Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean Part 11

How Alessandro Condalmiero fought the _Galleon of Venice_--"The King of the Sea is dead."

There is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of a really great leader badgered and importuned by lesser men to adopt a course which he, with a superior insight, knows to be unsound. In the matter of the landing Barbarossa had demonstrated that it was he whose knowledge of war was superior to those who were so ready to thrust upon him their opinions; this, however, did not content them, and they now desired to close with the foe waiting for them outside. If ever a commander was justified in waiting on events it was Barbarossa at this juncture; the business of a commander-in-chief is to ensure victory, and if he sees, as did the Moslem admiral on this occasion, that more is to be gained by delay than by fighting, then he is justified in refusing battle: particularly is this the case when the enemy is in greatly superior force blockading on an open and dangerous coast at an inclement season of the year. Every day that Doria was kept at sea added to his difficulties, as fresh water and provisions would be running short, and the energies of the human engines by which his galleys were propelled would be weakened; naked men chained to a bench were suffering from the blazing heat of the days, the cold and drenching dews of the nights. All these things had the veteran seaman weighed in his mind, they all inclined him to wait still longer in that secure anchorage where he could not be touched by his foe.

There was one counsellor, however, whom even Kheyr-ed-Din could not resist, and who had hitherto kept silence; this was the eunuch Monuc, legal counsellor to Soliman, who had accompanied the armada. He now brought the weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis and his colleagues.

"Are you going," he asked the admiral, "to allow the infidels to escape without a battle? Soliman can find plenty of wood to build new fleets, plenty of captains to command them; he will pardon you if this fleet is destroyed: that which he will never pardon is that you should allow Doria to escape without fighting. You have brave men in plenty; why not lead them to the attack?"

The patience of the veteran gave way at last; none who knew Barbarossa had ever seen him shrink from fighting--to this his whole career bore witness.

He had delayed the issue from the soundest of strategical reasons, which those under his command were too stupid and too prejudiced to understand: what cared they for reason in their blind valour?--they wished only to do or die heedless of the fact that their lives might be spent in vain. Truly it was no thanks to the subordinates of Kheyr-ed-Din that this campaign did not end in disaster to the arms of the Ottoman Porte. Such backing as the admiral had came from among his own men, the corsairs whose lives had been spent at sea, but their opinions were but dust in the balance once the all-powerful Monuc ranged himself on the side of the malcontents.

"Let us then fight," said the admiral to Saleh-Reis, "or this fine talker who is neither man nor woman will accuse us before the Grand Turk and we shall all probably be hanged."

The Christian fleet during the night of September 26-7th had made some thirty miles to the southward; just before daybreak the wind freshened and drew right ahead; Doria approached the island of Santa Maura and anch.o.r.ed under the small islet of Sessola.

Barbarossa had now decided to leave his anchorage, but the veteran seaman did not disguise from himself the risks which he ran: a greater sea captain than he once said "only numbers can annihilate," and it was at annihilation that both the Moslem and the Christian aimed: in this case, however, he knew that he could but hope for a hard-won victory, and only that if Allah and his Prophet were unusually favourable to his cause. He a.s.sembled his captains, many of whom had served with him during long periods of his career, and directed them to form line: he said, "I have but one order to give, follow my movements attentively and regulate your own accordingly."

With fustas, brigantines, galleots, and galleys, the Ottoman fleet amounted in all to one hundred and forty sail. With shouts of joy the soldiers hailed the command to weigh the anchors, and in a very short time all were slowly moving seaward.

The die was cast: Doria from his anchorage at Sessola saw the sea white with the sails of the enemy, the blue water churning to foam beneath the strokes of his oars; the Ottoman fleet was issuing from the Gulf of Arta manoeuvring with precision and deploying into a single line abreast; which line being slightly concave, either from accident or design, resembled the form of a crescent. In advance came six great fustas commanded by Dragut; the left wing hugged the sh.o.r.e as closely as possible; the Ottoman commander-in-chief intended to commence operations on the first principles of strategy by flinging his whole force on a portion of that of the enemy.

Andrea Doria remained undecided: he was on a lee sh.o.r.e, and that sh.o.r.e was the coast of the enemy; although his foes were advancing to the attack it seemed as if he had no mind to fight: whether he had or had not he displayed a most remarkable sluggishness, hesitating for three hours before getting up his anchors; these he only weighed at last under pressure from the bellicose Patriarch of Aquilea, Vincenzo Capello, and the Papal captain, Antonio Grimani. Doria had counted on the support of the _Galleon of Venice_ and the nefs; but the galleon was becalmed four miles from the land and ten miles from Sessola, where Doria was at the beginning of the action.

Condalmiero sent a light skiff from the _Galleon of Venice_ to the commander-in-chief demanding orders and help from the galleys.

"Begin the fight," answered the admiral, "you will be succoured."

The position of Condalmiero was that of a modern battles.h.i.+p which is disabled and surrounded by foes in full possession of their motive power; the great galleon floated inert upon the waters while the galleys could fight or fly as they wished. The captain of the galleon, however, had no alternative save to surrender or fight; but there was no hesitation on his part, for a more gallant officer never trod the decks of a wars.h.i.+p of the proud Republic to which he belonged.

The Moslem galleys were now close upon him, although as yet out of gun-shot; around him they wheeled and circled like a flight of great sea-birds, their ferocious crews shouting their war-cries calling upon Allah and the Prophet to give them the victory for which they craved; many a brave Venetian who heard for the first time the name of Barbarossa shouted in battle must have braced himself for the coming conflict, knowing all that was imported by that terrible name. The sun shone in a cloudless sky, the galleon lay becalmed in the middle of furious and ravening foes, the succour promised by Doria was ten miles away; they saw no movement which indicated help, and the odds against them were heavy indeed. But all the nervousness was not on one side, for the _Galleon of Venice_ was something new in the naval warfare of the time; she carried engines of destruction in the shape of great guns which the corsairs could by no means equal. Of this they were well aware, and the attack was delayed while the oarsmen in the galleys rested on their oars out of range to allow them breathing time before the supreme moment arrived. But the hounds were only held in leash; there came a signal which was answered by a concentrated yell of fury and of hate; then from right ahead, right astern, on the port side and the starboard, the galleys were launched to the attack. But all on board the great Venetian vessel was as still as that death which awaited so many of the combatants in this supreme struggle.

Condalmiero had caused the crew of the galleon to lie down upon her decks, and stood himself, a gallant solitary figure in his s.h.i.+ning armour, a mark for the hail of shot so soon to be discharged. It came, and with it the mast of the galleon bearing the Lion Standard of St. Mark crashed over the side into the water; renewed yells of triumph came from the Moslems, but still that ominous silence reigned on board the galleon. Untouched, unharmed, the Osmanlis came on firing as rapidly as possible until they were absolutely within arquebuss range. Closer they came and closer; then the sides of the galleon burst into sheeted flame, and the guns levelled at point-blank range tore through the attacking host. Condalmiero was throwing away no chances; he had directed his gunners to allow their b.a.l.l.s to ricochet before striking rather than to throw them away by allowing them to fly over the heads of the enemy.

The first broadside did terrible execution; a ball one hundred and twenty pounds in weight, fired by the chief bombardier, Francisco d'Arba in person, burst in the prow of a galley so effectually that all her people flew aft to the p.o.o.p to prevent the water rus.h.i.+ng in; but the vessel was practically split in twain, and sank in a few moments. All around were dead and dying men, disabled galleys, floating wreckage; the _Galleon of Venice_ had taken a terrible toll of the Osmanli; the order to retreat out of range was given, and never was order obeyed with greater alacrity.

With accuracy and precision the galleon played upon such vessels as remained within range, doing great execution. But she was now to be subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack. She had demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be carried by mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive was the only plan which promised success; the Osmanli must use their brain as well as their courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the water, and nailed to the stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to be torn down. There was something daunting in the very aspect of the solid bulk of the huge Venetian, something weird in the manner in which her crew never showed, save only the steadfast figure of her captain immovable as a statue of bronze, where he stood on her shot-torn p.o.o.p.

This Homeric conflict was a triumph of discipline and gunnery on the part of the Venetians; alert, accurate, and cool, the gunners of the galleon threw away none of their ammunition: inspired by the heroic spirit of their captain, great was the honour which they did on this stricken field to the n.o.ble traditions of their forbears and the service to which they belonged.

The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was only preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the day; the Moslem galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a squadron of twenty advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their place was then taken by a second squadron, which went through the same performance, and then came on a third. In this manner the attack, which began one hour after noon, and which was continued until sunset, was conducted. The galleon had thirteen men killed, and forty wounded; no doubt the slaughter would have been much greater had it not been for the enormous thickness of her sides and for the fact that the guns carried by the galleys were necessarily light.

Notwithstanding, the galleon suffered terribly, she was a ma.s.s of wreckage; twice fire had broken out on board of her, she was c.u.mbered by fallen masts, battered almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her gallant crew fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender. Covered with blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew responded n.o.bly to his call. At eventide the fire from the galleon was almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many galleys of the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity and bravery of their carpenters, who, slung over their sides in "boatswains' chairs," drove home huge plugs of wood with their mallets into the shot-holes made by the Venetian guns.

At the hour when the sun dipped below the horizon all the Turkish fleet seemed a.s.sembled to a.s.sault the colossus which so long had resisted their attack; there was a pause in the combat, and the firing died down.

Condalmiero and his men braced themselves for the a.s.sault which they felt to be inevitable: for now the darkness was swiftly coming, in which they could no longer see to shoot, and under cover of which their numerous foes could a.s.sail them by boarding in comparative safety. Now the moment had come for the last act in this terrible drama of the sea. They had held their own at long odds throughout the whole of a hot September day, and as the level beams of the setting sun shone on their shattered s.h.i.+p they were prepared to die, fighting to the last man for the honour of Venice and the glory of St. Mark.

Stiff and worn, wearied almost to the breaking strain, there was no man on board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the muzzle with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand stood grimly awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their ears in the gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that the fate of the _Galleon of Venice_ must be decided.

On board his galley, decorated for this occasion with scarlet banners, Barbarossa himself directed the a.s.saulting line. Never before when the battle was joined had the gallant corsair been known to draw back; and yet on this occasion he not only hesitated but actually hauled off. The Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to be pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser vessels: the _Galleon of Venice_ was victorious.

Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was hard fighting that was wanted; he pretended that he wished to draw the Ottoman fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy their galleys by means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently he executed useless parade movements when he should by all the rules of warfare have closed with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior force; as he had a fair wind there is only one conclusion to be drawn, and that is that he did not want to fight.

His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics with mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it never entered into their calculations for one moment that the great Andrea Doria, the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in scores of desperate engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.

Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed him full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most fiery description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was the enemy in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge, why delay the attack?

"For much less than this," says Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, "the English shot Admiral Byng in 1756." The conduct of Doria on this occasion has certainly never been explained; the two other leaders went on board and remonstrated with their commander-in-chief; they were neither of them men who could be treated as negligible quant.i.ties on the field of battle; both belonged to that brilliant Venetian n.o.bility so renowned in commerce and in war. Marco Grimani was in command of the Papal galleys, in itself a mark of the highest esteem and confidence from a potentate second to none in his influence in the civilised world. To Vincenzo Capello, Henry the Seventh of England confided his royal person and the command of his fleet when he crossed the Channel to encounter Richard the Second at Bosworth field. Five times had he filled the office of Providiteur in Venice, twice had he been commander-in-chief of her fleet, he was in perpetuity Procureur of St.

Mark, to him Venice owed her naval discipline. He wore on this day the mantle of crimson silk with which the Republic invested her generals.

Bitter was the rage in his heart, and bitterly must he have spoken to Doria, who, in spite of all remonstrances, continued his futile manoeuvrings.

There was glory won on this day, but it was gained neither by Andrea Doria nor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. The _Galleon of Venice_ with Alessandro Condalmiero and his gallant crew had shown to all a splendid example of disciplined valour unexcelled in sixteenth-century annals.

Barbarossa had captured a Venetian galley, a Papal galley, and five Spanish nefs, but he had recoiled from the a.s.sault on Condalmiero when the prize was actually within his grasp. For the rest it was a day of manoeuvring and tactics; tactics when sixty thousand men had been embarked on board two hundred s.h.i.+ps for a specific and definite object on the side of the Christians and under the command of their most celebrated admiral; and yet the balance of advantage was actually gained by the inferior force. No subsequent glories can ever wipe this stain from the scutcheon of Doria, or can excuse the fact that at the most supreme moment of his career he failed to fight the battle that he was in honour, in conscience, and in duty bound to deliver. Next day the wind came fair for Corfu, and Doria, his s.h.i.+ps untouched, unscathed, unharmed, put his helm up and sailed away followed by his fleet.

Sandoval records the fact that Barbarossa, roaring with laughter the while, was accustomed to say that Doria had even put out his lanterns in order that no one might see whither he had fled. This was an allusion to the fact--or supposition--that Doria extinguished on that night the great p.o.o.p lantern carried by him as admiral.

When Soliman the Magnificent heard of the result of this battle he caused the town of Yamboli, where he was at the time, to be illuminated, and in the excess of his joy he added one hundred thousand aspres to the revenues of the conqueror; there were processions to the Grand Mosque, and all Islam rejoiced and sang the praises of the invincible admiral who had humbled to the dust the pride of the Christian and caused the dreaded Doria to fly from before the fleet of the Sultan.

This, the most historical, if not the greatest feat in the life of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, was for him a triumph indeed; with a vastly inferior force he had driven from the field of battle his "rival in glory,"

as he himself had denominated Andrea Doria, and he had accomplished this feat notwithstanding the almost mutinous condition of his own forces. In spite of this it is with Condalmiero and with him alone that the glory of this day must rest; alone, absolutely unsupported as we have seen, he fought one of those fights which bring the heart into the mouth when we read of them; the stern pride of the Venetian n.o.ble, who despised as canaille the pirate hosts by whom he was a.s.sailed, had its counterpart in the st.u.r.dy valour of Chief Bombardier Francisco d'Arba and the other nameless heroes of which that good company was composed; to them we render that homage which so justly is their due.

The whole campaign of Prevesa, as we have said, is a curious study in hesitation, in dilatoriness, in absolute lack of initiative and virility on the part of the two chief actors in the drama: that Doria should fly from the field of battle in an untouched s.h.i.+p is only one degree less incredible than that Barbarossa should have relinquished his attack on the _Galleon of Venice_. It would almost seem as if on this occasion each of the great rivals was hypnotised by the presence of the other; all their lives they had been seeking honour and riches on the sea, they knew, of course, that all men in both the world of Islam and that of Christendom looked upon them in the light of the special champions of the opposing sects, that the eyes of the entire world were fastened on this meeting of theirs in the cla.s.sic waters of the Ambracian Gulf. In consequence neither man was at his best; indeed, we might go further than this, and say that on this occasion both lamentably failed. There is no fault to be found with the strategic preliminaries to the final conflict, each admiral acting with prudence and wisdom in the situation in which he found himself placed. That the perfectly correct idea of not giving battle to a superior force when he held so strong an interior position was given up by Barbarossa, was, as we have seen, not his fault; and when he issued from his anchorage, in deference to a sentiment among those under his command which he could no longer resist, his dispositions seem to have been made with his usual skill. Where he failed, however, was where, from all his previous history, we should least have expected failure, in his abandonment of the attack on the _Galleon of Venice_; this, of course, was inexcusable, and can only be set down to failure of nerve at the supreme moment. The s.h.i.+p had been battered by artillery all day long, a huge percentage of her company were dead and wounded, and the remainder worn out with fatigue. On the Moslem side we have seen that there were squadrons of galleys able to relieve one another with no interference from Doria, who was persisting in his futile manoeuvring miles away. Had the galleon been boarded, as she might and should have been, at nightfall, nothing could have saved Condalmiero and his crew: so strenuous, however, had been their resistance, that the Turkish seamen feared the issue; in consequence the battle between them and the Venetians was a drawn one, with all the honours on the Christian side.

It is here that we shall take leave of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, as although he was yet to live another eight years before he died in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1548, there are no further happenings of any great importance in his career.

"Valorous, yet prudent, furious in attack, far-seeing in preparation, he ranks as the first sea-captain of his time;"[1] as the story of his life has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of man it was who terrified Europe, who made for himself a reputation which stands out clear and distinct among all the great men of which this century was so prolific. One of the surest methods of estimating a strenuous man of action is to seek for the names of those by whom he was surrounded: the men selected by him to a.s.sist in the carrying out of the work of his life; thus in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte we interest ourselves in his marshals, in reading of Nelson we note the captains by whom he was supported. In the case of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived, we find no trace of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have indicated in the cases cited above. That he had devoted followers enough is absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace, and these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions; witness the treatment meted out to Ha.s.san and to Venalcadi. There is practically no trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot discover that he possessed any intimate friend. There is none other in all history to whom he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few who in their generation have wielded such enormous powers, who have climbed so high from the sheer una.s.sisted force of their own intellect and their own character.

[Footnote 1: Stanley Lane Poole.]

Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a const.i.tution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his bodily attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was his, joined to an imperturbability of temperament which enabled him to accept with a cheerful philosophy blows by which weaker men were absolutely prostrated; his outlook on life was not dimmed by any affections, and pity was a sensation which to him was entirely alien. In this record of his deeds the reader has been spared all mention of the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are as incomprehensible as they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an occurrence. To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body, a brain, and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through life was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of his countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.

Yet, in spite of this, it is impossible not to admire the man who, by his own superhuman energy, ever swept all obstacles from his path, and caused the whole of the civilised world to quail at the name of Barbarossa.

He died peacefully in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1546, to the grief of the world of Islam and the inexpressible joy of Christendom. "The king of the sea is dead," expressed in three Arabic words, gives the numerical value 953, the year of the Hegira in which he died.

For many years after his death no Turkish s.h.i.+p ever left the Golden Horn without her crew repeating a prayer and firing a salute over the tomb of Bes.h.i.+ktsah, where lie the bones of the first and greatest of Turkish admirals, the corsair who was at one and the same time admiral, pirate, and king.

CHAPTER XIV

THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEa.s.sE, AND THE NEF

In the sixteenth century the vessel of war in the Mediterranean was essentially that oar-propelled craft known to us as the galley. As time went on she was gradually superseded by the sailing man-of-war which was able to carry that heavy ordnance which the light scantling of the galley did not permit of her mounting; but for the use of the corsairs who lived by means of raids and surprise attacks, whose business it was to lie perdu on the trade routes, the mobility of the galley was of prime importance, and they could not afford to trust to the wind alone as a motive power. The galley was a.n.a.logous to the steam vessel in that it was independent of the wind to a large extent: human bone and muscle supplied the part of engines, and those who fought upon the sea caused themselves to be moved over the face of the waters by the exertions of their enemies. It is true that upon one occasion, as we have seen, Kheyred-Din Barbarossa did possess a fleet of galleys the rowers of which were all Moslems, which crew upon battle being joined dropped their oars, seized their weapons and a.s.sisted in the conquest of the foe. But this was an isolated instance, as it was almost impossible at any time and in any circ.u.mstances to procure free men ready to undertake a life of such intolerable suffering as that of a rower on board a galley; in consequence these men were almost invariably slaves, or else in later times condemned felons whose judges had sent them to work out their sentences upon the rowers' bench. The great characteristic of the galley was her mobility, and in a comparative degree her speed, as for a short burst, when her crew of rowers were fresh, their trained muscles were capable of tremendous exertion; for any length of time, however, it is obvious that her speed must have declined as the rowers became exhausted.

She was long, narrow, of extremely low freeboard, and slight depth of hold; a galley of 125 feet between perpendiculars would perhaps be 180 feet over all taking in the p.o.o.p and the prow. A galley of this length would only have a beam of 19 feet and a depth of hold of 7 feet 6 inches. The sailing s.h.i.+p of contemporary times would for the same length have had a beam of about 40 feet and an extremely high freeboard; she was in consequence necessarily slow and incapable of sailing on a wind.

So distinct at this time was the line drawn between the sailing vessel and the galley that the actual terminology used was entirely different; that is to say, the names of such things as masts, sails, rudder, tiller, stern, stempost, cut.w.a.ter, etc., were not the same words; the sailor who used sails could not understand his brother mariner who used oars, and _vice versa_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GALLEY UNDER OARS.]