GALLEYS AND GALLANTRY
But there was a third great Barbarian corsair to complete this terrible
trio. Uruj and Kheyr-ed-din we have known. There is yet to be mentioned
Dragut, who succeeded to the latter. He too was a Moslem who had been
born in a coast village of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Rhodes. His
early life is that of most pirates. He went to sea when quite young, was
devoted to his profession, was filled with ambition, became an expert
pilot and later became a skipper of his own craft. Then, feeling the call
of the wild, he devoted himself to piracy and rose to notoriety.
But the turning-point in his career came when he joined himself to the
service of Kheyr-ed-din, who appointed Dragut to the entire command of a
dozen of the corsair king’s galleys. Henceforward his life was that of
his master, ravaging the Italian coasts, pillaging Mediterranean ships
and dragging thousands of lives away into slavery. Two years after the
battle of Prevesa, Dragut was in fame second only to Kheyr-ed-din, and
another Doria—the nephew of Andrea—was sent forth to capture this new
wasp of the sea. Doria succeeded in throwing his net so well that off
the Corsican coast he was able to bring back Dragut as prisoner, and
for the next four years the ex-corsair was condemned to row as a slave
in a Christian galley, until on a day his late master Kheyr-ed-din came
sailing into Genoa. During his active, pillaging life he had obtained
plenty of riches, so it was nothing for him to pay 3000 ducats and thus
redeem from slavery a man who had been particularly useful to his own
schemes.
And from this day until Dragut fell fighting in 1565, he followed in
the footsteps of the man who brought him his release. When Kheyr-ed-din
died, the Turkish Sultan appointed Dragut as admiral of the Ottoman
fleet. Like Barbarossa, Dragut’s first object was to obtain a base in
Northern Africa, and eventually he was able to capture the town of
“Africa” or Mehedia, to the east of Tunis. His next proceeding was to
fortify this place. The news came to the ears of Charles V. that this had
happened. The two Barbarossas were dead, but there was another almost as
pernicious. Was this pestilence of piracy never to cease? Andrea Doria
was an old man now, but he was bidden by Charles to go after Dragut,
and he went. Nor was he sorry for an opportunity of wiping out his own
undistinguished action at Prevesa. Dragut was away harrying the coasts
of Spain, and his nephew Aisa was left in charge of “Africa.” Meanwhile
Doria searched for him along the African coast, came to “Africa,” but
after losing some men and with great damage to his own ship, Doria, as
the season was getting late, returned home.
But the following June, Doria with his fleet arrived off Mehedia,
besieged the city, and, after an expenditure of great effort, took it,
capturing Aisa.
Mehedia was lost, but Dragut was still at large. He repaired to
Constantinople and thence to Jerbah, the island off the east coast of
Tunis. Hither also came Andrea Doria and hemmed the corsair in. At last
the pirate was in a trap, but like many another clever rascal he found
a way out with consummate cleverness. What he did may briefly be summed
up as follows: Outside were the waiting Christian fleet, which was merely
amused by the sight of a new fort becoming daily greater. But these
earthworks were just so much bluff. For Dragut, by means of these, was
able to conceal what was being done on the other side. With marvellous
ingenuity he had caused a road to be made across the island to the sea on
the other side; he had laid down a surface of well-greased planks, and
under the further cover of darkness had made his men drag his galleys
across till they were launched into the sea on the opposite coast. The
rest was easy, and the corsair fleet once more escaped, having fooled
Dorea in a manner that amazed him. To add impudence to insult, Dragut at
once captured a Sicilian galley on its way to Dorea, containing Muley
Hassan, Sultan of Tunis. The latter was promptly sent as a present to the
Sultan of Turkey, who allowed him to end his days in prison.
Of the rest of the acts of this corsair we have but little space to
speak. It is sufficient if we say that he well bore the mantle which
had fallen to him from the shoulders of Barbarossa. He continued his
scourging of the seas, he fought gallantly, he laid waste and he
captured prisoners for slavery. Power and dominion came to him as to
his predecessors, and before long he was the ruler of Tripoli and more
than ever the enemy of the Christian race. Finally he died at the siege
of Malta, but he in turn was succeeded by Ali Basha of Algiers, who
conquered the kingdom of Tunis, captured Maltese galleys, and showed that
the old corsair spirit was still alive.
But the day of reckoning was at hand, and there was to be settled in
one of the most momentous events of history a debt that had long been
owing to the Christians. Of all the decisive battles of the world few
stand out more conspicuously than the battle of Lepanto. In spite of all
the great maritime expeditions which had been sent to put down piracy
in the Mediterranean, the evil had recurred again and again. There were
two reasons why Christian Europe was determined to beat these corsairs:
firstly, the latter were natural enemies because they were Moslems;
but, secondly, they were the worst type of pirates. All the losses of
Christian lives, goods and ships merely increased the natural hatred
of these Mohammedans. And in Lepanto we see the last great contest in
which these truculent corsairs fought as a mighty force. Thereafter
there were repeated piratical attacks by these men, but they of a more
individualistic nature than proceeding from an enormous organisation.
Lepanto was fought sixteen years before the Elizabethans defeated the
Armada. Before we say anything of the contest itself it is necessary to
remind the reader that whereas in the contest which took place in the
waters that wash England, the bulk of the ships were sail-propelled and
had high freeboard (with some exceptions), yet at Lepanto it was the
reverse. The fighting ship of the Mediterranean from the very earliest
times had always been of the galley type, even though it contained
variations of species. And never was this characteristic more clearly
manifested than at the battle of which we are now to speak. There were
galleys and galleasses, but though the former were certainly somewhat big
craft, yet the latter were practically only big editions of the galley.
The value of Lepanto is twofold. It proved to the world that the great
Ottoman Empire was not invincible on sea. It showed also that in
spite of all that the cleverest corsair seamen could do, there were
sufficient unity and seamanlike ability in Christian Europe to defeat
the combined efforts of organised piracy and Mohammedanism. No one can
deny that Ali Basha distinguished himself as a fine admiral at this
battle, yet he was not on the side of victory. When he found himself
defeated there fell simultaneously the greatest blow which organised
piracy had received since it established itself along the southern shores
of the Mediterranean. Lepanto was no mere isolated event; it was the
logical outcome of the conflict between Christianity on the one hand
and Mohammedanism with piracy on the other. It is as unfair to omit the
consideration of Moslemism from the cause of this battle as it were to
leave out the fact of piracy.
The solidarity of the Christian expedition was formed by what was called
the Holy League, embracing the ships of the Papal States, Spain and
Venice. The unity of the opposing side was ensured by the fidelity of
the Barbarian corsairs to the Sultan of Turkey. In supreme command of
the former was Don John of Austria, son of that Charles V. who had done
so much to oust these corsair wasps. The Christian fleet numbered about
three hundred, of which two-thirds were galleys, and they collected
at Messina. The scene where the battle was to take place was already
historic. It was practically identical with that of Prevesa, of which we
have already spoken, and with that of the classical Actium in 31 B.C.,
though exactly it was a little to the south of where Prevesa had been
fought. Just as in the latter Kheyr-ed-din had fought against Andrea
Doria, so now Dragut was to fight against John Andrea Doria. The Moslem
strength may be gauged from the statement that it contained 250 galleys
plus a number of smaller ships. But just as Prevesa had been marked
by little fighting but much manœuvring, so Lepanto was distinguished
by an absence of strategy and a prevalence of desperate, hard hitting.
Whatever strategy was displayed belonged to Ali Basha. The galleasses
of the Christian side dealt wholesale death into the Moslems, though
Andrea’s own flagship suffered severely in the fight. Spanish, Venetian
and Maltese galleys fought most gallantly, but Ali Basha, after capturing
the chief of the Maltese craft, was obliged to relinquish towing her, and
himself compelled to escape from the battle. At least 5000 Christians
perished at Lepanto, but six times that amount were slaughtered of the
Moslems, together with 200 of the latter’s ships. The corsairs had
rendered the finest assistance, but they had failed with distinction.
Christian craft had won the great day, and never since that autumn day in
1571 have the pirates of Barbary attained to their previous dominion and
organised power. Ali returned to Constantinople, and even the next year
was again anxious to fight his late enemies, though no actual fighting
took place. Still another year later Tunis was taken from the Turks by
Don John of Austria. For nine years after the event of Lepanto, Ali Basha
lived on, and, like his predecessors, spent much of his time harrying the
Christian coastline of southern Italy. There were many pirates for long
years after his death, but with the decease of Ali Basha closed the grand
period of the Moslem corsairs. It had been a century marked by the most
amazing impudence on the part of self-made kings and tyrants. But if it
showed nothing else, it made perfectly clear what enormous possibilities
the sea offered to any man who had enough daring and self-confidence
in addition to that essential quality of sea-sense. From mere common
sailormen these four great corsairs—the two Barbarossas, Dragut and
Ali Basha—rose to the position of autocrats and admirals. Mere robbers
and bandits though they were, yet the very mention of their names sent
a shudder through Christendom. And it was only the repeated and supreme
efforts of the great European powers which could reduce these pirate
kings into such a condition that honest ships could pursue their voyages
with any hope of reaching their destined ports. Surely, in the whole
history of lawlessness, there never were malefactors that prospered for
so long and to such an extent!
We have spoken in this chapter of galleys and galleasses. Before we
close, let us add a few words of explanation to facilitate the reader’s
vision. Bearing in mind the interesting survival of the galley type
throughout Mediterranean warfare, it must not be forgotten that in detail
this type of craft varied in subsequent centuries. There remained,
however, the prevailing fact that she relied primarily on oars, and
that she drew comparatively little water and had but little freeboard
in proportion to the caravels, caracks and ocean-going ships of war and
commerce. The great virtue of the galley consisted in her mobility.
Her greatest defect lay in her lack of sea-keeping qualities. For the
galley’s work was concerned with operations within a limited sphere with
the land not far away; in other words, she was suited for conditions the
exact opposite of that kind of craft which could sail to the West Indies
or go round Cape Horn.
[Illustration: GALLEY SLAVES
The life of a galley slave was one of dreadful hardship. They were
chained five or six to an oar, fed on the scantiest of food, and a
boatswain walked up and down a gangway in the centre wielding his
terrible lash on those who incurred his anger.]
The amazing feature of these galleys was the large number of oarsmen
required; but this was an age when human life was regarded more cheaply
than to-day. Slaves could be had by raiding towns or capturing ships.
The work of pulling at the oar was healthy if terribly hard. A minimum
of food and the stern lash of the boatswain as he walked up and down
the gangway that ran fore-and-aft down the centre of the ship kept the
men at their duty, and their shackles prevented them from deserting. But
when their poor, wearied bodies became weak, they were thrown overboard
before their last breath had left them. The prints, which are still
in existence, show that the number of oarsmen in a sixteenth-century
galley ran into hundreds—two or three hundred of these galley-slaves
would be no rare occurrence in one craft. They retained the beak and
the arrangement of the yards from the time of the Romans. At the stern
sat the commander with his officers. When these craft carried cannon
the armament was placed in the bows. By the sixteenth, or at any rate
the seventeenth, century, the galley had reached her climax, and it was
not thought remarkable that her length should be about 170 feet and her
breadth only about 20 feet. She may be easily studied by the reader on
referring to an accompanying illustration. Whether used by Christian or
corsair, by Maltese knights or Moslem Turks, they were not very different
from the picture which is here presented. With five men to each heavy
oar, with seamen to handle the sails when employed, with soldiers to
fight the ship, she was practically a curious kind of raft or floating
platform. Irrespective of religion or race, it was customary for the
sixteenth-century nations to condemn their prisoners to row chained to
these benches. Thus, for example, when the Spaniards captured Elizabethan
seamen, the latter were thus employed, just as Venetian prisoners were
made to row in Moslem galleys. Convicted criminals were also punished by
this means.
The difference between the old and new was never better seen than in
the late sixteenth century, when the big-bellied man-of-war with sails
and guns were beginning to discard the old boarding tactics. It was
the gun and not the sword on which they were now relying. But the
galley was dependent less on her gunnery than on boarding. It was her
aim to fight not at a distance but at close quarters—to get right close
alongside and then pour her soldiers on to the other ship and obtain
possession. The galeass of the Mediterranean, although the word was
somewhat largely used, signified an attempt to combine the sea-qualities
of the big-bellied ship with the mobility of the galley. Compromises
are, however, but rarely successful, and though the galleass was a much
more potent fighting unit, yet she was less mobile, if a better sea
craft. She began by being practically a big galley with forecastle and
sterncastle and another deck; she ended in being little less clumsy than
the contemporary ship of the line which relied on sails and guns. Anyone
who cares to examine the contemporary pictures of the Spanish galleasses
used by the Armada against England in the reign of Elizabeth can see
this for himself. It is true that even as far north as Amsterdam in the
seventeenth century the galley was employed, and there are many instances
when she fought English ships in the Channel, off Portsmouth and
elsewhere. For a time some lingered on in the British Navy, but they were
totally unsuited for the waters of the North Sea and English Channel, and
gave way to the sail-propelled ships of larger displacement.