The Battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement that took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic states arranged by Pope Pius V and led by the navies of the Spanish Empire and the Republic of Venice, inflicted a major defeat on the fleet of the Ottoman Empire in the Gulf of Patras. The Ottoman forces were sailing westward from their naval station in Lepanto (the Venetian name of ancient Naupactus – Greek , Turkish ) when they met the fleet of the Holy League which was sailing east from Messina, Sicily.
Lepanto marks the last major engagement in the Western world to be fought almost entirely between rowing vessels, namely the galleys and galleasses, which were the direct descendants of ancient trireme warships. The battle was in essence an "infantry battle on floating platforms".William Stevens, History of Sea Power (1920), p. 83. It was the largest naval battle in Western history since classical antiquity, involving more than 450 warships. Over the following decades, the increasing importance of the galleon would displace the galley as the major warship of its era, marking the beginning of the "Age of Sail".
The victory of the Holy League is of great importance in the history of Europe and of the Ottoman Empire, with the Ottoman fleet almost completely destroyed. The Ottomans rapidly rebuilt their fleet, but the loss of qualified crews during the battle led to a sharp decrease of their naval initiative after 1580. The battle has long been compared to the Battle of Salamis, both for tactical parallels and for its crucial importance in the defense of Europe against imperial expansion.See e.g. William Stevens, History of Sea Power (1920), p. 83; Frederick A. de Armas, Cervantes, Raphael and the Classics (1998), p. 87. It was also of great symbolic importance in a period when Europe was torn by its own wars of religion following the Protestant Reformation. Pope Pius V instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory, and Philip II of Spain used the victory to strengthen his position as the "Most Catholic King" and defender of Christendom against Muslim incursion. Historian Paul K. Davis writes that
More than a military victory, Lepanto was a moral one. For decades, the Ottoman Turks had terrified Europe, and the victories of Suleiman the Magnificent caused Christian Europe serious concern. The defeat at Lepanto further exemplified the rapid deterioration of Ottoman might under Selim II, and Christians rejoiced at this setback for the Ottomans. The mystique of Ottoman power was tarnished significantly by this battle, and Christian Europe was heartened.
Background
The Christian coalition had been promoted by Pope Pius V to rescue the Venetian colony of Famagusta on the island of Cyprus, which was being besieged by the Turks in early 1571 subsequent to the fall of Nicosia and other Venetian possessions in Cyprus in the course of 1570. On 1 August the Venetians surrendered after being reassured that they could leave Cyprus freely. However, the Ottoman commander, Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha, had lost some 50,000 men in the siege and broke his word, imprisoning the Venetians, and had Marco Antonio Bragadin flayed alive.
The members of the Holy League were the Republic of Venice, the Spanish Empire (including the Kingdom of Naples, the Habsburg monarchy, the Kingdoms of Sicily and Sardinia as part of the Spanish possessions), the Papal States, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchies of Savoy, Urbino and Tuscany, the Knights Hospitaller, and others.
The banner for the fleet, blessed by the Pope, reached the Kingdom of Naples (then ruled by Philip II of Spain) on 14 August 1571, where it was solemnly consigned to John of Austria.
All members of the alliance viewed the Ottoman navy as a significant threat, both to the security of maritime trade in the Mediterranean Sea and to the security of continental Europe itself. Spain was the largest financial contributor, though the Spaniards preferred to preserve most of their galleys for Spain's own wars against the nearby sultanates of the Barbary Coast rather than expend its naval strength for the benefit of Venice. The combined Christian fleet was placed under the command of John of Austria with Marcantonio Colonna as his principal deputy. The various Christian contingents met the main force from Venice under Sebastiano Venier, later Doge of Venice, in July and August 1571 at Messina, Sicily.
Deployment and order of battle
The Christian fleet consisted of 206 galleys and six galleasses (large new galleys with masts and sails in addition to their oars, and substantial artillery, developed by the Venetians). John of Austria, half-brother of Philip II of Spain, was named by Pope Pius V as overall commander of the fleet and led the centre division, with his principal deputies and counselors being the Roman Marcantonio Colonna and the Venetian Sebastiano Venier; the wings were commanded by the Venetian Agostino Barbarigo and the Genoese Gianandrea Doria. The reserve, meant to reinforce any necessary point of the line, was commanded by the Spanish Álvaro de Bazán.
Aside from the galleys and galleasses, the fleet included a division of galleons and carracks, composed by 24 from Spain and two Venetians. Not being rowing ships, they moved as an independent squad under the command of Carlo d'Avalos. There was also a squad of 76 galiots and fustas, including 50 from Spain, 20 from Venice and six from the Papal States, which would act as auxiliaries and messengers for the main fleet.Treviño Ruiz, J. M. (2021). "Las escuadras en orden de combate en Lepanto: tácticas, artillería y abordaje". Revista General de Marina, ISSN 0034-9569, T. 281, MES 2 (ag.-sept.), 2021
Holy League deployment The Republic of Venice contributed 109 galleys and all six galleasses, 49 galleys came from the Spanish Empire (including 26 from the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily, and other Italian territories), 27 galleys of the Genoese fleet, seven galleys from the Papal States, five galleys from the Order of Saint Stephen and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, three galleys each from the Duchy of Savoy and the Knights of Malta, and some privately owned galleys in Spanish service. This fleet of the Christian alliance was manned by 40,000 sailors and oarsmen.
In addition, it carried approximately 30,000 fighting troops:, p. 70 7,000 Spanish Empire regular infantry of excellent quality, belonging to the Tercios of Sicily, Naples, Sardinia and Figueroa, which comprised several units of Spanish Marine Infantry (4,000 of their troops were drawn from the Kingdom of Naples, mostly Calabria);Gregory Hanlon. The Twilight Of A Military Tradition: Italian Aristocrats And European Conflicts, 1560–1800. Routledge: 1997. p. 22. 7,000 Germans landsknecht mercenaries and volunteers; 6,000 Italian mercenaries in Spanish pay, all good troops; all in addition to 5,000 professional Venetian soldiers. A significant number of Greeks also participated in the conflict on the side of the Holy League with three Venetian galleys commanded by Greek captains. The historian George Finlay estimated that over 25,000 Greeks fought on the side of the Holy League during the battle (both as soldiers and sailors/oarsmen) and stated that their numbers "far exceeded that of the combatants of any other nation engaged".
Oarsmen were mainly drawn from local Greek populations, who were experienced in maritime affairs, although there were some Venetian oarsmen as well. Free oarsmen were generally acknowledged to be superior to enslaved or imprisoned oarsmen, but the former were gradually replaced in all galley fleets (including those of Venice from 1549) during the 16th century by cheaper slaves, convicts, and prisoners-of-war owing to rapidly rising costs.The first regularly sanctioned use of convicts as oarsmen on Venetian galleys did not occur until 1549. re Tenenti, Cristoforo da Canal, pp. 83, 85. See Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice (Berkeley, 1967), pp. 124–25, for Cristoforo da Canal's comments on the tactical effectiveness of free oarsmen c. 1587 though he was mainly concerned with their higher cost. Ismail Uzuncarsili, Osmanli Devletenin Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati (Ankara, 1948), p. 482, cites a squadron of 41 Ottoman galleys in 1556 of which the flagship and two others were rowed by Azabs, salaried volunteer light infantrymen, three were rowed by slaves and the remaining 36 were rowed by salaried mercenary Greek oarsmen. The Venetian oarsmen were mainly free citizens and able to bear arms, adding to the fighting power of their ships, whereas convicts were used to row many of the galleys in other Holy League squadrons.
A heavy effort was done from the beginning to learn by past mistakes of the previous Holy League in the 1538 Battle of Preveza, where a similar alliance had been routed by an inferior Ottoman fleet. The new battle plan was heavily influenced by Viceroy of Sicily Garcia de Toledo, experienced in the Ottoman-Habsburg naval wars, who advised John of Austria that the fleet should adopt the battle plan used by the Ottomans themselves in Preveza. In order to prevent the infighting, John of Austria further ordered the fleet would not sail divided in national blocks as in Preveza, but in squads with galleys of all their nationalities intermixed, with the experienced Spanish and Italian infantry embarked in all of the vessels. He also arranged for the fleet to sail from Messina already in formation and maintain it up to the battle to earn cohesion and rowing experience. Gianandrea Doria also advised to saw off the long bow of the galleys so they could fire more easily their main guns at close range.
Turkish deployment
Ali Pasha, the Ottoman admiral (Kapudan-i Derya), supported by the corsairs Mehmed Sirocco (Mehmed Şuluk) of Alexandria and Uluç Ali, commanded an Ottoman force of 211 war galleys, 63 galliots, and some smaller vessels. The Turks had skilled and experienced crews of sailors but were significantly deficient in their elite corps of janissaries. The number of oarsmen was about 37,000 to 41,000, virtually all of them slaves, many of them Christians who had been captured in previous conquests and engagements. The Ottoman galleys were manned by 13,000 experienced sailors—generally drawn from the maritime nations of the Ottoman Empire—mainly Greeks (according to Finlay, around 5,000), Berbers, Syrians, and Egyptians—and 25,000 soldiers from the Ottoman Empire as well as a few thousand from their North African allies. The number of soldiers within the Ottoman ranks may have well been up to 34,000 in total.
Ali Pasha is supposed to have told his Christian galley slaves, "If I win the battle, I promise you your liberty. If the day is yours, then God has given it to you." John of Austria, more laconically, warned his crew, "There is no paradise for cowards."
Comparison While soldiers on board the ships were roughly matched in numbers, an advantage for the Christians was the numerical superiority in guns and cannon aboard their ships. It is estimated that the Christians had 1,815 guns, while the Turks had only 750 with insufficient ammunition. The Christians embarked with their much improved arquebusier and musketeer forces, while the Ottomans trusted in their greatly feared composite bowmen. Another differential factor was the Spanish experience at using marine infantry, adept at boarding enemy ships and fighting on their decks, even using pikes.
Previous movements Encounter of the fleets