Battle of Pianosa

Coordinates: 42°48′N 10°00′E / 42.800°N 10.000°E / 42.800; 10.000
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

42°48′N 10°00′E / 42.800°N 10.000°E / 42.800; 10.000

Battle of Pianosa
Part of the wars of Christian powers against the
Barbary Corsairs
Date25 April 1519
Location
Result Genoese Victory
Belligerents
 Republic of Genoa Tunisian corsairs
Commanders and leaders

Republic of GenoaAndrea Doria

Republic of Genoa Filippino Doria
Kaid Ali (POW)
Strength
  • 6 galleys
  • 1 galley
  • 7 to 20 fustes (depending on accounts)
  • Casualties and losses
  • Heavy
  • 500 dead
  • 25 captured
  • 1 galley captured
  • at least 5 fustes captured
  • several fustes sunk
  • The Tuscan archipelago

    The Battle of Pianosa was a

    Barbary corsair Kaid Ali in the Tyrrhenian Sea, in view of the island of Elba. The battle broke the back of one of the rising corsair bases on the Barbary Coast, Bizerte, and established Andrea Doria as among the foremost captains in the Mediterranean
    .

    Background

    Raiding had long been part of life in the

    Pope and took the papal fleet's admiral, Paolo Vettori, near Mont’Argentario, on the Tuscan coast.[7]

    For the most part, the European Christian powers were too occupied fighting each other to pay much heed to the rather small-scale predation of the Barbary corsairs.

    Spain, for instance, notably diminished the resources allocated to the fight against the North African raiders in the 1510s, considering French expansionism as a much greater threat to its security.[8] Corsairs were taken seriously only by lesser coastal powers such as Genoa and the Papal States in particular because they directly menaced important trade routes upon which their economies and grain supplies depended.[9][10] In early spring 1519, aware of the arrival of Kaid Ali's flotilla in the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Genoese Republic entrusted its coastline defense to a local captain, the nobleman Andrea Doria, who had acquired a good reputation fighting in Corsica for the Republic. Mindful of the difficulty of the task at hand, Andrea Doria demanded that the Republic's four galleys be reinforced with another two. The Genoese government granted his request but, because there were too few prisoners and captives to provide the two new boats with sufficient rowers, free oarsmen were recruited (known as buonavoglia) to complement the rowing crew.[11]

    Battle

    Andrea Doria as Neptune
    Filippino Doria

    The

    nautical miles and probably four hours. The strong wind put the larger and more seaworthy Genoese ships at an advantage. They reached the westernmost cape of the island of Elba ahead of their pursuers.[12]

    Having reached Elba, the Genoese captain took advantage of a local wind pattern to change direction and head straight towards the Bizertines. However, the newly recruited free-rowers of the two additional ships lacked the skill and strength for these arduous maneuvers and began drifting with the wind. Andrea Doria had to send two of his older galleys to tow the less experienced ships. Two-thirds of the Genoese ships were unable to face-off and run down the adversary in time. Rather than letting the opportunity pass, Andrea Doria put his nephew Filippino Doria in charge of the four slower ships and took his main galleys, the Capitana and the Patrona, straight towards the Bizertine to pin them down before the main force arrived.[13][14]

    The Genoese had more artillery than the corsairs and managed to do some damage with their cannons. However the Bizertine succeeded in grappling and boarding the Genoese ships. Hand-to-hand combat ensued. Badly outnumbered, Doria and his men managed to sustain the shock for fifteen minutes. At this point the four ships under Filippino Doria reached the thick of the fight and within half-an-hour the battle was won for the Genoese. Only three fuste ships of the corsairs managed to escape. The rest of the flotilla – possibly as many as nine vessels of various sizes – were captured or sunk. The Capitana of the Pope had been recovered and was towed back to Genoa along with four other ships.[15]

    Aftermath

    The fight, as was often the case in the overcrowded

    galleys, had been extraordinarily violent and bloody. Italian sources mention 500 corsairs dead. This may be an overestimate, but the losses on the side of the Bizertines were undoubtedly heavy. The Genoese had also suffered important casualties. One of Andrea Doria's nephews, Lazzarino Doria, was killed in action and his second-in-command Filippino Doria was wounded twice.[16][17] The Genoese managed to take only a handful of prisoners among whom, however, was the Bizertine captain Kaid Ali. Most of these captives were rapidly ransomed but Kaid Ali himself was not exchanged and was held as a prisoner in the fortress of Pianosa
    until his death in 1530.

    With Kaid Ali prisoner and Kurtoğlu Muslihiddin serving the Ottomans in the East, the bulk of their men dead and most of their ships captured or sunk, the strength of the Bizertine corsair base had been broken and the city receded into a very secondary raiding base, far behind the main corsair ports Tripoli and, above all, Algiers.

    References

    1. ^ Valérian 2006, p. 421 et seg.
    2. ^ Graziani 1991, p. 477
    3. ^ Bono 1964, p. passim
    4. ^ Braudel 1995, p. 251
    5. ^ Zachariadou 2002, p. passim
    6. ^ Guglielmotti 1876, p. 161
    7. ^ Graziani 2008, p. 69
    8. ^ Espinosa 2005, p. 249
    9. ^ Pacini 1999, p. 59
    10. ^ Grendi 2005, p. passim
    11. ^ Guglielmotti 1876, p. 165
    12. ^ Guglielmotti 1876, p. 165
    13. ^ Guglielmotti 1876, p. 165
    14. ^ Williams 2015, p. 87 et seg
    15. ^ Guglielmotti 1876, p. 165
    16. ^ Guglielmotti 1876, p. 166
    17. ^ Graziani 2008, p. 70

    Bibliography