Chapter 22

DRAGUT-REIS

How the corsairs captured the town of “Africa”; of its recapture by Andrea Doria and its eventual total destruction by Charles V.

Dragut had made it a practice never to appear in the harbour of “Africa” in any great force, as he had no desire to frighten the birds whom he desired to snare; on the occasion of which we are now speaking he had but two galleys, and their departure from the outer harbour passed almost unnoticed, as the ruck of the population were accustomed to visits from the corsairs, who came to fill up with provisions and fresh water. Swiftly as hawks his vessels swept along the coast collecting the garrisons of Susa, Sfax, and Monastir to aid him in his latest design; they were all picked men and singularly apt for the stern business which their leader destined them to undertake. In this manner he soon collected five hundred of the stoutest and most reckless fighters who sailed out of the ports of Northern Africa, and, when it became noised abroad among them what the service was for which they were required, there was universal joy and eagerness. True the adventure was a formidable one: to capture “Africa” was no light task, even for such men as these under so renowned a leader; there was further the difficulty that the persons against whom they went up to fight were no Christians but Moslems like themselves. But against this was the declaration of Dragut, who represented to his following that there was really no choice in the matter; that to these stiffnecked and singularly ungrateful people he had offered the protection of the corsairs, that they had refused in the most contumelious manner, and in consequence there was nothing for it but the strong hand. They—that is to say the corsairs—knew right well that some strong place of arms in which to shelter themselves and their vessels was an absolute necessity for their continued existence, as at any moment Doria or the Knights of Malta might be on their track in superior force, and then what was their fate likely to be if they had no harbour under their lee in which to shelter? Further it was hinted that “Africa” would provide very nice pickings in the way of loot, and when this came to be generally understood the promptings of the Mahommedan conscience yielded easily to the sophistries with which it was lulled.

The council of the town of “Africa” troubled themselves but little more concerning Dragut, his ships, and his corsairs; he had departed, and as the days wore on and no further tidings of him came to hand, these simple folk thanked God that they were rid of a knave and went about their usual avocations as unconcernedly as if no sea-wolves lurked under the shadowed headlands of that continent in which their homes were situated. They were a people essentially of the land; although they dwelt on the confines of the ocean the ways and habits of those who earned a precarious living on the waters were a sealed book to them, and with the “Africans” it was a case of “out of sight out of mind” so far as the corsairs were concerned. But that black-hearted traitor Ibrahim Amburac and the few others who had been gained over by the gold of Dragut watched and waited for the attack which they knew to be impending.

The inhabitants of the doomed city never saw their assailants until they were actually upon them, so well had the surprise attack been planned by the leader of the corsairs. He had collected five hundred men, and this was but a small number with which to assail so strong a place; but Dragut knew exactly what he was doing and the effect likely to be produced by the introduction of this number of highly trained men-at-arms among a population which, although brave and warlike, lacked the elements of organisation for the defence of their city.

So it was that, all preparations being completed, he stood along the coast anchoring out of sight of his objective, but close enough to reach it by midnight after darkness had fallen. He had every confidence in himself, an absolute trust in the hardbitten fighters whom he was about to lead; success or failure now rested in the hands of traitors within the city.

“Faith unfaithful kept them falsely true,” for when Dragut and his followers arrived at a certain rendezvous outside the walls which had been agreed upon previously, there they found Ibrahim Amburac and his men ready to assist them in scaling this obstacle. It will be remembered that Ibrahim Amburac was personally in charge of one of the towers with which the walls were guarded, and thus his task of aiding those who came from without was a singularly easy one. But even at midnight the passage of five hundred men could not remain long undiscovered as they clambered in over the walls. Soon an alarm was raised and the “Africans” rushed to arms and hurried to the quarter from which danger threatened. The townsmen were well armed and brave, also they were numerous; but it was the old story of the break-up of undisciplined valour by highly organised attack.

In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut. That warrior, his great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the blood dripping from a gash in his cheek, his clothing torn and in disarray, followed by a gigantic negro bearing a flaming torch, was ever in the thickest of the fray. Behind him his lieutenants Othman and Selim strove to emulate his prowess, while all around surged his devoted band of fanatics.

“Allah! Allah!” and “Dragut! Dragut!” pealed the war-cry of the corsairs; foot by foot and yard by yard that spearhead of dauntless dare-devils pressed onwards into the packed masses of the “Africans,” who, fighting stubbornly, nevertheless were borne back by the fury of the terrible onslaught.

Torch-bearers among the pirates leaped into houses and set them ablaze, the flames volleyed and crackled, the dense smoke rolled upwards to the stainless sky, the night was a hell of blood and fire.

There was a sharp order repeated and passed on, the corsairs drew back, and the “Africans” shouted that the triumph was theirs; but they little knew Dragut, the sea-hawk who poised to strike anew. A blazing beam dropped across the street, the townsfolk shouted in insult and derision; but the joy which they had experienced at seeing their adversaries recoil was but a short and fleeting emotion. Giving himself and those who had hitherto been engaged time to breathe and recover themselves, Dragut waited while the noise of the strife died down, and nought was heard but the roar of the flames and the crash of the burning buildings.

The leader turned to his followers, among whom dwelt an ominous silence. “Dost remember Prevesa,” he cried, “when Andrea Doria and the best of the Christian warriors fled before you like sheep before a dog: are these miserable townsmen to stay your onward march?”

There remained for an appreciable period after he had spoken a tense silence; the red light from the burning houses shone on the lean faces alight with the fierce fire of fanaticism, with an inextinguishable lust of slaughter. There came an answering frenetic roar, “Lead! Lead! Dragut! Dragut! Dragut!” It was enough: the corsair had tried the temper of the steel, he had now but to use the edge. There was an ordered movement on the part of the pirates: a fresh hundred men, who had hitherto taken no part in the combat, now pressed to the front and formed the advance, those who had been before engaged now forming the supports; that which had been the shaft of the spear now forming its head. With Dragut leading, these fresh unwounded men swept forward over the burning beam; irresistible as some mighty river in spate, these disciplined ruffians, headed by this master spirit, burst through the ill-organised resistance opposed to them, and slew and slew and slew.

Behind them, alert and wary, came the supports, asking no quarter and giving none, cutting up the wounded, trampling under foot friend and foe alike who fell in the weltering shambles which marked the onward path of their leader and the advanced party. Very soon the broken hosts of the “Africans” cried piteously for mercy; the fight was over, and Dragut-Reis, wounded, breathless, but victorious, stood master of the strongest place of arms in all the continent of Africa. It is true that treachery had given him his opportunity, but once that was obtained the rest he had done for himself: the stealthy advance by sea, the midnight march to the exact spot on the walls where he was awaited by Ibrahim Amburac, the marshalling of his five hundred for the conflict, and the actual conduct of the fight itself, were all to the credit of this apt pupil of the great Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, As warriors his followers were worthy of their leader: defeated the corsairs frequently were, but, in the combats in which they engaged, they were frequently, as we have seen in the course of this story, largely dependent upon auxiliaries in whom no trust could be placed; and at Prevesa, at the siege of Malta, and later on at the battle of Lepanto, the spot on which they fought, were it on the land or on the sea, was ever the one which formed the nucleus of resistance. It was not only that fighting was their particular trade; that, of course, might be said also of any man who trailed a pike or carried an arquebus and marched in the ranks of Spain, France, Genoa, or Venice. In the case of the sea-wolves it was the perpetual practice in the art of war, as it was then understood, that caused them to be the men that they were. Much of their fighting could hardly be dignified by such a name, as in their everlasting raids on villages and undefended places they seldom lost many of their number: when, however, it came to the real thing, as it did on the occasion we have just recounted, the long years of training told, and opposition had to be strong indeed if it were not to be beaten down by such a leader as Dragut, by such men as his picked five hundred.

What passed between Dragut and the council of “Africa,” who in so unqualified a manner had refused that warrior as a citizen, is not on record; all that we know is that the Moslem leader dispensed with their services, and did not invite his new fellow-townsmen to share with him the burden of government. There was hurry in the administration of the corsair states, as the form of rule which they adopted was apt to irk the rulers in Christendom. In this particular instance Dragut, having expelled the Spaniards from the coast towns, knew that a reckoning with the Emperor and his militant admiral, Andrea Doria, was but a matter of time, and, in all probability, of a very short time.

Promptly, hurriedly, but efficiently, the corsair organised his new possession: such laws as he decreed did not err on the side of tenderness towards a people so ungrateful as to have refused his protection in the first instance, and who had only accepted the gift at the point of the sword. His nephew Aisa, a man young in years but a past-graduate in the school of his terrible uncle, was left in charge, while Dragut himself sailed once more with his fleet, for, as it is put by the Spanish historian Marmol, “truly the sea was his element.”

Once again had a Moslem corsair bid defiance to that ruler whom Sandoval and Marmol in their histories greet by the name of the “Modern Cæsar.” It was told to Charles that Susa, Sfax, and Monastir had fallen, that “Africa” was in the hands of the corsairs; “was he never to be free from these pestilent knaves,” he demanded of his trembling courtiers? Hot-foot came the couriers from Charles to Andrea Doria, with orders to take Dragut dead or alive, but alive for choice; and up and down the tideless sea in the summer of 1549 did the great Genoese seaman range in search of the bold corsair. Doria was getting a very old man now, but his eye was undimmed, his strength yet tireless, his vigilance and zeal in the service of his master unabated.

Dead or alive, great was the reward offered for the capture of Dragut, but the veteran admiral required no stimulus of this sort to urge him to put forth his utmost endeavours, to strain every nerve and sinew in the chase. All his life he had been fighting the corsairs, mostly with conspicuous success; but what Andrea could never forget—and what his enemies never allowed him to forget even had he been so inclined—was the fact that, at the supreme crisis of his valiant life, when he met with Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa at the battle of Prevesa, he had come off so badly that his under officers of the Papal and Venetian fleets had made representations, on their return to their respective headquarters, which had detracted from his fame, and lowered him in the estimation of Europe. Further than this, he knew that Barbarossa had laughed at and made game of him among his wild followers: this to the aristocrat, the Prince of Oneglia, the admiral who treated on almost equal terms with such men as the Pope, Charles of Spain, and Francis of France, was an insult hard to be borne; the next corsair with whom he should meet should not escape so easily as had Kheyr-ed-Din, that the admiral had sworn.

Personal pique and vanity, racial detestation, and religious fanaticism were in his case all allied together to spur him on in the chase of this the last of the Emperor’s foes; but, search as he might, during that summer Doria could never get on to the track of Dragut. The corsairs, as we have just remarked, were fine fighters on occasion when it was necessary for the purposes of loot, or of escape from those who, like Doria, interfered with their particular method of gaining a livelihood; but, on the other hand, they were no fools, they did not covet hard knocks and the possibility of defeat from such a one as the admiral of the Emperor, when by the exercise of a little ingenuity they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going to fight a general action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his luck stood to him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre hatred in his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold as a lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys with Doria in command was no part of his programme. An occasion might arise when he would be forced to action; should this happen Dragut had not forgotten his four years in the galley of Jannetin Doria, the nephew of the admiral, and next time he intended to fight to win. Just at present the Christian admiral was in too great strength for him to do aught but keep out of his way, and much to Andrea’s annoyance this was what he succeeded in doing.

Doria got information that Dragut was at Monastir, information that was perfectly correct; but by this time the corsair knew that not only had he raised all Christendom, but that the admiral was on his track. In consequence, he slipped out of Monastir, “for,” as it is pithily put by Marmol, “our corsair cared not to be shut up in so defenceless a port; he had good heels and loved sea-room.”

Dragut did not fear for his new possession, “Africa,” as he knew that Doria had not sufficient force to attack so formidable a place; therefore, leaving it to its destiny and the valour and conduct of his nephew Aisa, on whom he knew that he could rely, “he went,” according to the chronicler, “on his old trade making Horrid Devastations on the coast of Spain and its islands.”

While Dragut was pursuing his “Horrid Devastations,” Doria was not idle, but was ranging the northern coast of Africa in his fruitless search; in the course of this he landed at Cape Bona, on which was the castle of Calibia, held by the corsairs; these men, who were a portion of Dragut’s following, made a most valiant defence; they were, however, few in number, and when their captain was killed by the ball from an arquebus they surrendered. Encouraged by this success, the Christian fleet then stood along the coast to inspect “Africa.” Sailing quite close to the shore they came within range of the guns of the garrison, who, under the direction of Aisa, were very much on the alert. As the admiral’s galley at the head of the line passed the walls of the town, she was received with a hot fire, and one large cannonball struck the stern of Doria’s ship, doing considerable structural damage, and killing five of his men. This occurrence took place in broad daylight in full view of all the garrison, who signalled their delight at the discomfiture of their foes by the noise of cymbals and atambours, and by wild and ferocious yells. Doria, who was in no position to land and make reprisals, fell into the greatest paroxysm of fury, and we are told that “he swore the destruction of that detested city.”

The season being now advanced, Doria returned home, where he found orders awaiting him from Charles that preparation was to be made for the capture of “Africa”. While the admiral was in harbour, Dragut, finding the seas open to him once more, returned from his “Horrid Devastations,” and employed his time profitably in throwing provisions and men into the city, which he knew would be beleagured in the following year.

During the ensuing winter Doria, in conjunction with the viceroys of Naples and Sicily, prepared the expedition which was to accomplish not only the capture of “Africa,” but what was, in his opinion, equally important, the destruction of Dragut-Reis, Early in the spring of 1550, all was in readiness, and the armada of Charles sailed from Palermo to Trapani, where it met with the forces of Don Juan de Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, those of Don Garcia de Toledo, the son of the Viceroy of Naples, and likewise the Maltese squadron. The galleys, accompanied by a fleet of transports, set sail early in June, and on the 20th of that month landed an army a little to the east of Mehedia or “Africa”.

It must be remembered that the inhabitants of Mehedia were by no means enamoured of Dragut-Reis and his piratical followers: King Stork had succeeded to King Log, the part of the former monarch being taken by that singularly capable and ferocious person, Aisa, whose rule was far from being to the liking of the richer and more respectable portion of the townsfolk.

When, therefore, Andrea Doria and his captains laid siege to the city, they murmured against its defence, desiring ardently to enter into some sort of treaty with the besiegers; they had had enough of war, they said, and wished to end their days in peace if possible.

Aisa Reis, however, would hear no word of surrender, telling those who murmured against the defence that “if he heard a word more of these plots he would infallibly sacrifice every mother’s son amongst them, and then lay the town in ashes.” Having already had a taste of the quality of this redoubtable corsair, and feeling perfectly certain that should the occasion arise he would be as good as his word, there was no more disaffection among the inhabitants, who had to put up with their native place being made a cockpit for Doria and Dragut to fight out their quarrel. It is permissible to sympathise very sincerely with these unfortunates, who, having been betrayed in the first instance, were compelled to stand a siege in the second.

Aisa had a picked force of his uncle’s men, some seventeen hundred foot and six hundred horse, all seasoned and formidable veterans, inured to warfare by land and sea. On these of course he could rely to the death. The common folk of the town were inclined to make common cause with the corsairs in resistance to their hereditary enemy the Christians; but the magistrates and members of the council, the grave and reverend signiors, held so conspicuously aloof that Aisa was constrained into forcing them to aid in the defence when he had time to attend to the matter. As Dragut was not actually present at the siege it falls outside the scope of this chronicle; he was without the walls when the besiegers arrived, but all that he could do, that he did. With a body of his own men reinforced by a rabble rout of Berber tribesmen, he harassed the Christian army; they were, however, in far too great numbers for him to make any impression, and after several desperate skirmishes he recognised that the day was lost, and re-embarking in his galleys sailed away. The town after a desperate and prolonged resistance was at last taken by storm; and Doria captured Aisa, a Turkish alcaid, and ten thousand prisoners of the baser sort. Of these, however, there was scarce one who owed allegiance to Dragut; the warriors of this chief neither gave nor accepted quarter, as they feared the wrath of the terrible corsair even more than death itself.

Don Juan de Vega put his son Don Alvaro in command of the city and set out in search of Dragut with twenty galleys, but the sea leaves no traces by which a fugitive can be tracked, and his search proved as fruitless as had been that of Doria in the previous year. The rage and the disappointment of the admiral were beyond all bounds; what to him was the value of the capture of Aisa, of the Turkish alcaid, of the ten thousand of the baser sort; nay, what to him was the value of “Africa” itself when once again like a mocking spirit Dragut had glided beyond the sea horizon to devastate, to plunder, and to slay once more, the scourge and the menace of Christendom.

It will be interesting to record briefly the fate of this city which we have seen taken and retaken. Don Alvaro de Vega remained as governor till the end of July, 1551, when his place was taken by Don Sancho de Leyva; at which time there took place one of those curious military mutinies so characteristic of the sixteenth century. The soldiers, unpaid for months, possibly for years, mutinied, expelled the governor and other officers, even the sergeants, from the city, and placed themselves under the direction of a stout soldier called Antonio de Aponte, to whom they gave the title of “Electo Mayor.”

Don Sancho repaired to Brussels to report matters to the Emperor, and during his absence a circumstance which is also singularly characteristic of this faithless epoch took place, for the Prior of Capua, then general of the French galleys, entered into negotiations with the mutineers for the surrender of the city to the French King.

Bluff Antonio de Aponte would have none of this treachery; he held the city for the Emperor Charles and only wanted his pay. Eventually a mutiny within a mutiny was fomented from without, and with the mutineers divided the Emperor regained possession of the city; some of the mutineers were hanged, and Aponte, who had been captured by the Turks, died at Constantinople.

The Emperor offered “Africa” to the Knights of Malta with a yearly allowance of twenty-four thousand ducats; the Knights refused, much to the chagrin of Charles, who gave orders for its complete destruction. This was accomplished by blowing up with gunpowder the walls, towers, and fortifications which Al-Mehedi, after whom the city had been named, “had erected with such art and strength, and had his mind so fixed upon that work that he used to say, ‘If I thought building these fortifications with iron and brass would render them more durable, I would certainly do it.’”