Tunis campaign
| date | June – July 1535 |
|---|---|
| place | Tunis , today's Tunisia |
| output | Habsburg victory |
| consequences | Ottomans lose Tunis |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Charles V |
|
| Troop strength | |
| Total: 30,000–60,000 men 207 Spanish ships 60 Flemish Holks 10 Sicilian galleys 6 Neapolitan galleys 19 Genoese galleys 21 Portuguese warships 8 Vatican galleys 4 Maltese galleys |
82 Ottoman warships 2 French galleys |
| losses | |
|
high losses from the Ruhr |
about 30,000 dead civilians |
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The Tunis campaign of 1535 was a military expedition of Habsburg Spain to conquer Tunis, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire . The aim of this expedition was to regain control of the North African coast in order to remove the western Mediterranean from the Ottomans. The siege of Tunis was the first offensive operation led by Emperor Charles V against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean.
With the conquest of Tunis, the Spanish Habsburgs reduced the Ottoman pressure to expand on the central and western Mediterranean, which had increased since the 1520s.
prehistory
The triggering reason for the expedition was the occupation of Tunis by Khair ad-Din Barbarossa , a powerful corsair , on August 17, 1534. A year earlier, Suleyman I. had recalled Khair ad-Din Barbarossa from Algiers so that he could bring a large navy into built in the shipyards of Constantinople . A total of seventy galleys were built during the winter of 1533/34 , manned by slave oars, among them 1200 Christians. With this fleet, Barbarossa carried out naval advances along the Italian coast, which culminated in the conquest of Tunis on August 16, 1534 and drove the local ruler and Muley Hasan who was dependent on the Spanish crown . Barbarossa then established a strong naval base in Tunis, which could be used as a base for further attacks in the region and on nearby Malta . The expelled sultan fled to Spain and offered Charles V an alliance if he would help him. Charles V, at that time one of the most powerful men in Europe, was at peace with the other European powers with his empire and saw the time as appropriate to give a demonstration of his power. Also, he could not tolerate the occupation of Tunis by the Ottomans, as there are less than a hundred nautical miles between Sicily and the North African city and the island would have been exposed to the permanent danger of being attacked by the corsairs without effective protection can.
Therefore, in autumn 1534, Emperor Charles V made the first preparations for a military intervention and set up an army with around 30,000 soldiers. A large fleet from Spain and Portugal, consisting of 74 galleys (manned by Protestants in chains) and 300 sailing ships, was also set up. Among them was the Santa Anna , the largest ship of the time. The Portuguese galleon São João Baptista , also known as Botafogo and equipped with 366 bronze cannons , also belonged to the fleet . The fleet gathered in Barcelona .
The expeditionary force had the goal of driving the Ottomans out of the region. The financial expenses for Charles V were one million ducats and thus at the same level as in the campaign against Suleyman I on the Danube . The campaign was funded by two million gold ducats that Francisco Pizarro received in exchange for the freedom of the Inca king Atahualpa .
Despite a request from Charles V, the French King Francis I refused to support the expedition. He justified this by a three-year armistice with the Ottoman Empire, which was concluded in 1533 after an Ottoman envoy was sent to France. Franz I also conducted negotiations with Suleyman I for a united attack on Charles V. He only agreed to the demand of Pope Paul III. not to fight any Christian state during the expedition.
On March 2, 1535, Charles V left Madrid and arrived in Barcelona on April 3, where the united troops of the Emperor, King John of Portugal and the Genoese Prince Andrea Doria embarked after an army display.
Charles V set out with his fleet from Barcelona to Sardinia at the end of May 1535, where contingents from the Pope and the Order of St. John as well as other German, Italian and Spanish mercenaries joined the army. The combined fleet now made up 100 galleys and 300 transport ships and was under the command of Andrea Dorias. On June 1, 1535, the Ottoman fleet was destroyed.
Course of the campaign
Afterwards the crossing to North Africa was undertaken and on June 15 the army, around 25,000 strong, began to besiege the fortress La Goletta . The Knights of the Order of St. John from the island of Malta were also involved in the siege . The possession of the fortress La Goletta ensured control of the port of Tunis. After a three-week bombardment, La Goletta was stormed on July 14th.
The army then moved overland against Tunis. On the way the expeditionary army was attacked by the troops of Barbarossa. The Christian cavalry outnumbered the Muslim ones, so Barbarossa's army was defeated on July 20th. This triggered a revolt of twelve thousand Christian prisoners in the city that same day, which made the situation more and more hopeless for Khair ad-Din Barbarossa and he was forced to give up the city and move to Bône . It is true that the mutiny of the slaves was decisive for the victory of Charles V; In addition, the combat mission of the Knights of St. John contributed significantly to the victory.
However, Charles V failed to pursue Khair ad-Din in the hour of victory and to put him on the battlefield and defeat him with the superior Spanish fleet. That this did not happen is due either to the fact that Tunis was released for a three-day sacking or that Karl did not consider his troops capable of a new war against Khair ad-Din. All Christian soldiers, mercenaries and slaves, including the Knights of St. John, took part in the looting. But instead of retreating into the Levant , as the Spaniards suspected , Khair ad-Din set sail with fifteen galleons from Bône on a north-westerly course in the direction of the Balearic Islands . While Andrea Doria was searching for him on the North African coast on the orders of Charles V, Barbarossa and his fleet attacked the port city of Maó in the north of the island of Menorca , captured six thousand soldiers and acquired a large number of guns to replace the in Cannons lost during the Battle of Tunis.
consequences
The ensuing massacre in the city of Tunis killed an estimated 30,000 civilians. Barbarossa managed to flee to Algiers with a force of several thousand men.
Muley Hasan was re-enthroned. The smell of corpses was so strong that Charles V soon left Tunis and set up camp in Radès . On August 19, Charles V started his way home via Sicily and Naples.
Muley Hasan , the king of Tunis and vassal of Charles V, whom the Habsburg had reinstated, was ousted by his son in 1542. Three years after the defeat in Tunis, Barbarossa ruled almost the entire Mediterranean again. Tunis initially no longer posed a threat to Christian shipping through the strait of Sicily. But despite the temporary loss of Tunis, which was to be recaptured by the Ottomans in 1574, Khair ad-Din managed to assert himself in Algeria and the tribes subjugate the hinterland and continue his conquests in the Mediterranean . The final capture of Tunis in 1574 by the victorious Ottomans meant the decision in favor of the Ottomans in the conflict over hegemonic power in North Africa.
Tapestry by Willem de Pannemaker
When Emperor Charles V set out on his campaign to Tunis, he let himself be by the painters Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen and Cornelis Anthonisz. accompany. They served as draftsmen for his campaigns. From 1545 to 1548, cardboard boxes for tapestries were made by order of Mary of Hungary , the sister of the Emperor von Vermeyen. The court tapestry Willem de Pannemaker then implemented these in twelve tapestries .
Bombardment of La Goletta.
Attack on La Goletta.
The battle of Tunis, 1535.
Liberation of the 20,000 Christian slaves
Literary processing
In his hexameter poetry of Tunisia. A heroic poem in twelve songs (last version 1826), Johann Ladislaus Pyrker attempted to compose a “national epic of Christianity”; the reception is ambivalent and ranges from “everything has life, movement, fixed, safe characteristics. The descriptions of the hunts, battles, time and place conditions are strong and vivid, for the most part masterful, always sublime, and therefore they do not appear anywhere, they are always subordinate to the main "to" the battle descriptions are without intuition, without life and strength; wild rumble paints the incessant thunderstorms; He succeeded best in describing the storm in Tunisia. In the portrayal of daily life he becomes easily tasteless [...] So he often and easily falls from the sublime into the ridiculous. "
Remarks
- ↑ The figure of 60,000 men can be found in Wolfgang Brassat: The history picture in the age of eloquence: from Raffael to Le Brun , p. 316.
- ↑ 15 galleys of the Mediterranean department, 42 ships of the Bay of Biscay , 150 ships of the Málaga department
- ↑ 1 galley , 20 caravels
- ↑ Crowley, p. 61.
- ↑ Garnier, p. 96.
- ↑ Crowley, p. 56.
- ↑ Crowley, p. 57.
- ↑ Crowley, p. 58.
- ↑ Crowley, p. 59.
- ↑ Crowley, p. 60.
- ↑ Crowley, p. 62.
- ↑ Garnier, pp. 94-95.
- ↑ Crowley, p. 61.
- ↑ Wolfgang Brassat: The history picture in the age of eloquence: from Raffael to Le Brun , p. 316.
- ^ Nils Büttner: The Invention of Landscape: Cosmography and Landscape Art in the Age of Bruegel. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, p. 91. ( online )
- ↑ Wolfgang Brassat: The history picture in the age of eloquence: from Raffael to Le Brun , p. 314
- ^ Review: Johann Ladislaus Pyrker's entire works. In one gang. In: Jahrbücher der Literatur (= advertisement sheet for science and art ), Vol. 88, Vienna 1839, Art. IX, p. 229 ( digitized at Google Books).
- ↑ August Sauer : Pyrker, Johann Ladislav . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 26, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, p. 792 f.
literature
- Roger Crowley : Empire of the Sea. Faber & Faber, London 2009, ISBN 9780571232314 .
- Edith Garnier: L'Alliance Impie Editions du Felin, Paris 2008, ISBN 9782866456788 .
