Empires of the Sea - the Final Battle for the Mediterranean 1521-1580 (37 page)

Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE HISTORY
of the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century is a testament to the invention of printing and the spread of literacy. Where the great event of the Mediterranean world in the fifteenth century—the fall of Constantinople in 1453—is recorded in a mere handful of short accounts, the siege of Malta, the battle of Lepanto, and all the major events and protagonists in this book are the subjects of numerous vivid chronicles, personal testaments, pamphlets, ballads, prints, and news sheets, produced in all the languages of Western Europe for a receptive audience. In addition to this explosion of printed material, there are literally millions of memoranda, letters, secret briefings, and diplomatic exchanges about the events of the time, dictated by the major players and scribed and dispatched across the sea by professional secretariats in Madrid, Rome, Venice, and Istanbul. For example, it has been suggested that no one person has ever read all the correspondence of Philip II of Spain, who ruled half the world from his study desk for forty-two years, and who could produce twelve hundred items of correspondence in a good month. In the face of such engulfing torrents of material, it is inevitable that a short, general work of this nature owes a huge debt to generations of scholars who have given their lives to heroically mining the archives of the world. Among those whose work I have particularly valued are Fernand Braudel, the father of Mediterranean studies in the sixteenth century; Kenneth Setton, whose wonderful four-volume work
The Papacy and the Levant
is a treasure trove of source material; and Ismail Dani
mend. From more recent times I am extremely grateful to Stephen Spiteri, whose compendious book
The Great Siege
is an ultimate source on everything to do with events on Malta in 1565.

One vexing issue that has arisen in the writing of this book is the question of the form of names of places and people. The names by which the protagonists are known vary considerably from language to language; many confusingly change their names during the course of the story, have multiple nicknames, and, in the case of the Ottomans, common names that reoccur frequently: two different Mustaphas commanded the sultan’s army within a six-year period. I have tried to be as clear about this as possible, without being too long-winded. The Ottoman admiral at Lepanto—or again Inebaht 1, to give it the Turkish name—is properly called Müezzinzade Ali. For simplicity’s sake, I have called him Ali Pasha throughout. In general I have chosen the form of name by which a person is known in his own language. For example, the corsair who died at Malta is usually referred to in Christian sources as Dragut. I have preferred his Turkish name, Turgut. In addition, I have chosen to transliterate Turkish words for English-speaking readers—Suluç has become Shuluch, Oruç, Oruch, Çavus, Chaush—but I cannot claim that my phonetically approximate renderings are an exact science.

IN THE ACTUAL CREATION
of this book, I am extremely grateful to a large number of individuals and organizations. First, to Jonathan Jao and the team at Random House for their enthusiasm and professionalism, and to my agent, Andrew Lownie. In all matters to do with the Knights of Saint John and the siege of Malta, research was helped enormously by the use of the wonderful library of the Order of Saint John at Clerkenwell, London (
www.sja.org.uk
). My thanks to Pamela Willis, the librarian. I am grateful a second time to Dr. Stephen Spiteri. Not only did
The Great Siege
clearly explain what a ravelin looks like, its author also generously allowed me to reproduce his reconstructions of St. Elmo. I commend his website (
www.fortress-explorer.org
) for all kinds of information about the fortifications on Malta.

Many friends and casual bystanders have been unwittingly drawn into this project. Stan Ginn saved the initial proposal from even more serious structural flaws than it now contains; Elizabeth Manners and Stephen Scoffham read and commented on the manuscript; John Dyson provided books from Istanbul; Jan Crowley, Christopher Trillo, Annamaria Ferro, and Andrew Kirby helped with translation; Henrietta Naish had me to stay; Deborah Marshall-Warren sat down for a cup of coffee in the square in Birgu and found herself corralled into finding source material. To all these people I am very grateful. And again, my thanks and love to Jan for supporting the strange enterprise of book writing in good health and bad. Some aspects of it were probably tolerable—the trips to the Venetian lagoon, the landscapes of Malta, and the ramparts of Famagusta—but the business of observing at close quarters books being written is a dull chore at best. Last, a posthumous salute to my father, George Crowley, who knew the sea well in peace and war, and who introduced me to Malta when I was ten. Without that marvelous first glimpse of the Mediterranean, this book would not have come about.

Source Notes

All the quotations in the book are from primary and other sixteenth-century sources. References refer to the books from which the quotations have been taken, as listed in the bibliography.

EPIGRAPH

“The inhabitants of the Maghreb”
Brummett, p. 89

PROLOGUE: PTOLEMY’S MAP

“as the spirit of God” Crowley, p. 233

“despoiled and blackened as if by fire”
ibid., p. 232

“one empire, one faith”
ibid., p. 240

“sovereign of two seas”
ibid.

“In mid-sea sits a waste land”
Grove, p. 9

“cruellest enemy of Christ’s name”
Setton, vol. 2, p. 292

“He has daily in his hand”
ibid., vol. 3, p. 175

“He pays attention”
ibid., p. 174

Part One
CAESARS: THE CONTEST FOR THE SEA
CHAPTER
1:
THE SULTAN PAYS A VISIT

“Suleiman the sultan”
Brockman, p. 114

“Conqueror of the Lands of the Orient and the Occident”
Finkel, p. 115

“in the interest of the world order”
Crowley, p. 51

“The sultan is tall”
Alan Fisher, p. 2

“if all the other Christian princes”
Setton, vol. 2, p. 372

“These corsairs are noted”
Rossi, p. 26

“evil sect of Franks”
ibid., p. 26

“How many sons of the Prophet”
ibid., p. 27

“The said Rhodians”
Setton, vol. 3, p. 122

“They don’t let the ships”
Rossi, p. 27

“head of Muhammad’s community”
Alan Fisher, p. 5

“the vipers’ nest of Franks”
Rossi, p. 26

“Brother Philip Villiers de L’Isle Adam”
Brockman, pp. 114–5

“Sire, since he became Grand Turk”
ibid., p. 115

“Now that the Terrible Turk”
Setton, vol. 3, p. 172

“numerous as the stars”
Crowley, p. 102

“galleasses, galleys, pallandaries”
Bourbon, p. 5

“and he feared”
ibid., p. 11

“decked their men…trumpets and drums”
Bourbon, p. 12

“the damnable workers of wickedness”
Rossi, p. 26

“The Sultan Suleiman to Villiers de L’Isle Adam”
Brockman, pp. 115–6

“a most brilliant engineer”
Bosio, vol. 2, p. 545

“beseeching St John to take keeping”
Bourbon, p. 17

“to make murder of the people”
ibid., p. 19

“falling to the ground they broke”
ibid., p. 20

“the handgun shot was innumerable and incredible”
ibid., p. 19

“a mountain of earth”
Porter, vol. 1, p. 516

“with great strokes of the sword”
Bourbon, p. 28

“fell from the walls as he went to see his trenches”
ibid., p. 28

“26 and 27, combat”
Hammer-Purgstall, vol. 5, p. 420

“On this occasion”
ibid., p. 421

“even before the hour of morning prayer”
Brockman, p. 134

“The attack is repulsed”
Hammer-Purgstall, vol. 5, p. 421

“and finally to ruin and destroy all Christendom”
Setton, vol. 3, p. 209

“It was an ill-starred day for us”
ibid.

“pleasure-house”
Porter, vol. 1, p. 516

“We had no powder”
ibid., p. 517

“insistent and interminable downpours”
Rossi, p. 41

“could not think the city any longer tenable”
Caoursin, p. 516

“all Turkey should die”
Setton, vol. 3, p. 212

“The Great Turk is very wise, discreet…chair was of fine gold”
Porter, vol. 1, p. 516

“it was a common thing to lose cities”
Bosio, vol. 2, p. 590

“It saddens me to be compelled”
Caoursin, p. 507

“In this way”
Rossi, p. 41

“agile as serpents”
Brummett, p. 90

CHAPTER
2:
A SUPPLICATION

“On its mainsail was painted”
Merriman (1962), vol. 3, p. 27

“It is for Austria to rule the entire earth”
ibid., p. 446

“Spain, it’s the king”
ibid., p. 28

“approaching covertly”
ibid., p. 28

“There is more at the back of his head”
Beeching, p. 11

“It was the start of all the evils”
López de Gómara, p. 357

“God had made him”
Seyyd Murad, p. 96

“I am the thunderbolt of heaven”
Achard, p. 47

“go and tell your Christian kings”
Sir Godfrey Fisher, p. 53

“kissing the imperial decree”
Seyyd Murad, p. 125

CHAPTER
3:
THE KING OF EVIL

“if the parents of any of the dead”
Seyyd Murad, p. 121

“which destroyed twenty-six great ships”
López de Gómara, p. 135

“It’s not Peru”
Heers, p. 171

“Because of the story of the great riches”
Haëdo, p. 26

“like the sun among the stars”
Seyyd Murad, p. 96

“I will conquer…God’s protection”
Belachemi, p. 222

“drawn from life”
Heers, p. 226

“Barbarossa, Barbarossa, you are the king of evil”
Belachemi, p. 400

“that they could not move”
Seyyd Murad, p. 164

“It was the greatest loss”
López de Gómara, p. 399

“Barbarossa impaled with many other Spaniards”
ibid.

“Hayrettin spread his name and reputation”
Seyyd Murad, p. 164

“Caesar, Charles, Emperor!”
Necipo'glu, p. 174

“Unless this disaster is reversed”
Tracy, p. 137

“sailing with a great armada”
ibid.

“Explosion of mines…The snow continues to fall.”
Hammer-Purgstall, vol. 5, p. 452

“bestowing on the Knights”
Attard, p. 12

CHAPTER
4:
THE VOYAGE TO TUNIS

“the rumour here”
Tracy, p. 27

“Just as there is only one God”
Clot, p. 79

“Spain is like a lizard”
Finlay, p. 12

“He detests the emperor”
Necipo'glu, p. 173

“The king of Spain has for a long time”
Merriman (1962), vol. 3, p. 114

“In the light of duty”
Tracy, p. 138

“with great ceremony and pomp”
Necipo'glu, p. 173

“continuous rain”
Hammer-Purgstall, vol. 5, pp. 480–1

“the miserable fugitive had fled”
Clot, p. 86

“amid the firing of numerous salutes”
Kâtip Çelebi, p. 47

“Barbarossa was continually in the arsenal”
Bradford (1969), p. 129

“In all he had 1,233 Christian slaves…the expectation of plunder”
López de Gómara, p. 522

“The supremacy of Turkey”
Bradford (1969), p. 123

“massacring many men”
Sandoval, vol. 2, p. 474

“From the Strait of Messina”
ibid., p. 487

“to attack the enemy”
Tracy, p. 147

“Show me your ways, O God”
Merriman (1962), vol. 3, p. 114

“with lance in hand”
Tracy, p. 147

“the holy enterprise of war”
ibid., p. 156

“Your glorious and incomparable victory”
Clot, p. 106

CHAPTER
5:
DORIA AND BARBAROSSA

“to multiply the difficulties of the Emperor”
Heers, p. 73

“I cannot deny”
Clot, p. 137

“The Turk will make some naval expedition”
Necipo'glu, p. 175

“to build two hundred vessels”
Kâtip Çelebi, p. 66

“Venetian infidels”
ibid., p. 56

“as we observe that all”
Setton, vol. 3, p. 410

“laid waste the coasts of Apulia”
Bradford (1969), p. 152

“the common enemy”
Setton, vol. 3, p. 433

“this year the Venetians possessed twenty-five islands”
Kâtip Çelebi, p. 61

“tore his beard and took to flight”
ibid., p. 64

“Such wonderful battles”
ibid., p. 64

“the proclamation of the victory was read”
ibid., p. 64

“I can guarantee that”
Heers, p. 163

“We must thank God for all”
Brandi, p. 459

“nobody could have guessed”
ibid.

CHAPTER
6:
THE TURKISH SEA

“To see Toulon”
Bradford (1969), p. 197

“ceaselessly spewing…black as ink”
Maurand, p. 109

“the famous, imperial, and very great city of Constantinople”
ibid., p. 183