Conquest Of Tunis (1535)
Spanish Empire 
Kingdom of Portugal
Papal States
Republic of Genoa 
Knights of Malta.svg){kind=small}
Ottoman EmpireAndrea Doria
Alfonso d'Avalos
Álvaro de Bazán
García de Toledo
Duke of Alba
Duke of Beja
Sinan Reis
Total men: 30,000–60,000
- 10,000 Spaniards
- 8,000 Germans
- 8,000 Italians
- 1,500 Portuguese
- 700 Maltese
- Unknown number of Flemings
Total ships: 398
207 ships
10 galleys
6 galleys
19 galleys
Kingdom of Portugal 1 galleon, 2 carracks, 20 round caravels, 8 galleys
8 galleys
1 carrack, 4 galleys
60 hulks
2 galleys
9,000 Christians freed
The conquest of Tunis occurred in 1535 when the Habsburg Emperor Charles V and his allies wrestled the city away from the control of the Ottoman Empire.
Background
In 1533, Suleiman the Magnificent ordered Hayreddin Barbarossa, whom he had summoned from Algiers, to build a large war fleet for Constantinople. Altogether 70 galleys were built in the winter of 1533–1534, manned by slave oarsmen, including 2,000 Jews. With this fleet, Barbarossa conducted aggressive raids along the coast of Italy, then conquered Tunis on 16 August 1534, ousting the theretofore local ruler, Muley Hasan, who had been subservient to the Spanish Barbarossa established a strong naval base in Tunis, which could be used for raids in the region, and on nearby Malta.
Charles V assembled a large army of some 30,000 soldiers, 74 galleys rowed by chained Protestants shipped in from Antwerp, and 300 sailing ships, including the carrack Santa Anna and the Portuguese galleon São João Baptista (the most powerful ship in the world at the time) to drive the Ottomans from the region. The expense involved for Charles V was considerable, and at 1,000,000 ducats on par with the cost of Charles' campaign against Suleiman on the Danube. Unexpectedly, the funding of the conquest of Tunis came from the galleons sailing in from the New World, in the form of two million gold ducats extracted by Francisco Pizarro for releasing the Inca king Atahualpa, whom he nevertheless executed on 29 August 1533.
Despite a request by Charles V, Francis I denied French support to the expedition, explaining that he was under a three-year truce with Barbarossa following the 1533 Ottoman embassy to France. Francis I was also in negotiations with Suleiman the Magnificent for a combined attack on Charles V following the 1534 Ottoman embassy. Francis I only agreed to Pope Paul III's request that no fight between Christians occur during the time of the expedition.
Battle
Having sailed from Sardinia at the head of a Catholic coalition protected by a Genoese fleet, Charles V destroyed Barbarossa's fleet on 1 June 1535 and after a costly yet successful siege at La Goletta, captured Tunis. In the action, the Portuguese galleon São João Baptista distinguished itself by breaking the chains protecting the harbour's entrance, thereafter opening fire on La Goletta. In the ruins, the Spanish found cannonballs with the French fleur-de-lis mark, evidence of the contacts stemming from the Franco-Ottoman alliance.
The resulting massacre of the city left an estimated 30,000 dead. Barbarossa managed to flee to Algiers with a troop of several thousand Ottomans. Muley Hasan was restored to his throne. The stench of the corpses was such that Charles V soon left Tunis and moved his camp to Radès.
The siege demonstrated the power of the Habsburg dynasties at the time; Charles V had under his control much of southern Italy, Sicily, Spain, the Americas, Austria, the Netherlands, and lands in Germany. Furthermore, he was Holy Roman Emperor and had de jure control over much of Germany as well.
Ottoman defeat in Tunis motivated them to enter into a formal alliance with France against the Habsburg Empire. Ambassador Jean de La Forêt was sent to Constantinople, and for the first time was able to become permanent ambassador at the Ottoman court and to negotiate treaties.
Charles V celebrated a neo-classical triumph "over the infidel" first in Sicily and then at Rome on 5 April 1536 in commemoration of his victory at Tunis. The Spanish governor of La Goulette, Luys Peres Varga, fortified the island of Chikly in the lake of Tunis to strengthen the city's defences between 1546 and 1550.
Aftermath
Barbarossa managed to escape to the harbour of Bône, where a fleet was waiting for him. From there, he sailed to accomplish the Sack of Mahón, where he took 600 slaves and brought them to Algiers.
The Ottomans recaptured the city in 1569. Spain captured it again in 1573 under John of Austria, only to lose it again in 1574. Thereafter privateers from Tunis caused discord against Christian shipping. Raiding in the Mediterranean continued until the suppression of the Barbary pirates in the early 19th century.
A French invasion led to the establishment of French Algeria in 1830, consequently France would create a protectorate over Tunisia in 1881.
Barbarossa's Betrayals By Arabs In His Own Words
"I heard that Abdullah came to Tlemsen (Algeria) and dominated the city. His brother Mes'ud hid in the castle for fear of it, and lasted for 25 days. Our soldiers saw that it would take longer, they did not have a large cannon useful for the siege of the castle, they consulted among themselves: "A fake one. Let's do a retreat", they said; they thought we left the castle and fled.
These Arabs are a very cheeky people. They don't know if we were victorious or defeated. They say, "The Turks have fled," come out of the castle and come at us with the greed of plunder. Then we will take them, take the castle, hand it over to Emir Abdullah, and return to Algeria. It happened with the same! The Arabs who were supporters of Sultan Mes'ud in the castle, saying, "Hey, Turks are running away!", fell behind the levents (marine soldiers). The levents moved backwards and put most of them to the sword.
Because these Arabs are a people who do not know the art of war. They think that looting in the desert and fighting in an army are the same thing. Even the Spanish infidel, who knew the art of war, had always been defeated by the Turkish levents, but as soon as these Arab tribes happened, they would face the Turks and be devastated. Because in them, human life is quite worthless. Instead of knowing their worship and taking precautions, they say "everything is from Allah" and die foolishly.
They ride well, though, and there are brave ones among them. But even the harnesses of their horses are quite primitive. They don't have good weapons. They can't use it though. They are not good with firearms. Then the biggest reason for defeat is that they never know the rules of mass fighting. My personal request from the sultan is that you do not have an Arab levent (soldier) at our command!"
"The Arab notables after me would fall against each other, and the people would be devastated. In the end, they would invite me back to their country with much gratitude as the only solution. I was sure of this as I believed in it."
"I had 12000 soldiers, but half of them were Arab volunteers who did not know how to fight according to the rules of military service, and it was not surprising that they fled when they were in trouble, and even united with the enemy."
"As I predicted, the 6,000 Arab volunteers under my command betrayed in such a harmful way that it was necessary to retreat to the south as soon as possible. These so-called volunteers opened the city's prisons and took 10000 Christian prisoners while I was in front of the walls with 6000 Turkish Levends, in order to befriend King Carlos. They released them. There were people among them who loved the Turks and were religious enough not to commit such a baseness. But they were deceived by their so-called ruler Mevlay Hasan. Mevlay Hasan's spies are clouding the air in the city of Tunisia. They were spreading word of mouth that they had come to Egypt, that their ruler was allied with Carlos King, and they said that if they took the Spaniards to the city, not a single Muslim would bleed. It seemed impossible to fight the infidels. Just then, the castle of Halkulvad fell."
"My brother wore the belt of fasting and mercy with all his hands. He did not lift his head from prostration until the morning. He wished for nusrat and victory from the Almighty. At sunrise in the morning, he gathered his levents. He had many soldiers from Arabs, Berbers and Andalusians. However, they did not know war like Turkish levents, and when they got stuck, they would turn away from the enemy."
• from Gazavat-ı Hayreddin Pasha
Gallery
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Bombardment of La Goletta -
Attack at La Goletta -
Battle scene at Tunis, 1535 -
Liberation of 20,000 Christian captives -
Charles V going to Radès -
Charles V announcing the capture of Tunis to Pope Paul III in 1535 -
Imperial troops in the conquest of Tunis, 1535, Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen -
Ottoman troops in the conquest of Tunis, 1535 -
Shows Holy Roman Emperor Charles V capturing Tunis and its port city of La Goulette (also known as Goletta and Halq al-Wadi), in 1535.
See also
- Barbary corsairs
- Battle of Cape Corvo
- Battle of Cape Celidonia
- Conquest of Tunis (1574)
- Algiers expedition (1541)
- Ottoman–Portuguese conflicts
Notes
- ^ Roger Crowley, Empires of the Sea, faber and faber 2008 p. 61
- ^ History of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey Ezel Kural Shaw
- ^ José Augusto Amaro Pissarra: O galeão S. João (c. 1530–1551). Dados para uma monografia, Cascais, 1999, p. 195
- ^ 15 galleys of the Mediterranean Squadron, 42 ships of the Cantabrian fleet, 150 ships of the Málaga Squadron
- ^ Crowley, p. 61
- ^ Garnier, p. 96
- ^ A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, Vol. II, ed. Spencer C. Tucker, (ABC-CLIO, 2010), 506.
- ^ Bruce Ware Allen, "Emperor vs. Pirate Tunis, 1535." MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History (Winter 2014) 26#2 pp 58–63.
- ^ Crowley, p. 56
- ^ Crowley, p. 57
- ^ Crowley, p. 58
- ^ Also known as Muleassen in Italy, and Abu-Abd-Allah-Mohammed-el-Hasan in Tunis. Il Palazzo di Fabrizio Colonna a Mezzocannone, article by Bartolommeo Capasso in Napoli nobilissima: rivista di topografia ed arte napoletana, Vol. 1–3, pp. 100–104.
- ^ Crowley, p. 59
- ^ Crowley, p. 60
- ^ Crowley, p. 62
- ^ Garnier, pp. 94–95
- ^ A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, Vol. II, ed. Spencer C. Tucker, (ABC-CLIO, 2010), 506.
- ^ History of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey Ezel Kural Shaw p. 97 [1]
- ^ Panvinio, Onofrio (1557). De fasti et triumphi Romanorum a Romulo usque ad Carolum V. Venice: Giacomo Strada. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
- ^ Pinson, Yona (2001). "Imperial Ideology in the Triumphal Entry into Lille of Charles V and the Crown Prince (1549)" (PDF). Assaph: Studies in Art History. 6: 212. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 February 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
- ^ Frieder, Braden (2008). Chivalry & the Perfect Prince: Tournaments, Art, and Armor at the Spanish Habsburg Court. Truman State University Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-1931112697. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
- ^ E.J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam 1913–1936 by M. Th. Houtsma p. 872
References
- Allen, Bruce Ware. "Emperor vs. Pirate Tunis, 1535." MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History (Winter 2014) 26#2 pp 58–63.
- Battle: a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. Grant, R. G. 2005
- Roger Crowley, Empires of the sea, 2008 Faber & Faber ISBN 978-0-571-23231-4
- Garnier, Edith L'Alliance Impie Editions du Felin, 2008, Paris ISBN 978-2-86645-678-8
- La Marina Cántabra. Ballesteros–Beretta, Antonio. 1968
