In 1529, Sultan Suleiman's army was repelled from the walls of Vienna. While the Ottomans
had hit a roadblock in their inland expansion,
their power at sea remained largely unchallenged. This
was mainly due to one man: Hayreddin Barbarossa, one of the greatest naval commanders of the
age. In this episode, we will cover the life and conquests of this Pirate-turned-lord,
culminating in his magnum opus, a victory over a great
Christian coalition at the Battle of Preveza.
Hayreddin was born in 1478 as Khizr, on the Greek Island of Lesbos. Khizr had three brothers:
Ishak, Oruç, and Ilyas. His father was a soldier of Albanian origin, who had helped
the Turks conquer Lesbos from the Genoese back in 1462,
after which he had established himself on the
Island, become a potter, and bought a ship to sell his goods overseas.
The late 15th century was a time where Christian and Islamic powers struggled against one
another for domination over the Mediterranean, relying often on unscrupulous Privateers to
target each other’s merchant vessels. Much of Khizr’s early life was spent aiding the
family business, though fate would soon alter this
course when his father’s vessel was captured by the
Knights Hospitaller, who were still operating at large from their Fortress on Rhodes.
The Knights killed his younger brother Ilyas, and captured his elder brother Oruç, jailing
him at their stronghold in Bodrum. It was here that
Khizr took his first steps into the life that would
make him a legend. When he eventually learned of Oruq’s location, he sailed for Bodrum
and, against the odds, managed to liberate his
brother. This experience changed the brothers. They
abandoned their occupation as merchants and launched themselves into a life of piracy.
Oruq forged the path, creating a small name for himself
as a raider under the service of an Ottoman Prince, and later the Mamluk Sultan. In 1504,
he was joined by Khizr, and together they travelled
to Tunisia, where the Sultan granted them the port of
La Goletta for use as a base of operations. In 1509 they were joined by their brother,
Ishak. Khizr and his kin had arrived in North Africa
at an opportune time. Back in 1492, the Spanish Crown had expelled the last of the Islamic
rulers from Iberia, and in the following decades, they
had turned their ambitions southwards, capturing pockets of coastal territory in Algeria, Tunisia
and Morocco. Oruq participated in evacuating Spanish Muslims from Iberia, earning him the
title “Baba”, meaning “father”. The Europeans
took “Baba Oruq” to mean “Barbarossa” - red beard.
Given that all three brothers had crimson facial hair, the nickname stuck, and even
became used by the Turks in the form of “Barbaros”.
The Barbaros brothers would find their early North African exploits defined by conflict
with the Spanish and their Christian allies. They became
a scourge to the coasts of southern Italy and
Spain, while repulsing a Spanish attack on Algiers. In 1512, the brothers launched an
assault upon Spanish-controlled Béjaïa. Oruq had
a limb blown off during the battle, which he promptly
replaced with a shiny prosthetic, earning him the title “Silver-arm”.
Every victory earned the Barbaros brothers more prestige in the Muslim world. The following
years saw them embark on more successful raiding parties, setting the torch to the hinterlands
of Genoa, and the coast of Valencia. In 1516,
the Barbarossas expelled a garrison of Spaniards from
Algiers, and deposed the local amir. Oruq reigned as Sultan of Algiers for a year, before
offering the territory to the Ottoman Sultan in exchange
for his aid against the Spanish. Sultan Selim
accepted, and Algiers was absorbed into the Empire. Oruq was given the title Beylerbey-
the chief Governor of North Africa.
In 1518, Oruq and Ishak seized the city of Tlemcen, only to face an army of 10,000 Spaniards
at their gates. Though they put up a fierce fight,
both were killed. With their deaths, Khizr now
stood as sole survivor of four brothers, the last Barbaros - a title by which he’d become
known by.
In 1522 he partook in the Ottoman invasion of Rhodes, helping to finally oust his old
foes from their island stronghold. The 1520s were a
whirlwind of devastation, as it seemed nothing could
stop the legendary Barbaros and his corsairs. Sardinia, Marseille, Liguria and Sicily were
all victims of his raids, their people carted
off as slaves for his galleys. The whole western seaboard
of the Mediterranean was held in a grip of terror. Towns were heavily fortified, coastal
villages were abandoned, and a contemporary Spanish
source claims that: “From the strait of Gibraltar, to
that of Messina, no one could eat in peace, or go to sleep with a sense of security.”
In 1532, Barbaros was summoned to Constantinople, where he was given a special mission. A
Genoese admiral by the name of Andrea Doria had been marauding Ottoman holdings in the
Peloponnese. It was not the first time the red beard had encountered Doria; his fleets
had clashed with the wily Italian many times before. Barbaros
set out in pursuit of the Genoese fleet and intercepted them at Preveza, where he captured
seven galleys and forced the rest of Doria’s ships
to flee. It was a foreboding preview of a later battle, to be fought in the same location
between the same two men.
Returning to Constantinople triumphant, the Sultan Suleyman appointed Barbaros as the
Grand Admiral of the Ottoman navy, and gave him
the title Hayreddin- “Best of the faith”. Barbarossa
proceeded to seize nine major Aegean islands from the Venetian republic. He devastated
the isle of Corfu, annihilating its farms and enslaving
almost its entire rural population. Balking from their losses, the Venetians called
upon the Pope to aid them: Barbarossa had finally
become too big a threat and Pope Paul III leapt to action, bringing together a vast
alliance- a holy league comprised of Spain, Venice, Genoa,
the Papal States, the Habsburgs, and the Knights Hospitaller, who were now based in Malta.
The battle that was to come would be the greatest military challenge Barbaros would ever face.
In Summer of 1538, the Great Christian Coalition began to gather off the shores of Corfu. First
to arrive were the Venetian and the Papal flotillas.
Eager to secure coastal dominance in the battle to come, the Papal Admiral dispatched a
vanguard of galleys down the coast, attempting to seize the Ottoman-held Fortress at
Preveza. After a short skirmish, they were handily beaten back, and were forced to wait
for the rest of the coalition to arrive.
On September the 22nd, none other than Andrea Doria arrived at the command of a vast
Spanish and Genoese fleet. Doria would assume overall command of the entire allied fleet;
it seemed fate had put the Italian Admiral head to head with his old foe Hayreddin once
more. In total the holy league’s navy comprised of 112 Galleys, 50 Galleons, 140 Barques,
and over 60,000 armed soldiers. One vessel worth noting was the Venetian flagship, a
Behemoth of a Galleon that dwarfed its foes, commanded by Alessandro Condalmiero.
Meanwhile, Barbarossa was fully aware of the great host rallying against him, and mustered
his fleet off the Island of Ios. He had 122 Galleys
and Galliots and 12,000 armed soldiers. His ships
were outnumbered 3 to 1, but his vessels were rowed primarily by galley slaves and therefore
were not dependent on the wind, unlike the European Barques and Galleons that made up
the bulk of the Holy League fleet. This would
make them more reliable in the battle to come. Barbarossa sailed his ships westward, then
up the West Coast of Greece, into the well protected
Gulf of Preveza. There, he deployed a contingent of his soldiers
ashore, commandeering control of the Fortress at Actium, whose artillery would
provide his ships with shore-side support in the
fight to come. Realizing once more the importance of coastal
dominance, the Venetians and Papal ships made two separate attempts to seize the Fortress
of Preveza, which faced opposite to Barbarossa’s fortifications at Actium. Twice
they struck, on the 25th and 26th of September, but both times were repelled by
the flotilla of Hayreddins’ subordinate, Murat
Reis. By now, Doria had realized that Barbaros had
secured himself a strong position against the
coast. The Genoese Admiral dared not attack the well-entrenched Ottoman fleet head on,
but also figured that the numerically inferior enemy would not strike out against him
either. Assuming that time was on his side, and fearing the late season gales that would
drive his fleet into a vulnerable position, Doria ordered his ships thirty miles south,
anchoring at Sessola, a small island off Lefkada. The plan was to launch an attack on
nearby Lepanto, forcing Barbarossa to emerge from his den. However, coordinating a fleet
of over 300 vessels proved a logistical nightmare, and the move left the Holy League spread
out and exposed. Barbarossa took this chance to strike. At
dawn his ships emerged from the Gulf of Preveza and rounded the northern tip of Lefkada, bearing
down on the Christian fleet. His ships assembled into a ‘Y’ formation, comprised
of three segments in the front and one in the
rear. Barbarossa himself commanded the center from his flagship galley, with his
commanders Seydi Ali Reis and Salih Reis on the wings.
Barbarossa’s approach was completely unexpected by anyone in the allied armada. The
Holy League’s navy was overextended, spread out into rows, with Dorias’ Spanish-Genoese
contingent ten miles behind the Venetians, Sicilians and Maltese squadrons, who would
be the first to be attacked. From his flagship,
Venetian commander Condalmiero sent a rowboat to Doria, requesting orders. Doria
sent a correspondence back, declaring that he
would sail his ships into the fray. This bolstered the confidence of the Venetians, who
braced themselves for battle. On the afternoon of September 28th, the opposing
fleets clashed, and the fighting began. The Ottomans had the initial advantage, for
the Venetian barques that relied exclusively on
sail, were rendered immobile on a windless sea. Thus the ottoman galleys, rowed by slaves,
were able to outmaneuver them.
However, the Christians possessed a trump card. The Venetian flagship was akin to a
dreadnought, and possessed considerable firepower that the Ottomans could not match.
Waves of Barbaros’ galleys assailed the great Galleon, with one even managing to take
down the flagship's main mast. But as they drew closer, they were devastated by
a full cannonade blasting from the ship’s every
gunport. The Ottomans were forced to retreat, but continued
this dance for a time, the Venetian and Maltese front line engaging in a heated skirmish
with the Ottomans, with the bulk of the fighting centered around the Venetian flagship.
Galleys skirted up close, harassing it with light guns and picking off its crew, only
to be blasted away by its precise and powerful cannon fire time and time again.
Meanwhile, Doria was notably slow in his promise to join the fray. Instead, the Genoese
Admiral left the isolated Venetians to stand alone, while he drew his ships out to sea,
trying to lure the Ottoman galleys into open waters,
away from the fortified coast. Barbaros did not take the bait, knowing that he could not
afford to engage in major fleet action on the
high seas. The sun soon began to set, and the situation
grew more dire for the Christian front line. Skirmishing continued throughout the evening.
The Venetian flagship was still mounting a gallant defense, blasting away any that attempted
to board it. Wary of the futility of capturing the gargantuan vessel, Barbaros
ordered his galleys to withdraw. The Galleon of
Venice managed to slink back to Corfu, though no man could deny the honourable struggle
it had put up. The Ottoman galleys instead turned their attention to the smaller Sicilian
and Venetian Barques. Using their greater maneuverability, they managed to board and
captured yet another handful of Christian ships in the last hour before dusk.
At dawn, Doria made a fateful decision. Taking advantage of favourable winds, he
retreated from the battlefield, sailing his ships northwards back to Corfu. Envoys of
the Venetian, Papal and Maltese fleets pleaded
he continue the fight, but were ignored. Sources attribute his retreat to different reasons.
Some say that Doria was accustomed to commanding galleys, not the sailing ships
the Holy League put in his command. Some say that as a loyal Genoese, he despised his Venetian
rivals and was not willing to risk his own ships to save them. Some say he simply lost
his nerve. Whatever the reason, the battle was
over. Through patience, fortitude, and the boldness to strike when the moment was right,
Barbaros had won a great victory. In the end, Hayreddin had sunk 10 ships, burned
3 others, captured 36, and had taken about 3,000 prisoners. Meanwhile, he himself
had not lost a single ship, though a handful of
Galleys had been critically damaged by the Venetian flagship. Only 400 Ottoman soldiers
were dead, and 800 wounded. The unprecedented success of Barbarossa secured
Ottoman naval dominance in the Mediterranean for the next four decades, but
Suleiman still had a stubbornly persistent rival to
face on both land and sea: the Habsburgs. We are planning to cover every major battle
and campaign in the Ottoman history, so make sure
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