The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean

by David Abulafia

  Doña Gracia was joined in Constantinople by her nephew and son-in-law, João Miguez; after circumcision he took the name Joseph Nasi, modestly signifying ‘prince’. His career was even more dramatic than that of his aunt. He had the good fortune to support the winning candidate in the struggle for power that followed the death of Süleyman the Magnificent in 1566, and became a trusted adviser of Sultan Selim II, ‘Selim the Sot’, who, it has been said, preferred bottles to battles.51 Wine made the fortune of Joseph Nasi, just as it hastened the downfall of his master. Although Süleyman had forbidden the sale of wine in Constantinople, in accordance with Islamic law, Joseph Nasi was granted a monopoly on the carriage of wine from Venetian Crete past Constantinople to Moldavia. This produced handsome taxes of 2,000 ducats per annum for the Ottoman government, and his income grew when the ban on wine in the capital was relaxed in order to permit Jews and Christians to deal in it, which of course meant that it seeped into the wider economy (it already flooded into the Topkapı Palace).52 One place that had been celebrated in classical antiquity for its wine was Dionysos’ isle of Naxos in the Cyclades, and it was therefore appropriate that Joseph was granted the title of duke of Naxos when Selim ascended to the throne. The island had remained under loose Venetian suzerainty until 1536, after which the Turks took charge but permitted its Latin duke to remain so long as he paid tribute; the Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Naxos complained to the Sublime Porte about misgovernment, and Selim thought that appointing a Jewish duke would be no less suitable than having a Catholic one. In reality, the Naxians were hostile to any government imposed from outside, though Nasi spent most of his time in Constantinople, where he lived in a very grandiose style and took great pride in his title.

  Joseph looked beyond the Aegean. He developed a scheme to encourage Jewish settlement in Tiberias, in Galilee.53 The mystically inclined Sephardic Jews of nearby Safed lacked a solid source of income, though they attempted to promote a textile industry and even printing; the duke of Naxos saw their salvation in silk, and proposed to plant mulberry trees. He also arranged for Spanish wool to be sent across the Mediterranean to Tiberias, in the hope of stimulating a woollen cloth industry in imitation of the expanding cloth industry of Venice.54 He wanted to attract settlers from as far away as Italy, for a renewed bout of persecution in the Papal States stimulated hundreds of Jews to set out for the more tolerant Ottoman lands of the East. A letter that circulated among Jewish communities in the Mediterranean stated in rotund language:

  We have heard from the corner of the land the songs of glory addressed to the righteous one, the Nasi [prince], the aforementioned lord, that he has lavished money from his purse and arranged in many places, such as Venice and Ancona, ships and help, in order to put an end to the groaning of the captive.55

  Reaching Tiberias was not easy. One shipload of immigrants was captured by the Knights of St John, and the passengers were enslaved. By repopulating the ancient holy cities of Palestine, Jewish settlers hoped to accelerate the coming of the Messiah; neither they nor Joseph Nasi possessed a coherent notion of building a Jewish state or principality. In the event, the Tiberias initiative withered, for the region was still insecure, and it was only in the mid-eighteenth century that Jewish settlers returned, this time permanently.56

  IV

  The duke of Naxos was able to exert considerable influence at the Ottoman court. In 1568 he became exasperated with attempts to recover massive amounts of his property and funds that had been seized in France, and he persuaded Selim to issue a decree that one third of the goods on board French ships should be expropriated until the duke’s claims were met. Its target was the Levant trade through Alexandria, but the decree caused unexpected disruption when Egyptian tax officials assumed that it also applied to ships from Venice and Dubrovnik. Meanwhile, the French court was shocked by what was seen as a breach in its long-standing alliance with Turkey, all in the private interests of one man (a Jew, to boot) who claimed to have been wronged. Although relations between the French king and the Ottoman sultan were gradually patched together again, Joseph Nasi never received full satisfaction for his claims.57 The sultan was prepared to listen to him once again, though, in 1569, while the Ottomans were planning the invasion of Cyprus. When a massive explosion destroyed the powder dump in the Venetian Arsenal in September of that year, along with four galleys, colourful rumours attributed what was almost certainly an accident waiting to happen to the malign machinations of the Jew of Naxos. Still, he had grudges against Venice, which had treated his famous aunt badly, and which aspired to control his islands in the Cyclades. Selim the Sot, in his cups, is said to have promised Nasi the ultimate prize: the crown of Cyprus, which the Ottomans decided to pluck from Venetian hands, and the story was embroidered further with tales that he commissioned a crown for the great day of triumph, and had a banner made bearing the inscription ‘Joseph Nasi, king of Cyprus’. More precisely, Venetian observers considered that Joseph Nasi was pressing for an attack on Cyprus, even though the Grand Vizier, Mehmet Sokollu, advised against.58 As usual, Turkish policy took time to be formulated, and there were eloquent war and peace parties. Even so, the rumour of an attack on Cyprus was already being disseminated in January 1566, when the Venetian bailo in charge of his fellow-nationals in Constantinople reported that plans were being drawn up; in September 1568 the Venetians were further alarmed by the arrival of a Turkish fleet of sixty-four galleys in Cyprus, notionally on a goodwill visit. The Turks unselfconsciously examined the fortifications of the two cities they would need to capture: Nicosia in the interior, and Famagusta on the east coast. Among the visitors was the duke of Naxos.59

  Cyprus was an obvious target, a Christian possession isolated in the far corner of the eastern Mediterranean. The Turks had recently (in 1566) cleared the Genoese out of their last base in the Aegean, Chios. The presence of these Christian enclaves distracted the Ottomans from other pressing needs, such as the struggle against the Safavid Shahs of Persia and the wish to keep the waters of the Indian Ocean clear of their new rivals, the Portuguese India fleet. Cyprus offered refuge to Christian pirates who preyed on grain ships, and, now that grain production was in decline, the routes carrying grain towards Constantinople and other major centres needed to be protected. Interference by Christian pirates in the pilgrim traffic that led across these waters to the holy cities of Islam in Arabia was another genuine grievance. Islamic apologists for war could argue that there had been earlier occasions when the island was occupied and governed by the Muslims, or at least paid them tribute; it was a fundamental rule that lands that had once formed part of the dar al-Islam should be recovered when possible. Indeed, when the Venetians objected to the growing threat to Cyprus, Sokollu said the matter now lay in the hands of the experts in Islamic law, led by the Grand Mufti, and was not moved by the reminder that the Turks had cultivated good relations with Venice over many decades.60 Now, however, the Sublime Porte delivered an ultimatum requiring Venice to hand over the island if it wished to avoid war.

  Just as Ottoman attitudes hardened, so did the attitude of Philip II, though as usual he was worried about where he could find the funds to pay for a fleet; his troops were literally bogged down in Flanders, fighting the Protestants and other rebels against the Spanish Crown. Philip hoped the pope could raise money to pay for this war. He could offer half the costs of the campaign, Venice a quarter.61 Endless bargaining followed, not just about finance but about the chain of command. Philip II became less distracted by events in the Low Countries after the duke of Alva imposed a harsh and uneasy peace there.62 Within Spain itself, rebellion among the Moriscos, many of whom remained attached to their ancestral religion, used up Spanish resources and delayed Philip’s response to the appeal for a Holy League; it also made the League seem more urgent, for the danger of a Turkish strike on Spain, supported by the Barbary rulers and the Moriscos, aroused fears that Islamic armies were about to return to Spanish soil.

  All this wavering left the Turks free to swoop d
own on Cyprus. In early July 1570 they brought a massive army of around 100,000 men on a fleet of 400 ships, including 160 galleys.63 The Turks decided that their first target should be Nicosia, in the interior, though the Venetians had set to work repairing and extending its earthworks and stone walls. Nicosia held out for a while, but after desperate fighting within the walls, the Turkish soldiers obtained their distasteful prize: the right to kill, rape and despoil the inhabitants. All the while the western powers were still arguing, in ignorance of events in Cyprus. Eventually a fleet of fewer than 200 warships set out for Cyprus, in mid-September, only to hear the news of the defeat at Nicosia as they sailed east; uncertainty about what to do next led to new arguments between Philip’s admiral, Gian Andrea Doria, and the papal commander, Marcantonio Colonna. Nothing was done to challenge the Turks at Nicosia, and sensibly so, since Doria was surely right: there was no hope of recapturing an inland city without massive armies and a much larger navy. The siege of Malta had concentrated on the outer edge of a small island; Cyprus was a very different proposition.64 The one source of hope was Famagusta, not yet taken by the Turks, for it possessed its own sturdy line of defences, and could in theory be supplied from the sea. An opportunity seemed to arise in winter 1571, when the Turkish fleet had largely withdrawn from the waters around Famagusta; a Venetian squadron broke through the weak Turkish defences, but left only 1,319 soldiers behind, making a total of 8,100 defenders. Mehmet Sokollu in Constantinople calculated that this might be a good opportunity to talk peace with the Venetians, though of course they would have to surrender Famagusta. He doubted whether they really had the means or the will to fight.65 Venice was in a bullish mood, however – the Venetians even succeeded in capturing Durazzo, which they had lost at the start of the century, and which was strategically as valuable to them as Cyprus was to the Turks. Venice declined an offer of a trading station in Famagusta in return for the cession of the island. In any case, negotiations in another quarter were reaching their end. The Holy League was formed, a highly ambitious crusading force that brought together the pope, Venice and Spain, and that won for Philip an agreement that some of the objectives that were dearest to his heart, notably the war in north-west Africa, should be permanent objectives of the League.66 Its commander was to be the youthful but energetic bastard son of Charles V, Don John of Austria.

  The building of the great fleet required for the Holy League continued as Famagusta held out. The Turks sent a fleet by way of Venetian Crete, which they raided, into the Ionian Sea and southern Adriatic, diverting the Venetian navy from its wider concerns. Among coastal fortresses that now fell into Turkish hands was Ulcinj, just to the north of the modern border between Montenegro and Albania. Turkish ships harried their foes as far north as Korčula and Dubrovnik (though the Ragusans managed to preserve their neutrality, carefully respected by both sides).67 Then the Turks homed in on Zadar, in the northern Adriatic, and dangerously close to Venice itself, where memories of the War of Chioggia 180 years earlier must have been revived. Still, the aim was to scare rather than smash Venice – to convince the Venetians that their empire was fragile and that resistance to Ottoman power was futile. Moreover, after months of bombardment, the wrecked city of Famagusta was ready to surrender. In early August the Venetian commander, Bragadin, presented himself at the tent of the Turkish commander, Lala Mustafa. The mood soured when Mustafa learned that fifty Muslim pilgrims whom the Venetians had incarcerated had now been executed. Lala Mustafa’s displeasure turned into fury. Bragadin’s companions were killed on the spot, Bragadin was mutilated; ten days later, he was flayed alive and his stuffed skin was borne triumphantly around Cyprus, then despatched to Constantinople.68 This was as much a message to the Ottoman court, and particularly to Mehmet Sokollu, as it was to Venice: by his foul behaviour, Lala Mustafa hoped to undermine those who thought peace with Venice was still possible.69 There was no need for this rough persuasion: the fleet of the Holy League was all but ready to sail. At sea off Corfu the Christian navy learned that Famagusta had fallen. If anything, this news strengthened their resolve.70

  The great battle of Lepanto that followed, at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, has long been regarded as one of the decisive sea battles in history: ‘the most spectacular military event in the Mediterranean during the entire sixteenth century’, according to Fernand Braudel, whose study of the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II culminated in an account of the battle. ‘There is no doubt that on this occasion Don John was the instrument of destiny,’ Braudel proclaimed, sententiously and mysteriously. A struggle close to the mouth of the Adriatic had different implications from a siege in the Sicilian Straits. The Turks had revealed in the months before the battle that they aspired to win the Adriatic, and had accompanied their sea-raids with land-raids from Turkish Bosnia towards the Venetian possessions at the head of the Adriatic. These raids were not simply motivated by empire-building or the wish to spread Islamic rule. As will become clear, the Turks were also goaded by Slav Christian pirates and bandits in northern Dalmatia, the crusading Uskoks.

  The balance between the rival forces was very delicate. The number of soldiers on board the ships of each side was similar: somewhere around 30,000 troops, though it is possible the Turkish marines had greater experience.71 There were more Turkish ships than Christian ones: just 200 on the Christian side, and maybe 300 on the Turkish, which the Ottoman admiral, Müezzinzâde Ali, organized in a crescent shape in the hope of wrapping his fleet around the Christian navy, while the centre of his line would attempt to break the Christian navy into digestible chunks.72 Western ships, though, were built to last, whereas part of the Ottoman fleet was constructed out of ‘green’ wood and was regarded as disposable – suitable for a couple of seasons before replacement. The Ottoman fleet consisted mainly of light galleys that sat low in the water, increasing their vulnerability but also enabling them to handle shallower in-shore waters in which they could hope to outflank the heavier Christian craft; Venice also favoured relatively light galleys.73 The Christian navy possessed about twice as many cannon as the Turkish, but the Turks had brought along very many archers; guns were devastating, but slow to load, while archers could reload in an instant.74 Both sides also used matchlock arquebuses, hand-held guns which were not terribly accurate, but which could be reloaded reasonably fast, and had replaced the deadly crossbows of the late Middle Ages.75 The Spanish flagship, the Real, carried 400 Sardinian arquebusiers; the Ottoman flagship, the Sultana, only half that number.76 Added to this there were problems created by the tight location, the Kurzolaris islands, to the east of Ithaka, where narrow channels impeded the quick deployment of the Christian galleys.77

  In these circumstances, it is no surprise that the battle resulted in horrific casualties. The navy of the Holy League was convinced that the crucial moment in the struggle against the Turks had come, and impressive acts of bravery under Turkish fire led to many deaths. The Venetian commander, Agostino Barbarigo, showed almost complete disregard for his vessel’s safety when he directed the flagship of the Most Serene Republic towards advancing Ottoman galleys, and tried to stand in their way. One Venetian captain after another was killed – members of the great Venetian dynasties such as the Querini and the Contarini. Barbarigo pressed on regardless, though he foolishly lifted his visor as a hail of arrows descended on his ship, and he was struck in the eye, dying down below soon afterwards. But papal and Neapolitan galleys attached to the Venetian squadrons came up from behind, and, minute by minute, the Turks were edged back.78 Heavy gunfire from the bows of the Venetian galleasses tore Turkish ships apart, and the galley-slaves shackled to their positions were dragged down to the bottom of the sea with the smashed remains of their galley. Smoke from the constant cannon fire impeded Turkish bowmen. The slaughter was relentless, hideous and fanatical.79 Finally Christian marines boarded the flagship of Müezzinzâde Ali, who died fighting manfully; his head was raised on a pike to the great benefit of Christian morale.80 This did not end the figh
ting, for Algerian ships also entered the fray. But as dusk fell the fleet of the Holy League pulled away from the blood-coloured waters and took shelter from an approaching thunderstorm. The next morning it became apparent from the sheer evidence of death and destruction that the Holy League had not just won a massive victory, but that the number of Turkish dead was almost beyond counting. Maybe 25,000 or even 35,000 had died on the Turkish side, including not just galley-slaves but captains and commanders, while Christian losses were much lighter, though still very considerable: 8,000 dead and a larger number wounded (of whom a further 4,000 soon died); about two-thirds of the casualties were Venetian, a blow to its skilled manpower the city cannot have found it easy to bear. On the other hand, at least 12,000 Christians found on board the Turkish galleys were freed.81

  Back in Venice the news of the victory, despite the massive casualties, alleviated the despair felt at the loss of Cyprus. The scale of the victory was brought home to the Venetians when a ship arrived from Lepanto trailing the banners of the defeated enemy; victory was celebrated in Venice, Rome and across Italy and Spain, not just by bonfires and fiestas but, more permanently, in vast frescoes and canvases in the Doge’s Palace and other public places.82 And yet the victory was, in strategic terms, no more than a stalemate, for in the coming years neither side would have the manpower, timber and supplies to fit out new fleets on this scale, or at least to risk them in great sea battles.83 Don John of Austria, in the flush of success, would have liked to press on towards Constantinople itself, but Philip II, with characteristic caution, thought that it was best if the surviving galleys wintered in Italy.84 It is true, as Braudel asserted, that victory at Lepanto helped protect Italy and Sicily from further attack, but the siege of Malta had already preserved Christian mastery over the waters off Sicily. The political map of the Mediterranean had been drawn in the years and weeks leading up to 7 October 1571. Famagusta had fallen and the Venetians had no hope of recovering Cyprus; Malta had stood firm, and the Turks would need to think again before they attacked the stronghold of the Knights, even though they did return to those waters, and secured their position at Tunis in 1574. What was important, Braudel insisted, was that ‘the spell of Turkish supremacy had been broken’.85 Lepanto consolidated a position that had already come into being: the Mediterranean was now divided between two naval powers, the Turks in the east, holding all major coasts and islands apart from Venetian Crete; the Spaniards in the west, with the support of fleets from Malta and Italy.