THE BATTLE OF PREVESA
How Alessandro Condalmiero fought the _Galleon of Venice_—
“The King of the Sea is dead.”
There is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of a really great
leader badgered and importuned by lesser men to adopt a course which
he, with a superior insight, knows to be unsound. In the matter of the
landing Barbarossa had demonstrated that it was he whose knowledge of
war was superior to those who were so ready to thrust upon him their
opinions; this, however, did not content them, and they now desired to
close with the foe waiting for them outside. If ever a commander was
justified in waiting on events it was Barbarossa at this juncture; the
business of a commander-in-chief is to ensure victory, and if he sees,
as did the Moslem admiral on this occasion, that more is to be gained
by delay than by fighting, then he is justified in refusing battle:
particularly is this the case when the enemy is in greatly superior
force blockading on an open and dangerous coast at an inclement
season of the year. Every day that Doria was kept at sea added to
his difficulties, as fresh water and provisions would be running
short, and the energies of the human engines by which his galleys
were propelled would be weakened; naked men chained to a bench were
suffering from the blazing heat of the days, the cold and drenching
dews of the nights. All these things had the veteran seaman weighed in
his mind, they all inclined him to wait still longer in that secure
anchorage where he could not be touched by his foe.
There was one counsellor, however, whom even Kheyr-ed-Din could not
resist, and who had hitherto kept silence; this was the eunuch Monuc,
legal counsellor to Soliman, who had accompanied the armada. He now
brought the weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis
and his colleagues.
“Are you going,” he asked the admiral, “to allow the infidels to escape
without a battle? Soliman can find plenty of wood to build new fleets,
plenty of captains to command them; he will pardon you if this fleet
is destroyed: that which he will never pardon is that you should allow
Doria to escape without fighting. You have brave men in plenty; why not
lead them to the attack?”
The patience of the veteran gave way at last; none who knew Barbarossa
had ever seen him shrink from fighting—to this his whole career bore
witness. He had delayed the issue from the soundest of strategical
reasons, which those under his command were too stupid and too
prejudiced to understand: what cared they for reason in their blind
valour?—they wished only to do or die heedless of the fact that
their lives might be spent in vain. Truly it was no thanks to the
subordinates of Kheyr-ed-Din that this campaign did not end in disaster
to the arms of the Ottoman Porte. Such backing as the admiral had
came from among his own men, the corsairs whose lives had been spent
at sea, but their opinions were but dust in the balance once the
all-powerful Monuc ranged himself on the side of the malcontents.
“Let us then fight,” said the admiral to Saleh-Reis, “or this fine
talker who is neither man nor woman will accuse us before the Grand
Turk and we shall all probably be hanged.”
The Christian fleet during the night of September 26–7th had made some
thirty miles to the southward; just before daybreak the wind freshened
and drew right ahead; Doria approached the island of Santa Maura and
anchored under the small islet of Sessola.
Barbarossa had now decided to leave his anchorage, but the veteran
seaman did not disguise from himself the risks which he ran: a greater
sea captain than he once said “only numbers can annihilate,” and it was
at annihilation that both the Moslem and the Christian aimed: in this
case, however, he knew that he could but hope for a hard-won victory,
and only that if Allah and his Prophet were unusually favourable to
his cause. He assembled his captains, many of whom had served with him
during long periods of his career, and directed them to form line: he
said, “I have but one order to give, follow my movements attentively
and regulate your own accordingly.”
With fustas, brigantines, galleots, and galleys, the Ottoman fleet
amounted in all to one hundred and forty sail. With shouts of joy the
soldiers hailed the command to weigh the anchors, and in a very short
time all were slowly moving seaward.
The die was cast: Doria from his anchorage at Sessola saw the sea white
with the sails of the enemy, the blue water churning to foam beneath
the strokes of his oars; the Ottoman fleet was issuing from the Gulf
of Arta manoeuvring with precision and deploying into a single line
abreast; which line being slightly concave, either from accident or
design, resembled the form of a crescent. In advance came six great
fustas commanded by Dragut; the left wing hugged the shore as closely
as possible; the Ottoman commander-in-chief intended to commence
operations on the first principles of strategy by flinging his whole
force on a portion of that of the enemy.
Andrea Doria remained undecided: he was on a lee shore, and that shore
was the coast of the enemy; although his foes were advancing to the
attack it seemed as if he had no mind to fight: whether he had or
had not he displayed a most remarkable sluggishness, hesitating for
three hours before getting up his anchors; these he only weighed at
last under pressure from the bellicose Patriarch of Aquilea, Vincenzo
Capello, and the Papal captain, Antonio Grimani. Doria had counted on
the support of the _Galleon of Venice_ and the nefs; but the galleon was
becalmed four miles from the land and ten miles from Sessola, where
Doria was at the beginning of the action.
Condalmiero sent a light skiff from the _Galleon of Venice_ to the
commander-in-chief demanding orders and help from the galleys.
“Begin the fight,” answered the admiral, “you will be succoured.”
The position of Condalmiero was that of a modern battleship which is
disabled and surrounded by foes in full possession of their motive
power; the great galleon floated inert upon the waters while the
galleys could fight or fly as they wished. The captain of the galleon,
however, had no alternative save to surrender or fight; but there was
no hesitation on his part, for a more gallant officer never trod the
decks of a warship of the proud Republic to which he belonged.
The Moslem galleys were now close upon him, although as yet out of
gun-shot; around him they wheeled and circled like a flight of great
sea-birds, their ferocious crews shouting their war-cries calling
upon Allah and the Prophet to give them the victory for which they
craved; many a brave Venetian who heard for the first time the name of
Barbarossa shouted in battle must have braced himself for the coming
conflict, knowing all that was imported by that terrible name. The
sun shone in a cloudless sky, the galleon lay becalmed in the middle
of furious and ravening foes, the succour promised by Doria was ten
miles away; they saw no movement which indicated help, and the odds
against them were heavy indeed. But all the nervousness was not on
one side, for the _Galleon of Venice_ was something new in the naval
warfare of the time; she carried engines of destruction in the shape
of great guns which the corsairs could by no means equal. Of this they
were well aware, and the attack was delayed while the oarsmen in the
galleys rested on their oars out of range to allow them breathing time
before the supreme moment arrived. But the hounds were only held in
leash; there came a signal which was answered by a concentrated yell
of fury and of hate; then from right ahead, right astern, on the port
side and the starboard, the galleys were launched to the attack. But
all on board the great Venetian vessel was as still as that death which
awaited so many of the combatants in this supreme struggle.
Condalmiero had caused the crew of the galleon to lie down upon her
decks, and stood himself, a gallant solitary figure in his shining
armour, a mark for the hail of shot so soon to be discharged. It came,
and with it the mast of the galleon bearing the Lion Standard of St.
Mark crashed over the side into the water; renewed yells of triumph
came from the Moslems, but still that ominous silence reigned on board
the galleon. Untouched, unharmed, the Osmanlis came on firing as
rapidly as possible until they were absolutely within arquebuss range.
Closer they came and closer; then the sides of the galleon burst into
sheeted flame, and the guns levelled at point-blank range tore through
the attacking host. Condalmiero was throwing away no chances; he had
directed his gunners to allow their balls to ricochet before striking
rather than to throw them away by allowing them to fly over the heads
of the enemy.
The first broadside did terrible execution; a ball one hundred and
twenty pounds in weight, fired by the chief bombardier, Francisco
d’Arba in person, burst in the prow of a galley so effectually that
all her people flew aft to the poop to prevent the water rushing in;
but the vessel was practically split in twain, and sank in a few
moments. All around were dead and dying men, disabled galleys, floating
wreckage; the _Galleon of Venice_ had taken a terrible toll of the
Osmanli; the order to retreat out of range was given, and never was
order obeyed with greater alacrity.
With accuracy and precision the galleon played upon such vessels as
remained within range, doing great execution. But she was now to be
subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack. She
had demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be
carried by mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive
was the only plan which promised success; the Osmanli must use their
brain as well as their courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the
water, and nailed to the stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to
be torn down. There was something daunting in the very aspect of the
solid bulk of the huge Venetian, something weird in the manner in which
her crew never showed, save only the steadfast figure of her captain
immovable as a statue of bronze, where he stood on her shot-torn poop.
This Homeric conflict was a triumph of discipline and gunnery on the
part of the Venetians; alert, accurate, and cool, the gunners of the
galleon threw away none of their ammunition: inspired by the heroic
spirit of their captain, great was the honour which they did on this
stricken field to the noble traditions of their forbears and the
service to which they belonged.
The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was
only preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the
day; the Moslem galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a
squadron of twenty advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their
place was then taken by a second squadron, which went through the same
performance, and then came on a third. In this manner the attack, which
began one hour after noon, and which was continued until sunset, was
conducted. The galleon had thirteen men killed, and forty wounded; no
doubt the slaughter would have been much greater had it not been for
the enormous thickness of her sides and for the fact that the guns
carried by the galleys were necessarily light. Notwithstanding, the
galleon suffered terribly, she was a mass of wreckage; twice fire had
broken out on board of her, she was cumbered by fallen masts, battered
almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her gallant crew
fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender. Covered with
blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her
captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew
responded nobly to his call. At eventide the fire from the galleon
was almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many
galleys of the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity
and bravery of their carpenters, who, slung over their sides in
“boatswains’ chairs,” drove home huge plugs of wood with their mallets
into the shot-holes made by the Venetian guns.
At the hour when the sun dipped below the horizon all the Turkish fleet
seemed assembled to assault the colossus which so long had resisted
their attack; there was a pause in the combat, and the firing died
down. Condalmiero and his men braced themselves for the assault which
they felt to be inevitable: for now the darkness was swiftly coming, in
which they could no longer see to shoot, and under cover of which their
numerous foes could assail them by boarding in comparative safety. Now
the moment had come for the last act in this terrible drama of the sea.
They had held their own at long odds throughout the whole of a hot
September day, and as the level beams of the setting sun shone on their
shattered ship they were prepared to die, fighting to the last man for
the honour of Venice and the glory of St. Mark.
Stiff and worn, wearied almost to the breaking strain, there was no man
on board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the
muzzle with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand
stood grimly awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their
ears in the gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that
the fate of the _Galleon of Venice_ must be decided.
On board his galley, decorated for this occasion with scarlet banners,
Barbarossa himself directed the assaulting line. Never before when the
battle was joined had the gallant corsair been known to draw back; and
yet on this occasion he not only hesitated but actually hauled off. The
Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to
be pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser
vessels: the _Galleon of Venice_ was victorious.
Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was
hard fighting that was wanted; he pretended that he wished to draw
the Ottoman fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy
their galleys by means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently
he executed useless parade movements when he should by all the rules
of warfare have closed with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior
force; as he had a fair wind there is only one conclusion to be drawn,
and that is that he did not want to fight.
His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics
with mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it
never entered into their calculations for one moment that the great
Andrea Doria, the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in
scores of desperate engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.
Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed
him full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most
fiery description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was
the enemy in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge,
why delay the attack?
“For much less than this,” says Admiral Jurien de la Gravière, “the
English shot Admiral Byng in 1756.” The conduct of Doria on this
occasion has certainly never been explained; the two other leaders went
on board and remonstrated with their commander-in-chief; they were
neither of them men who could be treated as negligible quantities on
the field of battle; both belonged to that brilliant Venetian nobility
so renowned in commerce and in war. Marco Grimani was in command of the
Papal galleys, in itself a mark of the highest esteem and confidence
from a potentate second to none in his influence in the civilised
world. To Vincenzo Capello, Henry the Seventh of England confided
his royal person and the command of his fleet when he crossed the
Channel to encounter Richard the Second at Bosworth field. Five times
had he filled the office of Providiteur in Venice, twice had he been
commander-in-chief of her fleet, he was in perpetuity Procureur of St.
Mark, to him Venice owed her naval discipline. He wore on this day the
mantle of crimson silk with which the Republic invested her generals.
Bitter was the rage in his heart, and bitterly must he have spoken
to Doria, who, in spite of all remonstrances, continued his futile
manoeuvrings.
There was glory won on this day, but it was gained neither by Andrea
Doria nor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. The _Galleon of Venice_ with
Alessandro Condalmiero and his gallant crew had shown to all a splendid
example of disciplined valour unexcelled in sixteenth-century annals.
Barbarossa had captured a Venetian galley, a Papal galley, and five
Spanish nefs, but he had recoiled from the assault on Condalmiero
when the prize was actually within his grasp. For the rest it was a
day of manoeuvring and tactics; tactics when sixty thousand men had
been embarked on board two hundred ships for a specific and definite
object on the side of the Christians and under the command of their
most celebrated admiral; and yet the balance of advantage was actually
gained by the inferior force. No subsequent glories can ever wipe this
stain from the scutcheon of Doria, or can excuse the fact that at
the most supreme moment of his career he failed to fight the battle
that he was in honour, in conscience, and in duty bound to deliver.
Next day the wind came fair for Corfu, and Doria, his ships untouched,
unscathed, unharmed, put his helm up and sailed away followed by his
fleet.
Sandoval records the fact that Barbarossa, roaring with laughter the
while, was accustomed to say that Doria had even put out his lanterns
in order that no one might see whither he had fled. This was an
allusion to the fact—or supposition—that Doria extinguished on that
night the great poop lantern carried by him as admiral.
When Soliman the Magnificent heard of the result of this battle
he caused the town of Yamboli, where he was at the time, to be
illuminated, and in the excess of his joy he added one hundred thousand
aspres to the revenues of the conqueror; there were processions to
the Grand Mosque, and all Islam rejoiced and sang the praises of
the invincible admiral who had humbled to the dust the pride of the
Christian and caused the dreaded Doria to fly from before the fleet of
the Sultan.
This, the most historical, if not the greatest feat in the life of
Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, was for him a triumph indeed; with a vastly
inferior force he had driven from the field of battle his “rival
in glory,” as he himself had denominated Andrea Doria, and he had
accomplished this feat notwithstanding the almost mutinous condition
of his own forces. In spite of this it is with Condalmiero and with
him alone that the glory of this day must rest; alone, absolutely
unsupported as we have seen, he fought one of those fights which bring
the heart into the mouth when we read of them; the stern pride of the
Venetian noble, who despised as canaille the pirate hosts by whom
he was assailed, had its counterpart in the sturdy valour of Chief
Bombardier Francisco d’Arba and the other nameless heroes of which
that good company was composed; to them we render that homage which so
justly is their due.
The whole campaign of Prevesa, as we have said, is a curious study
in hesitation, in dilatoriness, in absolute lack of initiative and
virility on the part of the two chief actors in the drama: that Doria
should fly from the field of battle in an untouched ship is only one
degree less incredible than that Barbarossa should have relinquished
his attack on the _Galleon of Venice_. It would almost seem as if on this
occasion each of the great rivals was hypnotised by the presence of
the other; all their lives they had been seeking honour and riches on
the sea, they knew, of course, that all men in both the world of Islam
and that of Christendom looked upon them in the light of the special
champions of the opposing sects, that the eyes of the entire world
were fastened on this meeting of theirs in the classic waters of the
Ambracian Gulf. In consequence neither man was at his best; indeed,
we might go further than this, and say that on this occasion both
lamentably failed. There is no fault to be found with the strategic
preliminaries to the final conflict, each admiral acting with prudence
and wisdom in the situation in which he found himself placed. That the
perfectly correct idea of not giving battle to a superior force when he
held so strong an interior position was given up by Barbarossa, was, as
we have seen, not his fault; and when he issued from his anchorage, in
deference to a sentiment among those under his command which he could
no longer resist, his dispositions seem to have been made with his
usual skill. Where he failed, however, was where, from all his previous
history, we should least have expected failure, in his abandonment of
the attack on the _Galleon of Venice_; this, of course, was inexcusable,
and can only be set down to failure of nerve at the supreme moment. The
ship had been battered by artillery all day long, a huge percentage
of her company were dead and wounded, and the remainder worn out with
fatigue. On the Moslem side we have seen that there were squadrons of
galleys able to relieve one another with no interference from Doria,
who was persisting in his futile manoeuvring miles away. Had the
galleon been boarded, as she might and should have been, at nightfall,
nothing could have saved Condalmiero and his crew: so strenuous,
however, had been their resistance, that the Turkish seamen feared the
issue; in consequence the battle between them and the Venetians was a
drawn one, with all the honours on the Christian side.
It is here that we shall take leave of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, as
although he was yet to live another eight years before he died in his
bed at Constantinople in July, 1548, there are no further happenings of
any great importance in his career.
“Valorous, yet prudent, furious in attack, far-seeing in preparation,
he ranks as the first sea-captain of his time;”[1] as the story of his
life has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of
man it was who terrified Europe, who made for himself a reputation
which stands out clear and distinct among all the great men of which
this century was so prolific. One of the surest methods of estimating
a strenuous man of action is to seek for the names of those by whom
he was surrounded: the men selected by him to assist in the carrying
out of the work of his life; thus in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte
we interest ourselves in his marshals, in reading of Nelson we note
the captains by whom he was supported. In the case of Kheyr-ed-Din
Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived, we find no trace
of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have indicated
in the cases cited above. That he had devoted followers enough is
absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace,
and these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions;
witness the treatment meted out to Hassan and to Venalcadi. There
is practically no trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot
discover that he possessed any intimate friend. There is none other in
all history to whom he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few
who in their generation have wielded such enormous powers, who have
climbed so high from the sheer unassisted force of their own intellect
and their own character.
[1] Stanley Lane Poole.
Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a
constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his
bodily attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was
his, joined to an imperturbability of temperament which enabled him
to accept with a cheerful philosophy blows by which weaker men were
absolutely prostrated; his outlook on life was not dimmed by any
affections, and pity was a sensation which to him was entirely alien.
In this record of his deeds the reader has been spared all mention of
the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of inflicting on his victims
for any or no provocation, and many of them are as incomprehensible as
they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was his craft as a
seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was frequently
defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an occurrence. To
sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body, a brain,
and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through life
was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of his
countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.
Yet, in spite of this, it is impossible not to admire the man who, by
his own superhuman energy, ever swept all obstacles from his path,
and caused the whole of the civilised world to quail at the name of
Barbarossa.
He died peacefully in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1546, to the
grief of the world of Islam and the inexpressible joy of Christendom.
“The king of the sea is dead,” expressed in three Arabic words, gives
the numerical value 953, the year of the Hegira in which he died.
For many years after his death no Turkish ship ever left the Golden
Horn without her crew repeating a prayer and firing a salute over the
tomb of Beshiktsah, where lie the bones of the first and greatest of
Turkish admirals, the corsair who was at one and the same time admiral,
pirate, and king.