Algiers developed from a small town to a city of 100,000 souls. Many of the captives gave up Christianity and won their freedom. With such elements it is not surprising that the hold of the Turks on the inhabitants became weakened, until finally, not long after Greece won its freedom, Algiers was conquered by the French in the reign of Louis Philippe.
After the death of Souliman the Ottoman Sultanate underwent an eclipse. The succession of strong rulers was broken, and the empire was largely under the direction of the women of the harem and slaves. Of the eight successors of Souliman, one only can be called a military leader; many were mere children when they were called to the throne. Even Murad IV (1623-40), the most active of all, took the title of Sultan when he was twelve years old, and his career ended when he was twenty-eight. But even under such unfavorable conditions the progress of Turkish conquests was not arrested.
Of the western powers, the chief rival of the Ottoman Empire, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was Venice. At the cost of a yearly tribute of 236,000 ducats, she enjoyed great commercial privileges, was mistress of possessions in the Levant and on the Dalmatian coast, and blocked the way to complete Ottoman domination. Though Rhodes had been taken from the Knights, as we have seen, the large islands of Cyprus and Crete were still in the hands of the republic of the Adriatic, and her possessions in the Ægean Sea were a constant source of annoyance to the Turkish lords of the Morea. Piracy flourished in these ports, which became centers of retaliation for the excesses of the Barbary corsairs.
Aggressive measures were taken by Selim, Souliman’s successor, who, after long years of peace between the two powers, summoned Venice, in 1570, to surrender the Island of Cyprus. One hundred and seventy-one Ottoman galleys supported the demand. Venice had tried to get the Christian powers to coöperate against the Turks, even calling on the Persians and the Arab tribes of Yemen to aid her in the defense of the island. But the arms of the Turkish generals soon prevailed. The chief fortress of the island, Famagusta, capitulated in 1571; and with its fall the Turks began the occupation of the island, which only ended after the war between Turkey and Russia in 1878.
During the progress of the siege an anti-Turkish league had been completed, composed of Venice and the Papacy, Spain, the Knights of Malta, and many Italian states. The result was the despatch of a large fleet under the command of Don John of Austria, at this time a youth of only twenty-two years. The objective of the armada was Patras, because, in the Gulf of Lepanto, close at hand, all of the squadrons of the Turkish navy were assembled. In all, the allies had 208 ships of war, the Ottomans slightly more, but the weakness of the Turks was due to the lack of soldiers to defend their fleet. There were but 2500 Janitschars on their galleys, the rest were troops raised from continental Greece, 22,000 in all, who were either new recruits or were not trained for naval warfare. Among the Turkish captains were present many older men who desired to avoid conflict with the Christian armada. Of a different temper were Hassan Pasha, the son of the famous Kheir-ed-Din, and Ali-Muezzin-Zade, the new captain pasha of the whole fleet.
The Christian fleet was in an admirable state of preparation for the fight. It was composed entirely of armed vessels directed by skilful rowers; besides the 203 galleys there were six galiasses, great floating citadels carrying heavy artillery and 500 soldiers. Don John had also armed the Venetian vessels with contingents of Spanish infantry. On the side of the Christians there was the additional advantage of superior equipment in armor and weapons for the individual warrior. The soldiers wore helmets and breastplates, and were armed with arquebuses, while the Turks used lances and arrows. There were also superior numbers on the side of the allies, the fighting men numbering between 28,000 and 29,000.
The two fleets took up the same position and adopted the same tactics. In the center on each side were collected the largest ships under the command of the respective chief admirals. Some initial successes were won by the Ottomans over the division made up of the Venetian vessels, but in the center, after desperate fighting, the men under Don John, owing to their superior weapons, got the better of their enemies, and the captain pasha was killed. The Algerian vessels showed much tactical superiority to the Christian right wing, under the command of John Andrew Doria; but, although they inflicted much damage, they could not save the day for the Ottomans. The victory cost the Christians dear, for they lost 12 galleys and 7500 men. But the defeat of the Turks was overwhelming; 15 galleys were sunk, 177 were captured, and many pashas and governors of provinces lost their lives; 12,000 to 15,000 of the galley slaves on the Turkish vessels, Christian captives, were set free.
Such was the remarkable victory of October 7, 1571, remarkable not only for the heroism displayed, and the sensation caused by the success of the Christians, who had for so long been incapable of resisting Ottoman aggression, but also because of the small practical results produced. The Christian armada returned to Corfu, and from there made for the coast of Italy, where it disbanded. On the side of the vanquished, Euldj-Ali, gathering together eighty-seven ships as a nucleus for a new Ottoman fleet, sailed into the harbor of Constantinople, and was welcomed as a conqueror by the Sultan and the grand vizier, Sokoli. New honors were heaped upon him, not altogether undeserved, for during the winter a new fleet, larger and better armed than the one destroyed, was made ready for sea.
The recuperative energy of the Ottoman Empire was not lost on the Venetians, and their agent at Constantinople, Antonio Barbaro, saw that there was more than an empty boast in the words of the Vizier, who said to him, “There is a great difference between your loss and ours. By taking from you the Kingdom of Cyprus we have cut off your arm; by defeating our fleet you have only shaved our beard. A beard grows out thicker for being shaven.” This argument appealed to the republic, and in 1573 peace was made. The conditions were the cession of Cyprus, the payment of a heavy war indemnity by Venice, and a regulation of the frontier in Albania and Dalmatia, that secured to the Turks their ancient possessions there. The Venetians also were required to increase the annual tribute exacted for the Island of Zante, which was still in their hands.
Three generations after the taking of Cyprus the long-coveted island of Crete, or Candia, was annexed to the Ottoman Empire. Hostilities began between Venice and Sultan Ibrahim I, because of the seizure by the Knights of Malta of a Turkish vessel carrying high officials of the court to Egypt. The Maltese ships were received in the friendly harbors of Crete, where they took refuge. In April, 1645, a great fleet of 302 ships, and a large army of over 100,000 men, commanded by a Dalmatian, Pasha Joseph Markovitch, set sail for Crete. In June, one of the two chief fortresses of the island, Canea, was invested. After two months’ siege it surrendered. In 1648 began the first siege of Candia, but this stronghold proved as hard to capture as Rhodes. During the course of twenty-one years it was the objective of repeated attacks on the part of the Turks, and only fell into their hands in 1669.