| Battle of Djerba | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofSpanish–Ottoman wars | |||||||
_millia_valorosi_soldati%2c_e_buona..._-_btv1b55005215t.jpg) Battle of Djerba 1560 | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
Republic of Genoa Duchy of Savoy Order of Saint John | Ottoman Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Giovanni Andrea Doria Juan de la Cerda Don Alvaro de Sande (POW) | Piali Pasha Dragut | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 54 galleys, 66 other vessels Other sources: 200 ships total[2] | 86 galleys and galliots[3] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 60 ships sunk or captured,[2] 9,000[4]–18,000[2] men killed, 5,000 prisoners (during siege) | Unknown | ||||||
TheBattle of Djerba (Turkish:Cerbe Deniz Muharebesi,Arabic:معركة جربة) took place in May 1560 near the island ofDjerba,Tunisia. TheOttomans underPiyale Pasha's command overwhelmed a large joint Christian alliance fleet, composed chiefly ofSpanish,Papal,Genoese,Maltese, andNeapolitan forces. The allies lost 27galleys and some smaller vessels as well as the fortified island of Djerba. This victory marked perhaps the high point of Ottoman power in theMediterranean Sea.[5]
Until about 1573 the Mediterranean headed the list of Spanish priorities underPhilip II of Spain (1556–98); under his leadership the Habsburg galley fleet increased to about 100 ships, and more in wartime. Spain sent a major fleet against the Turks in 1560, aiming for the island of Djerba off the coast west ofTripoli. The Ottoman fleet won a resounding victory, killing more than 5,000 men and sinking many vessels.
However, typical of the aftermath of Mediterranean battles, the Ottomans did not quickly follow up on their victory. Spain was able to rebuild its fleet in the next two years and prepared a new offensive in 1563–64 with nearly 100 ships. Despite the Ottomans being victorious in the battle, the supply limitations of their galley fleet made them unable to quickly deploy it elsewhere, either by attacking the defeated powers or the now-exposed Venetiancenter of gravity.[6] It would be five years before the Ottomans followed up on their victory with amajor attack on the Knights of Malta, and a decade before theyattacked the Venetian Republic again in force.
Since losing against theOttoman fleet ofHayreddin Barbarossa at theBattle of Preveza in 1538 and the disastrous expedition ofCharles V, Holy Roman Emperor against Barbarossa inAlgiers in 1541, the major European sea powers in theMediterranean Sea, theSpanish Empire and theRepublic of Venice, felt more and more threatened by the Ottomans and their allies, theBarbary corsairs. Indeed, by 1558,Piali Pasha had raided the Balearic Islands, and, together withDragut, raided the Mediterranean coasts of Spain.
KingPhilip II of Spain appealed toPope Paul IV and his allies in Europe to organize an expedition to retakeTripoli from Dragut, who hadcaptured the city from theKnights Hospitaller in August 1551 and had subsequently been madeBey (Governor) of Tripoli bySuleiman the Magnificent.
The historianWilliam H. Prescott wrote that the sources describing the Djerba campaign were so contradictory it was impossible to reconcile them. Most historians believe that the fleet assembled by the allied Christian powers in 1560 consisted of between 50 and 60 galleys and between 40 and 60 smaller craft. For example,Giacomo Bosio, the official historian of theKnights of St John writes that there were 54 galleys.[7]Fernand Braudel[8] also gives 54 warships plus 36 supply vessels. One of the most detailed accounts is by Carmel Testa[9] who evidently has access to the archives of theKnights of St. John. He lists precisely 54 galleys, 7 brigs, 17 frigates, 2 galleons, 28 merchant vessels, and 12 small ships. These were supplied by a coalition that consisted ofGenoa, theGrand Duchy of Tuscany, thePapal States, and the Knights of S. John.[10][11] Matthew Carr gives the number of 200 ships for the Christian Alliance.[2] The joint fleet was assembled atMessina under the command of Giovanni Andrea Doria, nephew of the Genoese admiralAndrea Doria. It first sailed toMalta, where bad weather forced it to remain for two months. During this time some 2,000 men were lost to sickness.
On 10 February 1560, the fleet set sail for Tripoli. The precise numbers of soldiers aboard are not known. Braudel gives 10,000-12,000; Testa 14,000; older figures in excess of 20,000 are clearly exaggerations considering the number of men a sixteenth-century galley could carry.
Although the expedition landed not far from Tripoli, the lack of water, sickness and a freak storm caused the commanders to abandon their original objective, and on 7 March they returned to the island of Djerba, which they quickly overran. The Viceroy of Sicily,Juan de la Cerda, 4th Duke of Medinaceli, ordered a fort to be built on the island, and construction was begun. By that time an Ottoman fleet of about 86 galleys and galliots under the command of the Ottoman admiralPiyale Pasha was already underway fromIstanbul. Piyale's fleet arrived at Djerba on 11 May 1560, much to the surprise of the Christian forces.[12]
The battle was over in a matter of hours, with about half the Christian galleys captured or sunk. Anderson[13] gives the total number of Christian casualties as 18,000, but Guilmartin[4] more conservatively puts the losses at about 9,000 of which about two-thirds would have been oarsmen.
The surviving soldiers took refuge in the fort they had captured just days earlier, which was soon attacked by the combined forces of Piali Pasha and Dragut (who had joined Piali Pasha on the third day), but not before Giovanni Andrea Doria managed to escape in a small vessel. After a three-month siege, the garrison surrendered and, according to Bosio, Piyale carried about 5,000 prisoners back to Istanbul, including the Spanish commander, D. Alvaro de Sande, who had taken command of the Christian forces after Doria had fled. The accounts of the final days of the besieged garrison are irreconcilable.Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, theHouse of Habsburg ambassador from Austria to Constantinople, recounts in his famousTurkish Letters that, recognizing the futility of armed resistance, de Sande had tried to escape in a small boat, but was quickly captured.[14] In other accounts, such as that of Braudel, he led a sortie on 29 July and was captured in that way. Through Busbecq's efforts, de Sande was ransomed and released several years later and fought against the Turks at theGreat Siege of Malta in 1565.
The victory in the Battle of Djerba marked the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranean, which had been growing since theBattle of Preveza 22 years earlier.
Of particular importance were the crippling losses of the Spanish fleet in experienced personnel: 600 skilled mariners (oficiales) and 2,400arquebusier marines were lost, men who could not be quickly replaced.[15]
The Ottomans hadexpelled the Knights from Rhodes in 1522. After Djerba, the Maltese channel lay open, and it was inevitable that the Ottomans soon turned on the new base of the Knights in theGreat Siege of Malta in 1565, but did not succeed in taking it.
The victorious Ottomans erected theBorj el-Jemajem (Tunisian Arabic:برج يلجماجم,romanized: Citadel of Skulls), orpyramid of skulls, of the defeated Spanish defenders, which stood until the late nineteenth century. A small monument now stands in its place atBorj El Kebir inHoumt El Souk.[16]
The Battle of Djerba is given a prominent place inThe Course of Fortune byTony Rothman (2015), a novel that concerns the events leading to theGreat Siege of Malta, 1565.
The Battle of Djerba is featured inFalcon's Shadow: A Novel of the Knights of Malta by Marthese Fenech (2020) the second novel in Fenech's Siege of Malta trilogy.
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