The Mediterranean basin in the 16th century
Two great powers shared domination of the Mediterranean basin in the sixteenth century. On one side, Spain and its island and Italian possessions - Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Sicily, Kingdom of Naples, Duchy of Milan. On the other, the Ottoman Empire. Since the beginning of the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire has been expanding. On the eve of the Battle of Lepanto, it wraps around the Mediterranean from the borders of Austria to the Persian Gulf and from the shores of the Black Sea to the borders of Algeria and Morocco.
To this political division is naturally added the religious division between Christians and Muslims, which increases antagonisms and periodically resuscitates the idea of "holy war".
On the other hand, economic activities - trade - connect these two poles of the Mediterranean basin. Venice has Cyprus, a necessary relay to reach the Middle East. It is the conquest of this island by the Ottomans which commands the Christians to unite. For a long time, the name of Lepanto evoked in the Mediterranean basin the most beautiful victory of Christianity over the Infidel. It was the most glorious battle of which the fighters who took part in it could be proud. Cervantes himself, the brilliant inventor of Don Quixote, held the wound he received there as his most admirable quality.
Since the beginning of the 16th century, the Turks have constantly launched their galleys in the western Mediterranean. There, they land on the Sicilian or Spanish coasts and raid the populations of the coast. Many Muslims tore them from their villages to take them as slaves in the service of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. At sea, to see one of these Turkish galleys approaching fills sailors, merchants and travelers with despair, because they know well that it is captivity that comes to meet them to break their existence. The Mediterranean has become a dangerous sea for Christians.
A coalition against the Turks
This insecurity also affects States. The Republic of Venice, which lives from its maritime trade, is threatened by the Turks. In March 1570, they occupied Nicosia, Cyprus, a Venetian possession. Never has the situation been so critical. On the other hand, the alliance of the Turks and the King of Algiers, Eudj Ali, constitutes an immense threat for the Spanish possessions which embrace the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Naples, through a string of islands:Balearic Islands, Sardinia and Sicily.
The taking of Nicosia forces the Christians to react. Pope Pius V revives the ideal of crusade and serves as an intermediary between Venice and Spain for the constitution of a Holy League. At the beginning of 1571, the agreement was made:the Holy See, Venice and Spain joined forces to fight against the naval power of the Ottoman Empire. In Messina, during the summer of 1571, the ships arrived one after the other; in total:200 buildings and 30,000 combat men.
October 7, 1571
Placed under the command of don Juan of Austria, the half-brother of Philip II, bastard of Charles V, the fleet left Messina on September 16 for Corfu. There, scouts locate the Turkish fleet. It is located in the Gulf of Lepanto, at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. 230 Turkish ships make it up.
Also informed of the presence of a Christian fleet, the Turks decided to swoop down on it. The same decision is made on the Christian side. On October 7, at sunrise, the two fleets met. First success for don Juan of Austria:he succeeds in locking the Turks in the gulf. No exit is possible for them. The combat is a naval combat, but it often becomes a land combat during successive boardings. The Spanish infantry reveals its strength and boldness. The Venetian galleasses, powerfully armed, divided the order of the Turkish ships, while the fine galleys, commanded by Jean André Doria, contributed by their speed and the precision of their attacks to disorganize the Turkish defense. The cannons thunder, the balls open breaches in the ships, the fire spreads:panic seizes the Turks. In the center of the gulf, the huge Spanish ships were falling so heavily on the Ottomans that a counter-offensive was impossible. Only the clever king of Algiers, Eudj Ali, manages, with thirty galleys, to escape.
A full day of fighting, a deluge of fury and fire. In the evening, the Christians have won, but the sea is red with the blood of the victims.
A baffled enemy, considerable loot
On October 7, 1571, a major naval battle took place near Lepanto, near the Gulf of Patras in Greece. It was the occasion of the confrontation of the Ottoman naval forces and the combined fleets of the Pope, Spain and Venice with minor contributions from Genoa, other Italian States, the States of Savoy who sent the three galleys there of Nice, and the Knights of Malta. This grouping of forces takes the name of Holy League. The European fleet was effectively led by Don Juan of Austria, natural son of Charles V. Ali Pasha, helped by the corsairs Scirrocco and Euldj Ali (who leads the left wing), commanded the Ottomans.
Procedure
This battle has remained in treatises on military history as a turning point in naval strategy. Indeed, this is the first time that the galleys have been opposed (on a large scale) to a more maneuverable fleet armed with cannons. This technical combination, a strategy which consisted in locking the Turks in the Gulf of Lepanto, a tactic consisting in boarding the galleys by the Spanish infantry, allied to rapid defections in the Turkish fleet contributed greatly to the reputation of this clash.
During the course of the battle, the ship of the Ottoman commander was invaded by the men of the galley of Don Juan of Austria as well as that of the Admiral of the Nice fleet André Provana de Leyni among others, and the Turkish admiral beheaded. When his head was placed on the masthead of the Spanish main ship it contributed to destroying Turkish morale. The battle ended around 4 p.m.
Review
Battle of Lepanto
The battle was a complete defeat for the Ottomans who lost 260 ships out of the 300 of their fleet. The disproportion of the confrontation made it an unprecedented event:there were 7,500 dead Christians, 30,000 dead or wounded and 8,000 prisoners among the Turks, 15,000 Christian convicts released from their irons; 117 ships, 450 cannons and 39 standards were taken from the Turks.
It was the most important naval battle between that of Actium in 31 BC and that of Aboukir, in 1798, during the Napoleonic wars.
The victory of the Spanish-dominated Christian fleet confirmed Spanish hegemony over the Mediterranean, especially in the West. The Ottomans quickly rebuilt their fleet and soon after took Cyprus and the forts around Tunis but ventured no further into the western part of the Mediterranean. However, the preponderant role of the Mediterranean Sea (the main stake in the Battle of Lepanto) gradually faded in the following years with the rise of the ocean fleets which had begun a few decades earlier.
Even if earlier more limited battles had already announced it, even if the Christian fleet included a large number of galleys (but the Turkish fleet had no galleys), and even if the use of cannon was less decisive than legend has it, the Battle of Lepanto is considered the end of the fleets of galleys in favor of galleons armed with cannons.
Anecdotes
One of the best-known participants was the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, who was injured there and lost the use of his left hand. “For the glory of the right! » he will say from then on.
It should be noted that the Turkish fleet was notably made up of Janissaries (Christian children enslaved, Islamized and raised to be elite soldiers of Turkish Islam).
The Turks lost 30,000 men, killed or wounded, 3,000 were taken prisoner, 15,000 Christian convicts were released. The Christians have 8,000 men killed, 21,000 wounded, a dozen galleys sunk. Heavy price of victory? Certainly, but the booty, if it does not restore life to the dead, consoles Christians for their material losses; 117 ships, 450 guns and 39 standards are taken from the Turks. But the most beautiful result is victory.
Lepanto becomes, in the words of Cervantes, "the most memorable encounter that past centuries have seen and that future centuries hope to see". Victory is celebrated throughout Christendom with a series of feasts. The news spread quickly and increased the prestige of the King of Spain, Philip II. The legend of Don Juan of Austria was born. In the euphoria of joy, some imagine other victories to come. However, the Ottoman Empire did not receive a mortal wound:it recovers quite quickly and, soon, it is again able to align its menacing ships, as in the time before Lepanto. It is only appearance. Lepanto shattered something:the image of an invincible Empire. Peace becomes possible in the Mediterranean, the truce settles in fact. A naval and military victory, Lepanto remains engraved in the memory of Europeans of the 16th and 17th centuries, because it was above all a moral and political victory. Never had a military action restored so much confidence in Christianity, which was then dominated by Spain. This is the origin of the glory of Lepanto.
The fortunes and misfortunes of the reign of Philip II
Lepanto, where don Juan of Austria acted on the orders of Philip II (1556-1598), is only one of the aspects of a reign whose policy, internal and external, is partly explained by a dream:to be the political arm of Catholic Christianity, that is to say to fight both against the Infidel - the Muslim - but also against the Heretic - the Protestant.
The revolt of the Netherlands
This hearth ignited in 1566 for political and religious reasons:the sectarianism of the King of Spain prevented any conciliation, and the revolt spread in 1572, the United Provinces seceded in 1579. Despite the talent of their generals, the Spanish troops fail to prevent the dislocation of the empire inherited from Charles V in northern Europe, nor the constitution of a Protestant power.
Intervention in France
France is plunged into the Wars of Religion:the royal power there is weakened, the Protestants have a candidate for the throne:the King of Navarre, Henri, future Henri IV. The devout Philip II inevitably intervenes in the conflict:he finances the Catholics of the League, then sends his armies to fight in France. There again, he failed:he was unable to prevent, in 1589, the accession to the throne of Henri IV, who, it is true, had converted to Catholicism.
The fight against England
The last part of the king's external action still combines political (struggle for the control of the seas) and religious (war against Anglicanism) aspects:in 1588, the ex-husband of Marie Tudor sends an "Invincible Armada" , a huge fleet whose mission is to invade England. The storm, just as much as the defensive genius of the English sailors, converted this expedition of glory into an expedition of mourning. In his last years Philip, who governed from his palace-monastery of the Escorial, was seized with the same feeling of failure that marked the last years of his father, Charles V.