It was more important than what is said, and I start everything from a photo:
Why do you put this photo on me, you will ask me?
Well, in that photo, or rather painting painted by Augusto Ferrer Dalmau; looks like a soldier
Well, that soldier is Cervantes and that place is the deck of a ship in the middle of the Battle of Lepanto.
I start the answer:
Let’s see, first of all, speaking of underestimated battles, first you have to talk about the Battle of Diu, I always say. In that Battle of Diu, the Portuguese defeated the Ottomans and drove them out of the Indian Ocean, which also marked an incredible advantage for Portuguese trade.
That is to say, that Ottoman fleet in Lepanto, was a recovery of what the Ottomans had lost in Diu; which would now focus on the Mediterranean and trying to take Vienna or control the Danube in present-day Budapest. (and to subdue Wallachia, which is a part of Romania waxed by mountains except for the west; that of the famous Vlad Tepes or Vlad Dracul, the impaler)
We see that all of North Africa were nests of pirates who supported the Turks, and made incursions towards the Spanish towns, for example. That of pirate, the English do not have the merit of having made us coin that word, but that merit goes to those Moorish pirates who caused problems. There were very bloody enclaves, for example, Algiers, Oran, Yerba, Tripoli, Sale, Tanger, Vélez Gomera, Mazalquivir… these ports of battles will sound familiar to you, because you had to disembark there every fifteen years to clean up the pirates; but after a few years, those pirates returned paid and protected by the Turk.
Of those Moorish pirates supported by the Turk, we have a legacy in Spain today. For example, you will see on our coast many towns with two names, for example in the case of the Catalan coast. They were towns from Mar, but with the arrival of attacks by Moorish pirates, they had to move further inland, a few kilometers away. Of that type of Town A de Mar and town A de Arriba or Dalt, we have them kicking. In the Ebro Delta itself, they explain very well how they defended themselves against Berber piracy. And in fact, expressions such as; “There are no moors on the coast.”
That Berber piracy marked us a lot, so much so that for that reason the Island of Malta, and all its fortresses, were sheltered under Spanish protection. The famous Order of Malta, originally fought against Moorish piracy and against Turkish incursions in the Mediterranean, together with Sicily, which was also Spanish. In fact, before Lepanto, the Turks already attacked two Christian points in the Mediterranean, with armies of 40,000 to 50,000 men; they attacked Malta and Castilnuovo.
By all accounts, if I mention the Castle of San Telmo, you will understand the importance of this place in Malta. It was directly attacked by the entire Ottoman fleet, and the Knights of Malta resisted there in San Telmo, until the last consequences. The ultimate consequences were that Spanish aid arrived in the form of 6,000 infantry, and the Ottomans fled, leaving behind thousands of their comrades dead in Malta.
(There is a very good episode here, because at that time a French gentleman named Pierre de Brantome was in Malta. That Pierre was French by birth, a friend of the Bourbons, who I would say at that time were marquises or dukes; basically a Bourbon was the unable to keep the imperial army disciplined and could not prevent them from attacking the Vatican and almost killing the pope. Well, that Pierre was always at the Spanish court and today we would even define him as “Hispanophile”, and he was in Malta during the Turkish siege Once the siege was broken, the Spanish troops entering Valletta, the latter asked a Spanish soldier how many troops the King had sent to Malta, and the latter replied:
“Well, you’ll see and I’ll tell you. We are three thousand Spaniards, and we also have fifteen hundred Italians and another fifteen hundred Tudescos; in such a way that in total we are three thousand soldiers.”
Of course, only the Spanish were soldiers .) 😂
Well, that in Malta the Turks were very scalded. And then in Castilnuovo, which was an enclave in what would be southern Croatia and Montenegro today, on the rugged coast full of islets, just like Lepanto below.
The Ottomans had lost in Malta, and attempted another more affordable coup, at a closer fortress, where the King had quartered a third of three thousand Spaniards; the Tercio de Sarmiento, who were also there for insubordination, that tercio was there as a punishment to defend that plaza. Well, the Ottomans had won there by sea in Préveza, ergo they dominated the sea there, and their admiral was the famous Barbarossa.
It is to this Machín de Munguía that Barbarossa offered to join the sultan’s squad as his right hand; normal, Barbarossa had freaked out a week ago what he did in Préveza and then in Castilnuovo. Spoiler, Machín refused and Barbarossa killed him right there.)
In fact, that second attack was about 50,000 Turks, among them it must be said that there was the entire elite of the sultan’s janissaries. The defenders of Castilnuovo were the Tercio de Sarmiento and a galley from the Tercio de Munguía, let’s say about 4,000 to 5,000 men; ten times fewer defenders than attackers, 5,000 vs 50,000 to balance the numbers. Well, those 5,000 Spaniards attacked from the first moment the Turks disembarked, also making night marches every night, fighting for every slightest breach in the wall, they fought to the last man; I would say that less than 100 Spaniards were captured; 100 of 5,000, ergo the other 4,900 died defending that. Well, those 5,000 Spaniards vented themselves to 30,000 Turks, including all of the Sultan’s Janissary elite.
Thirty thousand casualties to take a square, there is no army and campaign that can be sustained, if already in the first square you take, they eliminate 2/3 of the army, including all your elite troops.
After these three events, we have to frame Lepanto; after Diu, after Malta, after Castilnuovo.
After the Ottomans lost such a huge number of soldiers and ships, it is when the King of Spain said; “because the time has come for the Mediterranean to be Spanish and Christian”.
The King of Spain, we are going to point out what this meant… that King of Spain, I am going to talk about Carlos and Felipe-Fernando at the same time, to summarize. Think that in summary they governed as a family what was Castile, Navarre and Aragon, as well as Flanders, the Netherlands and the Holy Empire with its capital in Vienna. He was also sovereign of Genoa, Milan, Naples, Malta, Sicily and a part of Croatia-Montenegro and North Africa.
Okay, to that you add Venice and the Papal States, which was, in short, what the Holy League was. That is, Spain and Italy against the Ottomans, the west of the Mediterranean against the east, that was Lepanto. The Mediterranean was too small for two powers like Spain and Türkiye. It was a clash between empires.
Ok, look where Lepanto is:
Lepanto is near Patrás, and as you can see, it is the point once Malta, Tripoli, Benghazi and Castilnuovo were controlled.
It was the favorable setting for a battle that was not much different from one that had happened almost two thousand years before. Both battles side by side, both in geography and in historical significance, as well as between the cultures that carried them out. And this is already my freak:
In red is where the Battle of Lepanto was fought, and in purple is where the Battle of Salamis was fought.
Both battles were momentous for the future of the Mediterranean and Europe. On the one hand we have the Greek culture and its heir two thousand years later with the Spanish; and on the other hand we have the Persian culture and its heir two thousand years later. (I remind you that Turks and Persians were Aryan peoples, they come from the same common cultural stock, they are cousins-brothers. I speak some Turkish and Middle and modern Persian, and the common cultural origin is undeniable)
Well, you all know how Lepanto and Salamina ended up. 😂
What you may not know is that an almost millimeter reconstruction of its flagship is preserved today from Lepanto. Where all the Spanish heavyweights like Álvaro de Bazán y Guzmán, Juan de Austria, Alejandro Farnesio went… it was and is a great galley called La Real. In fact, she was the only ship with eight frontal cannons, something unthinkable since the Venetian model of a large galley had four and it was already an outrage. Normally a galley or galleass, she carried between one to three forward guns at all times. (The thing about fighting with cannons on the sides, is from the time of sailing and large ships. In Lepanto they fought by cannoning from the front, and boarding in a more similar way to what the Greeks did in Salamis)
Attached photograph of what was the Spanish flagship and of the Holy League, during the day in Lepanto.
It is a beauty, do you look at the figure at the top, who is it?
Poseidon or Neptune, mounted on his hippocampus, pointing the trident directly at the enemy. Remember what I told you, that was a Greek spur, that was going to hit the side of an enemy ship directly, imagine… and the ship is huge, I can tell you the largest rowing ship that has ever crossed the Mediterranean.
You see behind the whole Medusa’s head, and all the Renaissance paintings, how it was decorated.
Now look, that’s how it was in his time with full sails:
It seems small in model, I repeat, but it is huge.
Do you see that flag that hangs, that banner? Well, it is the original banner that hung from La Real during the day in Lepanto, it was the banner of the Holy League, and it is kept here.
You get an idea, based on the size of the banner, what the ship in question must have been like, right?
I attach other banners that participated in the Battle of Lepanto, and that we currently keep in Spain:
All those flags are close to five hundred years old.
And come on, if you have endured, I am going to put you works of art, they are paintings that we have in Spain, that were made over the centuries, commemorating that battle, that you will like; or at least, I suppose that he who considers himself Hispanic will like it.
How little do Europeans and the world in general know about Spain… the real historical jewels escape them. If here painters and paintings of world prestige, we have plenty in this country of as many as our homeland has given birth to throughout the centuries…
And I add that France was the only state in all of Christendom that allied itself with the Turk. It was the only Christian state that allied with the Muslims in Lepanto, because in that battle there were ships with French banners, on the Turkish side. That France that was expelled from Italy by Spain, that France whose king we Spaniards captured in battle and that after being released did not fulfill any of its promises, that France that still continued to give up declaring war on us and losing it… that France was the one that allied with the Turk in Lepanto. I repeat, the only Christian kingdom that allied itself with the Muslims, against all of Europe, was France.
That same France that we did not kill the king after he was captured, that we sent him to France on a donkey and that did not comply with anything agreed in exchange for his life. That France to which we annihilated his army in Saint Quentin, a day’s march from Paris. We could easily have sacked Paris and torn France to pieces, but our kings always wanted peace with France… What for? If at the minimum they declared war on you again or allied themselves with the infidel.
That duke or count of Bourbon in Rome, he’s French. He did not know or did not have the balls to do what any field master of the Spanish tercios would have done; give rope to four mutinous soldiers as an example. Thanks to not doing that, the Tudescan troops of the Protestant squenets sacked the Holy See, put almost the entire Swiss guard to the sword, and the same Pope of Rome had to run to San Angelo, to save his life. (That’s what happens, when you entrust a Frenchman with a task that requires “a couple of balls and a heavy hand”, they never measure up. And then you as King are reminded of that Sack of Rome that the French Bourbon could not avoid)
That having a French command has never gone well, Villeneuve is clear centuries later… and the coward was sending letters to Paris telling him that the Spanish did not want to go out and fight. When the same Spaniards were telling him that they were there to fight, that either Villeneuve would fight or they would get out. He presented combat, and fled with the entire French squad, leaving the Spanish squad with its ass sold.
That’s what it’s for to have a French admiral, commanding Spanish infantry… too much quality, for so few balls.
Another day, maybe I will talk about how, thanks to Spain, the whole of Europe was saved from being Muslim, also in Vienna, Budapest and along the Danube. And I will accompany it with images of certain commemorative plaques to the Spanish tercios, which today are erected in Vienna and Budapest.
But that is another matter…