The Sultan's Admiral (4 page)

About the ancestry of the Barbarossas one thing is certain— there is no evidence that they had a drop of Turkish blood in their veins. Some Christian commentators have made great play with the fact that the two brothers who fathered Turkish prowess at sea were not Turks, but this is irrelevant. No one has ever denied to the Turks their prowess in warfare, or their fanatical courage. The sons of Ya’Kub may have been Roumeliot, Albanian, or Greek in their physical lineage, but they were certainly “Sons of the Prophet” in their faith.

It is a curious thought that, when the classical Greeks of antiquity descended upon the land that they were to make their own, they dispossessed a Mother Goddess (hitherto worshipped throughout the eastern Mediterranean) and installed, among a pantechnicon of gods and goddesses, a male god, the King of the Sky. The female mother goddess was, as it were, driven underground, until, with the increasing complexities of Christianity, she reasserted herself as the Virgin Mary. The Moslem Turks now, in their turn, removed the female from the religious calendar and brought back a conception of God not so far removed from the ancient Zeus. When nations are defeated, women submit to the new conquering males, and it is an ironical fact that the mother of the Barbarossas was the widow of an Orthodox Greek priest.

“A retired janissary, described as
un honnete Musulman
, made his home [in Lesbos], married the widow of a Greek priest, and evidently prospered as a potter, since he is said to have owned a vessel for the transportation of his wares and traded sometimes as far as Constantinople. Most of the family must still have been resident there in 1501, when Venetian and French forces tried to seize the island as a suitable base for operations against the Dardanelles, on the strength of a Genoese report that it was
moult riche, fertile el prenable . .

Both Turkish and Spanish records have it that Ya’Kub was a potter: an important trade then as now; and it is more than likely that he also had some acquaintance with the sea. Indeed, in an island like Lesbos, how could a man live without being familiar with the sea? The briny wind swirled the sails of the windmills that ground the corn. It drove the coasters southwards to Chios, Samos, Andros, and all the clustering islands of the archipelago. Islanders are usually seamen, and the sons of Ya’Kub were to prove that the salt was in their blood and the high north wind in their hearts.

There were four sons and two daughters of the marriage between the ex-janissary and the widow of the Greek priest. Their mother’s name was Catalina. We do not know the names of her daughters, but then, in the eastern Mediterranean, daughters are nothing to boast about. A man may proudly tell you how many sons he has, but he will omit to mention his daughters.

The sons, in the order of their seniority, were Aruj, Elias, Isaac, and Khizr (later to become the most famous man in Turkey, and indeed in the Mediterranean, under his acquired name of Kheir-ed-Din). It is possible that the two girls were brought up as Christians, under the Moslem custom which permitted the females to be raised in the religion of their mother. The four boys were, without any doubt, brought up as Moslems —and there were few Moslems more dedicated to their faith than janissaries like their father. The fact that Aruj had a red beard and Khizr a brown, or auburn, beard is an indication that they were not of Turkish blood. But, in their faith, like so many converts or sons of converts, they were more dedicated than those who had never known any other religion.

Aruj, the eldest son, seems to have started his career by working aboard his father’s boat; Elias to have studied to become an imam; Isaac to have been a carpenter; and Khizr, the youngest, to have helped his father in the pottery. The sixteenth-century Spanish historian Gomara as well as Diego Haedo (another contemporary, and a priest) both refer to the family background of the brothers in admiring terms. Although these historians came from the country that suffered most from the later depredations of the “red-bearded” brothers, and both were acquainted with men who had lived and worked with them, they never at any time descend to the vulgar abuse of the Barbarossas which became current among later European chroniclers. Indeed, if one may judge from their accounts, Ya’Kub and his wife and children were a model family: no hint here at all of bad upbringing leading to violent or “disgraceful” lives. The more one investigates the background of Aruj and Khizr, the clearer it becomes that it was not so dissimilar from that of Sir Francis Drake. Raised in a poor, but religious, environment, taught a craft, and expected to fend for themselves as soon as they reached manhood, these Turks were far from coming from a bad background. They were to be libelled in later centuries, but not by their contemporaries, and, just as Sir Francis Drake was to be hailed by the English as a great admiral while abused by the Spaniards as no more than a pirate, so these sons of Ya’Kub were to suffer at the hands of many European writers.

The first authentic story we hear of the early career of Aruj concerns a disastrous encounter with a galley of the Knights of St. John. The island of Rhodes, where these Christian warriors had made their home, was still firmly in their grasp. Indeed, it was not until 1522 that the Sultan, after a lengthy and bloody siege, finally expelled the knights from Rhodes. But at the time when Aruj, in company with his brother Isaac, was captain of a small galleot operating off the Dodecanese islands, the knights were very much in command of those waters. It is not known whether Aruj was at this time attempting to trade legitimately, or whether he was already embarked on a corsair’s career. But in all probability, as was quite normal at the time, he was combining legitimate trade with a little piracy on the side. As the Sultan gradually expanded his sway southward through the Aegean, independent citizens were often encouraged to harass what was left of the Italian-occupied islands. Certainly there was no discredit felt in raiding the lands and possessions of the Christian enemy.

Unfortunately for Aruj, he was destined on this occasion to fall in with one of the galleys belonging to the redoubtable Knights of St. John. “Those who have not seen a galley at sea, especially in chasing or being chased, cannot well conceive the shock such a spectacle must give to a heart capable of the least tincture of commiseration. To behold ranks and files of half-naked, half-starved, half-tanned meagre wretches, chained to a plank, from whence they remove not for months together (commonly half a year), urged on, even beyond human strength, with cruel and repeated blows on their bare flesh, to an incessant continuation of the most violent of all exercises; and this for whole days and nights successively, which often happens in a furious chase, when one party, like vultures, is hurried on almost as eagerly after their prey, as is the weaker party hurried away in hopes of preserving life and liberty.”

The lookouts aboard the great galley,
Our Lady of the Conception
, sighted the Turkish galleot as she slid out from behind a wooded point. At the very same moment Aruj, Isaac, and the rest of their crew caught sight of the cross that waved on the standard above the poop of the galley. They knew at once that this vessel belonged to the greatest enemies of the Turks, and indeed of all Moslems, the Knights of St. John—“the Chivalry of the Religion” as they were proud to call themselves. The Turks bent to the straining oars. Freemen all, they were well aware of the fate awaiting them if they fell into the hands of the knights.

Had there been any wind, it is just possible that the galleot might have escaped owing to her greater manoeuvrability, but it was a calm and empty day—the weather for which the fighting galley had been developed. As the fleeing Turks sweated and strained over their oars, the galley drew remorselessly nearer. Aruj, who in later years was often enough to enjoy the satisfaction of swooping upon a fat Christian prey, now found himself in the position of a sparrow hawk that has been unwise enough to fall foul of an eagle.

On the poop of
Our Lady of the Conception
there were gathered “the knights and gentlemen, and especially the admiral or captain, who sits at the stem under a red damask canopy embroidered with gold, surveying the crew, surrounded by the chivalry of ‘The Religion,’ whose white cross waves on the taffeta standard over their heads, and shines upon various pennants and burgees aloft . . The shrill call of the under officer’s silver whistle gave the order for the rowers to increase the stroke. Plash by plash, the galley drew nearer to the Turkish galleot— until it was within reach of the forward bow chasers. The seamen on the rambade now held their smouldering slow matches to the fuse holes of the guns, while the arquebusiers and archers stood ready to open fire.

Escape was impossible. Aruj shouted down to his crew to prepare to surrender. But before it could be made clear to the pursuing galley that they would meet with no resistance, they had begun their initial onslaught. With the first salvo from the guns and from the soldiers on her prow, Isaac, Aruj’s brother, was killed outright along with a number of other Turks. The galleot was overwhelmed and “Aruj and his little company were ironed and flung into the depths of the galley until such time as they should be wanted to take their turn at the oars. In this ignominious fashion ended his first attempt at independent piracy …”

Now he learned for the first time, as did innumerable other sailors in those days, what the word “failure” really meant. Whether you were a Christian or a Moslem, a man or a woman, to travel upon the Mediterranean in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was to hazard your life and liberty. If you were a man, you might finish on the oar bench or in the slave market. If you were a woman you would end up if you were fortunate in the harem of a rich Turk, or as an unpaid drudge in the kitchen or the fields.

Life was a cheap commodity. To survive beyond childhood and beyond puberty was an achievement in itself. After that, the strong, the cunning, and the lucky might continue to enjoy the few material and sensual comforts that divert the human animal. Isaac was eliminated from the continuous conflict of the world, but Aruj and the survivors from his crew were now to serve at the oar benches.

There is no record of how long Aruj spent as a galley slave; the only fact is that he was finally ransomed—either by his father or by the Turkish merchants who had invested in his galleot. In any event, he was to learn over a period of months, possibly a year or more, the way it was to toil at the heavy loom of an oar and to fear on your cringing shoulders the thongs of the overseer’s lash. He learned how the wind cries through the leather washers that were secured to the ship’s side, where the oars passed through the oarports, to prevent the seas washing in. He grew used to the diet of biscuit, bean soup, a little fresh vegetable and olive oil. The soup was only served in harbour, or when the sea was completely calm, thus permitting the charcoal-fired stove to be lit. He learned, too, that the worst enemy of the galley slave is the time of bad weather when the looms of the great oars jerk back against his chest, and when the stink of the stirred-up bilges rises like death into his nostrils. Calm weather, even though they had to row, was better for the slaves, and unless they were within sight of some quarry or objective they would work “watch-and-watch,” that is to say, half the oars on each side would be unmanned (the rowers sleeping or lying idle on their benches), while the other watch rowed. Then the time would come for the change of watches and the sleepers would be roused, given a meal, and, in their turn, put to work. It was during these idle hours that the oarsmen would make small carvings in wood or bone—scrimshaw work—or intricate knots and designs in rope. These products of their leisure they were allowed to sell when in harbour, to buy themselves a few luxuries, or even to indulge in the favours of some woman—herself a slave in the slave quarters.

Aruj survived, and he was finally ransomed: that is all we know about the time that he spent aboard the great galley
Our Lady of the Conception
. Shortly afterwards, it would seem that he was given the command of another ship and “for some years he followed the trade of scouring the seas, and soon became much noted and highly esteemed for his intrepidity among his associates, and failed not of signalising himself upon all occasions.” Certainly his harsh training at the oar had not made him any great lover of Christians.

It was in 1492, when Aruj was about eighteen and his youngest brother Khizr fourteen or so, that a momentous event took place in the Mediterranean world, one which was to affect the pattern of life in that sea for centuries to come. At the other end of the Mediterranean, remote from the growing power of Turkey, the Spanish people finally succeeded in expelling the Moors. As Stanley Lane-Poole commented in his history
The Barbary Corsairs
: “When the united wisdom of Ferdinand and Isabella resolved on the expatriation of the Spanish Moors, they forgot the risk of an exile’s vengeance. No sooner was Granada fallen than thousands of desperate Moors left the land which for seven hundred years had been their home, and, disdaining to live under a Spanish yoke, crossed the strait to Africa, where they established themselves at various strong points, such as Sher-shell, Oran, and notably at Algiers, which till then had hardly been heard of. No sooner were the banished Moors fairly settled in their new seats than they did what anybody in their place would have done: they carried the war into their oppressors’ country.”

Prior to the fall of Granada and the expulsion of the Moors, the relationships between the states of North Africa and those of Europe had been reasonably good and well conducted. Trading treaties were signed and honoured, and both sides benefited in the useful exchange of the manufactured goods of the one area for the raw materials of the other. The religious war which had long been flaming between Christian and Moslem in the East had had little effect upon the relationships between the Moslem rulers of the African Mediterranean coastline and the rulers of Europe. But all this was to change. Two quite dissimilar factors —the expansion of Turkish power in the East, and the arrival on the shores of North Africa of a revengeful Moslem population—were to combine, and to set in train a series of events that would shake Christian Europe. The action of Ferdinand and Isabella was to have unforeseen consequences. Similarly, the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, although officially regretted by the rulers of Europe (who had, in fact, denied any help to the threatened city), was to make Turkey a maritime power that would threaten and even dominate the Mediterranean sea lanes for centuries to come.