Everything about Battle Of Preveza totally explained
The naval
Battle of Preveza took place on
28 September 1538 near
Preveza in northwestern
Greece between an
Ottoman fleet and that of a Christian alliance assembled by
Pope Paul III.
Background
In 1537, commanding a large Ottoman fleet,
Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha captured a number of
Aegean and
Ionian islands belonging to the
Republic of Venice, namely
Syros,
Aegina,
Ios,
Paros,
Tinos,
Karpathos,
Kasos and
Naxos, thus annexing the
Duchy of Naxos to the
Ottoman Empire. He then besieged the Venetian stronghold of
Corfu and ravaged the Spanish-held
Calabrian coast in southern
Italy.
In the face of this threat, Pope
Paul III succeeded in February
1538 to assemble a
’’Holy League’’, comprising the
Papacy,
Spain, the
Republic of Genoa, the
Republic of Venice and the
Knights of Malta, to confront Barbarossa.
Forces
Barbarossa's fleet that summer numbered 122
galleys and
galliots. That of the Holy League comprised 302 ships (162 galleys and
galleons, 140
barques), of which 55 galleys were from Venice, 49 from
Spain, and 27 from the
Papal States and the
Maltese Knights.
Andrea Doria, the
Genoese admiral in the service of Emperor
Charles V, was in overall command.
Deployment
The Holy League assembled its fleet near the island of
Corfu. The Papal fleet under Admiral
Marco Grimani (Patriarch of
Aquileia) and the Venetian fleet under
Vincenzo Capello arrived first. Andrea Doria joined them with the Spanish-Genoese fleet on 22 September 1538.
Prior to Doria’s arrival, Grimani attempted to land troops near the Fortress of
Preveza, but he retreated to Corfu after suffering a number of casualties in the ensuing encounter with Turkish forces.
Barbarossa was still at the island of
Kos in the
Aegean Sea at that time, but he soon arrived at Preveza with the rest of the Turkish fleet, after capturing the island of
Kefalonia on the way.
Sinan Reis, one of his lieutenants, suggested to land troops at
Actium on the
Gulf of Arta near
Preveza, an idea which Barbarossa initially opposed, but which later proved to be important for securing the Turkish victory. With the Turks holding the fortress at Actium, they could support Barbarossa's fleet with artillery fire from there, while Doria had to keep his ships away from the coast. A Christian landing to take Actium probably would have been needed to ensure success, but Doria was fearful of a defeat on land after the initial sortie by Grimani had been repelled. Two more attempts by the Holy League to land their forces, this time near the fortress of Preveza at the opposite shore facing Actium, were repulsed by the forces of
Murat Reis on 25 and 26 September.
As Doria's ships kept their distance from the coast, much concerned about adverse winds driving them onto a hostile shore, Barbarossa had the advantageous interior position. During the night of 27/28 September, Doria therefore sailed 30 miles south and, when the wind died down, anchored at Sessola near the island of
Lefkada. During the night, he and his commanders decided that their best option was to stage an attack towards
Lepanto and force Barbarossa to fight.
The battle
At dawn, however, Doria was surprised to see that the Turks were coming towards his ships. Barbarossa had taken his fleet out of the anchorage and headed south as well.
Turgut Reis was in the van with six large
fustas, and the left wing closely hugged the shore. Not expecting such a daring offensive from the numerically inferior Turkish fleet, it took Doria three hours to give the order to weigh anchor and ready for battle -- pressed by Grimani and Capello.
The two fleets finally engaged on 28 September 1538 in the Gulf of Arta, near Preveza.
The lack of wind wasn't in Doria's favor. The huge Venetian flagship
Galeone di Venezia with her massive guns was becalmed four miles from land and ten miles from Sessola. While the Christian ships struggled to come to her assistance, she was soon surrounded by enemy galleys and engaged in a furious battle that lasted hours and did much damage to the Turkish galleys.
When the wind rose, the Christian fleet finally approached the action, although Doria first executed a number of maneuvres designed to draw the Turks out to sea. Ferrante Gonzaga, the Viceroy of Sicily, was at the left wing of the combined fleet, while the Maltese Knights were at the right wing. Doria placed four of his fastest galleys under the command of his nephew
Giovanni Andrea Doria who was positioned in the center front, between Gonzaga and the Maltese Knights. Doria's galleys formed a long line behind them, in front of the Papal and Venetian galleys of Grimani and Capello. In the rear were the Venetian galleons under the command of
Alessandro Condalmiero (Bondumier) and the Spanish-Portuguese-Genoese galleons under the command of
Francesco Doria, together with the barques and support ships.
The Turkish fleet had a Y shaped configuration: Barbarossa, together with his son Hasan Reis (later Hasan Pasha), Sinan Reis, Cafer Reis and Şaban Reis, was at the center;
Seydi Ali Reis commanded the left wing;
Salih Reis commanded the right wing; while
Turgut Reis, accompanied by
Murat Reis, Güzelce Mehmet Reis and Sadık Reis, commanded the rear wing. The Turks swiftly engaged the Venetian, Papal and Maltese ships, but Doria hesitated to bring his center into action against Barbarossa, which led to much tactical maneuvering but little fighting. Barbarossa wanted to take advantage of the lack of wind which immobilized the Christian barques that accounted for most of the numerical difference between the two sides. These barques fell as easy prey to the Turks who boarded them from their relatively more mobile galleys and galliots. Doria’s efforts to trap the Turkish ships between the cannon fire of his barques and galleys failed.
At the end of the day, the Turks had sunk 10 ships, burned 3 others, captured 36, and had taken about 3000 prisoners. The Turks didn't lose any ships but suffered 400 dead and 800 wounded. A number of Turkish ships had been seriously damaged, however, by the cannon fire of the massive
Galeone di Venezia, the Venetian flagship under the command of Alessandro Condalmiero.
The next morning, with favorable wind, and unwilling to risk the Spanish-Genoese ships, Doria set sail and left the battlefield for Corfu, deaf to the pleas of the Venetian, Papal and Maltese commanders to continue the fight.
Aftermath
It is widely speculated that Doria’s prevarication and lack of zeal were due to his unwillingness to risk his own ships (he personally owned a substantial number of the "Spanish-Genoese" fleet) and his long-standing enmity towards Venice, his home city’s fierce rival and the primary target of Turkish aggression at that time.
In 1539 Barbarossa returned and captured almost all the remaining Christian outposts in the Ionian and Aegean Seas.
A peace treaty was signed between Venice and the Ottoman Empire in October
1540, under which the Turks took control of the Venetian possessions in the
Morea and in
Dalmatia and of the formerly Venetian islands in the Aegean, Ionian and eastern Adriatic Seas. Venice also had to pay a war indemnification of 300,000 ducats of gold to the Ottoman Empire.
With the victory at Preveza and the subsequent victory in the
Battle of Djerba in
1560, the Ottoman Empire successfully repulsed the efforts of Venice and Spain, the two principal Mediterranean powers, to stop the Turkish drive to control the Mediterranean. This only changed with the
Battle of Lepanto in
1571.
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