October 7, 1571
Today we give special thanks to Our Lady whose intercession led the armada of the Holy League to victory over the Ottoman fleet on October 7, 1571, at the mouth of what the Venetians called the Bay of Lepanto but what we today call the Gulf of Patras.
My good friends at Catholic Answers in San Diego published my account of the battle in their fine magazine, This Rock, which you can read here.
You can also order my three-lecture CD set on the battle and on G.K. Chesterton’s magnificent ballad celebrating the event here.
Folks who know me, my family included, probably find me a little hard to tolerate around October 7 since the event is one of my chief enthusiasms. On the walls of my office hang drawings of the 1:1 scale replica of Don John of Austria’s galley, Real, that is the glory of the Barcelona Maritime Museum.
In Barcelona’s cathedral hangs the crucifix from Don John’s galley, the corpus of which twisted during the battle to dodge a Turkish cannonball. In defiance of a sign forbidding photography, I snapped a picture of the crucifix when the Checks were there this time last year, prompting my wife Jacqueline to ask me if I thought I was special. “The sign does not apply to those of us who appreciate what we are looking at,” I told her, though, of course, she was right.
In any case, the moment in the battle that occupies my imagination this year took place just before Don John of Austria’s flagship, in a break with naval convention, directly engaged the Ottoman flagship Sultana. As the galleys closed and were about to collide, Don John, known throughout Christendom as a great dancer, broke into a galliard on the prow of his vessel. Imagine the 24-year-old captain general, consumed with anticipation of the impending clash, leaping and landing by the bow cannons and the cheer the sight of his manifest thrill must have sent throughout his soldiers. Seconds later, Spanish infantry, the world’s finest, would board Sultana, Don John himself leading the third charge and receiving, and brushing off, a wound to the leg that moments before was dancing.
Could the commander of a fleet of nearly 300 ships on the cusp of a battle at which the existence of Christendom was at stake really break into dance? In fact, we should expect nothing less from a Christian soldier staring at the face of evil. As Chesterton puts it in Book I of the Ballad of the White Horse:
The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.The men of the East may search the scrolls
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame.
From Alfred the Great reduced to a marshy island the size of a football field, to Christopher Columbus reading aloud the Last Gospel every night at the bow of Santa Maria, to Thomas More cracking jokes on his approach to the shambles, to Don John dancing with sword drawn about to give battle, to the Carmelites of Compiègne singing at the scaffold, Christians have ever gone “gaily into the dark.” Why? Because they are possessed of the joy that comes from freedom. And the men of the East are not. They are, instead, slaves to fate.
Voltaire tried to argue that Lepanto was not decisive, and Michael Novak has tried to argue that the battle was a triumph of Venetian capitalism. Both men, working from the same revolutionary script, could not be more wrong. What was Lepanto? It was, of course, a contest between Christianity and Islam, but it was also part of an older legacy of battles between freedom and fate. Had these battles gone the other way, Europe would not be Europe, or better, Christendom would not be Christendom. Although the western understanding of freedom was sanctified and perfected in the Incarnation, it was written on the hearts of our Greek and Roman forbears, so it should come as no surprise to us that some of these culturally decisive battles were fought before Christ.
Chesterton, in his masterpiece, The Everlasting Man, brilliantly explains the “War of the Gods and Demons”, that is, the Punic Wars, in this very light. The free choice of the Roman citizen to serve the army of the Republic stood in sharp contrast to the motives of the mercenary forces of Carthage comprising men who fought for plunder. Not surprisingly, they served a state that worshipped not only Baal but also Mammon. “Dark with all the riddles of Asia,” writes Chesterton,
and trailing all the tribes and dependencies of imperialism, came Carthage riding on the sea….an outpost or settlement of the energy and expansion of the great commercial cities of Tyre and Sidon…with a prodigious talent for trade....They were members of a mature and polished civilization abounding in refinements and luxuries; they were probably far more civilized than the Romans.
And yet, Chesterton continues, “These highly civilized people really met together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by throwing hundreds of their infants into a large furnace.”
What is that dark riddle of Asia revealed in the Carthaginian’s horrifying religious rite? Fate. If Rome embodied the free choice of the citizen to fight and die for something greater than he, Carthage embodied servility to the material world and to the whims of a false god. The great battles of Christendom--Tours, Grenada, Lepanto, Vienna--are battles “between the Bible and the Koran,” as Jean de la Valette put it to his knights on the eve of the siege of Malta six years before Lepanto, but they are also battles between the free will of a man made in the image and likeness of God and the arbitrary will of a capricious demon, call him Baal or Mammon or Allah. “Mahound” (Mohammad) in Chesterton’s 1915 epic, Lepanto, understands the nature of the fight. He describes Don John of Austria as heir to the Christian soldiers who stormed the gates of Jerusalem, “four hundred years ago”:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
And Muhammad knows why the Christian soldier dances in the face of battle, and he hates him for it:
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.
Free Athenians repelling the servile Persians at Marathon and Salamis, and free Spartans joking that they will have their fight in the shade because the Persian’s “shafts benight the air”, as Housman put it, are also part of this merry band of western warriors who stood down the dark riddles of the East. From Dienekes to Don John of Austria, we thank them all today. Christendom looks less and less like Christendom each day, but that should not deter us from following these men gaily into the dark.
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Praise the Lord for the freedom of this great victory, of all such victories!
Thank you, Chris, for your enthusiasm. It enriches the lives of all who know you.
You also give added impetus to my desire to see Barcelona. I did not know of the full-scale replica of the Real, nor of the crucifix in the cathedral (is that cathedral the Sagra Familia of Gaudi?).
This is a remarkable piece of work! It should be mandatory reading for every Christian occupying a pew this weekend. The inclusion of Chesterton's quotes is particularly insightful and illustrate once again why GKC is the such an indispensable weapon in the arsenal of Christianity.
I was aware of Voltaire's dismissal - quite predictable - but I hadn't realized Novak said what he did. I suppose the relentless promotion of neo-con imperialism blinds one to the realities of the great struggle of human history.
Despite the deplorable condition of the West and the sad state of Christianity these days (witness the recent PEW research results on just how clueless we've become) we can take solace in knowing that Jesus Christ is the Lord of History and we can confidently go "gaily in the dark."
Ray, The crucifix is in the 14th Century Barcelona Cathedral (La Seu) in the Gothic Quarter. The Maritime Museum is in the former Barcelona Arsenal, where, in fact, the galleys were made.
Harry, the Novak piece must be available online somewhere, but I'm not going to link to it! It's absolutely hilarious the gymnastics he must go through to make his case. The fact is that the Venetian Arsenal was a state-run operation. I was not the triumph of free markets that Novak argues. Of course, I think I've seen him write similar silly things that argue that Benedictine Monks were the original capitalists, etc.
I should say that Tom Fleming wrote a piece many years ago for CHESTERTON REVIEW called "The Road from Rome" in which he develops much more carefully than I have the fate-versus-freedom understanding of this ongoing contest, but, as Eliot said, "Good poets imitate, great poets steal."
Thank you Chris for taking the time to post this. It is always a worthy reflection.
Yes, "going gaily into the dark" is very liberating for the Christian because his life is constant spiritual warfare. When he knows that the end is near, and he has persevered "fighting the good fight of faith", without going astray, how can there not be utter joy knowing that the great reward awaits him so shortly?
As you know, after Don Juan died, Pope St. Pius V sent word to have the words from St. John's Gospel placed on his tomb: "Fuit homo missus a Deo cui nomen erat Iohannes" (There was a man sent from God whose name was John - John 1:6). I have seen the tomb with these words at the Escorial, outside of Madrid. There is never a time when I read St. John's Gospel at the end of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass that I do not think of Don Juan of Austria.
Thank you for reminding us of this day in history. For Orthodox Christians the battle at Manzikert in 1071 has similar importance, except that the battle was lost and started the final decline of the Byzantine Empire and the centuries of darkness and death at the hands of the Turks.
Captain Check,
You always bring delight to my otherwise morose outlook on life and I thank you for it. You have the good habit of remembering feast days and poetry that remind us that even among the scattered remains, there is always hope of resurrection. I recently read a description of a famous englishman that somewhat reminds me of both you and Mr. Aaron Wolf ( and your recent posts)
"Of course he was prejudiced, but there were few who knew him who did not love his prejudices, who did not love to hear him fight for them, and who did not honor him for the sincerity and passion with which he held to them. Once the battle was joined all his armoury was marshalled and flung into the fray. Dialectic, Scorn, Quip, Epigram, Sarcasm, Historical Evidence, Massive Argument, and Moral Teaching --of all these weapons he was a past master and each was mobilised and made to play its proper part in the attack. Yet he was a courteous and a chivalrous man. A deeply sensitive man, his was the kindest and most understanding nature I have ever known. In spite of a rollicking and bombastic side he was as incapable of the least cruelty as he was capable of the most delicate sympathy with other people's feelings. As he himself used to say of others in a curiously quiet and simple way, 'He is a good man. He will go to Heaven."
Keep up the good work. It still inspires even if it is rarely read, seldom understood and always resented. God Bless you both.
I've recommended your cd set on my blog--and highlighted your comments about the Battle of Lepanto in a couple of posts! You have an excellent topic to be enthusiastic about! Keep up the great work.
http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2010/07/spanish-armada-and-black-legend.html
http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2010/09/philip-ii-king-of-spain.html
Dear Mr. Check,
I found your article very informative, but I have one question and would have directed it to you personally, had I been able to find a email address anywhere.
Having given lectures, written articles and put together PowerPoints on the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I am wondering your source material for the notion that it was a banner of Our Crucified Lord that was carried into the Battle, and not the Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe?
As I understand it and checked through a couple of other Catholic sources...it was an imagine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Christ, that turned the battle.... It makes no sense that a banner of our Lord would be unfurled based on the Lady of the Rosary and the adding of the words to the Hail Mary that Pope Pius V did before this battle...also not mentioned in your article.
As I understand the facts, before setting out, Adrea Doria, the Genoese admiral, had hung in his flagship a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been touched to the original image on Juan Diego’s cloak. Pope Pius V was also seeking Mary’s aid through the recitation of the rosary, and when the ships set out from Messina on Sept 16th, all the men on board had rosaries, too.
Following victory, this falls into line with the Pope's crediting Our Lady's intercession and his desire to have this banner enshrined. This image is now enshrined in the Church of San Stefano in Aveto, Italy, two hours from Chiavari near Genoa, Italy.
Not many know that at the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe in Spain, one can view a huge warship lantern that was captured from the Muslims in the Battle of Lepanto.
It is also worth noting that it was Pope Pius added the words, "pray fo us sinners, now and at the hour of our death" to the end of the Hail Mary, three years before the battle.
Thank you for your excellent piece and I look forward to your response.
Dear Mr. Armstong,
Thank you for your kind comments. There is no conflict here. Both images were present at the battle, and my article includes mention of both. The banner bearing an image of Our Lord Crucified that flew over Don John of Austria's galley and was a gift from Pius V is on display in the Escorial. The copy of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe (and touched to the original as you correctly report) was a gift from the Bishop in Mexico to the King of Spain, Philip II, who did give it to Gianandrea Doria (not Andrea Doria, who was his uncle or great uncle). Doria did carry the image on his galley and it is on display in the church in a small town north of Genoa as you report. It is there because San Stefano is the Doria Family Church The name Gaudalupe probably derives from an older image (13th century polychrome statue) of mysterious origin popularly revered in Spain, though apparently the Indian word sounde like Gaudalupe as well. You would know that tradition better than I.
Incidentally, Doria is the subject of some debate. I tell the version that is less kind to him, but some recent scholarship argues that he acquitted himself well given his difficult circumstances. His squadron had the farthest distance to travel, for example as the armada arrayed for battle. What is true is that Doria was a businessman who was leasing his ships to King Philip at a rate higher than what Philip was paying to operate his own galleys and he was lending the king of Spain the money to rent the Genovese ships at very high interest. (Perhaps this is one aspect of the battle Michael Novak admirers.)
Speaking of banners that turned the event: The Christians captured the Turkish banner with Allah stitched some 28,000 times in calligraphy that traditon held was carried before the prophet in battle. When the Turks lost that banner, they were sorely afraid. You can see that at the Doge's palace in Venice, though when I was there it was under restoration.
Stephanie Mann's concise history of the Reformation in England is superb and well researched introduction to events under "the cold Queen of England" and her wicked, wicked father, that even C.S. Lewis locates in hell.
How come everyone forgot to mention that hence, today is the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary (old) or Our Lady of the Rosary (new)? Pray a rosary today! I'll put a link to this on my blog post about this feast, since it is so relevant and I learned something!
Here's a excerpt from my post:
S.P. Juergens writes in The New Marian Missal:
"In its present form the Rosary was revealed by St. Dominic, the founder of the order of Friars Preachers, in order to stem the flood of the Albigensian heresy, then spreading far and wide throughout Europe. He propagated this form of prayer in obedience to a revelation received from the Blessed Virgin, to whom he had recourse for this purpose, about the year 1206, and to him was due the spread of a devotion which for many centuries has produced the most marvelous results in the Christian world. The decisive defeat of the Turks at the famous battle of Lepanto (A.D. 1571) and at Belgrade (A.D. 1716) gave occasion both to the institution of this Feast and to its extension to the Universal Church."
Today is also the Feast of Our Lady of Victory. Perhaps the origin is the same.
The victory at Belgrade that Juergens mentions actually took place October 13, 1716.
Here's a link to a recent post on Fr. Z's blog which clarifies some of this:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/10/our-lady-of-the-rosary-of-victory-help-from-readers/
Excellent article! Let us pray the Rosary today for the conversion of the Muslims as requested by our Lady of Fatima.
Thank you, Christopher, for the plug for Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation! Even the Archbishop of Canterbury recently wondered if Henry VIII was in hell:
http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2010/05/henry-viii-in-hell-wonders-rowan.html
Mr. Check...perhaps you can tell me. When I was doing doctoral work at the Universidad de Navarra (1973-75), I visited the wonderful Museo de Santa Cruz in Toledo and saw the banner that flew on Don Juan's vessel at Lepanto. I remember that there had been discussion by some evil-minded folks even then to "return it" to Turkey. Do you happen to know if it is still there?
Spain has been turned inside out since then, I know. The "sword and buckler of Christendom"--"the hammer of heretics" (in Menendez y Pelayo's classic words)--has been betrayed by those who knew better, influenced and corrupted by the very worst aspects of Coca Cola culture. All the more reason to pray daily the Holy Rosary.
Thank you Mr. Check for your comments, and thank you Chronicles!
Mr. Check,
What source did you use when you referred to the corpus of the crucifix dodging a Turkish cannonball? The reason I ask is that a Spanish priest that I know told us that the corpus miraculously moved when a Turkish arrow was fired at it. I would be interested to know if you came across this account in any of your research. Excellent article.
We cannot underestimate the power of the rosary. When all hope seems lost, pray your rosary with confidence in Our Lady and all will turn out well.
Dear Dr. Cathey,
This is what I know: Pope Paul VI did return in 1965 some Turkish banners that were captured by the galleys of the Papal States. This is not something I would have done. The Ottomans' principle banner that I described above is in Venice. I have not seen it, because it was being restored when TRI held its convivium there, but I know it is there because the son of my good friend Dale Ahlquist of the American Chesterton Society has seen it.
There are, however, a good number of trophies throughout Italy. Tom Fleming and I like to visit San Stefano in Pisa where the nave is decorated with captured Turkish banners. One of the banners there is from Ali Pasha's galley, I am 90 percent certain. I believe there are some as well in the Dominican Church in Venice (if memory serves) but what certainly is there is Marcantonio Bragadino's skin. (See my story in THIS ROCK).
Modern Spain and Italy both are, to say the least, unworthy heirs of the men who stood in the path of evil in 1571. Even as they contracept themselves out of existence, the invite the enemies of Jesus Christ to take up residence inside their borders. This is a crisis of unbelief, as Blessed Cardinal Newman put it, a crisis peculiar to our age. Ancient pagans wanted their lines to continue. Post Christians are afflicted with self loathing. I'm sure you know that the statue at Compostela was going to be removed because it was considered insensitive to Muslims. I think the side of the angels has won that one so far.
Dear Justitia,
Perhaps it was an arrow. Turks favored the crossbow over the arquebus, so there were many Turkish arrows in flight that day. I have read a good amount on the battle, and I cannot say right now where I read that. It might be in the Beeching book, unfortunately out of print but available though used book dealers. Beeching's book is the most readable of the popular histories in English and is probably my favorite, but it is not the best researched. Niccolo Capponi's is, by far. But Jack Beeching was also a poet and he had a very fine prose style. There's one real howler in the Beeching book: he says the Turks brought galleys through the Corinth canal! Well, Nero's heroic efforts notwithstanding, the canal was not dug until the late 19th Century. It is possible the Turks dragged some galleys across the isthmus. The Romans did.
It would be interesting to read Michael Novak's assessment of the role Venetian capitalism played in the glorious success of the 4th crusade.
Mr Check, your research on the crucial Battle of Lepanto, which changed the course of European history, filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge of the event, but to me, the only other comparable battle in Europe was in Vienna when the Polish King Jan Sobieski, I think, finally arrived and lifted the siege in 1721, I believe(can't recall the exact date off the top of my head).
But it seems that today, 30 years after Solidarity took on the might of the Soviet Union, and with the help of Our Lady of Czestochowa, won that battle, that secularism and modernity is seeping in and 'reproductive rights' are being called for, which makes a mockery of all that ancient Polish patriots and heroes ever fought for.
it was Sept. 12, 1683 ('as every schoolboy knows'), and in 2013, it will have been the 330th anniversary of this truly liberating day!
(I should hang my head in shame for not remembering that day in my forebears' history, but then again, history was never something I was much good at when I studied it as a youth, but am now beginning to appreciate it more and more in my old age. )
Once again, thank you, Mr Check, and for your passion for the Battle of Lepanto, I have really learned a few things today. Bless you and all your family, and thanks once again for enlightening not just me but countless others also ignorant of these momentous truths of history.
Mr. Komarnicki,
Thank you for your kind remarks. The battle at the gates of Vienna (like Lepanto) is also remembered on the Liturgical Calendar and, like Lepanto, it is a Marian Feast, The Holy Name of Mary. The feast, previously celebrated in the Kingdom of Spain, was extended to the Universal Church after the Sobieski victory. I believe that after the liturgical changes with the Mass of Paul VI it was taken off the Universal calendar, but Pope Benedict XVI restored it to the Universal calendar I think about four years ago.
The battle is critical. It was the eclipse of the Ottoman land force as Lepanto was the eclipse of the Ottoman Navy. It is true that the Sultan rebuilt his fleet after Lepanto, but it was an inferior fleet (much green wood) manned by the inexperienced. John Guilmartin of University of Ohio (the leading english speaking expert on 16th Century galley warfare) points out that the Holy League took pains to kill the Sultan's veterans and experts: pilots, janissaries, etc. A galley pilot was a highly trained expert. Galleys were highly specialized craft and difficult to pilot. An example to demonstrate how skilled he needed to be: the center-line bow cannon on a galley could elevate and depress but it had no mechanism for traversing left or right. That had to be achieved by pivoting the galley. The Sultan lost his best experts/veterans at Lepanto.
I highly recommend the Guilmartin (and the W.L. Rodgers book) book for anyone who wants to understand what an exceptional platform the galley was, relatively inexpensive to build, extremely expensive to operate.
Not surprisingly, there is no mention of Holy Intervention or Don John dancing in the brief account of the Battle of Lepanto in Sea Power, edited by E.B. Potter and Chester Nimitz. (That was the text used at the Naval Academy when I was a Midshipman in the late ‘60s, and I still have my copy. I was one of Professor Potter's students.) Here is what the text has to say concerning the decisiveness of the battle:
“Like most purely naval victories, the triumph of the Holy League at Lepanto was both decisive and indecisive. The Christians had won the moral ascendency; their dread of the Turk was never again so great as it had been, and the Turks thereafter operated with a prudence that kept their incursions within bounds—they and their subsidiary states of North Africa never again threatened to dominate the Mediterranean.
“On the other hand, because the Holy League soon broke asunder and the Christians did not follow up their success at sea with combined intervention ashore, the Turks retained possession of Cyprus, and armed Moslem vessels continued to create an almost intolerable nuisance. The ‘Barbary System’ of piratical excursions and extortion of tribute and ransom from Christian powers continued for centuries. Even when certain European states developed navies powerful enough to put an end to the system, they tolerated the corsairs for the damage they could do to their commercial rivals. The United States in due course was to pay tribute, ransom captives, and become involved in two naval wars with the Barbary powers. The inconclusive results of these wars merely underlined what had been demonstrated at Lepanto: that while naval victories often make a decision possible, the final decision is usually reached on land.
Mr. Check @23: Sea Power does note the limitations of the bow-mounted guns and the requirement to aim them by the helm. They were used only in the opening skirmish of the battle, which was the first great galley action since Actium sixteen centuries earlier and the last. The text also notes that Don John placed four large, unmaneuverable galleasses ahead of his line of galleys so the Turks were exposed to their heavy broadside guns when they attacked his forces.
Mr. Van Sant,
Nimitz and Potter are correct in their analysis of the outcome of the event and their point about a moral victory is echoed in W.L. Rodgers. It is hardly my place, by the way, even to pass approving judgement on two men who understand the sea much better than I, but they are correct that history has shown that while sea-power can be decisive, land must be occupied and held: a lesson I had pounded into me at the officer basic course at Quantico and a good lesson for those still operating under illusions of a long- term American presence in Iraq.
Notable about America's war with the Barbary pirates is the praise Pius VII heaped on Jefferson's America: something to the effect that America was doing more than all the nations of Christendom to fight the Muslim menace. It is true that America, like Venice before her, formalized her relations with the Ottomans (in the treaty of Tripoli if memory serves), but no war does not require compromise. Voltaire did not understand this and his heirs, from General Sherman to Donald Rumsfeld, do not either. It is a tragedy the west Cyprus, and the other day Tom Fleming and were talking about how we'd like to visit there. But the Holy League saved Rome.
the breakup of the Holy League might be attributed in large part to the death of Pius the V. His successor, Gregory, for whom we can thank for a new calendar was not the man to unite the quarreling princes of Europe. Venice (and the Papal States) wanted to recapture Cyprus. Spain wanted to retake the African coast. Not until the middle of the 19th Century would the Balkans (first Serbia and then Greece) be free of Ottoman tyranny.
The galleas was a Venetian creation. They were merchant galleys about 150 percent larger than an ordinary gallley and outfitted with cannons at the bow and stern and on the port and starboard sides as well. The Holy League had six, two stationed before each of the three forward squadrons as much as two or three hundred meters (save perhaps Doria's: a matter of debate--they could not get into position. The did provide a withering fire on the Ottoman galleys as they approached, and because they say higher in the water, they were largely impervious to Ottoman fire. Capponi gives a superb description in his book.
tragedy the west LOST Cyprus
And: the Galleas was very slow moving: they had to be towed into place at their positions at the front of their squadrons
THEY SAT higher in the water
Our website needs a way for hasty typists to go back and correct their entries; I'll need to speak with the folks who run The Rockford Institute!
One of the footnotes in the Lepanto section refers to Rodgers' Naval Warfare Under Oars. One of the diagrams in Sea Power shows two of the galleasses in front of Don John's central squadron positioned near each end of the line of galleys. Two more are shown positioned similarly in front of the squadron on the left (north, closest to the Cape of Schropha). The remaining two are shown behind the third squadron to the south. One of these is labeled "Doria." As there is no credit given for the diagram, it is probably based on written accounts of the battle. The text indicates that the four galleasses in front had arrived ahead of the galley squadrons, implying that the other two arrived too late to be positioned in front of the third squadron.
The Sea Power text says that the Christian galleys were "protected by an armor belt of thick planking about the bows and sides. . .and the Turks were not."
Mr. Check - thank you for this account of the Battle of Lepanto and for your pictures. Alas, I was ignorant concerning these matters when I visited Barcelona as a young Lieutenant, junior grade, in 1970. (When was the maritime museum established?) Thank you also for your service in the Marine Corps. I have always regretted that I accepted a commission as an Ensign in the Navy instead of a commission as a Second Lietenant in the Marine Corps. My wife of 41 years does not regret that decision, however.
Mr. Van Sant, I have seen that diagram or at least one similar. I believe it is accurate. As I note in post 9 above, Gianandrea Doria's squadron had the most distance to travel to get in battle line (the point at the end of a spoke has greater distance to travel than a point near a hub line has greater . It is likely that the slow moving galleases assigned to his squadron lagged even farther behind. Not enjoying the effect (against the Ottomans) that the galleases provided the other two squadrons is another reason the cut Doria some slack. Another is that he was squared off against one of the Ottomans top commanders Uluch Ali (an Algerian apostate.)
It is probably so that the galleys of the Holy League were better reinforced. They were also fitted with nets to make boarding more difficult. Your point in 25 is also correct. Cannons were were used only until the ships closed for boarding. Another matter to clarify in this regard: the miracle of the wind is true, I have no doubt, but galleys closes for battle under sail but did not fight under sail. The wind advantage would have meant that the Holy League crews would have been better rested for the actual close combat and boarding, an event any Roman from the Punic Wars would have recognized (save the gunpowder). Contemporary accounts say the ships were so thick that that men ran from one galley to the next, on and on: a land battle at sea.
Mr. (Captain? Admiral?) Van Sant,
Some of the buildings, or walls, anyway, of the Museum date to 14th century, though there was likely ship construction there in the 12th. The Catalan word is Drassanes, which I gather means Arsenal. It is on the water, an easy walk from the statue of Christopher Columbus. It has been a Naval Museum since the 1940s, though it's current form is mid sixties. The scale replica of the Real was begun in 1968 and unveiled in 1971 on the 400th anniversary of the battle. Maybe the Pope will go to see it when he visits Barcelona in November!
If you visit the museum and rent the earphone recorded narrative, you get a heavy dose of the misery of the galley slave and precious little of the Ottoman threat to Christendom. Not that galley life was not miserable. I'm sure it was: the stench alone must have been unbearable, and officers would stuff spices in their noses to try to mask it. (When we contemplate close combat these days, we probably do not give sufficient thought to the stench of it). In any case, the emphasis is hardly a surprise. Barcelona, of course, is pretty left wing. It was the site of some of the fiercest rioting and violence during the Spanish Civil War. Today, such a treasure would not be built, but I assume that the Franco administration was supportive of the project.
Only a Retired Reserve Commander, Mr. Check. During my six and a half years of active duty I enjoyed three deployments: Mediterranean, South Atlantic, and North Atlantic. I am a shellback and a blue nose, having sailed across the equator and above the arctic circle. I served mostly in destroyers as Main Propusion Assistant and Engineer Officer and consider myself to be a tincan sailor, although I did a tour as First Lieutenant on an LSD, which at the time was a school ship for the Marines to practice their specialty - amphibious assaults. Nothing like having your troop spaces full of armed Marines. We always did a thorough inspection after the Marines disembarked to ensure there were no grenades or C4 left in the overhead.
Thank you for the information on the Barcelona museum. Looks like I just missed the 400th anniversary celebration.
Dear Capt. Check,
Thank you for this very fine article; a true consolation. Heretofore, my knowledge of the battle came mostly from William Thomas Walsh's monumental biography of Philip II. It was from his account that I drew the information that I used in the sermon this past Sunday to the Navy recruits at Mass. I may have just imagined it, but it seemed that more Rosaries than usual were taken by them after Mass. At any rate, I was glad to expand what little I know about the great battle thanks to your article. All the best to you and your family, and if you're ever in the neighborhood of Great Lakes ....
Dear Father Johnson,
Some truly blessed recruits to have you looking after their souls!
I believe that the Walsh book is a superb piece of history. I have spoken to Church historians today who call Walsh a popularizer and polemical. Concerning the latter, anyone in our age who sets the record straight with such clarity, style, and force is considered polemical (and who wants to read history that does not argue a point?), concerning the former, the charge is baseless: He was s serious historian who spoke Spanish and French and uses countless primary source documents. When I give my Lepanto lecture and go over the GKC Ballad, I explain that Chesterton indulges in some Black Legend in his portrayal of Philip, and that anyone who wants to understand the greatest monarch of his age (and who wants to understand the 16th Century) needs to read the Walsh book. I have stolen liberally from Walsh in preparing lectures I give on The Armada and on Henry VIII's Divorce.
Of course, if I am near Great Lakes I will let you know, and you must come out to Rockford to see us.
"I have spoken to Church historians today who call Walsh a popularizer and polemical."
The only honest Church historians left today who are not polemical are in the graveyeard. Between Hilaire Belloc and Christopher Dawson, guess who is considered the greater historian by today's standards? They wrote from the same sources and for the most part arrived at the same or similar conclusions.
Any assertion beyond the shadow of a reality is considered polemical today unless it comes from the roaring left. Imagine Professor Wilson's story of the South compared to the one put forward by The Carter Center in Atlanta, GA. Or imagine the chronicle of American culture put forth today by National Review and "The Weakly Standard" as compared to the more honest journals such as Chronicles or the old quarterly, Modern Age.
We are now engaged in a fierce fight to even be allowed to recount the honest history of Christian Culture without the required qualifications and persecutions. The stage has been set for mean miserbale little men like Chis Hitchens and Mr. Dawkins and any dissent is first silenced, then persecuted and finally extinguished by hook or by crook. It has been a dark night for a long while, but as the enemy hate intensifies and becomes more rabid and public, so does the first streaming rays of dawn.
Please note how much of the history of Europe since the 7th century AD has been one of repelling Muslim/Islamic state invasions. There were a couple of interludes in which the West counterattacked: the Crusades, and the brief period of imperialism in the 19th century. I suppose we can look at Allenby's entry into Jerusalem in 1917 and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a year later as a sort of highpoint.
Yet in recent decades, the West has tossed away these brief victories. One wonders if we future generations will see a revival of Muslim militancy and expansion. Would a Europe which has been entranced by the ideology of multicultism be able to resist?
Would the liberals of today be capable of a Lepanto style battle? Or would they instead put Don John on trial for "hate crimes?"