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Daring Deeds of Famous Pirates

<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI GALLEYS AND GALLANTRY</h2></div> But there was a third great Barbarian corsair to complete this terrible trio. Uruj and Kheyr-ed-din we have known. There is yet to be mentioned Dragut, who succeeded to the latter. He too was a Moslem who had been born in a coast village of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Rhodes. His early life is that of most pirates. He went to sea when quite young, was devoted to his profession, was filled with ambition, became an expert pilot and later became a skipper of his own craft. Then, feeling the call of the wild, he devoted himself to piracy and rose to notoriety. But the turning-point in his career came when he joined himself to the service of Kheyr-ed-din, who appointed Dragut to the entire command of a dozen of the corsair king’s galleys. Henceforward his life was that of his master, ravaging the Italian coasts, pillaging Mediterranean ships and dragging thousands of lives away into slavery. Two years after the battle of Prevesa, Dragut was in fame second only to Kheyr-ed-din, and another Doria—the nephew of Andrea—was sent forth to capture this new wasp of the sea. Doria succeeded in throwing his net so well that off the Corsican coast he was able to bring back Dragut as prisoner, and for the next four years the ex-corsair[71] was condemned to row as a slave in a Christian galley, until on a day his late master Kheyr-ed-din came sailing into Genoa. During his active, pillaging life he had obtained plenty of riches, so it was nothing for him to pay 3000 ducats and thus redeem from slavery a man who had been particularly useful to his own schemes. And from this day until Dragut fell fighting in 1565, he followed in the footsteps of the man who brought him his release. When Kheyr-ed-din died, the Turkish Sultan appointed Dragut as admiral of the Ottoman fleet. Like Barbarossa, Dragut’s first object was to obtain a base in Northern Africa, and eventually he was able to capture the town of “Africa” or Mehedia, to the east of Tunis. His next proceeding was to fortify this place. The news came to the ears of Charles V. that this had happened. The two Barbarossas were dead, but there was another almost as pernicious. Was this pestilence of piracy never to cease? Andrea Doria was an old man now, but he was bidden by Charles to go after Dragut, and he went. Nor was he sorry for an opportunity of wiping out his own undistinguished action at Prevesa. Dragut was away harrying the coasts of Spain, and his nephew Aisa was left in charge of “Africa.” Meanwhile Doria searched for him along the African coast, came to “Africa,” but after losing some men and with great damage to his own ship, Doria, as the season was getting late, returned home. But the following June, Doria with his fleet arrived off Mehedia, besieged the city, and, after an expenditure of great effort, took it, capturing Aisa. Mehedia was lost, but Dragut was still at large. He repaired to Constantinople and thence to Jerbah, the island off the east coast of Tunis. Hither also came Andrea Doria and hemmed the corsair in. At last the pirate was[72] in a trap, but like many another clever rascal he found a way out with consummate cleverness. What he did may briefly be summed up as follows: Outside were the waiting Christian fleet, which was merely amused by the sight of a new fort becoming daily greater. But these earthworks were just so much bluff. For Dragut, by means of these, was able to conceal what was being done on the other side. With marvellous ingenuity he had caused a road to be made across the island to the sea on the other side; he had laid down a surface of well-greased planks, and under the further cover of darkness had made his men drag his galleys across till they were launched into the sea on the opposite coast. The rest was easy, and the corsair fleet once more escaped, having fooled Dorea in a manner that amazed him. To add impudence to insult, Dragut at once captured a Sicilian galley on its way to Dorea, containing Muley Hassan, Sultan of Tunis. The latter was promptly sent as a present to the Sultan of Turkey, who allowed him to end his days in prison. Of the rest of the acts of this corsair we have but little space to speak. It is sufficient if we say that he well bore the mantle which had fallen to him from the shoulders of Barbarossa. He continued his scourging of the seas, he fought gallantly, he laid waste and he captured prisoners for slavery. Power and dominion came to him as to his predecessors, and before long he was the ruler of Tripoli and more than ever the enemy of the Christian race. Finally he died at the siege of Malta, but he in turn was succeeded by Ali Basha of Algiers, who conquered the kingdom of Tunis, captured Maltese galleys, and showed that the old corsair spirit was still alive. But the day of reckoning was at hand, and there was to be settled in one of the most momentous events of history[73] a debt that had long been owing to the Christians. Of all the decisive battles of the world few stand out more conspicuously than the battle of Lepanto. In spite of all the great maritime expeditions which had been sent to put down piracy in the Mediterranean, the evil had recurred again and again. There were two reasons why Christian Europe was determined to beat these corsairs: firstly, the latter were natural enemies because they were Moslems; but, secondly, they were the worst type of pirates. All the losses of Christian lives, goods and ships merely increased the natural hatred of these Mohammedans. And in Lepanto we see the last great contest in which these truculent corsairs fought as a mighty force. Thereafter there were repeated piratical attacks by these men, but they of a more individualistic nature than proceeding from an enormous organisation. Lepanto was fought sixteen years before the Elizabethans defeated the Armada. Before we say anything of the contest itself it is necessary to remind the reader that whereas in the contest which took place in the waters that wash England, the bulk of the ships were sail-propelled and had high freeboard (with some exceptions), yet at Lepanto it was the reverse. The fighting ship of the Mediterranean from the very earliest times had always been of the galley type, even though it contained variations of species. And never was this characteristic more clearly manifested than at the battle of which we are now to speak. There were galleys and galleasses, but though the former were certainly somewhat big craft, yet the latter were practically only big editions of the galley. The value of Lepanto is twofold. It proved to the world that the great Ottoman Empire was not invincible on sea. It showed also that in spite of all that the cleverest[74] corsair seamen could do, there were sufficient unity and seamanlike ability in Christian Europe to defeat the combined efforts of organised piracy and Mohammedanism. No one can deny that Ali Basha distinguished himself as a fine admiral at this battle, yet he was not on the side of victory. When he found himself defeated there fell simultaneously the greatest blow which organised piracy had received since it established itself along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Lepanto was no mere isolated event; it was the logical outcome of the conflict between Christianity on the one hand and Mohammedanism with piracy on the other. It is as unfair to omit the consideration of Moslemism from the cause of this battle as it were to leave out the fact of piracy. The solidarity of the Christian expedition was formed by what was called the Holy League, embracing the ships of the Papal States, Spain and Venice. The unity of the opposing side was ensured by the fidelity of the Barbarian corsairs to the Sultan of Turkey. In supreme command of the former was Don John of Austria, son of that Charles V. who had done so much to oust these corsair wasps. The Christian fleet numbered about three hundred, of which two-thirds were galleys, and they collected at Messina. The scene where the battle was to take place was already historic. It was practically identical with that of Prevesa, of which we have already spoken, and with that of the classical Actium in 31 B.C., though exactly it was a little to the south of where Prevesa had been fought. Just as in the latter Kheyr-ed-din had fought against Andrea Doria, so now Dragut was to fight against John Andrea Doria. The Moslem strength may be gauged from the statement that it contained 250 galleys plus a number of smaller ships. But just as Prevesa had been marked[75] by little fighting but much manœuvring, so Lepanto was distinguished by an absence of strategy and a prevalence of desperate, hard hitting. Whatever strategy was displayed belonged to Ali Basha. The galleasses of the Christian side dealt wholesale death into the Moslems, though Andrea’s own flagship suffered severely in the fight. Spanish, Venetian and Maltese galleys fought most gallantly, but Ali Basha, after capturing the chief of the Maltese craft, was obliged to relinquish towing her, and himself compelled to escape from the battle. At least 5000 Christians perished at Lepanto, but six times that amount were slaughtered of the Moslems, together with 200 of the latter’s ships. The corsairs had rendered the finest assistance, but they had failed with distinction. Christian craft had won the great day, and never since that autumn day in 1571 have the pirates of Barbary attained to their previous dominion and organised power. Ali returned to Constantinople, and even the next year was again anxious to fight his late enemies, though no actual fighting took place. Still another year later Tunis was taken from the Turks by Don John of Austria. For nine years after the event of Lepanto, Ali Basha lived on, and, like his predecessors, spent much of his time harrying the Christian coastline of southern Italy. There were many pirates for long years after his death, but with the decease of Ali Basha closed the grand period of the Moslem corsairs. It had been a century marked by the most amazing impudence on the part of self-made kings and tyrants. But if it showed nothing else, it made perfectly clear what enormous possibilities the sea offered to any man who had enough daring and self-confidence in addition to that essential quality of sea-sense. From mere common sailormen these four great corsairs—the two Barbarossas, Dragut[76] and Ali Basha—rose to the position of autocrats and admirals. Mere robbers and bandits though they were, yet the very mention of their names sent a shudder through Christendom. And it was only the repeated and supreme efforts of the great European powers which could reduce these pirate kings into such a condition that honest ships could pursue their voyages with any hope of reaching their destined ports. Surely, in the whole history of lawlessness, there never were malefactors that prospered for so long and to such an extent! We have spoken in this chapter of galleys and galleasses. Before we close, let us add a few words of explanation to facilitate the reader’s vision. Bearing in mind the interesting survival of the galley type throughout Mediterranean warfare, it must not be forgotten that in detail this type of craft varied in subsequent centuries. There remained, however, the prevailing fact that she relied primarily on oars, and that she drew comparatively little water and had but little freeboard in proportion to the caravels, caracks and ocean-going ships of war and commerce. The great virtue of the galley consisted in her mobility. Her greatest defect lay in her lack of sea-keeping qualities. For the galley’s work was concerned with operations within a limited sphere with the land not far away; in other words, she was suited for conditions the exact opposite of that kind of craft which could sail to the West Indies or go round Cape Horn. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus3.jpg" width-obs="700" height-obs="460" alt="" /> Galley Slaves The life of a galley slave was one of dreadful hardship. They were chained five or six to an oar, fed on the scantiest of food, and a boatswain walked up and down a gangway in the centre wielding his terrible lash on those who incurred his anger. </div> The amazing feature of these galleys was the large number of oarsmen required; but this was an age when human life was regarded more cheaply than to-day. Slaves could be had by raiding towns or capturing ships. The work of pulling at the oar was healthy if terribly hard. A minimum of food and the stern lash of the boatswain as he[77] walked up and down the gangway that ran fore-and-aft down the centre of the ship kept the men at their duty, and their shackles prevented them from deserting. But when their poor, wearied bodies became weak, they were thrown overboard before their last breath had left them. The prints, which are still in existence, show that the number of oarsmen in a sixteenth-century galley ran into hundreds—two or three hundred of these galley-slaves would be no rare occurrence in one craft. They retained the beak and the arrangement of the yards from the time of the Romans. At the stern sat the commander with his officers. When these craft carried cannon the armament was placed in the bows. By the sixteenth, or at any rate the seventeenth, century, the galley had reached her climax, and it was not thought remarkable that her length should be about 170 feet and her breadth only about 20 feet. She may be easily studied by the reader on referring to an accompanying illustration. Whether used by Christian or corsair, by Maltese knights or Moslem Turks, they were not very different from the picture which is here presented. With five men to each heavy oar, with seamen to handle the sails when employed, with soldiers to fight the ship, she was practically a curious kind of raft or floating platform. Irrespective of religion or race, it was customary for the sixteenth-century nations to condemn their prisoners to row chained to these benches. Thus, for example, when the Spaniards captured Elizabethan seamen, the latter were thus employed, just as Venetian prisoners were made to row in Moslem galleys. Convicted criminals were also punished by this means. The difference between the old and new was never better seen than in the late sixteenth century, when the big-bellied man-of-war with sails and guns were beginning to discard[78] the old boarding tactics. It was the gun and not the sword on which they were now relying. But the galley was dependent less on her gunnery than on boarding. It was her aim to fight not at a distance but at close quarters—to get right close alongside and then pour her soldiers on to the other ship and obtain possession. The galeass of the Mediterranean, although the word was somewhat largely used, signified an attempt to combine the sea-qualities of the big-bellied ship with the mobility of the galley. Compromises are, however, but rarely successful, and though the galleass was a much more potent fighting unit, yet she was less mobile, if a better sea craft. She began by being practically a big galley with forecastle and sterncastle and another deck; she ended in being little less clumsy than the contemporary ship of the line which relied on sails and guns. Anyone who cares to examine the contemporary pictures of the Spanish galleasses used by the Armada against England in the reign of Elizabeth can see this for himself. It is true that even as far north as Amsterdam in the seventeenth century the galley was employed, and there are many instances when she fought English ships in the Channel, off Portsmouth and elsewhere. For a time some lingered on in the British Navy, but they were totally unsuited for the waters of the North Sea and English Channel, and gave way to the sail-propelled ships of larger displacement. <hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> [79] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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