Battle of Djerba

The Battle of Djerba took place from the 9th to the. May 14, instead of near the Tunisian island of Djerba between the fleets of the Ottoman Empire and a coalition led by Spain Christian Mediterranean powers in 1560. The Turkish fleet under Admiral Piale Pasha added the Christian alliance to a crushing defeat.

Prehistory

Piale Pasha had the Balearic Islands in 1558 ravaged and devastated the Mediterranean coast of Spain. King Philip II of Spain appealed to the pope and the Christian states of Europe to form a Holy League and put an end to the growing Turkish threat in the Mediterranean countries. This threat was in 1538 and the devastating outcome of the punitive expedition of Emperor Charles V against Khair ad-Din Barbarossa and Algiers in 1541 has steadily grown after the Ottoman victory at the Battle of Preveza.

The Battle

1560 succeeded Philip II finally bring together a military alliance, the next Spain or the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Pope ( Papal States ), the Duchy of Savoy and the Knights of Malta belonged. The alliance gathered a fleet of about 200 ships with 30,000 troops at Messina, under the command of Giovanni Andrea Doria, a great-nephew of Andrea Doria.

On March 12, 1560, the Christian League conquered located off the southeast coast of Tunisia Djerba Island, which had long been a key stronghold of the Ottoman corsairs under Khair ad-Din Barbarossa and Turgut Reis ( Dragut ). Then sent Sultan Suleiman I, a fleet of 120 ships under Piale Pasha, which arrived on May 9, 1560 in front of Djerba. The fighting lasted until May 14 Piale Pasha and of him on May 11, coming to the aid of Turgutreis won an overwhelming victory. The Christian Alliance lost more than 60 galleys and 20,000 men. Giovanni Andrea Doria escaped on a small ship. The Ottomans lost hardly a ship and only about 1,000 men, and brought Djerba back in their possession. Piale Passover was celebrated on his return to Istanbul as a hero and was a daughter of Suleiman's son Selim II to the wife.

Follow

With the victory at Djerba reached the Ottoman naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, which had begun with the victory at Preveza, their zenith. Five years later, in 1565, the Ottoman Empire itself, the island fortress of Malta of St. John was ready to attack, but ultimately unsuccessful (see Siege of Malta). It was not until the defeat of the Turkish fleet in 1571 in the Battle of Lepanto against a united Spanish- Venetian- papal fleet ended the myth of Turkish invincibility at sea.