Empire: World History - 28. The Battle of Lepanto

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Dawn breaks on the 7th October 1571 over the Gulf of Patras. On this day, the Holy League will face down the Ottomans in one of the most pivotal battles in Ottoman history. Listen as William and Anita are once again joined by Barnaby Rogerson to discuss the Battle of Lepanto, its significance, and whether it really was the last crusade. LRB Empire offer: lrb.me/xempire Twitter: @Empirepoduk Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpowerpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnden. And me, William Durimple. Now, last episode, we went a bit bonkers. we had meant to bring you Lepanto, which many

people now believe is the great face off between two of the most powerful religions in the world. And that's Christianity comes up against Islam, the Ottomans against the Habsburgs. We didn't get to that because we went a bit bonkers flaying

and a siegeing. And we just got... And a stuffing. And a stuffing and a... If you don't know what we're talking about, don't go back. If you're of a delicate disposition, and don't go back. Yes, and we have actually held him hostage.

Poor Barnaby Rogerson, who has only signed up to do the one, and then we've made him do two, because it was so good, who is the authority on Lepanto, and William very sweetly said, you know, you've got this whole naval, you know, the sea runs through your blood in a way.

Your dad was a sailor. This has always been interesting. So we're delighted. There was a naval commander, no less. A naval commander, not just a sailor, a naval commander. You're so grand. And also, if you weren't listening last week, he is the Siamese-separated Siamese twin of William Dauroport. I mean, it's just...

As if one wasn't enough. It's so weird. It's so weird looking at you both on the screen. Anyway, welcome back, Barnaby. Thank you very much. Are you appalled, and do you think that we need some psychiatric health? No, no. I've given up drinking in January.

So Ottoman history is the perfect substitute for the whiskey I'm not getting old of. I've also given you alcohol. I got stuck at Riyadh Airport for nine hours. this week, without a single drink. Desperate, anyway. Can I just say, poor you, poor you. But I must warn you, I go to a fair amount of book launches and sort of waffly times in London drinking

so we've had a good white wine from other people. And there's always an awful moment because I'm quite plump and loud. When someone beams at me from across the room and I know they've mistaken me for William, is that right? Hold their arms out ready for a hug. Don't touch me. Don't touch me.

He's got a beer these days. That's right. I really, to distinguish myself from Barnaby. It is literally, you're like sort of on the guess who board as the same person in disguise. Anyway, look, welcome back, Barnaby. So, Lepanto, the thing that we were so trying to talk about, first of all, Barnaby, in a nutshell, why is Lepanto so important and why really must we talk about it when we're talking about the Ottomans?

Well, we must talk about it because it is the crunch point. And for reasons we'll look at, after Lepanto, there's going to be a truce between the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire, and they've been fighting a 150-year war on and off on a number of frontiers. And LePanto, whether by a coincidence or some reason, is the great crescendo, the symbols moment of the end of this extraordinary sort of symphony of conflict. Okay, so let's go through some basics. Where is Le Panto? When was Lepanto? Why was Lepanto? It's very simple. It's almost like 10666 and all that. All great naval battles. happen in the same bay. It's the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth looking at Italy. So that little

indent that separates their Peloponnese from mainland Greece. And this is where Actium is for, doesn't it? First of all, between Antiquetra and Augustus. Actium, Pravese, Lepanto. It is, by nature, designed to be a naval battleground. And what is so exceptional about Lepanto, there are many, many naval battles over this period. It's the one that catches our memory. for the very good reason that both fleets were determined to engage with each other. The other conflicts of Prevezes, Bezoni, Gerba were in the nature of a tactical arrangement. But Lepanto, they were both like Mastiffs coming for the kill. They were determined to fight it out.

So it has a sort of energy this day of its own. But the fleet that fought Lepanto was not intended for a naval battle. It was meant to be the rescue fleet that was going to save Nicosia and Famagusta. But it was too late. the Pope took too long putting it together. You're quite right. It was meant to be that. And we've got to remember it's a Holy League alliance. So there's not one fleet.

There are component parts. Basically, the Venetians have half of the battle fleet of the galleys, over 100 galleys of the 250 were from Venice. The other third were Spanish from Philip II. Also actually from Italy, in the sense that the Spanish fleet was coming out of Sicily and Naples. Out of Barcelona and Naples. The other third was a marvelous hotch-podge of Genoa, the Order of St Stephen,

which is like the Knights of St John, the Tuscany, the Papal States, and that brought together and have a segment of this Holy League alliance. And so the Holy League, I just want to, again, because we did this in Great Data on the last podcast, but we can't take it for granted that people necessarily heard it. In the last podcast, we did talk about this thing that sounds like a Marvel franchise, the Holy League. But this is a, as you just listed, these are countries and entities that normally don't get on, with each other. Yeah, Genoa and Venice have been ancestral rivals for hundreds of years.

So there were a unique set of circumstances that put the Holy League together. I think in a way, the most important one was Pius the Fifth, this generally wonderful, ascetic, disciplined, wonderful Roman Catholic leader, who just said whatever money is required, whatever resources the church can do, we will, our doors are open, just go for it. And he's unusual in that Most of the popes of this sort of period are Borgias. They're sort of incredibly decadent Spanish noblemen. But this man is the son of a shepherd. Son of a shepherd.

And the previous popes have got ducal ambitions, the Borgias who were always too close to Ferdinand of Aragon. This one is a totally independent, putting resources of the biggest institution in Christendom behind this, the money to pay for the fleets, basically. The third element is Philip II, had spent 10 years rebuilding a, Spanish fleet from a battle we've always forgotten, Gerba, 1560, exactly 12 years before,

taking a long time. Finally, the fleet was together, well exercised, it had been involved in a couple of wars, so he knew he had something ready to throw in. And this is the same Spanish armada, the same basic group of ships, which will later attempt to take on Elizabeth in England? To a point, Lord Cooper, to the extent that this is a galley fleet, and this is arrogant, Castile, more Mediterranean. There were certainly ships that were there, but the Atlantic fleet was a slightly different element. So Philip was running, although King of Spain in eyes,

he's king of Castile and Aragon, who keep completely separate administrations and armies and fleets going throughout this period. Quite confusing. But Philip's on for it. The Pope's clever enough to ask Philip for his dashing young half-brother, Don John of Austria,

25-year-old battle experience, had been a commander of a 30-galley fleet of Aragon. So he's ripe and ready. The final thing is that everybody normally hates Venice, too rich, too well-connected, too powerful, too mercily involved in Italian politics. But this extraordinary sort of 9-11 moment was in the whole arsenal had blown up.

They think by secret agents planted by the Duke of Naxos. And everybody says, oh, my God, you know, we should protect Venice. Otherwise, they would have said, lovely, let the Ottomans take Cyprus. We don't care. I mean, Venice should be weakened a little. Physically, how far is the Ottoman frontier at this point from the lagoon of Venice? Well, you need to take out various Phoenician fortress on the Croatian coast, all of Albania, the great chunk of Hungary with the north and west of Hungary in the hands of the Habsburgs.

So most of Greece, but critically at that moment, Cyprus had just fallen, but Crete, right in the middle of the eastern Mediterranean remains Phoenician. The Knights of Malta have shown that they are strong and powerful, have re-forged, mortified morton monies poured in. So that base is not going to be destroyed. The Spanish also have a string of bases on North Africa. Goleta, near to Tunis, right opposite, Sicily, Iran, they made into great fortress. The Portuguese have got about 12 castles on the Moroccan coast. So North Africa is a sort of interesting halfway land. We're used to thinking of that as solid Islamic territory before and after this period. But it's on the frontiers of this period. Can I fact check something with you as well, Barnaby? Because, you know, you talked about this 9-11 moment.

and with the entire arsenal being blown sky high in Venice. And this is what shakes the entire Western world. And we've got to do something. This is trouble. The secret agent or whoever did this, whoever said, I heard something. It was like Joseph Nassi, who is a very famous Jewish statesman who works for the Ottomans.

It's a relative of his that sneaks in and does this. I mean, is that plausible? Is that what happens? I think it's interesting because it's sort of Jewish and Islam, you know, working in concert together to blow up Venice. Joseph is the most extraordinary character. His best friends of William of Orange, the Prince Maximilian, he knew everybody. He came from an old Sephardic, Portuguese, Spanish, banking dynasty, being there for hundreds of years in Eindon.

He was part of that wave of exiles, over 200,000 well-educated, perfect citizens from Spain who'd been thrown out by Ferdinand and Isabella. And some of them wanted their revenge. Because they were Jewish. They were thrown out for anti-Semitic reasons. Because of Jewish. They could, not for blood, they could convert and start. in Spain. If they kept their Jewish faith, they had to go. And there was a great wave.

Berzett said Ferdinac could not be called Wise because he's impoverishing his kingdom and enriching my empire. And Thessaloniki, which was empty, the Sultan Beerset just said, take whatever street you want. And within a couple of years, there are 18 synagogues in Thessaloniki. He's very, very clever. He doesn't welcome to Istanbul, because that might be too much in the capital. But the Sephardic Jews from Spain settled throughout the Ottoman Empire in small little doses everywhere and totally powerful. Joseph Nassi gets very, very close to the throne. He's a finance, with connections with Antwerp, with Venice.

We don't actually know if it's his cousin who blew up the arsenal. It was sort of a fear of something, almost certainly it's probably an accident like everything. And also, which I'm fascinated, if it was the act of a secret agent, it totally went in the opposite direction because they hadn't had the arsenal blown up. Venice might well have been left alone. So you've got to be very, very careful about who benefits from all these things. That's very interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And in fact, the arsenal was blown up. If it's spectacular, it really was a sort of core celebrity of its moment, but it didn't actually weaken the Venetians in the end at all. And just for people that don't understand it, let's just have a picture of what Venice is at this period. It's how, I mean, it has this extraordinary arsenal that produces how many ships a year, 20, 30, 100? They are like a sort of super version of Manhattan and London together.

The great financial bankers, maritime insurance, world trade routes. They know everything about everywhere. You want to buy things. Because they have a deal with the Ottoman Empire, their ships can go to the Levant, can bring back everything everybody wants. Their coinage is good. Their people are good. They've got a very, very good constitution with a Senate of 200 people, secret conclaves and a doge, a powerless executive. they're an amazing financial, like everything good and fiscal trading power.

And very, very into the Orient in every sense. Young Venetian men are sent off to the, like not on a gap here, but they're sent off to Istanbul for their training. And a lot of the buildings in Venice look very Mamluk. And a lot of the Mamluk buildings in Cairo, where I was last week, looking at them, are actually extraordinary Venetian with Venetian-style floors, with inlaid marble and all this sort of stuff that you expect to see, on the lagoon, but sitting in the middle of Cairo. Exactly. There's an absolute, wonderful portraits of Venetians, looking totally at home in Aleppo. If you'd be lucky enough to travel in Egypt and Syria, you'll find fondukes and caravansarais

that were Venet-only places, and they were deeply integrated in the Levant trade. And so they were the valve. And what's interesting about the Ottoman Empire is it doesn't want to be a monolithic Islam against Christendom. It also needs of Venetians, custom dues and poll tax. they in turn have the fondacci de Turkey in the middle of Venice still there today, isn't it? The big Ottoman co-tel, basically, in the middle of Venice. It's sort of seamless codependency between the Ottoman Empire and Venice. They need each other. There's a wonderful description by Venetian ambassador talking about Venetian foreign policy.

He said, imagine that we are a glass ball. We have to be kept permanently in the air by delicate light touches, keeping this glass ball in the air. too big a push by us could fracture it and if it falls we crash. The Venetians knew they had to be confident enough for the Ottomans to respect them, but they never actually wanted to go at war with Ottomans if they could avoid it. Are you saying that if there hadn't have been a Philip II, it wouldn't have happened? Or if there hadn't have been the skinny pope who doesn't believe itself aggrandizing. And it is funny, actually.

You've mentioned this. He's quite unusual because you've got Fat Pope, Fat Pope, Fat Pope, Fat Pope, Fat Pope. Very skinny Pope, Fat Pope, Fat Pope. I mean, he is not a man who lives it large. He rescues his nephew, who's given a week in Rome before the Pope says he's too luxurious an animal and asks him to leave the Holy City. I mean, that says everything. So he's very, very pious is very pious. But if one of those pieces hadn't have been there, you're saying they would not have gone to war.

Absolutely. It really is. It's a magical conjunction of Venn diagram in the middle of all of these three or four powers. Plus, as William will need to mention, that Genoese and Venetians have hated each other for half a thousand years. and there's a particular moment where Genoa's feeling threatened by France and swap sides in the middle of one of those great wars between the Habsburgs and the Valois because they now feel that France is a greater threat. And so Genoa, very reluctantly, is now a sort of an ally of Spain to protect itself from France. And so it's slightly shuffling their feet in this war, to be honest, Genoese.

When we were doing the siege across Statenople, this sort of Holy League fails to appear. The Byzantines. They wait and they wait and nobody comes. And no one comes. But now finally, Piers and Fifth has actually pulled it off. And all these enemies, the Spain and the Portuguese who hate each other, the Genoese and the Venetians who hate each other, they're all coming together. All their fleets have combined. And they're sailing towards Cyprus.

So this is a good point to take a break. And we've talked about who is leading the, I keep wanting to call them the Justice League, the Holy League, who's leading them. But we need to find out who is leading the Ottoman fleet. Join us after the break and find out. Welcome back. You're listening to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Duremple. Right. So just before the break, we were talking about the Hapsburg, the Philip the second side of this, who's given over his entire fleet command to his once illegitimate. How can I describe him? The brother he never knew he had until he had him. So, you know, he's in

charge. There's a handsome man in charge, Don John of Austria, of that fleet. Who is in charge of the Ottoman fleet, Barnaby, Warchison? So the Ottomans have done something rather different. is they've, in the past, quite a lot of their admirals had come from North Africa. They were old corsairs, very free-minded, various of strong characters who hadn't, weren't really part of the Ottoman administration who'd made their career as sort of pirate captain corsairs. We've all heard of Barbarossa. In fact, there were two Barbarossa brothers. Most of had heard of Dragoo or Turgut Rice, another man who'd made his own fortune and fought the Spanish helped the Jewish and Muslim refugees flee from Granada, good people from my reading, rather wonderful

characters. And the Ottomans were needed them because they were by far the best element, the best seamanship, the crack element of the Ottoman fleet, a third of it, was still from North Africa. But on this occasion, they didn't want a commander from North Africa. So they put in Ali Pasha, who was an absolute 100% Turk. His father had been a moazin, wonderful call-to-prayer voice, and he had a marvelous voice for chanting the Quran, not what you normally require for an admiral from my experience as a child, meeting many of them. And it's quite true, but he is totally obedient to his sultan, unlike many other Ottoman admirals. And Selim is said, I want you to go for the Christians. This is not, you know, this is a time to use our fleet

and to show our power. So to that extent, he's a vital part of the battle happening. because there are two flanking fleets. There's Mohamed Sorokko, named after the southern wind of the Mediterranean, who's basically the commander of the Ottoman fleet in Alexandra, and my hero, Uluch Ali, this amazing renegade, Calabrian, 17-year-old, turned-old, turned brilliant naval commander and general, and beloved by his troops, his sailors, and also by the North Africans, an extraordinary character.

Even Savantes gives him a good write-up in Don Ciotie. Yes, and we should say, Cervantes is part of this fleet. Savantes is here, the future novelist, really? Is sailing off to war with the Spanish. Gosh. Savantes had a mucky little duel in Spain.

I think there was a price on his head. He'd had to get out of Spain and joined some Italian bodyguard and then gets a partial pardon and joins the Spanish fleet in Naples. And he's on a boat. And we don't want to do William and ruin a story, but he's going to get wounded three times, lose the use of his left hand, and have a chest wound for life, but also have a little taste of glory.

And so all these fleets are sailing towards each other, but the people pulling the oars are from the other side. So in the Turkish galleys, you've got Christian galley slaves, many of them Venetian and Habsburg. Are they converts or are they slaves? What's going on under the docks? Slaves. We've got quite a complicated situation because the Venetians were,

in the past, could always feel their fleet by you. using their own Italian people to row the oars. It gave the Venetian fleet a stability. And Venice knew that it would bankrupt itself. We've kept a large fleet. So the maximum they calculated they could keep afloat normally was about 30 galleys. But for a battle like this, we're thinking about 250. So suddenly you need to get a lot more sort of, as one might call it, irregular militias,

onto the rowing benches. So they might have had a proportion of slaves, but they were still basically a national team. Okay. So the Ottoman main navy was entirely rowed by Christian slaves. And I want to get an idea of what the ship looked like. I mean, forgive me, I mean, you know this and you dream this and you see it in your head all the time. But how big is this galley?

How tall is this galley? How wide is – just give me an idea of the proportions of both ships, you know? Galley's come in all sorts, but a completely regular galley would have 50 oars, 25 on each, great rowing benches. and depending on what speed you wanted to do, you have between one and five men on an oar. Quite often, like a gondolaire or those boats in Malta, you actually rode standing up with your foot on the bench. Wow.

And they had a system of watches so a galley could cruise using one or two people on the ore and then wake everybody up, ships, missiles go, and we get five men on an oar. So you have a various, nuanced, flexible team. Lepanto is a very still day. So galleys are having a wonderful thing. Galleries can move very quickly, a very swift totaling control of their captain because of the rowing. They can backpedal and like a sailing ship. And we're looking at, in a way, a structure very similar to the fleets that engage in Actium,

powered by slaves, so quite low to the ground with the raised poop deck. We'll talk about one technical revolution that changes the nature of really the world, which is the presence of these eight or six Venetian galleasses, which are reinforced, clumsy, heavy galleys, but they put a top deck, and we don't quite know exactly where this deck was, either above or below the oars, perhaps it could change. But that was lined with cannon. Heavy cannon.

Cannon, the equivalent of a battleship. So this is the gunpowder revolution coming to sea. Before you had light culverroon, so you could sweep the decks when you came close, like sweeping the walls of a city. But this is the first real battle where cannons on the sea will win it. And that's, without giving the game away,

it's this slightly sinister balks of the galleases, which are so immovable. They've had to be towed in advance of the Christian fleet. Did the Turks know? Did the Turks know that the... Uluch Ali, my hero, the Algerian commander on a third of the fleet, had some experience,

because the Battle of Prevese, a generation, half-generation before, there had been a victory for the Ottomans, but there had been one Venetian early Gallias, and some Ottoman admirals were aware that something was happening. They hadn't got any yet. But Uluch Ali was onto this. There are six Venetian galleuses, and there are no Ottoman galleuses, and this will greatly affect the way the battle goes.

So, Marnaby, you've got these galleys, and particularly the Ottoman ones are staffed by slaves. does that mean? These guys are fettered. They're chained to their benches. They are fettered. What you have is one iron ring on one leg, left or right, and chains. Actually, we know before the battle to create greater maneuverability, the chains were released, but otherwise you could be chained to your benches. And basically, the naval season begins after the spring equinox, sort of March 21st, and ends shortly after the autumn equinox. And so the normal campaigning season is sort of three months in the summer in the Mediterranean.

And so these galleys could go out on three-month long cruises, where obviously the stench of the bilge would be unbearable. But we know that they were interested in keeping their rowers strong, and there are accounts of 20 ounces of biscuit, five ounces of cooked beans per man, enough to keep the rowers strong. And we also know that some of the admirals like Dragoo had actually spent four years rowing as a slave

in a Genoese galley. So it obviously didn't destroy you as a man because the biographies of many of the admirals, they've been captured in battle. John de Vallette, the Knights of Sir John, had also done his time as a galley. So it didn't absolutely ruin your strength. It's not like...

Plantation slavery or... No, it's not plantation slavery. It's keeping you strong, and of course, discipline was upheld by the lash. There were raised walkways over both banks of the benches. One essential detail, not very nice, but there was no bathrooms on these boats. So when you were chained to your galley, you were there all day and there were no breaks.

So I think the Ottomans hosed down their galley slaves twice a week. Was that right? They would buck it down. The details are quite intriguing, but things change. But on some boats, the walkway supported pigeonholes. And so the galley slaves could actually put their shepherd's cloak and their shirt and have a little storage thing. Because if you've spent time in a prison or a boarding school, you know, tiny little privileges are very important.

A privileges about food, whether you're allowed to wear a moustache, whether you're allowed to wear a waistcoat, whether you're allowed to wear a hat, made all the difference. And you promoted some of the slaves to be the lead rower, who led the beat of the row, and he also had headman of a section of benches, and they'd be given some food privileges. And of course we know from, again, more from biographies than accounts like Uluch Ali, he converted, he said, I will become a Muslim because he'd be insulted by a Muslim on a boat. And he said, I want to be all equal. And then I'm going to fight you with a knife. And that's how he became a Muslim. So this is a collaborative in Italian, captured as a boy, converts to Islam. And then ends up commander of his own boat, makes his own fortune on the corsair wars, capturing ships in the western, eastern, Mediterranean.

during times of war, when the Venetians would be totally off limits as acceptable trading partners of the Ottoman Empire. So you have a very complex situation, and you also have ransoms. Barbarossa, after Trugu goes down, he negotiates for four years to get his colleague back. And there are winters off. So when you're not on your galley in the summer, you're helping build the Sulemania complex? Or what are you doing in the winter if you're a galley slave? From what we, again, from these accounts of freed slaves, what was very common is you lived in those sort of, um, The relief archers inside the walls of a city, and they had their little base there, and they were allowed in certain instances to have a Franciscan friar, they're Christians, to make their own brandy. They would often be employed and suburban gardens to do digging

and working on the edge of the city. And again, we hear those accounts from Savantes about people going out, often staying for three or four days of the chains. There are also little details of an escape slave, certainly on the Christian side of the thing, would be five quick cannon shots would mean a slave is escaped, then all the redneck hound owners would rush off and chase the slave down. And very easy to find, because two things. First, they've got a fetter on their right around their ankle. And secondly, they've got a shaven head with a little lock. Shavenhead with a lot. They have like a sort of monastic tonsure so anyone can see a galley slave if he runs off. So those are the galley sleeves for the Turks. What's powering these

enormous Venetian boats then? The Venetian boats are sailed by their own Italian sailings. is there's a sort of militia draft for each village. And there seems to be similar sides of the Ottoman coast. They could also produce volunteers on other occasions to row. It's a nuanced thing. So on some boats, you might have had a third slave, two thirds, and the other way around. Certainly for the corsaircraft, which, apart from Lepanto, tend to be much slimmer and smaller, you often had a hundred volunteers rowing a small galley for the corsairs, and they would all be volunteers.

Many of them were moors who'd been expelled from Spain who wanted their own revenge on the Christian powers. Really? And it made the corsair craft very, very good because there was highly motivated people who could, you know, literally drop oars and join as a boarding party. So you've got quite a, you know, like everything, as you try to answer things, more doors open. But basically, on both sides, probably at least 10,000 galley slaves in chains on the battle. And how many, how many boats not? now massing towards each other on both sides of this battle. Roughly 250 boats of all classes and sizes,

and about 180 of those would be classed as big galleys, so with 50 oars. It's crazy. As we mentioned, these sinister new inventions, the galliates, these are rather wallowing, slightly sinister, different-looking structures ahead of the Christian Crescent. And both fleets are coming together outside Gulf of, of Corinth, the Ottomans from inside the guns of the Collins sailing west towards Italy,

the Christian fleet coming down, as it were, from the north, two great crescents of 250 galleys facing each other on dawn the 7th of October. Okay, so, and as you have beautifully described, this is almost, you know, sort of like an amphitheatre for the sea. You know, people come here to fight and only one side is going to leave it. The guns are going to play the most important role. Tell us how quickly this is decided and how much they make a difference. So you've got the two sophisticated Ottoman career admirals, the one from Alexandra hugging the shore, making certain the Christians can't out flank him,

Ulluch Ali on the seawood side, watching things out, the obedient Ali Pasha in the centre. And I'm afraid he's actually a rather marvellous character, but he's not a great military leader, but he leads from the front with his battleship. He leads the centre of the Ottoman army, straight into these galleases, which wait until the last moment

before releasing a devastating cannonade, which in the first minute rips the heart out of the centre of the Ottoman fleet. They think possibly a third of that central squadron was damaged by that first cannonade. A third, so that's... And then the fleets come together, but, I mean, the battle in a way,

the centre had already been won. The whole battle only takes four hours. Wow. It's almost that first cannonade, that proves the power, not of Christendom, of Venetian military engineering, the perfection of cast bronze cannon. And also, critically, it was a very calm day. The wind will come up. If the waves move, cannon firing is much more complicated as you're firing into air or into the sea.

It was perfect conditions that morning for the Venetian maritime artillery to do their devastating work. And they also knew it was vital to keep their fire until the Ottoman fleet was right amongst them. about 150 galleys go straight down? They go to four hours of fighting, and it is extraordinary. So many were sunk. So many were captured, 90 were captured. But Ulujali, right from the start,

sees the effect on the centre of the Ottoman fleet and gives signals which are immediately responded to by his captains, complete control of his fleet, total respect of a seamen admiral. And he orders his galleys to back away. and he draws the Christian wing down towards him and then counterattacks because he got them away from the galleyasses from the firepower. And he wins a minor little victory of his own.

His galleys remained totally untouched, so he can take away 40. There's still an Ottoman fleet to protect Istanbul. And he also manages to capture 10 Christian galleys in this extraordinary manoeuvre. So you could argue that if Uluj Ali had been in command, it might have been a much more sort of moderate event. But there we are. And when you say, and again, I mean, you two are steeped in this,

but for those who aren't like me, I mean, when you talk about capturing a galley, this is just sort of people jumping from deck to deck and taking over a ship with knives and cutlasses, right? This is firing your very light of culverines to kill everybody you can on the surface of the boat and then boarding it, ramming into each other, in a hand-to-hand fighting, swords, guns.

the Turks are very, very proud of their row of archers. They have wonderful composite bows. They're still hoping that that's going to win them in the battle. But if you had to put one finger on the result, it's Christian military firepower on the boats that wins that day. And as William said, so decisive, 90 sunk to the bottom. But also, you know, killing Christians, I mean, that never occur to the Venetian fighters,

that actually, you know, the people who are going to sink to the bottom of the ocean who have no choice in this, are the galley slaves who are mostly Christian. It's a tough world. I'm just thinking of these guys. You said that they are freed during the battle, that their fetters are taken off in order that they can stand up and row better. So they can't, if their galley is sinking, they're not going to go down chained to their benches.

They can't jump out. This is one story. There's another story. Sinem Pasha, the son of the Mouazen, the central commander, had addressed his Christian troops, said, I will give you your freedom if you fight well today. and if we lose, you'll have your freedom anyway. Wow.

You know, I'm always touting the pro-Ottoman denounced by all my Greek friends, but I am a sort of a Turk somewhere. Banerby, the sea, according to descriptions, has gone bright red by the stage. It is literally a wash with blood. A wash with blood and a storm will pick up and destroy and drown the rest. And they're very close to the shore. And it's a habit all over the world that wrecked ships and shipwrecked say, as, you know, don't fare well at the hands of those on the shore. It's an extraordinary

diminution of the empire's power. By four hours in 200 out of 230 Ottoman ships have sunk. Yeah. But Uluch Ali manages to take that, his third, the most experienced North African squadron, out of the mess, and he was able to enter Istanbul towing 10 captive Christian ships, including the great banner of the Knights of St John, which he presented. to Selim the second as a sort of partial, partial victory. And that's when Ulluch Ali is given, he's the equivalent of being knighted by your sultan. He's given a new word. He's called Kidditch.

He's the drawn sword of Islam. And although in other occasions the cities might have wept, you know, like the siege of Malta, about the number of Turks lost, this is not the junissaries. This is, one doesn't have to say it, but this is the despise part of, it's not like England, the Royal Navy being the senior service. The Ottomans, you know, they knew what they valued, and that was the army and the junissaries and the cavalry and the Turkish shipahee. This is an insult, and it's also worth bearing in mind that the Ottoman Empire is virtually the only Islamic empire that I can think of that ever had a maritime capital. All the other

capitals are safely inland. They've been talking about Isfahan, Baghdad, Cairo, Medina, Mecca, Damascus. the basic thread of Islamic civilization is to constantly praise stepland that can graze 10,000 horses for your cavalry, and they despise the coast historically, culturally. And it's an extraordinary aspect of the Ottoman Empire that they, having conquered Constantinople, should have deserted their previous capital as a Dernian bursa, which are safely, as it were, in the hills from any maritime force. And it's something worth reflecting that the Ottoman Empire has sort of in so many ways embraced so many European sensibilities. And that thing of being on the coast, we all love going to Istanbul because it is a fusion point.

It's Europe and Asia. But there's no other Islamic city that really relishes the sea in the same way. I mean, you've sort of answered the question. Selim bestows an honour on the one man, not standing, but sailing back home. But what does it do to the Ottoman psyche to have a defeat? Because they're not used to being defeated. It's not something that happens very much. They've had their moments.

It must have been a tremendous struggle. But they decide, you know, they have just literally a month before Fama Gusta has fallen. So Cyprus has gone. And there's that famous quote by Soklu-Méhameh Pasha, who welcomes a European coming to look at the activity in Istanbul and says, we have locked off one of the arms of Christen, the island of Cyprus. And you have merely singed my...

master's beard, the better to grow stronger. And of course, when Drake later on attacks the Spanish fleet in Kiddish, he uses that line. I have singed the King of Spain's beard, you know, sort of very sort of English picking up. But Sokrumme, Mepascha, was aware. They were delighted to show the European ambassadors the power of Istanbul, because within a year, the Golden Horn shipyards have produced another fleet of 250 galleys. Wow. The Toffey, the Arsenal, on their Bosphorus was pouring out another 200 cannon. I mean, the empire sort of was absolutely confident that they could put, and they did put a fleet back into the same Gulf by the next year under Kiliq Ulluch Ali as Admiral and sailed. They didn't, I think Kiliich Ali was aware

that he couldn't risk another conflict, but he was totally patrolling those waters. And he, critically, was very keen on getting some galleyasses in the Ottoman fleet. brings us to this great question. Some people say Le Panto is the turning point, that never again will the Ottomans control and threaten the Western Mediterranean? Never again will the Ottomans be likely to go anywhere near Italy. Other people say, like Sokolum Mehmet Pasha, that it's just a temporary setback. This is the singeing of the beard. A hundred galleys are being put back within six months, 200 within a year. What do you think, Banerbe? Do you think this is a turning point or not actually that big a moment? I think it's a turning point for the Christians. I think they have confidence,

which they never had before. I think they thought they were right to think they were losing. They lost every naval battle, every military battle in the Balkans for 150 years. And this gives them some sort of confidence. We know that Philip of second is actually bankrupt by building up this fleet. Spain goes into bankruptcy. Is it 1575? Pope Pius dies. We get another fat. Pope interested in his nephews and the whole thing dismantles. The Holy. League falls apart. The Holy League falls apart. Everybody starts bickering and fighting each other again. But that's a sort of good sign in terms of Europe, because they don't need to be together. They don't like being together. They like fighting each other. Charles V and France is the first

spent, you know, 10 years while Vienna was being besieged. They were attacking each other all over Europe. They didn't really like fighting the Ottomans. And so this was a sort of sign off. But we have to remember, you know, was it, we were talking 100 years later, the Ottoman fleet then decided to take Crete? You know, it seems no more than a pause. And as we know, the Ottomans actually were about to face big threats on the Russian front. Ivan IV is expanding Moscovi. They sent to Tata Admiral at the same time as Lepanto, Moscow Burns from the Tata cavalry army. Is it 1571 or thereabouts?

And they know that having had a long period of peace on the Persian frontier, things are changing there, and their attention is going to be required on the Persian Front. And a Persian Front is much more taxing. You could send out an army from Istanbul in March to campaign in Iraq and Tabriz. You need to take the Sultan two years away from Istanbul. He needed to March one year, get close to a base like Aleppo or Baghdad, then start campaigning. It was much more stressy fighting the Persians and also much more to risk. Although we've got these wonderful inscriptions about the power of the Ottoman Empire and the Sultans and this stuff and the other,

they weren't loved. They were only successful. The people who were loved were the Safavid Shahs. They were the bloodline of Imam Ali. They were descended from generations of Sufi Shakes. They were also descended from Jenghis Khan's. You had everything on their side. The Turks, the Ottoman Turks, were just border lords, a bit like a Percy or a Maxwell, the equivalent of the English-Scottish border who'd done well in the confused fighting on the borderlands. And also, it's fascinating. I'm a great belief in topography. When you go to the area where the Ottomans originated, Bursa, isn't it? It's well-wooded.

It reminds you of Europe. These are forested, snow-covered mountains. It's not the greats of stepland of our Turkic imagination. They are very much at home in European conditions. But it's, you know, it's the Shah's great cavalry armour. And fighting the purchase is very difficult because a defeat strengthens, what other culture would a defeat strengthen the hand of the Shah? Because he comes from a Shiite tradition, when he's defeated by the Sunni, they say, ah, another martyr. You know, the energy of the Persians is unconquerable in that way. The other question that sometimes asked about Lepanto is, is this, in a sense, the last crusade? Is this the last moment that a Pope pulls together an army full of crusading knights and allies to fight the infidel? Or is this

the beginning of Europe's rise as an imperial power? From this will follow further attacks. They've already taken. Cortez has already gone off to Mexico. All that world of European imperialism is just beginning. The Portuguese are beginning to explore slaving possibilities down the African coast and so on. Is this that linchpin between the Crusades and imperialism, or is there no break between the two in your view? I think you're very wise. I think that's the turning point, actually in European sensibilities. There is bizarrely one. even more bizarre crusade. Dom Sebastian, the boy king of Portugal, leads the whole of the Portuguese empire, everything they've gained of the last 150 years on a crusade to take out Morocco and turn it into

a Christian empire. That happens only seven years after La Panto. And Philip said, for God's sake, don't do this. They're cousins. He actually tried to give Sebastian good advice. And Sebastian said, no, I'm going to do this. This is what Portugal's here for. We are a crusading nation. And so Philip gives him Charles V's helmet, his father's helmet. If you're going to go on a crusade, you need to have the helmet of my father who led a crusade against Algiers and Tunis. And he has a sword, and I'm going to lend you a Spanish division of my best tertio to protect you in the battle. It's rather touching. And Sebastian takes the whole of the Portuguese nobility.

And at the Battle of Khazar or Kabir, the Battle of Three Kings, that is the last crusade when they are destroyed by the Moroccan army. But it's very much of the flavour of Lepanta. There's not a barely a survivor, is there? Bizarrely, the two Moroccan princes who fight Dom Sebastian had volunteered to be on the Ottoman fleet and there's some notable Catholic traitors to the English crown who had mingled around on the edge of both campaigns. And we should say that poor old Savantes, who fought in Lepanto,

has been captured and is now himself a galley slave. Yes, Sivantis survives Lepanto. His wounds all to the front. He's honoured, he's given a pension. He had a bit of a racket he liked before that. But Lepanto makes him a sort of a knight of Christendom. And then he joins the major Spanish army. And it's in the garrison in La Goleta, because after Lepanto, the Spanish reconquer Tunisia,

and then next year the Ottomans take it back again. He survives all of that chaos. And he was returning as a retired soldier with many battle wounds on a boat from Naples to Barcelona. And just outside Barcelona, his boat, the soul, is captured by corsaircraft, literally, you know, within sight of land. then he's taken back to Algiers. He couldn't have been a very good rower because he'd lost the use of his left arm at L'Apanto. And so his Arab nickname was the one-armed man.

He probably did some light gardening and they were hoping to get some ransom money for him. And I love Sivanti's obviously gets on terribly well with both the Turks and the Franciscan preachers and drinks a fair amount of brandy Lebanio while waiting for things to get better. And in Don Quixote, he's very sympathetic to the the secret Muslims of Spain, isn't he? He writes about them hidden in Spain now, having to

suppress their Muslim identity and pretend that they're Christians. Yes, Savant is one of those sort of golden characters like Shakespeare. You just think, where is this humanity's own life? Like Shakespeare seems rather humdrum, you know, but he excavates from all these terrible experiences, an extraordinary understanding. Some people think he might be himself, his family might have been conversed, might have been Jewish or Muslim, I mean, three or four generations ago converted with empathy. But I think just the experience of actually seeing the Ottomans is not that bad, and possibly conditions as a banio in Algiers waiting for ransom, weren't as bad as being a Christian soldier in a Garretem and a Goleta. Who knows? Barnaby, one last myth to say.

So, Lepanto has been one. We know that the future of imperialism and is going to lie with Europe. But the great myth is that the Ottomans are in decline. And if you read old-style Ottoman history dating from 100 years ago, that Ottoman decline seems to go on for sort of 400 years, and yet it's still controlling most of the Mediterranean. The fact remains that the Ottoman Empire is still the most powerful force in the Mediterranean and not just the Mediterranean, but Sokolou-Memit Pasha, sitting in Istanbul, is sending troops to help the resistance in Spain, the Mariscoes. He's sending troops to Atcheon Indonesia, to arm rebels against the Portuguese. he's still the spider at the center of the most enormous web in the world.

Absolutely. I mean, you know, his tartar allies are burning Moscow. We know in 1541 he's helping the Muslim Sultan of Harar against the Ethiopian Christian Empire. The expanse and interest and the intelligence and understanding of the empire, which is expanding. I mean, much of what is southern Ukraine was an Ottoman province, which we forget too easily. It's expanding into Georgia and Armenia. It is, you know, when you look on the matter, It's the Roman Empire reborn.

And, I mean, you mentioned, we talked about Sivantis, you mentioned Shakespeare. What we haven't really talked about is what is England making of all of this? Because it's not involved, but it's not very far away. What's going on? How is the news reaching England? What is being said about all of this? England smelling its future as making our moments to sell to both sides. Of course, Philip is interested in making a truth for the Ottoman Empire

because he wants to turn his attention. against the Protestants in Holland and England and wage war against them. William is right to focus. Lepanto, not the end of the Ottoman Empire, it's the end of the contest there. And the contest goes in different direction. Philip takes the war to the Atlantic, and the Ottoman Empire is taking the war against Persia and to certain extent against Muscovy.

And that's what's happening. It's the Atlantic sea lanes. And it'll keep very valid. The corsairs will cripple, you know, at times, Dutch and English trade, going down the Atlantic coast of Africa. But it's not going to be long until English sea power is an important force. In 1607, Sir Thomas Shirley notes that one English warship could defeat 10 Turkish galley. That's only, what, 35 years later.

That's an extraordinary speed at which that's developed. Listen, you've been so marvellous, Barnaby, and I'm sad that we're out of time, but I'm really delighted that we've managed to convince you to stay for two episodes. You've set us up so beautifully because next week we're going to take a look at the beginning of the European response to what has happened at Le Panto. And we're going to focus in on England. I mean, we sort of started sort of mentioning it, but we really are going to draw down because we're going to look at the Levant Company, a company founded by the same group of London merchants as the East India Company. But a company which never achieved the same success. But until then, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan.

And me, William Durempal.