THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA
The events recorded in the last chapter bring us down to the end of
the year 1515, and while every endeavour has been made to present
affairs in chronological sequence, it must be remembered that the dates
of piratical expeditions are often impossible to obtain: the wrath
of the chroniclers at the nefarious deeds of the corsairs greatly
exceeding their desire for a meticulous accuracy in the matter of
the exact time of their occurrence. Uruj, as has been seen, had by
his headstrong folly once again placed his brother and himself in a
decidedly awkward situation. By the losses which he had incurred in his
second ill-advised attempt on Bougie he had so weakened the piratical
confederation that the countenance of some potentate had again become
necessary for their continued existence, and the Sultan of Tunis had
now repudiated all connection with these ingrates.
But, if craft and subtlety were not to be found in Uruj there was one
who never failed to exhibit these qualities when they became necessary,
and Kheyr-ed-Din once more came to the front. The Russian peasantry
have a saying that “God is high and the Czar is far away.” In the
sixteenth century the Grand Turk was in every sense “far away” from
the struggling corsairs on the littoral of Northern Africa, and was a
sovereign of such great and mysterious might that any man with a less
fine instinct into the psychology of the times in which he lived than
Kheyr-ed-Din would have hesitated long and anxiously before addressing
him directly; would probably in the end not have done so at all. But
desperate diseases require desperate remedies, and the politic corsair
well knew that even the moral support of such an one as the Sultan of
Constantinople was worth more than even material aid from a Sultan of
Tunis.
Consequently, greatly daring, he sent an embassy to the Sublime Porte
with one of his most trusted captains at its head to lay the homage of
the corsairs at the feet of Selim I. Very naturally these ambassadors
did not go empty-handed, but took with them rich presents and numerous
slaves. Selim was much pleased at the attention, coming as it did from
such a distance—we have to remember that the coast of North Africa was
an immense journey from Constantinople in those days—and the insight of
Kheyr-ed-Din was triumphantly vindicated. Not only did the Sultan send
a gracious reply in return, but—what was far more to the purpose—he
sent a reinforcement of fourteen vessels to the corsairs bidding them
to go on and prosper in their efforts to spread the true faith among
the Christian heretics.
There is nothing more curious in the history of the corsairs than the
perpetual ups and downs of their lives. Thus in the present instance
the ill-advised attack of Uruj on Bougie had reduced them to terrible
straits; immediately afterwards the action of the Grand Turk once
more set them upon their feet and enabled them to pursue an unchecked
career of devastation. Aided by the reinforcements sent by Selim,
their depredations assumed ever larger proportions, and, had they
continued to receive this assistance, the course of history itself
might have been changed. Ground to powder beneath the iron heel of
their ruthless conquerors, the Moriscoes of Southern Spain were ever
waiting the chance to rise and shake off the yoke by which they were so
sore oppressed; from far and near reports were coming to hand of the
continued successes of the corsairs, and all Andalusia seethed with
passionate hope that the day of deliverance was at hand.
But, alas for the vanity of human wishes! in the opening months of the
year 1516 Selim recalled his ships and the chance was gone, never again
to arise.
It may have been that “the sorrowful sighing of the captives” never
reached the ears of the successor of Othman in his palace on the
shores of the Golden Horn; in any case, the Sultan was preparing for
the conquest of Egypt, and in consequence recalled the ships which he
had lent to assist the corsairs. The Moriscoes were thus left without
hope, but so far as the corsairs were concerned they were enabled to
strike another bargain with the Sultan of Tunis. This monarch had now
got over his fit of the sulks, and discovered that customs dues from
the peaceful trading mariners, although desirable enough, were not by
any means so lucrative a form of revenue as was the one-fifth share
of the booty of the pirates. Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din for their part,
although they had captured Jigelli, were totally unable to hold it:
the capture had indeed been principally due to the assistance which
they had received from the Berber tribesmen, but these nomads had
disappeared into the deserts from whence they came, once the looting of
the town and fortress had been completed.
The corsair had to be armed at all points, in the moral as well as the
material sense, as he was the enemy of all men, and all were vowed
to his destruction. Every cruise which he took raised up against him
fresh hatred and a more bitter animus, and we must remember that it
was not only men individually, but Principalities and Powers that were
arrayed in line of battle for his destruction. At the present juncture
Spain was specially hostile, for not only had her possession of Bougie
been twice attacked by the Sea-wolves, but a valuable convoy had been
captured. An expedition, in consequence, was sent by the Spaniards
against the Barbarossas, but this effort did not result in much damage
being done to the offenders. The Spaniards destroyed four piratical
vessels which had been abandoned by their crews at Bizerta, and pushed
a strong reconnaissance into the Bay of Tunis itself. Here shots
were exchanged between the Spanish fleet and the forts—under which
Kheyr-ed-Din had drawn up his ships—and the Spaniards then abandoned
the enterprise and returned from whence they had come.
In the year 1510 the Spaniard, Count Pedro Navarre, had seized upon
Algiers, which town was at this time one of the principal refuges
of the Moorish fugitives, who had been driven from Granada, from
Còrdoba, and from Southern Spain generally by Ferdinand and Isabella
eighteen years previously. To say that the condition of these people
was desperate is to speak but the bare truth, for what could exceed the
misery of the situation in which they were left after the successful
incursion of their Christian foes? What we are apt to lose sight of in
the light of present-day circumstances is the fact that these Spanish
Moors were a most highly civilised people, far more so indeed than
their Christian contemporaries; that they had been driven with fire and
sword from the land in which they and their forefathers had dwelt for
over seven centuries, and that they now had been cast out literally
to starve on the inhospitable shores of Northern Africa. So it came
about that the common people exchanged the life of the peaceful and
prosperous artisan or husbandman for that of the hand-to-mouth pirate,
and the case of knight and noble among them was no better—perhaps
rather worse—than the meanest among those who had been expropriated.
Those who know the region in which these unhappy folk lived are aware
of the material monuments which still exist and testify to the glorious
past; and, seeing what they have seen, it is no great stretch of the
imagination to picture to themselves the comfort, the elegance, and
the luxury with which the inhabitants of Granada and Còrdoba lived
surrounded. Over there, away across some few leagues of shining blue
water, were the ruined homes of which many of the banished people
still possessed the keys, awaiting the day when Allah and the Prophet
should vouchsafe to them that return which they so naturally and
ardently desired. To this day the key of the great Mosque at Cordoba
is preserved at Rabat as a sacred relic of former dignity and power—a
symbol to the Moslem of his perpetual banishment. If Cordoba with its
mosque—still one of the wonders of the world, with its eleven hundred
marble columns—were the principal shrine and holy of holies to these
people, there were in addition hundreds of other temples of their
faith now for ever desecrated in their eyes by the misfortune which
had placed them in Christian hands. In Andalusia were the dishonoured
graves of their kinsfolk, and, last and worst of all, in this land
still dwelt thousands upon thousands of their co-religionists held in a
degrading bondage by their implacable enemies.
The capture of Algiers by Count Pedro Navarro was a crowning misfortune
for the exiles, and when this commander seized upon the place he
extracted from the inhabitants an oath of fidelity to the Spanish
crown; he further erected a strong tower to overawe the town, and to
keep its turbulent inhabitants in order. But such an oath as this,
extracted at the point of the sword, was writ in water; it meant, of
course, the suppression of piracy, and it also meant the starvation
of most of those persons who dwelt in the vicinity. How the Moslem
population existed for the six years after the incursion of Navarro
is a mystery; but they probably moved their galleys, of which they
possessed some twenty, further along the coast out of the range of
the guns from Navarro’s Tower, and secure from the observation of those
who held it for the Spanish king.
In the year in which Selim descended upon Egypt the King of Spain,
Ferdinand V., died, and grave troubles immediately broke out in Spain.
This was an opportunity too good to be missed, as no reinforcements
could possibly be expected for the garrison in Algiers as long as
these disturbances lasted, and the Algerines took counsel together as
to the best means of driving out their enemies. It is a commentary on
the detestation in which they held the Spaniards that they should have
allied themselves for this purpose with the savages of the hinterland.
This, however, was what they did. As in the case of Jigelli, these
people could always be relied upon to go anywhere in search of booty,
and one Selim Eutemi entered the town at the head of his tribe. But
sheer, stark, savage valour could make no impression on Navarro’s
Tower and the ordnance that was mounted on its walls. The result was a
stalemate, as the Spaniards could by no manner of means get out, and
neither could their enemies, who swarmed innumerable in the town and
the surrounding country, get in. In time, of course, they might hope
to bring the garrison to surrender by starvation; but time pressed,
and no man knew when the troubles in Spain might be adjusted and help
come to the beleaguered. In the meanwhile Selim Eutemi and his men, who
had been taught some rude lessons in the power of firearms, kept out
of range of the cannon, while the Algerines held yet another council
of war, the result of which was that they decided to ask help from
Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, and to them they appealed. By this
time their fame was known to all men, and they could supply that which
was lacking—namely ships, artillery, a first-class fighting force, and
last, and best of all, the moral support which would stiffen and put
heart into the motley horde which at present surged around the gates of
the fortress of Navarro.
The Algerines did not appeal in vain, and an instant promise of
succour was forthcoming. Kheyr—ed—Din was away at sea, but Uruj, that
indomitable fighter, started at once. From whence we are not told, but
he must have been somewhere in the neighbourhood, as he and his men
marched along the shore; while, keeping pace with them, came a fleet of
eighteen galleys and three barques laden with stores.
But before proceeding to the assistance of the Algerines Uruj had a
personal matter to which to attend, and he wished to combine pleasure
with serious business. One of his old companions had seceded from his
command and had established himself at Shershell, where he lived the
life of an independent corsair within easy striking distance of the
Balearic Islands and the coast of Spain, his following composed of a
horde of those broken men of whom mention has been made. Shershell was
an unfortified town, and surrendered unconditionally upon the arrival
of Uruj and his army. Kara-Hassan, for such was the name of this
independent corsair, came out to greet his old-time chief; he was met
with violent reproaches, and the altercation ended by Uruj having him
beheaded on the spot. It was ill to quarrel with the Barbarossas.
Freed from this rival, the Mitylene corsair had now uncontested
supremacy on the coast, a supremacy none was likely to contest in
the future, as he brooked no opposition, and had come to consider
that independent piracy in the Mediterranean was in some sort an
infringement of the rights of himself and his brother. One of the most
salient peculiarities of the corsairs at this time was the apparent
recklessness with which they assailed others who were participants in
their nefarious business. Self-interest and policy would seem, to the
observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a different course
of action; but we shall see, when we come to deal with the life-history
of Kheyr-ed-Din, that this infinitely wiser and more intellectual man
apparently allowed himself to be swayed by gusts of passion, in which
he savagely maltreated those with whom he was associated, and from whom
dangerous hostility was certainly to be feared if they escaped with
their lives. At this distance of time it is impossible to gauge the
motives by which men such as these were actuated, more particularly in
the case of Kheyr-ed-Din, whose character was a blend of the deepest
subtlety and calculated ferocity.
Having settled with Kara-Hassan, Uruj continued his march along the
coast. Arrived at Algiers, he opened in form a siege of Navarro’s
Tower; but, being unable to make any impression on its defences, he
abandoned the siege after twenty days’ fruitless fighting, during which
he lost a number of men in his assaults. Baffled and furious, he turned
on the Berber chieftain, the luckless Selim Eutemi, and caused him to
be assassinated, regarding him as being responsible for the failure.
The Spanish chroniclers relate, with some wealth of detail, how Uruj
personally fell upon Selim Eutemi, when that chieftain was in his bath,
and strangled him with his own hands. However this may have been, the
Spanish records of the deeds of the corsairs cannot well be taken _au
pied de la lettre_; there is no doubt that Selim was murdered, and from
that time the Berbers recognised that he who had come to help was now
remaining to plunder. Uruj now established himself in the town, and set
to work making raids into the adjoining country, carrying off sheep,
cattle, and slaves. For the Berbers this was a true awakening. He who
now oppressed them had come in the guise of a champion to assist them
in the sack and plunder of Navarro’s Tower; they had exchanged King
Log, who dwelt securely locked up, for a King Stork of the most active
description. Although we cannot sympathise with such people, it is
quite possible to understand their very natural annoyance at the turn
which things had taken, and it does not surprise us (in this age of
“punic faith”) that a conspiracy was set on foot between the dwellers
of the hinterland and the Spaniards of the fortress.
Uruj was informed of all that was going on through his own spies, and,
although he kept his finger on the pulse of the conspiracy, he acted as
though the tribesmen were still his very faithful friends and allies.
The corsair was more patient than his wont. In this affair he wished
for ample proof of delinquency, and also for a vengeance adequate to
the occasion when he should discover all the guilty parties; and so
some weeks went by while the plot was maturing, apparently, from the
point of view of the conspirators, to a successful conclusion. But Uruj
had bided his time with a subtlety and _finesse_ which would have done
credit to Kheyr-ed-Din himself.
It was the custom of the corsair and his chief adherents to attend the
principal mosque on Fridays; and therefore, when the conspirators were
cordially invited to attend on the following Friday, and, after the
service was over, to attend Uruj to his dwelling and there confer with
him, they went, nothing doubting, to their deaths. As the discourse of
the Mullah came to an end a crash resounded throughout the building:
six stalwart swordsmen had flung the great gates of the mosque
together, and barred all exit. Excepting the conspirators, twenty-two
in number, the remainder of the edifice was filled with the galley’s
crews of the corsair, men who, had he given the order, would have
cheerfully set alight to the sacred building itself and roasted the
Mullahs themselves in the flames.
To the corsairs, after they were seated in the mosque, the word had
been passed that the Berber tribesmen had meditated this treachery
against them, which, had it succeeded, would have meant the death or
enslavement of them all. It was therefore a trap of a singularly deadly
description into which the countrymen of Selim Eutemi walked on this
Friday morning.
The doors being closed, the conspirators were one by one dragged
before Uruj, who, bitterly reproaching them, gave order for their
instant death. They were haled out through rows of jeering pirates, and
beheaded in the street immediately in front of the principal entrance
of the mosque. When the slaughter of the twenty—two was accomplished
Uruj strode from the mosque over the weltering corpses of the traitors
amid the plaudits of his own men, ever ready to acclaim deeds of blood
and cruelty. After this there were no more plots against the corsair
in Algiers. News of all these desperate doings in Algiers had by this
time filtered across into Spain, and El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de
Sandoval recounts how, when the tidings came to Fray Francisco Ximenes,
the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, that that prelate, much scandalised
that the might of Imperial Spain should be flouted by a mere pirate,
sent Don Diego de Vera with some fifteen thousand men to recapture the
town, and relieve the beleaguered garrison in the tower. This was in
the month of September 1516.
Don Diego landed “en el dia de San Hieronymo,” and threw up
entrenchments within gunshot of the town. Great things were expected
of this expedition, as Sandoval notes that in 1513 Don Diego de Vera,
in the war against the French, had gained the approval of Count Pedro
Navarro (“avia bien aprovado con el Conde Pedro Navarro”), and it was
not expected that a mere pirate rabble would ever make head against
the Spanish troops. De Vera opened fire on the walls of the town
from his entrenchments, but hardly had he done so when Uruj, leading
his corsairs, which formed the spearhead to an innumerable army of
Berbers and Arabs, made a sortie.
“Upon them one day did Barbarossa make an onslaught, and when he saw
that the Spanish soldiers were ill commanded, he flung his forces upon
them with loud cries. And so great was the fear inspired by Barbarossa
that they were routed almost without loss to the Moors; and with much
ease did these latter slay three thousand men and capture four hundred
on the day of San Hieronymo in this year.”
(“Salio un dia à el Barbarossa y como vio los soldados Españoles
desmandados diò en ellos con gran gritos. Y fue tan grande el miedo que
vieron que Barbarossa los desbaratò casi sin daño y con mucho facilidad
mato tres mil hombres y cautivo quatro cientos dia de San Hieronymo
deste año.”)
This quotation is given in full to set out the amazing fact that in
this battle over three thousand were killed while only four hundred
were captured, which shows that it must have been in the nature of an
indiscriminate massacre; the only captive of any note was the captain,
Juan del Rio. Diego de Vera had had enough of the corsairs, and sailed
away with the remainder of his force. Of what became of him or of them
there is no record, but he must have been a singularly incompetent
commander when he could not make head against a rabble of pirates and
Moors with the army at his disposition. Sandoval does not attempt to
minimise the defeat, which, of course, would have been impossible; he
contents himself with the following delightfully quaint reflection:
“But many, many times Homer nods; this disaster must have come upon
us for our sins, upon which it is most important that we should always
think and meditate.”
Who so triumphant now as Uruj Barbarossa? It is true that the fortress
of Pedro Navarro still remained in the hands of its splendid and
undaunted garrison, and was destined so to remain for some years to
come; but they were impotent for harm, and the conqueror of Don Diego
now turned his arms in another direction. Kheyr-ed-Din was at Jigelli
when he heard of the victory gained by his brother, and sailed at once
with six ships to his support. The town of Tenes fell into the hands of
the brothers, with an immense booty, and then Uruj marched on Tlemcen.
The Sultan of Tlemcen, the last of the royal race of the Beni-Zian, did
not await the coming of the corsair. All through the northern coasts
of Africa the name of Barbarossa was a synonym of terror; the sad fate
of Selim Eutemi, of Kara-Hassan, of the twenty-two conspirators of
the mosque, had been noised abroad, and the superstitious tribesmen
firmly believed that these red-bearded corsairs were the accomplices
of Shaitan, even if they did not represent him themselves in their
own persons. Who were these men, they asked one another tremblingly,
who feared neither God nor devil, and who caused even the redoubtable
Spaniards to fly before them like the leaves in front of an autumn gale?
When men begin to talk and to think like this there is not much fight
left in them, and so it came about that, after the most feeble of
resistances, the Sultan of Tlemcen fled to Fez. Thus, almost without
striking a blow, Uruj found himself master of a province from which
the Spaniards were accustomed to draw the necessary provisions for the
upkeep of the garrison of Oran. But Tlemcen is but some seventy miles
from Oran, and Oran is so close to Spain as to be easily reinforced; in
consequence Uruj was soon blockaded by the Spaniards, and remained so
for seven months. But no blockade could keep Uruj Barbarossa for long
within stone walls; sortie after sortie did the gallant corsair lead
against the foe, and it was in one of these that he characteristically
came by his death. Ever rash and impetuous, he allowed himself to be
drawn too far away from possible shelter or support; and, as there was
something dramatic in the whole life of this man, so also was there
in the manner of his death. They had him trapped at last, this grim
Sea-wolf, and he stood at bay in a stone corral used for the herding of
goats.
As the wolves in winter circle round the leaguer on the heath, So the
greedy foe glared upward panting still for blood and death.
By his side was his faithful lieutenant Venalcadi. In a breathless
mêlée Christian sword and Moslem sabre clashed and rang. His turban
gone, his great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the undaunted corsair
fought his last fight as became the terror of his name. Almost had
he succeeded in breaking through the ring of his foes when Garzia de
Tineo, _alferez_ (or lieutenant) to Captain Diego de Andrade, wounded
him severely with a pike. Uruj stumbled, was struck on the head with
another weapon; he reeled and fell. The fight was over, and one of the
Barbarossas bit the dust. Garzia de Tineo leaped upon the fallen man
and cut off his head. It is recorded that Garzia de Tineo was wounded
in the finger by Uruj in the course of the combat, and that for the
rest of his life he proudly exhibited the scar as a sign that it was
none other than he who had killed the famous corsair.
Uruj Barbarossa was undoubtedly a remarkable man. At a time when the
Mediterranean swarmed with warriors none was more feared, none was
more redoubtable than he. By sheer valour and tenacity he had fought
his way to the front, and the son of the obscure renegado of Mitylene
died a king. It is true that his sovereignty was precarious, that it
was maintained at the edge of the sword; none the less, in that welter
of anarchy in which he lived he had forced himself to the summit, and,
pirate, sea-wolf, and robber as he was, we cannot withhold from him a
meed of the most hearty admiration.