Battle of Gallipoli (1416)

The Battle of Gallipoli occurred on 29 May 1416 between a squadron of the Venetian navy and the fleet of the Ottoman Empire off the Ottoman naval base of Gallipoli. The battle was the main episode of a brief conflict between the two powers, resulting from Ottoman attacks against Venetian possessions and shipping in the Aegean Sea in late 1415. The Venetian fleet, under Pietro Loredan, was charged with transporting Venetian envoys to the Sultan, but was authorized to attack if the Ottomans refused to negotiate. The subsequent events are known chiefly from a letter written by Loredan after the battle. The Ottomans exchanged fire with the Venetian ships as soon as the Venetian fleet approached Gallipoli, forcing the Venetians to withdraw.

On the next day, the two fleets manoeuvred and fought off Gallipoli, but during the evening, Loredan managed to contact the Ottoman authorities and inform them of his diplomatic mission. Despite assurances that the Ottomans would welcome the envoys, when the Venetian fleet approached the city on the next day, the Ottoman fleet sailed to meet the Venetians and the two sides quickly became embroiled in battle. The Venetians scored a crushing victory, killing the Ottoman admiral, capturing a large part of the Ottoman fleet, and taking large numbers prisoner, of whom many—particularly the Christians serving voluntarily in the Ottoman fleet—were executed. The Venetians then retired to Tenedos to replenish their supplies and rest. Although a crushing Venetian victory, which confirmed Venetian naval superiority in the Aegean Sea for the next few decades, the settlement of the conflict was delayed until a peace treaty was signed in 1419.

Background
In 1413, the Ottoman prince Mehmed I ended the civil war of the Ottoman Interregnum and established himself as Sultan and the sole master of the Ottoman realm. In 1414, he campaigned in Anatolia against Junayd of Aydın, and when he came to Smyrna several of the most important Latin rulers of the Aegean Sea—the Genoese lords of Chios, Phokaia, and Lesbos, and even the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller—came to do him obeisance. The account by the Byzantine historian Doukas (c. 1400 – after 1462) reports that the Sultan was enraged that the Duke of Naxos was absent, and as a retaliation he equipped a fleet of 30 vessels, under the command of Çali Bey, and in late 1415 sent it to raid the Cyclades, the domain of the Duke of Naxos. The Ottoman fleet ravaged the islands, and carried off a large part of the inhabitants of Andros, Paros, and Melos. On the other hand, the Venetian historian Marino Sanuto the Younger (1466–1536) indicates that the Ottoman attack was in retaliation for the raids against Ottoman shipping undertaken by Pietro Zeno, the lord of Andros. Like the Duke of Naxpos, Zeno was a Venetian citizen and vassal of the Republic of Venice, but he had not been included in the previous treaties between the Republic and the Ottomans, and had continued raiding Ottoman shipping on his own account.

Sanuto further reports that in the autumn of 1415, the Ottoman fleet tried to intercept Venetian merchant galleys coming from the Black Sea at the Dardanelles. The Venetian vessels were delayed at Constantinople by bad weather, but managed to pass through the Ottoman fleet and outrun its pursuit to the safety of the Venetian colony of Negroponte. In mid-October 1415, an Ottoman fleet of 42 ships—six galleys, 16 galleots, and the rest smaller brigantines—then arrived before Negroponte and bombarded the fortress, but without much success; the local commander, the bailo Niccolo Giorgi, had been informed in time and had taken adequate preparations. The Ottomans also raided the island of Negroponte (Euboea), carrying off 1,500 captives, leading the local inhabitants to petition the Signoria of Venice for permission to become tributaries of the Turks—a demand categorically rejected by the Signoria.

In response to the Ottoman raids, the Great Council of Venice appointed Pietro Loredan as commander-in-chief and charged him with equipping a fleet of fifteen galleys; five were equipped in Venice, four at Candia, and one each at Negroponte, Napoli di Romania (Nauplia), Andros, and Corfu. Loredan's brother Giorgio, Jacopo Barbarigo, Cristoforo Dandolo, and Pietro Contarini were appointed as galley captains (sopracomiti), while Andrea Foscolo and Delfino Venier were designated as provveditori of the fleet and envoys to the Sultan. Loredan's appointment was unusual, as he had served recently as Captain of the Gulf, and law forbade anyone who had held the position from holding the same for three years after; however, the Great Council overrode this rule due to the de facto state of war with the Ottomans. In a further move calculated to bolster Loredan's authority (and appeal to his vanity), an old rule that had fallen into disuse was revived, whereby only the captain-general had the right to carry the Banner of Saint Mark on his flagship, rather than every sopracomito. In a rare display of determination on behalf of the Venetian government, the Council voted almost unanimously to authorize Loredan to attack if the Ottomans were unwilling to negotiate a cessation of hostilities.

Battle
The events before and during the battle are described in detail in a letter sent by Loredan to the Signoria on 2 June 1416, which was included by Sanudo in his (posthumously published) History of the Doges of Venice, while Doukas provides a brief and somewhat different account. According to Loredan's letter, his fleet was delayed by contrary winds and reached Tenedos on 24 May, and did not enter the Dardanelles until the 27th, when they arrived near Gallipoli. Loredan reports that the Venetians took care to avoid projecting any hostile intentions, but the Ottomans, who had assembled a large force of infantry and 200 cavalry on the shore, began firing on them with arrows. Loredan dispersed his ships to avoid casualties, but the tide was drawing them closer to the shore. Loredan tried to signal the Ottomans that they had no hostile intentions, but the latter kept firing poisoned arrows at them, until Loredan ordered a few cannon shots that killed a few soldiers and forced the rest to retire from the shore.

At dawn on the next day, Loredan sent two galleys, bearing the Banner of Saint Mark, to the entry of the port of Gallipoli to open negotiations. In response the Turks sent 32 ships to attack them. Loredan withdrew his two galleys, and began to withdraw, while shooting at the Turkish ships, in order to lure them away from Gallipoli. As the Ottoman ships could not keep up with their oars, they set sail as well; on the Venetian side, the galley from Napoli di Romania tarried during the manoeuvre and was in danger of being caught by the pursuing Ottoman ships, so that Loredan likewise ordered his ships to set sail. Once they were had made ready for combat, Loredan ordered his ten galleys to lower sails, turn about, and face the Ottoman fleet. At that point, however, the eastern wind rose suddenly, and the Ottomans decided to break off the pursuit and head back to Gallipoli. Loredan in turn tried to catch up with the Ottomans, firing at them with his guns and crossbows and launching grappling hooks at the Turkish ships, but the wind and the current allowed the Ottomans to retreat speedily behind the fortifications of Gallipoli. According to Loredan, the engagement lasted until the 22nd hour.

Loredan then sent a messenger to the Ottoman fleet commander to complain about the attack, insisting that his intentions were pacific, and that his sole purpose was to convey the two ambassadors to the Sultan. The Ottoman commander replied that he was ignorant of that fact, and that the fleet was meant to sail to the Danube and stop Mehmed's brother and rival for the Ottoman throne, Mustafa Çelebi, from crossing from Wallachia into Ottoman Rumelia. The Ottoman commander informed Loredan that he and his crews could land and provision themselves without fear, and that the members of the embassy would be conveyed with the appropriate honours and safety to their destination. Loredan sent a notary, Thomas, with an interpreter to the Ottoman commander and the captain of the garrison of Gallipoli to express his regrets, but also to gauge the number, equipment, and dispositions of the Ottoman galleys. The Ottoman dignitaries reassured Thomas of their good will, and proposed to provide an armed escort for the ambassadors to bring them to the court of Sultan Mehmed.

After the envoy returned, the Venetian fleet, sailing with difficulty against the eastern wind, departed and sailed to a nearby bay to spend the night. On the next day, in accordance to the messages exchanged, Loredan led his ships towards Gallipoli to replenish his supplies of water, while leaving three galleys—those of his brother, of Dandolo, and of Capello of Candia—as a reserve. As soon as the Venetians approached the town, the Ottoman fleet sailed out of the harbour, and one of their galleys approached and fired a few cannon shots at the Venetian vessels. According to the account by Doukas, the Venetians were pursuing a merchant vessel of Lesbos thought to be Turkish origin, coming from Constantinople. The Ottomans likewise thought the merchant vessel was one of their own, and one of their galleys moved to defend the vessel.

The galley from Napoli, which sailed to his left, was again showing signs of disorder, so he ordered it moved to the right, away from the approaching Turks. Loredan had his ships withdraw a while, in order to draw the Turks further from Gallipoli and have the sun in the Venetians' back. Once ready, Loredan led his own flagship to attack the leading Ottoman galley. Its crew offered determined resistance, and the other Ottoman galleys came astern of Loredan's ship to his left, and launched volleys of arrows against him and his men. Loredan himself was wounded by an arrow below the eye and the nose, and by another that passed through his left hand, as well as other arrows that struck him with lesser effect. Nevertheless, the galley was captured after most of its crew was killed, and Loredan, after leaving a few men of his crew to guard it, turned against a galleot, which he captured as well. Again leaving a few of his men and his flag on it, he turned on the other Ottoman ships. The fight lasted from morning to the second hour of the night. The Venetians defeated the Ottoman fleet, killing its commander and many of the captains and crews, and capturing six great galleys and nine galleots, according to Loredan's account, but 27 vessels in total according to Doukas. Loredan gives a detailed breakdown of the ships captured by his men: his own ship captured a galley and a galleot of 20 banks of oars; the Contarini galley captured a galley; the galley of Giorgio Loredan captured two galleots of 22 banks and two galleots of 20 banks; the Grimani galley of Negroponte captured a galley; the galley of Jiacopo Barbarini captured a galleot of 23 banks and another of 19 banks; the same for the Capello galley; the galley of Girolamo Minotto from Napoli captured the Ottoman flagship galley, which had been defeated and pursued before by the Capello galley; the Venieri and Barbarigo galleys of Candia took a galley. Venetian casualties were light, twelve killed—mostly by drowning—and 340 wounded, most of them lightly.

The Venetian fleet then approached Gallipoli and bombarded the port, without response from the Ottomans within the walls. The Venetians then retired about a mile from Gallipoli to recover their strength and tend to their wounded. Among the captive Ottoman crews were found to be many Christians—Genoese, Catalans, Cretans, Provencals, and Sicilians—who were all executed by hanging from the yardarms, while a Giorgio Calergi, who had participated in a revolt against Venice, was quartered at the deck of Loredan's flagship. Many of the Christian galley slaves also perished in combat, but about 1,100 were taken prisoner by the Venetians. Doukas places these events later, at Tenedos, where the Turkish prisoners were executed, while the Christian prisoners were divided into those who had been pressed into service as galley slaves, who were liberated, and those who had entered Ottoman service as mercenaries, who were impaled. After burning five galleots in sight of Gallipoli, Loredan made ready to retire with his ships to Tenedos to take on water, repair his ships, tend to his wounded and make new plans. The Venetian commander sent a new letter to the Ottoman commander in the city complaining of breach of faith and explaining that he would return from Tenedos to carry out his mission of escorting the ambassadors, but the Ottoman commander did not reply.

Aftermath
One of the Turkish captains that had been taken prisoner also composed a letter to the Sultan, stating that the Venetians had been attacked without cause. He also informed Loredan that the remnants of the Ottoman fleet were such that they posed no threat to him: a single galley and a few galleots and smaller vessels were seaworthy, while the rest of the galleys in Gallipoli were out of commission. At Tenedos, Loredan held a council of war, where the opinion was to return to Negroponte for provisions, for offloading the wounded, and for selling three of the galleys for prize money for the crews. Loredan disagreed, believing that they should keep up the pressure on the Turks, and resolved to return to Gallipoli to press for the passage of the ambassadors to the Sultan's court. He sent his brother with his ship to bring the more heavily wounded to Negroponte, and burned three of the captured galleys since they were too much of a burden—in his letter to the Signoria, he expressed the hope that his men would still be recompensed for them, his shipwrights estimating their value at 600 gold ducats. According to Doukas, in the next spring Loredan led his fleet into the Dardanelles once more, and attempted to destroy the fort erected by the Turks at Lampsakos. The Venetians did not attempt a landing, however, due to the presence of Hamza Bey, the brother of the Grand Vizier Bayezid Pasha, with 10,000 men. As a result, the Venetians left the fort half-destroyed and sailed on to Constantinople, but in their wake, Hamza Bey had the fort razed.

The conflict was finally ended in November 1419, when a peace treaty was signed, in which the Ottomans recognized by name Venice's overseas possessions, and agreed to an exchange of prisoners—those taken by the Ottomans from Euboea, and by Venice at Gallipoli. The victory at Gallipoli ensured Venetian naval superiority for decades to come, but also led the Venetians to complacency and over-confidence, as, according to historian Seth Parry, the "seemingly effortless trouncing of the Ottoman fleet confirmed the Venetians in their beliefs that they were vastly superior to the Turks in naval warfare". During the long Siege of Thessalonica (1422–1430) and subsequent conflicts over the course of the century, however, "the Venetians would learn to their discomfiture that naval superiority alone could not guarantee an everlasting position of strength in the eastern Mediterranean".