Chapter 27

ALI BASHA

Ali, the Basha of Algiers, succeeds to Dragut—He conquers the Kingdom of Tunis, captures four galleys from the Knights of Malta, joins Piali Basha in his raidings preliminary to the battle of Lepanto—The gathering of the Christian hosts and the arrival of Don John of Austria in the Mediterranean to take command.

“Now I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which was the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali? And some held for one and some for the other; those who held for Occhiali declaring that he had held greater and more honourable charges than Dragut, because he commanded as General and Admiral for the Grand Turk and that _il fit belle action_ at the battle of Lepanto.” Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantôme, from whom we make the above quotation, was himself present at the siege of Malta and, besides this, as is well known, gossiped in his own inimitable way concerning men and women of his time, from corsairs to courtesans. When such contemporary authorities as those mentioned could not agree it is quite certain that we of the twentieth century cannot decide on the rival claims to distinction between the Bashaw of Tripoli and his follower Occhiali, as he was known to the Christians, or Ali Basha, as he was called by the Turks. Ali Basha has a title to fame in the fact that he is mentioned by Cervantes in his _Don Quijote de la Mancha_ under the name of “Uchali” in chapter xxxix., “Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y sucesos.” The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than the famous Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali became “Rey de Argel,” or King of Algiers.

Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian name, although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest youth the calling of a mariner; “he was from infancy inured to salt water,” says Joseph Morgan, in his _Compleat History of Algiers_, and he was, as a mere boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was chained to the starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was thus very early in life “inured” to suffering, and must have possessed a constitution of iron to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of the life of a galley-slave, which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years. Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as “scald-head,” and that personal filthiness was one of his principal characteristics.

For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking toil of the rower’s bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid of kinsfolk, alone—miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given him naught but the chain and the whip—it is not a matter for surprise that he became a Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the time that he took this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange medley of savagery and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.

Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief boatswain in the galley in which his apprenticeship had been passed—a position which enabled him to accumulate a small store of ducats, with which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired sufficient wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which he soon gained the reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on the Barbary coast. Having in some sort made a name for himself, his next step was to seek for a patron who could make use of his valour, address, and capability for command. His choice was soon made, as who in all the Mediterranean, in his early days, held such a name as Dragut? He accordingly entered the service of the Basha of Tripoli, and, under his command, became well known to the officers of the Grand Turk, particularly to the Admiral, Piali Basha, to whom he was able to render some important services.

There is no object to be gained in lingering over the earlier years of this notable corsair, as we should thus only be repeating what has been said about Dragut, whose lieutenant and trusted follower he became. He accompanied his master to the siege of Malta, and when Dragut was slain the Capitan-Basha, Piali, named him as successor to his chief as Viceroy of Tripoli. Ali sailed from Malta to Tripoli, taking with him the remains of Dragut, to be buried as that chieftain had directed. When he arrived on the Barbary coast he made himself master of the slaves and treasure which had been left behind by Dragut; shortly after this he was confirmed in his Vice-royalty of Tripoli by the Grand Turk; thenceforward increasing, both his wealth and the terror in which his name was held, by continual raids upon the Christians, more particularly on the coasts of Sicily, Calabria, and Naples. It is curious to observe the sort of spite which all the renegadoes seem to have harboured against the countries in which they were born.

In March 1568, owing to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of literally sovereign power to the city which he had first entered as a galley-slave.

That he was no negligent Governor and that he took an entirely intelligent view of his functions, is proved by an occurrence which took place in this same year in Spain. The Moriscoes in the Kingdom of Granada revolted against their Spanish Governor, by whom they were sorely oppressed. They sent messages to Ali at Algiers, begging for succour against their persecutor. But the Basha would send no expedition; he permitted all and sundry to go as volunteers, but gave out publicly that “it more concerned him to defend well his own State than to interfere in the affairs of others.” He even went farther than this, and when a number of Moriscoes, who were settled at Algiers, embarked a quantity of arms for transportation to the coast of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not allow them to sail, saying “he would never suffer the exportation of what was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions.” At last, after much importunity, he consented “that all such as had two of a sort—as muskets, swords, or other weapons—might, if they thought fit, send over one of them, provided they did it gratis and purely for the cause’ sake; but he would never allow any of them to strip themselves of their arms for lucre.”

Ali, being now firmly established at Algiers, took up arms against the neighbouring State of Tunis. For long years now the King of Tunis had been protected by the Spaniards—a nation whom the Sea-wolves always held in singular abhorrence as the most bigoted of the Christian Powers, and who held in thrall many of their co-religionists. Hamid, son of Hassan, who now ruled in Tunis, had reduced that unfortunate State to anarchy bordering on rebellion, and the whole country, torn by internal feud, was ready to rise against him. The Goletta was in the hands of the Spaniards; Carouan, an inland town, had set up a king of its own, while the maritime towns passed from the domination of the Sea-wolves to that of the Christians, and from the Christians back to the Sea-wolves, according to which party happened to be the stronger for the time being.

El Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, “Abad de Fromesta de la Orden del Patriarca San Benito” and “natural del Valle de Carranca,” whose _Topografia e Historia de Argel_ (or Algiers) was printed in Valladolid in the year 1612, gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he describes that monarch as an “unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his vassals and the friends of his father; who could by no means suffer his tyrannies and those of his ministers, the scum of the earth (“hombres baxos”), to whom he had given the principal offices of the kingdom. Accordingly, since the time that Ali had become Basha of Algiers, letters had been written to him importuning him to come to Tunis that he might possess himself of that city and kingdom.”

There were three principal conspirators—the Alcaid Bengabara, General of the Cavalry, the Alcaid Botaybo, and the Alcaid Alcadaar. Ali, however, was too shrewd a man to move until he had satisfied himself by reports from his own adherents; he, therefore, awaited the result of investigations made by spies from Algiers. At last, in the beginning of the year 1569, when the offers from the Alcaids had been three times renewed and the Basha was assured that the people in Tunis were sincere in their offer to him of the sovereignty of the kingdom—which they begged him to conquer and hold in the name of the Ottoman Empire—the ex-galley-slave no longer hesitated. He left Algiers in the month of October, leaving that city in charge of one Mami Corso, a fellow renegado. Unlike Dragut, who would have gone by sea, he set out by land with some five thousand corsairs and renegadoes. On the way he was reinforced by some six thousand cavalry of the wild tribes of the hinterland, then as ever ready to join in a fray with promise of booty: doubly ready in this case, as it was to harass so unpopular a tyrant as Hamid. Passing through Constantine and Bona, he continued to march towards Tunis, his following augmenting as he proceeded, and adding to his forces ten light field-guns. Arriving at Beja, a town which Haedo describes as being but two short days’ march from Tunis, he came upon a fortress, recently erected by Hamid, mounting fourteen brass cannon. Here he halted, whereupon Hamid sallied out to give him battle at the head of some three thousand troops, horse and foot. The engagement had scarcely begun when the three Alcaids, who had been in communication with Ali, deserted with all their following. Hamid fled to Tunis, expecting to find shelter there, but he was hotly pursued by the corsairs, who followed him up to Al-Burdon, where his summer palace was situated. Hamid, finding that his people were everywhere in revolt, fled to the Goletta, carrying with him a quantity of money, jewels, and portable valuables, and placed himself under the protection of the Spanish garrison—not, however, without the loss of the major portion of his baggage, plundered from him by certain Moors in the course of his flight.

Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis, and as he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new subjects with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not to have been expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from the tribes of the hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern Africa, men paid tribute to an overlord because he was stronger than they; because retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal. To order tribute to be paid without being ready to strike was merely to expose the man making the demand to derision. Particularly was this the case with the fierce land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was to exact and not to pay tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that “if he wanted tribute from them he must demand it lance in hand in the field, for there and nowhere else were they accustomed to pay: that their coin was steel lance-heads and not golden aspers.” After this, says Morgan, “the Basha thought it well to dissemble.”

Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these people, had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to regulating the internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he succeeded in doing sufficiently by the month of June in the following year to enable him to leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a Sardinian renegado, and to start himself for Constantinople. His reason for doing this was the old one of attempting to consolidate his power in Northern Africa by appealing to the Sultan for help. As long as the Goletta remained in the hands of the Spaniards no corsair could feel himself secure in either Tunis or Algiers. The object of Ali was to beg from the Grand Turk men and ships to assist him to chase the Spaniards out of Africa.

The month of June 1570, in consequence, saw Ali once more at sea in his “Admiral galley,” steering northwards to the Golden Horn. Carrying with them a favourable breeze from the south-east, the galleys spread their huge lateen sails, and the straining rowers had rest awhile. The squadron consisted of twenty-four galleys. Off Cape Passaro, in Sicily, a small vessel was captured which gave information that five galleys of the Knights of Malta were at anchor at Licata, a small harbour in the neighbourhood, and that they were on the point of sailing for Malta. The decision of Ali was taken on the instant: were he to go in and attack them with the overwhelming force at his command the crews might escape to the shore; even the Knights of Malta could hardly be expected to fight twenty-four galleys with five. He was anxious to capture the ships, but above all to capture those by whom they were manned: to have the satisfactory revenge of seeing the proud Knights stripped naked and chained to the benches of his own fleet.

The hot Mediterranean sun poured down out of a cloudless sky as the Sea-wolves made their offing; out of sight of land they lay, but right in the course which the galleys of the Christians were bound to take. The great yards, with their lateen sails, were got down on deck, and, oar in hand, the Moslems awaited their prey. Presently the Maltese galleys were discovered coming leisurely along, under oars and sails, and then—when it was too late—the Knights discovered the snare into which they had fallen. There was but scant time for preparation or deliberation, and who shall blame four out of the five if they decided to try to escape? for it was escape or annihilation.

But there was one which did not fly, “Una galera hizo cara a los Turcos” (One single galley turned her bows towards the Turks), says that faithful chronicler Haedo. She was named the _Santa Ana_, but the name of her heroic commander has not come down to us. Even as Grenfell “at Flores in the Azores,” stood upon the deck of the little _Revenge_ on that memorable August day in 1591, when “he chose to die rather than to dishonour himself, his country, and her Majesty’s ship,” so also did this Knight of Malta bear down on the twenty-four that were his foes.

When Don John of Austria, being at the time young and inexperienced in warfare on the sea, wrote to the Marquis of Villafranca, General of the Galleys of Sicily, requesting advice on the subject of galley attacking galley, that officer replied to him, “Never fire your arquebus at the foe until you are so close at hand that his blood will leap into your face at the discharge.” If we bear in mind such an instruction as this it will help us to picture that close-packed sanguinary conflict upon which the Mediterranean sun looked down on this day. Eight to one, all that could find room to get alongside of the _Santa Ana_, fought with the Knight and his followers. The issue was, of course, never in doubt for a moment. “Muertos y cansados” (Dead and deadbeat), says Haedo, the caballeros and soldados of the Christian ship could at length hold out no longer. The Sea-wolves were victorious, the proud banner of Saint John was lowered; but never in all its history had it been more nobly upheld, and the galley _Santa Ana_, commanded by that unknown member of the great Christian military hierarchy of the sixteenth century, may well stand in the roll of fame alongside of the _Revenge_, the _Vengeur_, and the _Victory_.

The _Capitana_, or “Admiral’s galley,” of the Knights, being hotly pursued, ran ashore with one of her consorts at Licata: the crews landed, but were pursued and overtaken. One galley escaped altogether, but four out of the five were taken. So notable a victory as this over the Knights caused so much rejoicing in the fleet of the Sea-wolves that Ali determined to celebrate it by a triumphal return to Algiers instead of proceeding directly to Constantinople. Accordingly, the ships’ heads were turned south once more, and upon July 20th, 1570, the fleet arrived in the African port, “on sus galeras todas llenas de muchas banderas”—with galleys gaily beflagged.

The procession entered the harbour in three divisions of eight galleys: and towing behind each division was one of the captured galleys of the Knights. In memory of his prowess Ali ordered that the shields and bucklers taken from the Maltese galleys, which bore upon them emblazoned the white cross of “the Religion,” should be hung up in the great arched gate of the Marina. Also there was placed here the image of Saint John the Baptist, taken from the _Capitana_ galley, “all of which remain,” says Haedo, “until this day” (_i.e._ 1612), except the image of Saint John, which in the reign of Hassan Basha, a Venetian renegado, was taken down and burned at the instance of the Morabutos, “los letrados de los Moros” (the learned among the Moors). It is an instructive commentary on the fear and respect in which the Knights of Malta were held that such a man as Ali should have considered it a triumph worth the celebrating when he defeated five of their vessels with twenty-four of his own.

The next occurrence in the life of Ali was one of those to which the Sea-wolves were subjected from time to time, and which do not seem to have caused them much trouble or anxiety. This was a mutiny of the Janissaries in Algiers, who very reasonably objected to being left without their pay. A mutiny of the Janissaries, however, was somewhat a serious matter, as they were accustomed to the enjoyment of many privileges, and were, as we have said elsewhere, a picked corps who had it in their power even to coerce the Sultan himself upon occasions.

Those of them who were in Algiers demanded “Who was this corsair who dared to keep the picked men of the army of the Grand Turk waiting for their pay, as if they were no better than his slaves?” Such a thing as a mutiny was, in the days of which we speak, a matter for which any prudent corsair had to be prepared. Ali was in no means discomposed, and, as the crisis had become acute on shore, he went to sea, where he was under no obligation to pay his men, who paid themselves at the expense of their enemies. He put to sea with twenty galleys, and, shortly after leaving Algiers, he met with a galley from the Levant, from which he received information that a powerful armada was preparing in Constantinople for an expedition against the Christians. He steered for Coron in the Morea, where he was almost immediately joined by the Ottoman fleet, the commander of which force was overjoyed to find so formidable a reinforcement under so renowned a captain as Ali.

Soliman the Magnificent had died in 1566, and had been succeeded by his son, Selim; this prince, bred in the Seraglio, was weak and licentious, given to that strong drink forbidden by the Prophet to an extent which caused him to be nicknamed by the Spaniards as “el ebrio,” or “el bebedor.”

This was a state of affairs which boded ill for the Turkish Empire, and Selim II. had been educated in a very different manner from that which had hitherto been the custom. Speaking of this, Gibbon says, “Instead of the slothful luxury of the Seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the council and the field. From early youth they were entrusted by their fathers with the command of provinces and of armies; and this manly institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have essentially contributed to the discipline and vigour of the monarchy.”

Drunkard and weakling as he was, Selim had his ambitions. He wished to signalise his reign by some great conquest, such as had added lustre to the rule of his father; and in consequence he laid claim to the island of Cyprus, then belonging to Venice, The Venetians, having strengthened the fortifications of the island and fitted out their navy, sought alliances in Europe to curb the pretensions of the Porte. In this they found support, instant and generous, from the Pope Pius V. Of this great ecclesiastic Prescott says: “He was one of those Pontiffs who seemed to have been called forth by the exigencies of the time to uphold the pillars of Catholicism as they were yet trembling under the assaults of Luther.”

The Pope, Philip II. of Spain, and Venice formed what was known as the “Holy League,” and, having formed it, immediately began to quarrel among themselves as to what its functions were to be. The Venetians wished all its efforts to be directed to safeguarding Cyprus, while Philip and his viceroys were anxious to attack the Sea-wolves on the coast of Africa in their strongholds. After much squabbling, an agreement was come to. The principal items of this were, that the Pope should pay one-sixth of the expenses, Venice two-sixths, and Spain three-sixths; that each party should appoint its own Commander-in-Chief, and that Don John of Austria should be in supreme command of the whole forces assembled. The contracting parties were to furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot, 4,500 horse, and the requisite artillery and stores.

While the Christians were negotiating and talking, the Turks were acting. It was in May that the Pope caused the treaty to be publicly read in full consistory; in April the Turkish fleet had got to sea and committed terrible ravages in the Adriatic, laying waste to Venetian territory.

While ships and men were gathering, and while the fleet which it was to be his fortune to defeat was pursuing its career in the Mediterranean, Don John of Austria left Madrid for the south on June 6th, 1571. When he arrived at Barcelona he made a pilgrimage to the Hermitage of Our Lady of Montserrat, where his father Charles V. had confessed and received the sacrament before he sailed on his voyage to the Barbary coast in his expedition against Barbarossa. From Barcelona he sailed with thirty galleys to Genoa, where he arrived on the 25th, and was lodged in the palace of Andrea Doria. In August he arrived by water at Naples.

By this time all Europe was aflame with excitement: warriors of noble birth were flocking to serve under the standard of the brother of the King of Spain, who was regarded as the very mirror of chivalry. The following description of Don John, at Naples, is from the pen of that great historian Prescott:

“Arrangements had been made in that city for his reception on a more magnificent scale than any he had witnessed on his journey. Granvelle, who had lately been raised to the post of Viceroy, came forth at the head of a long and brilliant procession to welcome his royal guest. The houses which lined the streets were hung with richly tinted tapestries and gaily festooned with flowers. The windows and verandahs were graced with the beauty and fashion of the pleasure-loving capital, and many a dark eye sparkled as it gazed upon the fine form and features of the youthful hero, who at the age of twenty-four had come to Italy to assume the baton of command and lead the crusade against the Moslems. His splendid dress of white velvet and cloth of gold set off his graceful person to advantage. A crimson scarf floated loosely over his breast, and his snow-white plumes drooping from his cap mingled with the yellow curls that fell in profusion over his shoulders. It was a picture which the Italian maiden might love to look on. It was certainly not the picture of the warrior sheathed in the iron panoply of war. But the young Prince, in his general aspect, might be relieved from the charge of effeminacy by his truly chivalrous bearing and the dauntless spirit which beamed from his clear blue eyes. In his own lineaments he seemed to combine all that was comely in the lineaments of his race.”

At Naples Don John found a fleet at anchor under the command of Don Alvaro de Bazan, first marquis of Santa Cruz, of whom much was to be heard in the future in his capacity as Admiral of Castile. Here also he received from the hands of Cardinal Granvelle a consecrated banner sent to him by the Pope at a solemn ceremony in the church of the Franciscan Convent of Santa Chiara. On August 25th he left Naples and proceeded to Messina, where he landed under a triumphal arch of colossal dimensions, embossed with rich plates of silver and curiously sculptured with emblematical bas-reliefs. The royal galley in which the hero embarked was built at Barcelona: she was fitted with the greatest luxury, and was remarkable for her strength and speed; her stern was profusely decorated with emblems and devices drawn from history; no such warship had ever been seen in the world before.

Cayetano Rosell, in his _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_, says that the number of vessels, great and small, in the Christian armada was over 300, of which 200 were galleys, the ordinary warships of the time. He goes on to say:

“In this spacious harbour [Messina] there were collected the squadrons of the League; the people who managed the oars and sails and the innumerable combatants making an immense number when added together. Since the days of Imperial Rome, never had been seen in these seas so imposing a spectacle, never had there been collected so many ships moving towards a single end dominated by a single will. Never was there a spectacle more gratifying in the eyes of justice, nor of greater incentive to men to fight for the cause of religion.”

The Spanish fleet comprised 90 royal galleys, 24 nefs, and 50 fregatas and brigantines “los mejores que en tiempo alguno se habrian visto” (the finest that ever were seen at any time), as they were described by Don John. The Pope sent 12 galleys and 6 fregatas, under the command of Mark Antony Colonna. The Pope had also made a grant of the “Crusada” and “Excusada,” and other ecclesiastical revenues which he drew from Spain, to the King of that country, to meet expenses.

Venice appointed Sebastian Veniero to the command of her fleet, which consisted of 106 galleys, 6 galeasses of enormous bulk and clumsy construction carrying each 40 guns, 2 nefs, and 20 fregatas. These vessels were, however, so miserably manned and equipped that Don John had to send on board Spaniards and Genoese to complete their complements. In a manuscript of the Bibliothèque du Roi (Number 10088) is an account of the battle of Lepanto by Commandeur de Romegas. He gives the number of the Turkish fleet at 333 ships, of which 230 were galleys, the rest galeasses and smaller craft. The total which he gives for the Christian fleet is 271. Ali Basha was in supreme command of the Turkish forces, “a man of an intrepid spirit, who had given many proofs of a humane and generous mature—qualities more rare among the Turks, perhaps among all nations, than mere physical courage.” With Ali was the Basha of Algiers, that other Ali, the corsair, who since his arrival at Coron had done more than his share of the fighting, marauding, and devastating which were the preliminaries to the battle of Lepanto. In this historic conflict he was to show once again how, on the face of the waters, the Sea-wolves were supreme; as it was he and his corsairs, out of the whole of the Moslem host, who acquitted themselves with the greatest credit on that day so fatal to the arms of the Ottoman Turk.