Piyale Pasha

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Piyale Pasha (right) with Dragut and Mustafa during the siege of Malta (fresco in the Grand Masters Palace of Valletta )

Piyale Pasha ( Turkish Piyale Pasha , * around 1515 in Viganj , peninsula Peljesac , then the Republic of Ragusa , today Croatia , † 21st January 1578 in Constantinople Opel , now Turkey ) was an Ottoman admiral and vizier .

After training at the Sultan Academy of Enderûn in Constantinople, Piyale received the rank of Kapıcıbaşı and was appointed provincial governor ( Sanjak Bey ) of Gallipoli .

Admiral of the Ottoman Navy

In 1554 he was promoted to admiral and appointed Bahriye Beylerbeyi (about: First Lord of the Admiralty). In the same year he devastated Elba and Corsica with a large fleet, which also included Turgut Reis and Salih Reis with their squadrons . In the following year Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent commissioned him to support the French King Francis II with a fleet against Habsburg Spain. The Ottoman fleet met a Spanish one near Piombino , forced them to retreat, and then conquered several Spanish coastal fortresses.

In 1558 Piyale and Turgut Reis landed near Sorrento , where they pillaged the surrounding area and captured slaves, and then haunted the Balearic Islands . These successes brought Piyale to the paschal position .

Naval battle of Djerba

In order to counter the Ottoman threat, Philip II of Spain brought together an alliance in 1560 which, in addition to Spain, also included the Vatican, the Republic of Venice , the Republic of Genoa , the Duchy of Savoy and the Maltese . The alliance's fleet gathered at Messina , consisted of about 200 ships and 30,000 soldiers, and was under the supreme command of Giovanni Andrea Doria , a great-nephew of Andrea Doria .

On March 12, 1560, the allies conquered the island of Djerba , which, due to its geographical location, dominated the sea routes between Algiers , Tunis and Tripoli . Thereupon Sultan Suleyman dispatched a fleet of 120 ships under Piyale Pascha, which arrived on May 9th off Djerba. The battle lasted until May 14th. The Ottoman fleet, which had been reinforced with his ships by Turgut Reis on the third day , decisively defeated the Christian fleet. The allies lost about 60 galleys and 20,000 men, but Giovanni Andrea Doria escaped. The Ottomans occupied Djerba again. Piyale Pasha was celebrated accordingly on his return to Constantinople , and he was married to a daughter by Suleyman's son Selim II .

In 1563, as an ally of France, Piyale Pasha conquered Naples and the surrounding hinterland; However, France could not defend the city against another Spanish attack and lost it again.

Siege of Malta

In 1565, Piyale Pascha and General Lala Mustafa were commissioned by Süleyman to conquer Malta and drive the Knights of Malta away from there. Despite months of siege from May to September, this undertaking was unsuccessful because the knights resisted bitterly and inflicted heavy losses on the Turkish besiegers. Turgut Reis was also killed. When a relief army finally landed on Malta from Sicily , Piyale and Mustafa, believing that they were a large force, ordered the besiegers to withdraw.

In 1566 Piyale conquered the island of Chios , thereby ending Genoa's presence in the Aegean Sea . Then he once again led a fleet to southern Italy, where it plagued the Apulian coast.

In 1568 Piyale Pasha was appointed vizier. He was the first Ottoman admiral to receive this honor.

Conquest of Cyprus

On April 17, 1570, Piyale Pasha led an Ottoman fleet of 110 galleys and fists from Constantinople to Rhodes in preparation for the conquest of Cyprus , the last major possession of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean. He was followed four weeks later by Kapudan Pascha Ali Pascha with the Ottoman transport fleet of more than 280 ships and 50,000 land troops under the command of Lala Mustafa . The first troops landed in Cyprus on July 3rd. After all troops were disembarked, Ali Pasha sailed with part of the fleet to the southern Aegean Sea, where he threatened the Christian relief fleet and finally forced them to retreat, while Piyale Pasha secured Cyprus with the other part of the fleet. The siege of Nicosia began on July 22nd . The city fell on September 9, followed over the next few days by Paphos , Limassol and Larnaka . On September 18, the siege of Famagusta , the last Venetian fortress on the island, began. The defenders resisted until August 1, 1571, when they were finished and Cyprus was annexed to the Ottoman Empire.

For Piyale Pascha, Cyprus had an unfortunate aftermath. He had had a large galleon loaded with the choicest prisoners of Nicosia to deliver to the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha . On October 3rd, a huge explosion destroyed the ship and two adjacent ones in the port of Famagusta. Three days later, Piyale sailed with the bulk of his fleet to Rhodes , where he unloaded his own spoils of war, before returning to Constantinople with 130 ships. A disgruntled Grand Vizier was waiting for him there, who accused him of not having pursued the Christian fleet to Crete (however, he probably resented him much more because of the booty he had lost and Piyale's blatant self-enrichment). Piyale Pasha was allowed to retire. Presumably his marriage to the sultan's daughter saved his life.

Last ventures

After the defeat of the Turkish fleet under Ali Pasha in the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571, Piyale Pascha was again appointed commander in chief of the fleet. He had the ships lost before Lepanto replaced by new ones in the shortest possible time and just six months later he secured Constantinople again undisputed supremacy over the eastern Mediterranean. In 1573 he landed again in Apulia. In 1574 he and Kilic Ali Pascha recaptured Tunis from the Hafsid dynasty , which was supported by Spain , before retiring into private life.

Piyale Pasha died on January 21, 1578 and was buried in the Piyale Pasha mosque in Constantinople. The Turkish Navy later named several of their ships after him.

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