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Authors: Ernle Bradford
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that there was room enough for a determined group to launch a frontal assault, he gave the order for the attack and stormed in at the head of his men.
The Spaniards made no move until the attackers had begun scrambling up the broken rubble slope towards the gaping hole in the wall. They then opened fire systematically and coolly upon the onrushing Turks and Zouaves. Courage and headstrong impetuosity are not enough in warfare. Although they may sometimes win battles, they are rarely a match for disciplined intelligence. In those first few volleys, the front ranks of the advancing attackers were decimated, and in one of them, “As Barbarossa was leading his men to the attack, a shot took away his left arm, above the elbow.”
It is quite probable that if the Turks had ignored their fallen leader and pressed on, they would still have overwhelmed the defenders (the arquebus was slow to reload), but Aruj Barbarossa’s fall demoralised them. In those days the individual leader was all-important. They wavered and hung back; then, picking up their wounded—among them the stricken Aruj—they fled out of range of the Spanish fire. The attack was called off. The disconsolate Turks, Moors, Berbers, and Zouaves withdrew, some to the ships, and the others—including the ex-ruler of Bougie—back to their lair in the mountains.
This was the first big setback experienced by Aruj in his career on the North African coast. To further pursue the parallel careers of this great warrior and seaman with that of Sir Francis Drake, it is interesting to note that Drake and his men suffered a very similar reverse, at a moment when victory seemed within their grasp, exactly sixty years later. In 1572, at the head of a small body of Devonian seamen, Drake had stormed the Spanish city of Nombre de Dios, captured the main square, and had the city at his mercy. At that moment a volley from the Spanish arquebusiers killed and wounded some of the English and Drake was hit in the leg. He lost so much blood “that it soon filled the very prints which our footsteps made, to the great dismay of all our company, who thought it not credible that one should be able to lose so much blood and live.” Their leader’s disablement had exactly the same effect on Drake’s seamen as did that of Aruj Barbarossa on his Turks—they abandoned the attack.
No surgeons were carried aboard the galleots, and indeed there were few enough with surgical knowledge in all Africa. But at Tunis there were skilled Arab physicians (as skilled as any in the world at that time). While the rest of the fleet embarked the soldiers and siege train, one galleot, with a picked crew of Turkish oarsmen, sped back along the coast to Tunis. It carried the unconscious Aruj, with the stump of his left arm constricted by a primitive tourniquet.
Only one stroke of fortune redeemed this first Bougie expedition from disaster. As Khizr Barbarossa and his eleven ships were coasting back towards Tunis they came across a Genoese galleot. She was well to the south of her course, being bound for the island of Tabarka near Alicante Bay in southern Spain. The galleot belonged to the rich Genoese family of Lomellini who owned Tabarka and its coral fisheries, and she was deep-laden with jewellery and other treasure. Captured with hardly any opposition, the galleot was towed back to Tunis where Aruj lay, slowly recovering from the amputation of his arm. But if the Turks and the Sultan of Tunis reckoned that the Genoese galleot was some recompense for the failure of their attack on Bougie, they little realised what a hornet’s nest they had stirred up for themselves.
5 - THE REVENGE OF GENOA
The Genoese were not unfamiliar with the name of Barbarossa, nor with the fact that in recent years the coastlines of Italy and Sicily had been under constant attack by him, and that numbers of ships belonging to the King of Spain had never reached their destinations. But the problems of Spain were not their concern.
The Spaniards made no move until the attackers had begun scrambling up the broken rubble slope towards the gaping hole in the wall. They then opened fire systematically and coolly upon the onrushing Turks and Zouaves. Courage and headstrong impetuosity are not enough in warfare. Although they may sometimes win battles, they are rarely a match for disciplined intelligence. In those first few volleys, the front ranks of the advancing attackers were decimated, and in one of them, “As Barbarossa was leading his men to the attack, a shot took away his left arm, above the elbow.”
It is quite probable that if the Turks had ignored their fallen leader and pressed on, they would still have overwhelmed the defenders (the arquebus was slow to reload), but Aruj Barbarossa’s fall demoralised them. In those days the individual leader was all-important. They wavered and hung back; then, picking up their wounded—among them the stricken Aruj—they fled out of range of the Spanish fire. The attack was called off. The disconsolate Turks, Moors, Berbers, and Zouaves withdrew, some to the ships, and the others—including the ex-ruler of Bougie—back to their lair in the mountains.
This was the first big setback experienced by Aruj in his career on the North African coast. To further pursue the parallel careers of this great warrior and seaman with that of Sir Francis Drake, it is interesting to note that Drake and his men suffered a very similar reverse, at a moment when victory seemed within their grasp, exactly sixty years later. In 1572, at the head of a small body of Devonian seamen, Drake had stormed the Spanish city of Nombre de Dios, captured the main square, and had the city at his mercy. At that moment a volley from the Spanish arquebusiers killed and wounded some of the English and Drake was hit in the leg. He lost so much blood “that it soon filled the very prints which our footsteps made, to the great dismay of all our company, who thought it not credible that one should be able to lose so much blood and live.” Their leader’s disablement had exactly the same effect on Drake’s seamen as did that of Aruj Barbarossa on his Turks—they abandoned the attack.
No surgeons were carried aboard the galleots, and indeed there were few enough with surgical knowledge in all Africa. But at Tunis there were skilled Arab physicians (as skilled as any in the world at that time). While the rest of the fleet embarked the soldiers and siege train, one galleot, with a picked crew of Turkish oarsmen, sped back along the coast to Tunis. It carried the unconscious Aruj, with the stump of his left arm constricted by a primitive tourniquet.
Only one stroke of fortune redeemed this first Bougie expedition from disaster. As Khizr Barbarossa and his eleven ships were coasting back towards Tunis they came across a Genoese galleot. She was well to the south of her course, being bound for the island of Tabarka near Alicante Bay in southern Spain. The galleot belonged to the rich Genoese family of Lomellini who owned Tabarka and its coral fisheries, and she was deep-laden with jewellery and other treasure. Captured with hardly any opposition, the galleot was towed back to Tunis where Aruj lay, slowly recovering from the amputation of his arm. But if the Turks and the Sultan of Tunis reckoned that the Genoese galleot was some recompense for the failure of their attack on Bougie, they little realised what a hornet’s nest they had stirred up for themselves.
5 - THE REVENGE OF GENOA
The Genoese were not unfamiliar with the name of Barbarossa, nor with the fact that in recent years the coastlines of Italy and Sicily had been under constant attack by him, and that numbers of ships belonging to the King of Spain had never reached their destinations. But the problems of Spain were not their concern.
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