Hussein Mezzomorto (d. 1701) or Hajji Husain Mezzomorto was an Algerian privateer, dey of Algiers, and finally Grand Admiral (Kapudan Pasha) of the Ottoman Navy. His epithet mezzomorto is the Italian for "half-dead" and was acquired during a fight with the Spaniards, [1] when he was gravely injured.
Mezzo morto pasha was a converted Christian from Mallorca, [2] Mezzomorto was mentioned as a captain in 1674. He rose to prominence during the French attacks on Algiers in the early 1680s. He was present for Abraham Duquesne's 1682 bombardment and commanded a fleet of corsairs the next year. The dey of Algiers Baba Hassan handed him over as a hostage to the French, but Mezzomorto persuaded the French admiral to send him back to shore, where he led an insurrection against Baba Hassan, killed him, and took over as dey of Algiers. [3] He then opened fire on the French fleet, forcing Duquesne to raise his blockade. During the 1684 bombardment, he signed a "100 year" treaty with Duquesne. However, the French fleet bombarded Algiers again in 1688, and Mezzomorto retaliated with attacks on the French coast.
As dey of Algiers, Mezzomorto took part in the Morean War between the Ottomans and Venetians in 1686. He then commanded the fleet in the Danube in 1690, and afterward in the Black Sea. The Venetian threat to the Ottomans' Aegean possessions led to Mezzomorto's appointment as sanjak-bey of Rhodes in 1691. [3]
Distinguishing himself during the reconquest of Chios in early 1695, he was promoted to Kapudan Pasha, acquiring lordship over the Province of the Islands. His primary goal was to expel the Venetians from the Aegean. He defeated a Venetian fleet off Lesbos in September 1695, preventing it from reaching Chios. He commanded at the Battle of Andros in 1696, and on July 5, 1697, defeated a Venetian fleet off Tenedos. On September 3 he scored another victory, this time off Andros. A battle off Lesbos on September 21, 1698, was interpreted as a victory by each side. [3]
With the support of Sultan Mustafa II, Mezzomorto began a reform of the navy. His reforms were compiled into a book of regulations, the Kannunname, published shortly before his death in 1701. He was buried on Chios.
Occhiali was an Italian farmer, then Ottoman privateer and admiral, who later became beylerbey of the Regency of Algiers, and finally Grand Admiral of the Ottoman fleet in the 16th century.
The Battle of Andros took place on 22 August 1696 southeast of the Greek island of Andros between the fleets of the Republic of Venice and the Papal States under Bartolomeo Contarini on the one side and the Ottoman Navy, under Mezzo Morto Hüseyin Pasha, and allied Barbary forces on the other. The encounter was indecisive, and no vessels were lost on either side.
The Regency of Algiers was an autonomous eyalet of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa from 1516 to 1830. It was an early modern tributary state founded by the corsair brothers Oruç and Hayreddin Barbarossa, ruled first by viceroys, which later became a sovereign military republic. The Regency was the earliest and most powerful of the Barbary states with the largest navy in North Africa. Situated between the Regency of Tunis in the east, the Sharifian Sultanate of Morocco and Spanish Oran in the west, the Regency originally extended its borders from the Mellegue river in the east to Moulouya river in the west and from Collo to Ouargla, with nominal authority over the Tuat and the country south of In Salah to the south. At the end of the Regency, it extended to the present eastern and western borders of Algeria.
Oruç Reis was an Ottoman corsair who became Sultan of Algiers. The elder brother of the famous Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa, he was born on the Ottoman island of Midilli and died in battle against the Spanish at Tlemcen.
Hayreddin Barbarossa, also known as Hayreddin Pasha, Hızır Hayrettin Pasha, and simply Hızır Reis, was an Ottoman corsair and later admiral of the Ottoman Navy. Barbarossa's naval victories secured Ottoman dominance over the Mediterranean during the mid-16th century.
Piali Pasha was an Ottoman Grand Admiral between 1553 and 1567, and a Vizier (minister) after 1568. He is also known as Piale Pasha in English.
The Ottoman Navy or The Imperial Navy, also known as the Ottoman Fleet, was the naval warfare arm of the Ottoman Empire. It was established after the Ottomans first reached the sea in 1323 by capturing Praenetos, the site of the first Ottoman naval shipyard and the nucleus of the future navy.
The Kapudan Pasha, also known as the Kapudan-ı Derya was the Grand Admiral of the navy of the Ottoman Empire. Typically, he was based at Galata and Gallipoli during the winter and charged with annual sailings during the summer months. The title of Kapudan Pasha itself is only attested from 1567 onwards; earlier designations for the supreme commander of the fleet include Derya Bey and Re'is Kapudan.
Salah Rais was the 7th King of Algiers, an Ottoman privateer and admiral. He is alternatively referred to as Sala Reis, Salih Rais, Salek Rais and Cale Arraez in several European sources, particularly in Spain, France and Italy.
The Morean war, also known as the Sixth Ottoman–Venetian War, was fought between 1684–1699 as part of the wider conflict known as the "Great Turkish War", between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire. Military operations ranged from Dalmatia to the Aegean Sea, but the war's major campaign was the Venetian conquest of the Morea (Peloponnese) peninsula in southern Greece. On the Venetian side, the war was fought to avenge the loss of Crete in the Cretan War (1645–1669). It happened while the Ottomans were entangled in their northern struggle against the Habsburgs – beginning with the failed Ottoman attempt to conquer Vienna and ending with the Habsburgs gaining Buda and the whole of Hungary, leaving the Ottoman Empire unable to concentrate its forces against the Venetians. As such, the Morean War was the only Ottoman–Venetian conflict from which Venice emerged victorious, gaining significant territory. Venice's expansionist revival would be short-lived, as its gains would be reversed by the Ottomans in 1718.
The Cretan War, also known as the War of Candia or the Fifth Ottoman–Venetian War, was a conflict between the Republic of Venice and her allies against the Ottoman Empire and the Barbary States, because it was largely fought over the island of Crete, Venice's largest and richest overseas possession. The war lasted from 1645 to 1669 and was fought in Crete, especially in the city of Candia, and in numerous naval engagements and raids around the Aegean Sea, with Dalmatia providing a secondary theater of operations.
The invasion of Algiers in 1830 was a large-scale military operation by which the Kingdom of France, ruled by Charles X, invaded and conquered the Deylik of Algiers.
The Eyalet of the Archipelago was a first-level province (eyalet) of the Ottoman Empire. From its inception until the Tanzimat reforms of the mid-19th century, it was under the personal control of the Kapudan Pasha, the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman Navy.
Jean Le Vacher was a French Lazarist missionary and consul in Tunis and Algiers. He was killed by being attached to an Algerian cannon loaded with shrapnel that was fired when the French fleet bombarded Algiers.
The Ottoman conquest of Lesbos took place in September 1462. The Ottoman Empire, under Sultan Mehmed II, laid siege to the island's capital, Mytilene. After its surrender, the other forts of the island surrendered as well. The event put an end to the semi-independent Genoese lordship that the Gattilusio family had established in the northeastern Aegean since the mid-14th century, and heralded the beginning of the First Ottoman–Venetian War in the following year.
The bombardment of Algiers in 1682 was a naval operation by France against the Regency of Algiers during the French-Algerian War 1681–1688. Louis XIV sent Duquesne to bombard Algiers after the Dey declared war on France in 1681. Duquesne sailed from Toulon with a fleet of around forty vessels and reached Algiers in July 1682 after many delays caused by poor weather. Bombarded several times in August, the city suffered extensive damage. The danger of the corsair captains who managed to manoeuvre their ships so as to threaten the French position and bad weather forced Duquesne to retreat to French waters.
The bombardment of Algiers in 1683 was a French naval operation against the Regency of Algiers during the French-Algerian War 1681–88. It led to the rescue of more than 100 French prisoners, in some cases after decades of captivity, but the great majority of Christian captives in Algiers were not liberated.
Nasuhzade Ali Pasha, commonly known as Kara Ali Pasha, was an Ottoman-Albanian admiral during the early stages of the Greek War of Independence. In 1821, as second-in-command of the Ottoman navy, he succeeded in resupplying the isolated Ottoman fortresses in the Peloponnese, while his subordinate Ismael Gibraltar destroyed Galaxeidi. Promoted to Kapudan Pasha, and led the suppression of the revolt in Chios and the ensuing Chios massacre in April 1822. He was killed when a fireship captained by Konstantinos Kanaris blew up his flagship in Chios harbour on the night of 18/19 June 1822.
Morto may refer to:
The French-Algerian War of 1681–1688 was part of a wider campaign by France against the Barbary Pirates in the 1680s.
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