Chapter 21: the Barbary War
August 1539, in the Ducal palace of Taranto
Ferdinando Sanseverino – "My Duke, we have to find a solution against the Barbary Coast privateers. Many are following the example of Khair ad Din, the Barbarossa…"
Raimondo II – "Ah! That infamous assassin!"
Ferdinando Sanseverino – "Yes. His fame is increasing even more after he defeated the Christians at Preveza. Despite having less ships than his enemies."
Raimondo II – "I remember. Since that battle a number of our mercantile vessels have been seized on their way to the centres of trade in Eastern Mediterranean. I was forced to stop granting sailing licences for Constantinople one year ago. Until that region is not safe, it's a waste of gold and time trying the commerce in those markets"
A real setback, thought
Ferdinando. He was a member of the first delegation, which visited the glorious city in 1537. The good government and the relative freedom allowed by the Sultans had surprised him. And a lot of gold poured in the initiative. Only in the first year of trade a profit of over 10.000 ducats was generated over there, aligned with the one produced in the sluggish activity of Venice. Together with the enterprises settled in the New World and the growing trading undertaken by Apulian merchants in Sevilla, traffics in the Eastern Mediterranean were the core of the significant improvements in ducal revenues brought by trade, as shown in perspective by the graph hereunder (by 1550 trade income would exceed local production and tolls as the main source of income for Raimondo II).
Ferdinando Sanseverino – "Yes, that ship seized with the crew slaughtered around Rhodes was a pitiful event!"
Raimondo II – "And what about Barbarossa's activity in the West?"
Ferdinando Sanseverino – "My Duke, the Barbary pirates are not completely under his control, and often the situation over there is really messy. For sure he helped the Algerians in the conquest of Tunis, which is now, together with the island of Djerba, one of the most dangerous coves of pirates. It's the place we could hit if we want to avoid in the West the same tragedies we experienced in the East"
Raimondo II – "It's fine, Ferdinando. We should prepare ourselves to wage war against the Infidels. What is the status of our fleet?"
Ferdinando Sanseverino – "We can quickly arm one warship and four galleys, and count on the larger numbers of our Spanish Portuguese allies, my Duke…"
Raimondo II – "Well, we can send an envoy in the Barbary Coast to ask them the end of any privateering against Christian ships. If they refuse, we will attack Tunis!"
The diplomatic mission failed, and as stated during the meeting with the talented Ferdinando,
Raimondo II declared war on Algiers on 11 September 1539. The expedition was coordinated with the Iberian allies and turned in a quick success on the seas. In January Ahmed III took over the power and asked the
Barbarossa for help. In the same month the first fleet ordered by the Christian powers, consisting of ten vessels (half were Apulian, and represented almost completely Raimondo's fleet), gathered near the Spanish coast and sailed toward Africa, when suddenly met with a threefold Berber fleet in the Gulf of Almeria. Despite the inferiority and an initial suffering, the Christian front held the line and Ferdinando Sanseverino (who commanded one of the Apulian galleys) was even able to beat two Algerian vessels. Later the arrival of a reserve squadron in the area turned the outcome of the battle and the Algerians fled abandoning all the captures.
It was a great naval victory for the Christian league, which suffered no losses and acquired the possibility of landing troops in Africa. Some ships were detached from the bulk to capture Oran and Algiers and after some other noteworthy victories against a distressed enemy, the Spaniards disembarked there their men, taking possession of a tiny stretch of coast in the neighbourhood of the towns. After receiving the news of the landings, Duke Raimondo summoned his most loyal soldiers to conduct an
expedition to Tunis. Preparations went on for a couple of months before an army strong of 1.600 men (and commanded by the Duke) could leave Taranto and reach Tunis in early October. At dawn, Raimondo was already in sight of the "Goletta", as the castle before Tunis was known, and with few hours of battle he took it. Then Raimondo ordered to march to the main target, waiting for Charles V reinforces. When they arrived from Oran (which in the meantime had been seized by the Portuguese), Apulians and Spaniards marched together to Tunis, defeating every resistance until they were able to put down siege machines and artillery. The siege lasted months and with the progression of time the blockade, which the pirates unsuccessfully tried to break twice, was increasing the possibilities for the Christians to capture Tunis. Unfortunately, in April the citizens of Tunis – tired of both the siege and the domination of the Algerians – revolted and attacked every foreigner. Raimondo II managed to hold the line against the mob, but his Spanish allies suffered heavy losses and decided to leave the siege.
Left alone with just more than 1.000 men, also the Duke finally left the battle and embarked on 1st October 1541, reaching Taranto only in December. Despite the withdrawal from Tunis, the war balance was still positive for the Christians: the Algerian fleet had been soundly defeated in every spot of the Mediterranean, the Portuguese held Oran and losses had been minimal (at least for the Apulians). Sadly disunity hit the allied front in September 1542: Joao III agreed a separate peace with a despairing Ahmed and took for himself the province of Orania. For a while the Portuguese disloyalty convinced Raimondo to raise new funds to continue the war alone with Charles V. In November
he gained 100.000 ducats for equipping a new expedition through the sale of noble titles and privileges in Apulia, but the inability to carry on a significant scheme finally persuaded him to find an agreement with Ahmed: in any case the minimal target of crushing privateering had been achieved…
Thus, despite the disappointment of some merchants who wanted the gaining of some piece of land in Africa, in January a truce was signed among the conflicting parties: Ahmed III was forced to pay 50.000 ducats as tribute to Apulia and Spain, and peace reigned again on a plentiful duchy (in two months Raimondo's coffers had got 150.000 ducats). What did he do with all that gold? He improved the fiscal system in Albania with the appointment of a skilful tax collector and funded many commercial enterprises in Sevilla and Nova Apulia. Later Ferdinando Sanseverino was awarded with the title of
admiral for his brilliant management of the naval warfare against the pirates. Overall, that one was another period of wealth and peace, but happiness ended in December 1550 for Raimondo II, when his wife
Catherine of Habsburg died still childless. The Duchess left a state increasingly connected in the European context and not-so-irrelevant as it was fifty years ago… but now Raimondo had the think about his descendance, he was 43 years old, by the way …
What's happening around: Italy and Central Europe
Raimondo II's first two decades of power, which could be considered among the most quiet so far for his subjects (apart from the war against England and the expedition against the Algerian corsairs, those were years of steady growth for Apulia and Albania, without any particular concern for the ducal authorities from a domestic point of view), corresponded to a confused period in Europe.
In that period the
Italian peninsula witnessed the height and fall of the Papal temporal power. After the conquests of Clemens VII (including the disrupting appropriation of Modena from the former rulers of the House of Este),
Paulus III had to manage his predecessor's legacy in an environment characterised by the increasing hatred of surrounding regional states, aligned in a league sponsored by the new Grand Duke of Tuscany
Cosimo I. Belonging to a collateral branch of the Medicis, he had seized power after Alessandro de' Medici was murdered in 1537. Ambitious and completely unbound from devotion to Rome (meanwhile his predecessor Alessandro was an illegitimate son of Pope Clemens VII), less than a month after the seizure of power he moved war against Paulus III with the help of the Genoese. He marched into Emilia and conquered Modena, forcing the Pope to give up the town together with the payment of 288.000 ducats of war indemnities. In 1543 he managed to bring in his alliance with Genoa even the King of France Francois I before attacking again the ailing Papal States. The second conflict was even more damaging for the papacy's prestige. In fact, Cosimo's mastery of warfare led him quickly on the way to Rome: Papal troops, underpaid and demoralised, fled in front of Florentine soldiers leaving opened the gates of the Eternal City, where Cosimo I entered on 29 march 1545. Even if the Pope was able to regain his own capital in January 1546, he had anyway to find a settlement with the enemies. Genoa had in the meantime captured the port of Ancona on the Adriatic, getting closer to the territories of its Venetian archenemy. Thus in November 1546 the Pope had to pay again a huge war indemnity (almost 160.000 ducats) and give up the province of Marche to Genoa.
When Paulus III died in late 1549, after two conflicts with Tuscany and the Republic of Genoa the Papal States were just a shadow of what they were fifteen years before. Completely absorbed by wars against the neighbours, the Pope didn't manage to face the
threat of a spreading Protestantism. Despite the establishment of the Inquisition on the Spanish model, which prevented the diffusion of heretic ideas in the peninsula, the absence of a coherent strategy left safe and sound the members of the Schmalkaldic League, challenged only by the ultra-Catholic
Zygmunt of Poland-Lithuania. Exceptionally zealous and supported by a new unexpected ally, the Protestant but "pragmatic" Christian III of Denmark, Zygmunt engages in a deadly fight against Sweden, Brandenburg and their minor German friends. The so-called
Schmalkaldic War (just the hottest part of a latent conflict lasting for decades among Romanists and Protestants in the Empire) took place during years 1545 and 1546. The decisive conflict broke out when Zygmunt I marched against the margrave of Brandenburg Joachim II Hector, who – by the way – was husband of his daughter. Someone even suspected that the pressure of Joachim II on his wife to convert to Protestantism exclusively motivated the attack of the ruler of Poland-Lithuania. The conflict was an absolute fiasco for Zygmunt and his Danish ally. On the northern front, Gustav Vasa quickly moved to conquer the Danish provinces in Scandinavia, afterwards crossed the Sound and marched on Jutland. At that point, Christian III capitulated in a gloomy atmosphere of failure, leaving alone Zygmunt I. In the meantime, the progression of the Polish army in German territory was stopped at
Muhlberg, where thousands of soldiers of the Schmalkaldic League defeated Zygmunt and took him prisoner. With the King in hostage, the Protestant armies marched through the Western provinces of Poland, sacking and plundering until the he agreed a heavy ransom, giving up to the victorious Elector of Brandenburg Hinterpommern and Poznan. The outcome of that short war was anyway epochmaking: Protestant countries like Sweden and Brandenburg were emerging as leading regional powers occupying the room left by a receding Poland. When
Zygmunt II August succeeded his father in 1548, he moved his capital to Vilnius focusing his strategy on the empty spaces to the East. Protestant provinces in Germany didn't fit anymore with his kingdom.
(Outcome of the war)
(Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1549)
).
