THE CONQUEST OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V.
The descendants of Abou Abd Allah Muhamed el Mostancer soon forgot to
pay their tribute to the kings of Sicily, and the Beni Hafs continued to
enjoy absolute power in their dominions till nearly the middle of the
sixteenth century, when they succumbed to the successive attacks of the
Spaniards and the Turks. The invasion of Tunis by Charles V. was
incontestably one of the most celebrated _gesta_ of the age in which it
occurred; it has been celebrated alike in poetry, painting, and even on
porcelain, and its traces have hardly yet entirely disappeared. The
emperor brought in his train one Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, who painted ten
pictures of the most striking episodes in the campaign. Six of the
original paintings were discovered by the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and
they were subsequently restored and brought to England by the late
Prince Consort. The localities depicted in them can be easily recognised
by any one well acquainted with the principal features of the country,
and I have been enabled to place before the reader the drawings
representing the capture of Tunis and the bombardment of the Goletta
forts. The remains of the ramparts thrown up by the captains of
Barbarossa are still visible. They consist of a triple wall with the
intervening spaces filled up by layers of sand, stones, and rubbish.
This line of fortification passed from shore to shore, across the neck
of land which divides the Mediterranean from the Tunis lake, close to
the railway terminus erected by an English company in 1872. In making
some improvements in 1874, the lake end of the rampart was cut through.
Nearly two hundred skeletons were found outside it. Several pieces of
Spanish money, a heap of cannon balls, and some broken weapons were
picked up. The bones were afterwards re-interred in the adjoining
burial-ground. A skull, pierced apparently by a conical bullet, is still
preserved in Tunis. A short time afterwards I pointed out these remains
to Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, who remained some time in Tunis and
visited all the ruins of the Spanish fortifications. He much regretted
he had not seen them before writing his charming book on “The Cloister
Life of Charles V.,” and his untimely death alone, I believe, prevented
him from becoming the most modern chronicler of the Spanish emperor’s
African conquest. One of the finest known specimens of majolica ware is
covered with a painting of the storming of Goletta, which Joseph Marryat
erroneously describes as “an island in the Mediterranean Sea.”[17] It
bears the following inscription:—
M.D. XXXI (?)
“Da Carlo d’Austria Imperatore potente
_L’alta Goletta_ inespugnabil tanto
Astretta e presa con furor repente
In Urbino nella bottega di Francesco Silvano.”
[Illustration: CHRISTIAN SLAVES AT TUNIS.
From the picture by Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, in the possession of Her
Majesty Queen Victoria.
Reproduction by Maclure & Macdonald.]
[Illustration: SIEGE OF GOLETTA BY CHARLES V.
From the picture by Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, in the possession of Her
Majesty Queen Victoria.
Reproduction by Maclure & Macdonald.]
[Illustration: LANDING OF CHARLES V.
From the picture by Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, in the possession of Her
Majesty Queen Victoria.
Reproduction by Maclure & Macdonald.]
[Illustration: BATTLE BETWEEN TUNIS AND GOLETTA.
From the picture by Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, in the possession of Her
Majesty Queen Victoria.
Reproduction by Maclure & Macdonald.]
[Illustration: TAKING OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V.
From the picture by Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, in the possession of Her
Majesty Queen Victoria.
Reproduction by Maclure & Macdonald.]
The story of the Spanish invasion of the kingdom of the Beni Hafs has
been written by at least a score of Moorish and Spanish annalists. The
voluminous records of the Knights of St. John contain the minutest
details of the great enterprise. In the carefully preserved archives of
the Order I discovered the original MS. instructions issued by the Grand
Master to the captains of the Maltese contingent.[18] In the public
library I happened to light on a brief but curious narrative of the
expedition compiled by a French knight in 1612.
“Mouley Muhamed, king of Tunis,” writes the Chevalier Boyssat, “died in
1533. He was, it is believed, poisoned by one of his wives, by name
Geisa, who desired to secure the throne for her son, Mouley Assem
(Hasan), and who at once put twenty-two of his brothers to death. One
alone, by name Rascit (Rachid), contrived to escape, who took refuge
with the corsair Kheir-ed-Din at Algiers. They went together to
Constantinople, and there the Captain Pacha proposed to the Sultan
Suleiman the conquest of Tunis, under the pretext of the restoration of
Rascit. A fleet was at once prepared, but when it was on the point of
sailing Rascit mysteriously disappeared. Kheir-ed-Din, however, reached
Tunis, and took it almost without a blow. It was not till he arrived in
the very midst of the _castel_ of Tunis that he confessed to the absence
of Rascit, and boldly proclaimed the downfall of the Beni Hafs and the
authority of the Grand Signor. Mouley Assem then fled to Europe and
asked the powerful aid of the Emperor Charles.”
The Emperor agreed to assist him. He found in this romantic enterprise
the means of carrying out a project he had long before contemplated, and
of furthering his ideas of becoming the Defender of Christendom.
“Charles,” says Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell, “stood between the days of
chivalry which were going out, and the days of printing which were
coming in,—respecting the traditions of the one, and fulfilling many of
the requirements of the other. Men of the sword found in him a bold
cavalier. Like his ancestors, with lance in rest, he led knights against
the Moorish hosts amongst the olives of Goletta.”
The allied fleet assembled in June 1535 off the coast of Sardinia. “The
Pope,” says Boyssat, “sent twelve galleys. The King of France sent
twenty more to guard the rivers of Christendom,[19] and the Religion[20]
four ships and the great _carraca_,[21] commanded by Touchebœuf
Clermont, with two hundred Knights. Anthony de Grolée commanded a
reserve of seventy Knights, and a regiment of infantry. The Chevalier
Botigella directed the sea-forces. On arriving in Sardinia the Emperor
received the Knights with the highest honours, and the Prior of Pisa
presented to him one Sherif, the envoy sent to the Grand Master by
Mouley Hasan. Sherif was able to address the Emperor in good Spanish,
being descended from the Moors expelled by Ferdinand from the kingdom of
Granada. On the 28th June the fleet anchored off the harbour of Utica,
now called Porto-Farina. The Emperor’s galley stuck fast in the sand,
but Prince Doria managed to release it, and the circumstance was hailed
as a good omen denoting the desire of the African soil to voluntarily
submit to the will of His Majesty.” On the appearance of this formidable
flotilla of 600 ships before Goletta, Barbarossa repented having
withdrawn his vessels into the Tunis lake, and put to death one Louis
Pressida, a Genoese gentleman, who had assured him that the Emperor
would never come to Tunis in person. The soldiers disembarked _between
Goletta and the salt-pits_. There an entrenched camp was formed. The
Goletta garrison made frequent sorties against the invaders, in one of
which their leader, Jiaffer, was killed. The Maltese _carraca_, “St.
Anne,” was then brought as near as possible to the Goletta fort, and her
artillery in a short time demolished the greater part of it. The Turkish
cannon, not being mounted on wheels, were consequently almost useless.
An attack by sea was next organised, in which the Maltese ships occupied
the position and precedence invariably conceded to the Order. The barque
of the “St. Anne” carried three small cannons, and, approaching the
shore, greatly harassed the besieged. At last the Emperor ordered a
general assault, which was led by the Knights. The Chevalier Copier,
carrying the banner of St. John, was the first to enter the Goletta, and
it was his flag which first floated from the half-ruined battlements.
The Turks fled towards Tunis by way of the lake, and Goletta was sacked
by the Spaniards. Charles then moved along the right side of the lake
(_estang_) towards Tunis. Kheir-ed-Din met him, a league from the town,
at the head of eight thousand Moors or Turks and a strong force of
Arabs. After a desperate engagement, Kheir-ed-Din was forced to fall
back on Tunis. At that time there were several thousand Christian slaves
in the dungeons beneath the citadel, which is now called the Kasbah.
Kheir-ed-Din felt the danger of having to resist a double attack, and
proposed to massacre them. This plan was successfully opposed by his
subordinates. The slaves, headed by the Maltese Knight, Paul Simeoni,
induced their keepers, two Spanish renegades, to open the doors of the
prison. Having pillaged the arms in the guardhouse, they expelled the
Turkish governor, and afterwards obtained complete possession of the
fortress. They found the standard captured by the Turks at Sarmiento,
and, hoisting it on the highest tower of the citadel, communicated the
news of their victory to the Spaniards outside the walls. Kheir-ed-Din
fled towards Bone, where he had prudently left some of his ships. Then
followed a time of rapine and murder, the almost indescribable
atrocities of which it is impossible to relate. Charles did not call off
his followers from their prey until they began to slay each other in the
quarrels which arose over the division of their booty. Then and then
only did the generals endeavour to restore order in the army, the
conduct of which had, during three days, resembled that of “a hideous
band of brigands.” When Mouley Hasan endeavoured to protect a Moorish
slave-girl, she indignantly spat in his face. The Tunisians could never
forgive even the restoration of a Beni Hafs purchased at such a price.
The treaty by which Charles gave back the throne of his fathers to his
protégé was a very short one. The following were its conditions:—(1.)
The release without ransom of all Christian slaves. (2.) Freedom of
faith and commerce to Christians. (3.) The Tunisians to abstain from
piracy. (4.) Goletta to be ceded to Spain. (5.) An annual tribute of
12,000 piastres to be paid to the Spaniards. (6.) The suzerainty of
Spain to be recognised by a yearly present of twelve horses and twelve
falcons. (7.) Spain to protect Tunis against all foreign attacks. (8.)
The castle at Tunis to be occupied by a Spanish guard until the country
was completely pacified. Charles remained a few days at Rades, but
before quitting the capital is said to have instituted an order of
chivalry to commemorate his victory. The “Cross of Tunis” consisted of a
flint and steel suspended from a golden chain bearing the word
_Barbaria_.[22] The Emperor sailed for Italy, leaving a garrison of a
thousand men and ten galleys at Goletta. While Italian historians were
recording and Italian poets were singing the deeds of Charles and the
glories of the Spanish arms, Kheir-ed-Din appeared before Mahon, reduced
many of its inhabitants to slavery, and returned laden with booty to
Algiers.