A History of Sea Power

DDLE AGES [Continued

aly and the outlying country districts fled to the islets and lagoons for shelter from the Hun, the Goth, and the Lombard. As the sea was the Venetians' barrier from the invader, so als

and religion. The first important step was the conquest of the Dalmatian pirates at the beginning of the 11th century. This meant the Venetian control of the Adriatic. When the Crusades began, the sea routes to the Holy Land were in the hands of the Venetians; indeed it was this fact that made the Crusades possible. As the carrying and convoying age

RATIONS, VENIC

dominating power in the Mediterranean. During the 13th and 14th centuries, however, she was compelled to fight with her rebellious colonies and her new rivals, Genoa and Padua. The wars with Genoa very nearly proved fatal to Venice, but just when matters seemed most desperate she was saved by a naval victory against a Genoese fleet in her own waters. In consequence of these wars between Venice and Genoa b

in 1453 it had been for some time a mere island of Christianity surrounded by Moslems. Indeed it was only the civil wars among the Turks themselves that held them back so long from the brilliant career of conquest that characterized the 15th and early 16th centuries, for these later followers of Mohammed had all the fanaticism of the Saracens. Before the fall of Constantinople and the transfer of the Turkish seat of government to that city, a corps of infantry was organized that became the terror of the Christian w

t and Syria, penetrated Persia, and in Arabia gained the support of the Arabs for the Turkish sultan as the successor to the Caliphs. Constantinople, therefore, became not only the political capit

hatred because of the persecution they had endured, these Moors embarked on a career of piracy directed against Christians. In making common cause with the Turks they supplied the fleets that the Turkish power needed to carry out its schemes of conquest. Apparently the Turks had never taken to salt water as the Arabs had done, but in these Moorish pirates they found fighters on the sea well wor

evitable that he must clash with the Venetian, and so there was much fighting. Yet even after a successful naval campaign the emissary of Venice was obliged to come before the Sultan, cap in hand, to beg trading privileges in Turkish territory. Everything in Venetian poli

ade against him. Indeed France showed no interest in combating the Turk even at the time when he was at the summit of his power. But Venice, as the dominating naval power, had the mean

entrance to the Gulf of Corinth), and again at the Dardanelles. These successes threatened Turkish supremacy on the Mediterranean, and Sultan Soliman "the Magnificent," the ruler under whom the Turkish empire reached its zenith, summoned the Algerian corsair Barbarossa and gave him supreme command over all the fleets unde

sacked Reggio, burnt and massacred elsewhere on the coast without opposition, cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber and if he h

ossa was unable to oppose the Christian host with a force sufficiently strong to defend the city. The Christians captured it and the chieftain escaped only by a flight along the desert to the port of Bona where he had a few galleys in reserve. With these he made his way to Algiers before Andrea Doria could come up with him. The Christians celebra

ht and burned ten richly laden Turkish merchant ships and then defeated a Turkish squadron. The prestige of the Crescent on the sea was badly weakened by these events, but suddenly Barbarossa appeared and raided the islands

ept up another batch of prisoners to serve as galley slaves for the new ships. Meanwhile the Mediterranean states nerved themselves for a final effort. Venice contributed 81 galleys, the Pope sent 36, and Spain, 30. Later the Emperor sent 50 transports with 10,000 soldiers, and 49 galleys, together with a number of large

ENTURY

on a merchantman, this quality of mobility-independence of wind and speed of movement-was of chief importance. Similarly, in order to combat the pirate it was necessary to possess the same characteristic. Of course, as in all the days of rowed ships, this freedom of movement was limited by the physical exhaustion of the rowers. In the ships of Greek and Roman days these men had some protection from the weapons of the enemy and from the weather, but in the 16th century galley, whether Turkish or Christian, they were c

poop and gave access to the hold. The forecastle carried the main battery of guns, and was closed in below so as to provide quarters for the fighting men. The poop had a deck house and a smaller battery; this deck also was closed in, furnishing quarters for the officers. Th

the eastern capital. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it was used by the Moslem against the Christian, but the discovery of gunpowder soon made the earlier substance obsolete. In the 16th century cannon had already reached considerable dimensions, but

therefore, was line abreast. For the same reasons a commander had to fear an attack on his flank, and he maneuvered usually to get at least one flank protected by the shore. The battle line in the da

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force that was inferior to the fleet collecting against him. The Christians were to mobilize at Corfu. The Papal squadron had collected in the Gulf of Arta, and Barbarossa made for it. By sheer luck just before he arrived it had moved to the rendezvous. If he had followed it up immediately, he might have crushed both the Papal and V

faced each other, each waiting for the other to make the next move. For the first time in their careers the greatest admiral on the Christian side was face to face with the greatest on the Moslem side. Both were old men, Doria over seventy and Barbarossa eighty-two. The stage was set for another decisive battle on the scene of Actium. T

r chief, they were finally able to force his hand and compel him to offer battle to the Christians by leaving the security of the gulf and the fortress and going out into the open, exactly where Doria wanted him. Accordingly on the 27th of September, the Turkish fleet sailed out to o

slems who pushed forward in their galleys anxious for the honor of capturing this great ship. Condalmiero ordered his gunners to hold their fire until the enemy were within arquebus range. Then the broads

le galleon and the Turkish fleet went on. The ship was cumbered with her fallen spars; she had lost thirteen men killed and forty wounded. The losses would have been far greater but for the extraordinarily thick sides of the galleon. After sundown the Turkish fleet appeared

as going through strange parade maneuvers about ten miles away. Doria's explanation was that he was trying to decoy Barbarossa out into deeper water where the guns of the nefs could be used, but there is no other conclusion to be reached than that Doria did not want to fight. Fortune that day offered him everything for an overwhelming victory, one that might have ranked with the decisive

s domain to be illuminated. Barbarossa's prizes included two galleys and five nefs, but he, too, had failed in an inexplicable fashion in drawing off from the assault on the Galleon of Venice at the end of the da

he effect of making a revolution in naval architecture fifty years before that change actually occurred. But men of war of those days were built after the models of Venetian architects, and the l

ndrea Doria. Dragut soon assumed the leadership laid down by Barbarossa, his master, fighting first the elder Doria and then his namesake with great skill and audacity. For years the Knights of Malta had been a thorn in the side of the Moslems who roamed the sea, and in 1565 a gigantic effort was made by the Sultan, together with his tributaries from the Barbary states, to wipe

Venice had succeeded, by means of heavy bribes to the Sultan's ministers, in keeping her hold on this important island, but this policy only tempted further arrogance on the part of the Turk. Further, the time was propitious for such a stroke because Venice was impoverished by bad harvests and the loss of her naval arsenal by fire, Spain

ity, because hitherto the persistent neutrality or the unwillingness of the Venetians to fight the Turk to the finish had been one of the chief obstacles to concerted action. He therefore pledged his own resources to Venice and at

tripped of its men in the harbor. But Gian Doria, who inherited from his great uncle his great dislike of Venetians, and who probably had secret instructions from his master, Philip II, to help as little as possible, succeeded in blocking any vigorous move

ulse the Turks until help could arrive. But Doria's defection in 1570 decided the fate of the city the following year. After fifty-five days of siege, with no resources left, Bragadino was compelled, on August 4, 1571, to accept an offer of surrender on honorable terms. The Turkish commander, enraged at

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envoys in the Papal chambers, and it was not till February, 1571, that the terms of the new enterprise were agreed upon. By this contract no one of the powers represented was to make a separate peace with the Porte. The costs were divided into six parts, of which Spain undertook three, Venice, two, and the Pope, one. Don Juan, the illegitimate broth

outh of the Adriatic with a large force. To reach Messina with his divided fleet, Veniero ran the risk of being caught by Ali and destroyed in detail, but the situation was so critical that he took the risk and succeeded in slipping past the corsair undiscovered. In permitting this escape, and in fact in allowing all the other units of the Christia

her to delay the prince, and once on his way Don Juan had to tarry at every stage of the journey to witness ceremonial fêtes held in his honor. Philip acted in good faith as far as his preparations went, but he wanted to save his galleys for use against the Moors of the Barbary coast, which was ne

is brother's half-heartedness; he went to work to organize the discordant elements under his command into as much of a unit as he could, and to imbue them with the idea of aggressive action. In this spirit he was seconded by thousands of young nobles and soldiers of fortune from Spain and It

place in the battle line. The fighting formation was to consist of three squadrons of the line and one of reserve. The left wing was to be commanded by the Venetian Barbarigo; the center, by Don Juan himself, in the flagship Real, with Colonna, the Papal commander on his right and Veniero, the Venetian commander, on his left, in their respective flagships. The right win

They were an attempt to reach a combination of galleon and galley, possessing the bulk, strength, and heavy armament of the former, together with the oar propulsion of the latter to render them independent of the wind. But like most, if not all, compromise types, the galleass was short-lived. It was cl

s not till October 6 that it arrived at the group of rocky islets lying just north of the opening of the Gulf of Corinth, or Lepanto[1] where the Turkish fleet was known to be mobilized. Meanwhile trouble had broken out among the Christians. Serious fighting had taken place between Venetians a

Athens in the gulf. It had been a Venetian stronghold, but fell to the

nced those like Doria who still counseled avoiding battle, and then in a swift sailing vessel went through the fleet exhorting officers and men to do their utmost. The sacrament was

fall upon their enemy before Don Juan could form his line of battle. Fortunately, toward noon the wind shifted so as to help the Christians and retard the Turks. This shift just enabled most of the squadrons to fall into their appointed stations before the collision. Two of the galleasses, however, were not able to reach their posts in advance of the righ

, face to face with Doria, the most celebrated admiral in Christendom. The two opposing lines swung together with a furious plying of oars and a tumult of shouting. The four galleasses stationed well in front of the Christian battle line opened an effective fire at close quarters on the foremost Turkish galleys as they swept past. In trying to avoid th

hemselves attacked in front and rear. For a while it looked as if the Turks would win, but the Christians fought with the courage of despair. There was no semblance of line left; only a mêlée of ships laid so close to each other as to form almost a continuous platform over which the fighting raged hand to hand. Both the leaders fell. Barbarigo was mortally wounded, and Sirocco

ng flagships. Attack and counter attack between Spanish infantry and Turkish Janissaries swayed back and forth across from one galley to another amid a terrific uproar. Once the Real was nearly taken, but Colonna jammed the bows of his galley alongside and saved the situat

. In fighting of this character no quarter was given; of the 400 men on the Turkish flagship not one was spared. Don Juan immediately hoisted the banner of the League to the masthead of the captured ship. This sign of victory broke the spirit of the Turks and nerved th

LEPANTO, O

fleets just before co

s may be, the explanation did not satisfy Doria's captains, who obeyed his signals with indignant rage. At all events Ali had a considerably larger force than Doria, and after the latter had drawn away so far as to create a wide gap between his own squadron and the center, Ali suddenly swung his galleys about in line and fell upon the exposed flank, leaving Doria too far away

dron and turned the scale. By this time, too, Doria managed to reach the scene with a part of his squadron. Thus Ali found himself outnumbered and in danger of capture. Signaling retreat, he collected a number of his

sunk or burnt some fifty other ships of various sorts. Ten thousand Turks were captured and many thousands of

iral on the Christian side, Gian Andrea Doria, little justification can be found. Even if we accept his excuse at its face value, the event proved his folly. It is strange that in this, the supreme victory of the Cross over the Crescent on the sea, a

ame an opportunity for the two fleets to meet for another battle, but Ali declined the challenge. After Lepanto he seemed unwilling, without a great superiority, to risk another close action and contented himself with a "fleet in being." In this new attitude toward the C

those of a beaten combatant. Venice agreed to the loss of Cyprus, paid an indemnity of 300,000 ducats, trebled her tribute for the use of Zante as a trading post, and restored to the Turk all captures made on the Albanian and Dalmatian coast. Apparently the Venetian ha

he Turk, and the new discoveries of ocean routes to the east-beyond the reach of the Moslem,-diverted the course of trade away from the Mediterranean, which became,

tter part. And yet the story of this chapter shows also that the rest of Christendom was not blameless. If Christians in the much extolled Age of Faith had shown as much unity

ERE

ataille de Lépante, J. P. J

hor, Doria et B

hilip the Second (vol. II

an, E. Hamilton Currey. This

enice, Alethe

n (chap. V.), J. A.

ry of the Nations Ser

Navy (Introduction),

rld Power, James