NAVAL BATTLES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 June 1924, Page 13

NAVAL BATTLES.

ANCIENT AND MODERN. WITH A DIGRESSION ON AUSTERLITZ. JBv “Aristides.”} It is long since I have delved into my histories and inflicted an historical article on the readers of the Star, but an ai’ticle appearing in Wednesday’s edition on the Rattle of Jutland, which commenced: “Trafalgar, 21st October, 1805; Tsushima, 27th May, 1905; Jutland, 31st May, 1916 —the world’s three greatest naval battles,” made my mind go back over the centuries, and the thought came to me, “What of-Salami's, B.C. 480, and of Lepanto, October 7, 1571 ? —Lepanto, where over 30,000 men were killed and 50,000 made captive, and where 12,000 slaves were rescued from the Turks, and the great naval power of Islam was smashed to atoms, never again to become the menace it had hitherto been..

For the present, however, let me make the threatened digression on Austerlitz. This is also due to the article in question and to an extraordinary error, which I cannot make out at all. The article says: “The loss of the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 —the same year as Trafalgar—broke the Kaiser’s heart.” How in heaven’s name came the Kaiser to have any connection with either Austerlitz or Trafalgar? Obviously Napoleon should have been referred to in that conjunction; but then comes the extraordinary fact that Austerlitz, so far from being a defeat, was one of Bonaparte’s greatest victories, for by it was crushed what was known as the “Third Coalition” against him, even as at Hohenlinden he had smashed the “Second Coalition.” Certainly there was nothing in it to “break the Emperor’s heart,” for it was really the victory which founded his Empire by handing over Venetia to his Italian monarchy and the Tyrol and Vorarlberg to his Bavarian kingdom, whilst it finally shattered the old “Holy Roman Empire” and divided the Rhenish provinces of Austria between Baden and Wurtemberg. The allies, Russia and Austria, entered the battle with 80,000 men, and of these they lost nearly half, more than 10,000 being killed aucl the remainder captured and drowned. By the wav, the Russians seem to have a penchant for “falling in the soup,” so to speak, for at Austerlitz, as in the late war. when they were defeated by Hindenburg at Tannenberg and the Mazurian Lakes, they suffered the loss of many drowned in the lakes. Austerlitz was fought in November, and the Mazurian Lakes in February and in both cases the trouble was the same., the ice gave under them, though I believe, if I remember rightly, in. the Mazurian Lakes battle Hindenburg assisted the operation with liis artillery. So! much for Austerlitz.

[ Obviously the portion of the article to'which “Aristides” refers, and which was reprinted from another paper, contained an <jrror as he shows. It is one of those unexplainable oversights to which journalists have to plead guilty from time to time. Those who handled the article for publication in the paper from which we reprinted it also failed to notice the error.] Tq return to our naval battles. When we speak of Trafalgar, Tsushima, and Jutland as the three greatest naval battles of the world it seems to me that we only count time back to the days of Nelson, and forget all about the centuries that have gone. Surely the two battles which saved Europe from domination by Asia are needful to be reckoned-ivhen one talks of the battles of all time. In 430 8.C., Xerxes, King of Persia, made war on Greece and marched upon that country with an army which the Greek historian Herodotus states numbered all told no less than 5,283,220, and which Isocrates puts in round numbers at 5,000,000. Plutarch agrees with them, though Diodorus and Pliny consider this computation far too 'high, and put the number at roughly one million instead of five. Whatever was the fact, there is no doubt that the army was an enormous one, and also that, as is usually the case with Eastern hordes, there were huge numbers of camp followers of all sorts, ages, and sex. Even Herodotus, though he says the total was over five millions, yet seems to show this, for he says,' “The whole amount of the land forces was seventeen hundred- thousand (one million seven hundred thousand), and the mode of ascertaining the number was this: They drew up in one place a body of men. making these stand as compactly as possible, and then drew a circle rmind them. Dismissing these, they built a circle breast high on this mark, and into this put another ten thousand, and then another, and so on till they had a count of the whole, and after this they ranged each division or nation apart.”

Besides this huge army, which was afterwards defeated at Plataea with a loss of 200,0 DD men. Xerxes had with him a fleet of, according to Herodotus, 1207, and to Diodorus Siculus of. 1200, ships, which were under the command of Ariabignes, son of Darius. This fleet had a battle with the Greeks at Artemisium, which was indeterminate, though the Greeks had somewhat the better of it. but' suffered so severely that they decided to withdraw, and made their way down the coast for the purpose of defending the isthmus of Corinth. The Greek fleet gathered at Salamis, and now consisted of 366 ships. Meanwhile Athens had fallen into the hands of the Persians, and Xerxes decided to attack the ’ Greek fleet at Salamis with his. whole fleet. Having caused his army to he drawn up on the mainland opposite to Salamis, which is on an island, the Persian monarch had a high seat erected for himself on a ridge of Mount Aegaleos, overhanging the sea, so that he could have a good view of the battle when it took place. He was quite certain of victory. The Persian fleet advanced to the "attack, the right wing consisting of the Phoenicians and Egyptians facing the Athenians on the Greek left: his left wing, the lonians, opposed the Greek right, consisting of the Lacedaemonians, Aeginetans, and Megarians. The Greeks rowed forward to the attack with their usual paean, or war cry. which was loudly answered by the foe, who were more eager than the Greeks to come to grips. Of the details of the battle little is known, and both fleets fought with great bravery; but the narrowness of the ‘.traits hampered the great Persian fleet and threw it into’ disorder, and they lacked the discipline of their foes. Besides this, their very differences, one nation against another, always told against them when trouble came, and then each would only look after himself, and so confusion soon followed The Athenians broke the Persian right, and the Aeginetans intercepted the flight of the fugitives to Phalenms. Democritus, the Naxian captain, with hits own ship took five Persian vessels. The Persian Admiral Analogues, the king’s own brother, was attacked bv two Greek ships, and fell in trying to board one of them, and great numbers of and Persian nobles fell besides. Of the total loss on either side Diodorus says that the

Greeks had forty ships destroyed and the Persians two hundred, besides which the Persians lost many, which the Greeks captured with their whole crews. Another severe loss to Xerxes was the destruction of practically his whole guards division, who had been landed on the island of Psytallea, for as soon as the Persian fleet was routed, Aristides took over a Grecian force, overpowered the Persians, and killed them to a -man. This jvas an extremely severe blow, as they were practically all picked native Persian guardsmen.

The victory of Salamis caused Xerxes to retreat to the Hellespont (Dardanelles), where the fleet was waiting, and bv which the army was conveyed to the Asiatic coast. It had taken him forty-five days to make the mai’ch and the fleet had got there long before. Thus did the great naval victory won by Europeans over Asiatics at Salamis 2504 years ago break the westward march of Xerxes, king of kings, and prevent the subjugation of Europe to the Persians by the destruction of the great king’s fleet. The following year at Plataea, in a land battle., the great army was routed, the Persian terror was over and European civilisation saved from domination by that of the East.

Lepanto, October 7, 1571. —The Spanish historian Lafuente, in his “Historia Generale de Espana,” calls Lepanto the most famous naval battle ever recorded in the. annals of nations, not only for the numbers engaged, but also for the valour and exertions of the combatants and for the complete destruction of one of the greatest fleets the worlj has ever seen, and for the fact that through that destruction the Turks for ever lost their supremacy in the Mediterranean, a supremacy which, had it been maintained, might have altered all history, and the destruction of which led in the final event, over a century later, to the final breaking up of the Ottoman power by the victory of Sobieski before Vienna and the “crowning mercy” of Zenta bythe great Prince Eugene in 1697, when he hurled the Turks back across the Danube and took Belgrade. Never again have the Ottoman forces been so formidable, and to Lepanto in the first place must we look for the decline of the Turkish power. In 1571 the great Pope Pius V decided- to form a league : against the Turks by combining against them the various Italian and Spanish kingdoms and' states, and under the leadership of Dob John of Austria, a son of the Emperor Charles V, a great fleet was gathered together from Venice, Tuscany, Naples, Genoa, and the States of the Church, which werit forth against the Turks, who were stationed at Lepanto, and there gained what was destined to be one of the epoch-making victories between East and West, when it smashed the Ottoman fleet for ever. The Turkish fleet consisted ,of 240 galleasses, or great ships of war, and a host of smaller ones, and carried no less than 240,000 soldiers and rowers, the whole being .under the command of Ali Pasha, the Turkish high' admiral and generalissimo, who had as his vice-admirals Pertev Pasha, Ali TJluch, and the Viceroy of Egypt. Don ’John of Austria had with him the great Genoese Admiral Giovanni Andrea Doria and Sebastian Veniero, and the Spaniard Ascanio de la Corna, together with others of less importance. Ali Pasha seems to have been misinformed as to the strength of the Christian fleet, and was astounded when he came intc the open to see the size of the force he had to meet. Don John also did not believe Ali’s fleet to lie so strong, and for a Avhile both hesitated to engage. At length, however, the Christians decided to commence the battle, and six Venetian galleasses sailed forward as the vanguard, with sixty galleys forming the left wing under Barbarize. The right wing was commanded by Giovanni Andrea Doria. and also consisted of sixty large ships, whilst the centre consisted of sixty-three galleys, one of which was the. flagship of the generalissimo himself, with the admirals of Rome (Colonna) and of Venice (Veniero) on either side of him, and supported by Requesens, the commander of the knights of Castile. The reserve was under the command of Don Alvaro de Bazan. Marquis of Santa Cruz. The Turkish fleet was more numerous than Don John’s and formed a half moon, divided like the other into three divisions. The right, consisting of fiftyfive galleys, were commanded by the Viceroy of Egypt, Muhammed Siroko; the left, consisting of ninety-three, was under Ali Uhich, of Algiers, while the centre was under the two pashas, Ali himself and Pertev, and consisted of ninety-six ships. Each division had its rearguard and supports, and the standard of the Grand Turk flew at the masthead of Ali Pasha’s flagship. The day and sea were calm, and the sun shone out of a clear blue sky, reflecting the shining arms and armour of the opposing forces, and for a brief space th# fleets gazed upon' each other ir. silent wonder, for from horizon to horizon stretched one unbroken line of flags, pennants and standards, of all shapes and colours. Ali opened fire and Don John’s ship replied, and at once both fleets came to grips. The Tifrkish right and Christian left first engaged, and then Doria met Ali Uluch in desperate conflict. The Algerian captured the flagship of the Maltese squadron and massacred her entire company save three, who, grievously wounded, were missed amongst the slain. Ali Pasha and Don John sought each other out with deadly hatred, and rushing their ships together, the fire from the artillery of the Don’s vessel wrought fearful execution on the Pasha’s galleas. The smoke from the artillery and the burning ships soon made ail dark as night, and Turk and Christian ships locked together often sank together. Turks captured Christian ships and Christians took Turkish, and often it was the case that ships thus taken were working under their new crews against their old comrades. “Never/’ says the author of “Memories of Lepanto,” had the Mediterranean witnessed on her bosom, nor shall the world again see. a conflict so obstinate, a butchery so terrible, or men so valiant and enraged.”

For long the result was in doubt, but with the fall of Ali Pasha himself, shot through the head by an arquebus from Don John’s own shin, and the loss of Pertev Pasha-, who fell overboard and was drowned, the Turks began to give way and the Christian cry of victory rose on high. The last struggle was, between Giovanni Andrea Doria and Ali Uluch, but on the approach of Don John the Viceroy of Algiers made off and left the allies victorious. Perhaps never before or since has there been such a loss of life in a naval engagement. The Turks lost no less than 220 ships, of which 130 were captured by the Christians and niijcty were destroyed, only fortv in all escaping. The" allies lost fifteen ships only. The Turks also had 25,000 men killed and 50,000 captured, and lost 267 guns; besides this. 12,000 Christian slaves who were used as rowers on tiie Turkish ships were released. The Christian losses also were very <>reat. over 8000 being killed. Of these 2000 were Spaniards, 800 belonged to the Papal army, and the remainder were Venetians and Genoese. Thus ended the great battle of Lepanto. which broke the maritime power of

Islam and, as previously stated, really commenced the downfall of the Ottoman power, which. Sobieski,' at Vienna in 1683. and Prince Eugene of Savoy, - at Zerita in 1697, hastened to decline. ' Never again has, Turkey' beSn.V so' formidable as she was before this disaster.