ALI BASHA
Ali, the Basha of Algiers, succeeds to Dragut—He conquers
the Kingdom of Tunis, captures four galleys from the
Knights of Malta, joins Piali Basha in his raidings
preliminary to the battle of Lepanto—The gathering of the
Christian hosts and the arrival of Don John of Austria in
the Mediterranean to take command.
“Now I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even
Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which
was the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali? And some held
for one and some for the other; those who held for Occhiali declaring
that he had held greater and more honourable charges than Dragut,
because he commanded as General and Admiral for the Grand Turk and that
_il fit belle action_ at the battle of Lepanto.” Pierre de Bourdeille,
the Seigneur de Brantôme, from whom we make the above quotation, was
himself present at the siege of Malta and, besides this, as is well
known, gossiped in his own inimitable way concerning men and women
of his time, from corsairs to courtesans. When such contemporary
authorities as those mentioned could not agree it is quite certain
that we of the twentieth century cannot decide on the rival claims to
distinction between the Bashaw of Tripoli and his follower Occhiali,
as he was known to the Christians, or Ali Basha, as he was called
by the Turks. Ali Basha has a title to fame in the fact that he is
mentioned by Cervantes in his _Don Quijote de la Mancha_ under the name
of “Uchali” in chapter xxxix., “Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y
sucesos.” The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than
the famous Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali
became “Rey de Argel,” or King of Algiers.
Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in
Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and
parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian
name, although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest
youth the calling of a mariner; “he was from infancy inured to salt
water,” says Joseph Morgan, in his _Compleat History of Algiers_, and he
was, as a mere boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was
chained to the starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was
thus very early in life “inured” to suffering, and must have possessed
a constitution of iron to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of
the life of a galley-slave, which as a rule broke down the endurance of
strong men in a very few years. Morgan presents us with a description
of him at this period which in these more squeamish days can certainly
not be set down in its entirety: suffice it to say that he suffered
all his days from what is known as “scald-head,” and that personal
filthiness was one of his principal characteristics.
For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking toil of the
rower’s bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid
of kinsfolk, alone—miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given
him naught but the chain and the whip—it is not a matter for surprise
that he became a Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the
time that he took this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange
medley of savagery and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.
Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief
boatswain in the galley in which his apprenticeship had been passed—a
position which enabled him to accumulate a small store of ducats,
with which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired
sufficient wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which
he soon gained the reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on
the Barbary coast. Having in some sort made a name for himself, his
next step was to seek for a patron who could make use of his valour,
address, and capability for command. His choice was soon made, as
who in all the Mediterranean, in his early days, held such a name as
Dragut? He accordingly entered the service of the Basha of Tripoli,
and, under his command, became well known to the officers of the Grand
Turk, particularly to the Admiral, Piali Basha, to whom he was able to
render some important services.
There is no object to be gained in lingering over the earlier years of
this notable corsair, as we should thus only be repeating what has been
said about Dragut, whose lieutenant and trusted follower he became.
He accompanied his master to the siege of Malta, and when Dragut was
slain the Capitan-Basha, Piali, named him as successor to his chief
as Viceroy of Tripoli. Ali sailed from Malta to Tripoli, taking with
him the remains of Dragut, to be buried as that chieftain had directed.
When he arrived on the Barbary coast he made himself master of the
slaves and treasure which had been left behind by Dragut; shortly
after this he was confirmed in his Vice-royalty of Tripoli by the
Grand Turk; thenceforward increasing, both his wealth and the terror
in which his name was held, by continual raids upon the Christians,
more particularly on the coasts of Sicily, Calabria, and Naples. It is
curious to observe the sort of spite which all the renegadoes seem to
have harboured against the countries in which they were born.
In March 1568, owing to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of
Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend
Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of
literally sovereign power to the city which he had first entered as a
galley-slave.
That he was no negligent Governor and that he took an entirely
intelligent view of his functions, is proved by an occurrence which
took place in this same year in Spain. The Moriscoes in the Kingdom
of Granada revolted against their Spanish Governor, by whom they
were sorely oppressed. They sent messages to Ali at Algiers, begging
for succour against their persecutor. But the Basha would send no
expedition; he permitted all and sundry to go as volunteers, but gave
out publicly that “it more concerned him to defend well his own State
than to interfere in the affairs of others.” He even went farther
than this, and when a number of Moriscoes, who were settled at
Algiers, embarked a quantity of arms for transportation to the coast
of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not allow
them to sail, saying “he would never suffer the exportation of what
was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions.” At last, after
much importunity, he consented “that all such as had two of a sort—as
muskets, swords, or other weapons—might, if they thought fit, send over
one of them, provided they did it gratis and purely for the cause’
sake; but he would never allow any of them to strip themselves of their
arms for lucre.”
Ali, being now firmly established at Algiers, took up arms against the
neighbouring State of Tunis. For long years now the King of Tunis had
been protected by the Spaniards—a nation whom the Sea-wolves always
held in singular abhorrence as the most bigoted of the Christian
Powers, and who held in thrall many of their co-religionists. Hamid,
son of Hassan, who now ruled in Tunis, had reduced that unfortunate
State to anarchy bordering on rebellion, and the whole country, torn
by internal feud, was ready to rise against him. The Goletta was in
the hands of the Spaniards; Carouan, an inland town, had set up a king
of its own, while the maritime towns passed from the domination of the
Sea-wolves to that of the Christians, and from the Christians back to
the Sea-wolves, according to which party happened to be the stronger
for the time being.
El Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, “Abad de Fromesta de la Orden del
Patriarca San Benito” and “natural del Valle de Carranca,” whose
_Topografia e Historia de Argel_ (or Algiers) was printed in Valladolid
in the year 1612, gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he
describes that monarch as an “unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his
vassals and the friends of his father; who could by no means suffer his
tyrannies and those of his ministers, the scum of the earth (“hombres
baxos”), to whom he had given the principal offices of the kingdom.
Accordingly, since the time that Ali had become Basha of Algiers,
letters had been written to him importuning him to come to Tunis that
he might possess himself of that city and kingdom.”
There were three principal conspirators—the Alcaid Bengabara, General
of the Cavalry, the Alcaid Botaybo, and the Alcaid Alcadaar. Ali,
however, was too shrewd a man to move until he had satisfied himself by
reports from his own adherents; he, therefore, awaited the result of
investigations made by spies from Algiers. At last, in the beginning of
the year 1569, when the offers from the Alcaids had been three times
renewed and the Basha was assured that the people in Tunis were sincere
in their offer to him of the sovereignty of the kingdom—which they
begged him to conquer and hold in the name of the Ottoman Empire—the
ex-galley-slave no longer hesitated. He left Algiers in the month
of October, leaving that city in charge of one Mami Corso, a fellow
renegado. Unlike Dragut, who would have gone by sea, he set out by
land with some five thousand corsairs and renegadoes. On the way he
was reinforced by some six thousand cavalry of the wild tribes of the
hinterland, then as ever ready to join in a fray with promise of
booty: doubly ready in this case, as it was to harass so unpopular a
tyrant as Hamid. Passing through Constantine and Bona, he continued
to march towards Tunis, his following augmenting as he proceeded, and
adding to his forces ten light field-guns. Arriving at Beja, a town
which Haedo describes as being but two short days’ march from Tunis,
he came upon a fortress, recently erected by Hamid, mounting fourteen
brass cannon. Here he halted, whereupon Hamid sallied out to give him
battle at the head of some three thousand troops, horse and foot. The
engagement had scarcely begun when the three Alcaids, who had been in
communication with Ali, deserted with all their following. Hamid fled
to Tunis, expecting to find shelter there, but he was hotly pursued by
the corsairs, who followed him up to Al-Burdon, where his summer palace
was situated. Hamid, finding that his people were everywhere in revolt,
fled to the Goletta, carrying with him a quantity of money, jewels,
and portable valuables, and placed himself under the protection of the
Spanish garrison—not, however, without the loss of the major portion of
his baggage, plundered from him by certain Moors in the course of his
flight.
Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis,
and as he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new
subjects with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not
to have been expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from
the tribes of the hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern
Africa, men paid tribute to an overlord because he was stronger than
they; because retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal.
To order tribute to be paid without being ready to strike was merely
to expose the man making the demand to derision. Particularly was this
the case with the fierce land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was
to exact and not to pay tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that “if he
wanted tribute from them he must demand it lance in hand in the field,
for there and nowhere else were they accustomed to pay: that their coin
was steel lance-heads and not golden aspers.” After this, says Morgan,
“the Basha thought it well to dissemble.”
Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these
people, had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to
regulating the internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he
succeeded in doing sufficiently by the month of June in the following
year to enable him to leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a
Sardinian renegado, and to start himself for Constantinople. His reason
for doing this was the old one of attempting to consolidate his power
in Northern Africa by appealing to the Sultan for help. As long as the
Goletta remained in the hands of the Spaniards no corsair could feel
himself secure in either Tunis or Algiers. The object of Ali was to beg
from the Grand Turk men and ships to assist him to chase the Spaniards
out of Africa.
The month of June 1570, in consequence, saw Ali once more at sea in his
“Admiral galley,” steering northwards to the Golden Horn. Carrying with
them a favourable breeze from the south-east, the galleys spread
their huge lateen sails, and the straining rowers had rest awhile. The
squadron consisted of twenty-four galleys. Off Cape Passaro, in Sicily,
a small vessel was captured which gave information that five galleys of
the Knights of Malta were at anchor at Licata, a small harbour in the
neighbourhood, and that they were on the point of sailing for Malta.
The decision of Ali was taken on the instant: were he to go in and
attack them with the overwhelming force at his command the crews might
escape to the shore; even the Knights of Malta could hardly be expected
to fight twenty-four galleys with five. He was anxious to capture the
ships, but above all to capture those by whom they were manned: to have
the satisfactory revenge of seeing the proud Knights stripped naked and
chained to the benches of his own fleet.
The hot Mediterranean sun poured down out of a cloudless sky as the
Sea-wolves made their offing; out of sight of land they lay, but right
in the course which the galleys of the Christians were bound to take.
The great yards, with their lateen sails, were got down on deck, and,
oar in hand, the Moslems awaited their prey. Presently the Maltese
galleys were discovered coming leisurely along, under oars and sails,
and then—when it was too late—the Knights discovered the snare into
which they had fallen. There was but scant time for preparation or
deliberation, and who shall blame four out of the five if they decided
to try to escape? for it was escape or annihilation.
But there was one which did not fly, “Una galera hizo cara a los
Turcos” (One single galley turned her bows towards the Turks), says
that faithful chronicler Haedo. She was named the _Santa Ana_, but the
name of her heroic commander has not come down to us. Even as Grenfell
“at Flores in the Azores,” stood upon the deck of the little _Revenge_ on
that memorable August day in 1591, when “he chose to die rather than to
dishonour himself, his country, and her Majesty’s ship,” so also did
this Knight of Malta bear down on the twenty-four that were his foes.
When Don John of Austria, being at the time young and inexperienced in
warfare on the sea, wrote to the Marquis of Villafranca, General of the
Galleys of Sicily, requesting advice on the subject of galley attacking
galley, that officer replied to him, “Never fire your arquebus at the
foe until you are so close at hand that his blood will leap into your
face at the discharge.” If we bear in mind such an instruction as this
it will help us to picture that close-packed sanguinary conflict upon
which the Mediterranean sun looked down on this day. Eight to one, all
that could find room to get alongside of the _Santa Ana_, fought with the
Knight and his followers. The issue was, of course, never in doubt for
a moment. “Muertos y cansados” (Dead and deadbeat), says Haedo, the
caballeros and soldados of the Christian ship could at length hold out
no longer. The Sea-wolves were victorious, the proud banner of Saint
John was lowered; but never in all its history had it been more nobly
upheld, and the galley _Santa Ana_, commanded by that unknown member
of the great Christian military hierarchy of the sixteenth century,
may well stand in the roll of fame alongside of the _Revenge_, the
_Vengeur_, and the _Victory_.
The _Capitana_, or “Admiral’s galley,” of the Knights, being hotly
pursued, ran ashore with one of her consorts at Licata: the crews
landed, but were pursued and overtaken. One galley escaped altogether,
but four out of the five were taken. So notable a victory as this over
the Knights caused so much rejoicing in the fleet of the Sea-wolves
that Ali determined to celebrate it by a triumphal return to Algiers
instead of proceeding directly to Constantinople. Accordingly, the
ships’ heads were turned south once more, and upon July 20th, 1570,
the fleet arrived in the African port, “on sus galeras todas llenas de
muchas banderas”—with galleys gaily beflagged.
[Illustration: A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.]
The procession entered the harbour in three divisions of eight galleys:
and towing behind each division was one of the captured galleys of
the Knights. In memory of his prowess Ali ordered that the shields
and bucklers taken from the Maltese galleys, which bore upon them
emblazoned the white cross of “the Religion,” should be hung up in the
great arched gate of the Marina. Also there was placed here the image
of Saint John the Baptist, taken from the _Capitana_ galley, “all of
which remain,” says Haedo, “until this day” (_i.e._ 1612), except the
image of Saint John, which in the reign of Hassan Basha, a Venetian
renegado, was taken down and burned at the instance of the Morabutos,
“los letrados de los Moros” (the learned among the Moors). It is an
instructive commentary on the fear and respect in which the Knights of
Malta were held that such a man as Ali should have considered it a
triumph worth the celebrating when he defeated five of their vessels
with twenty-four of his own.
The next occurrence in the life of Ali was one of those to which the
Sea-wolves were subjected from time to time, and which do not seem to
have caused them much trouble or anxiety. This was a mutiny of the
Janissaries in Algiers, who very reasonably objected to being left
without their pay. A mutiny of the Janissaries, however, was somewhat
a serious matter, as they were accustomed to the enjoyment of many
privileges, and were, as we have said elsewhere, a picked corps who had
it in their power even to coerce the Sultan himself upon occasions.
Those of them who were in Algiers demanded “Who was this corsair who
dared to keep the picked men of the army of the Grand Turk waiting for
their pay, as if they were no better than his slaves?” Such a thing as
a mutiny was, in the days of which we speak, a matter for which any
prudent corsair had to be prepared. Ali was in no means discomposed,
and, as the crisis had become acute on shore, he went to sea, where
he was under no obligation to pay his men, who paid themselves at the
expense of their enemies. He put to sea with twenty galleys, and,
shortly after leaving Algiers, he met with a galley from the Levant,
from which he received information that a powerful armada was preparing
in Constantinople for an expedition against the Christians. He steered
for Coron in the Morea, where he was almost immediately joined by the
Ottoman fleet, the commander of which force was overjoyed to find so
formidable a reinforcement under so renowned a captain as Ali.
Soliman the Magnificent had died in 1566, and had been succeeded by his
son, Selim; this prince, bred in the Seraglio, was weak and licentious,
given to that strong drink forbidden by the Prophet to an extent which
caused him to be nicknamed by the Spaniards as “el ebrio,” or “el
bebedor.”
This was a state of affairs which boded ill for the Turkish Empire,
and Selim II. had been educated in a very different manner from that
which had hitherto been the custom. Speaking of this, Gibbon says,
“Instead of the slothful luxury of the Seraglio, the heirs of royalty
were educated in the council and the field. From early youth they were
entrusted by their fathers with the command of provinces and of armies;
and this manly institution, which was often productive of civil war,
must have essentially contributed to the discipline and vigour of the
monarchy.”
Drunkard and weakling as he was, Selim had his ambitions. He wished to
signalise his reign by some great conquest, such as had added lustre to
the rule of his father; and in consequence he laid claim to the island
of Cyprus, then belonging to Venice, The Venetians, having strengthened
the fortifications of the island and fitted out their navy, sought
alliances in Europe to curb the pretensions of the Porte. In this
they found support, instant and generous, from the Pope Pius V. Of
this great ecclesiastic Prescott says: “He was one of those Pontiffs
who seemed to have been called forth by the exigencies of the time to
uphold the pillars of Catholicism as they were yet trembling under
the assaults of Luther.”
The Pope, Philip II. of Spain, and Venice formed what was known as the
“Holy League,” and, having formed it, immediately began to quarrel
among themselves as to what its functions were to be. The Venetians
wished all its efforts to be directed to safeguarding Cyprus, while
Philip and his viceroys were anxious to attack the Sea-wolves on
the coast of Africa in their strongholds. After much squabbling,
an agreement was come to. The principal items of this were, that
the Pope should pay one-sixth of the expenses, Venice two-sixths,
and Spain three-sixths; that each party should appoint its own
Commander-in-Chief, and that Don John of Austria should be in supreme
command of the whole forces assembled. The contracting parties were to
furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot, 4,500 horse, and the
requisite artillery and stores.
While the Christians were negotiating and talking, the Turks were
acting. It was in May that the Pope caused the treaty to be publicly
read in full consistory; in April the Turkish fleet had got to sea and
committed terrible ravages in the Adriatic, laying waste to Venetian
territory.
While ships and men were gathering, and while the fleet which it was to
be his fortune to defeat was pursuing its career in the Mediterranean,
Don John of Austria left Madrid for the south on June 6th, 1571. When
he arrived at Barcelona he made a pilgrimage to the Hermitage of Our
Lady of Montserrat, where his father Charles V. had confessed and
received the sacrament before he sailed on his voyage to the Barbary
coast in his expedition against Barbarossa. From Barcelona he sailed
with thirty galleys to Genoa, where he arrived on the 25th, and was
lodged in the palace of Andrea Doria. In August he arrived by water at
Naples.
By this time all Europe was aflame with excitement: warriors of noble
birth were flocking to serve under the standard of the brother of the
King of Spain, who was regarded as the very mirror of chivalry. The
following description of Don John, at Naples, is from the pen of that
great historian Prescott:
“Arrangements had been made in that city for his reception on a more
magnificent scale than any he had witnessed on his journey. Granvelle,
who had lately been raised to the post of Viceroy, came forth at the
head of a long and brilliant procession to welcome his royal guest. The
houses which lined the streets were hung with richly tinted tapestries
and gaily festooned with flowers. The windows and verandahs were graced
with the beauty and fashion of the pleasure-loving capital, and many
a dark eye sparkled as it gazed upon the fine form and features of
the youthful hero, who at the age of twenty-four had come to Italy to
assume the baton of command and lead the crusade against the Moslems.
His splendid dress of white velvet and cloth of gold set off his
graceful person to advantage. A crimson scarf floated loosely over his
breast, and his snow-white plumes drooping from his cap mingled with
the yellow curls that fell in profusion over his shoulders. It was
a picture which the Italian maiden might love to look on. It was
certainly not the picture of the warrior sheathed in the iron panoply
of war. But the young Prince, in his general aspect, might be relieved
from the charge of effeminacy by his truly chivalrous bearing and the
dauntless spirit which beamed from his clear blue eyes. In his own
lineaments he seemed to combine all that was comely in the lineaments
of his race.”
At Naples Don John found a fleet at anchor under the command of Don
Alvaro de Bazan, first marquis of Santa Cruz, of whom much was to be
heard in the future in his capacity as Admiral of Castile. Here also he
received from the hands of Cardinal Granvelle a consecrated banner sent
to him by the Pope at a solemn ceremony in the church of the Franciscan
Convent of Santa Chiara. On August 25th he left Naples and proceeded to
Messina, where he landed under a triumphal arch of colossal dimensions,
embossed with rich plates of silver and curiously sculptured with
emblematical bas-reliefs. The royal galley in which the hero embarked
was built at Barcelona: she was fitted with the greatest luxury, and
was remarkable for her strength and speed; her stern was profusely
decorated with emblems and devices drawn from history; no such warship
had ever been seen in the world before.
Cayetano Rosell, in his _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_, says
that the number of vessels, great and small, in the Christian armada
was over 300, of which 200 were galleys, the ordinary warships of the
time. He goes on to say:
“In this spacious harbour [Messina] there were collected the
squadrons of the League; the people who managed the oars and sails
and the innumerable combatants making an immense number when added
together. Since the days of Imperial Rome, never had been seen in these
seas so imposing a spectacle, never had there been collected so many
ships moving towards a single end dominated by a single will. Never
was there a spectacle more gratifying in the eyes of justice, nor of
greater incentive to men to fight for the cause of religion.”
The Spanish fleet comprised 90 royal galleys, 24 nefs, and 50 fregatas
and brigantines “los mejores que en tiempo alguno se habrian visto”
(the finest that ever were seen at any time), as they were described by
Don John. The Pope sent 12 galleys and 6 fregatas, under the command of
Mark Antony Colonna. The Pope had also made a grant of the “Crusada”
and “Excusada,” and other ecclesiastical revenues which he drew from
Spain, to the King of that country, to meet expenses.
Venice appointed Sebastian Veniero to the command of her fleet, which
consisted of 106 galleys, 6 galeasses 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 manuscript of the Bibliothèque 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 ships, of which 230 were
galleys, the rest galeasses 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.