Battle of Preveza

Coordinates: 38°57′33″N 20°45′01″E / 38.95917°N 20.75028°E / 38.95917; 20.75028
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For the battle of the Italo-Turkish War, see Battle of Preveza (1911).
Battle of Preveza
Part of the Third Ottoman–Venetian War

Battle of Preveza, Ohannes Umed Behzad
Date28 September 1538
Location
Near Preveza, Ionian Sea
Result Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire

Holy League:

Commanders and leaders
Strength
122 galleys and galliots,
366 cannons,
3.000 janissaries and 8.000 soldiers[1][2]		 112 galleys
50 galiots
140 barkas[3] 2500-2594 cannons,
60.000 soldiers[3][1]
Casualties and losses
No ship lost
~400 death,
~800 wounded[1]		 13 ships lost,
36 ships captured,
3,000 prisoners[1]

The Battle of Preveza (also known as Prevesa) was a

Battle of Lepanto.[5]

Background

Gulf of Arta
. Preveza is located at the entrance of the Gulf.

In 1537, commanding a large Ottoman fleet,

Duchy of Naxos to the Ottoman Empire. He then unsuccessfully besieged the Venetian stronghold of Corfu and ravaged the Spanish-held Calabrian coast in southern Italy.[6]

In the face of this threat, Pope

Papal States, Habsburg Spain, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Venice, and the Knights of Malta, to confront Ottoman fleet under Barbarossa.[7]

Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral in the service of Emperor Charles V was in overall command.

Deployment

Deployment of the opposing fleets

The Holy League assembled its fleet near the island of

Vincenzo Capello
arrived first. Andrea Doria joined them with the Spanish-Genoese fleet on 22 September 1538.

Prior to Doria's arrival, Grimani attempted to land troops near the Fortress of Preveza, but he retreated to Corfu after suffering a number of casualties in the ensuing encounter with Ottoman forces.

Barbarossa was still at the island of

Murat Reis
on 25 and 26 September.

As Doria's ships kept their distance from the coast, much concerned about adverse winds driving them onto a hostile shore, Barbarossa had the advantageous interior position. During the night of 27–28 September, Doria therefore sailed 30 miles south and, when the wind died down, anchored at Sessola near the island of

Lepanto
and force Barbarossa to fight.

Battle

Turgut Reis was with 6 large galliots and the left wing was close to the shore. Andre Doria, who did not expect such a bold attack from the numerically small Ottoman forces, was able to give the order to anchor and be ready for battle only after 3 hours, despite the pressure of Grimani and Capello
.

The two navies finally engaged each other on 28 September 1538, in Narda Bay, off the coast of Preveza.[8]

The lack of wind was to Doria's detriment. The huge Venetian flagship Galeone di Venezia, with its enormous weapons, was stranded 4 miles off the coast and 10 miles off Sessola due to lack of wind. While the Crusader ships were trying to come to the aid of Galeone di Venezia, the ship, which was surrounded by Ottoman galleys, could not avoid being captured, even though it caused a lot of damage to the Ottoman ships in a fierce battle that lasted for hours.

When the wind finally started to blow, the Crusader fleet took action. Doria first executed several maneuvers designed to draw the Turks into the sea. Ferrante Gonzaga, governor of Sicily, held the left wing of the mixed fleet, while the Knights of Malta held the right wing. Doria placed four of his fastest galleys under the command of his nephew, Giovanni Andrea Doria, who entrenched himself in the front center between Gonzaga and the Knights of Malta. Doria's galleys were positioned behind them, and the Papal and Venetian galleys under the command of Grimani and Capello were placed in a long line in front of them. At the rear, the Venetian galleons under the command of Alessandro Condalmiero (Bondumier) and the Spanish-Portuguese-Genoese galleons under the command of Francesco Doria were deployed together with barques and support ships.

The Ottoman navy had a

Turgut Reis, accompanied by Murat Reis
, Güzelce Mehmet Reis and Sadık Reis, commanded the rear wing. The Turks quickly engaged Venetian, Papal, and Maltese ships, but Doria hesitated to mobilize his center forces against Barbarossa, resulting in too much tactical maneuvering and too little combat engagement. Barbarossa wanted to take advantage of the lack of wind that immobilized the Christian ships, which made up most of the numerical difference between the two sides. These barques fell easy prey to the Turks, who boarded them from their relatively more mobile galleys and galleys. Doria's efforts to trap the Ottoman ships between the cannon fire of his barricades and the galleys were unsuccessful.

By the end of the day, the Turks had sunk, destroyed or captured 128 ships and taken approximately 3,000 prisoners.[9] The Turks did not lose any ships, but they suffered 400 dead and 800 wounded. However, a number of Ottoman ships were seriously damaged by cannon fire from the Venetian flagship Galeone di Venezia, commanded by Alessandro Condalmiero.

The next morning, not wanting to risk the Spanish-Genoese ships with a favorable wind, Doria set sail for Corfu and abandoned the battlefield, ignoring the appeals of the Venetian, Papal and Maltese commanders to continue the battle.

Aftermath

It is widely speculated that Doria's prevarication and lack of zeal were due to his unwillingness to risk his own ships (He personally owned a substantial number of the "Spanish-Genoese" fleet.) and his long-standing enmity towards Venice, his home city's fierce rival and the primary target of Ottoman aggression at that time.[10]

Nicolò Zen the Younger wrote his History of the War between Venice and the Turks which primarily consisted of an invective against those who had called for the war against the Ottomans in which they had behaved so ingloriously. The text was not published but a manuscript of it was circulated in his household and survived and is now held by the Biblioteca Marciana.[11]

In 1539, Barbarossa returned and captured almost all the remaining Christian outposts in the Ionian and Aegean Seas.

In October 1540, a peace treaty was signed between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, under which the Turks gained control of the Venetian possessions in the Peloponnese and Dalmatia and the former Venetian islands in the Aegean, Ionian and Eastern Mediterranean sea. Venice also had to pay a war compensation of 300,000 ducats in gold to the Ottoman Empire.

With the victory at Preveza and the subsequent victory at the Battle of Djerba in 1560, the Ottomans were able to repel the efforts of Venice and Spain, the two main rival powers in the Mediterranean. Ottoman superiority in large-scale fleet battles in the Mediterranean remained unchallenged until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Corsari nel Mediterraneo: Hayreddin Barbarossa (italyanca)". Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 15 January 2011.
  2. ^ [1] Archived 23 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine Türk Denizcileri/Türk Denizcilik Tarihi: Preveze Deniz Savaşı (1538)
  3. ^ a b [2] Archived 23 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine Türk Denizcileri/ Türk Denizcilik Tarihi: Preveze Deniz Savaşı (1538)
  4. ^ Hattendorf & King 2013, p. 6
  5. ^ Hattendorf & King 2013, p. 15
  6. ^ Crowley (2008) pp. 67-69
  7. ISBN 9780520281790
    .
  8. ^ "Preveze Deniz Zaferi nasıl kazanıldı? - Galeri - Fikriyat Gazetesi". web.archive.org. 27 September 2019. Retrieved 16 April 2024.
  9. ^ "Denizcilerin piri: Barbaros Hayrettin Paşa". web.archive.org. 22 October 2020. Retrieved 16 April 2024.
  10. ^ Crowley (2008) p. 71
  11. ^ Robilant (2011). Venetian Navigators: The Voyages of the Zen Brothers to the Far North.
  12. ^ "de la Mare, Richard Herbert Ingpen, (4 June 1901–22 March 1986), President, Faber & Faber (Publishers) Ltd, since 1971 (Chairman, Faber & Faber Ltd, 1960–71); Chairman, Faber Music Ltd, 1966–71", Who Was Who, Oxford University Press, 1 December 2007, retrieved 16 April 2024

Sources

External links

38°57′33″N 20°45′01″E / 38.95917°N 20.75028°E / 38.95917; 20.75028

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