The Sultan's Admiral (8 page)

Accordingly, in August 1514, the Spanish garrison at Bougie found itself once again besieged and under fire, and cut off by hostile tribesmen from the interior. “The battery against that unlucky fort was instantly erected, and carried on incessantly with the utmost fury. In a very few days he almost levelled it with the ground, and the Spaniards, forced to dislodge, retired to the city . . Bougie was now protected by a further bastion, which had been erected in the past two years. It stood on the edge of the sea, “whose strand and shore,” Morgan comments, “is very beautiful.” It was indeed a lovely stretch of coast, with mountains rising behind it and with fertile land running down to the sea. But this rich agricultural land, combined with yet another stroke of ill-fortune, was to help deprive the Turks once again of their anticipated victory.

As August drew to a close, the clouds began to mass above the mountains. The rainy season was approaching, and while the siege of the second bastion went ahead the first rains of September started to fall. Now the Berbers, and especially the coast-dwelling Moors, were entirely dependent upon this autumn rainfall for their next year’s crops. It was imperative for them to get back to their farms and small holdings, “in order to plough and sow their lands, for the best sowing time in Barbary is after the first rains have fallen.” Gradually the ground forces began to slink away. It was at this very moment, when once again the city of Bougie seemed to lie within their grasp, that Aruj and Khizr were told by their coastal lookouts that Spanish ships were approaching.

It was the annual autumn relief, bringing with it ammunition and stores to enable the garrison to survive through the winter. Under the command of a Spanish captain, Martin de Renteria, five large men-of war—sailing galleons that took advantage of a fine onshore breeze—came proudly into the bay. They had with them, though the Barbarossas did not as yet know it, several companies of land troops designed to replace the garrison. Deprived of his land support by the rapid desertion of the Moors and Berbers, and threatened from the sea by a force considerably stronger and better armed than his own, Aruj was once again compelled to raise the siege. “He is said to have departed like one frantic, tearing his beard for mere madness, to find himself so baffled and disappointed.”

He refused to go back to Djerba, for he still felt that although the island had already proved its worth as a refuge and a place in which to recoup his losses, it was too far away from the main stream of western Mediterranean trade. Tunis also was out of the question, for to return to Tunis baffled a second time in an attempt on Bougie would be to court a strong rebuff from the Sultan. The latter was already deeply worried that the activities of the Turks would result in the destruction of his city at the hands of the Genoese.

On his two passages along the coast Aruj had already noted the small peninsula of Djidjelli sticking its craggy beak out into the sea, some forty miles to the east from Bougie. Possibly he had landed there on one or other occasion to water his ships. Certainly he knew that there was a harbour perfectly adequate for his galleots on the eastern side of the peninsula: a harbour protected by an off-lying islet, and fringed with rocks and shoals. The town itself was perched high above, and was almost inaccessible by frontal assault. From the rear, if its defences were improved, it was clear that the whole peninsula could be turned into an excellent fortress. There were no more than one thousand inhabitants, sturdy Berber farmers, who owed no allegiance to any Sultan, and who were more than happy to see the Turkish vessels in their harbour, bringing with them trade and a steady demand for their agricultural produce.

So in late September 1514, just in time to avoid the beginning of the stormy autumn season along the North African coast, Aruj and Khizr Barbarossa brought their twelve ships and their 1,100 Turks into the harbour of Djidjelli. Together with them there were several hundred Moors, as well as other adventurers who had joined their force for the assault on Bougie. The very fact that Aruj chose Djidjelli as his base, so near to the scene of his recent rebuff, suggests that he still had it in mind to attempt Bougie again at the first opportunity.

It was, according to Haedo, a hard autumn that year along that part of the coast, and the addition of so many mouths to feed in the small town and harbour soon meant that some sort of rationing had to be imposed. The Barbarossas, however, were careful to see that the native inhabitants were well treated by their men. If they needed to have a port at their backs, they knew how important it was that the people in their base should be their friends. If not, when they took to the sea again in spring, they might well return to find that their refuge had been betrayed behind them to the Spaniards.

As often happens in the Mediterranean, the weather which had been so harsh throughout September and October suddenly fined down in November to give days of cloudless calm. The Turkish captains knew that such weather might well last into mid or even late December, before the winter proper settled down over land and sea. There was just a chance—and Aruj and Khizr took it—of catching some “late swallows” on the wing between Spain and her domains in Naples and Sicily.

All twelve galleots, having taken aboard water and supplies, headed up into the Mediterranean. They spread themselves across the main shipping lane between Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and Spain. It took them nearly three days to reach their chosen station, about 125 miles from Djidjelli. Once there, they positioned themselves like a seine net across the sea. If each galleot can be regarded as something like the glass float that supports a seine net (each bobbing within sight of one another), it is easy to see how twelve ships, stationed on the idle autumn sea, could command a large area. From a height of ten feet above the water, the distance of the sea horizon to a captain on the aft steering deck of a small galleot would be little more than 3 ,1/2 miles. But he could always send a lookout aloft up the mainmast, and increase his horizon distance to double this. Assuming that the Turkish vessels worked somewhere between these two points, it is likely that they cruised about five miles apart, moving eastwards into the Sardinia-Sicily strait. Twelve galleys, therefore, could easily cover a sea lane of sixty miles. The Barbarossas knew that it was in the area sixty to seventy miles south of Cape Spartivento, at the extreme southern tip of Sardinia, that they would find what they were looking for-—merchantmen making the last run of the season back to Spain with Corn from Sicily.

“So, our corsair went on a cruise, with all his twelve galleots, towards Sardinia and Sicily, to try if he could pick up any barques laden with corn, or other provisions . . Some might say that they were lucky, but luck plays a comparatively small part in the career of a successful man of action. Luck is needed, certainly, but the prime requisites are intelligence and a first-class knowledge of the world in which he operates. Within a few days the galleots had netted three large merchantmen moving slowly homeward to Spain.

The ships they captured were almost certainly of the type known as a galleasse—a transitional design between the oared-galley proper and the sailing merchantship. Some idea of the size of these ships can be gauged from the fact that the Portuguese and Spanish galleasses of this period usually carried over one hundred soldiers, and over two hundred galley slaves to work the oars. They did, indeed, carry guns with which to defend themselves, but they were primarily cargo-carrying merchant-ships. They might be compared, perhaps, to the merchantmen of the last two World Wars which had a few guns and trained crews to man them, but whose real duty was to transport cargo.

Towing their three prizes behind them, the Turkish galleots walked casually back on their long legs of oars across the peaceful sea. They arrived at Djidjelli well before the storms of winter broke. By their successful action they had not only secured their own winter provisions, they had also gained the affection of the local inhabitants. “Out of this seasonable supply he [Aruj] made such liberal distributions among the hungry Djidjellians, and the neighbouring mountaineers … that he won their affections to such a degree that his word became a law and an oracle.”

Aruj was never as intelligent as his younger brother, Khizr, but there can be little doubt that it was upon the well-based pragmatism of Aruj that the latter was to secure his later successes. He took great care to “cultivate and improve this mighty opinion that the natives had conceived of him; and had the address so well to manage matters that these indomitable mountain Africans, who all along had preferred their liberty against the powerful kings of Tunis and others … proclaimed him their Sovereign, with the royal title of Sultan.”

Aruj now found himself the ruler of what was at any rate a first-class seaport—due south of the main western Mediterranean trading routes—and without obligation to any local king or sheikh. The year that had seemed to promise a kingdom in Bougie, and that had gone so ill with the desertion of his native troops and the arrival of the Spanish reinforcements, had ultimately ended well for the Barbarossas. Their ships were hauled ashore out of reach of the winter storms, their slaves were housed in rock quarries beneath the town, and they had security in which to plan for the insecurity of others.

Next spring Aruj Barbarossa consolidated his position. Taking the field at the head of his own men and of his new subjects, he administered a smart defeat upon a Zouave tribe under their king, Aben al Cadi. The latter was killed, his head brought back in triumph to adorn the walls of Djidjelli, and “the reputation of this victory was such that several mountains came under Barbarossa’s obedience.”

It is worth noting that the whole pattern of Aruj’s life is remote from that of a typical pirate or corsair. Both the Barbarossas did, indeed, raid the shipping lanes of the enemies of their country and their faith, but always with the object of using the captured shipping and materials to secure for themselves a land kingdom. They became pirates, in fact, in order to secure a “working capital.” With the aid of this capital they invested in cannon and troops. These were no simple pirates like the Europeans who would later haunt the Caribbean—sailors or criminals who “went on the account” because it provided a means of earning a living. The actions of the Barbarossas must always be seen in this context—that, though both brothers were great seamen, they used the sea in order to establish themselves upon the land.

The Mediterranean had long been haunted by pirates, using the term in its proper sense: Italian, Greek, Turkish, and Moorish renegade mariners, who preyed upon shipping and then retired to their hideouts to digest like boa constrictors until such time as they needed a further “meal.” Neither Aruj nor Khizr fell into this simple category, even in their early days. Their depredations in the Mediterranean were certainly far in excess of anything achieved by traditional pirates, for the reason that they were carried out with intelligence and always with an objective. To carry the analogy into terms of modern strategy and warfare, the Barbarossas had a political objective behind their military or naval excursions. The true pirate, like the inefficient commander in war, has always been something of a failure because he has had no political objective, only the immediate object of conquest and material gain.

For the whole of that year Aruj and Khizr maintained their headquarters in Djidjelli, going out on a cruise to restock their larder before winter. It is unlikely that any important prizes were taken, for the records of the year 1515 do not contain any complaints by European powers about the rapacity of the Turkish pirates. But, within the next few months, Aruj was to be offered the opportunity to acquire that land kingdom which he had always wanted.

“a.d. 1516. This year, died Don Ferdinand, further named the Catholic, aged sixty-two years. The people of Algiers, whom, for nearly seven years, he had held in such subjection by the fort he built on the little island, that they not only paid him tribute, but even durst not peep their heads out of the harbour, nor repair their decaying row-boats, much less build new ones: And if they had, to what purpose? They had early news of the death of his Catholic Majesty, and thought then, or never to free themselves . . King Ferdinand died late in January, and as soon as the news reached North Africa, the Algerians called upon the neighbouring Arab ruler, Sheikh Selim, to help rid them of the Spanish garrison. This garrison dominated the city from a fortress erected on the island at the mouth of the port, and thus prevented the Algerians from either trading legitimately or indulging in piratical forays upon the Spanish shipping lanes.

Selim was willing to undertake the blockade of the Spaniards from the land, but was well aware that he had neither the cannon nor the equipment to undertake a siege. There was one man, however, whose name was now known throughout the whole coast and who, although twice worsted at Bougie, had shown that he and his troops understood the art of siege warfare. Selim sent an envoy to Aruj in Djidjelli, inviting him and his Turks to participate in the liberation of Algiers. Nothing could have suited the elder Barbarossa better. Algiers would make an even finer conquest than Bougie. It was the most important and populous city on the coast, with an excellent harbour, and from its situation due south of Mallorca it seemed designed by nature to command the east-west shipping routes of the western Mediterranean.

Having accepted Sheikh Selim’s invitation, Aruj sent sixteen galleots down the coast, “most of them his own, with 500 Turks, some artillery and all necessaries.” These were under his brother’s command, while Aruj himself marched for Algiers with 800 Turks, 3000 of his local subjects, and 2000 other Moorish volunteers. Selim and his followers met him a day’s march out of Algiers, but were disappointed to find that Barbarossa was not coming to the immediate relief of the city. Aruj had every intention of attacking the Spanish garrison, but first of all he had a little personal business to settle. About forty-five miles west of Algiers lies the small port of Shershell, where another Turkish sea rover, Kara Hassan, had (like Aruj in Djidjelli) made himself the local Sultan. He had also attracted under his command a great number of Moors, as well as Turks, together with their galleots. Aruj needed these men and their ships, and he wanted also to secure his western flank prior to attacking Algiers. There was no room in Barbarossa’s philosophy for two Turkish rulers on the North African coast.