Part 12

For what had now been done no forgiveness remained; the republic became formidable, because it was no longer possible for her to retrace her steps; factions distracted her within; her terrible element, the sea itself, leaguing with her oppressors, threatened her very infancy with a premature grave. She felt herself succumb to the superior force of the enemy, and cast herself a suppliant before the most powerful thrones of Europe, begging them to accept a dominion which she herself could no longer protect. At last, but with difficulty--so despised at first was this state that even the rapacity of foreign monarchs spurned her opening bloom--a stranger deigned to accept their importunate offer of a dangerous crown. New hopes began to revive her sinking courage; but in this new father of his country, destiny gave her a traitor; and in the critical emergency, when the implacable foe was in full force before her very gates, Charles of Anjou invaded the liberties which he had been called to protect. The assassin's hand, too, tore the steersman from the rudder, and with William of Orange the career, seemingly, of the infant republic and all her guardian angels fled; but the ship continued to scud along in the storm, and the swelling canvas carried her safe without the steersman's help.

Philip II missed the fruits of a deed which cost him his royal honor and perhaps also his self-respect. Liberty struggled on still with despotism in the obstinate and dubious contest; sanguinary battles were fought; a brilliant array of heroes succeeded each other on the field of glory; and Flanders and Brabant were the schools which educated generals for the coming century. A long, devastating war laid waste the open country; victor and vanquished alike were bathed in blood; while the rising republic of the waters gave a welcome to fugitive industry, and out of the ruins erected the noble edifice of its own greatness. For forty years a war lasted, whose happy termination was not to bless the dying eye of Philip; which destroyed one paradise in Europe, to create a new one out of its shattered fragments; which destroyed the choicest flower of military youth; and while it enriched more than a quarter of the globe, impoverished the possessor of the golden Peru. This monarch, who, even without oppressing his subjects, could expend nine hundred tons of gold, but who by tyrannical means extorted far more, heaped on his depopulated kingdom a debt of one hundred and forty millions of ducats. An implacable hatred of liberty swallowed up all these treasures and consumed in fruitless labor his royal life. But the Reformation throve amid the devastation of his sword, and over the blood of her citizens the banner of the new republic floated victorious.

LEPANTO: DESTRUCTION OF THE TURKISH NAVAL POWER

A.D. 1571

SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL

By the defeat of the Turks in the naval fight near Lepanto their power was so seriously shaken that its decline may be reckoned to have begun with that event. For many years, under their great sultan Solyman, the Magnificent, they had kept Europe in terror of their assaults. They had taken a recognized place among European peoples. Before his alliance with Francis I of France (1534), Solyman had made himself master of Hungary, and by threatening Vienna he so alarmed Charles V that the Emperor agreed to the Peace of Nuremberg, in order that he might unite Protestants and Catholics against the Ottoman foe.

Although Solyman withdrew before the united forces of the Christian empire, the Turks continued their depredations, especially on the coasts of Italy and Spain. Charles succeeded in repelling them there, and defeated them (1535) at Tunis, but they soon renewed their frightful ravages along the European shores.

Finally, in the reign of Solyman's successor, Selim II, they were met with effectual resistance through the efforts of the Holy League formed in 1570 by Spain, Venice, and Pope Pius V. Selim in that year captured and pillaged Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. In May, 1571, the League agreed upon a plan of action, and after a series of indecisive operations the allies accomplished their task in the manner described below. Their forces were commanded by Don John of Austria, a Spanish soldier, illegitimate son of Charles V. Don John had already (1569-1570) defeated the Moriscoes or Moors in Granada. Stirling-Maxwell is the authoritative historian of his remarkable career. Sir William's account of the important victory near Lepanto is one of our most interesting examples of military narration.

The Gulf of Lepanto is a long inlet of irregular shape, extending east and west, and bounded on the north by the shores of Albania, the ancient Epirus, and on the south by the coast of Morea, and closed at its eastern end by the Isthmus of Corinth. The bold headland on the north side, guarded by the castle of Roumelia, and the lower promontory on the south with the castle of the Morea, advancing from the opposite shores into its waters, divide the long inlet into two unequal parts. The first of these parts consists of the mouth of the gulf and the lake-like basin, together forming the Gulf of Patras. The second is the long reach of waters within the castled headlands called the Gulf (anciently) of Corinth, and now of Epakte or Lepanto. When the hostile fleets came in sight of each other, that of the League was entering the gulf near its northern shore, while that of the Turk was about fifteen miles within its jaws, his vast crescent-shaped line stretching almost from the broad swampy shallows which lie beneath the Acarnanian mountains to the margin of the rich lowlands of the Morea.

As the two armaments now advanced, each in full view of the other, the sea was somewhat high, and the wind, blowing freshly from the east, was in the teeth of the Christians. But in the course of the morning the waves of the gulf fell to a glassy smoothness, and the breeze shifted to the west, a change fortunate for the sailors of the League, which their spiritual teachers did not fail to declare a special interposition of God in behalf of the fleet which carried the flag of his vicar upon earth.

At the sound of the signal gun each captain began to prepare his ship for action. By order of Don John of Austria the sharp peaks of the galleys, the spurs (_espolones_) as they were called, had been cut off, it being thought expedient to sacrifice those weapons of offence, which were somewhat uncertain in their operation, to insure the more effectual working of the guns on the forecastle and gangway; and the bulwarks had been strengthened, and heightened by means of boarding-nettings. In some vessels the rowers' benches were removed or planked over, to give more space and scope to the soldiers. Throughout the fleet the Christian slaves had their fetters knocked off and were furnished with arms, which they were encouraged to use valiantly by promises of freedom and rewards. Of the Moslem slaves, on the contrary, the chains which secured them to their places were carefully examined, and their rivets secured; and they were, besides, fitted with handcuffs, to disable them from using their hands for any purpose but tugging on the oar. The arquebusier, the musketeer, and the bombardier looked carefully to the state of their weapons, ammunition, and equipments; the sailor sharpened his pike and cutlass; the officer put on his strongest casque and his best-wrought cuirass; the stewards placed supplies of bread and wine in convenient places, ready to the hands of the combatants; and the surgeons prepared their instruments and bandages, and spread tables in dark and shaded nooks, for the use of the wounded.

While these preparations occupied their subordinate officers, the chiefs of the armament repaired to the flag-ship to learn the final resolution and receive the last instructions of Don John of Austria. Some of these went for the purpose of combating that resolution and objecting to those instructions; for that eagerness to fight, which pervaded the soldiers and sailors, was not unanimously shared by their leaders. Veniero, although he had been hitherto very desirous of meeting the enemy, was now anxious and dispirited. Doria and Ascanio de la Corgnia reminded their young commander that the Turk, who was evidently bent upon fighting, had a convenient harbor and arsenal behind him at Lepanto; while for the fleet of the League, far from accessible ports, a disaster implied total destruction. Some of their colleagues ventured to advise Don John to retire while it was still in his power to do so. He refused to discuss a question which had been decided at Corfu. "Gentlemen," he said, "the time for counsel is past, and the time for fighting has come," and with these words dismissed them to their ships.

While the galleys were taking up their positions, Don John of Austria, in complete armor and attended by Don Luis de Cordoba and his secretary Juan de Soto, transferred himself to a frigate remarkable for speed and armed with a single German gun, and ran along the line to the right of the flag-ship, embracing the whole extent of the right wing. As he neared each galley he addressed a few words of encouragement to the officers and men. He reminded the Venetians of the cruel outrages which the Republic had lately received from the Turk in the Adriatic, Corfu, and especially in Cyprus; and that now was the time to take signal vengeance; and he therefore bid them use their weapons as these recollections and the great opportunity required. To the Spaniards he said: "My children, we are here to conquer or to die as Heaven may determine. Do not let our impious foe ask us, 'Where is your God?' Fight in his holy name, and in death or victory you will win immortality." His words were eminently successful. They were in all cases received with enthusiastic applause. The soldiers and sailors were delighted and inspired by the gallant bearing and language of their young leader. As he left them, shipmates who had quarrelled as only shipmates can, and who had not spoken for weeks, embraced, and swore to conquer or to die in the sacred cause of Christ.

As the two fleets approached--the Christians wafted gently onward by a light breeze, the Ottomans plying their oars to the utmost--the Turkish commander, who like Don John sailed in the centre of his line, fired a gun. Don John acknowledged the challenge and returned the salute. A second shot elicited a second reply. The two armaments had approached near enough to enable each to distinguish the individual vessels of the other and to scan their various banners and insignia. The Turks advanced to battle shouting and screaming and making a great uproar with ineffectual musketry. The Christians preserved complete silence. At a certain signal a crucifix was raised aloft in every ship in the fleet. Don John of Austria, sheathed in complete armor, and standing in a conspicuous place on the prow of his ship, now knelt down to adore the sacred emblem, and to implore the blessing of God on the great enterprise which he was about to commence. Every man in the fleet followed his example and fell upon his knees. The soldier, poising his firelock, knelt at his post by the bulwarks, the gunner knelt with his lighted match beside his gun. The decks gleamed with prostrate men in mail. In each galley, erect and conspicuous among the martial throng, stood a Franciscan or a Dominican friar, a Theatine or a Jesuit, in his brown or black robe, holding a crucifix in one hand and sprinkling holy water with the other, while he pronounced a general absolution, and promised indulgence in this life, or pardon in the next, to the steadfast warriors who should quit them like men and fight the good fight of faith against infidel.

In the night between October 6th and 7th, 1571, about the same hour that the Christian fleet weighed anchor at Cephalonia, the Turks had left their moorings in the harbor of Lepanto. While Don John, baffled by the winds and waves, was beating off the Curzolarian Isles, the Pacha was sailing down the gulf before a fair breeze. Every Turk on board the Sultan's fleet believed that he was about to assist in conveying the armament of the Christian powers to the Golden Horn, in obedience to the commands of the Padishah. The soldiers and sailors, lately recruited by large reënforcements, were many of them fresh from quarters on shore. Officers and men were in the highest spirits, eager for the battle which they knew to be at hand, and in which they supposed their success to be certain. For although Ali was well informed as to the position and movements of the fleet of the League, he was no less mistaken as to the strength of the Christians than the Christians were as to his own. He had been more successful in pouring fictions into the ear of Don John than in obtaining accurate intelligence for himself.

The Greek fishermen, in reporting to each leader the condition of his enemy, had, as we have seen, taken care to please and deceive both. Karacosh had indeed been present at the review of Gomenzia, but he had erred considerably in his reckoning of the numbers of the Christian fleet. Either by accident or design, he computed the vessels at fifty less than the real number, and he, besides, greatly underrated the weight of the artillery. Ali was still further deceived by the reports of three Spanish soldiers, captured on the shore near Gomenzia, where they had strayed too far from their boat. These prisoners assured the Pacha that the Christian fleet had not as yet been joined either by the great ships or the galeases, and that forty galleys, sent under Santa Cruz to Otranto for troops, and two galleys with which Andrade had gone on a cruise of observation, had not yet returned. This story confirmed the accounts both of Karacosh and the Greek fishermen. The Pacha was naturally no less anxious to meet Don John with Santa Cruz than Don John had been to meet the Pacha without the Viceroy of Algiers. It was no wonder, then, that the chiefs of the Turkish fleet led their galleys down the gulf in the ardent hope of speedily meeting with an enemy in whom they made certain of finding a rich and easy prey. The three hundred sail of the Sultan moved, as already described, in the form of an immense crescent, stretching nearly from shore to shore.

When the Christian armament first came in sight, nothing was seen of it but the small vanguard of Cardona's Sicilian galleys, and a portion of the right wing under Doria. The rest was hidden by the rocky headlands at the north of the gulf. For a while this circumstance buoyed up the Turks in their belief that the force of the enemy was greatly inferior to their own. As, however, the long lines of the centre under Don John of Austria, and of the left wing under Barbarigo, came galley after galley into view, they began to discover their mistake. The men posted aloft were eagerly questioned by the officers as to the result of their observations, and their answers, always announcing accessions of strength to the Christians, led to misgivings, and to vehement denunciations against Karacosh for the inaccuracy of his report from Gomenzia. When Ali perceived that the Christians had adopted a long straight line of battle, he also caused his fleet to take the same order, drawing in the horns and advancing the centre of his crescent. As the fleets came nearer to each other, the leaders of the League were encouraged by observing that the enemy's rear was not covered by anything that could be called a reserve, but only by a number of small craft. Ali, on the contrary, was surprised to see the galeases which had been pushed forward by the Christians. He inquired what these _mahones_ were, and was told that they were not mahones, but galeases; the very vessels, in fact, which he had been led to believe had been separated from the enemy, and whose formidable artillery he did not expect to encounter. He also observed with concern the large number of the galleys which were Spanish, or western (_ponenirinas_, as they were called in the Levant), and of a stronger build than those which were constructed at Venice by the Orientals. He now saw that the victory was not to be so easy as he had anticipated, and that he must neglect no means that might avert defeat. A kind-hearted as well as a brave man, he had always been remarkable for the humanity with which he had cared for the unhappy Christian slaves who rowed his galley. He now walked forward to their benches and said to them in Spanish: "Friends, I expect you to-day to do your duty by me, in return for what I have done for you. If I win the battle, I promise you your liberty; if the day is yours, God has given it to you."

When the fleets neared each other, and the Christians were all prostrate before their crucifixes and friars, and no sound was heard on their decks but the voices of the holy fathers, the Turks were indulging in every kind of noise which nature or art had furnished them with the means of producing. Shouting and screaming, they bade the Christians come on "like drowned hens" and be slaughtered; then they danced and stamped and clanged their arms; they blew trumpets, clashed cymbals, and fired volleys of useless musketry. When the Christians had ended their devotions and stood to their guns, or in their ordered ranks, each galley, in the long array, seemed on fire, as the noon-tide sun blazed on helmet and corselet, and pointed blades and pikes with flame. The bugles now sounded a charge, and the bands of each vessel began to play. Before Don John retired from the forecastle to his proper place on the quarter-deck, it is said by one of the officers, who had written an account of the battle, that he and two of his gentlemen, "inspired with youthful ardor, danced a galliard on the gun platform to the music of the fifes." The Turkish line, to the glitter of arms, added yet more splendor of color from the brilliant and variegated garb of the janizaries, their tall and fanciful crests and prodigious plumes, and from the multitude of flags and streamers which every galley displayed from every available point and peak. Long before the enemy were within range the Turkish cannon opened. The first shot that took effect carried off the point of the pennant of Don Juan de Cardona, who in his swiftest vessel was hovering along the line, correcting trifling defects of position and order, like a sergeant drilling recruits. About noon a flash was seen to proceed from one of the galeases of the Christian fleet. The shot was aimed at the flag-ship of the Pacha, conspicuous in the centre of the line, and carrying the sacred green standard of the Prophet. Passing through the rigging of the vessel, the ball carried off a portion of the highest of the three splendid lanterns which hung on the lofty stern as symbols of command. The Pacha, from his quarter-deck, looked up on hearing the crash, and perceiving the ominous mischief, said, "God grant we may be able to give a good answer to this question." The next shot split off a great piece of the poop of an adjacent galley. Of the six galeases four were soon pouring a murderous fire into the Turkish centre and right wing; the remaining two, which were intended to gall the left wing, having been rendered of little use, then and during the battle, by dexterous southerly movements of Aluch Ali. The balls from the galeases appeared to stop the vessels which they struck, and which seemed to have been met as by a wall. Two of them were speedily sunk by the terrible fire. Perceiving the great superiority of the galeases in weight of metal, Ali ordered his galleys not to attempt to attack them, but, avoiding them as well as they could, to push on against the galleys of the Christians. Obedience to this order, however necessary, produced great confusion in the Turkish line.

The Pacha of Alexandria, who led the right wing, endeavored both to elude the galeases and circumvent his antagonists, the Venetians on the Christian left, by passing between them and the shore. Barbarigo observed the movement, and prepared to oppose by adopting it; but his pilots, inferior to those of Sirocco in local knowledge, dreading the shoals and shallows, did not stand toward the coast with sufficient boldness. The Pacha therefore effected his purpose with a few of his vessels and Barbarigo found himself placed between two fires; his own galley at one time being engaged by no less than eight Turkish vessels. As they approached the Christians, the Turks assailed them not only with cannon and musketry, but also with showers of arrows, many of which, from the wounds inflicted by them, were supposed to have been poisoned. As Barbarigo stood giving orders on his quarter-deck, he became a conspicuous mark; and the hail of arrows fell so thick around him that the great lantern which adorned the galley's stern was afterward found to be studded with their shafts. At length one of these ancient missiles pierced the left eye of the gallant commander and compelled his immediate removal below. The wound, in three days, proved mortal. His nephew, Marco Contarini, rushing to his assistance, was also slain. These untoward events for a moment paralyzed the efforts of the Venetians. The galley became the centre of so severe a fire that its defenders were more than once swept away, and it was in great danger of being taken. Frederigo Nano, however, who, by Barbarigo's desire, had assumed the command, succeeded in rallying his men, and not only beat off Sirocco, but made a prize of one of his best galleys and its commander, the corsair Kara Ali. The combat between the Turks and the Venetians seemed inspired by the intensest personal hatred; the Turks thirsting for fresh conquests, the Venetians for vengeance. That they might the more effectually use their weapons, many of the soldiers of St. Mark uncovered their faces and laid aside their shields. No quarter was given, and the slaughter was very great on both sides. One of the Sultan's galleys near the shore being very hard pressed, the Turks jumped overboard and escaped to land. Some of the Venetians followed and slew them as they ran to the cover of some rocks. One of these pursuers, being armed only with a stick, contrived with that simple weapon to pin his victim through the mouth to the ground, to the great admiration of his comrades.

As the centre divisions of the two fleets closed with each other the wisdom of Don John in retrenching the fore-peaks of his vessels became abundantly apparent. The Turks had neglected to take this precaution; the efficiency of their forecastle guns was therefore greatly impaired. Their prows were also much higher than the prows of their antagonists. While their shot passed harmlessly over the enemy, his balls struck their galleys close to water-mark with fatal precision. The fire of the Christians was the more murderous because many of the Turkish vessels were crowded with soldiers both on the deck and below.