A History of Sea Power
by William Oliver Stevens · English · Gutenberg #24797 · 837,302 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of A History of Sea Power
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: A History of Sea Power
Author: William Oliver Stevens
Allan F. Westcott
Release date: March 10, 2008 [eBook #24797]
Most recently updated: January 3, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24797
Credits: E-text prepared by Robert J. Hall
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF SEA POWER ***
E-text prepared by Robert J. Hall
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 24797-h.htm or 24797-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/7/9/24797/24797-h/24797-h.htm)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/7/9/24797/24797-h.zip)
A HISTORY OF SEA POWER
by
WILLIAM OLIVER STEVENS and ALLAN WESTCOTT
Professors in the United States Naval Academy
With Maps, Diagrams, and Illustrations
New York
George H. Doran Company
PREFACE
This volume has been called into being by the absence of any brief
work covering the evolution and influence of sea power from the
beginnings to the present time. In a survey at once so comprehensive
and so short, only the high points of naval history can be touched.
Yet it is the hope of the authors that they have not, for that
reason, slighted the significance of the story. Naval history is
more than a sequence of battles. Sea power has always been a vital
force in the rise and fall of nations and in the evolution of
civilization. It is this significance, this larger, related point
of view, which the authors have tried to make clear in recounting
the story of the sea. In regard to naval principles, also, this
general survey should reveal those unchanging truths of warfare
which have been demonstrated from Salamis to Jutland. The tendency
of our modern era of mechanical development has been to forget the
value of history. It is true that the 16" gun is a great advance
over the 32-pounder of Trafalgar, but it is equally true that the
naval officer of to-day must still sit at the feet of Nelson.
The authors would acknowledge their indebtedness to Professor F.
Wells Williams of Yale, and to the Classical Departments of Harvard
and the University of Chicago for valuable aid in bibliography.
Thanks are due also to Commander C. C. Gill, U. S. N., Captain T. G.
Frothingam, U. S. N. R., Dr. C. Alphonso Smith, and to colleagues of
the Department of English at the Naval Academy for helpful criticism.
As to the "References" at the conclusion of each chapter, it should
be said that they are merely references, not bibliographies. The
titles are recommended to the reader who may wish to study a period
in greater detail, and who would prefer a short list to a complete
bibliography.
WILLIAM OLIVER STEVENS
ALLAN WESTCOTT
United States Naval Academy,
_June_, 1920.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE BEGINNINGS OF NAVIES
II ATHENS AS A SEA POWER:
1. THE PERSIAN WAR
2. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
III THE SEA POWER OF ROME:
1. THE PUNIC WARS
2. THE IMPERIAL NAVY
IV THE NAVIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES:
THE EASTERN EMPIRE
V THE NAVIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES [_Continued_]:
VENICE AND THE TURK
VI OPENING THE OCEAN ROUTES:
1. PORTUGAL AND THE NEW ROUTE TO INDIA
2. SPAIN AND THE NEW WORLD
VII SEA POWER IN THE NORTH:
HOLLAND'S STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
VIII ENGLAND AND THE ARMADA
IX RISE OF ENGLISH SEA POWER:
WARS WITH THE DUTCH
X RISE OF ENGLISH SEA POWER [_continued_]:
WARS WITH FRANCE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
XI NAPOLEONIC WARS:
THE FIRST OF JUNE AND CAMPERDOWN
XII NAPOLEONIC WARS [_Continued_]:
THE RISE OF NELSON
XIII NAPOLEONIC WARS [_Concluded_]:
TRAFALGAR AND AFTER
XIV REVOLUTION IN NAVAL WARFARE:
HAMPTON ROADS AND LISSA
XV RIVALRY FOR WORLD POWER
XVI THE WORLD WAR:
THE FIRST YEAR
XVII THE WORLD WAR [_Continued_]:
THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND
XVIII THE WORLD WAR [_Concluded_]:
COMMERCE WARFARE
XIX CONCLUSION
INDEX
MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
EGYPTIAN SHIP
SCENE OF ANCIENT SEA POWER
GREEK WAR GALLEY
GREEK MERCHANT SHIP
ROUTE OF XERXES' FLEET TO BATTLE OF SALAMIS
SCENE OF PRELIMINARY NAVAL OPERATIONS, CAMPAIGN OF SALAMIS
THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS, 480 B. C.
THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT--ABOUT 450 B. C.
SCENE OF PHORMIO'S CAMPAIGN
BATTLE OF THE CORINTHIAN GULF, 429 B. C.
SCENE OF THE PUNIC WARS
ROMAN FORMATION AT ECNOMUS
CARTHAGINIAN TACTICS AT THE BATTLE OF ECNOMUS, 256 B. C.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN THE FIRST PUNIC WAR
SCENE OF BATTLE OF ACTIUM, 31 B. C.
THE SARACEN EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT, ABOUT 715 A. D.
EUROPE'S EASTERN FRONTIER
CONSTANTINOPLE AND VICINITY
THEATER OF OPERATIONS, VENICE AND THE TURK
16TH CENTURY GALLEY
BATTLE OF LEPANTO, OCTOBER 7, 1571
CROSS-STAFF
THE KNOWN AND UNKNOWN WORLD IN 1450
PORTUGUESE VOYAGES AND POSSESSIONS
FLAGSHIP OF COLUMBUS
CHART OF A. D. 1589
THE NETHERLANDS IN THE 16TH CENTURY
GALLEON
CRUISE OF THE SPANISH ARMADA
ORIGINAL "EAGLE" FORMATION OF THE ARMADA
THE COURSE OF THE ARMADA UP THE CHANNEL
SCENE OF THE PRINCIPAL NAVAL ACTIONS OF THE 17TH CENTURY
BETWEEN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND AND ENGLAND AND FRANCE
THE BATTLE OF PORTLAND, FEBRUARY 18, 1653
THE THAMES ESTUARY
THREE-DECKED SHIP OF THE LINE, 18TH CENTURY
THE WEST INDIES
SCENE OF THE YORKTOWN CAMPAIGN
BATTLE OF THE VIRGINIA CAPES, SEPTEMBER 5, 1781
BATTLE OF THE SAINTS' PASSAGE, APRIL 12, 1782
BATTLE OF THE FIRST OF JUNE, 1794
BATTLE OF CAMPERDOWN, OCTOBER 11, 1797
BATTLE OF CAPE ST. VINCENT, FEBRUARY 14, 1797
THE NILE CAMPAIGN, MAY-AUGUST, 1798
COAST MAP--FROM ALEXANDRIA TO ROSETTA MOUTH OF THE NILE
BATTLE OF THE NILE
BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN
POSITION OF BRITISH AND ENEMY SHIPS, MARCH, 1805
NELSON'S PURSUIT OF VILLENEUVE
NELSON'S VICTORY
BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR, OCTOBER 21, 1805
TRAFALGAR, ABOUT 12:30
EARLY IRONCLADS
BUSHNELL'S TURTLE
FULTON'S NAUTILUS
BATTLE OF LISSA, JULY 20, 1866
BATTLE OF THE YALU, SEPTEMBER 17, 1894
APPROACHES TO MANILA
BATTLE OF MANILA, MAY 1, 1898
WEST INDIES--MOVEMENTS IN SANTIAGO CAMPAIGN
BATTLE OF SANTIAGO, JULY 3, 1898
THEATER OF OPERATIONS, RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
HARBOR OF PORT ARTHUR
ROJDESTVENSKY'S CRUISE, OCTOBER 18, 1904-MAY 27, 1905
BATTLE OF TSUSHIMA, MAY 27, 1905
HELIGOLAND BIGHT ACTION
HELIGOLAND BIGHT ACTION, FINAL PHASE, 12:30-1:40
BATTLE OF CORONEL, NOVEMBER 1, 1914
ADMIRAL VON SPEE'S MOVEMENTS
BATTLE OF FALKLAND ISLANDS, DECEMBER 8, 1914
THE CRUISE OF THE EMDEN, SEPTEMBER 1-NOVEMBER 9, 1914
THEATER OF OPERATIONS, IN THE NORTH SEA
DOGGER BANK ACTION, JANUARY 24, 1915
THE APPROACHES TO CONSTANTINOPLE
DARDANELLES DEFENSES
CRUISING FORMATION OF THE BRITISH BATTLE FLEET
BEATTY'S CRUISING FORMATION
TYPE OF GERMAN BATTLE CRUISER: THE DERFLINGER
TYPE OF BRITISH BATTLE CRUISER: THE LION
BATTLE OF JUTLAND: FIRST PHASE
TYPE OF BRITISH BATTLESHIP: THE IRON DUKE
BATTLE OF JUTLAND: SECOND AND THIRD PHASES
TYPE OF GERMAN BATTLESHIP: THE KOENIG
EFFECTS OF THE BLOCKADE OF GERMANY
GERMAN BARRED ZONES
OCEAN-GOING TYPES OF GERMAN SUBMARINES
OSTEND-ZEEBRUGGE AREA
ZEEBRUGGE HARBOR WITH GERMAN DEFENSES AND BRITISH BLOCKSHIPS
BRITISH, ALLIED AND NEUTRAL MERCHANT SHIPS DESTROYED BY
GERMAN RAIDERS, SUBMARINES AND MINES
A HISTORY OF SEA POWER
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF NAVIES
Civilization and sea power arose from the Mediterranean, and the
progress of recent archeological research has shown that civilizations
and empires had been reared in the Mediterranean on sea power long
before the dawn of history. Since the records of Egypt are far
better preserved than those of any other nation of antiquity, and
the discovery of the Rosetta stone has made it possible to read
them, we know most about the beginnings of civilization in Egypt.
We know, for instance, that an Egyptian king some 2000 years before
Christ possessed a fleet of 400 fighting ships. But it appears
now that long before this time the island of Crete was a great
naval and commercial power, that in the earliest dynasties of Egypt
Cretan fleets were carrying on a commerce with the Nile valley.
Indeed, the Cretans may have taught the Egyptians something of the
art of building sea-going ships for trade and war.[1] At all events,
Crete may be regarded as the first great sea power of history, an
island empire like Great Britain to-day, extending its influence
from Sicily to Palestine and dominating the eastern Mediterranean
for many centuries. From recent excavations of the ancient capital
we get an interesting light on the old Greek legends of the Minotaur
and the Labyrinth, going back to the time when the island kingdom
levied tribute, human as well as monetary, on its subject cities
throughout the Ægean.
[Footnote 1: It is interesting to note that the earliest empires,
Assyria and Egypt, were not naval powers, because they arose in rich
river valleys abundantly capable of sustaining their inhabitants.
They did not need to command the sea.]
On this sea power Crete reared an astonishingly advanced civilization.
Until recent times, for instance, the Phnicians had been credited
with the invention of the alphabet. We know now that 1000 years
before the Phnicians began to write the Cretans had evolved a
system of written characters--as yet undeciphered--and a decimal
system for numbers. A correspondingly high stage of excellence
had been reached in engineering, architecture, and the fine arts,
and even in decay Crete left to Greece the tradition of mastery
in laws and government.
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN SHIP
From Torr, _Ancient Ships_.]
The power of Crete was already in its decline centuries before
the Trojan War, but during a thousand years it had spread its own
and Egyptian culture over the shores of the Ægean. The destruction
of the island empire in about 1400 B.C. apparently was due to some
great disaster that destroyed her fleet and left her open to invasion
by a conquering race--probably the Greeks--who ravaged her cities
by sword and fire. On account of her commanding position in the
Mediterranean, Crete might again have risen to sea power but for
the endless civil wars that marked her subsequent history.
The successor to Crete as mistress of the sea was Phnicia. The
Phnicians, oddly enough, were a Semitic people, a nomadic race
with no traditions of the sea whatever. When, however, they migrated
to the coast and settled, they found themselves in a narrow strip
of coast between a range of mountains and the sea. The city of Tyre
itself was erected on an island. Consequently these descendants of
herdsmen were compelled to find their livelihood upon the sea--as
were the Venetians and the Dutch in later ages--and for several
hundred years they maintained their control of the ocean highways.
The Phnicians were not literary, scientific, or artistic; they
were commercial. Everything they did was with an eye to business.
They explored the Mediterranean and beyond for the sake of tapping
new sources of wealth, they planted colonies for the sake of having
trading posts on their routes, and they developed fighting ships for
the sake of preserving their trade monopolies. Moreover, Phnicia
lay at the end of the Asiatic caravan routes. Hence Phnician ships
received the wealth of the Nile valley and Mesopotamia and distributed
it along the shores of the Mediterranean. Phnician ships also
uncovered the wealth of Spain and the North African coast, and,
venturing into the Atlantic, drew metals from the British Isles.
According to Herodotus, a Phnician squadron circumnavigated Africa
at the beginning of the seventh century before Christ, completing
the voyage in three years. We should know far more now of the extent
of the explorations made by these master mariners of antiquity
were it not for the fact that they kept their trade routes secret
as far as possible in order to preserve their trade monopoly.
In developing and organizing these trade routes the Phnicians
planted colonies on the islands of the Mediterranean,--Sicily,
Sardinia, Corsica, and Malta. They held both shores of the Straits
of Gibraltar, and on the Atlantic shores of Spain established posts
at Cadiz and Tarshish, the latter commonly supposed to have been
situated just north of Cadiz at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River.
Cadiz was their distributing point for the metals of northern Spain
and the British Isles. The most famous colony was Carthage, situated
near the present city of Tunis. Carthage was founded during the first
half of the ninth century before Christ, and on the decay of the
parent state became in turn mistress of the western Mediterranean,
holding sway until crushed by Rome in the Punic Wars.
Of the methods of the Phnicians and their colonists in establishing
trade with primitive peoples, we get an interesting picture from
Herodotus,[1] who describes how the Carthaginians conducted business
with barbarous tribes on the northern coast of Africa.
[Footnote 1: HISTORY, translated by Geo. Rawlinson, vol. III, p.
144.]
[Illustration: SCENE OF ANCIENT SEA POWER]
"When they (the Carthaginian traders) arrive, forthwith they unload
their wares, and having disposed them in orderly fashion on the
beach, leave them, and returning aboard their ships, raise a great
smoke. The natives, when they see the smoke, came dawn to the shore,
and laying out to view so much gold as they think the wares to be
worth, withdraw to a distance. The Carthaginians upon this come
ashore and look. If they think the gold enough, they take it up and
go their way; but if it does not seem sufficient they go aboard
their ships once more and wait patiently. Then the others approach
and add to the gold till the Carthaginians are satisfied. Neither
party deals unfairly with the other; for the Carthaginians never
touch the gold till it comes up to the estimated value of their
goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goads till the gold
has been taken away."
In addition to the enormous profits of the carrying trade the Phnicians
had a practical monopoly of the famous "Tyrian dyes," which were in
great demand throughout the known world. These dyes were obtained
from two kinds of shellfish together with an alkali prepared from
seaweed. Phnicians were also pioneers in the art of making glass.
It is not hard to understand, therefore, how Phnicia grew so
extraordinarily rich as to rouse the envy of neighboring rulers,
and to maintain themselves the traders of Tyre and Sidon had to
develop fighting fleets as well as trading fleets.
Early in Egyptian history the distinction was made between the
"round" ships of commerce and the "long" ships of war. The round
ship, as the name suggests, was built for cargo capacity rather
than for speed. It depended on sail, with the oars as auxiliaries.
The long ship was designed for speed, depending on oars and using
sail only as auxiliary. And while the round ship was of deep draft
and rode to anchor, the shallow flat-bottomed long ships were drawn
up on shore. The Phnicians took the Egyptian and Cretan models
and improved them. They lowered the bows of the fighting ships,
added to the blunt ram a beak near the water's edge, and strung
the shields of the fighting men along the bulwarks to protect the
rowers. To increase the driving force and the speed, they added a
second and then a third bank of oars, thus producing the "bireme" and
the "trireme." These were the types they handed down to the Greeks,
and in fact there was little advance made beyond the Phnician war
galley during all the subsequent centuries of the Age of the Oar.
About the beginning of the seventh century before Christ the Phnicians
had reached the summit of their power on the seas. Their extraordinary
wealth tempted the king of Assyria, in 725 B.C., to cross the mountain
barrier with a great army. He had no difficulty in overrunning the
country, but the inhabitants fled to their colonies. The great
city of Tyre, being on an island, defied the invader, and finally
the Assyrian king gave up and withdrew to his own country. Having
realized at great cost that he could not subdue the Phnicians
without a navy, he set about finding one. By means of bribes and
threats he managed to seduce three Phnician cities to his side.
These furnished him sixty ships officered by Phnicians, but manned
by Assyrian crews.
With this fleet an attack was made on Tyre, but such was the contempt
felt by the Tyrians for their enemy that they held only twelve ships
for defense. These twelve went out against the sixty, utterly routed
them, and took 500 prisoners. For five years longer the Assyrian
king maintained a siege of Tyre from the mainland, attempting to
keep the city from its source of fresh water, but as the Tyrians
had free command of the sea, they had no difficulty in getting
supplies of all kinds from their colonies. At the end of five years
the Assyrians again returned home, defeated by the Phnician control
of the sea. When, twenty years later, Phnicia was subjugated by
Assyria, it was due to the lack of union among the scattered cities
and colonies of the great sea empire. Widely separated, governed
by their own princes, the individual colonies had too little sense
of loyalty for the mother country. Each had its own fleets and its
own interests; in consequence an Assyrian fleet was able to destroy
the Phnician fleets in detail. From this point till the rise of
Athens as a sea power, the fleets of Phnicia still controlled the
sea, but they served the plans of conquest of alien rulers.
As a dependency of Persia, Phnicia enabled Cambyses to conquer
Egypt. However, when the Phnician fleet was ordered to subjugate
Carthage, already a strong power in the west, the Phnicians refused
on the ground of the kinship between Carthage and Phnicia. And
the help of Phnicia was so essential to the Persian monarch that
he countermanded the order. Indeed the relation of Phnicia to
Persia amounted to something more nearly like that of an ally than
a conquered province, for it was to the interests of Persia to
keep the Phnicians happy and loyal.
When, in 498 B.C., the Greeks of Asia and the neighboring islands
revolted, it was due chiefly to the loyalty of the Phnicians that the
Persian empire was saved. Thereafter, the Persian yoke was fastened
on the Asiatic Greeks, and any prospect of a Greek civilization
developing on the eastern shore of the Ægean was destroyed.
[Illustration: GREEK WAR GALLEY
From Torr, _Ancient Ships_.]
But on the western shore lay flourishing Greek cities still independent
of Persian rule. Moreover, the coastal towns like Corinth and Athens
were developing considerable power on the sea, and it was evident
that unless European Greece were subdued it would stand as a barrier
between Persia and the western Mediterranean. Darius perceived the
situation and prepared to destroy these Greek states before they
should become too formidable. The story of this effort, ending at
Salamis and Platea, and breaking for all time the power of Persia,
belongs in the subsequent chapter that narrates the rise and fall
of Athens as a sea power.
At this point, it is worth pausing to consider in detail the war
galley which the Phnicians had developed and which they handed
down to the Greeks at this turning point in the world's history.
The bireme and the trireme were adopted by the Greeks, apparently
without alteration, save that at Salamis the Greek galleys were
said to have been more strongly built and to have presented a lower
freeboard than those of the Phnicians. A hundred years later,
about 330 B.C., the Greeks developed the four-banked ship, and
Alexander of Macedon is said to have maintained on the Euphrates
a squadron of seven-banked ships. In the following century the
Macedonians had ships of sixteen banks of oars, and this was probably
the limit for sea-going ships in antiquity. These multiple banked
ships must have been most unhandy, for a reversal of policy set in
till about the beginning of the Christian era the Romans had gone
back to two-banked ships. In medieval times war galleys reverted
to a single row of oars on each side, but required four or five
men to every oar.
[Illustration: GREEK MERCHANT SHIP
From Torr, _Ancient Ships_.]
At the time of the Persian war the trireme was the standard type of
warship, as it had been for the hundred years before, and continued
to be during the hundred years that followed. In fact, the name
trireme was used loosely for all ships of war whether they had two
banks of oars or three. But the fleets that fought in the Persian
war and in the Peloponnesian war were composed of three-banked ships,
and fortunately we have in the records of the Athenian dockyards
accurate information as to structural detail.
The Athenian trireme was about 150 feet in length with a beam of 20
feet. The beam was therefore only 2/15 of the length. (A merchant
ship of the same period was about 180 feet long with a beam of 1/4
its length.) The trireme was fitted with one mast and square sail,
the latter being used only when the wind was fair, as auxiliary
to the oars, especially when it needed to retire from battle. In
fact, the phrase "hoist the sail" came to be used colloquially
like our "turn tail" as a term for running away.
The triremes carried two sails, usually made of linen, a larger
one used in cruising and a smaller one for emergency in battle.
Before action it was customary to stow the larger sail on shore,
and the mast itself was lowered to prevent its snapping under the
shock of ramming.
The forward part of the trireme was constructed with a view to
effectiveness in ramming. Massive catheads projected far enough to
rip away the upper works of an enemy, while the bronze beak at the
waterline drove into her hull. This beak, or ram, was constructed
of a core of timber heavily sheathed with bronze, presenting three
teeth. Although the ram was the prime weapon of the ship, it often
became so badly wrenched in collision as to start the whole forward
part of the vessel leaking.
The rowers were seated on benches fitted into a rectangular structure
inside the hull. These benches were so compactly adjusted that
the naval architects allowed only two feet of freeboard for every
bank of oars. Thus the Roman quinquiremes of the Punic wars stood
only about ten feet above water. The covering of this rectangular
structure formed a sort of hurricane deck, standing about three
feet above the gangway that ran around the ship at about the level
of the bulwarks. This gangway and upper deck formed the platform
for the fighting men in battle. Sometimes the open space between
the hurricane deck and the gangway was fenced in with shields or
screens to protect the rowers of the uppermost bank of oars from
the arrows and javelins of the enemy.
The complement of a trireme amounted to about 200 men. The captain,
or "trierarch," commanded implicit obedience. Under him were a
sailing master, various petty officers, sailors, soldiers or marines,
and oarsmen.
The trireme expanded in later centuries to the quinquereme: upper
works were added and a second mast, but in essentials it was the
same type of war vessel that dominated the Mediterranean for three
thousand years--an oar driven craft that attempted to disable its
enemy by ramming or breaking away the oars. After contact the fighting
was of a hand to hand character such as prevailed in battles on
land. These characteristics were as true of the galley of Lepanto
(1571 A.D.) as of the trireme of Salamis (480 B.C.). Of the three
cardinal virtues of the fighting ship, mobility, seaworthiness,
and ability to keep the sea, or cruising radius, the oar-driven
type possessed only the first. It was fast, it could hold position
accurately, it could spin about almost on its own axis, but it was
so frail that it had to run for shelter before a moderate wind
and sea. In consequence naval operations were limited to the summer
months. As to its cargo capacity, it was so small that it was unable
to carry provisions to sustain its own crew for more than a few
days. As a rule the trireme was beached at night, with the crew
sleeping on shore, and as far as possible the meals were cooked
and eaten on shore. In the battle of Ægospotami (405 B.C.), for
example, the Spartans fell upon the Athenians when their ships
were drawn up on the beach and the crews were cooking their dinner.
Moreover, the factors of speed and distance were both limited by
the physical fatigue of the oarsmen. In the language of to-day,
therefore, the oar-driven man-of-war had a small "cruising radius."
This dependence on the land and this sensitiveness to weather are
important facts in ancient naval history. It is fair to say that
storms did far more to destroy fleets and naval expeditions than
battles during the entire age of the oar. The opposite extreme
was reached in Nelson's day. His lumbering ships of the line made
wretched speed and straggling formations, but they were able to
weather a hurricane and to keep the sea for an indefinite length
of time.
As a final word on the beginnings of navies, emphasis should be
laid on the enormous importance of these early mariners, such as
the Cretans and the Phnicians, as builders of civilization. The
venturesome explorer who brought his ship into some uncharted port
not only opened up a new source of wealth but also established a
reciprocal relation that quickened civilization at both ends of
his route. The cargo ships that left the Nile delta distributed the
arts of Egypt as well as its wheat, and the richest civilization of
the ancient world, that of Greece, rose on foundation stones brought
from Egypt, Assyria, and Phnicia. It may be said of Phnicia herself
that she built-up her advanced culture on ideas borrowed almost
wholly from her customers. But control of the seas for trade involved
control of the seas for war, and behind the merchantman stood the
trireme. It is significant and appropriate that a Phnician coin
that has come down to us bears the relief of a ship of war.
In contrast with these early sea explorers and sea fighters stand
the peoples of China and India. Having reached a high state of
culture at an early period, they nevertheless, sought no contact
with the world outside and became stagnant for thousands of years.
Indeed, among the Hindus the crossing of the sea was a crime to be
expiated only by the most agonizing penance. Hence these peoples
of Asia, the most numerous in the world, exercised no influence
on the development of civilization compared with a mere handful
of people in Crete or the island city of Tyre. And for the same
reason China and India ceased to progress and became for centuries
mere backwaters of history.
It is worth noting also that the Mediterranean, leading westwards
from the early developed nations of Asia Minor and Egypt, opened
a westward course to the advance of discovery and colonization,
and this trend continued as the Pillars of Hercules led to the
Atlantic and eventually to the new world. For every nation that
bordered the Mediterranean illimitable highways opened out for
expansion, provided it possessed the stamina and the skill to win
them. And in those days they were practically the only highways.
Frail as the early ships were and great as were the perils they
had to face, communications by water were far centuries faster
and safer than communications by land. Hence civilization followed
the path of the sea. Even in these early beginnings it is easy
to see that sea-borne commerce leads to the founding of colonies
and the formation of an empire whose parts are linked together
by trade routes, and finally, that the preservation of such an
empire depends an the naval control of sea. This was as true of
Crete and Phnicia as it was later true of Venice, Holland, and
England.
REFERENCES
THE SEA KINGS OF CRETE, J. Baikie, 1910.
PHNICIA, Story of the Nations Series, George Rawlinson, 1895.
THE SAILING SHIP, E. Keble Chatterton, 1909.
SHIPS AND THEIR WAYS OF OTHER DAYS, E. Keble Chatterton, 1913.
ANCIENT SHIPS, Cecil Torr, 1894.
ARCHEOLOGIE NAVALE, Auguste Jal, 1840.
THE PREHISTORIC NAVAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE NORTH OF EUROPE,
G. H. Buhmer, in Report of the U. S. National Museum, 1893.
This article contains a complete bibliography on the subject of
ancient ships.
SEA POWER AND FREEDOM (chap. 2), Gerard Fiennes, 1918.
CHAPTER II
ATHENS AS A SEA POWER
1. THE PERSIAN WAR
In determining to crush the independence of the Greek cities of
the west, Darius was influenced not only by the desire to destroy a
dangerous rival on the sea and an obstacle to further advances by the
Persian empire, but also to tighten his hold on the Greek colonies of
Asia Minor. Helped by the Phnician fleet and the treachery of the
Lesbians and Samians, he had succeeded in putting down a formidable
rebellion in 500 B.C. In this rebellion the Asiatic Greeks had
received help from their Athenian brethren on the other side of
the Ægean; indeed just so long as Greek independence flourished
anywhere there would always be the threat of revolt in the Greek
colonies of Persia. Darius perceived rightly that the prestige and
the future power of his empire depended on his conquering Greece.
In 492 he dispatched Mardonius with an army of invasion to subdue
Attica and Eretria, and at the same time sent forth a great fleet to
conquer the independent island communities of the Ægean. Mardonius
succeeded in overcoming the tribes of Thrace and Macedonia, but the
fleet, after taking the island of Thasus, was struck by a storm
that wrecked three hundred triremes with a loss of 20,000 lives. As
the broken remnants of the fleet returned to Asia, leaving Mardonius
with no sea communications, and harassed by increasing opposition,
he was compelled to retreat also. In 490 Darius sent out another
army under Mardonius, this time embarking it on a fleet of 600
triremes which succeeded in arriving safely at the coast of Attica
in the bay of Marathon. While the army was disembarking it was
attacked by Miltiades and utterly defeated. The second expedition,
therefore, came to nothing. But Marathon can hardly be called a
decisive battle because it merely postponed the invasion; it affected
in no way the communications of the Persians and it did not weaken
seriously their military resources.
The great savior of Greece at this crisis was the Athenian,
Themistocles. He foresaw the renewed efforts of the Persian king
to destroy Greece, and realized also that the most vital point in
the coming conflict would be the control of the sea. Accordingly
he urged upon the Athenians the necessity of building a powerful
fleet. In this policy he was aided by one of those futile wars
so characteristic of Greek history, a war between Athens and the
island of Ægina. In order to overcome the Æginetans, who had a
large fleet, the Athenians were compelled to build a larger one,
and by the time this purpose was accomplished rumors came that
the Persian king was getting ready another invasion of Greece.
_Campaign of Salamis_
The third attempt was undertaken ten years after the second, in
the year 480, under Xerxes, the successor to Darius. This time the
very immensity of the forces employed was to overcome all opposition
and all misfortunes. An army, variously estimated at from one to
five million men, crossed the Hellespont on a bridge of boats to
invade the peninsula from the north, while a fleet of 1200 triremes
was assembled to insure the command of the sea.
Against the unlimited resources of the Persian empire and the unity
of plan represented by Xerxes and his generals, the Greeks had
little to offer. They possessed the two advantages of the defensive,
knowledge of the terrain and interior lines,[1] but their resources
were small and their spirit divided. Greece in those days was, as
was later said of Italy, "merely a geographical expression." The
various cities were mutually jealous and hostile, and it took a great
common danger to bring them even into a semblance of coöperation.
Even during this desperate crisis the cities of western Greece,
counting themselves reasonably safe from invasion, declined to
send a ship or a man for the common cause.
[Footnote 1: "'Interior Lines' conveys the meaning that from a
central position one can assemble more rapidly on either of two
opposite fronts than the enemy can, and therefore utilize force
more effectively." NAVAL STRATEGY, A. T. Mahan, p. 32.]
[Illustration: ROUTE OF XERXES' FLEET TO BATTLE OF SALAMIS]
The Persian army advanced without opposition as far as the pass of
Thermopylæ, which guarded the only road into the rest of Greece.
Twelve days after the army had started on its march the great fleet
crossed the Ægean to establish contact with the army and bring
supplies. The army was checked by the valor of Leonidas, and the
Persian fleet was intercepted by a Greek fleet which stood guard
over the channel leading to the Gulf of Lamia, thus protecting the
sea flank of Leonidas. The Persian fleet, after crossing the open
sea safely, made its base at Sepias preparatory to the attack on
the Greek fleet. The latter numbered only about 380 vessels to some
1200 of their enemy and the prospects for the Persian cause looked
bright indeed. But as the very number of the Persian ships made it
impossible to beach all of them for the night a large proportion
of them were anchored, lying in eight lines, prows toward the sea.
At dawn a northeast gale fell upon them, and, according to the
Greek accounts, wrecked 400 triremes, together with an uncounted
number of transports. Meanwhile the Greek ships had taken refuge
under the lee of the island of Euba, and the news of the Persian
disaster was signaled to them by the watchers on the heights.
[Illustration: SCENE OF PRELIMINARY NAVAL OPERATIONS, CAMPAIGN OF
SALAMIS]
As soon as the weather moderated the Greeks returned to their position
in the straits near Artemisium, and during the next three days the
two fleets fought stubbornly but without advantage to either side.
During the second day a southerly gale caught a flying squadron
of some 200 triremes, that had been dispatched round the island of
Euba to catch the Greeks in the rear, and not one of the Persian
ships survived. The Greek rear guard squadron of fifty brought
the welcome news to the main fleet and served as a much needed
reënforcement. Although the Persian armada had lost about half
its force in three days by storms, the odds were still so heavily
against the Greeks that they found themselves in constant peril
of having their flanks turned in this open sea fighting.
On the afternoon of the third day the pass of Thermopyæ was forced,
thanks to the treachery of a Greek and the contemptible policy of
the Spartan government which steadily refused the plea of Leonidas
for reënforcements. With Thermopyæ taken there was no further reason
for the Greek fleet to try to hold the straits north of Euba,
and during the night it retired unobserved. The following day the
Persian fleet advanced and brought to the army the supplies which
it sorely needed.
With the fall of Thermopyæ and the contact established between his
army and his fleet, Xerxes found his route open for the invasion
of Attica. Since there was no possibility of opposing him on land,
the population of the province was removed and Athens left to its
fate. Themistocles, who was in command of the Athenian division of
the Greek fleet, now urged the assembling of the fleet at Salamis,
partly to cover the withdrawal of the Athenians and partly to assist
in the defense of the Isthmus of Corinth, which was to be the next
stand of the Greeks. The advice was adopted and the fleet assembled
off the town of Salamis. Athenian refugees had crowded into the town
and from the heights above they watched the smoke of their burning
city. Their own future and the future of Athenian civilization hung
on the long lines of triremes drawn up on the shore.
A glance at the map of the region of Salamis shows the advantages
offered by the position for the defensive. The fighting off Artemisium
had shown the peril of attacking a greatly superior force in the open
because of the danger of being outflanked. In the narrow straits
between Salamis and the mainland the Greek line of battle would
rest its flanks on the opposite shores. But it is one thing to
choose a position and another to get the enemy to accept battle in
that position. If the Persians ignored the Greek fleet and moved to
the Isthmus, the Greeks would be caught in an awkward predicament. To
regain touch with the Greek army, the fleet would be then compelled
to come out of the straits and fight at a disadvantage in the open.
There was only one chance of defeating the Persian fleet and that
was to make it fight in the narrow waters of the strait where numbers
would not count so heavily. Everything depended on bringing this
to pass.
Nor could the Greeks wait indefinitely for the Persians. Already
the incorrigible jealousies of rival cities had almost reached the
point of disintegrating the fleet. Although the commander in chief
was the Spartan general Eurybiades, the whole Spartan contingent
was on the point of deserting in a body to its own coasts. The
situation was saved by Themistocles. Having wrung from his allies
a reluctant consent to stop at Salamis temporarily to cover the
withdrawal of the Athenian populace, the story is that he secretly
dispatched a messenger to Xerxes to say that if he would attack
at once he could crush the entire naval forces of the Greeks at a
blow, but if he delayed the Greeks would scatter. Acting on this
advice, Xerxes landed troops on the island of Psyttaleia, dispatched
a squadron to block the western outlet of Salamis Straits, and
proceeded to move the main body of his fleet to attack the Greeks
by way of the eastern channel. The preparations were made during
the night and were not completed till dawn of the day of battle,
September 20, 480 B.C.
The debates in the allied fleet came to an end with the appearance
of the Persians. The shrewd plan of Themistocles had succeeded.
The Greeks would have to fight with their backs to the wall, but
they would fight with better chance of success than under any other
circumstances.
The Greek force consisted of about 380 vessels. Of these, Athens
contributed 180, Sparta and the rest of the Peloponnesus were
represented by 89 and the remainder were made up of squadrons from
the island states. Some of these island contingents contained a
type of ship different from the triremes, the penteconter. This was
a galley with only one bank of oars, but these were long sweeps,
each manned by five oarsmen. The penteconter was an early prototype
of the galley of the Christian era.
The Persians had been reduced by this time to about 600 ships,
although there had been numerous reënforcements since the disaster
at Cape Sepias. The fleet was "Persian" only in name, for, except
for bands of Persian archers on some of the ships, it was composed
of elements levied from each of the subject nations that followed
the sea. Indeed Persia is a curious example in history of a nation
with a purely artificial sea power, for its navy was composed of
aliens entirely. Thus the squadron that was sent to blockade the
western end of the straits was Egyptian, the right wing of the fleet
as it advanced to the attack was composed of Phnicians, and the
center and left was made up of Cyprians, Cilicians, Samothracians,
and Ionians, the latter only recently in rebellion against Persia
and at that time welcoming help from Athens in a cause in which
Athens herself was now involved. Apparently there was no compunction
felt on this account, for the Ionians distinguished themselves by
gallant fighting against their Greek brethren. Nevertheless, it
is not hard to imagine difficulties involved in the task of making
a unit of such an assortment of peoples. The fleet was commanded
by a Persian, Prince Ariabignes, brother of Xerxes.
At daybreak the Persian triremes drew up in three lines on each
side of the island of Psyttaleia and advanced into the straits.
But the narrowing waters of the channel made it necessary to reduce
the front and bear to the left. Consequently all formation was
lost, and the Persian triremes poured into the narrows "in a
stream,"--to quote the phrase of the tragedian Æschylus, who fought
on an Athenian trireme in this battle and describes it in one of
his plays.
Facing the invader was a smaller array of ships but a better ordered
line of battle. On the Greek left was the Athenian division opposing
the advancing triremes of Phnicia; on the right was the Spartan
division facing the Greeks of Asia Minor. The two fleets rushed toward
each other, but just before contact the Persians found themselves
embarrassed by their very number of ships. As may be seen by the
map, they had an awkward turn to make in entering the narrows. At
this point, just opposite the peninsula of Salamis, the straits
are only about 2000 yards wide, making it impossible for more than
80 or 90 triremes to advance abreast. As a result the Phnician
wing of the line was extended considerably in advance of the rest,
forced ahead by the pressure of ships behind. Although, as a matter
of fact, the Spartan wing also was somewhat in advance of the rest of
the Greek line, the first shock of battle came between the Phnicians
and the Athenians.
[Illustration: After Grundy, _The Great Persian War._
THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS, 480 B. C.
1 The Original Position
2 The Advance
3 The Contact]
This initial advantage offered by an exposed wing was immediately
seized upon. While the Athenians bore the frontal attack, the Æginetans
on their right fell upon the Phnicians' flank. This double attack
on the Persian right wing eventually proved the turning point of
the battle. The Phnicians, however, had the reputation of being
the foremost sea fighters in the world, and they bore themselves
well. Similarly the Asiatic Greeks proved themselves foemen worthy
of their brethren from the Peloponnesus, and the fight was maintained
with great ferocity all along the line. The inhabitants of Athens
who had been removed to Salamis blackened the shores on one side of
the Strait, as anxious watchers of the tremendous spectacle. Opposite
them on the slope of Mt. Ægaleos sat Xerxes himself, surrounded by
his staff, a less anxious spectator but no less interested in the
outcome.
About seven o'clock a fresh westerly wind arose, as it does at
this day in that region, and as it did some years later during a
battle won by an Athenian admiral in the Gulf of Corinth.[1] This
wind blows every morning with considerable violence for about two
hours; and in this battle it must have tended to make the bows of
the Persian ships pay off--thus exposing their sides to the Greek
rams--and drift back upon the galleys that were crowding forward
from the rear in the attempt to get into the battle.
[Footnote 1: The Battle of the Corinthian Gulf: v. p. 43]
The Greeks pressed their advantage, using their rams to sink an
adversary or disable her by cutting away her oars. Where the mêlée
was too close for such tactics they tried to take their enemy by
boarding. On every Greek trireme was a specially organized boarding
party consisting of 36 men--18 marines, 14 heavily armed soldiers,
and four bowmen; and the Greeks seem to have been superior to their
enemy at close quarters. On the Persian side the superiority lay in
their archers and javelin throwers. Toward the end of the battle,
for instance, a Samothracian trireme performed a remarkable feat.
Having been disabled by an Æginetan ship, the Samothracian cleared the
decks of her assailant with arrows and javelins and took possession.
Although the invaders seem to have fought with the greatest courage
and determination, the disadvantage of confusion at the outset of
the battle, augmented by the head wind, told decisively against
them. They were unable to take advantage of their superiority in ships
on account of the narrowness of the channel, and indeed found that
the very multitude of their ships only added to their difficulties.
The retreat began with the flower of the Persian fleet, the Phnician
division. Caught at the opening of the battle with the Athenians in
front and the Æginetans on the left flank, they were never able to
extricate themselves, although they fought stubbornly. The foremost
ships, many in a disabled condition, began to retreat; others backed
water to make way for them; the rearmost finding it impossible to
reach the battle at all, withdrew out of the straits; and soon the
retreat became general. As the Phnicians withdrew, the Athenians
and the Æginetans fell upon the center of the Persian line, and the
rout became general with the Greeks in full pursuit. The latter
pressed their enemy as far as the island of Psyttaleia, thus cutting
off the Persian force on the island from their communications.
Whereupon Aristides, the Athenian, led a force in boats from Salamis
to the island and put to death every man of the Persian garrison.
The Persian ships fled to their base at Phaleron, while the Greeks
returned to their base at Salamis.
The battle of Salamis was won, but at the moment neither side realized
its decisive character. The Greeks had lost 40 ships; the Persians
had lost over 200 sunk, and an indeterminate number captured.
Nevertheless, the latter could probably have mustered a considerable
force for another attack--which the Greeks expected--if their morale
had not been so badly shaken. Their commander, Ariabignes, was
among the killed, and there was no one else capable of reorganizing
the shattered forces. Xerxes, fearing for the safety of his bridge
over the Hellespont, gave orders for his ships to retire thither to
protect it, and the very night after the battle found the remains
of the Persian fleet in full flight across the Ægean.
The news reached the Greeks at noon of the following day and they
set out in pursuit, but having gone as far as Andros without coming
up with the enemy, they paused for a council of war. The Athenians
urged the policy of going on and destroying the bridge over the
Hellespont, but they were voted down by their allies, who preferred
to leave well enough alone.
It is customary to speak of the victory of the Greeks at Salamis
as due to their superior physique and fighting qualities. This
superiority may be claimed for the Greek soldiers at Marathon and
Platæ, where the Persian army was actually Persian. The Asiatic
soldier, forced into service and flogged into battle, was indeed
no match for the virile and warlike Greek. But at Salamis it was
literally a case of Greek meeting Greek, except in the case of the
Phnicians--who had the reputation of being the finest seafighters
in the world--and it is not easy to see how the battle was won by
sheer physical prowess. There is no evidence to show any lack of
either courage or fighting ability on the Persian side. The decisive
feature of the battle was the fatal exposure of the Phnician wing
at the very outset. However, it is worth noting that the invaders
had been maneuvering all night and were tired--especially the
oarsmen--when called upon to enter battle against an enemy that
was fresh. In that respect there was undoubtedly some advantage
to the Greeks, but it can hardly have been of prime importance.
The immediate results of the victory at Salamis were soon apparent.
The all-conquering Persian army suddenly found itself in a critical
situation. Cut off from its supplies by sea, it had to retreat or
starve, for the country which it occupied was incapable of furnishing
supplies for a host so enormous. Xerxes left an army of occupation in
Thessaly consisting of 300,000 men under Mardonius, but the rest were
ordered to get back to Persia as best they could. A panic-stricken
rout to the Hellespont began, and for the next forty-five days
a great host, that had never been even opposed in battle, went
to pieces under famine, disease, and the guerilla warfare of the
inhabitants of the country it traversed, and it was only a broken
and demoralized remnant of the great army that survived to see the
Hellespont. This great military disaster was due entirely to the
fact that Salamis had deprived Xerxes of the command of the sea.
Indeed, if the advice of Themistodes had been taken and the Greek
fleet had proceeded to the Hellespont and held the position, not even
a remnant of the retreating army would have survived. It happened
that the bridge had been carried away by storms and the army had to
be ferried over by the ships of the beaten and demoralized Persian
fleet, an operation which would have been impossible in the face
of the victorious Greeks.
Xerxes still held to the idea of conquering Greece; but the chance
was gone. Mardonius, it is true, remained in Thessaly with an army,
but it was no longer an army of millions. The Greeks assembled an
army of about 100,000 men and in the battle of Platæa the following
year utterly defeated it. On the same day the Greeks destroyed
what was left of the Persian fleet in the battle of Mycale, on
the coast of Asia Minor. This, strictly speaking, was not a naval
battle at all, for the Persians had drawn their ships up on shore
and built a stockade around them. The Greeks landed their crews,
took the stockade by storm and burnt the ships. These later victories
were the direct consequences of the earlier victory of Salamis.
Another phase of the Persian plan of conquering the Greeks must not
be overlooked. Xerxes had stirred up Carthage to undertake a naval
and military expedition against the Greeks of Sicily, in order that
all the independent Greek states might be crushed simultaneously.
Again the weather came to the rescue, for the greater part of the
Carthaginian fleet was wrecked by storms. The survivors of the
expedition laid siege to the city of Himera, but were eventually
driven back to their ships in rout with the loss of their general.
Thus the Greek civilization of Sicily was saved at the same time
as that of Athens.
East and west, therefore, the grandiose plan of the Persian despot
fell in ruin, and with it fell the prestige and the power of the
empire. The Ionians revolted and joined Athens as allies, and the
control of the Ægean passed from Persia to Athens. With this loss
of sea power began the decline of Persia as a world power.
The significance of this astounding defeat of the greatest military
and naval power of the time lies in the fact that European, or
more particularly Greek, civilization was spared to develop its
own individuality. Had Xerxes succeeded, the paralyzing régime of
an Asiatic despotism would have stifled the genius of the Greek
people. Self-government would never have had its beginnings in
Greece, and a subjugated Athens would never have produced the "Age
of Pericles." In the two generations following Salamis, Athens
made a greater original contribution to literature, philosophy,
science, and art than any other nation in any two centuries of
its existence.
For the fact that this priceless heritage was left to later ages
the world is indebted chiefly to the Greeks who fought at Salamis.
The night before that battle the cause of Greece seemed doomed
beyond hope. The day after, the invaders began a retreat that ended
forever their hopes of conquest. This amazing change of fortune was
due to the fact that the success of the Persian invasion depended
on the control of the sea. Hence the Greeks, though unable to muster
an army large enough to meet the Persian host on land, defeated
it disastrously by winning a victory on the sea.
2. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
After Salamis, Athens rose to a commanding position among the Greek
states. Her period of supremacy was brief, lasting less than 75
years, but while it endured it rested on her triremes. In the middle
of the fifth century she had 100,000 men in her navy, practically
as many as Great Britain in her fleet before 1914. Although the
period of Athenian supremacy was short-lived, it is interesting
because it produced a great naval genius, Phormio, and because
it wrecked itself as Persian sea power had done, in an attempt at
foreign conquest.
Scarcely had the Persian invasion come to an end when bickering broke
out among the various Greek states, much of it directed against Athens.
She had small difficulty, however, in maintaining her ascendancy in
northern Greece on account of her superiority on the sea, and it
was during the half century after Salamis that Athens arose to
her splendid climax as the intellectual and artistic center of
the world.
[Illustration: After Shepherd's _Historical Atlas._
THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT--ABOUT 450 B.C.]
In 431 began the Peloponnesian War. Its immediate cause was the
help given by Athens to Corcyra (Corfu) in a war against Corinth.
Corinth called on Sparta for help, and in consequence northern and
southern Greece were locked in a mortal struggle. The Athenians
had a naval base at Naupaktis on the Gulf of Corinth, and in 429,
two years after war broke out, the Athenian Phormio found himself
supplied with only twenty triremes with which to maintain control
of that important waterway. At the same time Sparta was setting in
motion a large land and water expedition with the object of sweeping
Athenian influence from all of western Greece and of obtaining
control of the Gulf of Corinth. A fleet from Corinth was to join
another at Leukas, one of the Ionian Islands, and then proceed to
operate on the northern coast of the gulf while an army invaded
the province.
[Illustration: SCENE OF PHORMIO'S CAMPAIGNS]
As it happened, the army moved off without waiting for the coöperation
of the fleet and eventually went to pieces in an ineffectual siege of
an inland city. When the fleet started out from Corinth it numbered
47 triremes. As this was more than twice the number possessed by
Phormio, the Corinthian admiral evidently counted on being secure
from attack. Accordingly he used some of his triremes as transports
and started on his journey without taking the precaution to train
his oarsmen or practice maneuvers. But as he skirted along the
southern coast he was surprised to see the Athenian ships moving in
a parallel course as if on the alert for an opportunity to attack.
When the Corinthian ships bore up from Patræ to cross to the Ætolian
shore, the Athenian column steered directly toward them. At this
threat the Corinthian fleet turned away and put in at Rhium, a
point near the narrowest part of the strait, in order to make the
crossing under cover of night. The Corinthian admiral made the same
fatal mistake committed by the commander of the Spanish Armada
2000 years later in a similar undertaking, that of trying to avoid
an enemy on the sea rather than fight him before carrying out an
invasion of the enemy's coast. This ignominious conduct on the
part of the Corinthian admiral was partly due to the fact that he
was encumbered with his transports, but chiefly to the fact that
he knew that in fighting qualities his men were no match for the
Athenians. The latter had no peers on the sea at that time. Since
Salamis they had progressed far in naval science and efficiency
and were filled with the confidence that comes from knowledge and
experience.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF THE CORINTHIAN GULF, 429 B. C.
Corinthian Formation and Circling Tactics of Phormio.]
All night Phormio watched his enemy and at dawn surprised him in
mid-crossing. On seeing Phormio advance to the attack, the Corinthian
drew up his squadron in a defensive position, ranging his vessels
in concentric circles, bows outward, like the spokes of a wheel.
In the center of this formation he placed his transports, together
with five of his largest triremes to assist at any threatened spot.
The formation suggests a leader of infantry rather than an admiral;
moreover, it revealed a fatal readiness to give up the offensive
to an enemy force less than half his own.
At any rate there was no lack of decision on the part of Phormio.
He advanced rapidly in line ahead formation, closed in near the
enemy's prows as if he intended to strike at any moment and circled
round the line. The Corinthian triremes, having no headway and
manned by inexperienced rowers, began crowding back on one another
as they tried to keep in position for the expected attack. Then the
same early morning wind that had embarrassed the Persian ships at
Salamis sprang up and added to the confusion of fouling ships and
clashing oar blades. Choosing his opening, Phormio flew the signal
for attack and rammed one of the flagships of the Corinthian fleet.
The Athenians fell upon their enemy and almost at the first blow
routed the entire Corinthian force. In addition to those triremes
that were sunk outright, twelve remained as prizes with their full
complement of crews, and the rest scattered in flight. Phormio
returned in triumph to Naupaktis with the loss of scarcely a man.
So humiliating a defeat had to be avenged, and Sparta organized
a new expedition. This time a fleet of 77 triremes was collected.
Meanwhile Phormio had sent to Athens the news of his victory together
with an urgent plea for reënforcements. Unfortunately the great
Pericles was dying and the government had fallen into weak and
unscrupulous hands. Consequently while 20 triremes were ordered to
the support of Phormio, political intrigue succeeded in diverting
this squadron to carry out a futile expedition to Crete, and Phormio
was left to contest the control of the gulf against a fleet of 77
with nothing more than his original twenty.
It is interesting to observe what strategy Phormio adopted in this
difficult situation. In the campaign of Salamis, Themistocles chose
the narrow waters of the strait as the safest position for a fleet
outnumbered by the enemy, because of the protection offered to the
flanks by the opposite shores. But Phormio, commanding a fleet about
one-fourth that of his adversary, chose the open sea. Apparently
his decision was based on the fact that the superiority of the
Athenian ship lay in its greater speed and skill in maneuvering.
Unable to cope with his adversary in full force, he might by his
superior mobility beat him in detail. Accordingly, he boldly took
the open sea.
For about a week the two fleets lay within sight of each other,
with Phormio trying to draw his enemy out of the narrows into open
water and his adversary attempting to crowd him into a corner against
the share. Finally the Peloponnesian, realizing that Phormio would
have to defend his base, and hoping to force him to fight at a
disadvantage, moved upon Naupaktis. As this port was undefended,
Phormio was compelled to return thither.
The Peloponnesian fleet advanced in line of four abreast with the
Spartan admiral and the twenty Spartan triremes--the best in the
fleet--in the lead. At the signal from the admiral the column swung
"left into line" and bore down in line abreast upon the Athenians
who were ranging along the shore in line ahead. The object of the
maneuver was to cut the Athenians off from the port and crowd them
upon the shore. The latter, however, developed such a burst of
speed that eleven of the twenty succeeded in reaching Naupaktis;
the remaining nine drove ashore and their crews escaped. Apparently
the victory of the Spartan was as complete as it was easy. But while
the rest of the fleet busied itself with the deserted Athenian
triremes on the share, the Spartan squadron continued in the pursuit
of the eleven Athenian ships that were heading for Naupaktis. Ten
of the eleven reached port and drew up in a position of defense.
The eleventh, less speedy than the rest, was being overhauled by
the Spartan flagship which was pushing the pursuit far in advance
of the rest of the squadron. The captain of the Athenian ship,
seeing this situation, determined on a bold stroke. Instead of
pushing on into the harbor he pulled round a merchant ship that lay
anchored at the mouth, and rammed his pursuer amidships, disabling
her at a blow. The Spartan admiral promptly killed himself and the
rest of the ship's company were too panic stricken to resist.
At this disaster the rest of the Spartan squadron hesitated, dropped
oars or ran into shallow water. Seeing his opportunity, Phormio
dashed out of the harbor with his ten triremes and fell upon the
Spartans. In spite of the ridiculous disparity of forces, this
handful of Athenian ships pressed their attack so gallantly that
they destroyed the Spartan advance wing and then, catching the
rest of the fleet in disorder, routed the main body as well. By
nightfall Phormio had rescued eight of the nine Athenian triremes
that had fallen into the hands of the enemy and sent the scattered
remnants of the Peloponnesian fleet in full flight towards Corinth.
This battle of Naupaktis remains one of the most brilliant naval
victories in history, a victory won against overwhelming odds by
quick decision and superb audacity.
Only a half century separates Salamis from the battle of the Corinthian
Gulf and the battle of Naupaktis, but during that period there had
been a great advance in naval science.
As far as naval tactics are concerned, Salamis was merely a fight
between two mobs of ships, except that when opportunity offered,
a vessel used her ram. Otherwise the only difference from land
fighting was the fact that the combatants stood on floating platforms.
But in the Peloponnesian war we see not only the birth of naval
tactics but a very high development, especially as revealed in
these two victories of Phormio.
With the development of a naval science rose also a naval profession.
At Salamis Themistocles was a politician and Eurybiades was a soldier;
it happened that they were made fleet commanders for the emergency.
Phormio was a naval officer by profession, and he won by genius
combined with superior efficiency in the personnel under his command.
In his courage, resourcefulness, in the spirit he inspired, and
the high pitch of skill he developed among his officers and men,
he is an ideal type for every later age. Little is known of his
life and character beyond the story of these two exploits, but
they are sufficient to give him the name of the first great admiral
of history.
His exploits illustrate, too, at the very outset of naval history,
the vital truth that the man counts more than the machine. In these
later days, when the tendency is to measure naval power merely by
counting dreadnoughts, and to settle all hypothetical combats by
the proportion of strength at a given point on the game board, it
is well to remember that the most overwhelming victories have been
won by the skill and audacity of a great leader, which overcame
odds that would be reckoned by the experts as insuperable.
The Peloponnesian war dragged on with varying fortunes for ten
years. The Athenians were regularly successful on the sea and
unsuccessful on land. They seem to have laid an unwise dependence
on their navy for a state situated on the mainland with land
communications open to the enemy. They attempted to make an island
of their state by withdrawing into the city of Athens the entire
population of Attica, leaving open to the invader the rest of the
province. The repeated ravaging of Attica by Peloponnesian armies
weakened both the resources and the morale of the Athenians, and
the crowding of the inhabitants into the city resulted in frightful
mortality from the plague. At the same time the naval expeditions
sent out to harry the coast of the Peloponnesus accomplished nothing
of real advantage.
In 421 a truce was agreed upon between Athens and Sparta, which
was to last fifty years. Both sides were sorely weakened by the
protracted struggle and neither had gained any real advantage over
the other. Without waiting to recuperate from the losses of the
war, Athens embarked in 415 on an ambitious plan of conquering
Syracuse, and gaining all of Sicily as an Athenian colony. In the
event of success Athens would have a western outpost for the eventual
control of the Mediterranean, as she already had an eastern outpost
in Ionia, which gave her control of the Ægean.
In the light of the event it is customary to refer to this expedition
as the climax of folly, and yet it is clear that if the commander
in chief had not wasted time in interminable delays the Athenians
might easily have won their objective. At first the Syracusans felt
hopeless because of the large army and fleet dispatched against
them, and the great naval prestige of their enemy, but as delay
succeeded delay, assistance arrived from Corinth and Sparta, and
the besieged citizens took heart. The siege dragged on for the
greater part of two years, with the offensive gradually slipping
from the Athenians to the Syracusans, till finally the invaders
found their troops besieged on shore and their ships bottled up
in the harbor by a line of galleys anchored across the entrance.
The Syracusans knew that they were no match for the Athenians on
the open sea, but with a fleet crowded into a harbor with no room
for maneuvering, the problem was not essentially different from
that of fighting on land. They built a fleet of ships with specially
strengthened bows for ramming and erected catapults for throwing
heavy stones on the decks of the enemy. Meanwhile, the Athenian
ships had deteriorated from lack of opportunity to refit and their
crews had been heavily reduced by disease. In a pitched battle
between the two fleets in the harbor, the Athenians were worsted.
Shortly after as the Athenians were attempting to break through
the barrier and escape, they were again attacked by the Syracusans.
There was no room for maneuvering; the Athenian ships were jammed
together in a mass in which all advantage of numbers was lost.
Moreover, against the deadly rain of huge stones the Athenians had
no defense whatever.
The result was an overwhelming victory for the Syracusans. Out
of 110 triremes the Athenians lost fifty. The besieging army went
to pieces in attempting a retreat across the island, and the whole
expedition came to a tragic end. This defeat of the Athenian fleet
in the harbor of Syracuse was the ruin of Athens. When the news
reached Greece, many of her dependencies revolted, the Peloponnesian
war had broken out anew, and she had no strength left to hold her
own. The deathblow was given when a Spartan admiral destroyed all
that was left of the Athenian navy at Ægospotami in the year 405.
Thereafter Athens was merely a conquered province, permitted to
keep a fleet of only twelve ships, and watched by a garrison of
Spartan soldiers in the citadel.
The downfall of Athenian sea power at Syracuse may be compared
with the downfall of Persian sea power at Salamis. Just as the
latter prevented the spread of an Asiatic form of civilization
in Europe and gave Greek civilization a chance to develop, so the
former put an end to the extension of a strong Hellenic power in
Italy and left opportunity for the rise of the civilization of
Rome.
REFERENCES
HISTORY OF GREECE, Ernst Curtius, 1874.
HISTORY OF GREECE, George Grote, 1856.
THE GREAT PERSIAN WAR, G. B. Grundy, 1901.
HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN WARS, Herodotus, ed. and transl. by Geo.
Rawlinson, 1862.
HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, Thucydides, ed. and transl.
by Jowett.
CHAPTER III
THE SEA POWER OF ROME
1. THE PUNIC WARS
When peoples have migrated in the past, they have frequently changed
their habits to conform to new topographical surroundings. We have
seen that the Phnicians, originally a nomadic people, became a
seafaring race because of the conditions of the country they settled
in; and on the other hand, at a later period, the Vikings who overran
Normandy or Britain forsook the sea and became farmers. The popular
idea that a race follows the sea because of an "instinct in the blood
of the race" has little to stand on. When, however, the colonists
from Phnicia settled Carthage and founded an empire, they continued
the traditions of their ancestors and built up their power on a
foundation of ships. This was due to the conditions--topographical
and geographical--which surrounded them, and which were much like
those of the mother country. Carthage possessed the finest harbor
on the coast of Africa, situated in the middle of the Mediterranean,
where all the trade routes crossed. To counteract these attractions
of the sea there was nothing but the arid and mountainous character
of the interior. It was inevitable, therefore, that the Carthaginians,
like their ancestors, should build an empire of the sea.
As early as the sixth century B.C. Carthage had established her
power so securely in the western Mediterranean as to be able to
set down definite limits beyond which Rome agreed not to go. Thus
the opening sentence of a treaty between the two nations in 509
B. C. ran as follows:
"Between the Romans and their allies and the Carthaginians and
their allies there shall be peace and alliance upon the conditions
that neither the Romans nor their allies shall sail beyond the
Fair Promontory[1] unless compelled by bad weather or an enemy;
and in case they are forced beyond it they shall not be allowed
to take or purchase anything except what is barely necessary for
refitting their vessels or for sacrifice, and they shall depart
within five days."[2]
[Footnote 1: A cape on the African coast about due north from
Carthage.]
[Footnote 2: GENERAL HISTORY, Polybius, Bk. III, chap. 3.]
A second and a third treaty emphasized even mare strongly the
Carthaginian dictatorship over the Mediterranean.
[Illustration: SCENE OF THE PUNIC WARS]
It was inevitable, therefore, that as Rome expanded her interests
should come in collision with those of Carthage. The immediate
causes of the Punic wars are of no consequence for our purpose;
the two powers had rival interests in Sicily, and the clash of
these brought on the war in the year 264 B.C. There followed a
mortal struggle between Rome and Carthage that extended through
three distinct wars and a period of aver a hundred years.
When the two nations faced each other in arms, Carthage had the
advantage of prestige and the greatest navy in the world. Her weaknesses
lay in the strife of political factions and the mercenary character
of her forces. Her officers were usually Carthaginians, but it was
considered beneath the dignity of a Carthaginian to be a private.
The rank and file, therefore, were either hired or pressed into
service from the subject provinces. In the case of Xanthippus,
who defeated Regulus in the first Punic war, even the commanding
officer was a Spartan mercenary. These troops would do well so
long as campaigns promised plunder but would became disaffected
if things went wrong.
The Romans, on the other hand, had only a small navy and no naval
experience; their strength lay in their legionaries. And in further
contrast with their enemy they had none but Romans in their forces,
or allies who were proud of fighting on the side of Rome. Consequently
they fought in the spirit of intense patriotism which could stand
the moral strain of defeat and even disaster. On land there was
no better fighter than the Roman soldier. At sea, however, all
the advantage lay with the Carthaginian, and it soon became clear
that if the Romans were to succeed they would have to learn to
fight on water.
For the first three years Carthaginian fleets raided the coasts of
Sicily and Italy with impunity. Finally, in desperation, Rome set
about the creation of a fleet, and the story is that a Carthaginian
quinquereme that had been wrecked an the coast was taken as a model,
and while the ships were building, rowers were trained in rowing
machines set up an shore. The first contact with the enemy was not
encouraging. The new fleet, which was constructed in two months,
consisted of 100 quinqueremes and 30 triremes. Seventeen of these
while on a trial cruise were blockaded in the harbor of Messina
by twenty Carthaginian ships, and the Roman commander was obliged
to surrender after his crews had landed and escaped.
The next encounter was a different story. The Romans, realizing
their ignorance of naval tactics and their superiority in land
fighting, determined to make the next naval battle as nearly as
possible like an engagement of infantry. Accordingly the ships
were fitted with boarding gangways with a huge hooked spike at the
end, like the beak of a crow, which gave them their name, "corvi"
or "crows."[1]
[Footnote 1: The following is the description in Polybius of what
they were like and how they were worked.
"They [the Romans] erected on the prow of every vessel a round pillar
of wood, of about twelve feet in height, and of three palms breadth
in diameter, with a pulley at the top. To this pillar was fitted a
kind of stage, eighteen feet in length and four feet broad, which
was made ladder-wise, of strong timbers laid across, and cramped
together with iron: the pillar being received into an oblong square,
which was opened for that purpose, at the distance of six feet
within the end of the stage. On either side of the stage lengthways
was a parapet, which reached just above the knee. At the farthest
end of this stage or ladder was a bar of iron, whose shape was
somewhat like a pestle; but it was sharpened at the bottom, or
lower point; and on the top of it was a ring. The whole appearance
of this machine very much resembled those that are used in grinding
corn. To the ring just mentioned was fixed a rope, by which, with
the help of the pulley that was at the top of the pillar, they
hoisted up the machines, and, as the vessels of the enemy came near,
let them fall upon them, sometimes on their prow, and sometimes
on their sides, as occasion best served. As the machine fell, it
struck into the decks of the enemy, and held them fast. In this
situation, if the two vessels happened to lie side by side, the
Romans leaped on board from all parts of their ships at once. But
in case that they were joined only by the prow, they then entered
two and two along the machine; the two foremost extending their
bucklers right before them to ward off the strokes that were aimed
against them in front; while those that followed rested the boss
of their bucklers upon the top of the parapet on either side, and
thus covered both their flanks." GENERAL HISTORY, Book 1.]
Armed with this new device, the Consul Duilius took the Roman fleet
to sea to meet an advancing Carthaginian fleet and encountered
it off the port of Mylæ (260 B.C.). The Carthaginians had such
contempt for their enemy that they advanced in irregular order,
permitting thirty of their ships to begin the battle unsupported
by the rest of the fleet. One after the other the Carthaginian
quinqueremes were grappled and stormed, for once the great _corvus_
crashed down on a deck all the arts of seamanship were useless.
Before the day was over the Carthaginians had lost 14 ships sunk
and 31 captured, a total of half their fleet, and the rest had
fled in disorder towards Carthage.
The unexpected had happened, as it so frequently does in history.
The amateurs had beaten the professionals, not by trying to achieve
the same efficiency but by inventing something new that would make
that efficiency useless. Thus, as we nave seen, the Syracusans,
who were no match for the Athenians in the open sea, destroyed
the sea power of Athens by bottling up her fleet in a harbor and
bombarding it with catapults. It is an instance such as we shall
see recurring throughout naval history, in which the power of a
great fleet is largely or completely neutralized by a new or device
in the hands of the nation with the smaller navy.
The significance of Mylæ lay in the fact that a new naval power
had arisen, that henceforth Rome must be reckoned with on the sea.
The victory served to encourage the Romans to enlarge their navy,
and with it to press the war into the enemy's territory. Soon after
Mylæ they gained possession of the greater part of Sicily, and in
the year 256 they dispatched a fleet to carry the offensive into
Africa. This Roman fleet of 330 ships met, just off Ecnomus, on
the southern coast of Sicily, a Carthaginian fleet of 350, and a
great battle took place, interesting for the grand scale on which
it was fought and the tactics employed.
The Romans, an seeing their enemy, assumed a formation hitherto
unknown in tactics at sea. Their first and second squadrons formed
the sides of an acute-angled triangle; the third squadron formed
the base of the triangle, towing the transports, and the fourth
squadron brought up the rear, covering the transports. The whole
formed a compact wedge, pushing forward like a great spear head
to pierce the enemy's line.
Admirable as this formation was, the Carthaginians were no less
skillful in their tactics for destroying it. Instead of keeping
an unbroken line to receive the attack, they stationed their left
wing at same distance from the center so as to overlap the Roman
right, and their right wing in column ahead, so as to overlap the
Roman left. As the Romans advanced, the Carthaginian center purposely
gave way, drawing the advance wings of their enemy away from the
transports and the two squadrons in the rear. Then they faced about
and attacked. Meanwhile the two Carthaginian squadrons on the flanks
swung round the Roman wedge, the left wing engaging the Roman third
squadron, which was hampered by the transports, and driving it
toward the shore. At the same time the Carthaginian right wing
attacked the fourth, or reserve, squadron from the rear and drove
it into the open sea. Thus the battle went on in three distinct
engagements, each separated by considerable distance from the others.
The outcome is thus narrated by Polybius:
[Illustration: ROMAN FORMATION AT ECNOMUS]
"Because in each of these divisions the strength of the combatants
was nearly equal, the success was also for some time equal. But
in the progress of the action the affair was brought at last to
a decision: a different one, perhaps, from what might reasonably
have been expected in such circumstances. For the Roman squadron
that had begun the engagement gained so full a victory, that Amilcar
[the Carthaginian commander] was forced to fly, and the consul
Manlius brought away the vessels that were taken.
"The other consul, having now perceived the danger in which the
triarii[1] and the transports were involved, hastened to their
assistance with the second squadron, which was still entire. The
triarii, having received these succors, when they were Just upon
the point of yielding, again resumed their courage, and renewed
the fight with vigor: so that the enemy, being surrounded on every
side in a manner so sudden and unexpected, and attacked at once
both in the front and rear were at last constrained to steer away
to sea.
[Footnote 1: The rear guard, or fourth squadron.]
"About this time Manlius also, returning from the engagement, observed
that the ships of the third squadron were forced in close to the
shore, and there blocked up by the left division of the Carthaginian
fleet. He joined his forces, therefore, with those of the other
consul, who had now placed the transports and triarii in security,
and hastened to assist these vessels, which were so invested by
the enemy that they seemed to suffer a kind of siege. And, indeed,
they must have all been long before destroyed if the Carthaginians,
through apprehension of the _corvi_, had not still kept themselves
at distance, and declined a close engagement. But the consuls,
having now advanced together, surround the enemy, and take fifty
of their ships with all the men. The rest, being few in number,
steered close along the shore, and saved themselves by flight.
[Illustration: CARTHAGINIAN TACTICS AT THE BATTLE OF ECNOMUS, 256
B.C.]
"Such were the circumstances of this engagement; in which the victory
at last was wholly on the side of the Romans. Twenty-four of their
ships were sunk in the action, and more than thirty of the
Carthaginians. No vessel of the Romans fell into the hands of the
enemy; but sixty-four of the Carthaginians were taken with their
men."[2]
[Footnote 2: Polybius's GENERAL HISTORY, Book I, Chap. 2.]
The battle of Ecnomus had no such decisive effect on history as
the battle of Salamis, but it was on a far greater scale and it
reveals an enormous advance in tactics. Three hundred thousand
men, rowers and warriors, were engaged, and nearly 700 ships. Up
to the battle of Actium, two centuries later, Ecnomus remained
the greatest naval action in history. Moreover, the tactics of the
rival fleets show a high degree of discipline and efficiency. The
Carthaginian plan of dividing their enemy's force and defeating it
by a concentrated attack on his transport division, was skillfully
carried out and came perilously near succeeding. Had the first
and second squadrons of the Carthaginians been able to carry out
their part of the plan and "contain" the corresponding advance
squadrons of the Romans, the result would have been an overwhelming
victory for Carthage, involving not only the destruction of the
Roman fleet but also the capture of the Roman army of invasion.
This victory left open the way for the advance into Africa. The
Romans had landed and marched almost to the gates of Carthage when
the army was destroyed by the skill of a Spartan, Xanthippus, and
Regulus, the Consul in command, was captured. This astonishing
catastrophe inflicted on the Roman legionaries was due to the use
of elephants, and offers a curious parallel to the effect of the
_corvi_ on the Carthaginian sailors. Such was the terror inspired
by these animals that the Roman soldier would not stand before
them until a year or two later, in Sicily, the Consul Cecilius
showed how they could not only be repulsed but turned back on their
own army by the use of javelins and arrows.
Nothing daunted by the loss of their army, Rome dispatched a fleet
of 350 ships to Africa to carry off the remnants of the defeated
army that were besieged in the city of Aspis. They were met by a
hastily organized Carthaginian fleet off the promontory of Hermæa
in a brief action in which the Romans were overwhelmingly victorious.
The latter took 114 vessels with their crews. The Roman expedition
continued on its course to Africa, rescued the besieged troops and
turned back in high feather toward Sicily. The Consuls in command
had been warned by the pilots not to attempt to skirt the southern
coast of Sicily at that season of the year, but the warning was
disregarded. Suddenly, as the fleet was approaching the shore it
was overwhelmed by a great gale, and out of 464 vessels only eighty
survived.
Frightful as this loss was in ships and men, Rome proceeded at
once to build another fleet, to the number of 250, which, with
characteristic energy, was made ready for service in three months.
This force also, after an ineffectual raid on the African coast,
fell victim to a storm on the way home with the loss of 150 ships.
Unwilling to relinquish the mastery of the sea that had been won
by an uninterrupted series of victories, Rome sent another fleet
to attack a Carthaginian force lying in the harbor of Drepanum.
As the Romans approached, the Carthaginians went out to meet them,
and so maneuvered as to force them to fight with an enemy in front
and the rocks and shoals of the coast in their rear. The Roman ships
were never able to extricate themselves from this predicament,
and the greater part were either taken or wrecked on the coast.
The Consul in command managed to escape with about thirty of his
vessels, but 93 were taken with their crews. This is the single
instance of a pitched battle between Roman and Carthaginian fleets
in which the victory went to Carthage, a victory due entirely to
better seamanship. The immediate result of this success was the
destruction of the Roman squadron lying in the port of Lilybæum
which was assisting the troops in the siege of that town.
Still another Roman fleet that had the temerity to anchor in an
exposed position was destroyed by a storm. "For so complete was
the destruction," writes Polybius, "that scarcely a single plank
remained entire."
Stunned by these disasters, the government at Rome gave up the idea
of contesting any further the command of the sea. The citizens, how
ever, were not willing to submit, and displayed a magnificent spirit
of patriotism in this the darkest period of the war. Individuals
of means, or groups of individuals, pledged each a quinquereme,
fully equipped, for a new fleet, asking reimbursement from the
government only in case of victory. By these private efforts a
force of 200 quinqueremes was constructed. At this time, as at the
very beginning, the model for the Roman ships was a prize taken
from the enemy.
[Illustration: POINTS OF INTEREST IN THE FIRST PUNIC WAR]
Meanwhile the Carthaginians, confident that the Romans were finally
driven from the sea, had allowed their own fleet to disintegrate.
Accordingly when the astonishing news reached them that the Romans
were again abroad they were compelled to fill their ships with
raw levies of troops and inexperienced rowers and sailors. And,
since the Carthaginian troops who were besieging the city of Eryx
in Sicily were in need of supplies, a large number of transports
were sent with the fleet. The Carthaginian commander planned to
make a landing unobserved, leave his transports, exchange his raw
crews for some of the veterans before Eryx and then give battle
to the Roman fleet.
This program failed because of the initiative of the Roman Consul
commanding the new fleet. Having got word of the coming of the
Carthaginians and divining their plan, he braved an unfavorable
wind and a rough sea for the sake of forcing an action before they
could establish contact with their army. Accordingly he sought
out his enemy and met him (in the year 241 B.C.) off the island
of Ægusa, near Lilybæum. Almost at the first onset the Romans won
an overwhelming victory, capturing seventy and sinking fifty of
the Carthaginian force.
This final desperate effort of Rome was decisive. The Carthaginians
had no navy left, and their armies in Sicily were cut off from
all communications with their base. Accordingly ambassadors went
to Rome to sue for peace, and the great struggle that had lasted
without intermission for twenty-four years and reduced both parties
to the point of exhaustion, ended with a triumph for Rome through
a victory on the sea. By the treaty of peace Carthage was obliged
to pay a heavy indemnity and yield all claim to Sicily.
Whatever historical moral may be drawn from the story of the first
Punic war, the fact remains that a nation of landsmen met the greatest
maritime power in the world and defeated it on its own element. In
every naval battle save one the Romans were victors. It is true,
however, that in the single defeat off Drepanum and in the dreadful
disasters inflicted by storms, Rome lost through lack of knowledge
of wind and sea. No great naval genius stands above the rest, to
whom the final success can be attributed. Rome won simply through
the better fighting qualities of her rank and file and the stamina
of her citizens. To quote the phrase of a British writer,[1] Rome
showed the superior "fitness to win."
[Footnote 1: Fred Jane, HERESIES OF SEA POWER, _passim_.]
_The Second Punic War_
In the first Punic war the prize was an island, Sicily. Naturally,
therefore, the fighting was primarily naval. The second Punic war
(218-202 B.C.) was essentially a war on land. Carthage, driven
from Sicily, turned to Spain and made the southern part of the
peninsula her province. Using this as his base, Hannibal marched
overland, crossed the Alps, and invaded Italy from the north. Had
he followed up his unbroken series of victories by marching on
the capital instead of going into winter quarters at Capua, it is
possible that Rome might have been destroyed and all subsequent
history radically changed. The Romans had no general who could
measure up to the genius of Hannibal, but their spirit was unbroken
even by the slaughter of Cannæ, and their allies remained loyal.
Moreover, Carthage, thanks to factional quarrels and personal
jealousies, was deaf to all the requests sent by Hannibal for
reënforcements when he needed them most. In the end, Scipio, after
having driven the Carthaginians out of Spain, dislodged Hannibal
from Italy by carrying an invasion into Africa. At the battle of
Zama the Romans defeated Hannibal and won the war.
It is difficult to see any significant use of sea power in this
second Punic war. Neither side seemed to realize what might be
done in cutting the communications of the other, and both sides
seemed to be able to use the sea at will. Of course due allowance
must be made for the limitations of naval activity. The quinquereme
was too frail to attempt a blockade or to patrol the sea lanes in
all seasons. Nevertheless both sides used the sea for the transport
of troops and the conveying of intelligence, and neither side made
any determined effort to establish a real control of the sea.[1]
[Footnote 1: For a distinguished opinion to the contrary, v. Mahan,
INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, 14 ff. In this view, however,
Mahan is not supported by Mommsen (vol. II, p. 100). See also Jane,
HERESIES OF SEA POWER, 60 ff.]
_The Third Punic War_ (149-146 B.C.)
The third Punic war has no naval interest. Rome, not satisfied with
defeating her rival in the two previous wars, took a convenient
pretext to invade Carthage and destroy every vestige of the city.
With this the great maritime empire came to an end, and Rome became
supreme in the Mediterranean.
2. THE IMPERIAL NAVY; THE CAMPAIGN OF ACTIUM
After the fall of Carthage no rival appeared to contest the sovereignty
of Rome upon the sea. The next great naval battle was waged between
two rival factions of Rome herself at the time when the republic
had fallen and the empire was about to be reared on its ruins. This
was the battle of Actium, one of the most decisive in the world's
history.
The rivalry between Antony and Octavius as to who should control
the destinies of Rome was the immediate cause of the conflict.
In the parceling out of spoil from the civil wars following the
murder of Cæsar, Octavius had taken the West, Lepidus the African
provinces, and Antony the East. Octavius soon ousted Lepidus and
then turned to settle the issue of mastery with Antony. In this he
had motives of revenge as well as ambition. Antony had robbed him
of his inheritance from Cæsar, and divorced his wife, the sister of
Octavius, in favor of Cleopatra, with whom he had become completely
infatuated. In this quarrel the people of Rome were inclined to
support Octavius, because of their indignation over a reported
declaration made by Antony to the effect that he intended to make
Alexandria rather than Rome the capital of the empire and rule East
and West from the Nile rather than the Tiber. Both sides began
preparations for the conflict. Antony possessed the bulk of the
Roman navy and the Roman legions of the eastern provinces. To his
fleet he added squadrons of Egyptian and Phnician vessels of war,
and to his army he brought large bodies of troops from the subject
provinces of the East. In addition he spent great sums of money by
means of his agents in Rome to arouse disaffection against Octavius.
At the outset he acted with energy and caused his antagonist the
gravest anxiety. It was clear also that Antony intended to take
the offensive. He established winter quarters at Patras, on the
Gulf of Corinth, during the winter of 32-31 B.C., billeting his
army in various towns on the west coast of Greece, and keeping
it supplied by grain ships from Alexandria. His fleet he anchored
in the Ambracian Gulf, a landlocked bay, thirty miles wide, lying
north of the Gulf of Corinth; it is known to-day as the Gulf of
Arta.
Octavius, however, was equally determined not to yield the offensive
to his adversary, and boldly collected ships and troops for a movement
in force against Antony's position. His troops were also Roman
legionaries, experienced in war, but his fleet was considerably
less in numbers and the individual ships much smaller than the
quinqueremes and octiremes of Antony. The ships of Octavius were
mostly biremes and triremes. These disadvantages, however, were
offset by the fact that his admiral, Agrippa, was an experienced
sea-fighter, having won a victory near Mylæ during the civil wars,
and by the other fact that the crews under him, recruited from
the Dalmatian coast, were hardy, seafaring men. These were called
Liburni, and the type of ship they used was known as the _Liburna_.
This was a two-banked galley, but the term was already becoming
current for any light man of war, irrespective of the number of
banks of oars. In contrast with these Liburni, who divided their
days between fishing and piracy and knew all the tricks of fighting
at sea, the crews of Antony's great fleet were in many cases landsmen
who had been suddenly impressed into service.
As soon as Antony had moved his force to western Greece he seemed
paralyzed by indecision and made no move to avail himself of his
advantageous position to strike. He had plenty of money, while
his adversary was at his wit's end to find even credit. He had
the admiration of his soldiers, who had followed him through many
a campaign to victory, while Octavius had no popularity with his
troops, most of whom were reluctant to fight against their old
comrades in arms. And finally, Antony had a preponderating fleet
with which he could command the sea and compel his opponent to
fight on the defensive in Italian territory. All these advantages
he allowed to slip away.
During the winter of 32-31 one-third of Antony's crews perished
from lack of proper supplies and the gaps were filled by slaves,
mule-drivers, and plowmen--any one whom his captains could seize and
impress from the surrounding country. The following spring Agrippa
made a feint to the south by capturing Methone at the southern tip
of the Peloponnesus, thus threatening the wheat squadrons from
Egypt on which Antony depended. Next came the news that Octavius
had landed an army in Epirus and was marching south. Then Antony
realized that his adversary was aiming to destroy the fleet in the
Ambracian Gulf and hastened thither. He arrived with a squadron
ahead of his troops, at almost the same instant as Octavius, and if
Octavius had had the courage to attack the tired and disorganized
crews of Antony's squadron, Antony would have been lost. But by
dressing his crews in the armor of legionaries and drawing up his
ships in a position for fighting, with oars suspended, he "bluffed"
his enemy into thinking that he had the support of his troops.
When the latter arrived Antony established a great camp on Cape
Actium, which closes the southern side of the Gulf, and fortified
the entrance on that side.
Thereafter for months the two forces faced each other on opposite
sides of the Gulf, neither side risking more than insignificant
skirmishes. During this time Octavius had free use of the sea for
his supplies, while the heavier fleet of Antony lay idle in harbor.
Nevertheless, Octavius did not dare to risk all on a land battle, and
conducted his campaign in a characteristically timid and vacillating
manner which should have made it easy for Antony to take the aggressive
and win. But the famous lieutenant of Julius Cæsar was no longer the
man who used to win the devotion of his soldiers by his courage and
audacity. He was broken by debauchery and torn this way and that by
two violently hostile parties in his own camp. One party, called the
Roman, wanted him to come to an understanding with Octavius, or beat
him in battle, and go to Rome as the restorer of the republic. The
other party, the Egyptian, was Cleopatra and her following. Cleopatra
was interested in holding Antony to Egypt, to consolidate through
him a strong Egyptian empire, and she was not at all interested in
the restoration of Roman liberties. In Antony's desire to please
Cleopatra and his attempt to deceive his Roman friends into thinking
that he was working for their aims, may be seen the explanation
of the utter lack of strategy or consistent plan in his entire
campaign against Octavius.
At the beginning of July Antony apparently proposed a naval battle.
Instantly the suspicions of the Roman party were awakened. They
cried out that Antony was evidently going back to Egypt without
having won the decisive battle against Octavius on land, which
would really break the enemy's power, and without paying any heed
to the political problems at Rome. Such a furor was raised between
the two parties that Antony abandoned his plan and made a feint
toward the land battle in Epirus that the Romans wanted. Meanwhile
two of his adherents, one a Roman, the other a king from Asia Minor,
exasperated by the insolence of Cleopatra, deserted to Octavius.
August came and went without action or change in the situation.
Meanwhile as Antony's camp had been placed in a pestilential spot
for midsummer heat, he suffered great losses from disease. By this
time Cleopatra was interested in nothing but a return to Egypt.
Accordingly she persuaded Antony to order a naval battle without
asking anybody's advice, and he set the date August 29 for the
sally of his fleet. The Romans were amazed and protested, but in
vain. Preparations went on in such a way as to make it clear to the
observing that what Antony was planning was not so much a battle
as a return to Egypt. Vessels which he did not need outside for
battle he ordered burned, although such ships would usually be kept
as reserves to make up losses in fighting. Moreover, he astonished
the captains by ordering them to take out into action the big sails
which were always left ashore before a battle. Nor did his explanation
that they would be needed in pursuit satisfy them. It appeared also
that he was employing trusted slaves at night to load the Egyptian
galleys with all of Cleopatra's treasure. Two more Roman leaders,
satisfied as to Antony's real intention, deserted to Octavius and
informed him of Antony's plans.
Meanwhile a heavy storm had made it impossible to attempt the action
on August 29 or several days after. On the 2d of September (31
B.C.) the sea became smooth again. Octavius and Agrippa drew out
their fleet into open water, about three-quarters of a mile from
the mouth of the gulf, forming line in three divisions. They waited
till nearly noon before Antony's fleet began to make its expected
appearance to offer battle. This also was formed in three divisions
corresponding to those of their enemy. The Egyptian division of
sixty ships under Cleopatra took up a safe position in the rear
of the center.
[Illustration: SCENE OF BATTLE OF ACTIUM, 31 B.C.]
There was a striking contrast in the types of ships in the opposing
ranks. The galleys of Octavius were low in the water, and nimble in
their handling; those of Antony were bulky and high, with five to
ten banks of oars, and their natural unhandiness was made worse by
a device intended to protect them against ramming. This consisted
of a kind of boom of heavy timbers rigged out on all sides of the
hull. In addition to the higher sides these ships supported towers
and citadels built upon their decks, equipped with every form of
the artillery of that day, especially catapults capable of hurling
heavy stones upon the enemy's deck.
Against such formidable floating castles, the light ships of Agrippa
and Octavius could adopt only skirmishing tactics. They rushed in
where they could shear away the oar blades of an enemy without
getting caught by the great grappling irons swung out from his
decks. They kept clear of the heavy stones from the catapults through
superior speed and ability to maneuver quickly, but they were unable
to strike their ponderous adversaries any vital blow. On the other
hand the great hulks of Antony were unable to close with them,
and though the air was filled with a storm of arrows, stones and
javelins, neither side was able to strike decisively at the other.
As at Salamis the opposite shores were lined with the opposing
armies, and every small success was hailed by shouts from a hundred
thousand throats on the one side and long drawn murmurs of dismay
from an equal host on the other.
In these waters a north wind springs up every afternoon--a fact
that Antony and Cleopatra had counted on--and as soon as the breeze
shifted the royal galley of Cleopatra spread its crimson sail and,
followed by the entire Egyptian division, sailed through the lines
and headed south. Antony immediately left his flagship, boarded
a quinquereme and followed. This contemptible desertion of the
commander in chief was not generally known in his fleet; as for the
disappearance of the Egyptian squadron, it was doubtless regarded
as a good riddance. The battle, therefore, went on as stubbornly
as ever.
Late in the afternoon Agrippa, despairing of harming his enemy by
ordinary tactics, achieved considerable success by the use of javelins
wrapped in burning tow, and fire rafts that were set drifting upon
the clumsy hulks which could not get out of their way. By this means
a number of Antony's ships were destroyed, but the contest remained
indecisive. At sunset Antony's fleet retired in some disorder to
their anchorage in the gulf. Octavius attempted no pursuit but
kept the sea all night, fearing a surprise attack or an attempted
flight from the gulf.
Meanwhile a flying wing of Octavius's fleet had been sent in pursuit
of Antony and Cleopatra, who escaped only after a rear guard action
had been fought in which two of Cleopatra's ships were captured.
The fugitives put ashore at Cape Tænarus, to enable Antony to send
a message to his general, Canidius, ordering him to take his army
through Macedonia into Asia. Then the flight was resumed to Alexandria.
On the morning of the 3d Octavius sent a message to the enemy's
camp announcing the fact of Antony's desertion and calling on the
fleet and army to surrender. The Roman soldiers were unwilling to
believe that their commander had been guilty of desertion, and
were confident that he had been summoned away on important business
connected with the campaign. Their general, however, did not dare
convey to them Antony's orders because they would betray the truth
and provoke mutiny. Consequently he did nothing. Certain Roman
senators and eastern princes saw the light and quietly went over
to the camp of Octavius. Several days of inaction followed, during
which the desertions continued and the rumor of Antony's flight
found increasing belief. On the seventh day, Canidius, who found
himself in a hopeless dilemma, also went over to Octavius. This
desertion by the commander settled the rest of the force. A few
scattered into Macedonia, but the great bulk of the army and all
that was left of the fleet surrendered. Nineteen legions and more
than ten thousand cavalry thus came over to Octavius and took service
under him. This was the real victory of Actium. In the words of
the Italian historian Ferrero, "it was a victory gained without
fighting, and Antony was defeated in this supreme struggle, not
by the valor of his adversary or by his own defective strategy
or tactics, but by the hopeless inconsistency of his double-faced
policy, which, while professing to be republican and Roman, was
actually Egyptian and monarchical."
The story of the naval battle of Actium is a baffling problem to
reconstruct on account of the wide divergence in the accounts.
For instance, the actual number of ships engaged is a matter of
choice between the extremes of 200 to 500 on a side. And the
consequences were so important to Octavius and to Rome that the
accounts were naturally adorned afterwards with the most glowing
colors. Every poet who lived by the bounty of Augustus in later
years naturally felt inspired to pay tribute to it in verse. But the
actual naval battle seems to have been of an indecisive character.
For that matter, even after the wholesale surrender of Antony's
Roman army and fleet, neither Anthony nor Octavius realized the
importance of what had happened. Antony had recovered from worse
disasters before, and felt secure in Alexandria. Octavius at first
followed up his advantage with timid and uncertain steps. Only
after the way was made easy by the hasty submission of the Asiatic
princes and the wave of popularity and enthusiasm that was raised
in Rome by the news of the victory, did Octavius press the issue
to Egypt itself. There the war came to an end with the suicide
of both Antony and Cleopatra.
As in the case of the indecisive naval battle off the capes of
the Chesapeake, which led directly to the surrender of Cornwallis,
an action indecisive in character may be most decisive in results.
Actium may not have been a pronounced naval victory but it had
tremendous consequences. As at Salamis, East and West met for the
supremacy of the western world, and the East was beaten back. It
is not likely that the Egyptian or the Syrian would have dominated
the genius of the western world for any length of time, but the
defeat of Octavius would have meant a hybrid empire which would
have fallen to pieces like the empire of Alexander, leaving western
Europe split into a number of petty states. On the other hand,
Octavius was enabled to build on the consequences of Actium the
great outlines of the Roman empire, the influence of which on the
civilized world to-day is still incalculable. When he left Rome
to fight Antony, the government was bankrupt and the people torn
with faction. When he returned he brought the vast treasure of
Egypt and found a people united to support him. Actium, therefore,
is properly taken as the significant date for the beginning of the
Roman empire. Octavius took the name of his grand-uncle Cæsar,
the title of Augustus, and as "Imperator" became the first of the
Roman emperors.
The relation of the battle of Actium to this portentous change
in the fortunes of Octavius was formally recognized by him on the
scene where it took place. Nicopolis, the City of Victory, was
founded upon the site of his camp, with the beaks of the captured
ships as trophies adorning its forum. The little temple of Apollo on
the point of Actium he rebuilt on an imposing scale and instituted
there in honor of his victory the "Actian games," which were held
thereafter for two hundred years.
After the battle of Actium and the establishment of a powerful
Roman empire without a rival in the world, there follows a long
period in which the Mediterranean, and indeed all the waterways
known to the civilized nations, belonged without challenge to the
galleys of Rome. Naval stations were established to assist in the
one activity left to ships of war, the pursuit of pirates, but
otherwise there was little or nothing to do. And during this long
period, indeed, down to the Middle Ages, practically nothing is
known of the development in naval types until the emergence of the
low, one- or two-banked galley of the wars between the Christian
and the Mohammedan. The first definite description we have of warships
after the period of Actium comes at the end of the ninth century.
There was some futile naval fighting against the Vandals in the days
when Rome was crumbling. Finally, by a curious freak of history,
Genseric the Vandal took a fleet out from Carthage against Rome,
and swept the Mediterranean. In the year 455, some six centuries
after Rome had wreaked her vengeance on Carthage, this Vandal fleet
anchored unopposed in the Tiber and landed an army that sacked
the imperial city, which had been for so long a period mistress
of the world, and had given her name to a great civilization.
During the four centuries in which the _Pax Romana_ rested upon
the world, it is easy to conceive of the enormous importance to
history and civilization of having sea and river, the known world
over, an undisputed highway for the fleets of Rome. Along these
routes, even more than along the military roads, traveled the
institutions, the arts, the language, the literature, the laws,
of one of the greatest civilizations in history. And ruthless as
was the destruction of Vandal and Goth in the city itself and in
the peninsula, they could not destroy the heritage that had been
spread from Britain to the Black Sea and from the Elbe to the upper
waters of the Nile.
REFERENCES
HISTORY OF ROME, Theodor Mommsen, tr. by W. P. Dickson, 1867.
GENERAL HISTORY, Polybius, transl. by Hampton, 1823.
HISTORY OF THE ROMANS UNDER THE EMPIRE, Chas. Merivale (vol. III.),
1866.
THE GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF ROME, G. Ferrero, tr. by A. E.
Zemmern, 1909.
ÉTUDES SUR L'HISTOIRE MILITAIRE ET MARITIME DES GRECS ET DES
ROMAINS, Paul Serre, 1888.
FLEETS OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR, W. W. Tarn, in _Journal of
Hellenic Studies_, 1907.
HERESIES OF SEA POWER (pp. 40-71), Fred Jane, 1906.
INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER ON HISTORY (pp. 15 ff.), A. T. Mahan, 1889.
For a complete bibliography of Roman sea power, v. INFLUENCE OF
SEA POWER ON THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (Doctoral Dissertation),
F. W. Clark, 1915.
CHAPTER IV
THE NAVIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES: THE EASTERN EMPIRE
The thousand years following the collapse of the Roman empire, a
period generally referred to as the Middle Ages, are characterized
by a series of barbarian invasions. Angles, Saxons, Goths, Visigoths,
Huns, Vandals, Vikings, Slavs, Arabs, and Turks poured over the
broken barriers of the empire and threatened to extinguish the last
spark of western and Christian civilization. Out of this welter
of invasions and the anarchy of petty kingdoms arose finally the
powerful nations that perpetuated the inheritance from Athens,
Rome, and Jerusalem, and developed on this foundation the newer
institutions of political and intellectual freedom that have made
western civilization mistress of the world. For this triumph of
West over East, of Christianity over barbarism, we have to thank
partly the courage and genius of great warriors and statesmen who
arose here and there, like Alfred of England and Martel of France,
but chiefly the Eastern Empire, with its capital at Constantinople,
which stood through this entire epoch as the one great bulwark against
which the invasions dashed in vain. In this story of defense, the
Christian fleets won more than one Salamis, as we shall see in
the course of this chapter.
In the year 328 A.D. the Emperor Constantine the Great moved his
capital to Byzantium and named it "New Rome." In honor of its founder,
however, the name was changed soon to "Constantinople," which it
has retained ever since. It may seem strange that after so many
glorious centuries Rome should have been deprived of the honor of
being the center of the great empire which bore its own name, but
in the fourth century the city itself had no real significance.
All power rested in the person of the Emperor himself, and wherever
he went became for the time being the capital for all practical
purposes. At this time the empire was already on the defensive and
the danger lay in the east. Constantine needed a capital nearer
the scene of future campaigns, nearer his weakest frontier, the
Danube, and nearer the center of the empire. Byzantium not only
served these purposes but also possessed natural advantages of a
very high order. It was situated where Europe and Asia meet, it
commanded the waterway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean,
and it was a natural citadel. Whoever captured the city must needs
be powerful by land and sea. Under the emperor's direction the new
capital was greatly enlarged and protected by a system of massive
walls. Behind these walls the city stood fast for over a thousand
years against wave after wave of barbarian invasion.
Of the wars with the Persians, the Vandals, and the Huns nothing
need be said here, for they do not involve the operations of fleets.
The city was safe so long as no enemy appeared with the power to
hold the sea. That power appeared in the seventh century when the
Arabs, or "Saracens," as they were called in Europe, swept westward
and northward in the first great Mohammedan invasion.
Most migrations are to be explained by the pressure of enemies,
or the lack of food and pasturage in the countries left behind,
or the discovery of better living conditions in the neighboring
countries. But the impulse behind the two tremendous assaults of
Islam upon Europe seems to have been religious fanaticism of a
character and extent unmatched in history. The founder of the Faith,
Mohammed, taught from 622 to 632. He succeeded in imbuing his followers
with the passion of winning the world to the knowledge of Allah
and Mohammed his prophet. The unbeliever was to be offered the
alternatives of conversion or death, and the believer who fell in
the holy wars would be instantly transported to Paradise. Men who
actually believe that they will be sent to a blissful immortality
after death are the most terrible soldiers to face, for they would
as readily die as live. In fact Cromwell's "Ironsides" of a later
day owed their invincibility to very much the same spirit. At all
events, by the time of Mohammed's death all Arabia had been converted
to his faith and, fired with zeal, turned to conquer the world.
Hitherto the tribes of Arabia were scattered and disorganized,
and Arabia as a country meant nothing to the outside world. Now
under the leadership of the Prophet it had become a driving force
of tremendous power. Mohammedan armies swept over Syria into Persia.
In 637, only five years after Mohammed's death, Jerusalem surrendered,
and shortly afterwards Egypt was conquered. Early in the eighth
century the Arabs ruled from the Indus on the east, and the Caucasus
on the north, to the shores of the Atlantic on the west. Their
empire curved westward along the coast of northern Africa, through
Spain, like one of their own scimitars, threatening all Christendom.
Indeed, the Arab invasion stands unparalleled in history for its
rapidity and extent.
[Illustration: THE SARACEN EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT, ABOUT 715 A.D.]
The one great obstacle in the way was the Christian, or Roman,
empire with its center at Constantinople. Muaviah, the Emir of
Syria, was the first to perceive that nothing could be done against
the empire until the Arabs had wrested from it the command of the
sea. Accordingly he set about building a great naval armament.
In 649 this fleet made an attack on Cyprus but was defeated. The
following year, however, it took an important island, Aradus, off
the coast of Syria, once a stronghold of the Phnicians, and sacked
it with savage barbarity. An expedition sent from Constantinople to
recover Alexandria was met by this fleet and routed. This first naval
victory over the Christians gave the Saracens unbounded confidence in
their ability to fight on the sea. They sailed into the Ægean, took
Rhodes, plundered Cos, and returned loaded with booty. Muaviah,
elated with these successes, planned a great combined land and
water expedition against the Christian capital.
At this point it is worth pausing to consider what the fighting
ship of this period was like. As we have seen in the preceding
chapter the Roman navy sank into complete decay. At the end of the
fourth century there was practically no imperial navy in existence.
The conquest of the Vandals by Belisarius in the sixth century
involved the creation of a fleet, but when that task was over the
navy again disappeared until the appearance of the Arabs compelled
the building of a new imperial fleet. The small provincial squadrons
then used to patrol the coasts were by no means adequate to meet
the crisis.
The warships of this period were called "dromons," a term that
persists even in the time of the Turkish invasion eight centuries
later. The word means "fast sailers" or "racers." The dromon was
not the low galley of the later Middle Ages but a two-banked ship,
probably quite as large as the Roman quinquereme, carrying a complement
of about 300 men. Amidships was built a heavy castle or redoubt of
timbers, pierced with loopholes for archery. On the forecastle
rose a kind of turret, possibly revolving, from which, after Greek
fire was invented, the tubes or primitive cannon projected the
substance on the decks of the enemy. The dromon had two masts, lateen
rigged, and between thirty and forty oars to a side.
There were two classes of dromons, graded according to size, and a
third class of ship known as the "pamphylian," which was apparently
of a cruiser type, less cumbered with superstructure. In addition
there were small scout and dispatch boats of various shapes and
sizes.
Both Christian and Saracen fought with these kinds of warships.
Apparently the Arabs simply copied the vessels they found already
in use by their enemies, and added no new device of their own.
[Illustration: EUROPE'S EASTERN FRONTIER]
In 655 Muaviah started his great double invasion against Constantinople.
He sent his fleet into the Ægean, while he himself with an army
tried to force the passes of the Taurus mountains. Before the Arab
fleet had gone far it met the Christian fleet, commanded by the
Emperor himself, off the town of Phaselis on the southwestern coast
of Asia Minor. A great battle followed. The Christian emperor,
Constantine II, distinguished himself by personal courage throughout
the action, but the day went sorely against the Christians. At last
the flagship was captured and he himself survived only by leaping
into a vessel that came to his rescue while his men fought to cover
his escape. It was a terrible defeat, for 20,000 Christians had been
killed and the remnants of their fleet were in full retreat. But
the Saracens had bought their victory at such a price that they
were themselves in no condition to profit by it, and the naval
expedition went no further. Meanwhile Muaviah had not succeeded
in forcing the Taurus with his army, so that the grand assault
came to nothing after all.
The following year the murder of the Caliph brought on a civil
war among the Saracens, in consequence of which Muaviah arranged
a truce with Constantine. The latter was thus enabled to turn his
attention to the beating back of the Slavs in the east and the
recovery of imperial possessions in the west, notably the city
and province of Carthage. During the last of these campaigns he
was killed by a slave.
The death of this energetic and able ruler seemed to Muaviah the
opportunity to begin fresh operations against the Christian empire.
Three great armies invaded the territory of the Cross. One plundered
Syracuse, another seized and fortified a post that threatened the
existence of Carthage, a third pushed to the shores of the Sea of
Marmora. These were, however, only preliminary to the grand assault
on the capital itself.
In 673 a great Arab armada forced the Hellespont and captured Cyzicus.
With this as a base, the fleet landed an army on the northern shore
of the Sea of Marmora. By these means Constantinople was invested
by land and sea. But the great walls proved impregnable against
the attacks of the army, and the Christian fleet, sheltered in
the Golden Horn, was able to sally out from time to time and make
successful raids on detachments of the Saracen ships. This state
of affairs continued for six months, after which Muaviah retired
with his army to Cyzicus, leaving a strong naval guard to hold
the straits.
The next spring Muaviah again landed his army on the European side
and besieged the city for several months. The second year's operations
were no more successful than the first, and again the Arab force
retired to Cyzicus for the winter.
The Arab commander was determined to stick it out until he had
forced the surrender of the city by sheer exhaustion, but his plan
had a fatal error. During the winter months the land blockade was
abandoned, with the result that supplies for the next year's siege
were readily collected for the beleaguered city. Emperor and citizens
alike rose to the emergency with a spirit of devotion that burned
brighter with every year of the siege. Meanwhile the Christians
of the outlying provinces of Syria and Africa were also fighting
stubbornly and with considerable success against the enemy. The
year 676 passed without any material change in the situation.
[Illustration: CONSTANTINOPLE AND VICINITY]
During the siege a Syrian architect named Callinicus is said to
have come to Constantinople with a preparation of his own invention,
"Greek fire," which he offered the Emperor for use against the Saracen.
This, according to one historian, "was a semi-liquid substance,
composed of sulphur, pitch, dissolved niter, and petroleum boiled
together and mixed with certain less important and more obscure
substances.... When ejected it caught the woodwork which it fell
and set it so thoroughly on fire that there was no possibility
of extinguishing the conflagration. It could only be put out, it
is said, by pouring vinegar, wine, or sand upon it."[1]
[Footnote 1: THE ART OF WAR, Oman, p. 546.]
Constantine IV, the Emperor, was quick to see the possibilities
of the innovation and equipped his dromons with projecting brass
tubes for squirting the substance upon the enemy's ships. These are
sometimes referred to as "siphons," but it is not clear just how
they were operated. One writer[2] is of the opinion that something
of the secret of gunpowder had been obtained from the East and that
the substance was actually projected by a charge of gunpowder;
in short, that these "siphons" were primitive cannon. In addition
to these tubes other means were prepared for throwing the fire.
Earthenware jars containing it were to be flung by hand or arbalist,
and darts and arrows were wrapped with tow soaked in the substance.
[Footnote 2: THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, Foord, p. 139.]
The Christian fleet was no match for the Saracen in numbers, but
Constantine pinned his faith on the new invention. Accordingly,
during the fourth year of the siege, 677, he boldly led his fleet
to the attack. We have no details of this battle beyond the fact
that the Greek fire struck such terror by its destructive effect that
the Saracens were utterly defeated. This unexpected blow completed
the growing demoralization of the besiegers. The army returned
to the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, and the survivors of the
fleet turned homewards. Constantine followed up his victory with
splendid energy. He landed troops on the Asiatic shore, pursued
the retreating Arabs and drove the shattered remnant of their army
back into Syria. The fleet was overtaken by a storm in the Ægean and
suffered heavily. Before the ships could reassemble, the Christians
were upon them and almost nothing was left of the great Saracen
armada. Thus the second great assault on Constantinople was shattered
by the most staggering disaster that had ever befallen the cause
of Islam.
The Christian empire once more stood supreme, and that supremacy
was attested by the terms of peace which the defeated Muaviah was
glad to accept. There was to be a truce of thirty years, during
which the Christian emperor was to receive an annual tribute of
3000 pounds of gold, fifty Arab horses and fifty slaves.
It is unfortunate that there was no Herodotus to tell the details
of this victory, for it was tremendously important to European
civilization. Western Europe was then a welter of barbarism and
anarchy, and if Constantinople had fallen, in all probability the
last vestige of Roman civilization would have been destroyed. Moreover,
the battle is of special interest from a tactical point of view
because it was won by a new device, Greek fire, which was the most
destructive naval weapon up to the time when gunpowder and artillery
took its place. Indeed this substance may be said to have saved
Christian civilization for several centuries, for the secret of
its composition was carefully preserved at Constantinople and the
Arabs never recovered from their fear of it.
The victory did not, however, mark the crisis of the struggle.
In the half century that followed, Constantinople suffered from
weak or imbecile emperors while the Caliphate gained ground under
able rulers and generals. In the first fifteen years of the eighth
century the Saracens reached the climax of their power. Under a
great general, Muza, they conquered Spain and spread into southern
France. It was he who conceived the grandiose plan of conquering
Christendom by a simultaneous attack from the west and from the
east, converging at the city of Rome. One army was to advance from
Asia Minor and take Constantinople; another was to cross the Pyrenees
and overrun the territory of the Franks. Had the enterprise been
started at the time proposed there could have been little opposition
in the west, for the Franks were then busy fighting each other,
but luckily Muza fell into disgrace with the Caliph at this time
and his great project was undertaken by less able hands and on
a piecemeal plan.
The eastern line of invasion was undertaken first in the year 717.
A fleet of warships and transports to the number of 1800 sailed
to the Hellespont, carrying about 80,000 troops, while a great
army collected at Tarsus and marched overland toward the same
destination. Meanwhile two more fleets were being prepared in the
ports of Africa and Egypt, and a third army was being collected
to reënforce the first expedition. This army was to be under the
personal command of the Caliph himself. The third attack on the
Christian capital was intended to be the supreme effort.
Fortunately, the ruler of Constantinople at this hour of peril
was a man of ability and energy, Leo III; but the empire had sunk
so low as a result of the misrule of his predecessors that his
authority scarcely extended beyond the shores of the Sea of Marmora,
and his resources were at a low ebb. The navy on which so much
depended was brought to a high point of efficiency, but it was so
inferior in numbers to the Saracen armada that he dared not attempt
even a defense of the Dardanelles.
For the Arabs all went well at first. Unopposed they transported a
part of their army to the European shore, moved toward Constantinople
and invested it by land and sea. One detachment was sent to cover
Adrianople, which was occupied by a Christian garrison; the rest
of the force concentrated on the capital itself.
Meanwhile the Christian fleet lay anchored in the shelter of the
Golden Horn, protected by a boom of chains and logs. As the Saracen
ships came up to occupy the straits above the city they fell into
confusion in trying to stem the rapid current. Seeing his opportunity,
the emperor ordered the boom opened, and leading the way in his
flagship, he fell upon the huddle of Saracen vessels in the channel.
The latter could make little resistance, and before the main body of
the fleet could work up to the rescue, the Christians had destroyed
twenty and taken a number of prizes back to the Horn. Again Greek
fire had proved its deadly efficacy. Elated with this success,
Leo ordered the boom opened wide and, lying in battle order at
the mouth of the Horn, he challenged the Arab fleet to attack. But
such was the terror inspired by Greek fire that the Grand Vizier,
in spite of his enormous superiority in numbers, declined to close.
Instead he withdrew his dromons out of the Bosphorus and thereafter
followed the less risky policy of a blockade. This initial success
of the Christian fleet had the important effect of leaving open
the sea route to the Black Sea, through which supplies could still
reach the beleaguered city.
The Arabs then sat down to wear out the defenders by a protracted
siege on land and sea. In the spring of 718 the new army and the
two new fleets arrived on the scene. One of the latter succeeded,
probably by night, in passing through the Bosphorus and closing
the last inlet to the city. The situation for the defenders became
desperate. Many of the men serving on these new fleets, however,
were Christians. These took every opportunity to desert, and gave
important information to the emperor as to the disposition of the
Arab ships. Acting on this knowledge, Leo took his fleet out from
the shelter of the boom and moved up the straits against the African
and Egyptian squadrons that were blockading the northern exit. The
deserters guided him to where these squadrons lay, at anchor and
unprepared for action. What followed was a massacre rather than
a battle. The Christian members of the crews deserted wholesale
and turned upon their Moslem officers. Ship after ship was rammed
by the Christian dromons or set on fire by the terrible substance
which every Arab regarded with superstitious dread. Some were driven
ashore, others captured, many more sunk or burnt to the water's
edge. Of a total of nearly 800 vessels practically nothing was
left.
Leo followed up this spectacular naval victory by transporting
a force from the garrison of the city to the opposite shore of
the Bosphorus, attacking the army encamped there and driving it
in rout. Meanwhile the Bulgarian chieftain had responded to Leo's
appeal and, relieving the siege of Adrianople, beat back the Saracen
army at that point with great slaughter. The fugitives of that army
served to throw into panic the troops encamped round the walls
of Constantinople, already demoralized by disease, the death of
their leaders, and the annihilation of the African and Egyptian
fleets in the Bosphorus.
The great retreat began. The Arab soldiers started back through
Asia Minor, but only 30,000 out of the original force of 180,000
lived to reach Tarsus. The fleet set sail for the Ægean, and as
in the similar retreat of a half century before, the Arabs were
overwhelmed by a storm with terrible losses. The Christian ships
picked off many survivors, and the Christians of the islands destroyed
others that sought shelter in any port. It is said that out of
the original armada of 1800 vessels only five returned to Syria!
Thus the third and supreme effort of the Saracen ended in one of
the greatest military disasters in history.
The service of the Christian fleet in the salvation of the empire
at this time is thus summarized by a historian:
"The fleet won most of the credit for the fine defense; it invariably
fought with admirable readiness and discipline, and was handled in
the most masterful manner. It checked the establishment of a naval
blockade at the very outset, and broke it when it was temporarily
formed in 718; it enabled the army to operate at will on either
shore of the Bosphorus, and it followed up the retreating Saracens
and completed the ruin of the great armament."[1]
[Footnote 1: THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, Foard, p. 170.]
The winning stroke in this campaign was the tremendous naval victory
at the mouth of the Bosphorus, and this, even more emphatically
than Constantine's victory in 677, deserves to be called another
Salamis. Not only did it save the Christian empire but it checked
the Caliphate at the summit of its power and started it on its
decline. Not for thirty years afterwards was the Saracen able to
put any considerable fleet upon the sea.
It was ten years after the Arab defeat at Constantinople that the
armies of the west began the other part of Muza's project--the
conquest of the Franks. By this time the Frankish power was united
and able to present a powerful defense. In six bitterly contested
battles between Tours and Poitiers in 732 Charles Martel defeated
the Arabs in a campaign that may well be called the Marathon, or
better, the Platæa, of the Middle Ages, for it completed the work
done by the imperial navy at Constantinople. From this time forward
the power of the Saracen began to ebb by land and sea.
As it ebbed, the new cities of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice began to
capture the trade and hold the control of the sea that once had
been Saracen, until the Christian control was so well established
as to make possible the Crusades. Later, as we shall see, a second
invasion of Mohammedans, the Turks, ably assisted by the descendants
of the Arabs who conquered Spain, once more threatened to control
the Mediterranean for the cause of Islam. But the Persian Gulf
and the Indian Ocean, which fell into the hands of the Arabs as
soon as they took to the water, remained in Arab hands down to
the times of the Portuguese. In those waters, because they were
cut off from the Mediterranean, the Saracen had no competitor.
As early as the eighth century Ceylon was an Arab trading base,
and when the Portuguese explorers arrived at the end of the 15th
century they found the Arabs still dominating the water routes
of India and Asia, holding as they had held for seven centuries
a monopoly of the commerce of the east.
Of the Mediterranean during the struggle between Christian and
Saracen a recent English writer makes the following suggestive comment:
"The function of the Mediterranean has thus undergone a change.
In early times it had been a barrier; later, under the Phnicians,
it became a highway, and to the Greeks a defense. We find that the
Romans made it a basis for sea power and subdued all the lands
on its margin. With the weakening of Rome came a weakening of sea
power. The Barbary states and Spain became Saracen only because
the naval power of the eastern empire was not strong enough to hold
the whole sea, but neither was the Saracen able to gain supreme
control. Thus the conditions were the same as in the earlier days
of the conflict between Rome and Carthage: the Mediterranean became
a moat separating the rivals, though first one and then the other
had somewhat more control. The islands became alternately Saracen
and Christian. Crete and Sicily were held for centuries before
they were regained by a Christian power."[1]
[Footnote 1: GEOGRAPHY AND WORLD POWER, Fairgrieve, p. 125.]
The victory of 718 saved Constantinople from any further peril
from the Arabs, but it was again in grave peril, two centuries
later, when a sudden invasion of Russians in great force threatened
to accomplish at a stroke what the Saracens had failed to do in three
great expeditions. The King of Kiev, one of the race of Vikings
that had fought their way into southern Russia, collected a huge
number of ships, variously estimated from one to ten thousand, and
suddenly appeared in the Bosphorus. Probably there were not more
than 1500 of these vessels all told and they must have been small
compared with the Christian dromons; nevertheless they presented an
appalling danger at that moment. The Christian fleet was watching
Crete, the army was in the east winning back territory from the
Arabs, and Constantinople lay almost defenseless. The great walls
could be depended an to hold off a barbarian army, but a fleet
was needed to hold the waterways; otherwise the city was doomed.
In the Horn lay a few antiquated dromons and a few others still on
the stocks. To Theophanes the Patrician was given this nucleus of
a squadron with which to beat back the Russians. Desperate and even
hopeless as the situation appeared, he went to work with the greatest
energy, patching up the old ships, and hurrying the completion of
the new. Meanwhile the invaders sent raiding parties ashore that
harried the unprotected country districts with every refinement
of cruelty. In order to make each ship count as much as possible
as an offensive unit, Theaphanes made an innovation by fitting out
Greek fire tubes on the broadsides as well as in the bows. This
may be noted as the first appearance of the broadside armament
idea, which had to wait six hundred years more before it became
finally established.
When the new ships had been completed and the old ones made serviceable,
Theophanes had exactly fifteen men of war. With this handful of
vessels, some hardly fit to take the sea, he set out from the Horn
and boldly attacked the Russian fleet that blocked the entrance to
the strait. Never was there a more forlorn hope. Certainly neither
the citizens on the walls nor the men on the ships had any expectation
of a return.
What followed would be incredible were it not a matter of history.
These fifteen ships were immediately swallowed up by the huge fleet
of the enemy, but under the superb leadership of Theophanes each
one fought with the fury of desperation. They had one hope, the
weapon that had twice before saved the city, Greek fire. The Russians
swarmed alongside only to find their ships taking fire with a flame
that water would not quench. Contempt of their feeble enemy changed
soon to a wild terror. There was but one impulse, to get out of
reach of the Christians, and the ships struggled to escape. Soon
the whole Russian fleet was in wild flight with the gallant fifteen
in hot pursuit. Some of these could make but slow headway because
of their unseaworthiness, but when all was over the Russians are
said to have lost two-thirds of their entire force. The invaders who
had been left on shore were then swept into the sea by reënforcements
that had arrived at Constantinople, and not a vestige was left
of the Russian invasion. Once more Greek fire and the Christian
navy had saved the empire; and for sheer audacity, crowned with a
victory of such magnitude, the feat of Theophanes stands unrivaled
in history.
From the tenth century on, Constantinople began to find her rivalries
in the west. The coronation of Charlemagne in 800 had marked the
final separation of the eastern and the western empire. As noted
above, the passing of the Saracens gave opportunity for the growth
of commercial city-states like Genoa, Pisa and Venice, and their
interests clashed not only with one another but also with those
of Constantinople.
The climax came in 1204 when Venice succeeded in diverting the
Fourth Crusade to an expedition of vengeance for herself, first
against the city of Zara and then against Constantinople. This
time the Eastern Empire had no fleet ready for defense and the
Venetian galleys filled the waters under the city walls. Many of
these galleys were fitted with a kind of flying bridge, a long
yard that extended from the mast to the top of the wall and stout
enough to bear a file of men that scrambled by this means to the
parapets. After many bloody repulses the city was finally captured,
and there followed a sack that for utter barbarity outdid anything
ever perpetrated by Arab or Turk. Thus the city that for nearly a
thousand years had saved Christian civilization was, by a hideous
irony of fate, taken and sacked by a Crusading army.
When the second Mohammedan invasion threatened Europe, Constantinople,
weak on land and impotent by sea, and deserted by the Christian
nations of the west, was unable to put up a strong resistance. At
last, in 1453, it was captured by the Turks, and became thereafter
the capital of the Moslem power. Great as this catastrophe was,
it cannot compare with what would have happened if the city had
fallen to the Saracen, the Hun, or the Russian during the dark
centuries when the nations of the west were scarcely in embryo.
In the 15th century they were strong enough to take up the sword
that Constantinople had dropped and draw the line beyond which
the Turk was not permitted to go.
Although it has been the fashion since Gibbon to sneer at the Eastern
Empire, it must be remembered with respect as the last treasure
house of the inheritance bequeathed by Rome and Greece during the
dark centuries of barbarian and Saracen. Even in its ruin it sent its
fugitives westward with the manuscripts of a language and literature
then little known, the Greek, and thereby added greatly to the
growing impetus of the Renaissance. It is significant also that
during its thousand years of life, as long as it kept its hold on
the sea it stood firm. When it yielded that, its empire dwindled
to a mere city fortress whose doom was assured long before it fell.
REFERENCES
CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY, Vol. II., 1913.
THE HISTORY OF THE SARACENS, E. Gibbon & S. Ockley.
HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, Edward
Gibbon, ed. by J. B. Bury.
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, E. A. Foord, 1911.
MILITARY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES, Paul Lacroix,
1874.
HISTORY OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE, J. B. Bury, 1889.
HISTORY OF THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE, J. B. Bury, 1912.
CHAPTER V
THE NAVIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES [_Continued_]: VENICE AND THE TURK
The city-state of Venice owed its origin to the very same barbarian
invasions that wrecked the old established cities of the Italian
peninsula. Fugitives from these towns in northern Italy and the
outlying country districts fled to the islets and lagoons for shelter
from the Hun, the Goth, and the Lombard. As the sea was the Venetians'
barrier from the invader, so also it had to be their source of
livelihood, and step by step through the centuries they built up
their commerce until they practically controlled the Mediterranean,
for trade or for war.
As early as 991 a Doge of Venice made a treaty with the Saracens
inaugurating a policy held thereafter by Venice till the time of
Lepanto; namely, to trade with Mohammedans rather than fight them.
The supreme passion of Venice was to make money, as it had been of
ancient Phnicia, and to this was subordinated every consideration
of race, nationality, and religion. The first important step was
the conquest of the Dalmatian pirates at the beginning of the 11th
century. This meant the Venetian control of the Adriatic. When the
Crusades began, the sea routes to the Holy Land were in the hands
of the Venetians; indeed it was this fact that made the Crusades
possible. As the carrying and convoying agent of the Crusaders,
Venice developed greatly in wealth and power. With direct access to
the Brenner Pass, she became a rich distributing center for Eastern
goods to northern Europe. In all important Levantine cities there
was a Venetian quarter, Venetians had special trading privileges,
and many seaports and islands came directly under Venetian rule.
[Illustration: THEATER OF OPERATIONS, VENICE AND THE TURK]
This rapid expansion naturally roused the jealousy of others. In
1171 Venice fought an unsuccessful war with Constantinople, and
yet continued to grow in wealth and power. In 1204, as we have
seen, Venice avenged herself by diverting the Fourth Crusade to
the siege and sack of her eastern rival. As the reward of that
nefarious exploit Venice received the greater part of the eastern
empire, and became the dominating power in the Mediterranean. During
the 13th and 14th centuries, however, she was compelled to fight
with her rebellious colonies and her new rivals, Genoa and Padua.
The wars with Genoa very nearly proved fatal to Venice, but just
when matters seemed most desperate she was saved by a naval victory
against a Genoese fleet in her own waters. In consequence of these
wars between Venice and Genoa both were heavy losers in wealth
and lives; Genoa never recovered from her defeat, but her rival
showed amazing powers of recuperation. She extended her territory
in Italy to include the important cities of Treviso, Padua, Vicenza,
and Verona, and in 1488 acquired the island of Cyprus in the Levant.
At this time the Venetian state owned 3300 ships, manned by 36,000
men, and stood at the height of her power.
Already, however, a new enemy had appeared who threatened not only
Venice but all Europe. This was the Ottoman Turk. The Turks were
not like the Arabs, members of the Indo-European family, but a
race from the eastern borders of the Caspian Sea, a branch of the
Mongolian stock. As these peoples moved south and west they came in
contact with Mohammedanism and became ardent converts. Eventually
they swept over Asia Minor, crossed the Dardanelles, took Adrianople,
and pushed into Serbia. Thus, when Constantinople fell in 1453 it
had been for some time a mere island of Christianity surrounded by
Moslems. Indeed it was only the civil wars among the Turks themselves
that held them back so long from the brilliant career of conquest
that characterized the 15th and early 16th centuries, for these
later followers of Mohammed had all the fanaticism of the Saracens.
Before the fall of Constantinople and the transfer of the Turkish
seat of government to that city, a corps of infantry was organized
that became the terror of the Christian world--the Janissaries. By
a grim irony of the Sultan, who created this body of troops, these
men were exclusively of Christian parentage, taken as children either
in the form of a human tribute levied on the Christian population
of Constantinople, or as captives in the various expeditions in
Christian territory. The Janissaries were brought up wholly to a
military life, they were not permitted to marry, and their lives
were devoted to fighting for the Crescent. For a long time they
were invincible in the open field.
The first half of the 16th century saw the Turks in Persia, in the
east, and at the gates of Vienna in the west. For a time they got
a foothold in Italy by seizing Otranto. They had conquered Egypt
and Syria, penetrated Persia, and in Arabia gained the support of
the Arabs for the Turkish sultan as the successor to the Caliphs.
Constantinople, therefore, became not only the political capital
for the Turkish empire but the religious center of the whole Moslem
world. Moreover, the Arab states on the southern borders of the
Mediterranean acknowledged the suzerainty of the Turkish ruler.
This fact was of great importance, for it enabled the Turks to become
masters of the inland sea. In 1492 the greater part of the Moors--the
descendants of the Arab conquerors of Spain--were expelled from the
Peninsula by the conquest of Granada. This event was hailed with
joy throughout Christendom, but it had an unexpected and terrible
consequence. Flung back into northern Africa, and filled with hatred
because of the persecution they had endured, these Moors embarked
on a career of piracy directed against Christians. In making common
cause with the Turks they supplied the fleets that the Turkish
power needed to carry out its schemes of conquest. Apparently the
Turks had never taken to salt water as the Arabs had done, but in
these Moorish pirates they found fighters on the sea well worthy
to stand comparison with their peerless fighters on land, the
Janissaries. Between 1492 and 1580, the date of Ali's death, there
was a period in which the Moorish corsairs were supreme. It produced
three great leaders, each of whom in turn became the terror of the
sea: Kheyr ed Din, known as Barbarossa, Dragut, and Ali. It is a
curious fact that the first and third were of Christian parentage.
So long as the Turk invaded Christian territory by land alone,
the Venetians were unconcerned. They made what treaties they could
for continuing their trade with communities that had fallen into
the conquerors' hands. But when the Turk began to spread out by
sea it was inevitable that he must clash with the Venetian, and so
there was much fighting. Yet even after a successful naval campaign
the emissary of Venice was obliged to come before the Sultan, cap
in hand, to beg trading privileges in Turkish territory. Everything
in Venetian policy was subordinated to the maintenance of sufficient
friendly relations with the Turk to assure a commercial monopoly in
the Levant. Although the Moslem peril grew more and more menacing,
Venice remained unwilling to join in any united action for the
common good of Europe.
Of course Venice was not alone in this policy. In 1534 Francis
the First, for example, in order to humiliate his rival, Charles
V, secretly sent word to Barbarossa of the plans being made against
him. Indeed France showed no interest in combating the Turk even
at the time when he was at the summit of his power. But Venice, as
the dominating naval power, had the means of checking the Turkish
invasion if she had chosen to do so. Instead she permitted the
control of the Mediterranean to slip from her into the hands of
the Moslems with scarcely a blow.
The leading part in the resistance to the Moslem sea power was
taken by Spain under Charles V. He had, as admiral of the navy,
Andrea Doria, the Genoese, the ablest seaman on the Christian side.
Early in his career he had captured a notorious corsair; later
in the service of Spain, he defeated the Turks at Patras (at the
entrance to the Gulf of Corinth), and again at the Dardanelles.
These successes threatened Turkish supremacy on the Mediterranean,
and Sultan Soliman "the Magnificent," the ruler under whom the
Turkish empire reached its zenith, summoned the Algerian corsair
Barbarossa and gave him supreme command over all the fleets under
the Moslem banner. At this time, 1533, Barbarossa was seventy-seven
years old, but he had lost none of his fire or ability. On the
occasion of being presented to the Sultan, he uttered a saying
that might stand as the text for all the writings of Mahan: "Sire,
he who rules on the sea will shortly rule on the land also."
The following year Barbarossa set out from Constantinople with
a powerful fleet and proceeded to ravage the coast of Italy. He
sacked Reggio, burnt and massacred elsewhere on the coast without
opposition, cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber and if he had
chosen could have sacked Rome and taken the Pope captive. He then
returned to Constantinople with 11,000 Christian captives.
Charles V was roused by this display of corsair power and barbarity
to collect a force that should put an end to such raids. Barbarossa
had recently added Tunis to his personal domains, and the great
expedition of ships and soldiers which the emperor assembled was
directed against that city. Despite the warning given by the King
of France, Barbarossa was unable to oppose the Christian host with
a force sufficiently strong to defend the city. The Christians
captured it and the chieftain escaped only by a flight along the
desert to the port of Bona where he had a few galleys in reserve.
With these he made his way to Algiers before Andrea Doria could
come up with him. The Christians celebrated the capture of Tunis by
a massacre of some 30,000 inhabitants and returned home, thanking
God that at last Barbarossa was done for. Indeed, with the loss
of his fleet and his newly acquired province it seemed as if the
great pirate was not likely to give much trouble, but the Christians
had made the mistake of leaving the work only half done.
In 1537, two years after the fall of Tunis, the Sultan declared war
on Venice. The Turkish fleet, although led by the Sultan Soliman
himself, was defeated by the Venetians off Corfu. Doria, in the
service of Charles V, caught and burned ten richly laden Turkish
merchant ships and then defeated a Turkish squadron. The prestige
of the Crescent on the sea was badly weakened by these events,
but suddenly Barbarossa appeared and raided the islands of the
Archipelago and the coasts of the Adriatic with a savagery and
sweep unmatched by anything in his long career. He arrived in the
Golden Horn laden with booty, and delivered to his master, the
Sultan, 18,000 captives.
This exploit changed the complexion of affairs. During the winter
of 1537-1538 the naval yards of Constantinople were busy with the
preparations for a new fleet which should take the offensive against
the Venetians and the Christians generally. In the spring Barbarossa
got out into the Archipelago and, raiding at will, swept up another
batch of prisoners to serve as galley slaves for the new ships.
Meanwhile the Mediterranean states nerved themselves for a final
effort. Venice contributed 81 galleys, the Pope sent 36, and Spain,
30. Later the Emperor sent 50 transports with 10,000 soldiers,
and 49 galleys, together with a number of large sailing ships.
Venice also added 14 sailing ships of war, or "nefs," and Doria
22; these formed a special squadron. The Venetian nefs were headed
by Condalmiero in his flagship the _Galleon of Venice_, the most
formidable warship in the Mediterranean, and the precursor of a
revolution in naval architecture and naval tactics.
[Illustration: 16TH CENTURY GALLEY]
Although the sailing ship was coming more and more into favor because
of the discoveries across the Atlantic, the galley was the man
of war of this period. The dromons of the Eastern empire, with
their stout build and two banks of oars, had given way to a long,
narrow vessel with a single bank of oars which had been developed
by men who lived on the shores of the sheltered lagoons of the
Adriatic. The prime characteristic of this type was its mobility.
For the pirate whose business it was to lie in wait and dash out
on a merchantman, this quality of mobility--independence of wind
and speed of movement--was of chief importance. Similarly, in order
to combat the pirate it was necessary to possess the same
characteristic. Of course, as in all the days of rowed ships, this
freedom of movement was limited by the physical exhaustion of the
rowers. In the ships of Greek and Roman days these men had some
protection from the weapons of the enemy and from the weather,
but in the 16th century galley, whether Turkish or Christian, they
were chained naked to their benches day and night, with practically
nothing to shelter them from the weather or from the weapons of
an enemy. So frightful were the hardships of the life that the
rowers were almost always captives, or felons who worked out their
sentences on the rowers' bench. An important difference between
the galley of this period and the earlier types of rowed ship is
the fact that in the galley there was but one row of oars on a
side, but these oars were very long and manned by four or five men
apiece.
A typical galley was about 180 feet over all with a beam of 19
feet and a depth of hold of about 7-1/2 feet. A single deck sloped
from about the water line to a structure that ran fore and aft
amidships, about six feet wide, which served as a gangway between
forecastle and poop and gave access to the hold. The forecastle
carried the main battery of guns, and was closed in below so as to
provide quarters for the fighting men. The poop had a deck house
and a smaller battery; this deck also was closed in, furnishing
quarters for the officers. There were two or three masts, lateen
rigged, adorned in peace or war with the greatest profusion of
banners and streamers. Indeed huge sums of money were expended on
the mere ornament of these war galleys, particularly in the elaborate
carvings that adorned the stern and prow.
In the conflict of Christian and Moslem, when Constantinople was
the capital of Christendom, Greek fire on two critical occasions
routed the Saracens. This substance was never understood in western
Europe, and for centuries the secret was carefully preserved in
the eastern capital. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
it was used by the Moslem against the Christian, but the discovery
of gunpowder soon made the earlier substance obsolete. In the 16th
century cannon had already reached considerable dimensions, but in
a naval battle between galleys these weapons were not used after
the first volley or so. The tactics were little different from
those of the day of the trireme, consisting simply of ramming, and
fighting at close quarters with arquebus, bows, pike, and sword.
Twenty feet from the bows of every galley projected her metal beak,
and all her guns pointed forward; hence in the naval tactics of
the period everything turned on a head-on attack. The battle line,
therefore, was line abreast. For the same reasons a commander had
to fear an attack on his flank, and he maneuvered usually to get
at least one flank protected by the shore. The battle line in the
days of the galley could be dressed as accurately as a file of
soldiers, but the fighting was settled in a close mêlée in which
all formation was lost from the moment of collision between the
two fleets.
_The Campaign of Prevesa_
Such were the men of war and the tactics common to Christian and
corsair during the 16th century. While the Christians were slowly
collecting their armada, Barbarossa, with a force of 122 galleys,
set out to catch his enemy in detail if he could. Pirate as he
was, the old ruffian had a clear strategic grasp of what he might
do with a force that was inferior to the fleet collecting against
him. The Christians were to mobilize at Corfu. The Papal squadron
had collected in the Gulf of Arta, and Barbarossa made for it. By
sheer luck just before he arrived it had moved to the rendezvous.
If he had followed it up immediately, he might have crushed both
the Papal and Venetian contingents, because Doria and the Spanish
fleet had not yet arrived; but apparently he felt uncertain as
to just how far off these reënforcements were and therefore did
not attempt the stroke. Instead, he took up a defensive position
in the Gulf of Arta, exactly where Antony had collected his fleet
before the battle of Actium.
In September (1538) the Christian fleet under Doria left Corfu and
crossed to the Gulf. Barbarossa had drawn up his force in battle
array inside the entrance, under the guns of the Turkish fortress
at Prevesa. Since this entrance is obstructed by a bar with too
little water for Doria's heavier ships, he lay outside. Thus the
two fleets faced each other, each waiting for the other to make
the next move. For the first time in their careers the greatest
admiral on the Christian side was face to face with the greatest on
the Moslem side. Both were old men, Doria over seventy and Barbarossa
eighty-two. The stage was set for another decisive battle on the scene
of Actium. The town of Prevesa stood on the site of Octavius's camp,
and again East and West faced each other for the mastery of the sea.
With the vastly greater strength of the Christian fleet, and the
known skill of its leader, everything pointed to an overwhelming
victory for the Cross. What followed is one of the most amazing
stories in history.
Having the interior lines and the smooth anchorage, Barbarossa
had only to watch his enemy go to pieces in the open roadstead
in trying to maintain a blockade. His officers, however, scorned
such a policy, and, being appointees of the Sultan and far from
subordinate in spirit to their chief, they were finally able to
force his hand and compel him to offer battle to the Christians
by leaving the security of the gulf and the fortress and going
out into the open, exactly where Doria wanted him. Accordingly
on the 27th of September, the Turkish fleet sailed out to offer
battle. It happened that Doria had gone ten miles away to Sessola
for anchorage, and the _Galleon of Venice_ lay becalmed right in
the path of the advancing fleet. Condalmiero sent word for help,
and Doria ordered him to begin fighting, assuring him that he would
soon be reënforced.
The Turkish galleys, advancing in a crescent formation, soon enveloped
the lonely ship. Her captain ordered his crew to lie down on her
deck while he alone stood, in full armor, a target to the host of
Moslems who pushed forward in their galleys anxious for the honor
of capturing this great ship. Condalmiero ordered his gunners to
hold their fire until the enemy were within arquebus range. Then
the broadsides of the galleon blazed and the surrounding galleys
crumpled and sank. A single shot weighing 120 pounds sank a galley
with practically all on board. The signal to retreat was given
and speedily obeyed.
Thereafter there were to be no more rushing tactics. Barbarossa
organized his galleys in squadrons of twenty, which advanced, one
after the other, delivered their fire, and retired. All the rest
of the day, from about noon till sunset, this strange conflict
between the single galleon and the Turkish fleet went on. The ship
was cumbered with her fallen spars; she had lost thirteen men killed
and forty wounded. The losses would have been far greater but for
the extraordinarily thick sides of the galleon. After sundown the
Turkish fleet appeared to be drawing up in line for the last assault.
On the _Galleon of Venice_ there was no thought of surrender; the
ammunition was almost spent and the men were exhausted with their
tremendous efforts, but they stood at their posts determined to
defend their ship to the last man.
Then, to their astonishment Barbarossa drew off, sending some of
his galleys to pursue and cut off certain isolated Christian units,
but leaving the field to the Venetian galleon. Meanwhile, during all
that long, hot afternoon the great fleet of Andrea Doria, instead
of pressing forward to the relief of the _Galleon of Venice_ and
crushing Barbarossa with its great superiority in numbers, was
going through strange parade maneuvers about ten miles away. Doria's
explanation was that he was trying to decoy Barbarossa out into
deeper water where the guns of the nefs could be used, but there is
no other conclusion to be reached than that Doria did not want to
fight. Fortune that day offered him everything for an overwhelming
victory, one that might have ranked with the decisive actions of the
world's history, and he threw it away under circumstances peculiarly
disgraceful and humiliating. Never did commander in chief so richly
deserve to be shot on his own deck. The following day as a fair
wind blew for Corfu, Doria spread sail and retired from the gulf,
while Barbarossa, roaring with laughter, called on his men to witness
the cowardice of this Christian admiral.
The victory lay with Barbarossa. With a greatly inferior force
he had challenged Doria and attacked. Doria had not only declined
the challenge but fled back to Corfu. No wonder the Sultan ordered
the cities of his domain to be illuminated. Barbarossa's prizes
included two galleys and five nefs, but he, too, had failed in
an inexplicable fashion in drawing off from the assault on the
_Galleon of Venice_ at the end of the day's fighting. It is with
her, with the gallant Condalmiero and his men, that all the honor of
the day belongs. Nothing in the adventurous 16th century surpasses
their splendid, disciplined valor on this occasion.
The astonishing powers of resistance and the deadly effect of the
broadsides of the _Galleon of Venice_ displayed in a long and successful
fight against an entire fleet of galleys should have had the effect
of making a revolution in naval architecture fifty years before
that change actually occurred. But men of war of those days were
built after the models of Venetian architects, and the latter clung
doggedly to the galley. They overlooked the great defensive and
offensive powers of the galleon displayed in this story and saw
only the fact that she was becalmed and unable to move.
Doria's failure left conditions in the Mediterranean as bad as
ever. Barbarossa died at the age of ninety, but one of the last
acts of his life was to ransom a follower of his, Dragut, Pasha
of Tripoli, who had served under him at Prevesa and, having been
captured two years later, served four years as a galley slave on
the ship of Gian Andrea Doria, the grandnephew and heir of Andrea
Doria. Dragut soon assumed the leadership laid down by Barbarossa,
his master, fighting first the elder Doria and then his namesake
with great skill and audacity. For years the Knights of Malta had
been a thorn in the side of the Moslems who roamed the sea, and
in 1565 a gigantic effort was made by the Sultan, together with
his tributaries from the Barbary states, to wipe out this naval
stronghold. The siege that followed was distinguished by the most
reckless courage and the most desperate fighting on both sides. It
extended from May 18 to September 8, costing the Christians 8000
and the Moslems 30,000 lives. In the midst of the siege Dragut
himself was slain, and the conduct of the siege fell into less
capable hands. Finally the Turks withdrew.
The death of Soliman the Magnificent, in 1566, brought to the head
of the Turkish state a ruler known by the significant name, Selim
the Drunkard. Weak and debauched as he was, nevertheless he aspired
to add to the Turkish dominions as his father had done. Accordingly,
he informed Venice that she must evacuate Cyprus. Previous to this
time Venice had succeeded, by means of heavy bribes to the Sultan's
ministers, in keeping her hold on this important island, but this
policy only tempted further arrogance on the part of the Turk.
Further, the time was propitious for such a stroke because Venice
was impoverished by bad harvests and the loss of her naval arsenal
by fire, Spain was occupied in troubles with the Moors, and France,
torn with civil war, wanted to keep peace with the Sultan at any
price. During the terrible siege of Malta Venice had remained neutral;
now that the danger came home to her she cried for help, and not
unnaturally there were those who sneered at her in this crisis
and bade her save herself.
The Pope, however, had long been anxious to organize a league of
Christian peoples to win back the Mediterranean to the Cross and draw
a line beyond which the Crescent should never pass. In this plight
of Venice he saw an opportunity, because hitherto the persistent
neutrality or the unwillingness of the Venetians to fight the Turk to
the finish had been one of the chief obstacles to concerted action.
He therefore pledged his own resources to Venice and attempted
to collect allies by the appeal to the Cross. The results were
discouraging, but a force of Spanish, Papal, and Venetian galleys
was finally collected and after endless delays dispatched to the
scene in the summer of 1570.
Meanwhile the Turks had been pressing their attack on Cyprus and
were besieging the city of Nicosia. If the Christians had been
moved by any united spirit they could have relieved Nicosia and
struck a heavy blow at the Turkish fleet, which lay unready and
stripped of its men in the harbor. But Gian Doria, who inherited
from his great uncle his great dislike of Venetians, and who probably
had secret instructions from his master, Philip II, to help as
little as possible, succeeded in blocking any vigorous move on the
part of the other commanders. Finally, after a heated quarrel, he
sailed back to Sicily with his entire fleet, and the rest followed.
The allies had gone no nearer Cyprus than the port of Suda in Crete.
The whole expedition, therefore, came to nothing.
In September Nicosia fell to the Turk, who then turned to the conquest
of Famagusta, the last stronghold of the Venetians on the island.
Bragadino, the commander of the besieged forces, fought against
desperate odds with a courage and skill worthy of the best traditions
of his native city, hoping to repulse the Turks until help could
arrive. But Doria's defection in 1570 decided the fate of the city
the following year. After fifty-five days of siege, with no resources
left, Bragadino was compelled, on August 4, 1571, to accept an offer
of surrender on honorable terms. The Turkish commander, enraged
at the loss of 50,000 men, which Bragadino's stubborn defense had
cost, no sooner had the Venetians in his power than he massacred
officers and men and flayed their commander alive. This news did
not reach the Christians, however, until their second expedition
was almost at grips with the Turks at Lepanto.
_The Campaign of Lepanto_
Undismayed by the failure of his first attempt, Pope Pius had
immediately gone to work to reorganize his Holy League. He had
to overcome the mutual hatred and mistrust that lay between Spain
and Venice, aggravated by the recent conduct of Doria, but neither
the Pope nor Venice could do without the help of Spain. There was
much bickering between the envoys in the Papal chambers, and it
was not till February, 1571, that the terms of the new enterprise
were agreed upon. By this contract no one of the powers represented
was to make a separate peace with the Porte. The costs were divided
into six parts, of which Spain undertook three, Venice, two, and
the Pope, one. Don Juan, the illegitimate brother of Philip II, was
to be commander in chief. Although only twenty-four, this prince
had won a military reputation in suppressing the Moorish rebellion
in Spain, and, having been recognized by Philip as a half brother,
he had a princely rank that would subordinate the claims of all the
rival admirals. Finally, the rendezvous was appointed at Messina.
The aged Venetian admiral, Veniero, had been compelled by the situation
in the east to divide his force into two parts, one at Crete, and
the other under himself at Corfu. By the time he received orders
to proceed to the rendezvous, he learned that Ali, the corsair
king of Algiers, known better by his nickname of "Uluch" Ali, was
operating at the mouth of the Adriatic with a large force. To reach
Messina with his divided fleet, Veniero ran the risk of being caught
by Ali and destroyed in detail, but the situation was so critical
that he took the risk and succeeded in slipping past the corsair
undiscovered. In permitting this escape, and in fact in allowing
all the other units of the Christian fleet to assemble at Messina,
Ali missed a golden opportunity to destroy the whole force before
it ever collected. Instead, he continued his ravages on the coasts
of the Adriatic, bent only on plunder. He carried his raids almost
to the lagoons of Venice itself, and indeed might have attacked
the city had he not been hampered by a shortage of men.
Although the Turks were having their own way, unopposed, and the
situation was growing daily more critical, the Christian fleet was
slow in assembling. For a whole month Veniero waited in Messina
for the arrival of Don Juan and the Spanish squadrons. Philip,
apparently, used one pretext after another to delay the prince,
and once on his way Don Juan had to tarry at every stage of the
journey to witness ceremonial fêtes held in his honor. Philip acted
in good faith as far as his preparations went, but he wanted to
save his galleys for use against the Moors of the Barbary coast,
which was nearer the ports of Spain, and was indifferent to the
outcome of the quarrel between Venice and the Porte. Undoubtedly
Doria and the other Spanish officers were fully informed of their
royal master's desires in this expedition as in the one of the
year before. They were to avoid battle if they could.
On August 25 Don Juan arrived at Messina and was joyously received
by the city and the fleet. Nevertheless, it was the 12th of September
before the decision was finally reached to seek out the Turkish
fleet and offer battle. Fortunately Don Juan was a high-spirited
youth who shared none of his brother's half-heartedness; he went
to work to organize the discordant elements under his command into
as much of a unit as he could, and to imbue them with the idea of
aggressive action. In this spirit he was seconded by thousands
of young nobles and soldiers of fortune from Spain and Italy, who
had flocked to his standard like the knight errants of the age of
chivalry, burning to distinguish themselves against the infidel.
Among these, oddly enough, was a young Spaniard, Cervantes, who
was destined in later years to laugh chivalry out of Europe by
his immortal "Don Quixote."
In order to knit together the three elements, Spanish, Venetian,
and Papal, Don Juan so distributed their forces that no single
squadron could claim to belong to any one nation. As the Venetian
galleys lacked men, he put aboard them Spanish and Italian infantry.
Before leaving Messina, he had given every commander written
instructions as to his cruising station and his place in the battle
line. The fighting formation was to consist of three squadrons of
the line and one of reserve. The left wing was to be commanded
by the Venetian Barbarigo; the center, by Don Juan himself, in the
flagship _Real_, with Colonna, the Papal commander on his right and
Veniero, the Venetian commander, on his left, in their respective
flagships. The right wing was intrusted to Doria, and the reserve,
amounting to about thirty galleys, was under the Spaniard, Santa
Cruz. In front of each squadron of the line two Venetian galleasses
were to take station in order to break up the formation of the
Turkish advance. The total fighting force consisted of 202 galleys,
six galleasses, and 28,000 infantrymen besides sailors and oarsmen.
The Venetian galleasses deserve special mention because they attracted
considerable attention by the part they subsequently played in
the action. Sometimes the word was applied to any specially large
galley, but these represented something different from anything
in either Christian or Turkish fleets. They were an attempt to
reach a combination of galleon and galley, possessing the bulk,
strength, and heavy armament of the former, together with the oar
propulsion of the latter to render them independent of the wind.
But like most, if not all, compromise types, the galleass was
short-lived. It was clumsy and slow, being neither one thing nor
the other. Most of the time on the cruise these galleasses had
to be towed in order to keep up with the rest of the fleet. It
is interesting to note that, despite the example of the _Galleon
of Venice_ at Prevesa, there was not a single galleon in the whole
force.
On September 16 the start from Messina was made. The fleet crossed
to the opposite shore of the Adriatic, creeping along the coast and
in the lee of the islands after the manner of oar driven vessels
that were unable to face a fresh breeze or a moderate sea. Delayed
by unfavorable winds, it was not till October 6 that it arrived
at the group of rocky islets lying just north of the opening of
the Gulf of Corinth, or Lepanto[1] where the Turkish fleet was
known to be mobilized. Meanwhile trouble had broken out among the
Christians. Serious fighting had taken place between Venetians and
Spaniards, and Veniero, without referring the case to Don Juan,
had hanged a Spanish soldier who had been impudent to him, thus
enraging the commander in chief. In a word, the various elements
were nearly at the point of fighting each other before the object
of their crusade was even sighted.
[Footnote 1: Lepanto is the modern name of Naupaktis, the naval
base of Athens in the gulf. It had been a Venetian stronghold,
but fell to the Turks in 1499. The name Lepanto is given to both
the town and the gulf.]
At dawn of the 7th the lookout on the _Real_ sighted the van of
the Turkish fleet coming out to the attack, and this news had a
salutary effect. Don Juan called a council of war, silenced those
like Doria who still counseled avoiding battle, and then in a swift
sailing vessel went through the fleet exhorting officers and men
to do their utmost. The sacrament was then administered to all,
the galley slaves freed from their chains, and the standard of
the Holy League, the figure of the Crucified Savior, was raised
to the truck of the flagship.
As the Christians streamed down from the straits to meet their
enemy, they faced a serious peril. The Turks were advancing in
full array aided by a wind at their backs; the same wind naturally
was against the Christians, who had to toil at their oars with great
labor to make headway. If the wind held there was every prospect
that the Turks would be able to fall upon their enemy before Don
Juan could form his line of battle. Fortunately, toward noon the
wind shifted so as to help the Christians and retard the Turks.
This shift just enabled most of the squadrons to fall into their
appointed stations before the collision. Two of the galleasses,
however, were not able to reach their posts in advance of the right
wing before the mêlée began, and the right wing itself, though it
had ample time to take position, kept on its course to the south,
leaving the rest of the fleet behind. To Turk and Christian alike
this move on the part of Doria meant treachery, for which Doria's
previous conduct gave ample color, but there was no time to draw
back or reorganize the line.
The Turkish force, numbering 222 galleys, swept on to the attack,
also in three divisions, stretched out in a wide crescent. The
commander in chief, Ali Pasha, led the center, his right was commanded
by Sirocco, the Viceroy of Egypt, and his left by "Uluch" Ali. This
arrangement should have brought Ali, the greatest of the Moslem
seafighters of his day, face to face with Doria, the most celebrated
admiral in Christendom. The two opposing lines swung together with a
furious plying of oars and a tumult of shouting. The four galleasses
stationed well in front of the Christian battle line opened an
effective fire at close quarters on the foremost Turkish galleys
as they swept past. In trying to avoid the heavy artillery of these
floating fortresses, the Turks fell into confusion, losing their
battle array almost at the very moment of contact, and masking
the fire of many of their ships. This was an important service
to the credit of the galleasses, but as they were too unwieldy to
maneuver readily they seem to have taken no further part in the
action.
The first contact took place about noon between Barbarigo's and
Sirocco's squadrons. The Venetian had planned to rest his left
flank so close to the shore as to prevent the Turks from enveloping
it, but Sirocco, who knew the depth of water better, was able to
pour a stream of galleys between the end of Barbarigo's line and
the coast so that the Christians at this point found themselves
attacked in front and rear. For a while it looked as if the Turks
would win, but the Christians fought with the courage of despair.
There was no semblance of line left; only a mêlée of ships laid
so close to each other as to form almost a continuous platform
over which the fighting raged hand to hand. Both the leaders fell.
Barbarigo was mortally wounded, and Sirocco was killed when his
flagship was stormed. The loss of the Egyptian flagship and commander
seemed to decide the struggle at this point. The Christian slaves,
freed from the rowers' benches, were supplied with arms and joined
in the fighting with the fury of vengeance on their masters. A
backward movement set in among the Turkish ships; then many headed
for the shore to escape.
Meanwhile, shortly after the Christian left had been engaged the
two centers crashed together. Such was the force of the impact
that the beak of Ali Pasha's galley drove as far as the fourth
rowing bench of the _Real_. Instantly a fury of battle burst forth
around the opposing flagships. Attack and counter attack between
Spanish infantry and Turkish Janissaries swayed back and forth
across from one galley to another amid a terrific uproar. Once
the _Real_ was nearly taken, but Colonna jammed the bows of his
galley alongside and saved the situation by a counter attack. On
the other side of the flagship Veniero was also at one time in
grave peril but was saved by the timely assistance of his comrades.
Though wounded in the leg, this veteran of seventy fought throughout
the action as stoutly as the youngest soldier.
The prompt action of Colonna turned the tide in the center, for
after clearing the Turks from the deck of the _Real_, the Christians,
now reënforced, made a supreme effort that swept the length of
Ali Pasha's galley and left the Turkish commander in chief among
the slain. In fighting of this character no quarter was given;
of the 400 men on the Turkish flagship not one was spared. Don
Juan immediately hoisted the banner of the League to the masthead
of the captured ship. This sign of victory broke the spirit of
the Turks and nerved the Christians to redoubled efforts. As on
the left wing so in the center the offensive now passed to the
allies. Thus after two hours' fighting the Turks were already beaten
on left and center, though fighting still went on hotly in tangled
and scattered groups of ships.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF LEPANTO, OCT. 7. 1571
Formation of the two fleets just before contact, about 11 a. m.]
On the Christian right, however, the situation was different. Doria
had from the beginning left the right center "in the air" by sailing
away to the south. He explained this singular conduct afterwards by
saying that he noticed Ali moving seaward as if to try an enveloping
movement round the Christians' southern flank, and therefore moved
to head him off. However plausible this may be, the explanation did
not satisfy Doria's captains, who obeyed his signals with indignant
rage. At all events Ali had a considerably larger force than Doria,
and after the latter had drawn away so far as to create a wide
gap between his own squadron and the center, Ali suddenly swung
his galleys about in line and fell upon the exposed flank, leaving
Doria too far away to interfere. The Algerian singled out a detached
group of about fifteen galleys, among which was the flagship of
the Knights of Malta. No Christian flag was so hated as the banner
of this Order, and the Turks fell upon these ships with shouts
of triumph. One after another was taken and it began to look as
if Ali would soon roll up the entire flank and pluck victory from
defeat.
But Santa Cruz, who was still laboring through the straits when
the battle began, was now in a position to help. After an hour's
fighting with all the advantage on Ali's side, Santa Cruz arrived
with his reserve squadron and turned the scale. By this time, too,
Doria managed to reach the scene with a part of his squadron. Thus
Ali found himself outnumbered and in danger of capture. Signaling
retreat, he collected a number of his galleys and, boldly steering
through the field of battle, escaped to lay at the feet of the
Sultan the captured flag of the Knights of Malta. Some thirty-five
others of his force made their way safely back to Lepanto.
The fighting did not end till evening. By that time the Christians
had taken 117 galleys and 20 galliots, and sunk or burnt some fifty
other ships of various sorts. Ten thousand Turks were captured and
many thousands of Christian slaves rescued. The Christians lost
7500 men; the Turks, about 30,000. It was an overwhelming victory.
As far as the tactics go, Lepanto was, like Salamis, an infantry
battle on floating platforms. It was fought and won by the picked
infantrymen of Spain and Italy; the day of seamanship had not yet
arrived. For the conduct of the most distinguished admiral on the
Christian side, Gian Andrea Doria, little justification can be
found. Even if we accept his excuse at its face value, the event
proved his folly. It is strange that in this, the supreme victory
of the Cross over the Crescent on the sea, a Doria should have
tarnished his reputation so foully, even as his great-uncle Andrea
had tarnished his in the battle of Prevesa. It seems as if in both, as
Genoese, the hatred of Venice extinguished every other consideration
of loyalty to Christendom.
What were the consequences of Lepanto, and in what sense can it
be called a decisive battle? The question at first seems baffling.
Overwhelming as was the defeat of the Turks, Ali had another fleet
ready the next spring and was soon ravaging the seas again. Twice
there came an opportunity for the two fleets to meet for another
battle, but Ali declined the challenge. After Lepanto he seemed
unwilling, without a great superiority, to risk another close action
and contented himself with a "fleet in being." In this new attitude
toward the Christians lies the hint to the answer. The significance
of Lepanto lies in its moral effect. Never before had the Turkish
fleet been so decisively beaten in a pitched battle. The fame of
Lepanto rang through Europe and broke the legend of Turkish
invincibility on the sea.
The material results, it must be admitted, were worse than nothing
at the time. In 1573 Don Juan was amazed and infuriated to learn
that Venice, contrary to the terms of the Holy League, had secretly
arranged a separate peace with the Sultan. The terms she accepted
were those of a beaten combatant. Venice agreed to the loss of
Cyprus, paid an indemnity of 300,000 ducats, trebled her tribute
for the use of Zante as a trading post, and restored to the Turk
all captures made on the Albanian and Dalmatian coast. Apparently
the Venetian had to have his trade at any price, including honor.
At this news Don Juan tore down the standard of the allies and
raised the flag of Castile and Aragon. In two years and after a
brilliant victory, the eternal Holy League, which was pledged to
last forever, fell in pieces.
As for Venice, her ignoble policy brought her little benefit. She
steadily declined thereafter as a commercial and naval power. Her
old markets were in the grip of the Turk, and the new discoveries of
ocean routes to the east--beyond the reach of the Moslem,--diverted
the course of trade away from the Mediterranean, which became,
more and more, a mere backwater of the world's commerce. In fact,
it was not until the cutting of the Suez Canal that the inland
sea regained its old time importance.
In the long unsuccessful struggle of Christian against the Turk
Venice must bear the chief blame, for she had the means and the
opportunity to conquer if she had chosen the better part. And yet
the story of this chapter shows also that the rest of Christendom
was not blameless. If Christians in the much extolled Age of Faith
had shown as much unity of spirit as the Infidels, the rule of the
Turk would not have paralyzed Greece, the Balkans, the islands of
the Ægean, and the coasts of Asia Minor for nearly five centuries.
REFERENCES
LA GUERRE DE CHYPRE ET LA BATAILLE DE LéPANTE, J. P. Jurien de
la Gravière, 1888.
By the same author, DORIA ET BARBEROUSSE, 1886.
HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF PHILIP THE SECOND (vol. III.), W. H.
Prescott, 1858.
SEA WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN, E. Hamilton Currey. This
contains a full bibliography.
THE NAVY OF VENICE, Alethea Wiel, 1910.
THE EASTERN QUESTION (chap. V.), J. A. R. Marriott, 1917.
BARBARY CORSAIRS, Story of the Nations Series, Lane-Poole, 1890.
DRAKE AND THE TUDOR NAVY (Introduction), J. S. Corbett, 1898.
GEOGRAPHY AND WORLD POWER, James Fairgrieve, 1917.
CHAPTER VI
OPENING THE OCEAN ROUTES
1. PORTUGAL AND THE NEW ROUTE TO INDIA
From the days of the Phnicians to the close of the 15th century,
all trade between Europe and Asia crossed the land barrier east of
the Mediterranean. Delivered by Mohammedan vessels at the head of
the Persian Gulf or the ports of the Red Sea, merchandise followed
thence the caravan routes across Arabia or Egypt to the Mediterranean,
quadrupling in value in the transit. Intercourse between East and
West, active under the Romans, was again stimulated by the crusades
and by Venetian traders, until in the 14th and the 15th centuries
the dyes, spices, perfumes, cottons, muslins, silks, and jewels
of the Orient were in demand throughout the western world. This
assurance of a ready market and large profits, combined with the
capture of Constantinople by the Turks (1453), their piratical
attacks in the Mediterranean which continued unchecked until Lepanto,
and their final barring of all trade routes through the Levant,
revived among nations of western Europe the old legends of all-water
routes to Asia, either around Africa or directly westward across
the unknown sea.
With the opening of ocean routes and the discovery of America,
a rivalry in world trade and colonial expansion set in which has
continued increasingly down to the present time, forming a dominant
element in the foreign policies of maritime nations and a primary
motive for the possession and use of navies. The development of
overseas trade, involving the factors of merchant shipping, navies,
and control of the seas, is thus an integral part of the history
of sea power. The great voyages of discovery are also not to be
disregarded, supplying as they did the basis for colonial claims,
and illustrating at the same time the progress of nautical science
and geographical knowledge.
[Illustration: CROSS-STAFF]
The art of navigation, though still crude, had by the 15th century
so advanced that the sailor was no longer compelled to skirt the
shore, with only rare ventures across open stretches of sea. The
use of the compass, originating in China, had been learned from the
Arabs by the crusaders, and is first mentioned in Europe towards
the close of the 12th century. An Italian in England, describing a
visit to the philosopher Roger Bacon in 1258, writes as follows:
"Among other things he showed me an ugly black stone called a magnet
... upon which, if a needle be rubbed and afterward fastened to
a straw so that it shall float upon the water, the needle will
instantly turn toward the pole-star; though the night be never so
dark, yet shall the mariner be able by the help of this needle to
steer his course aright. But no master-mariner," he adds, "dares
to use it lest he should fall under the imputation of being a
magician."[1] By the end of the 13th century the compass was coming
into general use; and when Columbus sailed he had an instrument
divided as in later times into 360 degrees and 32 points, as well as
a quadrant, sea-astrolabe, and other nautical devices. The astrolabe,
an instrument for determining latitude by measuring the altitude of
the sun or other heavenly body, was suspended from the finger by a
ring and held upright at noon till the shadow of the sun passed the
sights. The cross-staff, more frequently used for the same purpose
by sailors of the time, was a simpler affair less affected by the
ship's roll; it was held with the lower end of the cross-piece
level with the horizon and the upper adjusted to a point on a line
between the eye of the observer and the sun at the zenith. By these
various means the sailor could steer a fixed course and determine
latitude. He had, however, as yet no trustworthy means of reckoning
longitude and no accurate gauge of distance traveled. The log-line
was not invented until the 17th century, and accurate chronometers
for determining longitude did not come into use until still later.
A common practice of navigators, adopted by Columbus, was to steer
first north or south along the coast and then due west on the parallel
thought to lead to the destination sought.
[Footnote 1: Dante's tutor Brunetto Latini, quoted in THE DISCOVERY
OF AMERICA, Fiske, Vol. I, p. 314.]
[Illustration: THE KNOWN AND UNKNOWN WORLD IN 1450, SHOWING THE
VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS, VASCO DE GAMA, MAGELLAN, AND DRAKE]
With the revival of classical learning in the Renaissance, geographical
theories also became less wildly imaginative than in the medieval
period, the charts of which, though beautifully colored and highly
decorated with fauna and flora, show no such accurate knowledge
even of the old world as do those of the great geographer Ptolemy,
who lived a thousand years before. Ptolemy (200 A.D.), in company
with the majority of learned men since Aristotle, had declared
the earth to be round and had even estimated its circumference
with substantial accuracy, though he had misled later students
by picturing the Indian Ocean as completely surrounded by Africa,
which he conceived to extend indefinitely southward and join Asia
on the southeast, leaving no sea-route open from the Atlantic. There
was another body of opinion of long standing, however, which outlined
Africa much as it actually is. Friar Roger Bacon, whose interest
in the compass has already been mentioned, collected statements of
classical authorities and other evidence to show that Asia could
be reached by sailing directly westward, and that the distance was
not great; and this material was published in Paris in a popular
_Imago Mundi_ of 1410. In general, the best geographical knowledge
of the period, though it underestimated the distance from Europe
westward to Asia and was completely ignorant of the vast continents
lying between, gave support to the theories which the voyages of
Diaz, Vasco da Gama, and Columbus magnificently proved true.
When the best sailors of the time were Italians, and when astronomical
and other scientific knowledge of use in navigation was largely
monopolized by Arabs and Jews, it seems strange that the isolated
and hitherto insignificant country of Portugal should have taken,
and for a century or more maintained primacy in the great epoch
of geographical discovery. The fact is explained, not so much by
her proximity to the African coast and the outlying islands in the
Atlantic, as by the energetic and well-directed patronage which
Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) extended to voyages of
exploration and to the development of every branch of nautical
art. The third son of John the Great of Portugal, and a nephew on
his mother's side of Henry IV of England, the prince in 1415 led
an armada to the capture of Ceuta from the Moors, and thereafter,
as governor of the conquered territory and of the southern province
of Portugal, settled at Saigres near Cape St. Vincent. On this
promontory, almost at the western verge of the known world, Henry
founded a city, Villa do Iffante, erected an observatory on the
cliff, and gathered round him the best sailors, geographers and
astronomers of his age.
[Illustration: PORTUGUESE VOYAGES AND POSSESSIONS]
Under this intelligent stimulus, Portuguese navigators within a
century rounded the Cape of Good Hope, opened the sea route to
the Indies, discovered Brazil, circumnavigated the globe, and made
Portugal the richest nation in Europe, with a great colonial empire
and claims to dominion over half the seas of the world. Portuguese
ships carried her flag from Labrador (which reveals its discoverers
in its name) and Nova Zembla to the Malay Archipelago and Japan.
It is characteristic of the crusading spirit of the age that Prince
Henry's first ventures down the African coast were in pursuance of
a vague plan to ascend one of the African rivers and unite with
the legendary Christian monarch Prester John (Presbyter or Bishop
John, whose realm was then supposed to be located in Abyssinia) in
a campaign against the Turk. But crusading zeal changed to dreams
of wealth when his ships returned from the Senegal coast between
1440 and 1445 with elephants' tusks, gold, and negro slaves. The
Gold Coast was already reached; the fabled dangers of equatorial
waters--serpent rocks, whirlpools, liquid sun's rays and boiling
rivers--were soon proved unreal; and before 1480 the coast well
beyond the Congo was known.
The continental limits of Africa to southward, long clearly surmised,
were verified by the voyage of Bartolomeo Diaz, in 1487. Diaz rounded
the cape, sailed northward some 200 miles, and then, troubled by
food shortage and heavy weather, turned backward. But he had blazed
the trail. The cape he called _Tormentoso_ (tempestuous) was renamed
by his sovereign, João II, Cape _Bon Esperanto_--the Cape of Goad
Hope. The Florentine professor Politian wrote to congratulate the
king upon opening to Christianity "new lands, new seas, new worlds,
dragged from secular darkness into the light of day."
It was not until ten years later that Vasco da Gama set out to
complete the work of Diaz and establish contact between east and
west. The contour of the African coast was now so well understood
and the art of navigation so advanced that Vasco could steer a
direct course across the open sea from the Cape Verde Islands to
the southern extremity of Africa, a distance of 3770 miles (more
than a thousand miles greater than that of Columbus' voyage from
the Canaries to the Bahamas), which he covered in one hundred days.
After touching at Mozambique, he caught the steady monsoon winds
for Calicut, on the western coast of the peninsula of India, then a
great _entrepôt_ where Mohammedan and Chinese fleets met each year
to exchange wares. Thwarted here by the intrigues of Mohammedan
traders, who were quick to realize the danger threatening their
commercial monopoly, he moved on to Cannanore, a port further north
along the coast, took cargo, and set sail for home, reaching the
Azores in August of 1499, with 55 of his original complement of
148 men. They came back, in the picturesque words of the Admiral,
"With the pumps in their hands and the Virgin Mary in their mouths,"
completing a total voyage of 13,000 miles. The profits are said
to have been sixty-fold.
The ease with which in the next two decades Portugal extended and
consolidated her conquest of eastern trade is readily accounted
for. She was dependent indeed solely upon sea communications, over
a distance so great as to make the task seem almost impossible.
But the craft of the east were frail in construction and built for
commerce rather than for warfare. The Chinese junks that came to
India are described as immense in size, with large cabins for the
officers and their families, vegetable gardens growing on board,
and crews of as many as a thousand men; but they had sails of matted
reed that could not be lowered, and their timbers were loosely
fastened together with pegs and withes. The Arab ships, according
to Marco Polo, were also built without the use of nails. Like the
Portuguese themselves, the Arab or Mohammedan merchants belonged
to a race of alien invaders, little liked by the native princes
who retained petty sovereignties along the coast. But the real
secret of Portuguese success lay in the fact that their rivals were
traders rather than fighters, who had enjoyed a peaceful monopoly for
centuries, and who could expect little aid from their own countries
harassed by the Turk. The Portuguese on the other hand inherited
the traditions of Mediterranean seamanship and warfare, and, above
all, were engaged in a great national enterprise, led by the best
men in the land, with enthusiastic government support.
After Vasco's return, fleets were sent out each year, to open the
Indian ports by either force or diplomacy, destroy Moslem merchant
vessels, and establish factories and garrisons. In 1505 Francisco de
Almeida set sail with the largest fleet as yet fitted out (sixteen
ships and sixteen caravels), an appointment as Viceroy of Cochin,
Cannanore, and Quilon, and supreme authority from the Cape to the
Malay Peninsula. Almeida in the next four years defeated the Mohammedan
traders, who with the aid of Egypt had by this time organized to
protect themselves, in a series of naval engagements, culminating
on February 3, 1509, in the decisive battle of Diu.
Mir Hussain, Admiral of the Gran Soldan of Egypt and commander in
chief of the Mohammedan fleet in this battle, anchored his main
force of more than a hundred ships in the mouth of the channel
between the island of Diu and the mainland, designing to fall back
before the Portuguese attack towards the island, where he could
secure the aid of shore batteries and a swarm of 300 or more foists
and other small craft in the harbor. Almeida had only 19 ships
and 1300 men, but against his vigorous attack the flimsy vessels
of the east were of little value. The battle was fought at close
quarters in the old Mediterranean style, with saber, cutlass, and
culverin; ramming, grappling, and boarding. Before nightfall Almeida
had won. This victory ensured Portugal's commercial control in
the eastern seas.
Alfonso d'Albuquerque, greatest of the Portuguese conquistadores,
succeeded Almeida in 1509. Establishing headquarters in a central
position at Goa,
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/24797