The Battle of Lepanto, 7 October 1571. Wikimedia Commons.↗
On October 7, 1571, the largest naval battle since Actium decided the western Mediterranean's future. Over 400 galleys and 140,000 men clashed off the Greek coast. The Ottoman navy never fully recovered.
By 1571, the Ottoman Empire had been expanding into the Mediterranean for a century. Pope Pius V assembled the Holy League—Venice, Spain, and the Papal States—under Don John of Austria, an illegitimate son of Charles V, 24 years old, with no major command experience. The combined fleet: 212 galleys and 6 galleasses.
The six Venetian galleasses—enormous vessels bristling with heavy cannon on all sides—were positioned ahead of the Christian line. When the Ottoman fleet advanced in its standard crescent formation, the galleasses opened fire. Ottoman galleys, whose doctrine assumed galley-on-galley ramming and boarding, could not properly respond. By the time the main lines met, the Ottoman formation was already disrupted.
On the Christian right, Venetian commander Agostino Barbarigo was fatally wounded early but his crews held. Ottoman commander Uluj Ali nearly achieved a decisive envelopment before the Christian reserve intercepted him. In the center, Don John's flagship closed with Ali Pasha's Sultana. Ali Pasha was killed; his head raised on a pike over the Ottoman flagship. The Ottoman center broke.
Ottoman losses: approximately 210 galleys, 30,000 men killed or captured, 15,000 Christian galley slaves freed. Christian losses: 17 galleys, 7,500 dead. The idea of Ottoman naval invincibility died that afternoon.
Random House, 2008
Harvard University Press, 2010
I.B. Tauris, 2005
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