searching for oil wells. The
sordid aims called forth by the success of Columbus’ expedition were
not developed by the contest with the natives occupying the lands whose
possession was coveted.
When the Spanish conquerors arrived in those unknown islands of
the western sea the American continent was held by a number of the
Turanian races which had one time peopled most of the Old World. Only
a few relics of their predominance are seen in the Europe of to-day
in the Basques, the Finns, and the Esthonians. Long before historical
times the process of uniting Asia and Europe with America had begun.
Probably thousands of years before the rise of Caucasian civilization
along the Nile and the Euphrates, Turanian hordes found their way
across the Behring Straits. Little capacity for attaining the arts of
civilized life was shown by the American Turanians; there were, it is
true, differences in social organization, but the general level of
civilization was not far above the savage type, even in the Valley of
Mexico or in Quito and Cuzco in South America.
Those who took part in the overthrow of the Aztec and Inca governments
magnified their own achievements by describing themselves as the
conquerors of great civilized empires. Such fictions were natural in
men who desired to exalt the difficulties of a suddenly achieved fame,
and the exaggeration was the more easily believed because of their
seizure of large stores of those precious metals by which, in the Old
World, progress in civilization was measured. From the point of view
both of the home government and of those who took part in the first
cycle of voyages, there was not much encouragement of profit to be
derived in the islands and shores of the mainland touched by Columbus
and by those who worked under his leadership and inspiration from
1492-1517--that is, during the first twenty-five years of Spanish
conquest.
In the first voyage of Columbus much of the coast of Hayti was explored
because of the stories told as to the existence of gold on the
island. In the second expedition, made the following year, Dominica,
Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, Jamaica were discovered. The foundation of the
first Spanish city on the island of Hayti was laid; then the explorer
passed along the north coast of Cuba, which especially interested him
because he took it to be the mainland of Cathay and Cipango not far
from Malacca. In 1498, after discovering Trinidad, he reached the
South American continent at the mouth of the Orinoco River, which was
identified by him as one of the streams of the terrestrial paradise.
Then followed complaints of administrative abuses which led to
Columbus’ return to the Spanish peninsula as a prisoner.
There was a fourth voyage in 1502 which extended as far as Honduras.
After showing a piece of gold to the natives Columbus inquired of them
by signs where the metal could be found. They pointed to the east,
and after some further communications Columbus was convinced that the
land of Cathay lay in that direction. He spent many weeks afterward in
tacking along the shore against adverse winds and currents. Finally he
landed at a place called by the natives Veragua, where the signs of
civilized life, indicated by the village communities and the numbers
of temples and sepulchers constructed of stone and lime, and suitably
decorated, and, above all, the abundance of gold demonstrated to him
that he had reached the golden Chersonese of the East. This was the
land, he was sure, that had furnished King Solomon with his famous
treasures. He set out from Veragua certain of discovering after a few
leagues’ journey the straits of Malacca. After that, to reach the mouth
of the Ganges would only be a matter of a few days. When he found the
peninsula larger than he expected, he turned back to Veragua, meaning
to found a permanent settlement there; but the warlike natives forced
him to take refuge on his ships. Disheartened, the explorer withdrew
to Hayti, from whence he returned to Spain, where he died on May 20,
1506.
There was a curious vein of mysticism in Columbus’ character, which
comes out in a quotation made by him in his later years, from the
famous medieval Apocalyptic, Joachim of Calabria. “The Rabbi Joachim,”
he writes, “says that out of Spain shall come he who shall rebuild the
House of Mount Zion.” His discovery, the explorer explained, would
bring about the recovery of the Holy City and of the Sepulcher of
Christ by means of the gold which would be found in the Indies. When he
returned the first time from Hayti to Spain, he wrote that those whom
he left behind would easily collect a ton of gold while he was absent,
and that, therefore, in less than three years the capture of the Holy
Sepulcher and the conquest of Jerusalem could be undertaken. Later on,
he provided that the accumulated income of his property, which was to
be invested in shares of the Bank of St. George in Genoa paying six
per cent., should to the extent of one-half go to aid the expenses of
recovering the holy places in Palestine.
The constant quest for gold that stimulated the voyages of the great
explorer had, therefore, its basis in this extraordinary and fanatical
revival of the spirit which had once inspired the Crusades. It was
almost a mania with Columbus, whose letters contain eulogies on gold:
“Who hath this, hath all that can be desired in the world; gold can
even bring souls into Paradise.” Though the metal could not be found
in great quantities, he discovered nevertheless a way by which the
New World might be made to yield the gold which was wanted. It was
Columbus who started in America the traffic in human beings. The day
after he arrived in the West Indies, he talked of the prospect of
using the Indians for slave traffic, and he promised to send to Europe
a whole shipful of these idolaters. He kept his promise also, for
in 1495 he sent five hundred Indian captives to be sold at Seville.
The next year three hundred more arrived at Cadiz. It has been not
unnaturally supposed that the harsh treatment received later on by the
explorer at the hands of the governor of Hayti had a close connection
with Columbus’ persistent policy of recruiting slave gangs from the
natives of the islands he had visited. It is certain that Isabella
was so outraged by the constant stream of West Indian slaves which
had its source in Columbus’ discoveries that she frequently directed
their repatriation. It is significant also that Bobadilla, the man who
sent Columbus back to Spain in irons, is spoken of by Las Casas as an
upright and humane person.
This willingness to allow the inauguration of a trade in slaves in
lieu of the export from the New World of the precious metal which was
so persistently sought for may be also explained by the strangeness
and uncouthness of the inhabitants of the West Indian islands. Apart
from the Mexicans and Peruvians, the greatest extent of the New World
was inhabited by peoples who had not yet got beyond the hunting stages
of culture. They used, of course, articulate speech, they had the
knowledge of fire, and employed a few rude instruments of stone and
wood, but they were essentially savages, and up to this time man in an
actually savage stage was not known to Europeans--even to travelers.
Marco Polo, indeed, had told of the existence in the East of races who
devoured human flesh, but he was not believed. It was the voyage of
Columbus that revealed the practice to be a literal fact and gave it
such impressive emphasis that the Indian name Carib or Caribbee, in
the modified form of cannibal, came to be used to designate the savage
who feeds on human flesh. The smaller islands of the Antilles were all
occupied by branches of this parent stock, the Carib, all of whom were
distinguished by savage ferocity. The name was given them by a rival
race, the Arawaks, who under various designations lived in the four
larger islands, Cuba, Jamaica, Hayti, and Puerto Rico. Both peoples had
come from the opposite coast of South America, probably drifting to the
islands by the help of the equatorial current. On the mainland there
was constant warfare between the two, with distinct advantages on the
side of the Carib.
When Columbus reached the Antilles, the Arawaks in Cuba and in Hayti
were in process of extermination at the hands of the Caribs. The
work of subjugation commenced by the savage Carib was taken up by
the Spaniard; in a few years the Arawaks of the larger islands were
absolutely destroyed. The vigorous race in the smaller islands was
never dominated by the Spanish conquerors; even when Spanish domination
in the islands gave place to English and French rule, the Carib kept
up the contest for more than a century. But the long years of warfare
caused their numbers to dwindle away. As late as 1773 a military
expedition was ordered to be sent to the island of St. Vincent to
exterminate the Carib population, who refused to be reduced. But in
place of drastic measures it was resolved to deport them. They were
finally removed to the mainland of Honduras, where from this original
small group the increase has been so remarkable that to-day their
settlements extend from Belize to Cape Gracias a Dios.