The Story of the Barbary Corsairs Part 4

The joy of triumph was sadly marred by the doings of Kheyr-ed-din.

That incorrigible pirate, aware that no one would suspect that he could be roving while Charles was besieging his new kingdom, took occasion to slip over to Minorca with his twenty-seven remaining galleots; and there, flying Spanish and other false colours, deceived the islanders into the belief that his vessels were part of the Armada; upon which he rowed boldly into Port Mahon, seized a rich Portuguese galleon, sacked the town, and, laden with six thousand captives and much booty and ammunition, led his prize back in triumph to Algiers. In the meanwhile Doria was a.s.siduously hunting for him with thirty galleys, under the emperor's express orders to catch him dead or alive. The great Genoese had to wait yet three years for his long-sought duel.

Having accomplished its object, the Armada, as usual, broke up without making a decisive end of the Corsairs. Kheyr-ed-din, waiting at Algiers in expectation of attack, heard the news gladly, and, when the coast was clear, sailed back to Constantinople for reinforcements. He never saw Algiers again.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Von Hammer, _Gesch. d. Osm. Reiches_, ii. 129.

[30] Broadley, _Tunis, Past and Present_, i. 42, quoting a narrative by Boyssat, one of the Knights of Malta, written in 1612.

[31] On Charles's expedition to Tunis, consult Marmol, Hajji Khalifa, Robertson, Morgan, Von Hammer, and Broadley. In the last will be found some interesting photographs of Jan Cornelis Vermeyen's pictures, painted on the spot during the progress of the siege, by command of the Emperor, and now preserved at Windsor. All the accounts of the siege and capture show discrepancies which it seems hopeless to reconcile.

[32] _Hist. of Algiers_, 286.

IX.

THE SEA-FIGHT OFF PREVESA.

1537.

When Barbarossa returned to Constantinople Tunis was forgotten and Minorca alone called to mind: instead of the t.i.tle of Beglerbeg of Algiers, the Sultan saluted him as Capudan Pasha or High Admiral of the Ottoman fleets. There was work to be done in the Adriatic, and none was fitter to do it than the great Corsair. Kheyr-ed-din had acquired an added influence at Stambol since the execution of the Grand Vezir Ibrahim,[33] and he used it in exactly the opposite direction. Ibrahim, a Dalmatian by birth, had always striven to maintain friendly relations with Venice, his native state, and for more than thirty years there had been peace between the Republic and the Porte. Barbarossa, on the contrary, longed to pit his galleys against the most famous of the maritime nations of the Middle Ages, and to make the Crescent as supreme in the waters of the Adriatic as it was in the Aegean. Francis I. was careful to support this policy out of his jealousy of the Empire. The Venetians, anxious to keep on good terms with the Sultan, and to hold a neutral position between Francis and Charles V., found themselves gradually committed to a war, and by their own fault. Their commanders in the Adriatic and at Candia were unable to resist the temptation of chasing Ottoman merchantmen.

Ca.n.a.le, the Proveditore of Candia, caught a noted Corsair, the "Young Moor of Alexander," as his victims called him, sunk or captured his galleys, killed his Janissaries, and severely wounded the young Moor himself;--and all this in Turkish waters, on Turkish subjects, and in time of peace. Of course when the too gallant Proveditore came to his senses and perceived his folly, he patched the young Moor's wounds and sent him tenderly back to Algiers: but the Sultan's ire was already roused, and when Venetian galleys actually gave chase to a s.h.i.+p that carried a Turkish amba.s.sador, no apologies that the Signoria offered could wipe out the affront. War was inevitable, and Venice hastily made common cause with the Pope and the Emperor against the formidable host which now advanced upon the Adriatic.

Before this, some stirring actions had been fought off the coasts of Greece. Doria, sallying forth from Messina, had met the governor of Gallipoli off Paxos, and had fought him before daybreak. Standing erect on the p.o.o.p, conspicuous in his cramoisy doublet, the tall figure of the old admiral was seen for an hour and a half directing the conflict, sword in hand, an easy mark for sharpshooters, as a wound in the knee reminded him. After a severe struggle the twelve galleys of the enemy were captured and carried in triumph to Messina.

Barbarossa was sorely wanted now, and in May, 1537, he sailed with one hundred and thirty-five galleys to avenge the insult. For a whole month he laid waste the Apulian coast like a pestilence, and carried off ten thousand slaves, while Doria lay helpless with a far inferior force in Messina roads. The Turks were boasting that they might soon set up a Pope of their own, when the war with Venice broke out, and they were called off from their devastation of Italy by the Sultan's command to besiege Corfu. The Ionian islands were always a bone of contention between the Turks and their neighbours, and a war with Venice naturally began with an attack upon Corfu. The Senate had shut its eyes as long as possible to the destination of the huge armaments which had left Constantinople in the spring: Tunis, or perhaps Naples, was said to be their object. But now they were undeceived, and on the 25th of August, Captain Pasha Barbarossa landed twenty-five thousand men and thirty cannon under Lutfi Pasha, three miles from the castle of Corfu. Four days later the Grand Vezir Ayas, with twenty-five thousand more and a brilliant staff, joined the first-comers, and the Akinji or light troops spread fire and sword around. A fifty-pounder fired nineteen shots in three days, but only five struck the fortress: the Turks fired too high, and many of their missiles fell harmlessly into the sea beyond. In spite of storm and rain the Grand Vezir would not desist from making the round of the trenches by night.

Suleyman offered liberal terms of capitulation, but the besieged sent back his messenger with never an answer. Alexandro Tron worked the big guns of the castle with terrible precision. Two galleys were quickly sunk, four men were killed in the trenches by a single shot--a new and alarming experience in those early days of gunnery--four times the Fort of St. Angelo was attacked in vain; winter was approaching, and the Sultan determined to raise the siege. In vain Barbarossa remonstrated: "A thousand such castles were not worth the life of one of his brave men," said the Sultan, and on the 17th of September the troops began to re-embark.[34]

Then began a scene of devastation such as the isles of Greece have too often witnessed,--not from Turks only, but from Genoese and Venetians, who also came to the Archipelago for their oarsmen,--but never perhaps on so vast a scale. Butrinto was burnt, Paxos conquered, and then Barbarossa carried fire and sword throughout the Adriatic and the Archipelago. With seventy galleys and thirty galleots, he raged among the islands, most of which belonged to n.o.ble families of Venice--the Venieri, Grispi, Pisani, Quirini. Syra, Skyros, Aegina, Paros, Naxos, Tenos, and other Venetian possessions were overwhelmed, and thousands of their people carried off to pull a Turkish oar. Naxos contributed five thousand dollars as her first year's tribute; Aegina furnished six thousand slaves. Many trophies did Barbarossa bring home to Stambol, whose riches certainly did his own and the Sultan's, if not "the general coffer, fill." Four hundred thousand pieces of gold, a thousand girls, and fifteen hundred boys, were useful resources when he returned to "rub his countenance against the royal stirrup."[35]

Two hundred boys in scarlet, bearing gold and silver bowls; thirty more laden with purses; two hundred with rolls of fine cloth: such was the present with which the High Admiral approached the Sultan's presence.

Suleyman's genius was at that time bent upon three distinct efforts: he was carrying on a campaign in Moldavia; his Suez fleet--a novelty in Ottoman history--was invading the Indian Ocean, with no very tangible result, it is true (unless a trophy of Indian ears and noses may count), save the conquest of Aden on the return voyage, but still a notable exploit, and disturbing to the Portuguese in Gujerat; and his High Admiral was planning the destruction of the maritime power of Venice.

In the summer of 1538, Barbarossa put off to sea, and soon had one hundred and fifty sail under his command. He began by collecting rowers and tribute from the islands, twenty-five of which had now been transferred from the Venetian to the Turkish allegiance, and then laid waste eighty villages in Candia. Here news was brought that the united fleet of the Emperor, Venice, and the Pope was cruising in the Adriatic, and the Captain Pasha hastened to meet it. The pick of the Corsairs was with him. Round his flags.h.i.+p were ranged the galleys of Dragut, Murad Res, Sinan, Salih Res with twenty Egyptian vessels, and others, to the number of one hundred and twenty-two s.h.i.+ps of war. The advance guard sighted part of the enemy off Prevesa--a Turkish fortress opposite the promontory of Arta or Actium, where Antony suffered his memorable defeat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMPa.s.s OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]

The Christian strength was really overwhelming. Eighty Venetian, thirty-six Papal, and thirty Spanish galleys, together with fifty sailing galleons, made up a formidable total of nearly two hundred s.h.i.+ps of war, and they carried scarcely less than sixty thousand men, and two thousand five hundred guns. Doria was in chief command, and Capello and Grimani led the Venetian and Roman contingents. Barbarossa had fortunately received but an imperfect report of the enemy's strength and so boldly pursued his northerly course up the Adriatic.

When he reached Prevesa, the combined fleets had gone on to Corfu, and he was able to enter unopposed the s.p.a.cious gulf of Arta, where all the navies of the world might safely anchor and defy pursuit.

On September 25th, the allied fleets appeared off the entrance to the gulf, and then for the first time Barbarossa realized his immense good fortune in being the first in the bay. Outnumbered as he was, a fight in the open sea might have ended in the total destruction of his navy; but secure in an ample harbour, on a friendly coast, behind a bar which the heavier vessels of the enemy could not cross, he could wait his opportunity and take the foe at a disadvantage. The danger was that Doria might disembark his guns and attack from the sh.o.r.es of the gulf, and to meet this risk some of the Turkish captains insisted on landing their men and trying to erect earthworks for their protection; but the fire from the Christian s.h.i.+ps soon stopped this manoeuvre. Barbarossa had never expected Doria to hazard a landing, and he was right. The old admiral of Charles V. was not likely to expose his s.h.i.+ps to the risk of a sally from the Turks just when he had deprived them of the men and guns that could alone defend them.

The two fleets watched each other warily. Doria and Barbarossa had at last come face to face for a great battle, but, strange as it may seem, neither cared to begin: Barbarossa was conscious of serious numerical inferiority; Doria was anxious for the safety of his fifty big sailing vessels, on the heavy artillery of which he most relied, but which a contrary wind might drive to destruction on the hostile coast. As it was, his guides.h.i.+p on the extreme left had but a fathom of water under her keel. Each felt keenly the weighty responsibility of his position, and even the sense that now at last the decisive day of their long rivalry had come could not stir them from their policy of prudence. Moreover, it was no longer a question of the prowess of hot-blooded youth: Doria and Barbarossa and Capello were all men of nearly seventy years, and Doria was certainly not the man he once was; politics had spoilt him.

So the two great admirals waited and eyed each other's strength. Will Barbarossa come out? Or must Doria risk the pa.s.sage of the bar and force his way in to the encounter? Neither event happened: but on the morning of the 27th the Corsairs rubbed their eyes to feel if they were asleep, as they saw the whole magnificent navy of Christendom, anchor a-peak, sailing slowly and majestically--_away!_ Were the Christians afraid? Anyhow no one, not even Barbarossa, could hold the Turks back now. Out they rushed in hot pursuit, not thinking or caring--save their shrewd captain--whether this were not a feint of Doria's to catch them in the open. "Get into line," said Barbarossa to his captains, "and do as you see me do." Dragut took the right wing, Salih Res the left. Early on the 28th the Christian fleet was discovered at anchor, in a foul wind, off Santa Maura, thirty miles to the south. Doria was not at all prepared for such prompt pursuit, and eyed with anxiety the long battle line of one hundred and forty galleys, galleots, and brigantines, bearing down upon him before the wind. His s.h.i.+ps were scattered, for the sails could not keep up with the oars, and Condulmiero's huge Venetian carack was becalmed off Zuara, a long way behind, and others were in no better plight. Three hours Doria hesitated, and then gave the order to sail north and meet the enemy. Condulmiero was already fiercely engaged, and soon his carack was a mere unrigged helmless waterlog, only saved from instant destruction by her immense size and terrific guns, which, well aimed, low on the water, to gain the _ricochet_, did fearful mischief among the attacking galleys. Two galleons were burnt to the water's edge, and their crews took to the boats; a third, Boccanegra's, lost her mainmast, and staggered away crippled. What was Doria about? The wind was now in his favour; the enemy was in front: but Doria continued to tack and manoeuvre at a distance. What he aimed at is uncertain: his colleagues Grimani and Capello went on board his flags.h.i.+p, and vehemently remonstrated with him, and even implored him to depart and let them fight the battle with their own s.h.i.+ps, but in vain. He was bent on tactics, when what was needed was pluck; and tactics lost the day. The Corsairs took, it is true, only seven galleys and sailing vessels, but they held the sea. Doria sailed away in the evening for Corfu, and the whole allied fleet followed in a gale of wind.[36]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OBSERVATION WITH THE ASTROLABE.

(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]

So, after all, the great duel was never fairly fought between the sea-rivals. Barbarossa was willing, but Doria held back: he preferred to show his seamans.h.i.+p instead of his courage. The result was in effect a victory, a signal victory, for the Turks. Two hundred splendid vessels of three great Christian states had fled before an inferior force of Ottomans; and it is no wonder that Sultan Suleyman, when he learnt the news at Yamboli, illuminated the town, and added one hundred thousand aspres a year to the revenues of the conqueror. Barbarossa had once more proved to the world that the Turkish fleet was invincible. The flag of Suleyman floated supreme in all the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] See the _Story of Turkey_, 195.

[34] Von Hammer, _Gesch. d. Osm. Reiches_, ii. 142.

[35] Hajji Khalifa, 58.

[36] Jurien de la Graviere, _Doria et Barberousse_, Pt. II., ch.

xlii.-xlv.; Hajji Khalifa, 62; Von Hammer, ii. 155; Morgan, 290.

X.

BARBAROSSA IN FRANCE.

1539-1546.

Barbarossa's life was drawing to a close, but in the eight years that remained he enhanced his already unrivalled renown. His first exploit after Prevesa was the recapture of Castelnuovo, which the allied fleets had seized in October, as some compensation on land for their humiliation at sea. The Turkish armies had failed to recover the fortress in January, 1539; but in July Barbarossa went to the front as usual, with a fleet of two hundred galleys, large and small, and all his best captains; and, after some very pretty fighting in the Gulf of Cattaro, landed eighty-four of his heaviest guns and bombarded Castelnuovo, from three well-placed batteries. On August 7th, a sanguinary a.s.sault secured the first line of the defences; three days later the governor, Don Francisco Sarmiento, and his handful of Spaniards, surrendered to a final a.s.sault, and were surprised to find themselves chivalrously respected as honourable foes. Three thousand Spaniards had fallen, and eight thousand Turks, in the course of the siege.

One more campaign and Barbarossa's feats are over. Great events were happening on the Algerine coasts, where we must return after too long an absence in the Levant and Adriatic: but first the order of years must be neglected that we may see the last of the most famous of all the Corsairs. To make amends for the coldness of Henry VIII., Francis I. was allied with the other great maritime power, Turkey, against the Emperor, in 1543; and the old sea rover actually brought his fleet of one hundred and fifty s.h.i.+ps to Ma.r.s.eilles. The French captains saluted the Corsair's _capitana_, and the banner of Our Lady was lowered to be replaced by the Crescent. Well may a French admiral call this "the impious alliance." On his way Barbarossa enjoyed a raid in quite his old style; burnt Reggio and carried off the governor's daughter; appeared off the Tiber, and terrified the people of Civita Vecchia; and in July entered the Gulf of Lyons in triumph. Here he found the young Duke of Enghien, Francois de Bourbon, commander of the French galleys, who received him with all honour and ceremony.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GALLEY AT ANCHOR.

(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]

Barbarossa had hardly arrived when he discovered that his great expedition was but a fool's errand. The King of France was afraid of attempting a serious campaign against the Emperor, and he was already ashamed of his alliance with the Musulmans: his own subjects--nay, all Europe--were crying shame. Barbarossa grew crimson with fury, and tore his white beard: he had not come with a vast fleet all the way from Stambol to be made a laughing-stock. Something must evidentially be done to satisfy his honour, and Francis I. unwillingly gave orders for the bombardment of Nice. Accompanied by a feeble and ill-prepared French contingent, which soon ran short of ammunition--"Fine soldiers," cried the Corsair, "to fill their s.h.i.+ps with wine casks, and leave the powder barrels behind!"--Barbarossa descended upon the Gate of Italy. The city soon surrendered, but the fort held out, defended by one of those invincible foes of the Turk, a Knight of Malta, Paolo Simeoni, who had himself experienced captivity at the hands of Barbarossa; and as the French protested against sacking the town after capitulation on terms, and as Charles's relieving army was advancing, the camps were broken up in confusion, and the fleets retired from Nice.

The people of Toulon beheld a strange spectacle that winter. The beautiful harbour of Provence was allotted to the Turkish admiral for his winter quarters. There, at anchor, lay the immense fleet of the Grand Signior; and who knew how long it might dominate the fairest province of France? There, turbaned Musulmans paced the decks and bridge, below and beside which hundreds of Christian slaves sat chained to the bench and victims to the lash of the boatswain.

Frenchmen were forced to look on, helplessly, while Frenchmen groaned in the infidels' galleys, within the security of a French port. The captives died by hundreds of fever during that winter, but no Christian burial was allowed them--even the bells that summon the pious to the Ma.s.s were silenced, for are they not "the devil's musical instrument"?[37]--and the gaps in the benches were filled by nightly raids among the neighbouring villages. It was ill sleeping around Toulon when the Corsair press-gangs were abroad. And to feed and pay these rapacious allies was a task that went near to ruining the finances of France.

The French were not satisfied of the Corsair's fidelity, and it must be added that the Emperor might have had some reason to doubt the honesty of Doria. The two greatest admirals of the age were both in the Western Mediterranean, but nothing could tempt them to come to blows. The truth was that each had a great reputation to lose, and each preferred to go to his grave with all his fame undimmed. Francis I. had a suspicion that Barbarossa was meditating the surrender of Toulon to the Emperor, and, improbable as it was, some colour was given to the King's anxiety by the amicable relations which seemed to subsist between the Genoese Corsair and his Barbary rival. Doria gave up the captive Dragut to his old captain for a ransom of three thousand gold crowns--a transaction on which he afterwards looked back with unqualified regret. The situation was growing daily more unpleasant for France. From his easy position in Toulon, Barbarossa sent forth squadrons under Salih Res and other commanders to lay waste the coasts of Spain, while he remained "lazily engaged in emptying the coffers of the French king."

At last they got rid of him. Francis was compelled to furnish the pay and rations of the whole crews and troops of the Ottoman fleet up to their re-entry into the Bosphorus; he had to free four hundred Mohammedan galley slaves and deliver them to Barbarossa; he loaded him with jewellery, silks, and other presents; the Corsair departed in a Corsair's style, weighed down with spoil. His homeward voyage was one long harrying of the Italian coasts; his galley sailed low with human freight; and his arrival at Constantinople was the signal for the filling of all the harems of the great pashas with beautiful captives.

Barbarossa, laden with such gifts, was sure of his welcome.

Two years later he died, in July, 1546, an old man of perhaps near ninety, yet without surviving his great fame. "Valorous yet prudent, furious in attack, foreseeing in preparation," he ranks as the first sea captain of his time. "The chief of the sea is dead," expressed in three Arabic words, gives the numerical value 953, the year of the Hijra in which Kheyr-ed-din Barbarossa died.