Part 13

Ali and Don John had each directed his helmsman to steer for the flag-ship of the enemy. The two galleys soon met, striking each other with great force. The left prow of the Pacha towered high above the lower forecastle of Don John, and his galley's peak was thrust through the rigging of the other vessel until its point was over the fourth rowing-bench. Thus linked together the two flag-ships became a battle-field which was strongly contested for about two hours. The Pacha had on board four hundred picked janizaries--three hundred armed with the arquebus and one hundred with the bow. Two galliots and ten galleys, all filled with janizaries, lay close astern, the galliots being connected with the Pacha's vessels by ladders, up which reënforcements immediately came when wanted. The galley of Pertau Pacha fought alongside. Don John's consisted of three hundred arquebusiers; but his forecastle artillery was, for reasons above mentioned, more efficient, while his bulwarks, like those of other Christian vessels, were protected from boarders by nettings and other devices with which the Turks had not provided themselves. Requesens, wary and watchful, lay astern with two galleys, from which he led fresh troops into the flag-ship from time to time. Alongside, Vaniero and Colonna were each hotly engaged with an antagonist. The combat between the two chiefs was on the whole not unequal, and it was fought with great gallantry on both sides. From the Turkish forecastle the arquebusiers at first severely galled the Christians. Don Lope de Figueroa, who commanded on the prow of the flag-ship, lost so many of his men that he was compelled to ask for assistance. Don Bernardino de Cardenas, who led a party to his aid, was struck on the chest by a spent ball from an esmeril, and in falling backward received injuries from which he soon expired. Considerable execution was also done by the Turkish arrows, with which portions of the masts and spars bristled. Several of these missiles came from the bow of the Pacha himself, who was probably the last commander-in-chief who ever drew a bowstring in European battle. But on the whole the fire of the Christians was greatly superior to that of the Turks. Twice the deck of Ali was swept clear of defenders, and twice the Spaniards rushed on board and advanced as far as the mainmast. At that point they were on each occasion driven back by the janizaries, who, though led by Ali in person, do not appear to have made good a footing on the deck of Don John. A third attempt was more successful. Not only did the Spaniards pass the mast, but they approached the poop and assailed it with a vigorous fire. The Pacha led on his janizaries to meet them, but it seems with small hope of making a successful resistance, for at the same moment he threw into the sea a small box which was supposed to contain his most precious jewels. A ball from an arquebuse soon afterward struck him in the forehead. He fell forward upon the gangway (_crucija_). A soldier from Malaga, seizing the body, cut off the head and carried it to Don John, who was already on board the Turkish vessel, leading a fresh body of men to the support of their comrades. The trophy was then raised on the point of a lance, to be seen by friend and foe. The Turks paused for a moment panic-stricken; the Christians shouted victory, and, hauling down the Turkish standard, hoisted a flag with a cross in its place. Don John ordered his trumpets to sound, and the good news was soon proclaimed in the adjacent galleys of the League. The Turks defended their flag-ship but feebly after the death of their Pacha. The vessel, which was the first taken, was in the hands of the Spaniards about two o'clock in the afternoon--about an hour and a half after the two leaders had engaged each other. A brigantine which had been employed in bringing up fresh troops, surrendered almost at the same time. The neighboring galleys of the Sultan had themselves been by this time too severely handled to render much assistance. Only one serious attempt was made to recover the ship of Ali or to avenge its loss. Several galleys from other parts of the line bore down at once upon Don John. The movement was perceived by Santa Cruz, whose vessels of reserve were still untouched. Dashing into the advancing squadron, he had the good-fortune to sink one galley by the force of his fire; and he immediately boarded another and put all the janizaries to the sword. Don John himself dealt with the remaining assailants.

Vaniero and Colonna fought with great gallantry and success, and each vanquished the Turk who had engaged him. The brave old Admiral of Venice fairly earned the Doge's cap, which soon after crowned his hoary brow. He was often in the thickest of the fire; and when, in the absence of many of his men, who had boarded the Turkish flag-ship, his own was also boarded, he repulsed the assailants in person, and, fighting with all the vigor of youth, received a wound in the foot on the deck of the galley of Pertau Pacha, whither he had pursued his advantage. A second Turkish galley, advancing to attack Vaniero, was run into about midships and sunk by Giovanni Contarini. Giovanni de Loredano and Caterino Malipieri were less happy in the enemies whom they encountered, and perished in their sunken vessels. From the flag-ship of Genoa the young Prince of Parma, followed by a single Spanish soldier named Alonso Davalos, leaped into a Turkish galley, fought their way through its defenders without a wound, and might also boast of having, unaided, caused it to strike its flag. Two other Turks afterward surrendered to the Genoese flag-ship, the captain of which, Ettore Spinola, lost his life by an arrow. In the flag-ship of Savoy, under a captain named Leni, of remarkable courage, who was also severely wounded, the Prince of Urbino likewise greatly distinguished himself. The gallant Karacosh was compelled to surrender to Juan Bautista Cortez, a captain of the King of Spain, although his galley was defended by one hundred fifty picked janizaries and was one of the best built and equipped vessels in the fleet. The Eleugina of the Pope had the credit of taking the guard-ship of Rhodes; and the Toscana, also a papal galley, in making a prize of the vessel of the Turkish paymaster recovered to the pontifical squadron the flag-ship of the contingent of Pius IV in the unfortunate battle of Gerbi. The crowning achievement of the central division was performed by the Grand Commander, who attacked and captured after an obstinate and bloody contest, a fine galley, in which were the sons of the deceased Ali Pacha. These lads--Mahomet Bey, aged seventeen years, and Said Bey, aged thirteen--had been brought to sea by their father for the first time. Their capture was of importance, because the mother of one of them was a sister of Sultan Selim.

Juan de Cardona, who sailed on the left of the right wing, finding no enemy opposed to him, brought his vessel round to the rear of the Turkish centre, and attacked Pertau Pacha, with whom Paolo Giordano Orsini was engaged in a somewhat unequal conflict. After a stout resistance the Christians entered the Turkish galley, out of which the Pacha, though wounded, succeeded in escaping in a boat.

The right wing of the Christians and the Turkish left wing did not engage each other until some time after the other divisions were in deadly conflict. Doria and Aluch Ali were, each of them, bent on outmanoeuvring the other. The Algerine did not succeed, like Sirocco, in insinuating himself between his adversary and the shore. But the seamen whose skill and daring were the admiration of the Mediterranean were not easily baffled. Finding himself foiled in his first attempt, he slackened his course, and, threatening sometimes one vessel and sometimes another, drew the Genoese eastward, until the inferior speed of some of the galleys had caused an opening at the northern end of the Christian line. Upon this opening the crafty corsair immediately bore down with all the speed of his oars, and passed through it with most of his galleys. This evolution placed him in the rear of the whole Christian line of battle. On the extreme right of the centre division sailed Prior Giustiniani, the commodore of the small Maltese squadron. This officer had hitherto fought with no less success than skill, and had already captured four Turkish galleys. The Viceroy of Algiers had, the year before, captured three galleys of Malta, and was fond of boasting of being the peculiar scourge and terror of the Order of St. John. The well-known white cross banner, rising over the smoke of battle, soon attracted his eye and was marked for his prey. Wheeling round like a hawk, he bore down from behind upon the unhappy prior. The three war-worn vessels of St. John were no match for seven stout Algerines which had not yet fired a shot. The knights and their men defended themselves with a valor worthy of their heroic order. A youth named Bernardino de Heredia, son of the Count of Fuentes, signally distinguished himself; and a Saragossan knight, Geronimo Ramirez, although riddled with arrows like another St. Sebastian, fought with such desperation that none of the Algerine boarders cared to approach him until they saw that he was dead. A knight of Burgundy leaped alone into one of the enemy's galleys, killed four Turks, and defended himself until overpowered by numbers. On board the prior's vessel, when he was taken, he himself, pierced with five arrow wounds, was the sole survivor, except two knights, a Spaniard and a Sicilian, who, being senseless from their wounds, were considered as dead. Having secured the banner of St. John, Aluch Ali took the prior's ship in tow, and was making the best of his way out of a battle which his skilful eye soon discovered to be irretrievably lost. He had not, however, sailed far when he was in turn descried by the Marquess of Santa Cruz, who, with his squadron of reserve, was moving about redressing the wrongs of Christian fortune. Aluch Ali had no mind for the fate of Giustiniani, and resolved to content himself with the banner of Malta. Cutting his prize adrift, he plied his oars and escaped, leaving the prior grievously wounded to the care of his friends, and once more master, not only of his ship, but of three hundred dead enemies who cumbered the deck, a few living Algerine mariners who were to navigate the vessel, and some Turkish soldiers, from whom he had just purchased his life. This struggle cost the order, in killed alone, upward of thirty knights, among whom was the Grand Bailiff of Germany, commander-in-chief of its land forces. A few were also made prisoners, most of them desperately wounded. For one of them, Borgianni Gianfigliazzi, his relations at Florence, supposing him dead, performed funeral obsequies, in spite of which he returned home from captivity, and was afterward ambassador from the Grand Duke to Sultan Amurath. Two other knights, Mastrillo and Caraffa, finding themselves unsupported in an enemy's brigantine, had given themselves up, and had just bribed their captor to spare their lives and admit them to a ransom, when a Neapolitan galley coming by boarded the brigantine and turned their new master into their slave.

The main body of the Turkish left wing, though long of engaging the Christian right, fought with perhaps greater fierceness than any other part of the fleet. The battle was raging in that part of the line with very doubtful aspect, when Don John of Austria found himself free from the attacks of the enemies immediately around him. Thither, therefore, he steered to the assistance of his comrades. The Turks, perceiving the approach of a succoring squadron, and surmising the disasters which had occurred in the centre, immediately gave way and dispersed. Sixteen of the Algerine galleys, however, retired together, and rallying at a little distance, adopted the tactics of their chief, by making a circuit toward the shore of the Morea, and endeavoring to sweep round upon the rear of the Christians. Their manoeuvres were closely watched by Don Juan de Cardona, who placed himself in their path with eight galleys. The encounter which took place between the two unequal squadrons was one of the bloodiest episodes of the battle. Cardona was completely successful, disabling some of his antagonists and putting the rest to flight. His loss was, however, very severe. His own galley suffered more damage than any vessel in the fleet which was not rendered absolutely unfit for service. The forecastle was a ruin; the bulwark and defences of all kinds were shattered to pieces; and the masts and spars were stuck full of arrows. Cardona himself, after escaping a ball from an arquebus, which was turned by a cuirass of fine steel given to him at Genoa by the Prince of Tuscany, received a severe wound in the throat, of which he died. Of the five hundred Sicilian soldiers who fought on board his galleys only fifty remained unwounded. Many of the officers were slain, and not one escaped without a wound. Others had suffered even greater loss. In the Florence, a papal galley, not only many knights of St. Stephen were killed, but also every soldier and slave; and the captain, Tommaso de' Medicis, himself severely wounded, found himself at the head of only seventeen wounded seamen. In the San Giovanni, another vessel of the Pope, the soldiers were also killed to a man, the rowing-benches occupied by corpses, and a captain laid for dead with two musket-balls in his neck. The Piamontesa of Savoy had likewise lost her commander and all of her soldiers and rowers.

Although Doria, having suffered himself to be outmanoeuvred by Aluch Ali, and having failed to exchange a shot with that leader, could not claim any considerable part of the laurels of the day, he was nevertheless frequently engaged with other foes and made several prizes. He escaped without a wound, though he was covered with blood of a soldier killed by a cannon-ball close behind him.

On the left wing of the Christian fleet, the battle, which had begun so unpropitiously, was also brought to a prosperous issue. The wound of Barbarigo transferred the command to the commissary Canale. Aided by Nano, who commanded Barbarigo's galley, Canale engaged and sunk the vessel of the Pacha of Alexandria. Mahomet Sirocco himself, severely wounded, was fished out of the sea by Gian Contarini, and sent on board Canale's galley. As the wound of the Turk appeared to be mortal, the Venetian relieved him from further suffering by cutting off his head. Marco Quirini likewise did gallant service, compelling several of the enemy to strike their flags. Of the remaining galleys many were run ashore by their crews, of whom the greater number were slain or drowned as they attempted to swim to land.

The victory of the Christians at Lepanto was in a great measure to be ascribed to the admirable tactics of their chief. The shock of the Turkish onset was effectually broken by the dexterous disposition made of the galeases of Venice. Indeed, had the great ships been there to strengthen the sparse line formed by these six vessels, it is not impossible that the Turks would have failed in forcing their way through the wall of that terrible fire. Each Christian vessel, by the retrenchment of its peak, enjoyed an advantage over its antagonist in the freer play of its artillery. When, however, the galleys of Selim came to close combat with the galleys of the League, the battle became a series of isolated struggles which depended more upon individual mind and manhood than upon any comprehensive plan of far-seeing calculation. But Don John of Austria had the merit or the good-fortune of bringing his forces into action in the highest moral and material perfection; of placing admirable means in the hands of men whose spirit was in the right temper to use them. He struck his great blow at the happy moment when great dangers are cheerfully confronted and great things easily accomplished.

His plan of battle was on the whole admirably executed. The galleys of the various confederates were so studiously intermingled that each vessel was incited to do its utmost by the spur of rivalry. Vaniero and Colonna deserve their full share of the credit of the day; and the gallant Santa Cruz, although at first stationed in the rear, soon found and employed his opportunity of earning his share of laurels. On Doria alone Roman and Venetian critics, and indeed public opinion, pronounced a less favorable verdict. His shoreward movement unquestionably had the effect of enabling Aluch Ali to cut the Christian line and fall with damaging force upon its rear, and of rendering the victory more costly in blood and less rich in prizes. This movement was ascribed to the desire of the Genoese to spare his own ships, and to secure a safe retreat for himself in case of a disaster; and he was further even taunted with cowardice for hauling down the gilded celestial sphere, the proud cognizance of his house, which usually surmounted his flag-staff. To the latter charge his friends replied that the sphere was taken down to secure it from injury, it being the gift of his wife, and that his ship was too well known to both the fleets to find safety in the want of her usual badge. The other accusations, they considered, were disposed of by the necessity of shaping his course according to the tactics of the Algerine, and abundantly refuted by the vigor and success with which he at last attacked the enemy. It is not improbable that the true explanation of his conduct is that offered by the captain of a Neapolitan galley, present at the battle, that he wished to gain an advantage over Aluch Ali by seamanship, and that the renegade, no less skilled in the game, played it on this occasion better than he.

Although in numbers, both of men and vessels, the Sultan's fleet was superior to the fleet of the League, this superiority was more than counterbalanced by other important advantages possessed by the Christians. The artillery of the West was of greater power and far better served than the ordnance of the East; and its fire was rendered doubly disastrous by the thronged condition of the Turkish vessels. The lofty-peaked prows of these vessels seriously interfered, as we have already seen, with the working of their guns. A great number of their combatants were armed with the bow instead of the firelock, which placed them at an obvious disadvantage, except during heavy rains, which extinguished the match of the latter weapon. Of the Turks who carried the musket or arquebus few could handle them with the expertness of a Christian soldier. The advantages which the League derived from its galeases were heightened by the fact that a large proportion of its other vessels were superior to their antagonists. The galleys of the King of Spain were, in general, both more strongly built and more carefully protected against boarders than those of the Sultan. Even early in the battle the Moslems began to discover that they were overmatched. In many of the galleys the guns were at once silenced by the heavier artillery of the Christians, in whose hands the fire of the arquebus and the musket, when they came to close quarters, proved so withering that the enemy's deck was sometimes swept clean before they boarded, and the turbaned heads of the janizaries were seen crouching beneath the benches of the slaves. When the conflict was transferred to the Turkish decks, the Christians, however, found themselves fiercely met, and among other means of opposing their progress they perceived that the central gangway (_corsia_) had been torn up, or they slipped upon planking which had been smeared with butter, oil, or even, it is said, with honey, to render the footing insecure. So efficient were the nettings and other precautions with which Don John of Austria defended the bulwarks of his ships that he was able to inform Philip II that not a Turk had set foot upon a single deck belonging to his majesty.

Such were some of the chief causes of the success of the arms of the League. In the sixteenth century, in a vast concourse of men of the South, hot from battle and largely leavened with priests and friars, it was natural that the victory should be by many ascribed to a more mysterious agency. In the opinion of these persons the Almighty had evidently been fighting on the side of the Pope and the Cross, although they would perhaps have demurred to the logical deduction from that opinion that at Cyprus he had steadily adhered to the drunken Sultan and the Crescent. It was not only in the victory that they saw the finger of Omnipotence, but in many accidents and incidents of the day. The wind, which wafted the Turks swiftly to destruction, changed at the precise moment when it was needed to aid the onset of the Christians. The boisterous sea also sank to smoothness in the special interest of the League. Of the clergy and friars who ministered on the Spanish decks to the wounded and dying, although some of them were struck, not one was killed. The Venetians were less fortunate, having four chaplains killed and three wounded; and the Pope likewise lost one of his friars, who died of his wounds soon after the battle. The churchmen exposed themselves as freely as the combatants, whom they encouraged from conspicuous posts either on deck or in the rigging, and sometimes by example as well as precept. A Spanish Capuchin, an old soldier, had tied his crucifix to a halbert, and, crying that Christ would fight for his faith, led the boarders of his galley over the bulwarks of her antagonist; after using his weapon manfully, he returned victorious and untouched.

An Italian priest, with a great gilded crucifix in one hand and a sword in another, stood cheering on his spiritual sons, unharmed in the fiercest centre of the arrowy sleet and iron hail. A Roman Capuchin, finding his flock getting the worst of it, seized a boat-hook, and, pulling his peaked hood over his face, rushed into the fray, laid about him until he had slain seven Turks and driven the rest from the deck, and lived to call a smile to the thin lips of Pius V by telling the story of his prowess. The green banner of Mecca, brought from the Prophet's tomb, and unfurled from the main-top of Ali, was riddled with shot, which rendered illegible many of the sacred words with which it was embroidered. But the azure standard of the League, blessed by the supreme Pontiff and emblazoned with the image of the crucified Redeemer, remained untouched by bolt or bullet, although masts, spars, and shrouds around were torn and shattered from top to bottom.