VII.
DORIA AND BARBAROSSA.
1533.
Kheyr-ed-dīn was in no hurry to visit the Sublime Porte. He had to provide for the safety and government of Algiers during his absence, when exposed to the dangers both of foreign attack and internal intrigue. He had to reckon with the galleys of the Knights of St. John, who, after wandering homeless for a longer time than was at all creditable to that Christendom which they had so heroically defended at Rhodes, had finally settled in no less convenient a spot than Malta, whence they had every opportunity of harassing the operations of the Corsairs (1530). Moreover Andrea Doria was cruising about, and he was not the sort of opponent Barbarossa cared to meet by hazard. The great Genoese admiral considered it a personal duel with Kheyr-ed-dīn. Each held the supreme position on his own side of the water. Both were old men and had grown old in arms. Born in 1468, of a noble Genoese family, Doria was sixty-five years of age, of which nearly fifty had been spent in warfare. He had been in the Pope’s guard, and had seen service under the Duke of Urbino and Alfonso of Naples, and when he was over forty he had taken to the sea and found himself suddenly High Admiral of Genoa (1513). His appointment to the command of his country’s galleys was due to his zealous services on shore, and not to any special experience of naval affairs; indeed the commander of the galleys was as much a military as a naval officer. Doria, however, late as he adopted his profession, possessed undoubted gifts as a seaman, and his leadership decided which of the rival Christian Powers should rule the Mediterranean waves. He devoted his sword to France in 1522, when a revolution overthrew his party in his own republic; and so long as he was on the French side the command of the sea, so far as it did not belong to the Barbary Corsairs, belonged to France. When in 1528 he judged himself and his country ill-used by Francis I., he carried over his own twelve galleys to the side of Charles V.; and then the Imperial navies once more triumphed. Doria was the arbiter of fortune between the contending states. Doria was the liberator of Genoa, and, refusing to be her king, remained her idol and her despot. No name struck such terror into the hearts of the Turks; many a ship had fallen a prey to his devouring galleys, and many a Moslem slave pulled at his oars or languished in Genoese prisons. Officially an admiral, he was at the same time personally a Corsair, and used his private galleys to increase his wealth.
Kheyr-ed-dīn’s fame among Christians and Turks alike was at least as great and glorious as his rival’s. He had driven the Spaniards out of Algiers and had inflicted incalculable injuries upon the ships and shores of the Empire. Though the two had roved the same sea for twenty years, they had never met in naval combat: perhaps each had respected the other too much to risk an encounter. Long ago, when Kheyr-ed-dīn was unknown to fame, Doria had driven him from the Goletta (1513); and in 1531 the Genoese admiral made a descent upon Shershēl, which Kheyr-ed-dīn had been strengthening, to the great detriment and anxiety of the opposite coast of Spain. The Imperialists landed in force, surprised the fort, and liberated seven hundred Christian slaves. Then, contrary to orders and heedless of the signal gun which summoned them on board, the soldiery dispersed about the town in search of pillage, and, being taken at a disadvantage by the Turks and Moriscos of the place, were driven in confusion down to the beach, only to perceive Doria’s galleys rapidly pulling away. Nine hundred were slaughtered on the seashore and six hundred made prisoners. Some say that the admiral intended to punish his men for their disobedience; others that he sighted Kheyr-ed-dīn’s fleet coming to the rescue. At all events he drew off, and the two great rivals did not meet. The Genoese picked up some Barbary vessels on his way home to console him for his failure.
In the following year he retrieved his fame by a brilliant expedition to the coasts of Greece. With thirty-five sail and forty-eight galleys he attacked Coron, by way of making a diversion while Sultan Suleymān was invading Hungary,[23] and after a heavy [!-- illustration (Andrea Doria) --] [!-- blank page --] bombardment succeeded in landing his men on the curtain of the fort. The Turkish garrison was spared and marched out, and Mendoza was left in command, while Doria bore up to Patras and took it, occupied the castles which guard the Gulf of Corinth, and returned in triumph to Genoa before the Turkish fleet could come up with him. This was in September, 1532. In the following spring a yet more daring feat was accomplished. Coron was running short of supplies, and a Turkish fleet blockaded the port. Nevertheless Cristofero Pallavicini carried his ship in, under cover of the castle guns, and encouraged the garrison to hold out; and Doria, following in splendid style, fought his way in, notwithstanding that half his fleet, being sailing galleons, became becalmed in the midst of the Turkish galleys, and had to be rescued in the teeth of the enemy. Lutfi Pasha was outmanoeuvred and defeated. This revictualling of Coron, says Admiral Jurien de la Gravière, was one of the skilfullest naval operations of the sixteenth century.[24]
It was clear that, while Doria had effected almost nothing against the Barbary Corsairs, he always mastered the Turks. The Sultan was eager to discover Kheyr-ed-dīn’s secret of success, and counted the days till he should arrive in the Golden Horn. The Corsair, for his part, had heard enough of Doria’s recent exploits to use more than his habitual caution, and he was not disposed to cheapen his value in the Sultan’s eyes by a too precipitate compliance with his Majesty’s command. At last, in August, 1533, having appointed Hasan Aga, a Sardinian eunuch, in whom he greatly confided, to be viceroy during his absence, Kheyr-ed-dīn set sail from Algiers with a few galleys; and after doing a little business on his own account—looting Elba and picking up some Genoese corn-ships—pursued his way, passing Malta at a respectful distance, and coasting the Morea, till he dropped anchor in the Bay of Salonica.[25] By his route, which touched Santa Maura and Navarino, he appears to have been looking for Doria, in spite of the smallness of his own force (which had, however, been increased by prizes); but, fortunately, perhaps, for the Corsair, the Genoese admiral had returned to Sicily, and the two had missed each other on the way.