A History of Sea Power. Allan F. Westcott
where Doria wanted him. Accordingly on the 27th of September, the Turkish fleet sailed out to offer battle. It happened that Doria had gone ten miles away to Sessola for anchorage, and the Galleon of Venice lay becalmed right in the path of the advancing fleet. Condalmiero sent word for help, and Doria ordered him to begin fighting, assuring him that he would soon be reënforced.
The Turkish galleys, advancing in a crescent formation, soon enveloped the lonely ship. Her captain ordered his crew to lie down on her deck while he alone stood, in full armor, a target to the host of Moslems who pushed forward in their galleys anxious for the honor of capturing this great ship. Condalmiero ordered his gunners to hold their fire until the enemy were within arquebus range. Then the broadsides of the galleon blazed and the surrounding galleys crumpled and sank. A single shot weighing 120 pounds sank a galley with practically all on board. The signal to retreat was given and speedily obeyed.
Thereafter there were to be no more rushing tactics. Barbarossa organized his galleys in squadrons of twenty, which advanced, one after the other, delivered their fire, and retired. All the rest of the day, from about noon till sunset, this strange conflict between the single galleon and the Turkish fleet went on. The ship was cumbered with her fallen spars; she had lost thirteen men killed and forty wounded. The losses would have been far greater but for the extraordinarily thick sides of the galleon. After sundown the Turkish fleet appeared to be drawing up in line for the last assault. On the Galleon of Venice there was no thought of surrender; the ammunition was almost spent and the men were exhausted with their tremendous efforts, but they stood at their posts determined to defend their ship to the last man.
Then, to their astonishment Barbarossa drew off, sending some of his galleys to pursue and cut off certain isolated Christian units, but leaving the field to the Venetian galleon. Meanwhile, during all that long, hot afternoon the great fleet of Andrea Doria, instead of pressing forward to the relief of the Galleon of Venice and crushing Barbarossa with its great superiority in numbers, was going through strange parade maneuvers about ten miles away. Doria's explanation was that he was trying to decoy Barbarossa out into deeper water where the guns of the nefs could be used, but there is no other conclusion to be reached than that Doria did not want to fight. Fortune that day offered him everything for an overwhelming victory, one that might have ranked with the decisive actions of the world's history, and he threw it away under circumstances peculiarly disgraceful and humiliating. Never did commander in chief so richly deserve to be shot on his own deck. The following day as a fair wind blew for Corfu, Doria spread sail and retired from the gulf, while Barbarossa, roaring with laughter, called on his men to witness the cowardice of this Christian admiral.
The victory lay with Barbarossa. With a greatly inferior force he had challenged Doria and attacked. Doria had not only declined the challenge but fled back to Corfu. No wonder the Sultan ordered the cities of his domain to be illuminated. Barbarossa's prizes included two galleys and five nefs, but he, too, had failed in an inexplicable fashion in drawing off from the assault on the Galleon of Venice at the end of the day's fighting. It is with her, with the gallant Condalmiero and his men, that all the honor of the day belongs. Nothing in the adventurous 16th century surpasses their splendid, disciplined valor on this occasion.
The astonishing powers of resistance and the deadly effect of the broadsides of the Galleon of Venice displayed in a long and successful fight against an entire fleet of galleys should have had the effect of making a revolution in naval architecture fifty years before that change actually occurred. But men of war of those days were built after the models of Venetian architects, and the latter clung doggedly to the galley. They overlooked the great defensive and offensive powers of the galleon displayed in this story and saw only the fact that she was becalmed and unable to move.
Doria's failure left conditions in the Mediterranean as bad as ever. Barbarossa died at the age of ninety, but one of the last acts of his life was to ransom a follower of his, Dragut, Pasha of Tripoli, who had served under him at Prevesa and, having been captured two years later, served four years as a galley slave on the ship of Gian Andrea Doria, the grandnephew and heir of Andrea Doria. Dragut soon assumed the leadership laid down by Barbarossa, his master, fighting first the elder Doria and then his namesake with great skill and audacity. For years the Knights of Malta had been a thorn in the side of the Moslems who roamed the sea, and in 1565 a gigantic effort was made by the Sultan, together with his tributaries from the Barbary states, to wipe out this naval stronghold. The siege that followed was distinguished by the most reckless courage and the most desperate fighting on both sides. It extended from May 18 to September 8, costing the Christians 8000 and the Moslems 30,000 lives. In the midst of the siege Dragut himself was slain, and the conduct of the siege fell into less capable hands. Finally the Turks withdrew.
The death of Soliman the Magnificent, in 1566, brought to the head of the Turkish state a ruler known by the significant name, Selim the Drunkard. Weak and debauched as he was, nevertheless he aspired to add to the Turkish dominions as his father had done. Accordingly, he informed Venice that she must evacuate Cyprus. Previous to this time Venice had succeeded, by means of heavy bribes to the Sultan's ministers, in keeping her hold on this important island, but this policy only tempted further arrogance on the part of the Turk. Further, the time was propitious for such a stroke because Venice was impoverished by bad harvests and the loss of her naval arsenal by fire, Spain was occupied in troubles with the Moors, and France, torn with civil war, wanted to keep peace with the Sultan at any price. During the terrible siege of Malta Venice had remained neutral; now that the danger came home to her she cried for help, and not unnaturally there were those who sneered at her in this crisis and bade her save herself.
The Pope, however, had long been anxious to organize a league of Christian peoples to win back the Mediterranean to the Cross and draw a line beyond which the Crescent should never pass. In this plight of Venice he saw an opportunity, because hitherto the persistent neutrality or the unwillingness of the Venetians to fight the Turk to the finish had been one of the chief obstacles to concerted action. He therefore pledged his own resources to Venice and attempted to collect allies by the appeal to the Cross. The results were discouraging, but a force of Spanish, Papal, and Venetian galleys was finally collected and after endless delays dispatched to the scene in the summer of 1570.
Meanwhile the Turks had been pressing their attack on Cyprus and were besieging the city of Nicosia. If the Christians had been moved by any united spirit they could have relieved Nicosia and struck a heavy blow at the Turkish fleet, which lay unready and stripped of its men in the harbor. But Gian Doria, who inherited from his great uncle his great dislike of Venetians, and who probably had secret instructions from his master, Philip II, to help as little as possible, succeeded in blocking any vigorous move on the part of the other commanders. Finally, after a heated quarrel, he sailed back to Sicily with his entire fleet, and the rest followed. The allies had gone no nearer Cyprus than the port of Suda in Crete. The whole expedition, therefore, came to nothing.
In September Nicosia fell to the Turk, who then turned to the conquest of Famagusta, the last stronghold of the Venetians on the island. Bragadino, the commander of the besieged forces, fought against desperate odds with a courage and skill worthy of the best traditions of his native city, hoping to repulse the Turks until help could arrive. But Doria's defection in 1570 decided the fate of the city the following year. After fifty-five days of siege, with no resources left, Bragadino was compelled, on August 4, 1571, to accept an offer of surrender on honorable terms. The Turkish commander, enraged at the loss of 50,000 men, which Bragadino's stubborn defense had cost, no sooner had the Venetians in his power than he massacred officers and men and flayed their commander alive. This news did not reach the Christians, however, until their second expedition was almost at grips with the Turks at Lepanto.
The Campaign of Lepanto
Undismayed by the failure of his first attempt, Pope Pius had immediately gone to work to reorganize his Holy League. He had to overcome the mutual hatred and mistrust that lay between Spain and Venice, aggravated by the recent conduct of Doria, but neither the Pope nor Venice could do without the help of Spain. There was much bickering between the envoys in the Papal chambers, and it was not till February, 1571, that the terms of the new enterprise were agreed upon. By this contract no one of the powers represented was to make a separate peace with the Porte. The costs