| Battle of Cape Gelidonya | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofOttoman–Habsburg wars | |||||||
 Spanish galleons fighting off Ottoman galleys. Oil on canvas by Juan de la Corte (1597–1660), Naval Museum of Madrid. | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Spanish Empire |  Ottoman Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Francisco de Rivera | Bey of Rhodes | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 5 galleons 1 patache 1,600 soldiers[1] | 55 galleys 12,000 soldiers[1] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 34 killed 93 wounded[2] | 10 galleys sunk 23 galleys damaged 3,200 killed[3] | ||||||
TheBattle of Cape Gelidonya took place on 14 July 1616 during theOttoman–Habsburg struggle for the control of theMediterranean. During its course, a small Spanish fleet owned by Viceroy of NaplesPedro Téllez-Girón, Duke of Osuna, under the command ofFrancisco de Rivera, was attacked by an Ottoman fleet that vastly outnumbered it while cruising offCyprus. Despite this, the Spanish ships, mostlygalleons, managed to repel the Ottomans, whose fleet consisted mainly ofgalleys, inflicting heavy losses.
The battle, considered in military historigraphy a «LittleLepanto»,[4] became a turning point in Mediterranean naval warfare, where the galleys employed by the Ottoman navy were left obsolete by the heavily armed westernroundships, like galleons and naos, increasingly used by Spain and the rest of Christian nations.[5][6] The victory was further made significant by its closeness to the Ottoman core and the little size of the forces required to defeat the Turk navy. From that point, the technical and strategical distance between the Christian and Muslim navies would only expand over the centuries.[5][4]
In 1616, a royal decree byPhilip III banned viceroys from engaging inprivateering. The decision obstructed Viceroy ofSicily, the Duke of Osuna, who had achieved an unprecedented success through privateering actions after earning a license for it in 1613, attracting political enmities in the court which had likely influenced Philip's stance. Osuna resorted to bribery to maintain his activities, leading to his appointment asViceroy of Naples in 1616, but at the same time, he decided to innovate in maritime tactics to maximize the power of the Spanish armada. His first move was to build a fleet of Spanish roundships or sailing ships.[5][7]
Mainstream belief at the time was that sailing ships were inferior to the rowing ships commonly used in Mediterranean warfare, as it had been demostrated in events like theBattle of Zonchio, where the Venetian naos had been an easy prey for the agile Ottomangalleys. However, Osuna and his ensign Francisco de Rivera y Medina were convinced that western advances in artillery and shipbuilding had reversed the situation.[7] Previously, the Dutch privateerZymen Danseker, hired by theRegency of Algiers, had built several rudimentary roundships, which had turned out hard to defeat.[5] Dauser then built a dozen of ships for the navy of theOttoman Tunis in 1612, but Osuna had the fleet destroyed in port in anight raid by captain Antonio Pimentel before it could set sail.[8]
The new Spanish fleet, funded by Osuna himself to ease burocracy, was baptized asLas Cinco Llagas ("TheFive Holy Wounds"), although in reality it was comprised by six ships at the time. It was composed of 5galleons and apatache: the 52-gunConcepción, flagship of Rivera; the 34-gunAlmirante, commanded by ensign Serrano; the 27-gunBuenaventura, under Ínigo de Urquiza; the 34-gunCarretina, commanded by Balmaseda; the 30-gunSan Juan Bautista, commanded by Juan Cereceda; and the 14-gun patacheSantiago under Gazarra.[5][7][1] Osuna selected new crews, with many Basque crewmen among them.[9]
In order to test the roundships's effectivity, Riveraraided the port of Tunis with theSan Juan Bautista, and with it he captured four Moor vessels with minimal casualties, an enormous success that confirmed their impressions.[5] With their best expectations, theCinco Llagas sailed off on 15 July from the Sicily toEastern Mediterranean waters, in order to undertake privateering against Ottoman vessels and ports in the area betweenCyprus and the region ofÇukurova. Aboard the ships, captained again by Rivera, were about 1,600 Spanish soldiers, of whom 1,000 weremusketeers.[1]
The Spanish fleet sailed to the island of Cyprus, then underOttoman rule, where Francisco de Rivera ordered that land be sighted prior to initiating of the cruise. During the mission 16 merchantcaramoussals were captured by Rivera's fleet off Cape Gelidonya, as well as anEnglish privateer inFamagusta and a large number of minor vessels at sea.[10] In addition, ten warships were sunk or burnt in the port of Salinas, whose defenses were also destroyed by a landing party which suffered no loss.[10] The Ottoman governor of Cyprus, who had been rapidly informed regarding the Spanish activities, called for help from theOttoman navy. Rivera, warned of the relief force thanks to the capture of a merchant vessel coming fromConstantinople, decided to wait for his pursuers off Cape Gelidonya in order to return toSicily with a sizable victory.[10] A Turkish fleet of 55 galleys with about 275 guns and 12,000 fighting men on board appeared off the cape few days later, on 14 July.[1]
The battle began at 9 am when the Ottoman galleys moved toward the Spanish ships and opened fire. Previously they had formed up into a huge crescent, designed to encircle the Spanish ships. For their part, in order avoid his ships becoming separated and overwhelmed individually in the light wind conditions, de Rivera ordered deploy rowing boats to tow their ships back into position if necessary, and further ordered to tie the ships side to side together in the worst case.[11] TheConcepción stood at thevanguard, being followed by theCarretina, theAlmiranta, and the patacheSantiago. The other two ships remained on standby.[12]
While the Turks advanced firing at them, Rivera held fire until the Ottoman ships were as close as possible before ordering to return fire to hit them point blank, a tactic known asfuego a la española ("Spanish fire"),a tocapenoles ("with their rigs touching") ora la veneciana ("Venetian fire").[13] The Spanish also fired with a variety of ammunition, including conventional cannonballs,incendiary balls andchain shots, which made their artillery highly effective. They kept the Turk vessels at bay until sunset, upon which the attackers then withdrew to their initial positions with eight galleys about to sink and many others damaged.[12] After nightfall, the Hispanics lit up lanterns and manintained their fleet together with the help of their boats.[13]
The attack was resumed the next morning, when, after a nightwar council, the Ottomans attacked in two groups which separately attempted to capture theConcepción and theAlmirante. They managed to close up enough to enter the range of the Spanishmuskets, but the Spanish artillery again prevented them to attempt to board the ships. Although they succeeded to throw grappling hooks on theCarretina, theSan Juan intruded between them firing with her own artillery, while a squad of galleys attempting to help them was fought off by theConcepción from the other side.[7] Unable to board, the Ottoman artillerymen targeted the sailing ships'rigging,[14] but after achieving little, the Ottoman force withdrew in the evening with another 10 galleys heeling over.[12]
Compared to the previous day, the Turks had achieved more significant damage, capturing theConcepción's rowing boat and forcing the Hispanics to work during the night to repair the broken rigging. Rivera had also suffered light wounds in his face, and his ships were starting to run off gunpodwer and cannoballs from battling so many enemies, which forced him to distribute their remaining reserves between them.[14] However, the Turk fleet had taken much heavier damage again, returning with thousands of casualties and wounded and half of their galleys damaged.[7] That night a new council of war took place during which the Turks decided to resume the action at dawn.
The third and last day, after a speech that boosted their morale, the Ottomans attacked with great resolve and managed to grapple theCarretina, but the ships' high sides made it difficult for the Turkjanissaries to climb up, leaving them vulnerable to the fire of the Spanishfalconets.[15] TheConcepción also helped repel them from its side.[15] Meanwhile, more galleys approached Rivera's flagship from the most favorable angle to exploit itsblind spot, but the Spanish commander had foreseen such a possibility, ordered that theSantiago move to his ship's bow. The maneuver exposed the Turk galleys to the combined fire, which kept doing severe damage. Fighting continued until midday, when the Spaniards only had gunpowder left for six more hours of battle, but at this point the Turks finally retreated not to return, with another galley sunk, two dismasted, and 17 others severely damaged or heeling over.[4]
In total, the Ottoman armada suffered massive losses, with 10 galleys sunk and another 23 disabled. 1,200Janissaries and 2,000 sailors and rowers were killed.[3] Rivera also reported hearing two cannon shots in the Turk flagship, which he identified as a signal that the fleet's commander had been either killed or hurt. By comparison, the Spaniards suffered 34 dead and 93 wounded as well as damage to the rigging and hulls of theConcepción and theSantiago, which had to be towed by the other ships toCandia to be repaired.[7] Once rearmed, Rivera headed for Brindisi, where he arrived with 15 of the merchant ships captured and much booty in gold.[15]
For his success, and by the Duke of Osuna's petition, Rivera was promoted to Admiral by King Philip III, who also rewarded him with the habit of theOrder of Santiago.[3] The fame granted by the battle came to equate him toÁlvaro de Bazán, Marquis of Santa Cruz, another innovator of the Spanish armada, after gaining his own victory in theBattle of Vila Franca do Campo.[15] Some time later the Spanish playwright and poet DonLuís Vélez de Guevara wrote the comedy"El asombro de Turquía y valiente toledano" ("the wonder of Turkey and the courageous Toledoan") to commemorate the battle.[4] The soldiers and sailors of the fleet were also recognized by Osuna, who had arrived to Naples in July, when theCinco Llagas had already sailed off. In spite of the victory, the Spanish monarchy, characteristically slow in capitalizing on triumphs, denied Osuna's petition of funding a new fleet of twelve galleons, and reiterated the ban of privateering, which Osuna continued ignoring.[15]
The resonance of the battle came from the fact that, unlike most naval battles between Christians and Muslims up to the point, the battle had taken place in the maritime center of the Ottoman Empire, and only a handful of ships had been necessary to defeat all the ships the Ottomans had managed to gather in a reasonable short notice. With their failure to adapt at these new tactics, the naval Turk threat progressively became limited to their own, reduced privateering actions against merchant trade.[9] TheBarbary pirates, however, adapted much better to the new shipbuilding techniques thanks to the presence ofDutch andEnglish crews, remaining a danger for Christian nations.[16]
The victory in Gelidonya cemented Spanish hegemony in the central Mediterranean. Less than a month after the battle, Osuna found out the Calabrese renegade Arzan had sailed off fromConstantinople with twelve galleys, so he tracked and destroyed them with ten galleys gathered in Sicily and Malta under the command of Íñigo Zapata, who killed the enemy captain.Ottavio d'Aragona, another of Osuna's lieutenants, continued the campaign disguising a Hispanic fleet as Turk ships andbombarding Constantinople.[7] Despite the advantage, Philip III's court continued without making significant moves to establish a long last control on the Mediterranean, whose watch would keep tied to Osuna's initiative and victories. In December, the Duke engaged in an unofficial warfare with the Republic of Venice, an usual ally to the Ottomans, leading Rivera to score a naval win over them in theBattle of Ragusa.[7]