Battle of Djerba

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1 Background
2 Forces
3 The Battle
4 Aftermath
5 Notes

Battle of Djerba

Part of the Turkish-Spanish Wars

Date	May 9-14, 1560
Location	near the island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia
Result	Ottoman victory

Combatants

Christian Alliance:

Spain
Republic of Venice
Papal States
Republic of Genoa
Duchy of Savoy
Knights of Malta

Ottoman Empire

Commanders

Giovanni Andrea Doria

Piyale Pasha
Turgut Reis

Strength

60 galleys
140 other vessels
30,000 soldiers

90 galleys
30 galliots
20,000 soldiers

Casualties

60 vessels (30 galleys) lost
20,000 dead or wounded

Several galliots lost
1,000 dead or wounded

The Battle of Djerba (near the island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia) was a naval battle that took place in 1560 and in which the Ottomans under Piyale Pasha's command overwhelmed a large joint European fleet, chiefly Spanish forces, sinking half its ships. ^[1]

[edit] Background

Since losing against Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha's Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Preveza in 1538 and the disastrous expedition of Charles V against Barbarossa in Algiers in 1541, the major European sea powers in the Mediterranean, namely Spain and Venice, felt more and more threatened by the Turks. Indeed, by 1558 Piyale Pasha captured the Balearic Islands and together with Turgut Reis raided the Mediterranean coasts of Spain. King Philip II appealed to Pope Paul IV and his allies in Europe to organize an expedition to retake Tripoli from Turgut Reis, who had captured the city from the Knights of St. John in August 1551 and was awarded with the title of Bey (Duke) of Tripoli by Suleiman the Magnificent.

[edit] Forces

The fleet assembled by the various allied Christian powers in 1560 consisted of around 60 galleys and 140 other types of ships and a total of 30,000 soldiers supplied by Spain, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Papal States, the Duchy of Savoy and the Knights of Malta^[2]. The joint fleet was assembled at Messina under the command of Giovanni Andrea Doria, nephew of the famous Genoese admiral Andrea Doria.

Although the expedition was made on land 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, Don Juan de la Cerda, and the Duke of Medina Coeli ordered a fort to be built on the island, and construction was begun. By that time a Turkish fleet of about 120 galleys and galliots under command of Suleiman's admiral Piyale Pasha was already underway from Istanbul. Crossing the Mediterranean in record time, Piyale's fleet arrived at Djerba on 11 May 1560, much to the surprise of the Christian forces. (See, e.g., John Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys (Cambridge, 1974); Carmel Testa, Romegas (Midsea, 2002).)

[edit] The Battle

The battle was over in a matter of hours, with about half the Christian galleys captured or sunk. The surviving soldiers took refuge in the fort they had completed just days earlier, which was soon attacked by the combined forces of Piyale Pasha and Turgut Reis (who had joined Piyale Pasha on the third day of the battle), but not before Giovanni Andrea Doria managed to escape in a small vessel. After a three month siege, the garrison surrendered and Piyale carried about 5,000 prisoners back to Constantinople, including the Spanish commander, D. Alvaro de Sande, who had taken command of the Christian forces after Doria had fled. Recognizing the futility of armed resistance, D. Alvaro de Sande had tried to escape the fort with a ship, but was followed and eventually captured by Turgut Reis. D. Alvaro de Sande was ransomed and released several years later and fought against the Turks at the Siege of Malta in 1565.

[edit] Aftermath

The victory in the Battle of Djerba represented the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranean, in ascendance since the Battle of Preveza 22 years earlier. Following this new victory, the Ottomans became even bolder, assaulting the new base of the Knights of St. John in Malta in 1565, although without success. It was not until the destruction of the large Ottoman fleet by a combined Spanish-Genoese-Venetian-Papal-Maltese fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 that the myth of the seeming invincibility of the Turkish naval forces finally ended. Although the Ottomans were able to build another large fleet which is ready-to-action in less than a year; the unchecked Turkish supremacy in the Mediterranean had come to an end. However, they managed to recapture Cyprus from Venice in 1572 and reconquered Tunis from the Spaniards and their Hafsid vassals in 1574 with the help of this new fleet.

The Turkish Navy, however, continued to be a major sea power until the early decades of the 19th century. For a brief period in the late 19th century, during the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz, it was the third largest naval fleet in the world.