Battle of Cape Celidonia

The Battle of Cape Celidonia took place on 14 July 1616 during the Ottoman–Habsburg struggle for the control of the Mediterranean. During its course, a small Spanish fleet owned by Viceroy of Naples Pedro Téllez-Girón, Duke of Osuna, under the command of Francisco de Rivera y Medina, was attacked by an Ottoman fleet that vastly outnumbered it while cruising off Cyprus. Despite this, the Spanish ships, mostly galleons, managed to repel the Ottomans, whose fleet consisted mainly of galleys, inflicting heavy losses.

Battle of Cape Celidonia
Part of Ottoman–Habsburg wars
Spanish galleons fighting off Ottoman galleys. Oil on canvas by Juan de la Corte (1597–1660), Naval Museum of Madrid.
Date 14–16 July 1616 Location Off Cape Celidonia, Anatolian south coast Result Spanish victory
Belligerents
Habsburg Spain	Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Francisco de Rivera	Bey of Rhodes
Strength
5 galleons 1 patache 1,600 soldiers[1]	55 galleys 12,000 soldiers[1]
Casualties and losses
34 killed 93 wounded[2]	10 galleys sunk[3] 23 galleys damaged 3,200 killed[4]

The battle, considered in military historigraphy a «Little Lepanto»,^[5] became a turning point in Mediterranean naval warfare, where the galleys employed by the Ottoman navy were left obsolete by the heavily armed western roundships, like galleons and naos, increasingly used by Spain and the rest of Christian nations.^[6][7] The victory was further made significant by its closeness to the Ottoman core and the little size of the forces required to defeat the Turk navy. From that point, the technical and strategical distance between the Christian and Muslim navies would only expand over the centuries.^[5]

Background

In 1616, a royal decree by Philip III banned viceroys from engaging in privateering. The decision obstructed Viceroy of Sicily, the Duke of Osuna, who had achieved an unprecedented success through privateering actions after earning a license for it in 1613, attracting political enmities in the court which had likely influenced Philip's stance. Osuna resorted to bribery to maintain his activities, leading to his appointment as Viceroy of Naples in 1616, but at the same time, he decided to innovate in maritime tactics to maximize the power of the Spanish armada. His first move was to build a fleet of Spanish roundships or sailing ships.^[8][9]

Area of Rivera's cruise.

Mainstream belief at the time was that sailing ships were inferior to the rowing ships commonly used in Mediterranean warfare, as it had been demostrated in events like the Battle of Zonchio, where the Venetian naos had been an easy prey for the agile Ottoman galleys. However, Osuna and his captain Francisco de Rivera y Medina were convinced that western advances in artillery and shipbuilding had reversed the situation.^[9] Previously, the Dutch pirate Simon de Dauser, hired by the Regency of Algiers, had built several rudimentary roundships, which had turned out hard to defeat.^[8] Dauser then built a dozen of ships for the navy of Tunis in 1612, but Osuna had the port raided and the fleet destroyed before it could become a threat.^[10]

The new Spanish fleet, funded by Osuna himself to ease burocracy, was baptized as Las Cinco Llagas ("The Five Holy Wounds"), although in reality it was comprised by six ships at the time. It was composed of 5 galleons and a patache: the 52-gun Concepción, flagship of Rivera; the 34-gun Almirante, commanded by alférez Serrano; the 27-gun Buenaventura, under Don Ínigo de Urquiza; the 34-gun Carretina, commanded by Balmaseda; the 30-gun San Juan Bautista, commanded by Juan Cereceda; and the 14-gun patache Santiago under Gazarra.^[8][9][11] Osuna selected new crews, with many Basque crewmen among them.^[12]

In order to test the fleet's efficienc, Rivera raided the Tunisian port of La Goulette with one of the galleons, and with he sank a Moor vessel and captured three more with minimal casualties, an enormous success that confirmed their impressions.^[6] With their best expectations, the Cinco Llagas sailed off on 15 July from the Sicily to Eastern Mediterranean waters, in order to undertake privateering against Ottoman vessels and ports in the area between Cyprus and the region of Çukurova. Aboard the ships, captained again by Rivera, were about 1,600 Spanish soldiers, of whom 1,000 were musketeers.^[11]

Previous moves

The Spanish fleet sailed to the island of Cyprus, then under Ottoman rule, where Francisco de Rivera ordered that land be sighted prior to initiating of the cruise. During the mission 16 merchant caramoussals were captured by Rivera's fleet off Cape Celidonia, as well as an English privateer in Famagusta and a large number of minor vessels at sea.^[13] In addition, ten warships were sunk or burnt in the port of Salinas, whose defenses were also destroyed by a landing party which suffered no loss.^[13] The Ottoman governor of Cyprus, who had been rapidly informed regarding the Spanish activities, called for help from the Ottoman navy. Rivera, warned of the relief force thanks to the capture of a merchant vessel coming from Constantinople, decided to wait for his pursuers off Cape Celidonia in order to return to Sicily with a great victory.^[13] A Turkish fleet of 55 galleys with about 275 guns and 12,000 fighting men on board appeared off the cape few days later, on 14 July.^[11]

Battle

The battle began at 9 am when the Ottoman galleys moved toward the Spanish ships and opened fire. Previously they had formed up into a huge crescent, designed to encircle the Spanish ships. To avoid his ships becoming separated and overwhelmed individually in the light wind conditions, de Rivera ordered his ships join each other end to end with chains. The Concepción stood at the vanguard, being followed by the Carretina, the Almiranta, and the patache Santiago.^[14] The other two ships remained on standby. Their heavy artillery fire kept the Turkish vessels at bay until sunset. The attackers then withdrew to their initial positions with eight galleys about to sink and many others damaged.^[14]

The attack was resumed the next morning, when, after a night war council, the Ottomans attacked in two groups which separately attempted to capture the Capitana (or flagship) and the Almiranta (or secondary ship). After approaching inside the range of the Spanish muskets, the galleys were subjected to the heavy gunfire of the entire Spanish flotilla. Unable to board the Spanish ships, the Ottoman force withdrew in the evening with another 10 galleys heeling over.^[14]

That night a new council of war took place during which the Turks decided to resume the action at dawn. After a speech that boosted their morale, the Ottomans attacked with great resolve and managed to approach Rivera's flagship from a more favorable angle in order to exploit her blind spot. Nevertheless, the Spanish commander, who had foreseen such a possibility, ordered that the Santiago move to his ship's bow. This maneuver exposed the Turkish galleys to more heavy gunfire which inflicted severe damage, finally forcing the Ottoman force to withdraw at 3:00 pm with another galley sunk, two dismasted, and 17 others severely damaged or heeling over.^[15]

The Turkish fleet suffered heavy losses, with 10 galleys sunk and another 23 disabled. 1,200 Janissaries and 2,000 sailors and rowers were killed.^[4] The Spanish suffered 34 dead and 93 wounded as well as damage to the rigging of the Concepción and the Santiago, which had to be towed by the other ships.

Aftermath

For his success, and by the Duke of Osuna's petition, Rivera was promoted to Admiral by King Philip III, who also rewarded him with the habit of the Order of Santiago.^[16] The fame granted by the battle came to equate him to Álvaro de Bazán, Marquis of Santa Cruz, another innovator of the Spanish armada, after gaining his own victory in the Battle of Vila Franca do Campo.^[6] Some time later the Spanish playwright and poet Don Luís Vélez de Guevara wrote the comedy "El asombro de Turquía y valiente toledano" ("the wonder of Turkey and the courageous Toledoan") to commemorate the battle.^[15] The soldiers and sailors of the fleet were also recognized by Osuna, who had arrived to Naples in July, when the Cinco Llagas had already sailed off. In spite of the victory, the Spanish monarchy, characteristically slow in capitalizing on triumphs, denied Osuna's petition of funding new fleet of twelve galleons, and reiterated the ban of privateering, which Osuna continued ignoring.^[6]

The resonance of the battle came from the fact that, unlike most naval battles between Christians and Muslims up to the point, the battle had taken place in the maritime center of the Ottoman Empire, and only a handful of ships had been necessary to defeat all the ships the Ottomans had managed to gather in a resonable short notice. With their failure to adapt at these new tactics, the naval Turk threat progressively became limited to their own, reduced privateering actions against merchant traffic.^[5] The Barbary pirates, however, adapted much better to the new shipbuilding techniques thanks to the presence of Dutch and English captains and crews, remaining a danger for Christian nations.^[17]

The victory in Celidonia cemented Spanish hegemony in the central Mediterranean. Less than a month after the battle, Osuna found out the Calabrese renegade Arzan had sailed off from Constantinople with twelve galleys, so he tracked and destroyed them with ten galleys gathered in Sicily and Malta under the command of Íñigo Zapata, who killed the enemy captain. Ottavio d'Aragona, another of Osuna's lieutenants, continued the campaign disguising a Hispanic fleet as Turk ships and bombarding Constantinople.^[9] Despite the advantage, Philip III's court continued without making significants moves to establish a long last control on the Mediterranean, whose watch would keep tied to Osuna's initiative and victories. In December, the Duke engaged in an unofficial warfare with the Republic of Venice, an usual ally to the Ottomans, leading Rivera to score a naval win over them in Ragusa.^[9]

Notes

1. Rodríguez González, p. 312
2. Linde, p. 123
3. Fernández Duro, p. 108
4. Fernández Duro, p. 110
5. Rodríguez González (2021).
6. Canales (2016).
7. Íñigo (2023).
8. Canales & Rey (2019).
9. San Juan Sánchez (2018).
10. Fernández Duro (2006).
11. Rodríguez González (2021), p. 312.
12. Rodríguez González (2004).
13. Fernández Duro (2006), p. 106.
14. Rodríguez González (2021), p. 313.
15. Rodríguez González (2021), p. 314.
16. Fernández Duro (2006), p. 110.
17. Hanlon (2008).

References

• Canales, Carlos (2016). De Salamina a las Malvinas: 25 siglos de guerra naval (in Spanish). Spain: EDAF. ISBN 978-84-4143-700-5.
• Canales, Carlos; Rey, Miguel (2019). Naves mancas: la Armada Española a vela de Cabo Celidonia a Trafalgar. EDAF. ISBN 84-414-2879-4.
• Fernández Duro, Cesáreo (2006). El gran duque de Osuna y su marina: jornadas contra turcos y venecianos (1602–1624) (in Spanish). Spain: Editorial Renacimiento. ISBN 978-84-8472-126-0.
• Hanlon, Gregory (2008). The Twilight Of A Military Tradition: Italian Aristocrats And European Conflicts, 1560-1800. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781135361426.
• Íñigo, Luis E. (2023). Vae victis: Una historia de las derrotas que sellaron el destino de la humanidad (in Spanish). Spain: EDAF. ISBN 978-84-4144-223-8.
• Linde, Luís M. (2005). Don Pedro Girón, duque de Osuna: la hegemonía española en Europa a comienzos del siglo XVII (in Spanish). Madrid, Spain: Encuentro. ISBN 978-84-7490-762-9.
• Rodríguez González, Agustín Ramón (2004). Lepanto, la batalla que salvó a Europa (in Spanish). Spain: Grafite Ediciones. ISBN 978-84-96281-16-5.
• Rodríguez González, Agustín Ramón (2021). Lepanto, la batalla decisiva (in Spanish). Spain: Sekotia Ediciones. ISBN 978-84-1675-090-0.
• San Juan Sánchez, Víctor (2018). Breve historia de las batallas navales del Mediterráneo. Nowtilus. ISBN 9788499679365.