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Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World
Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World
Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World
Audiobook11 hours

Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World

Written by Roger Crowley

Narrated by John Lee

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

Empires of the Sea tells the story of the fifty-year world war between Islam and Christianity for the Mediterranean: one of the fiercest and most influential contests in European history. It traces events from the appearance on the world stage of Suleiman the Magnificent-the legendary ruler of the Ottoman Empire-through "the years of devastation" when it seemed possible that Islam might master the whole sea to the final brief flourishing of a united Christendom in 1571.

The core of the story is the six years of bitter and bloody conflict between 1565 and 1571 that witnessed a fight to the finish. It was a tipping point in world civilization, a fast-paced struggle of spiraling intensity that led from the siege of Malta and the battle for Cyprus to the pope's last-gasp attempt to rekindle the spirit of the Crusades and the apocalypse at Lepanto. It features a rich cast of characters: Suleiman the Magnificent, greatest of Ottoman sultans; Hayrettin Barbarossa, the pirate who terrified Europe; the Knights of St. John, last survivors of the medieval crusading spirit; the aged visionary Pope Pius V; and the meteoric, brilliant Christian general, Don John of Austria. It is also a narrative about places: the shores of the Bosphorus, the palaces and shipyards of the Venetian lagoon, the barren rocks of Malta, the islands of Greece, the slave markets of Algiers-and the character of the sea itself with its complex pattern of winds and weather, which provided the conditions and the field of battle. It involves all the peoples who border the Great Sea: Italians, Turks, Greeks, Spaniards, the French and the people of North Africa.

This story is one of extraordinary color and incident, rich in detail, full of surprises, and backed by a wealth of eyewitness accounts. Its denouement, the battle of Lepanto, is a single action of quite shocking impact-considered at the time in Christian Europe to be "a day to end all days." It is also a narrative about technology and money. Lepanto was the Mediterranean's Trafalgar, one of the great battles of world history, and a turning point in naval warfare. It was the last and greatest moment in the age of the galleys before sailing ships with broadside guns swept all before them, and it was paid for, on the Christian side, with Inca gold.

The battle for the Mediterranean was instrumental in fixing the boundaries of Christendom and Islam and redirecting the course of empire. After Lepanto, the great powers turned away exhausted from the bitter and fruitless struggle for mastery of the Mediterranean. Henceforth, the contest for empire would be global: its new theaters would be the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, the spice islands and the Americas.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 15, 2008
ISBN9781400177226
Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book seems interesting enough, but for some reason I just couldn't get into this one; I gave up half-way through.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A hypothetical space alien, assigned by the United Federation of Planets to monitor the Earth, might have concluded that communism was on the march to triumph in the latter half of the 20th century. The Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and a host of smaller socialist and communist states had unifying ideologies, uplifting goals, and citizens full of passionate intensity, while the West was disunited, apathetic, and lacking in conviction. The memoirs of KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin were titled The World Was Going Our Way, and there was no particular reason for anyone to believe it wouldn’t. A similar observer in the early 16th century might have drawn the same conclusions about the Ottoman Empire. The Turks had captured Constantinople in 1453, and every few years added more territory in submission to Islam. The Sultan was the dynamic Suleiman the Magnificent and the Ottoman government was well organized and capable. It’s true it was no stroll in the park to be a Christian or Jew in the Ottoman Empire, but their lot was considerably better than that of Jews in Spain or Huguenots in France. Europe had achieved the Renaissance, but it could easily be interpreted as the last gasp of a dying and disunited civilization. With the Reformation and Henry VIII, Christianity divided; the single strongest European power, the Habsburg Empire, was ruled by a man deformed by inbreeding and reputed to be an idiot; and the other European states were ineptly ruled, paralyzed by external or internal politics, or all three. Roger Crowley’s Empires of the Sea shows that but for a little bit of bad luck at Malta and Lepanto Islam might have ended up ruling the Mediterranean littoral.
    The few remaining European holdings were being picked off one by one. Rhodes, adjacent islands, and the fortress of Bodrum, the last remaining European possession on the Anatolian mainland, fell in 1522. Turkish admiral Hayrettin Barbarossa first overthrew independent Arab states in the Maghreb (Tunis and Algiers) then systematically reduced Venetian possessions in the Aegean Sea. The European response was hopelessly disorganized, with the Habsburgs, Venice, the Papacy and Genoa fighting more among themselves than against the Turks; it wasn’t until 1538 that a fleet set out to “avenge” Rhodes only to be routed at the Battle of Preveza off the Greek coast.
    The emboldened Turks raided Spanish and Italian coastal towns with impunity – seizing 7000 slaves in Naples in 1544, 5000 from Gozo in 1551, and 6000 from Calabria in 1554. In May 1560, a Spanish fleet was overwhelmed at the Battle of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia. In 1565, Suleiman decided the time was ripe for Malta, where the Knights Hospitallers had established their headquarters after their expulsion from Rhodes. Malta had a few things going for it that Rhodes did not; it was further from the Istanbul and closer to European harbors and therefore harder and easier for the respective powers to reinforce; and the fortifications were built on bedrock, making them more difficult to destroy by mining. Unlike Rhodes, Suleiman did not take personal command, and his generals ignored substantial Christian forces in the hinterland of the island – which came back to do considerable damage in the late stages of the siege. The fortress of St. Elmo fell on June 23, 1565, but the other fortresses across the harbor held on; on September 11 (I wonder?) a Spanish relief force arrived and the Turks withdrew after a bloody defeat. In the meantime – on September 5th or 6th – Suleiman the Magnificent died on campaign in Hungary.
    The new sultan, Selim, was nowhere near as popular or competent as Suleiman (Suleiman’s favorite for the succession, Mustafa, had be strangled before Suleiman’s eyes after being involved in a harem conspiracy). Nevertheless, the Ottomans were still the dominant power in the Mediterranean and turned their attention to Cyprus, which fell in August 1571. Selim was rather less chivalrous than his father, who had allowed the Knights of Rhodes to depart with their ships and possessions after their surrender; although the Venetian commander of Famagusta, Marc’ Antonio Bragadin, surrendered on a promise of similar treatment, he was skinned alive, stuffed with straw, and hung from the mainyard of the Turkish flagship.
    Meanwhile, the European powers reacted with their traditional inertia. Phillip II was now the overall commander, but he was in Madrid communicating by letter – lots of letters; he wrote one daily. The local commander was his illegitimate half-brother, Don Juan of Austria. Juan was young and popular but Phillip II and the other naval powers – Venice, Genoa, the Knights of Malta, the Papacy and some minor Italian states – thought him too impetuous and he was deluged by letters from Madrid urging caution. However, the Turkish admiral, Ali Pasha, had unequivocal orders from Selim to go out and fight. Both sides had faulty intelligence – the Turks had slipped a disguised galley into the Holy League fleet at Messina and carefully counted the vessels –but had missed a Venetian contingent in the inner harbor; the Holy League had reconnoitered the Turkish fleet at Lepanto and missed a squadron that had temporarily moved to another port to resupply. Much too late to save Cyprus, the two fleets met in the Gulf of Lepanto in October 1571. The result was the first Christian naval victory in a long time; it was bloody, though, with the Christians losing 7500 men and 17 ships (including the flagship of the Knights of Malta) while the Turks lost over 20000 men and 180 ships. The victory was celebrated all over Europe (even in Protestant countries) and commemorated in a painting by Tintoretto; however, the above mentioned hypothetical observer might have considered it only a temporary setback for the Ottomans – within a year they had rebuilt their naval strength. In fact, though, although slave raids continued into the 19th century the Ottomans never again attempted a fleet engagement (Navarino wasn’t exactly their choice).
    Crowley’s description of the politics and personalities involved is engaging, and the land engagements are excitingly detailed. The naval battles lack something; I suppose it’s because while a siege provides lots of time to record what’s going on naval battles are a lot more confused. While there are plenty of eyewitness accounts of Lepanto, once the battle was joined each observer was limited to what was going on in the immediate vicinity, and that was lots of gun smoke, blood, arrows, and water. The strategic maps are quite good; the tactical illustrations are all contemporary and while a 16th century woodcut is interesting it’s not a good way to show what went on at the siege of Malta. The end notes are adequate, and there’s a long bibliography. Crowley doesn’t devote a lot of time to whys rather than hows; i.e., why did the Turks lose at Lepanto? (My guess would be inferior gunnery). And it would be nice to see some alternate history speculation – what effect would a Turkish victory at Malta and/or Lepanto have had on European history? Still, this is an engaging, well written, and readable book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I was completely ignorant of the siege of Malta besides a few brief words in History books before reading this and now I'm sad I didn't read this sooner. There is so much suspense, action, intrigue, and heroism in the pages of this book. I'm now anxious to go look up contemporary artwork of the various battles and check out the fate of some of the characters .
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Empires of the Sea,The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the WorldAuthor: Roger CrowleyPublisher: Random HousePublishing Date: 2008Pgs: 336Dewey: 940.21 CRODisposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX_________________________________________________REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERSSummary:Rulers on a mission from God. Cultures in clash. Cruelty. Horror, War. Pirates. Slavery. Ottoman. Spanish. The Mediterranean running red with blood. Siege. Conquest. History ran red during this period when the Cold War between the followers of the Cross and the Crescent went to hot._________________________________________________Genre:History16th CenturyNaval HistoryEuropeTurkeySpainRoman Catholic ChurchIslamChristianityNaval BattlesWhy this book:Picked this up for Venetian history, which is outside my wheelhouse. Instead this is more aimed at Spanish-Ottoman history with sidelights in Venice, Rome, etc._________________________________________________The Feel:We think of this as the distant past. But America had already been discovered when the Siege of Malta occurred. And by the end of this period, Spain was busily colonizing and treasure seeking all of South America. This also coincided with the early Protestant era.Favorite Character:Oruch the Silver Arm sounds like a D20 RPG player character. But he was a pirate become conqueror and territorial governor in the Ottoman Empire under Suleiman. And thorn in the side of and bogeyman to Christian Spain. In death, Oruch was treated like a vampire. Body nailed to the wall of his last conquest. Silver arm hacked off. Beheaded. His arm and decapitated head shipped off to Spain to go on tour after being paraded around the Maghreb to insure that everyone knew he was dead. Favorite Scene / Quote/Concept:The rise of Sulieman, the coronation of Charles, the fall of Rhodes. It’s a helluva start.The sheer viciousness of Famagusta is telling.Hmm Moments:Raw materials, bullion, higher prices, and lower production costs did more to stymie the Ottoman Empire than the defeat at Malta or the loss at Lepanto. Follow the money. The war for the Med ended in a stalemate and ignoble collapse for both the main combatants. The Ottomans lost their expand or die mentality. The Spanish fell victim to gold fever and inflation. WTF Moments:And again the Spanish under Charles snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and fail to roll onward to Algiers after the taking of Tunis. And thus despite defeating Barbossa, they let Barbossa the Younger slip away to harry them another day. WTF? What of the French supplying cannon and shot to the Ottomans?So...the defenders of Malta standing off the Ottoman fleet leave their posts for Sunday morning church and the Ottoman invasion force lands. :/ Meh / PFFT Moments:With no true long range weaponry in this time, the Siege of Malta doesn’t make good strategic sense and seems ill conceived. The rock has nothing but position. Would have made more sense to raid in strength and destroy the Knights Navy and blockaded the rock leaving those ashore to starve and die of thirst or humidity, whichever came first.King Phillip’s cold feet could have doomed Malta even though the ships, men, and material were gathered in Sicily, close at hand.The Sigh:The Spanish under Charles despite their defeat of Oruch failed the strategy game. Instead of marching on Algiers and eliminating the pirate threat, they took Oruch’s defeat as a sign that all was well. Oruch’s younger brother had a say in that matter. And through him, Sultan Selim of the Ottoman Empire and his son and heir Suleiman. Wisdom:The Knights of St John after being in the eye of the storm in Rhodes, during the fall of the Byzantines and the Eastern Mediterranean were placed in the second eye on Malta. And twice in history they stood impediment to the Ottoman Navy and pirates and the ambitions of the Ottoman Turks.Juxtaposition:The horrid life of the galley slaves be they Christian or Muslim, conscripted, stolen from homelands, debtors, all worked to death consumed like fuel. The age of sail was dawning but the enslaved oarsmen were still the primary fuel of the naval adventurism of Charles of Spain and Suleiman of the Turks. The strategic raids all seem to mainly be slave gathering exercises. Women and children for the auction and men for the oars. Islam and Christianity learned slavery by turning it on themselves, before graciously, pfft, sharing it with the rest of the world.The Siege of Malta can be seen as an omen of the trench warfare of WW1.The Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, Sokollu Mehmet Pasha, who served Suleiman the Great and his successors, exercised influence and his own lust for power. He was more of a Cardinal Richelieu character ala The Three Musketeers than the real Cardinal Richelieu was. Missed Opportunity:Imagine if the Ottomans under Selim had built those canals connecting the Black and Caspian Seas and the Med and the Red. Would have opened the Orient to them in the same way that the discovery of America opened to Spain and the rest of Europe.Movies and Television:The Siege of Malta would make a helluva movie._________________________________________________Pacing:Very well paced.Last Page Sound:This was a gap in my historical knowledge. I was vaguely aware of the Siege of Malta, but not all the rest.Questions I’m Left With:Wonder if Oruch’s silver arm is still in a museum someplace? Conclusions I’ve Drawn:This presents itself as a complete war. But it is merely a flare-up in the long running contest between Islam and Christianity. A war that goes from hot to cold and back again over the long march of history. It predates both Christian and Muslim. Goes back at least to Greeks and Persians and wouldn’t surprise me if it predates them. Author Assessment:Loved it. Will definitely read other historical narratives by this author._________________________________________________
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A captivating must read book for those enthralled with early European and colonial history. I will read this again!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World by Roger Crowley is a history book that reads like a good novel. I have read several fiction and non-fiction books about the Siege of Malta and I found this one to be the best so far. Crowley combines the right amount of facts and figures into the text and also shows some of the personality of the participants. I plan on reading "1453" soon and look forward to more from Roger Crowley. 4 1/2 STARS
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Crowley manages to immerse the reader in the world of international intrigue and historical events set during the 15th and 16th century with such ease it is remarkable.If you like Harold Lamb's historical novels, Goldsworthy's or Keegan's style you'll enjoy Crowley's book.Even if you are not into history give this book a try, you will not be disappointed.Recommended.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Later that day the guns of Saint Angelo opened up. A volley of human heads bombarded the Ottoman camp across the water. There would be no repeat of the chivalrous truce at Rhodes.

    As noted this marks my first ever tandem read with my brother. I am immensely proud of him but few would ever regard him as bookish. He had a brief infatuation with Rimbaud and Keats 20 years ago but that was soon abandoned. He now works on or around Pennsylvania Avenue. His attitudes have softened and become more nuanced. Over Thanksgiving I had expressed an ongoing interest in Medieval/Renaissance matters and we wound up agreeing on this text.

    I remarked rather quickly to my brother that this isn't great history but it is a compelling albeit horrifying narrative. Mr. Crowley couches his text in terms of a teleology, an ongoing "clash of civilizations" which will only be resolved in some distant future. There is no regard for the Pirenne Thesis. There are simply arguments about a universal dichotomy, one of which neither party could agree on anything, not even the primacy of their conflict. Nor is there any need in speaking of a consensus regarding either the Christians or the Muslims in the 16th Century. The Holy Roman Empire devoted much more of its resources to fighting the French and the Protestants than it ever did the Ottomans.

    That said what unfolds is bleak. Navies of the time were dependant on rowers and this perk-free position had to be filled by ongoing slaving. Thus the soul of the World's Center was at stake and the means to victory were human bondage.

    In his afterward, Crowley notes the abundance of accounts left from the events and its participants. I wish he would've spent more time sifting, parsing and comparing the merits of rival testimony. Call me an idealist, but isn't that the nature of a historian?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The geopolitical story of how the Ottoman and Spanish empires divided the Mediterranean is told through three main battles: Rhodes, Malta (taking up the large middle section of this book), and finally Lepanto. These battles are told day by day, hour by hour, and sometimes blow by blow. The author tells a good story, and it is clear that he has kept his boyish enthusiasm for re-enacting a hero's fate in battle. Sadly, the swashbuckling is sometimes accompanied by a similarly boyish ethnocentricity and incomplete grasp of geography. A statement such as "Lepanto was Europe's Trafalgar" points to shoddy geographic concepts. The Greek town of Igoumenitsa is mentioned as "Gomenizza, in front of Corfu" - a case of the author copying his source without verifying current conditions, possibly because the clanking of armour is more important to him than geographical accuracy. Likewise the author uses a blithe disregard for other languages (especially Italian proper names and place names fare badly when quoted in this book). All in all, not bad - but he can't hold a candle to John Julius Norwich for this kind of historical topics.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Prior to the 20th century, the Battle of Lepanto was the largest naval battle in history. Empires of the Sea features a blow-by-blow account of the battle, a rousing victory for the forces of Christianity amidst a sea of defeats at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, ruled by the mediocre Selim II. Despite huge losses, the Ottomans would remain a powerful force in the Mediterranean and remain so for much of the next four centuries.The more interesting part detailed the siege of Malta. This epic battle for a strategic location consumed the later years of sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. About 9000 Knights Hospitaller and men-at-arms fended off a force of 40,000 Turks and Barbary corsairs while awaiting relief from Spain and Venice. The Turks took as much as 30,000 casualties in the assault before moving on to easier targets.Empires at Sea is at times overly melodramatic, but is otherwise a less-than-engaging accounts of these Renaissance-era battles. Part of the problem with Lepanto was, in spite of the massive loss of life and scope of the destruction, the battle didn't really matter -- it didn't change the power balance of the world. Suleiman is a pretty fascinating character, and I think this book gave him short-shrift, as if his legacy was tied to the failure of his subordinates at Malta. The Sultan and his elite Janissaries were the dominant force during this era, but Crowley clings to the Christian successes. At this point in history, the Christian successes during the Reconquista were 80 years past, but the Turks were on the ascendant even if their Berber brothers were faltering.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Roger Crowley's book is titled "Empires of the Sea - the siege of Malta, the battle of Lepanto and the contest for the center of the world". The basic problem I have with this book is that these two claims are wrong: The Ottoman and the Habsburg Empire were not empires of the sea, in the sense that they were sea-based empires such as Venice, the Portuguese, the Dutch or the English. It's no wonder that the Genoese Christopher Columbus and Andrea Doria sailed for the Spanish flag and the Ottomans relied upon the skills of the Barbary Coast pirates. Lacking a maritime tradition and power structure, the Habsburgs and Ottomans bought foreign competence (and paid scrupulous attention on their not getting too powerful). Secondly, the Mediterranean had long ceased to be the center of the world. The sea passage to India and America shifted the focus of geopolitics and wealth to the Atlantic and Northern Europe. The fight for the Mediterranean was basically a rearguard action of three already doomed empires, the Venetians, the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. A fact that all of Crowley's hyperventilating language cannot change.The book is divided into three parts. The first part builds up to a crescendo of Ottoman power in the Mediterranean, from the fall of Rhodes (1520) to the galleys of the Barbary Coast pirates raiding with impunity. The punitive Tunis expedition of Charles V (1535, in whose memory a wonderful set of tapestries were created, which today are mostly hidden away from the public, protected by a steep flight of stairs, in the attic of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna) only momentarily checks the Ottomans, the Spanish maritime defeat at Preveza (1538) hands sea control to the Ottomans. The second part deals with the unsuccessful siege of Malta (1565) where the Ottomans (mostly due to their commanders' ineptitude and communication problems) fail to take the place from the Maltese knights. The Ottoman expansion in the Western Mediterrean is over. The third part announces Lepanto (1571), but the sea battle is covered only in three short chapters (36 pages), the majority of the third part is devoted to the capture of Cyprus with its twin sieges of Nicosia and Famagusta. While the Ottoman lose the battle of Lepanto, they remain in control of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Barbary Coast pirates stayed in business until the early 19th century, the Habsburgs and the Venetians continued to battle and trade with the Turks. Thus, the book ends inconclusively on a whim.Crowley's sins go well beyond a necessary hyping of his topic (a regrettable must in today's "the battle, war, invention that changed the world" book marketing): In order to sustain his clash of civilization approach, he omits crucial information and sets up a trap for his readers. He hypes the terror of a (highly improbable) Turkish invasion of Rome but hardly mentions that Rome was sacked in 1527 by the very Christian troops of Charles V. The neutral Venetians and the sneaky French are Crowley's villains who fail to support their Christian brethren. That the French and Habsburgs fought bitter wars in Italy does not enter into his picture. The major distraction of the reformation is also not covered. Crowley thus paints at best an incomplete, at worst a terribly wrong picture of 16th century Europe. A glance at many of the Amazon.com reviews shows that his readers have taken up Crowley's wrong impression. If the purpose of history is to learn about the past, Crowley fails his readers, even if he succeeds in entertaining them with battle and siege vignettes and tales of the bloody Turk.Not recommended for beginners in 16th century history.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amazing book! Very well written, reach in information but like reading a poem.....the book have been written to convey how the author saw this periode of the history and the conflict in the mediteranian. Not present facts but to tell a story. I can remember now why I like history in the first place....
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed this much more than the Fenian book I read and reviewed recently. The style was easier to digest, despite there being just as much information for me to acquire, and I learned a lot. What was staggering to me was the amount of incredible cruelty on both sides - not that the author gloated over it or revelled in it, but it was so obviously a part of life at that time that it is impossible to ignore. The military, religious and political jousting that went on between the different nations, even those nominally on the same side, are all well described and explained. I definitely finished this book with a much better understanding of the nuances of that time than when I started to read it.Wonderful stuff for an alternative history if things had gone the other way, and the Ottoman Empire had sacked Rome (which could have happened relatively easily).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent, fast paced, accurate account of the battle of Lepanto. As usual, the subtitle is a bit overblown, but less than other books,While this popular history was an excellent read, and I did enjoy it while learning something new, by the end it left me wanting something. Can't describe it better than that.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Mediterranean was perceived by many people in the 16th century as the “Center of the World.” A monumental struggle for control of the sea took place between the two great empires of that era: the Ottoman Turks, and the Hapsburgs of Austria and Spain, the leaders of which often held the title of Holy Roman Emperor. The mutual enmity of the two empires was stoked by religious differences as much as by dynastic incompatibility. The wily traders of Venice did business with both contestants, often trading sides in order to protect their commercial interests. (As might be expected, interpreters, or “dragomen” held crucial roles in international relations.)Roger Crowley has written a gripping tale of the ebb and flow of the interrelationships of the empires. In particular, he gives a vivid description of three parlous island sieges (Rhodes, Malta, and Cyprus) and several purely naval engagements, culminating in the hecatomb known as the Battle of Lepanto. The Great Siege of Malta took place in 1565 when the Ottomans invaded the island of Malta, then held by the Knights Hospitaller (a medieval Catholic military order). The Knights, with approximately 2,000 soldiers and 400 Maltese men, women and children, withstood the siege and repelled the invaders. This victory helped contribute to the erosion of the European perception of Ottoman invincibility.The Battle of Lepanto, which took place on October 7, 1571, pitted the Ottoman Empire against the “Holy League” - a coalition of nations (Spain, Venice, the Papal States,Genoa, and Malta) organized by Spanish King Philip II to stop Muslim encroachments upon the Italian and Spanish coasts.This huge battle involved almost 400 vessels and more than 40,000 men, more than half of whom were killed in only a few hours. The ships employed cannons, arquebuses and other explosives such as “Granadoes,” small terra cotta pots filled with gunpowder or combustibles (pitch, turpentine, naphtha, or petroleum), that could be lit and thrown onto enemy ships. Savage hand-to-hand fighting also took place as enemy sailors boarded each others’ galleys. At the battle’s conclusion, the Ottomans lost about 210 ships and some 25,000 men. The Holy League lost about 50 ships and 7,500 men. The Ottoman’s losses proved pivotal; that many men were hard to replace. Crowley’s descriptions are based on the accounts of the survivors of the battles. Occasionally, the participants showed some chivalry, as when the Ottomans allowed the few survivors of the siege of Rhodes to leave and take some of their possessions with them. Most of the time, however, no quarter was give by either side, and to lose usually meant that anyone who tried to surrender was likely to be tortured, beheaded, and/or skinned alive. One might wonder who oared all those ships; it was not the soldiers. Galleys were more nimble than sailing ships, less dependent on the vagaries of the wind, and could change direction instantaneously at any time simply by rowing in a new direction. The problem was that not many men wanted the job of rower, and so the oarsmen were usually slaves, chained to their benches and incentivized more by whips than by salaries. Slavery was a common practice among both Christian and Muslim communities in the Mediterranean. The Ottomans and their co-religionists, the Barbary corsairs of the Maghreb, were more adept than the European Christians at finding large numbers of galley slaves. They routinely raided Mediterranean coastal towns, Sub-Saharan villages, and Balkan provinces, capturing and enslaving all the male infidels they didn’t kill. Miguel Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, spent some time chained to an oar before his parents ransomed him.Crowley’s work is not confined to the description of medieval warfare. He also deftly handles the geopolitical aspects of the contest and describes the key participants and their intramural scuffling. In particular, he shows how Christendom was riven by three sources of internal discord: (1) Northern European Protestants vs. Mediterranean Catholics; (2) Venice vs. the Papacy; and (3) Roman Catholicism vs. Greek Orthodoxy. The Ottomans, by contrast, were generally united. Moreover, the Ottoman unity of command and purpose was a chief source of their strength.Evaluation: This is a very entertaining, informative, and perhaps lesser-known history about some earlier confrontations between Islam and Christianity, and thus very relevant to events of today. If you think Islam and the West don’t get along very well now, you should have seen the 16th century!A Few Notes on the Audio Production:I listened to the audio version of this book, which was read competently by John Lee, who has a pleasant English accent. I am pretty familiar with the general geography of the area covered, but I would have benefitted from detailed maps of the particular siege sites. (JAB)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This engaging history, based mostly on secondary sources, has a strong narrative arc, in three parts: the groping of the Ottoman and Spanish Hapsburg empires towards a confrontation in the sixteenth century; the unsuccessful siege of Malta by the Ottoman empire in 1565; and the destruction of a Turkish fleet at the battle of Lepanto in 1571. The author tries to be even-handed, but at crunch points his adverbs ('luckily', 'unfortunately') side with the Christians - though this may be just for purposes of having a satisfying narrative, since at both Malta and Lepanto the Christians are presented as underdogs who win against unlikely odds. The author suggests that Christian Europe was lucky to have survived the two encounters, and that an Ottoman victory in either case might have ultimately resulted in an Ottoman invasion of Rome. I do not have enough background in the period to evaluate that claim, but have the sense that this book is best read as a dramatic telling of the narrative history, rather than for its analysis. The author's use of quotes suggests a stronger interest in telling the story engagingly than in getting the analysis exactly right. For example, discussing the inflationary effect of Spanish New World silver on naval conflict between 1540 and 1570, Crowley writes, "Warfare had always been costly; in the sixteenth century it rocketed. The price of ship's biscuit - a critical expense in sea warfare - quadrupled in sixty years; the commensurate total cost of operating Spanish war galleys tripled; price increases rippled across Europe and lapped at the shores of the Ottoman world too. War had become an expensive game. 'To carry out a war, three things are necessary,' remarked the Milanese general Marshal Trivulzio presciently in 1499, 'money, money, and yet more money.'" To his credit, Crowley dates the quote - lifted from another 2004 book on the battle of Lepanto - and adds the qualifier 'presciently'. Still, whatever its original context, the quote can't have been referring to the inflation caused by Spanish gold. There are several other moments in this book where I found myself thinking, that's a colorful detail, but it doesn't really support the point being made. However, the reading was a pleasure. The strongest impression the book leaves - greater for me than any lessons about geopolitical history -- was of the sheer brutality, not just of war, but also of what passed for peace around the Mediterranean in the 1500s. Crowley presents piracy and the wholesale destruction of both Christian and Muslim communities as commonplace. Indeed, the maritime economy ran on a particularly vicious form of slavery -- captive rowers at the oars of pirate ships and warships -- that chewed up lives at an appalling rate. That brutality ultimately makes it hard to root for either side in the wars Crowley describes; it's mostly a relief that they finally reached a stalemate after Lepanto.