Roger Crowley

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 show more 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) show less

I found this to be a gripping and informative narrative of the climatic end of the Byzantine polity, with its particular virtue is that it gives equal time to the stresses and strains in the camps of both Constantine XI and Mehmet II. Though a popular account I'm impressed that Crowley seems to have made quite a complete survey of the first-person accounts of the siege, and and makes intelligent comments on their limitations. As for the complaints that I can find regarding the book, these show more seem to essentially be that this is not Stephen Runciman's study of the event (which is forty years old) or not anti-Muslim enough, which is sort of missing the point of telling a balanced narrative. Particularly since it's not as though Crowley stints on examples of Mehmet's ruthlessness. show less

How? By falling on shipping and ports on a seasonal cycle like Vikings, but depredating this time thousands of miles from home. By barbaric violence and astounding military audacity. By erupting like a plague on virgin soil, a wave of virulent, hateful belligerence entering a maritime zone of regular and mostly mutually beneficial trade. The shock of the new shaking up a complacent order that had no way to defend itself. The Portuguese had the best cannons, but renegades soon began to teach show more Asian powers. Their attacks were determined more than organized. It wasn't so much technological or military superiority as the shock of a new predator, its base safe from retaliation and capable of producing new forces every year, arriving in a theatre that was not prepared for the kind of war it was willing to wage. A first-mover in state-building moving into the region. A cartel moving into the city park. A wolfpack on the factory farm. show less

A binge-worthy non-fiction about the 'Spice' trade that reads like a story, following a timeline of events surrounding the rivalry between the Spanish and the Portuguese for the Spice Islands, and the colonisation and mass religious conversions that took place.
We know of Magellan as the guy who proved that the Earth was a globe by circumnavigating it, this book goes into the whys of the voyage - how a Portuguese man pledged allegiance to the Spanish, undertaking a journey to today's Maluku show more Islands, Indonesia, from Seville. A tedious journey that took the lives of many, but they managed to find the strait in Patagonia that leads to the Pacific. It's noteworthy that he was killed in the Battle of Mactan by a brave Filipino chieftain, LapuLapu, on the 27th of April, close to when I read this book. This day is celebrated in the Philippines as LapuLapu Day, since this man managed to delay the colonisation of the Philippines by 44 years!
But, conversely, Magellan is venerated in the Philippines since he introduced Christianity to the country.
We're given quick overviews of how the Europeans first came in contact with China, how they took over macau, the British getting in touch with Russia and Ivan the Terrible, and how trade essentially bought the world together as one giant group. I like that the author didn't sugarcoat the atrocities the poor and indigenious had to go through as silver was minted, slavery was rampant and people were exploited. He also discusses how the locals were also involved in sort of encouraging the Spanish and Portuguese, how these local kings wanted to defeat their rivals and thought these outsiders could help (spoiler: never does). show less