The siege of Tripoli occurred in 1551 when the Ottoman Turks and Barbary pirates besieged and vanquished the Knights of Malta in the Red Castle of Tripoli, modern Libya.[1] The Spanish had established an outpost in Tripoli in 1510, and Charles V remitted it to the Knights in 1530.[2][3] The siege culminated in a six-day bombardment and the surrender of the city on 15 August.
The siege of Tripoli was successive to an earlier attack on Malta in July, which was repelled, and the successful invasion of Gozo, in which 5,000 Christian captives were taken and brought on galleys to the location of Tripoli.
The city was under the command of Fra' Gaspard de Vallier, with thirty knights and 630 Italian and Sicilian mercenaries.[3] The Ottomans had a base since 1531 in the city of Tajura, 20 kilometers to the east, where Khayr al-Din had been based.[4] The Ottomans encircled the fort, and established 3 batteries of 12 guns each.[3]
The French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Gabriel d'Aramon, joined the Ottoman fleet at Tripoli, with two galleys and a galliot,[3][5] The declared mission of the ambassador was to dissuade the Ottomans from capturing the city, at the request of the Grand Master of Malta, as Malta was not identified as an enemy in the Franco-Ottoman alliance against the Habsburgs.[6][7] According to later reports, when Sinan Pasha (Sinanüddin Yusuf Pasha) and Dragut refused to lift the siege, on grounds that they were under order to eradicate the Knights of Malta from the African continent, d'Aramon threatened to sail to Constantinople to appeal to SultanSuleiman, but he was then barred from leaving the city until the end of the siege.[6][7]
Soon the soldiers in the fort mutinied, and negotiation for surrender started.[3] The city was captured on 15 August 1551 by Sinan Pasha after six days of bombardment.[8][9][5] The Knights, many of them French, were returned to Malta upon the intervention of the French ambassador,[5] and shipped on board his galleys, while the mercenaries were enslaved.[3] (some authors say 200 men were freed[5]). Murād Agha, the Ottoman commander of Tajura since 1536, was named as the Pashalik of the city.[4]
Nicolas de Villegagnon, the future explorer of Brazil, was present at the siege of Tripoli in 1551, and wrote an account about it in 1553.[10]
From Malta, d'Aramon wrote a letter about his intervention to Henry II.[5] The role of d'Aramon was widely criticized by Charles V and Julius III on suspicion that he had encouraged the Ottomans to take the city.[5] It appeared that d'Aramon had participated in the victory banquet of the Ottomans, raising further suspicions about his role in the siege, and leading to claims by Charles V that France participated in the siege.[6][7] In any instance, d'Aramon had a special relationship with the Ottomans, and was clearly aware that the fall of Tripoli represented a major setback for Charles V.[5]
Nicolas Villegaignon was at the Siege of Tripoli as a Knight of Malta
Upon his return to Malta, Gaspard de Vallier was heavily criticized by the Grand Master Juan de Homedes y Coscon who wished to assign all the blame for the defeat on him. He was brought in front of a tribunal, and stripped from the habit and cross of the Order.[11] He had been however staunchly defended by Nicolas de Villegagnon, who exposed the duplicity of de Homedes.[12]
The siege was the first step of the all-out Italian War of 1551–1559 in the European theater, and in the Mediterranean the French galleys of Marseilles were ordered to join the Ottoman fleet.[3]
In 1553, Dragut was nominated commander of Tripoli by Suleiman, making the city an important center for piratical raids in the Mediterranean and the capital of the Ottoman province of Tripolitania.[4] In a famous attack from Tripoli, in 1558, Dragut attacked Reggio, and took all its inhabitants as slaves to Tripoli.[4][13]
In 1560, a powerful naval force was sent to recapture Tripoli, but that force was defeated in the Battle of Djerba.[14]
Nicolas Durand, sieur de Villegaignon, also Villegagnon was a Commander of the Knights of Malta, and later a French naval officer who attempted to help the Huguenots in France escape persecution.
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 Great Siege of Malta occurred in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire attempted to conquer the island of Malta, then held by the Knights Hospitaller. The siege lasted nearly four months, from 18 May to 12 September 1565.
The Battle of Djerba took place in May 1560 near the island of Djerba, Tunisia. The Ottomans under Piyale Pasha's command overwhelmed a large joint Christian Alliance fleet, composed chiefly of Spanish, Papal, Genoese, Maltese, and Neapolitan forces. The allies lost 27 galleys and some smaller vessels as well as the fortified island of Djerba. This victory marked perhaps the high point of Ottoman power in the Mediterranean Sea.
Fra' Juan de Homedes y Coscón was a Spanish knight of Aragon who served as the 47th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, between 1536 and 1553.
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.
Sinanuddin Yusuf Pasha or in short Sinan Pasha was an Ottoman Grand Admiral, who served the Ottoman Navy for nearly four years between 1550 and the end of 1553, during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. He was of Serbian or Croatian descent, the predecessor of Piali Pasha in this rank and the brother of Grand Vizier Rustem Pasha, who in turn was married to Mihrimah Sultan, a daughter of Suleiman the Magnificent and Hurrem Sultan.
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.
Gabriel de Luetz, Baron et Seigneur d'Aramon et de Vallabregues, often also abbreviated to Gabriel d'Aramon, was the French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1546 to 1553, in the service first of Francis I, who dispatched him to the Ottoman Empire, and then of the French king Henry II. Gabriel de Luetz was accompanied by a vast suite of scientists, Jean de Monluc, philosopher Guillaume Postel, botanist Pierre Belon, naturalist Pierre Gilles d'Albi, the future cosmographer André Thévet, traveler Nicolas de Nicolay who would publish their findings upon their return to France and contribute greatly to the development of early science in France.
Gaspar de Vallier was a Marshall of the Knights of Malta, who was in command of the fortress of Tripoli during the Siege of Tripoli (1551). He was French, from the region of Auvergne. In Tripoli, he commanded 30 knights and 630 Calabrian and Sicilian mercenaries. The city was captured on 15 August 1551.
The Invasion of Corsica of 1553 occurred when French, Ottoman, and Corsican exile forces combined to capture the island of Corsica from the Republic of Genoa.
The Battle of Ponza (1552) was a naval battle that occurred near the Italian island of Ponza. The battle was fought between a Franco-Ottoman fleet under Dragut and a Genoese fleet commanded by Andrea Doria. The Genoese were defeated and lost seven galleys captured. The battle made it easier for the Ottoman fleet to raid the coasts of Sicily, Sardinia, and Italy for the next three years.
The capture of Mahdia was an amphibious military operation that took place from June to September, 1550, during the struggle between the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish Habsburgs for the control of the Mediterranean. A Spanish naval expedition under the command of the Genoese condottiero and admiral Andrea Doria and the Spaniard Bernardino de Mendoza, supported by the Knights of Malta under their Grand Master Claude de la Sengle, besieged and captured the Ottoman stronghold of Mahdia or Mahdiye, defended by the Ottoman Admiral Turgut Reis, known as Dragut, who was using the place as a base for his piratical activities throughout the Spanish and Italian coasts. Mahdia was abandoned by Spain three years later, and all its fortifications were demolished to avoid a re-occupation of the city by the Ottomans.
Between April and June 1563 the Regency of Algiers launched a major military campaign to retake the Spanish military-bases of Oran and Mers el Kébir on the North African coast, occupied by Spain since 1505. The sieges of Oran and Mers El Kébir of 1563 represented a major Hispano-Algerian episode in the larger Ottoman-Habsburg wars of the Mediterranean. The Kingdom of Algiers, the Principalities of Kabyle, and other vassal tribes combined forces as one army under Hasan Pasha, son of Hayreddin Barbarossa, and Jafar Catania. The Spanish commander brothers, Alonso de Córdoba Count of Alcaudete and Martín de Córdoba, managed to hold the strongholds of Oran and Mers El Kébir, respectively, until the relief fleet of Francisco de Mendoza arrived to successfully defeat the offensive.
The Invasion of Gozo took place in July 1551, and was accomplished by the Ottoman Empire against the island of Gozo, following an unsuccessful attempt to conquer nearby Malta on 18 July 1551. It was followed by a victorious campaign with the siege of Tripoli.
Dragut was an Ottoman corsair, naval commander, governor, and noble. Under his command, the Ottoman Empire's maritime power was extended across North Africa. Recognized for his military genius, and as being among "the most dangerous" of corsairs, Dragut has been referred to as "the greatest pirate warrior of all time", "undoubtedly the most able of all the Turkish leaders", and "the uncrowned king of the Mediterranean". He was nicknamed "the Drawn Sword of Islam". He was described by a French admiral as "a living chart of the Mediterranean, skillful enough on land to be compared to the finest generals of the time" and that "no one was more worthy than he to bear the name of king". Hayreddin Barbarossa, who was his mentor, stated that Dragut was ahead of him "both in fishing and bravery".
Fra' Jean "Parisot" de (la) Valette was a French nobleman and 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 21 August 1557 to his death in 1568. As a Knight Hospitaller, joining the order in the Langue de Provence, he fought with distinction against the Turks at Rhodes. As Grand Master, Valette became the Order's hero and most illustrious leader, commanding the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest sieges of all time.
The Conquest of Tripoli was a maritime campaign led by Pedro Navarro which captured the city of Tripoli in North Africa in the name of the Crown of Aragon in 1510.
The Sidi Darghut Mosque or Jama Sidi Darghut is a mosque in Tripoli, Libya. It was built in around 1560 by Dragut on the site of a Hospitaller church, parts of which were incorporated into the mosque. The mosque was damaged in World War II but it was subsequently repaired, although the reconstruction was not completely faithful to its original design.
Tripoli, today the capital city of Libya, was ruled by the Knights Hospitaller between 1530 and 1551. The city had been under Spanish rule for two decades before it was granted as a fief to the Hospitallers in 1530 along with the islands of Malta and Gozo. The Hospitallers found it difficult to control both the city and the islands, and at times they proposed to either move their headquarters to Tripoli or to abandon and raze the city. Hospitaller rule over Tripoli ended in 1551 when the city was captured by the Ottoman Empire following a siege.
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