The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean (47 page)

On 5 August Bragadin sent word to Lala Mustafa proposing to call and formally present him with the keys of Famagusta; back came the reply that the general would be delighted to receive him. He set off that evening wearing his purple robe of office, accompanied by Baglioni with a number of senior officers and escorted by a mixed company of Italian, Greek and Albanian soldiers. Lala Mustafa received them with every courtesy; then, without warning, his face clouded and his manner changed. In a mounting fury, he began to hurl baseless accusations at the Christians standing before him. They had murdered Turkish prisoners; they had concealed munitions instead of handing them over according to the terms of the surrender. Suddenly he whipped out a knife and cut off Bragadin’s right ear, ordering an attendant to cut off the other and his nose. Then, turning to his guards, he ordered the immediate execution of the whole delegation. Baglioni was beheaded; so, too, was the commander of the artillery, Luigi Martinengo. One or two managed to escape but most were massacred, together with a number of other Christians who happened to be within reach. Finally the heads of all those who had been murdered were piled in front of Lala Mustafa’s pavilion. They are said to have numbered 350.

The worst fate of all was reserved for Marcantonio Bragadin. He was held in prison for nearly a fortnight, by which time his untreated wounds were festering and he was seriously ill. Only then, however, did his real torment begin. First he was dragged round the walls of Famagusta, with sacks of earth and stones on his back; next, tied to a chair, he was hoisted to the yardarm of the Turkish flagship and exposed to the taunts of the sailors. Finally he was taken to the place of execution in the main square, tied naked to a column and, literally, flayed alive. Even this torture he is said to have borne in silence for half an hour until, as the executioner reached his waist, he finally expired. After the grim task was completed his head was cut off, his body quartered, and his skin, stuffed with straw and cotton and mounted on a cow, paraded through the streets.

When, on 22 September, Lala Mustafa sailed for home, he took with him as trophies the heads of the principal victims and the skin of Marcantonio Bragadin, which he proudly presented to the Sultan. The fate of the heads is unknown, but nine years later one of the survivors of the siege, a certain Girolamo Polidoro, managed to steal the skin from the Arsenal of Constantinople and returned it to Bragadin’s sons, who deposited it in the church of S. Gregorio in Venice. From here it was transferred in 1596 to SS. Giovanni e Paolo where, in the south aisle near the west door, it was placed in a niche just behind the urn which forms part of the hero’s memorial.

On 24 November 1961, with the consent of Bragadin’s direct descendant, the niche was opened. It was found to contain a leaden casket, in which were several pieces of tanned human skin.

CHAPTER XVII

Lepanto and the Spanish Conspiracy

The failure of the Cyprus expedition had been, both for Venice and for the Papacy, a humiliating blow; but already negotiations were under way for a firmer and more effective alliance. The prime mover of this new initiative was the Pope. Pius V had thought long and hard about the Turkish threat, and had realised that the principal obstacle to any close understanding between Venice and Spain was that Venice saw the problem in terms of her colonies in the Levant, while Spain was a good deal more anxious about the danger presented by the Sultan’s Moorish vassals to her own possessions in North Africa. He had therefore concluded that the primary aim of Christendom should be to reestablish control of the central Mediterranean, cutting off the Sultan’s African territories from those in Europe and Asia and thus effectively splitting his empire into two. In July 1570 he accordingly called a conference to draft the charter of a new Christian League, and over the following months, by patient argument and with active Venetian help, he gradually won King Philip round.

The resulting treaty was formally proclaimed on 25 May 1571 in St Peter’s. It was to be perpetual, offensive as well as defensive, and directed not only against the Ottoman Turks but also against their Moorish vassals and co-religionists along the North African coast. The signatories–Spain, Venice and the Papacy (the way was left open for the Emperor and the Kings of France and Poland to join if they wished)–were together to furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot soldiers and 4,500 cavalry, with the requisite artillery and ammunition. These forces were to foregather every year, in the month of April at the latest, for a summer campaign wherever they thought fit. Every autumn there would be consultations in Rome to determine the next year’s activity. If either Spain or Venice were attacked, the other would go to her assistance; both undertook to defend papal territory with everything they had. All fighting would be under the banner of the League; important decisions would be taken by a majority vote of the three generals commanding: Sebastiano Venier for Venice, Marcantonio Colonna for the Papacy, and for Spain the Captain-General of the combined fleet, the King’s half-brother Don John of Austria.

Don John was the bastard son of Charles V by a German lady called Barbara Blomberg. Twenty-six years old, outstandingly good-looking and a natural leader of men, he had already gained a degree of fame–or notoriety–in the previous year by putting down a serious Morisco rising in Spain.
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The Venetians expressed themselves delighted at the appointment–as well they might have been, since the King’s first choice, about which he had luckily had second thoughts, had been Gian Andrea Doria. They would have felt rather less pleasure had they known that Philip, who suspected that the young prince’s courage was apt to override his judgement, had ordered him on no account to give battle without Doria’s express consent.

Although it was clearly too late to observe the timetable stipulated in the treaty, the allies had agreed that the summer of 1571 should not be wasted, and that the forces for the first year’s campaign should muster as soon as possible at Messina, from which they would sail in search of the Ottoman navy. By August all had arrived, and Don John drew up his sailing orders. He himself, with Venier and Colonna, would take the centre, with sixty-four galleys. The right wing, with fifty-four, would be under Doria; the left, with fifty-three, under the Venetian Augustino Barbarigo. In addition there was to be a small vanguard of eight galleys and a rearguard of six, to be respectively commanded by Don Juan de Cardona and the Marquis of Santa Cruz. To each group were allotted six galleasses. The galleons and heavy transports, which–not being oared like the galleys–were considerably less manoeuvrable, were to form a separate convoy.
¹⁵²

Emboldened by the fall of Famagusta and by the departure of virtually the whole Venetian fleet for Messina, the Turks had by now entered the Adriatic in strength; their landings in Corfu and along the Dalmatian coast had aroused increasing fears in Venice of a sudden invasion which would find the city almost without defence. At the approach of the combined fleet, however, they had rapidly withdrawn to their bases in Greece; they had no wish to be blockaded within the narrow sea with the enemy all around them. Thus it was from Lepanto (the modern Naupactos on the Gulf of Patras) that they sailed out, on 6 October, to meet the advancing Christians.

The Christians were in a fighting mood. Two days before, at Cephalonia, they had heard of the fall of Famagusta and, in particular, of the death of Marcantonio Bragadin; rage and vengeance were in their hearts. On the same day, however, there occurred an incident which almost proved disastrous. A Spanish officer and a few of the men on Sebastiano Venier’s galley insulted some Venetians, and in the ensuing fight several of them were killed. Venier, without consultation and on his own initiative, had all those implicated hanged at the masthead. When this was reported to Don John he flew into a rage and ordered the captain’s arrest–a command which, had it been obeyed, might well have torn the whole fleet apart. Fortunately, wiser counsels–probably those of Colonna–prevailed and he was persuaded to countermand his order, but he never forgave Venier. Henceforth all his communications with the Venetian contingent were addressed to the second-in-command.

The two fleets met at dawn on 7 October, a mile or two east of Cape Scropha at the entrance to the Gulf of Patras. The galleons had not yet arrived, but Don John was determined to engage the enemy at once. Only slightly revising his order of battle–Barbarigo and Doria received ten more galleys each–he drew his ships into formation and sailed to the attack. The Turks were ready for him, with a fleet that almost precisely matched his own, describing a huge crescent that extended from one shore of the gulf to the other. The admiral, Ali Pasha, commanded the central squadron, with eighty-seven galleys; on his right was Mehmet Saulak, governor of Alexandria, with fifty-four; on his left, opposite Doria, was Uluch Ali with sixty-one.

The battle began at about half past ten in the morning at the north end of the lines, where Don John’s left wing under Barbarigo engaged Ali’s right under Saulak. The fighting was fierce, Barbarigo’s own flagship being at one moment set upon by five Turkish vessels which simultaneously loosed a hail of arrows, one of them wounding the Venetian admiral mortally in the eye. His nephew Marco Contarini took over the command, but within five minutes he too was dead. Yet the engagement ended in a total victory for the Christians, who eventually succeeded in driving the entire Turkish right wing into the shore. The Turks abandoned their ships and tried to escape into the surrounding hills, but the Venetians pursued them and cut them down as they ran. Saulak was taken prisoner, but he was already seriously wounded and did not long survive.

The focus now shifted to the centre where, at eleven o’clock or thereabouts, Don John’s galleys, advancing in line abreast at a steady, even stroke, closed on those of Ali Pasha, the two flagships deliberately making straight for each other. They met, and entangled; to each side of them along the line the other galleys did the same, simultaneously closing in towards the middle until the sea was scarcely visible and men were leaping and scrambling from ship to ship, fighting hand to hand with swords, cutlasses and scimitars. Twice Ali’s force of 400 picked janissaries boarded Don John’s flagship, the
Real
; three times the Spaniards returned the attack, the last time under heavy covering fire from Colonna, who had just incapacitated the galley of Pertau Pasha, Ali’s second-in-command. It was on this third occasion that Ali was struck on the forehead by a cannonball. Scarcely had he fallen before his head was sliced off by a soldier from Malaga, who stuck it on a pike and waved it aloft to give courage to his comrades. With their admiral killed and their flagship captured, the Turks rapidly lost heart. Many of their ships were destroyed in the melée; those that managed to extricate themselves turned and fled.

To the south, meanwhile, things were going less well. From the very beginning of the advance, at about ten o’clock that morning, Gian Andrea Doria had been uneasy about his position. The Turkish left wing under Uluch Ali which confronted him was longer and stronger–ninety-three vessels to his sixty-four–and, extending as it did further southward, threatened to outflank him. It was to avoid this danger that he had altered his course towards the southeast, a decision which left an ever-widening gap between Don John and himself. He should have known better. Uluch Ali saw the gap and instantly changed his plans, altering his own direction towards the northwest with the object of cutting straight through the Christian line and falling upon it from the rear. This new course led him against the southern end of Don John’s squadron, which consisted of a few ships contributed by the Knights of Malta. The Knights fought bravely, but they had no chance against the overwhelming odds and were massacred to a man. Their flagship was taken in tow, and Uluch Ali raised their captured standard on his own.

By now Don Juan de Cardona, whose eight galleys had been held in reserve, was hurrying to the relief of the Knights. As he approached, sixteen Turkish galleys fell on him. There followed the fiercest and bloodiest encounter of the whole day. When it was over, 450 of the 500 fighting men of Cardona’s galleys had been killed or wounded, and Cardona himself was on the point of death. Several ships, when boarded later, were found to be manned entirely by corpses. Others, meanwhile, were hurrying to the rescue: the second reserve force under Santa Cruz and–as soon as he could leave his own area of the battle–Don John himself. Uluch Ali stayed no longer, ordering thirteen of his galleys to quicken their stroke and heading with them northwest at full speed towards Leucas and Preveza. The remainder broke away in the other direction and returned to Lepanto.

Despite the confusion and the appalling losses sustained as a result of the cowardice and sheer bad seamanship of Gian Andrea Doria–and there were plenty of his colleagues after the battle to accuse him of both–the Battle of Lepanto had been an overwhelming victory for Christendom. According to the most reliable estimates, the Christians lost only twelve galleys sunk and one captured; Turkish losses were 113 and 117 respectively. Casualties were heavy on both sides, as was inevitable when much of the fighting was hand-to-hand, but whereas the Christian losses are unlikely to have exceeded 15,000, the Turks are believed to have lost double that number, excluding the 8,000 who were taken prisoner.
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In addition there was enormous plunder; Ali Pasha’s flagship alone was found to contain 150,000 sequins. Finally comes the most gratifying figure of all: that of the 15,000 Christian galley slaves set at liberty. For all this the lion’s share of the credit must go to Don John himself, whose handling of his unwieldy and heterogeneous fleet was masterly and whose brilliant use of his firepower was to have a lasting effect on the development of naval warfare. In future, sea battles would be decided by guns rather than by swordsmanship. This in turn would mean bigger, heavier ships, which could be propelled only by sail. Lepanto was the last great naval engagement to be fought with oared galleys, ramming each other head on. The age of the broadside had begun.

It was 18 October before the galley
Angelo
reached Venice with the news. The city was still mourning the loss of Cyprus, raging against the bestial treatment of Bragadin and fearful as to what further reverses the future might have in store. Within an hour of the
Angelo
’s appearance, trailing the Turkish banners in the water behind her stern, her deck piled high with trophies, the whole mood had changed. Venice had had her revenge; nor had she had to wait long for it. Suddenly jubilation was in the air, as everyone hastened to the Piazza to learn the details of the battle and to celebrate. The gates of the debtors’ prison were opened in an act of spontaneous amnesty, while the Turkish merchants, with a contrary motion, barricaded themselves for safety inside the Fondaco dei Turchi until the excitement was over. In St Mark’s, a
Te Deum
was followed by a High Mass of thanksgiving; that night there was scarcely a building in the city that was not illuminated inside and out by candles and torches. In more permanent celebration of the event, the great entrance portal of the Arsenal was enlarged and adorned by the addition of a winged lion of St Mark (with appropriate inscription) and two winged victories. A year or two later the pediment was to be surmounted by a statue of St Justina, on whose feast day the great battle had been won, and from 1572 to the fall of the Republic in 1797 that day, 7 October, was annually celebrated with a procession by the Doge and Signoria to the church of that same fortunate patron, outside which the captured Turkish standards were displayed.

And so Lepanto is remembered as one of the decisive battles of the world, the greatest naval engagement between Actium–fought only some sixty miles away–and Trafalgar. In England and America, admittedly, its continued fame rests largely on G. K. Chesterton’s thunderous–if gloriously inaccurate–poem, but in the Catholic countries of the Mediterranean it has broken the barriers of history and passed, like Roncesvalles, into legend. Does it, however, altogether deserve its reputation? Technically and tactically, yes; after 1571 sea battles were never the same again. Politically, no. Lepanto did not, as its victors hoped, mark the end of the pendulum’s swing, the point where Christian fortunes suddenly turned, gathering force until the Turks were swept back into the Asian heartland whence they had come. Venice did not regain Cyprus; only two years later she was to conclude a separate peace with the Sultan relinquishing all her claims to the island. Nor did Lepanto mean the end of her losses; in the following century, Crete was to go the same way. As for Spain, she did not appreciably increase her control of the central Mediterranean; only seventeen years afterwards, the historic defeat of her Great Armada by the British was to deal her sea power a blow from which it would not quickly recover. Nor was she able to break the links between Constantinople and the Moorish princes of North Africa; within three years the Turks were to drive the Spaniards from Tunis, make vassals of the local rulers and reduce the area–as they had already reduced most of Algeria to the west and Tripolitania to the east–to the status of an Ottoman province.