Battle of Preveza

The Battle of Preveza (also known as Prevesa) was a naval engagement that took place on 28 September 1538 near Preveza in the Ionian Sea in northwestern Greece between an Ottoman fleet and that of a Holy League. The battle was an Ottoman victory which occurred in the same area in the Ionian Sea as the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. It was one of the three largest sea battles that took place in the sixteenth century Mediterranean, along with the Battle of Djerba and the Battle of Lepanto.

Background


In 1537, commanding a large Ottoman fleet, Hayreddin Barbarossa captured a number of Aegean and Ionian islands belonging to the Republic of Venice, namely Syros, Aegina, Ios, Paros, Tinos, Karpathos, Kasos, and Naxos, thus annexing the 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.

In the face of this threat, Pope Paul III in February 1538 in assembled a ’’Holy League’’, comprising the Papal States, Habsburg Spain, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Venice, and the Knights of Malta, to confront Ottoman fleet under Barbarossa.

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

Deployment
The Holy League assembled its fleet near the island of Corfu. The Papal fleet under Admiral Marco Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia and the Venetian fleet under 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 Kos in the Aegean Sea at that time, but he soon arrived at Preveza with the rest of the Ottoman fleet, after capturing the island of Kefalonia on the way. Sinan Reis, one of his lieutenants, suggested landing troops at Actium on the Gulf of Arta near Preveza, an idea that Barbarossa initially opposed, but which later proved to be important in securing the Ottoman victory. With the Turks holding the fortress at Actium, they could support Barbarossa's fleet with artillery fire from there, while Doria had to keep his ships away from the coast. A Christian landing to take Actium probably would have been needed to ensure success, but Doria was fearful of a defeat on land after the initial sortie by Grimani had been repelled. Two more attempts by the Holy League to land their forces, this time near the fortress of Preveza at the opposite shore facing Actium, were repulsed by the forces 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 Lefkada. During the night, he and his commanders decided that their best option was to stage an attack towards Lepanto and force Barbarossa to fight.

Battle
Andre Doria was very surprised to see the Turks coming towards them at dawn. Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha also weighed anchor and moved south. 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.

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 Y-shaped formation. Barbarossa; He was in the center with Sinan Reis, Cafer Reis, Şaban Reis and his son Hasan Reis (later Hasan Pasha). Seydi Ali Reis commanded the left wing and Salih Reis commanded the right wing. 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. 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.

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.

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.