BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA.BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA.
BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA.
As time went on the sailing ship became larger and larger and was able to mount more and more powerful ordnance; this had the effect of discounting the value of the galley as a fighting ship; in consequence she became practically obsolete, for the line of battle, after the combat at Lepanto. In spite of this she was to linger on for many longyears to come as the weapon of the corsairs who had established themselves on the coast of Africa. The “long ship” was still to be the cause of many an awful sea tragedy, whether the actors therein were the pirates who hailed from the Barbary coast or their most capable imitators the notorious rovers of Sallee.
How he became Lieutenant to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa—His capture by Jannetin Doria—His four years as a galley slave—His ransom by his old chief.
Incharacter, in capability, in strategic insight, in tactical ability, not one of the predecessors or the successors of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa can be compared to him; he was the greatest and most outstanding figure of all those corsairs of whose deeds we hear so much during the sixteenth century, the man above all others who was feared and hated by his contemporaries in Christendom. He lived, as we have said, for another eight years after the battle of Prevesa, but his great age prevented him from pursuing a very active career. There were, however, other and younger men, trained in the terrible school of hardship in which his life had been passed, who proved themselves to be his very worthy successors, even if they did not display the same genius in war and statecraft. The conditions of this period are somewhat remarkable when we come to consider them; Europe, which had been sunk in a rude and uncultured barbarism during the middle ages, was emerging under the influence of the Renaissance into a somewhat higher and nobler239conception of life. It is true that the awakening was slow, that morally the plane on which the peoples stood was far from being an elevated one, that altruism was far from being the note of the lives lived by the rulers of the so-called civilised nations. For all this they had emerged from that cimmerian darkness in which they had lived so long, and the dawn of better things, of more stable government, of some elementary recognition of the rights of those governed, was beginning to show above the murky horizon.
But if the sun of European progress was slowly and painfully struggling through the clouds, the light which had shone brightly for over seven centuries of Moslem advance was certainly and surely dying. Beneath the mail-clad heel of the Christian warrior the torch of learning which had burned so brightly in Cordova and Granada had been extinguished and ground into the dust, and the descendants of the alumni of those universities were seeking their bread in the Mediterranean Sea in the guise of bloodthirsty and desperate pirates.
There were no longer among the Moors of Andalusia learned philosophers, expert mathematicians, wise astronomers, and practical agriculturists; there was among them but one art, one science, one means of gaining a livelihood—the practice of war—and their very existence depended on the spoils which could be reft from the hereditary enemy. The corsair who grew to man’s estate, brought up in Algiers, Tunis, Tenes, Jerba, or any other of the lurking places in which the sea-wolves congregated, had as a rule no chance but to follow the sea, to exist as his father had existed before him; he mustfight or starve, and in a fighting age no youngster was likely to be backward in taking to the life of wild excitement led by his elders. Unless following in the train of one of the leaders, such as Barbarossa, the Moslems were apt to take to the sea in a private capacity; a certain number of them joining together to man a small craft which was known as a brigantine. As has been said in a previous chapter, this word must not be understood in the light of the terminology of the modern seaman: the brigantines of the Moslem corsairs were really large rowing boats, carrying fourteen to twenty-six oars, and made as seaworthy as the small size of such craft would allow. Should the venture of the crew of a brigantine prove successful, then the reis, or captain, might blossom out into the command of a galley, in which his oars would be manned by his slaves; but, in the first instance, he would man his brigantine with a crew of Moslem desperadoes working on the share system and dividing anything that they could pick up; in this manner most of those corsairs who became famous commenced their careers, and rose as we have seen from the thwart of a brigantine to the unstable eminence of a throne in Algiers, Tunis, or Tlemcen.
This life which they led made of them what they were, namely desperate swordsmen, efficient men at arms, incomparably skilful in the management of the craft in which they put to sea; but it did nothing else for them in the way of education; in consequence he who would rise to the top, who aspired to be a leader amongst them and not to remain a mere swash-buckling swordsman all his life, was bound to acquire that dominance necessaryfor control of the wild spirits of the age. Nor was this ascendancy by any means easy to obtain, as the rank and file led lives of incredible bitterness, almost inconceivable to modern ideas. What they suffered they alone knew, but it was compounded of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sickness unrelieved by care or tending, wounds which festered for lack of medicaments, death which ever stared them in the face, and last, and worst of all, the risk of capture by some Christian foe, by whom they would be chained to the rowers’ bench and taste of a bitterness absolutely unimaginable. As a set-off to this the man who aspired to lead must offer to his followers at least a record of success in small things; also he had to be something of an enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly persuasive. Against all the disagreeables of the strenuous life of the corsair he had to hold before the dazzled eyes of Selim, Ali, or Mahomet the promise of fat captures of the merchant vessels of the foe; when they had but to slit a few throats and to return with their brigantines laden to the gunwale with desirable plunder. Again he had to hearten them for possible encounters with Spaniards, with the terrible Doria, or worst of all with the dreaded Knights of St. John themselves; to point out that to die in conflict with the infidel was a sure passport to heaven and its houris, and to invoke great names, such as that of Barbarossa to show to what dizzy heights the fighting Moslem could climb. In such an age and among such men as these it was no mean feat to become a leader by whom men swore and to whom they yielded a ready obedience.
Fashioned by the hammer of misfortune on theanvil of racial expropriation, such leaders arose among the Moslems, men of iron, before whom all who worshipped at the altars of Islam bowed the knee. These men, whose fame extended throughout all the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, taught to European rulers something of the value of that great force which is known to us under the modern name of “Sea Power.”
Next in importance to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa himself and in many ways his very worthy successor, was Dragut Reis. We have it on the authority of Messire Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantôme, that Dragut was born at a small village in Asia Minor called Charabulac, opposite to the island of Rhodes, and that his parents were Mahommedans. Being born within sight and sound of the sea, the youthful Dragut naturally graduated in the school of the brigantine and completed his education on board of a galley. His training was that which makes the best of fighting seamen, as from contemporary records he appears to have passed all his life actively engaged on board ship. At a very early age he entered the service of a master gunner who served on board the galleys of the Grand Turk. Under his auspices the youngster became an expert pilot in his own home waters, and likewise a most excellent gunner. Dragut was evidently a youth of ability and determination, as almost before he reached man’s estate he had succeeded in buying a share in a cruising brigantine where his venture prospered so exceedingly that he was soon able to become sole proprietor of a galeasse. Here again fortune favoured the enterprising young man; hisname began to be known as a formidable corsair in the Levant, where he was remarkable for his knowledge of that portion of the Mediterranean.
To better his condition he offered his services to Barbarossa at Algiers, who accepted this new subordinate with joy, delighted to have so valiant and capable a man under his orders.
“During some years,” says J. Morgan in hisCompleat History of Algiers, 1728, “he was by that basha intrusted in the direction of sundry momentous expeditions; in which he acquitted himself much to the satisfaction of his principal: as having never once been unsuccessful.” When we remember the treatment meted out by Barbarossa to some of his unsuccessful lieutenants, Dragut must be esteemed a very fortunate man. His master, we are told, advanced him to all the military offices of the State—it would be interesting to know what these were in a purely piratical confederation ruled by a pirate! In the end Dragut was appointed to be kayia, or lieutenant, and given entire command of twelve galleys.
“From thenceforward this redoubtable corsair passed not one summer without ravaging the coasts of Naples and Sicily; nor durst any Christian vessel attempt to pass between Spain and Italy; for if they offered it he infallibly snapped them up, and when he missed his prey at sea, he made himself amends by making descents along the coasts plundering villages and towns and dragging away multitudes of inhabitants into captivity.”
That “no vessel durst pass from Spain to Italy” is no doubt a picturesque form of exaggeration onthe part of the historian; at the same time, when Dragut was at the height of his activities there is no doubt that any one passing through those seas ran a great risk of capture; so much so in fact that at this period, from 1538, the date of the battle of Prevesa, until Lepanto in 1571, all maritime commerce in the Mediterranean was greatly circumscribed. At the beginning of this epoch, which saw the rise of the Moslem corsairs, these robbers perforce confined themselves more to the North African coast than was the case later on. The pioneers of the piratical movement, after the fatal date 1492, which saw the wholesale expulsion of the Moors from Spain, were comparatively speaking inexpert practitioners in the art and mystery of piracy; they had not the habit of the sea, and in consequence confined their depredations to the neighbourhood of their own selected ports in Africa, which dominated that sea lane running east and west through the Mediterranean, which then, as now, was one of the greatest highways of commerce of the world. Gradually, as we have seen, under the able guidance of the two Barbarossas, but particularly that of the second and greater of the two, piracy became a commonplace in the north, as well as in the south, of the tideless sea; the corsairs, as time went on, even devoting more time and attention to the coast of Italy and the islands of the archipelago than they did to the recognised trade routes. These latter had become by 1540 similar to an estate which has been shot over too frequently; birds had become both wild and scarce, it was hardly worth while to go over the ground, exceptnow and again on the chance of picking up a straggler. Towns and islands, on the other hand, even if they did not yield much in the way of actual plunder, were always good cover to beat for slaves, which had a certain value in the markets of Algiers and Tunis. Another circumstance which had led to the now frequent raids on the littoral of the European countries was the countenance and support accorded to the corsairs by the Grand Turk: so admirably did they fit into the scheme of his ambitions, that by the time Dragut arrived at a commanding position they were, so to speak, officially recognised as a fighting asset of the Sublime Porte; and, as we have seen, the Sultan did not hesitate to lend his picked troops, the Janissaries, to the corsairs when engaged in their ordinary piratical business. To the Grand Turk the corsairs were Moslems who were prepared to fight on his side, and who, taking it all in all, really cost him hardly anything; in fact, at this date, owing to the magnificent gifts made to the Sultan by Kheyr-ed-Din, the Padishah must have made something out of his association with the sea-wolves.
By the year 1540 Dragut had distinctly “arrived”; that is to say, he had succeeded in making himself so dreaded that Charles V. ordered Andrea Doria to seek him out and destroy him at any cost. The Christian admiral was “to endeavour by all possible means to purge the sea of so insufferable a nuisance.”
Andrea got ready a fleet, which he entrusted, together with the care and management of this affair, to his nephew Jannetin Doria. This was the nephew who, in the disastrous attack byCharles on Hassan Aga at Algiers in the following year, was so nearly lost in the storm which destroyed the fleet of the emperor; and of whom Andrea Doria is reported to have said, “It was decreed that Jannetin should be reduced to such an extremity purposely to convince the world that it was not impossible for Andrea Doria to shed a tear.” Certainly from what we know of the celebrated Genoese admiral it is hard to imagine him in a tearful mood. Jannetin Doria put to sea, and, after a long hunt, found the object of his quest at Andior on the coast of Corsica; Dragut was at anchor in the road of Goialatta, under a castle situated between Cabri and Liazzo. The corsair knew nothing of his enemies being at sea, and was in consequence keeping no particular look-out. Although we are not told the composition of the fleet of Jannetin Doria, it must have been a large one, as Dragut had under his orders thirteen galleys, and was unable to withstand the attack to which he was subject. He was also assailed from the shore, as well as the sea, as the castle under which he was at anchor opened fire upon him as soon as it was discovered by its garrison that the new arrivals were Christians. The fire was too hot for the corsair to withstand, and, to add to his embarrassments, the beach soon became lined by hundreds of the fierce Corsi, awaiting the inevitable end when they should be able to fall upon the defeated Moslems and wipe them from off the face of the earth; it was a warfare in which there was no mercy, and if the pirates were to fall into the hands of the islanders they knew well that they would be exterminated.
In all his venturesome life things had never gone so badly with Dragut as upon this occasion. On the one side, should he and his men land they would be massacred; on the other hand, his road to the open sea was barred by an immensely superior force. Recognising the logic of circumstances, and seeing no way of escape, the white flag was hung out by the Moslem leader. The only terms, however, which he could obtain were immediate surrender or instant death. It must have been a moment of anguish to the man who hitherto had always ridden on the crest of the wave of success and achievement to be thus trapped like a rat; and to have the added bitterness of the thought that had he exercised seamanlike care and precaution in keeping a good look-out he might have escaped. As it was, he was allowed no time for reflection, but had to decide on the instant: he did the only thing possible in the circumstances, which was to haul down his flag and to become the thrall of his lifelong foes.
The principal captives were made to pass before young Doria. When Dragut beheld him he cried out in a fury: “What! Am I a slave to that effeminate Caramite?” for Doria was but a beardless youth. These opprobrious epithets being interpreted to the young nobleman, “highly incensed he flew at Dragut, tore out his beard and moustaches, and buffeted him most outrageously: nay his passion was so great it is said that had he not been prevented, he certainly would have sheathed his sword in the bowels of that assuming prisoner.”
For four long years Dragut rowed in Doria’s galley. No distinctions were made in those days,and knight or noble, companion or grand master, basha or boy, was, if caught, condemned to the rowers’ bench to slave at the oar beneath the boatswain’s lash, perchance alongside some degraded criminal, filthy and swarming with vermin. While Dragut was employed as a galley slave there came on board the craft in which he rowed Monsieur Parisot, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. This high officer, recognising his old enemy, called out to him in Spanish:
“Hola, Señor Dragut, usanza de guerra” (“The usage of war, Señor Dragut”).
To which the undaunted corsair merely replied with a laugh:
“Y mudanza de fortuna” (“And a change of luck”).
The Grand Master, who had known the chain and lash himself, smiled and passed on—there was no pity in those days.
But Dragut was not destined to end his life as a galley slave, for, when indeed hope must have died within him, after more than four years of this veritable hell upon earth, there sailed one day into the harbour of Genoa the great Kheyr-ed-Din himself. The Admiralissimo of the Grand Turk, full of years, honours, and booty, was on his last cruise, and one of the last acts of his active life was the rescue of Dragut, the man who had served him so well, and for whom he had so high a regard as a resourceful mariner, from the degrading servitude into which he had fallen. The Spanish historian, Marmol, recounts that the sum of three thousand ducats was paid by Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa for the redemption of Dragut.As this history was published in 1573, we must conclude that the author who wrote of these events so soon after they had happened is correct; at the same time, Barbarossa was in command of one hundred galleys of the Grand Turk, and it was never his custom to pay for anything which he could take by force. However this may have been, and the point is not one of very great importance, the Genoese Senate was terrified lest their territory should be ravaged; they wrote accordingly to their Grand Admiral, requesting that Dragut might be released and sent on board of the galley of the admiral basha. This was immediately done, and the man who for four years had tugged at the Christian oar was once again in a position to make war on those who had been for that period his masters.
Not only had he tugged at the Christian oar, but also he had tasted of the Christian whip—and of very little else, as the food of the rower was as scanty as it was disgusting; in consequence, if he had been an implacable foe to Christendom before this event, he was not likely to have become less so while toiling in the Genoese galley.
The practical retirement of Barbarossa from that sphere of activity in which his life had been passed now left Dragut-Reis the most feared and the most formidable of all the Moslem corsairs in the Mediterranean. From the time of his release by Barbarossa until the day of his death at the siege of Malta in 1565, he followed the example shown him by that prince among pirates with so much assiduity as to render him only second to Kheyr-ed-Din in the detestation in which he was held.Says Morgan: “The ill-treatment he had met with during his four years’ captivity was no small addition to the Innate Rapaciousness of his Disposition.”
In the year 1546, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa died, and to replace him the Sultan Soliman ordered all the mariners in his dominions to acknowledge Dragut-Reis as their admiral, and to obey him in the same manner as they had obeyed his predecessor. From this date he was the foremost corsair in the Mediterranean, and the feats which were performed by him showed that the Padishah had not erred in his selection.
The ambition of Dragut increased with his power, and he determined, following the example of the Barbarossas, to seize and hold some strong place of arms possessed of a commodious port in which he might be the supreme ruler. Accordingly, in the depth of winter in the year 1548, at a time which was, as we have pointed out, a close season for piratical enterprises, and during which attack from the sea was not expected, he collected all the corsairs whom he could gather, and fell upon the Spaniards on the coast of Tunis, at Susa, at Sfax, and at Monastir. These places had been taken from the corsairs in the previous summer by Andrea Doria; they formed a sort of regular battle-ground when the combatants were in want of something to do, and were held alternately by the King of Tunis, the Spaniards, and the corsairs.
Dragut was well aware that as soon as the spring arrived he would be attacked; he also knew that the attack would come in sufficient force to drive him out, as none of these towns was reallystrong or easily defended; in consequence he concentrated his attention on the town of “Africa,” otherwise known as Mehedia, and in the Roman histories as Adrumentum.
This great city lay some leagues to the east of Tunis on a tongue of land projecting into the sea; its fortifications were regular, its walls of great thickness, height, and solidity, and were strengthened by many towers and bulwarks; the guns were large, numerous, and in good condition. At the back of the town, on an eminence, stood a large fortress, the citadel of the place; the harbour was large and secure, with an inner basin forming a port for galleys; the entrance to this was closed by a strong chain. The sea washed the walls of the city; indeed, it was entirely surrounded, except where by a narrow neck of land it joined the shore.
The inhabitants, natives of the place, had shaken off the yoke of the King of Tunis, and had formed themselves into a kind of independent republic. They admitted neither Turk nor Christian within their walls, trusting neither party, and fearing from them the fate which befell Susa, Sfax, and Monastir.
“Africa” was the goal of the desires of Dragut-Reis: once in possession of this, by far the strongest city on the littoral of Northern Africa, he thought that he might abide secure against the attacks of Charles and of Andrea Doria. He had seen the enormous expedition of 1541 against Algiers come to naught on account of the wholesale wrecking of the fleet in which it had sailed by a tempest of unexampled violence. But he wastoo level-headed a man to think that a miracle like this would be likely to come to pass a second time for his own special behoof, and preferred to act the part of the strong man armed who keepeth his goods in peace. He had, however, first to gain over the inhabitants of “Africa” to his views, and they proved anything but anxious to listen to his blandishments. The more he tried to ingratiate himself the less inclined did these people seem to listen.
“My ambition,” said the silver-tongued corsair, “is to become a citizen of your great and beautiful city. If you will admit me to its privileges it shall be my business to render you the richest people in the whole Mediterranean, and your city the most dreaded place in the world.”
The “Africans,” however, were obdurate; they knew a pirate when they saw him quite as well as any one else, and they were quite aware that, should they open their gates to Dragut, sooner or later they would have to stand a siege from the Christian forces, which was a thing they by no means desired.
But Dragut was not yet at the end of his resources; he was rich, and he spent money freely in order to gain over to his side those men of importance by whom such a question as this was bound to be decided. By rich presents and other blandishments he succeeded in securing the friendship of one Ibrahim Amburac, who was not only a leader among the inhabitants, but also governor of one of the towers by which the city was surrounded. Through him he approached the Council by which the town was ruled, only to receive a very decidednegative: the Council observed the outward forms of politeness to this formidable person who was speaking them so fair: in reality, they hated and feared the corsairs only one degree less than they did Andrea Doria and his Christians. To admit the one was to bring upon themselves the vengeance of the other; therefore if they could keep them both out they intended so to do. The ill-omened courtesy of the corsair filled their hearts with apprehension, and they viewed his immediate departure, after the refusal of the council had been conveyed to him, with undisguised relief. Had they but known their man a little better, their uneasiness would have been far greater than their joy at his temporary absence. Those things desired by Dragut which he could not obtain by fair means he usually seized by the strong hand; and when he left so hurriedly, and at the same time so unostentatiously, he had already entered into a plot with Ibrahim Amburac. This leader, furious at the rebuff which he had received at the hands of his fellow councillors on the subject of the admittance of Dragut to the citizenship of “Africa,” was now ready to deliver that city into the hands of the corsairs by treachery.
How the corsairs captured the town of “Africa”; of its recapture by Andrea Doria and its eventual total destruction by Charles V.
Draguthad made it a practice never to appear in the harbour of “Africa” in any great force, as he had no desire to frighten the birds whom he desired to snare; on the occasion of which we are now speaking he had but two galleys, and their departure from the outer harbour passed almost unnoticed, as the ruck of the population were accustomed to visits from the corsairs, who came to fill up with provisions and fresh water. Swiftly as hawks his vessels swept along the coast collecting the garrisons of Susa, Sfax, and Monastir to aid him in his latest design; they were all picked men and singularly apt for the stern business which their leader destined them to undertake. In this manner he soon collected five hundred of the stoutest and most reckless fighters who sailed out of the ports of Northern Africa, and, when it became noised abroad among them what the service was for which they were required, there was universal joy and eagerness. True the adventure was a formidable one: to capture “Africa” was no light task, even for such men as these under so renowned a leader; there255was further the difficulty that the persons against whom they went up to fight were no Christians but Moslems like themselves. But against this was the declaration of Dragut, who represented to his following that there was really no choice in the matter; that to these stiffnecked and singularly ungrateful people he had offered the protection of the corsairs, that they had refused in the most contumelious manner, and in consequence there was nothing for it but the strong hand. They—that is to say the corsairs—knew right well that some strong place of arms in which to shelter themselves and their vessels was an absolute necessity for their continued existence, as at any moment Doria or the Knights of Malta might be on their track in superior force, and then what was their fate likely to be if they had no harbour under their lee in which to shelter? Further it was hinted that “Africa” would provide very nice pickings in the way of loot, and when this came to be generally understood the promptings of the Mahommedan conscience yielded easily to the sophistries with which it was lulled.
The council of the town of “Africa” troubled themselves but little more concerning Dragut, his ships, and his corsairs; he had departed, and as the days wore on and no further tidings of him came to hand, these simple folk thanked God that they were rid of a knave and went about their usual avocations as unconcernedly as if no sea-wolves lurked under the shadowed headlands of that continent in which their homes were situated. They were a people essentially of the land; although they dwelt on the confines of the ocean the waysand habits of those who earned a precarious living on the waters were a sealed book to them, and with the “Africans” it was a case of “out of sight out of mind” so far as the corsairs were concerned. But that black-hearted traitor Ibrahim Amburac and the few others who had been gained over by the gold of Dragut watched and waited for the attack which they knew to be impending.
The inhabitants of the doomed city never saw their assailants until they were actually upon them, so well had the surprise attack been planned by the leader of the corsairs. He had collected five hundred men, and this was but a small number with which to assail so strong a place; but Dragut knew exactly what he was doing and the effect likely to be produced by the introduction of this number of highly trained men-at-arms among a population which, although brave and warlike, lacked the elements of organisation for the defence of their city.
So it was that, all preparations being completed, he stood along the coast anchoring out of sight of his objective, but close enough to reach it by midnight after darkness had fallen. He had every confidence in himself, an absolute trust in the hardbitten fighters whom he was about to lead; success or failure now rested in the hands of traitors within the city.
“Faith unfaithful kept them falsely true,” for when Dragut and his followers arrived at a certain rendezvous outside the walls which had been agreed upon previously, there they found Ibrahim Amburac and his men ready to assist them in scaling this obstacle. It will be remembered that IbrahimAmburac was personally in charge of one of the towers with which the walls were guarded, and thus his task of aiding those who came from without was a singularly easy one. But even at midnight the passage of five hundred men could not remain long undiscovered as they clambered in over the walls. Soon an alarm was raised and the “Africans” rushed to arms and hurried to the quarter from which danger threatened. The townsmen were well armed and brave, also they were numerous; but it was the old story of the break-up of undisciplined valour by highly organised attack.
In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut. That warrior, his great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the blood dripping from a gash in his cheek, his clothing torn and in disarray, followed by a gigantic negro bearing a flaming torch, was ever in the thickest of the fray. Behind him his lieutenants Othman and Selim strove to emulate his prowess, while all around surged his devoted band of fanatics.
“Allah! Allah!” and “Dragut! Dragut!” pealed the war-cry of the corsairs; foot by foot and yard by yard that spearhead of dauntless dare-devils pressed onwards into the packed masses of the “Africans,” who, fighting stubbornly, nevertheless were borne back by the fury of the terrible onslaught.
Torch-bearers among the pirates leaped into houses and set them ablaze, the flames volleyed and crackled, the dense smoke rolled upwards to the stainless sky, the night was a hell of blood and fire.
There was a sharp order repeated and passed on, the corsairs drew back, and the “Africans” shouted that the triumph was theirs; but they little knew Dragut, the sea-hawk who poised to strike anew. A blazing beam dropped across the street, the townsfolk shouted in insult and derision; but the joy which they had experienced at seeing their adversaries recoil was but a short and fleeting emotion. Giving himself and those who had hitherto been engaged time to breathe and recover themselves, Dragut waited while the noise of the strife died down, and nought was heard but the roar of the flames and the crash of the burning buildings.
The leader turned to his followers, among whom dwelt an ominous silence. “Dost remember Prevesa,” he cried, “when Andrea Doria and the best of the Christian warriors fled before you like sheep before a dog: are these miserable townsmen to stay your onward march?”
There remained for an appreciable period after he had spoken a tense silence; the red light from the burning houses shone on the lean faces alight with the fierce fire of fanaticism, with an inextinguishable lust of slaughter. There came an answering frenetic roar, “Lead! Lead! Dragut! Dragut! Dragut!” It was enough: the corsair had tried the temper of the steel, he had now but to use the edge. There was an ordered movementon the part of the pirates: a fresh hundred men, who had hitherto taken no part in the combat, now pressed to the front and formed the advance, those who had been before engaged now forming the supports; that which had been the shaft of the spear now forming its head. With Dragut leading, these fresh unwounded men swept forward over the burning beam; irresistible as some mighty river in spate, these disciplined ruffians, headed by this master spirit, burst through the ill-organised resistance opposed to them, and slew and slew and slew.
Behind them, alert and wary, came the supports, asking no quarter and giving none, cutting up the wounded, trampling under foot friend and foe alike who fell in the weltering shambles which marked the onward path of their leader and the advanced party. Very soon the broken hosts of the “Africans” cried piteously for mercy; the fight was over, and Dragut-Reis, wounded, breathless, but victorious, stood master of the strongest place of arms in all the continent of Africa. It is true that treachery had given him his opportunity, but once that was obtained the rest he had done for himself: the stealthy advance by sea, the midnight march to the exact spot on the walls where he was awaited by Ibrahim Amburac, the marshalling of his five hundred for the conflict, and the actual conduct of the fight itself, were all to the credit of this apt pupil of the great Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, As warriors his followers were worthy of their leader: defeated the corsairs frequently were, but, in the combats in which they engaged, they were frequently, as we have seen in the course of thisstory, largely dependent upon auxiliaries in whom no trust could be placed; and at Prevesa, at the siege of Malta, and later on at the battle of Lepanto, the spot on which they fought, were it on the land or on the sea, was ever the one which formed the nucleus of resistance. It was not only that fighting was their particular trade; that, of course, might be said also of any man who trailed a pike or carried an arquebus and marched in the ranks of Spain, France, Genoa, or Venice. In the case of the sea-wolves it was the perpetual practice in the art of war, as it was then understood, that caused them to be the men that they were. Much of their fighting could hardly be dignified by such a name, as in their everlasting raids on villages and undefended places they seldom lost many of their number: when, however, it came to the real thing, as it did on the occasion we have just recounted, the long years of training told, and opposition had to be strong indeed if it were not to be beaten down by such a leader as Dragut, by such men as his picked five hundred.
What passed between Dragut and the council of “Africa,” who in so unqualified a manner had refused that warrior as a citizen, is not on record; all that we know is that the Moslem leader dispensed with their services, and did not invite his new fellow-townsmen to share with him the burden of government. There was hurry in the administration of the corsair states, as the form of rule which they adopted was apt to irk the rulers in Christendom. In this particular instance Dragut, having expelled the Spaniards from the coast towns, knew that a reckoning with the Emperor and hismilitant admiral, Andrea Doria, was but a matter of time, and, in all probability, of a very short time.
Promptly, hurriedly, but efficiently, the corsair organised his new possession: such laws as he decreed did not err on the side of tenderness towards a people so ungrateful as to have refused his protection in the first instance, and who had only accepted the gift at the point of the sword. His nephew Aisa, a man young in years but a past-graduate in the school of his terrible uncle, was left in charge, while Dragut himself sailed once more with his fleet, for, as it is put by the Spanish historian Marmol, “truly the sea was his element.”
Once again had a Moslem corsair bid defiance to that ruler whom Sandoval and Marmol in their histories greet by the name of the “Modern Cæsar.” It was told to Charles that Susa, Sfax, and Monastir had fallen, that “Africa” was in the hands of the corsairs; “was he never to be free from these pestilent knaves,” he demanded of his trembling courtiers? Hot-foot came the couriers from Charles to Andrea Doria, with orders to take Dragut dead or alive, but alive for choice; and up and down the tideless sea in the summer of 1549 did the great Genoese seaman range in search of the bold corsair. Doria was getting a very old man now, but his eye was undimmed, his strength yet tireless, his vigilance and zeal in the service of his master unabated.
Dead or alive, great was the reward offered for the capture of Dragut, but the veteran admiral required no stimulus of this sort to urge him toput forth his utmost endeavours, to strain every nerve and sinew in the chase. All his life he had been fighting the corsairs, mostly with conspicuous success; but what Andrea could never forget—and what his enemies never allowed him to forget even had he been so inclined—was the fact that, at the supreme crisis of his valiant life, when he met with Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa at the battle of Prevesa, he had come off so badly that his under officers of the Papal and Venetian fleets had made representations, on their return to their respective headquarters, which had detracted from his fame, and lowered him in the estimation of Europe. Further than this, he knew that Barbarossa had laughed at and made game of him among his wild followers: this to the aristocrat, the Prince of Oneglia, the admiral who treated on almost equal terms with such men as the Pope, Charles of Spain, and Francis of France, was an insult hard to be borne; the next corsair with whom he should meet should not escape so easily as had Kheyr-ed-Din, that the admiral had sworn.
Personal pique and vanity, racial detestation, and religious fanaticism were in his case all allied together to spur him on in the chase of this the last of the Emperor’s foes; but, search as he might, during that summer Doria could never get on to the track of Dragut. The corsairs, as we have just remarked, were fine fighters on occasion when it was necessary for the purposes of loot, or of escape from those who, like Doria, interfered with their particular method of gaining a livelihood; but, on the other hand, they were no fools, they did not covet hard knocks and the possibilityof defeat from such a one as the admiral of the Emperor, when by the exercise of a little ingenuity they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going to fight a general action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his luck stood to him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre hatred in his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold as a lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys with Doria in command was no part of his programme. An occasion might arise when he would be forced to action; should this happen Dragut had not forgotten his four years in the galley of Jannetin Doria, the nephew of the admiral, and next time he intended to fight to win. Just at present the Christian admiral was in too great strength for him to do aught but keep out of his way, and much to Andrea’s annoyance this was what he succeeded in doing.
Doria got information that Dragut was at Monastir, information that was perfectly correct; but by this time the corsair knew that not only had he raised all Christendom, but that the admiral was on his track. In consequence, he slipped out of Monastir, “for,” as it is pithily put by Marmol, “our corsair cared not to be shut up in so defenceless a port; he had good heels and loved sea-room.”
Dragut did not fear for his new possession, “Africa,” as he knew that Doria had not sufficient force to attack so formidable a place; therefore, leaving it to its destiny and the valour and conductof his nephew Aisa, on whom he knew that he could rely, “he went,” according to the chronicler, “on his old trade making Horrid Devastations on the coast of Spain and its islands.”
While Dragut was pursuing his “Horrid Devastations,” Doria was not idle, but was ranging the northern coast of Africa in his fruitless search; in the course of this he landed at Cape Bona, on which was the castle of Calibia, held by the corsairs; these men, who were a portion of Dragut’s following, made a most valiant defence; they were, however, few in number, and when their captain was killed by the ball from an arquebus they surrendered. Encouraged by this success, the Christian fleet then stood along the coast to inspect “Africa.” Sailing quite close to the shore they came within range of the guns of the garrison, who, under the direction of Aisa, were very much on the alert. As the admiral’s galley at the head of the line passed the walls of the town, she was received with a hot fire, and one large cannonball struck the stern of Doria’s ship, doing considerable structural damage, and killing five of his men. This occurrence took place in broad daylight in full view of all the garrison, who signalled their delight at the discomfiture of their foes by the noise of cymbals and atambours, and by wild and ferocious yells. Doria, who was in no position to land and make reprisals, fell into the greatest paroxysm of fury, and we are told that “he swore the destruction of that detested city.”
The season being now advanced, Doria returnedhome, where he found orders awaiting him from Charles that preparation was to be made for the capture of “Africa”. While the admiral was in harbour, Dragut, finding the seas open to him once more, returned from his “Horrid Devastations,” and employed his time profitably in throwing provisions and men into the city, which he knew would be beleagured in the following year.
During the ensuing winter Doria, in conjunction with the viceroys of Naples and Sicily, prepared the expedition which was to accomplish not only the capture of “Africa,” but what was, in his opinion, equally important, the destruction of Dragut-Reis, Early in the spring of 1550, all was in readiness, and the armada of Charles sailed from Palermo to Trapani, where it met with the forces of Don Juan de Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, those of Don Garcia de Toledo, the son of the Viceroy of Naples, and likewise the Maltese squadron. The galleys, accompanied by a fleet of transports, set sail early in June, and on the 20th of that month landed an army a little to the east of Mehedia or “Africa”.
It must be remembered that the inhabitants of Mehedia were by no means enamoured of Dragut-Reis and his piratical followers: King Stork had succeeded to King Log, the part of the former monarch being taken by that singularly capable and ferocious person, Aisa, whose rule was far from being to the liking of the richer and more respectable portion of the townsfolk.
When, therefore, Andrea Doria and his captains laid siege to the city, they murmured against its defence, desiring ardently to enter into some sortof treaty with the besiegers; they had had enough of war, they said, and wished to end their days in peace if possible.
Aisa Reis, however, would hear no word of surrender, telling those who murmured against the defence that “if he heard a word more of these plots he would infallibly sacrifice every mother’s son amongst them, and then lay the town in ashes.” Having already had a taste of the quality of this redoubtable corsair, and feeling perfectly certain that should the occasion arise he would be as good as his word, there was no more disaffection among the inhabitants, who had to put up with their native place being made a cockpit for Doria and Dragut to fight out their quarrel. It is permissible to sympathise very sincerely with these unfortunates, who, having been betrayed in the first instance, were compelled to stand a siege in the second.
Aisa had a picked force of his uncle’s men, some seventeen hundred foot and six hundred horse, all seasoned and formidable veterans, inured to warfare by land and sea. On these of course he could rely to the death. The common folk of the town were inclined to make common cause with the corsairs in resistance to their hereditary enemy the Christians; but the magistrates and members of the council, the grave and reverend signiors, held so conspicuously aloof that Aisa was constrained into forcing them to aid in the defence when he had time to attend to the matter. As Dragut was not actually present at the siege it falls outside the scope of this chronicle; he was without the walls when the besiegers arrived, but all that he could do, that he did. With a body of his own men reinforced bya rabble rout of Berber tribesmen, he harassed the Christian army; they were, however, in far too great numbers for him to make any impression, and after several desperate skirmishes he recognised that the day was lost, and re-embarking in his galleys sailed away. The town after a desperate and prolonged resistance was at last taken by storm; and Doria captured Aisa, a Turkish alcaid, and ten thousand prisoners of the baser sort. Of these, however, there was scarce one who owed allegiance to Dragut; the warriors of this chief neither gave nor accepted quarter, as they feared the wrath of the terrible corsair even more than death itself.
Don Juan de Vega put his son Don Alvaro in command of the city and set out in search of Dragut with twenty galleys, but the sea leaves no traces by which a fugitive can be tracked, and his search proved as fruitless as had been that of Doria in the previous year. The rage and the disappointment of the admiral were beyond all bounds; what to him was the value of the capture of Aisa, of the Turkish alcaid, of the ten thousand of the baser sort; nay, what to him was the value of “Africa” itself when once again like a mocking spirit Dragut had glided beyond the sea horizon to devastate, to plunder, and to slay once more, the scourge and the menace of Christendom.
It will be interesting to record briefly the fate of this city which we have seen taken and retaken. Don Alvaro de Vega remained as governor till the end of July, 1551, when his place was taken by Don Sancho de Leyva; at which time there took place one of those curious military mutinies so characteristic of the sixteenth century. The soldiers, unpaidfor months, possibly for years, mutinied, expelled the governor and other officers, even the sergeants, from the city, and placed themselves under the direction of a stout soldier called Antonio de Aponte, to whom they gave the title of “Electo Mayor.”
Don Sancho repaired to Brussels to report matters to the Emperor, and during his absence a circumstance which is also singularly characteristic of this faithless epoch took place, for the Prior of Capua, then general of the French galleys, entered into negotiations with the mutineers for the surrender of the city to the French King.
Bluff Antonio de Aponte would have none of this treachery; he held the city for the Emperor Charles and only wanted his pay. Eventually a mutiny within a mutiny was fomented from without, and with the mutineers divided the Emperor regained possession of the city; some of the mutineers were hanged, and Aponte, who had been captured by the Turks, died at Constantinople.
The Emperor offered “Africa” to the Knights of Malta with a yearly allowance of twenty-four thousand ducats; the Knights refused, much to the chagrin of Charles, who gave orders for its complete destruction. This was accomplished by blowing up with gunpowder the walls, towers, and fortifications which Al-Mehedi, after whom the city had been named, “had erected with such art and strength, and had his mind so fixed upon that work that he used to say, ‘If I thought building these fortifications with iron and brass would render them more durable, I would certainly do it.’”
How Dragut was blockaded in the Island of Jerbah—How he left Andrea Dona “with the dog to hold”—His return to Constantinople, and how he sailed from thence with a great expedition against the Knights of Malta.
Charles V.had “smoked out the fox,” but his admiral in so doing had not succeeded in capturing that remarkably wily animal; for Dragut was not only still at liberty, but was burning for revenge on those by whom he had been dispossessed. He had lost “his city,” as he called “Africa”; he had lost two thousand five hundred men—among them some of the fiercest and most experienced of his corsairs; he had lost ten thousand slaves, representing a large sum of money, and much wealth besides. The corsair, however, was not one of those who merely sit down and repine; for him strenuous and continued action was the law of his being, and he at once repaired to Constantinople. Here he was well known as an adroit and skilful seaman and a most determined enemy of the Christians, and, in consequence, was not only certain of a welcome, but of substantial help as well, if he could but win over the Grand Turk to take the same view of his grievances as he did270himself. In reality, the corsairs, as we have seen, played the game of the Padishah, as a rule, at no expense to that potentate; when they were in trouble he was therefore by no means indisposed to render them assistance.
Dragut, like all the sea-wolves, was fond of money, fonder still of what money could buy; he now hankered after revenge as the sweetest morsel that his hoarded ducats could procure for him. That the Sultan was well disposed to him he had every reason to think; none the less did he spend royally among the venal favourites of the Court in order that nothing might be left undone to inflame the ardour of Soliman against those whom he considered to be his hereditary foes.
With such skill and address did the corsair manage his suit that he prevailed upon the Sultan to address a letter to Charles demanding the immediate return of the towns of Susa, Sfax, Monastir, and “Africa.” This, of course, meant war; as Charles immediately replied that these places were dependencies of the King of Tunis, and that that ruler was under his special protection; further that they were his by right of conquest; finally that the matter was no concern whatever of the Sultan of Constantinople. The stern and imperious Christian Emperor was in no mood to brook interference, the more so that he discerned plainly that though the demand was that of Soliman, the mover in the affair was none other than Dragut. He therefore by way of a rider to his answer to the Sultan informed that monarch that these places which he had taken on the coast of Africa hadbeen reft by him “from one Dragut, a corsair odious to both God and man”; that without in any way departing from the treaty which he had made with Soliman “he intended to pursue this pirate whithersoever he might go.”
Whether or no this denunciation of Dragut had any influence on the Sultan it is impossible to say; he was in the habit of employing the corsairs, and apparently cared nothing about their piratical reputation, so long as their depredations were confined to Christian vessels. Shortly after the receipt of the answer of Charles, however, the Sultan conferred upon Dragut the title of Sandjak or governor of the island of Santa Maura, thus constituting him a Turkish official.
Once again was Andrea Doria ordered to put to sea to fight against neither small nor great save Dragut alone; he was to take him dead or alive, but alive for choice, in order that he might be made to answer at the bar of Christian justice for all the atrocities committed by him both by land and sea. The corsair had returned in the meanwhile to Jerbah, an island on the east coast of Tunis much affected by the sea-wolves, and which in contemporary histories is known as Jerbah, as Los Gelues (by the Spanish writers), as Gelves, and various other names which greatly confuse its identity.
Doria put to sea with twenty-two royal galleys before Dragut was aware of the fact. The Genoese admiral heard that his prey was at Jerbah; he repaired thither without losing a moment, found that he had been correctly informed, and anchored at the mouth of the harbour, at a place knownas La Bocca de Cantara. Dragut was completely hemmed in, Doria was in such strength that he could not, reckless as he was, attempt to force the passage. But as the hour came the spirit of the corsair rose to answer the challenge: it was one thing to get Dragut-Reis into a trap, it was quite another to keep him there. Accordingly, he assembled all his troops, dragged cannon to the mouth of the harbour, and opened so brisk a foe on the Christian ships as to compel them to haul out of range. These tactics left Doria unaffected; there was but one way out of the harbour, and he felt quite convinced that when Dragut had had enough of starvation he would either surrender or else fight a hopeless action. The admiral surveyed his anchored fleet with a contented mind; his enemy had been delivered into his hand, he had nothing to do now but wait for that final triumph of appearing before his master the Emperor with the famous corsair as his prisoner. He saw a great fort rising before his very eyes at the mouth of the harbour, and merely smiled serenely; he sent off to Sicily and Naples for reinforcements in order that when the psychological moment should arise he might crush the corsair stronghold so thoroughly that it should never rise again. In the despatches which he sent he said “the fox is trapped”—“which news rejoiced all parts of Christendom, and most powerful succours came daily flocking to the seaports from every quarter; so eager were the sufferers to revenge themselves on this so much dreaded corsair.”
The history of what now happened is given by Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal in his “Descripciongeneral de Affrica,” which was printed in Granada, “en casa de Rene Rabat impresor de libros año de 1573,” or only some twenty years or so after these occurrences; it is set forth in his chapter entitled “Como Andrea Doria fue en buscar de these occurrences; it is set forth in his chapter Dragut Arraez.” We have also the authority of that eminent historian, M. L’Abbé de Vertot.
Captain Juan Vasquez Coronado journeyed to Naples carrying with him letters from Andrea Doria to Don Pedro de Toledo, requesting that the Viceroy would send him all the galleys in Naples, carrying as many soldiers as possible, pointing out that he had Dragut in a trap, from which he could not possibly escape, but that this time he wished to make security doubly secure. Letters to the same purport were also sent to Don Juan de Vega, the Viceroy of Sicily, and to Marco Centurion at the admiral’s own city of Genoa. Doria was leaving nothing to chance this time. Meanwhile, great earthworks had been thrown up at the Bocca de Cantara at the entrance of the harbour by Dragut, and any ship which approached within range was most furiously bombarded. This served to amuse Andrea Doria, who, confident that the jaws of the trap had closed, kept a sharp look-out for vessels issuing from the harbour, but otherwise concerned himself not at all about the entrenchments. Was not Naples humming with the note of preparation? Would not the Genoese come in their thousands to the summons of their renowned chieftain? Could not the Viceroy of Sicily be trusted to work his best to gain the favour of his Imperial master?
“Time and I are two” was the favouriteexpression of King Philip II. of Spain; the same idea might have crossed the mind of Doria on this memorable occasion. He had only to wait; the longer he waited the more secure he would be of success, the more certain would he be of the complete undoing of his enemy. But even yet the admiral did not know the man to whom he was opposed; in all the years in which he had done battle against Dragut, he had never gauged the limitless resource and calculated audacity of this lineal successor of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. While the admiral had been sending his despatches, and idly watching that which he considered to be the futile construction of earthworks on the shore at the Bocca de Cantara, his enemy was preparing for him that surprise which was shortly afterwards to make of him the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe. Dragut was in a trap, and he was quite aware of the fact; by way of the Bocca de Cantara escape was impossible, and neither a tame surrender nor complete annihilation was by any means to the taste of the pirate leader. Had Doria gone in and attacked at once, the fate of the corsair had been sealed; the policy of delay adopted by the Christian admiral was his salvation.
A man less able, less determined, than Dragut, might well have despaired; but he brought to bear on the problem with which he was confronted all the subtlety of his nature, all the resourcefulness of the born seaman that he was. His mind had been made up from the very beginning: the earthworks at the Bocca de Cantara, the movements of troops, the furious cannonading, had all been nothing but a blind to hide the real design which he had in view. In addition to his fighting menhe had at his command some two thousand islanders, stout Mohammedans to a man, ready and willing to assist him in his design of cheating the Christians of their prey. Day and night, with ceaseless silent toil, had garrison and islanders been at work on the scheme which the leader had devised. From the head of the harbour Dragut had caused a road to be made right across the island to the sea on the opposite side: on this road he caused planks to be laid, bolted to sleepers and then thickly greased. The vessels of the day were of course comparatively speaking light, and capable of being manhandled, supposing that you had sufficient hands. At dead of night Dragut assembled his forces, and before morning every galley, galeasse, and brigantine had been dragged across the island and launched in the sea on the opposite side. There was then nothing left to do but to embark stores, guns, and ammunition and to sail quietly away, and this was what happened. Once again Dragut faded away beyond the skyline, “leaving Andrea Doria with the dog to hold,” in the quaint language of the chronicler of these events, Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal.
Not only did the indefatigable corsair get clear away without any suspicion on the part of the admiral, but his first act on gaining the open sea was to capture thePatronagalley sent from Sicily by Don Juan de Vega to say that reinforcements were on the road. In this ill-fated craft was Buguer, the son of Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, who was sent as prize to Soliman at Constantinople, where the Sultan caused him to be shut up in the“Torre del Mar Negro.” Here he remained till he died, as a punishment for that he, a Mussulman, had aided the Christians.
Never again was Dragut to be in such sore straits as he was on this occasion at the island of Jerbah, when, by sheer wit and cunning, he escaped from the trap in which he had been held by Doria. What the emotions of the admiral must have been when he found that once again he had been fooled, it is not difficult to imagine, as by no possible means could the story be hushed up; and, in spite of the annoyance of Christendom generally at the escape of Dragut, no one could help admiring his extraordinary cleverness, or roaring with laughter at the discomfiture of Doria and the viceroys of Naples and Sicily.
Dragut now returned to Constantinople to receive congratulations upon his escape, and to take part in a fresh design of stirring up the Sultan against the Christians. All who professed this faith were naturally obnoxious to the corsair; but his private and personal hatred was entirely directed against the Knights of Malta, with whom he had been at war all his life. The present preoccupation of the Sultan was to regain the towns on the coast of Africa which had been taken by the Spaniards; but it was represented to him by Dragut that “until he had smoked out this nest of vipers he could do no good anywhere.” The Bashaws and the Divan, heavily bribed by the corsair, held the same language, until Soliman heard of nothing from morning till night but the ill deeds of the Knights of Malta. They were represented to him as corsairs who ruined his commerce and defeatedhis armadas, who let slip no opportunity of harrying the Moslem wheresoever he was to be found. In this there was more than a grain of truth, as we shall see when we come to the next chapter, which will be devoted to a sketch of this militant order. Suffice it to say here that the Knights fought for what they termed “the Religion” (it was in this manner they designated their confederacy), and to harry and enslave the Mussulman, to destroy him as a noxious animal wherever he was to be found, was the reason for which they existed. It is true that they plundered not for individual gain, but many was the rich prize towed into Malta past St. Elmo and the ominously named “Punta delle Forche” (the “Point of the Gallows,” where all captured pirates were hanged), the proceeds of which went to the enrichment of the Order; to buy themselves the wherewithal to fight with the Mahommedan again.
The abuse of the Knights fell upon sympathetic ears; in his early days Soliman the Magnificent had expelled the Knights from Rhodes; since then Charles V. had given them the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the town of Tripoli in Barbary as their abiding place; from Malta they had never ceased their warfare against the corsairs, and incidentally against the Sultan and his subjects. Therefore, in this year 1551, Soliman ordained that an expedition should be prepared with the object of crushing once and for all these troublers of the peace of Islam. The preparations were on so large a scale that very soon it became noised abroad in Europe that something really serious was in the wind: in Constantinople, however,men kept their own counsel; it was ill talking of the affairs of the Padishah, and, further than that, beyond Dragut and the proposed leaders of the expedition, the Sultan took no one into his confidence. Charles V., well served as he was by his spies, was as much in the dark as to the destination of this new armada as were humbler folk; in it he recognised the hand of Dragut again, and Doria had standing orders to catch that mischievous person if he could. At present, however, there was no chance of so desirable a thing happening, as Dragut was superintending the fitting out of the new expedition at Constantinople.
Anxious and suspicious of the designs of the Turks, Charles ordered a concentration of his fleet at Messina.
The Grand Master of the Knights of Malta at this time was a Spaniard, one Juan d’Omedes; he was, says de Vertot, “un Grand Maître Espagnol,” meaning by this that he was completely under the domination of the Emperor and ready at any time to place the galleys of “the Religion” under the orders of that monarch. The Knights, like every one else, had watched with anxiety the preparation of this great expedition in Constantinople, and when the Grand Master proposed to send the galleys of the Order to join forces with Doria at Messina, there was great dissatisfaction at the Council Board. That which it behoved them to do, the members informed the Grand Master, was not to help a great potentate like Charles, but to make provision for their own security by attending to their fortifications, which were in anything but a satisfactory condition. D’Omedes maintained that this expedition wasdestined to serve with the King of France against the Emperor, and that Malta was not the objective. He accordingly sent away the galleys of “the Religion” under the Chevalier “Iron-Foot,” the General of the Galleys, to join the fleet which had its rendezvous at Messina. Hardly had he done so when news came from the Levant that the fleet of the Grand Turk was at sea heading for Sicily. The fleet was composed of one hundred and twelve royal galleys, two great galeasses, and a host of brigantines and transport vessels. Sinan-Reis was in command with twelve thousand Janissaries, numerous pioneers and engineers, and all the necessary appliances for a siege.
The embarkation of so large a number of Janissaries was the measure of the serious purpose of the expedition, as the Sultan did not readily part with the men of thiscorps d’éliteunless he was in person taking the command. It may be as well to explain here exactly what the Janissaries were, and it cannot be better done than by an extract from the famous historian Prescott:
“The most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may be said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the Christian population of the Empire. Once in five years a general conscription was made by means of which all the children of Christian parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of excellence in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to the capital. They were then removed to different quarters and placed in seminaries where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the duties of life. Those giving greatestpromise of strength and endurance were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor. Here they were subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the famous corps of the Janissaries.... Their whole life may be said to have been passed in war or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry, they had no families to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars of Christian countries, were concentrated in their own order, whose prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the State. Proud of the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they seemed desirous to prove their title to them by their thorough discipline and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and difficult services. Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to war, armed with the arquebus and the scimitar—in their hands more than a match for the pike or sword of the European—with the heron’s plume waving above their head, their dense array might ever be seen bearing down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once when the fate of the Empire trembled in the balance it was this invincible corps which turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their discipline remained unimpaired they were a match for the best soldiers in Europe. But in time this admirable organisation experienced a change. One Sultan allowed them to marry; another to bring their sons into the corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until, forfeiting their peculiar character, the Janissaries became confounded with the militia of the Empire. These changes occurred in the time of Philip the Second.”
“The most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may be said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the Christian population of the Empire. Once in five years a general conscription was made by means of which all the children of Christian parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of excellence in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to the capital. They were then removed to different quarters and placed in seminaries where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the duties of life. Those giving greatestpromise of strength and endurance were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor. Here they were subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the famous corps of the Janissaries.... Their whole life may be said to have been passed in war or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry, they had no families to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars of Christian countries, were concentrated in their own order, whose prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the State. Proud of the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they seemed desirous to prove their title to them by their thorough discipline and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and difficult services. Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to war, armed with the arquebus and the scimitar—in their hands more than a match for the pike or sword of the European—with the heron’s plume waving above their head, their dense array might ever be seen bearing down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once when the fate of the Empire trembled in the balance it was this invincible corps which turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their discipline remained unimpaired they were a match for the best soldiers in Europe. But in time this admirable organisation experienced a change. One Sultan allowed them to marry; another to bring their sons into the corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until, forfeiting their peculiar character, the Janissaries became confounded with the militia of the Empire. These changes occurred in the time of Philip the Second.”
But to resume: just before the sailing of the galleys of “the Religion” from Malta there had arrived in that island from France the famous Chevalier, the Commandeur de Villegagnon. This great noble told the Grand Master to his face that he was neglecting his duty, that the expedition of the Grand Turk was bound for Malta and Tripoli: further, that he was charged by Anne de Montmorency, Constable and First Minister of France, to advise the Grand Master that this armament was directed against “the Religion.” The interview between the Grand Master and de Villegagnon took place at a chapter of the Grand Crosses of the Order; when the Commandeur had finished speaking, he was coldly thanked by D’Omedes, who then bowed him out. Turning to the Knights Grand Cross he said with a sneer, “Either this Frenchman is the dupe of the Constable or he wishes to make us his.” He then proceeded to give at length the reasons why Soliman would not direct so huge an expedition against “the Religion.” Many of the Knights dissented vehemently from his conclusions, but D’Omedes refused to listen to their arguments. Even advices which arrived on July 13th, representing that the armada was moving southwards devastating the Italian ports, did not move him from his obstinate pre-occupation; till on July 16th the arrival of the Ottoman fleet put an end to all speculation.
The armada which had sailed from Constantinople was under the command of Sinan Basha: but he had explicit orders that he was to take no important step without first consulting Dragut, who was nominally his lieutenant. It was well for theKnights that on this occasion the corsair was not in supreme command; had this been the case the islands must have been taken, as no preparations had been made to repulse an attack in force, and Juan D’Omedes was a Grand Master who excited little enthusiasm either among the Knights or the inhabitants. The choice of Sinan was not one which did great credit to the penetration of the Sultan. Let us explain. We are all of us conscious at one time or another of a desire to express some fact in the fewest possible words; to place the transaction or the circumstance which we wish to describe in the searchlight of truth in so undeniable a fashion that the illumination consequent upon this mental effort of our own shall throw up our meaning in immediate relief on the intelligences of those whom we address. This attribute is possessed by but few even among great writers—indeed, some historic sayings which have come down to us have not emanated from the writing fraternity at all, but from soldiers, sailors, statesmen, and other busy men of affairs. The quality which distinguishes a man of action above all others is fearlessness of responsibility; the possession of sufficient greatness of soul and of moral fibre to seize upon an opportunity and to make the most thereof when an occasion arises which has not been foreseen by those in authority over him. But far more often in the history of the world has it happened that brave and capable leaders have failed for the lack of the indefinable quality that separated their sterling merits from that absolute and real supremacy which marks the first-class man.
How then is it possible to differentiate, todescribe where and in what manner this luck occurs?
Fortunately, this has been done for us in seven words by Seignelay, the Minister of Marine to Louis Quatorze in 1692. Speaking of Admiral de Tourville, who defeated the English and Dutch at the Battle of Beachy Head, July 10th, 1690, Seignelay says of him that he was “poltron de tête mais pas de coeur.” The judgment was just: de Tourville, as recklessly gallant as any French noble of them all, failed to live up to his responsibilities two years later at the Battle of La Hogue. Mahan says: “The caution in his pursuit of the Allies after Beachy Head, though so different in appearance, came from the same trait which impelled him two years later to lead his fleet to almost certain destruction at La Hogue because he had the King’s order in his pocket. He was brave enough to do anything, but not strong enough to bear the heaviest burdens.”